What is fundamental in speaking of attributes, is inherent in the very term itself. It is not the being in its essential nature, even though always found there, but what is rightly attributed to the being as such; and in speaking of God this is not without importance; and the difference will be found very simple. Attributes are relative; hence God, who is absolute, cannot be spoken of as being the attribute itself. It is only a character which belongs to Him. God is something in Himself. But He is also something in relationship to other things when they exist or are supposed to exist. The attributes may be a necessary consequence of what He is, and I suppose in God always are, but they are not what He is Himself.

Further, no attribute can be rightly appropriated to God, which removes Him from His place as God, in necessary and absolute supremacy. The Being to whom I attribute it is gone if I do so. God cannot be the object of judgment, or He has wholly lost His place as God; yea, he who judges sets himself up in His place, and puts God in subjection to him. Evidently He is thus no longer God. Cicero says in the de Officiis, "Quasi material ... subjecta est veritas." Now this evidently God can never be, for my mind is here supreme, and God subject to it. This is at once the pride and the folly of man. This is what modern Rationalism (and I suppose the mind of man has always so acted) calls the supremacy of conscience, by which revelation and everything else is judged of. But if conscience, as my action and judgment, is supreme, there is no God at all. A God who is not alone supreme, is no God.

Has man, then, no thought of God at all? Not so. He cannot judge by his mind, but he has the knowledge of good and evil -- conscience. It may be corrupted, perverted, hardened, but he makes the difference of right and wrong. Scripture shews us he got this by the fall, and so as under sin. Still it brings in God, saying "The man is become as one of us, knowing good and evil." It is not a law, a rule from without, imposed, but what is intrinsic (in man). He says, That is a good thing, that a bad one; and he concludes at once, God cannot approve a wrong thing, nor condemn a good thing. A man may, from passions, education, habit, have a very wrong measure of right and wrong; and demon-gods may make him put evil for good, and good for evil; but he makes the difference, and the sense of right or wrong in itself leads him to attribute right to God, and not wrong. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"

But this right and wrong is connected with obligation, and is measured by relationships. I owe to a father, a husband, my neighbour, what belongs to that relationship: so to God. That is, the unperverted sense of right and wrong puts God in His place, does not judge Him. It is not an idea formed, but a relationship recognised, and hence subjection. Thus Adam lived in peace before the fall. Divine supremacy and authority was there, and owned, and then with knowledge the relationship was transgressed.

But supposing this sense of right and wrong in man, and that it is connected with the relationships in which we stand, I do hold that God loves righteousness and hates iniquity, because I intrinsically know right and wrong, but right and wrong being apprehended in the relationship, God is supreme to my mind; that is the first of rights. He is God, as much as my father is my father, and I own subjection to Him as God. I do say, He must be righteous, for that is the expression of acting on what is right and good in the relationships in which He has placed others, as far as consistent with supremacy and righteousness. But this is not supremacy of conscience, as if I were judge, and my measure of right and wrong, or my discernment of it perfect; but that I do conclude from right and wrong abstractedly to right in God, but at the same time to supremacy and perfection as the point I start from. One must not confound the measure of right and wrong with the sense of it. To speak of the supremacy of conscience, is to assume that its measure is perfect and adequate, not obligation under it. When I judge God or any one, I take a measure to judge by, and may misjudge from the state of my own mind. That is not conscience. Conscience with God recognises authority also over it, and supreme authority, or God is not recognised at all, and that is simply atheism. What these modern infidels claim -- is to make their consciences the measure of right and wrong. This is false and grossly pretentious, and destroys the nature of God, and right as regards Him.

But we have already got into the discussion of relative qualities in God. This is what supposes other things besides the absolute being. If God is righteous, though He be so, He must be so towards others; it is relative. There are two words applied to God, which reveal His nature -- Love and Light -- and only these two. They affirm what He is in nature -- not any attribute. Love is goodness, but in supremacy; for, in its abstract nature goodness is identified with supremacy, for it must be free. It is in this it is different from desire, even when it is a holy desire.

Love is used, I know, in human language for desire, in the best and most amiable sense. But though the same word be used in the sense of an inferior to a superior, or even an equal, this is in connection with a motive -- is moved.

But love, as goodness itself, is blessed in itself and free in its actings, unless want or misery draw it out; but it has not a motive which characterises it by its object. This is always the case in desire, even when it is in no way evil, but has the character of affection. In ordinary desires it forms so far the character; money, power, pleasure, give their character to the man who seeks them; but though love be used as to them, it is evidently in a lower sense, and, where desires are, the desired object so far rules over us. Where love exists in a divinely-formed relationship, it is, or may be a just affection. I say, "may be," because it may run into a mere desire and be idolatry, and the relationship falsified. But when rightly in exercise, save as man in certain aspects represents God, it looks up, and characterises the person in the affection. It is conjugal, filial, and the like. A husband and a father in certain respects represent God in those relationships, and so far it partakes of what He is. But in the closest relationship where it is not this, it has the character I speak of: "Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."

But God suffices to Himself, and goodness makes Him infinitely happy in Himself. For goodness is happy if it has no object, though happy in goodness when it is exercised towards one. Hence it is free, because it suffices for itself. Hence though, in certain relationships, man may be the image of God, yet as he cannot suffice to himself, and so be free and sovereign, he is not said to be love, though he is to walk in it. He is as to any right state subject and recipient. The divine nature is in the Christian, and he loves; still "we love because"!

But we are light in the Lord. The purity of nature which belongs essentially to God is made ours in the new man; as far as it acts in us it manifests everything around us in its true character. Christ was love in the world, and the light of the world. He is the measure of both for us. It is a blessed thing that the two essential names of God should be the expression of the new man in us; only, as we have seen, we are not said to be love. But that which is the nature of God characterises us, and makes us to enjoy Him, and to act according to that character here through grace.

These, as I have said, are not attributes. Attributes are ideas which we attach to God in connection with what is outside Himself, though belonging necessarily to Him as God. He is omnipotent, omniscient, supreme; even righteous, holy; these, though more connected with His nature, are relative terms. I must think of God's dealings and claims to call Him righteous. He judges of something when He is righteous, only it affirms He always judges right. To call Him holy, I must think of evil which He rejects. Hence He is not called righteousness and holiness, but righteous and holy. What He says is truth, but He is not truth. Truth is what is rightly affirmed of something else. But God is not affirmed of something else. We can say Christ is the Truth, because He does tell exactly what everything is -- what God is, perfect man is, and by contrast what evil man is, what the world is, who is its prince. Through Him all is exactly brought out in its true character. Hence we say, God in Himself is absolutely Love and Light -- the last expressing perfect purity (invisible in itself), and manifesting everything as it is before God, and shewing the way before us: and God is righteous, holy, omniscient, omnipotent, supreme, and the like -- all of which are relative terms -- the former moral, the latter natural attributes.

Righteousness is perfectness in, or consistency with the relationship in which anyone stands; evil and good being known. Holiness, the aspect of heart, which intrinsic purity of nature bears towards other things, according to their character. We may speak of things as holy when entirely set apart to God, and separated from all profane use; but properly it applies to persons expressing their abhorrence of evil and delight in that which is pure and good. God is holy in Himself, abhorring evil and delighting in what answers to His perfect nature. The creature can only be holy as separated to God in what He is in His perfectness, because its nature can have no true and perfect object but Him, and its object gives its character to a nature in a creature, and holiness is the expression of a nature, not the obligation of a relationship. We are holy as far as every movement of thought answers to the impress and character of God, having Him for its object. Anything taken up in itself, apart from Him, is necessarily independency and sin. So far God is set aside. We have no object which makes the heart right but Him. Although we cannot leave God out as the author of, and as giving authority to, the relations in which we stand; yet, as we are placed in certain relationships, righteousness has somewhat more extensive range, though as a sanction God must be brought in. But whenever a relationship owned of God exists, it is unrighteous not to act up to it: not to be faithful to obligation in it.

Now God, as righteous, maintains judicially every obligation which any relationship imposes on us. But first and above all, relationship to Himself according to His supremacy and moral nature; this is the basis and stay of every other. Only Christianity has brought out a second and more perfect measure of this. It recognises what is due from man according to the measure of man, his obligations in the place he is in towards God and his neighbour. Of this the law is the perfect measure, God making allowance for ignorance of the measure.

But besides this, God Himself has been perfectly glorified by the blessed Lord. All that He is, where sin gave occasion to the full revelation of all that He is, has been glorified in Christ, and a new ground of relationship formed according to what He is, based on what Christ has wrought. Hence man is in the glory of God, and God's righteousness is displayed in that.

Judgment is based on the actual obligations founded on the relationship in which man is. Acceptance goes much farther, and is according to the worth of the Lord's work; we are made the righteousness of God in Him. But God in righteousness maintains all the relationships in which man stands according to His will.

It is well also to distinguish between the righteousness of God in government, and the immutable character of God, according to which we must stand before Him, if in His revealed presence. His revealed requirement of righteousness forms, with long patience exercised on His part, through goodness, the basis of His righteous government, never to be fully revealed until Christ comes; partially displayed in Israel, where needed to maintain the recollection of it everywhere; and in a signal way in the flood which closed the old world.

But standing before God fully revealed, supposes not our obligations to Him in government exercised to maintain His authority, and the natural sense, or revealed rule of right or wrong, but fitness for His own presence. This is in Christ only. This is fully revealed in Christianity alone, and wrath from heaven in connection with it; Romans 1: 1-20.

When I speak of what is holy, it is not judicial authority, as in the case of righteousness, but what purity of nature abhors and rejects, or delights in. Righteous and holy are the attributes which attach themselves to the moral nature of God and His supreme authority.

But there is that in God, the sense of which is with difficulty lost in man, though he be without God in the world. This has turned the sense of a being above himself, perfect in knowledge and power, a Supreme Being, into what is the fruit of imagination or servile dread -- Mythology and Fetishism. The visible powers of nature were deified, because a God was wanting for the heart. The legends of ancient days were turned into myths of the gods. Terror told of a revengeful power, and a world of retribution loomed to an unsatisfied conscience. Man would animate planets, because they moved without him: he would have poetical lusts in superficial and self-satisfied Greece; more calculated sobriety in Egypt, a sunny south of gods, and northern immensity of giants, and storms, and mountains in Scandinavia; or seek to solve the mystery of good and evil in Ahriman and Ahurmazdha in Arva, or revel in monstrous reveries in India. Cruelty and poetry might divide the world under the name of gods, but behind all there was everywhere Tertullian's "Testimonium animae naturaliter christianae," an "unknown God" -- a Brahm, the origin of all things, a primeval source or power.

In Fetishism -- degraded into a dread of some terrible unknown power, which priests used for their own purposes; in more cultivated religions, kept as the secret mysterious knowledge belonging to them, or to the initiated only, while the vulgar were kept in play with the more convenient everyday materials of popular mythology -- the gods and goddesses of nature and imagination; yet still, though inconsistently, clothing them with attributes and powers which, if true, could only belong to one supreme God. And this was so true, that each local mythology had this twofold character, and that, even to particular cities.

In India, in the sects of Vaishnavas and Saivas, and one supreme God above the rest, the idea of God, and attributes of supremacy, omniscience and omnipotence, ran through all, however confused and inconsistent. These attributes were symbolised, too, as in the winged bulls, and lions, and men of Assyria -- symbols recognised in Scripture; with this immense difference, that in heathen symbols, save in the vague idea of divinity, God was thought of no further than the attributes or symbols.

In Judaism, these formed but the throne of a known God who sat above them; the clearest expression, on the one hand, of the mind of man losing itself without God in knowledge it could not retain or carry, and on the other, of the clearness of the revelation which made one true God known.⁺ Supremacy, omniscience, omnipotence, attach themselves necessarily to our idea of one God the moment the thought takes a definite form, and the attributes involved in them are not lost in mythological associations.

In heathenism, where these activities are attributed to subordinate energies, the one original God was mere abstract, inert godhead -- abstract existence.

In India, sole existence, sometimes springing into activity of thought and desire, all which became creation, including the gods, and was Maia, or Illusion, and returning into abstract godhead again, when Brahm's occasional activity ceased.

Modern Materialism does little more than substitute scientific activities of nature for poetical activities, and is worth about as much; for after all, we must want a cause. Phosphorus may put activity into the brain, not moral thought; but what puts activity into phosphorus, or gives it this mental character? Indeed, wherever I find a regular difference in a like agency, I find a difference-maker! The tubers of a plant, which convert the elements of the same soil into a geranium or an oak, force on me the conviction of design and mind.

⁺See the beginning of Ezekiel: God was seated above these figures. The extreme perverseness, and I must add, superficiality of man's mind and infidelity are shewn in Max Muller's "Science of Religion," and such-like works, licensing and promoting mythology, because it had the thought of God behind it all, as if it were the expression of it; whereas it was the gross departure of man's mind, when he had it, to degrade the idea of God when he had departed from Him; and that in connection with the basest defilement and cruelty, so that God in His true nature and conscience were alike lost -- morally gone -- though neither could be destroyed.

I do not connect omnipresence and eternity as attributes with God, not because they may not, in an ordinary sense, be said to be so; and Scripture itself so speaks practically, and it always speaks practically, because truly; but that in our minds they are connected with time and space, which do not apply to God. There is no time when God is not; no place where His eye and hand, to use human language, are not. "I AM" is the proper expression of His existence. While time rolls on "I am" remains unchanged, and when time has rolled away "I am" subsists the same. It can hardly be called an attribute. This being understood, we may speak of eternal as a natural attribute of God.

As to omnipresence, God has no more to do with space than with time. He has created all things in a way apprehensible thus to us. In this creation nothing escapes Him. He is, morally speaking, omnipresent. He is not of, or in it, but pervades it. He is "through all"! He upholds everything, as He creates everything. He is not morally concerned in any motive (save as working in man in grace), but not a sparrow falls to the ground without Him.

Omnipotence is involved in this -- the power to do whatever it is His will to do. Omniscience is involved in it also. Did not God know all things, He could neither know what to do rightly, nor judge morally. Supremacy is involved in our very idea of God as one, and active in power. They are inherent in our idea of God, and (when once the heathenish additions of what are confessedly imaginations are removed) cannot be separated from the idea of God. That which it is important to get fast hold of is, that there is a will in God. No moral being can be without it; a will guided by righteousness and holiness, and to which omnipotence and omniscience are subservient, but which is the source and origin of all that exists outside Himself, not of its state, for moral beings have a will, but of its existence.

He is a Creator. I do not say that simple existence can be proved to be a matter of creation by logical deduction. But simple existence is an abstraction. Man sees trees, planets moving; in a word, evidence of design, and that, which has been so often argued, involves a designer. The distinct knowledge of a Creator is a matter of faith. Yet if man does suppose the abstract existence of matter without a cause, he violates the first principles of necessary thought. He is accustomed to see man form many things out of comparatively formless matter, so he has an idea of this latter. But if he begins to think of why anything existed, he cannot avoid the thought of a cause. Why, implies it? and I can say Why? and it is my nature to say Why? I am so constituted as to look for a cause. I may not be able to define cause,⁺ nor can I conceive creation; but I cannot conceive, on the other hand, a thing existing without it. My mind may be inert, and so far take what exists as I find it; but as soon as it is in activity, it looks for why a thing exists. The same thing proves I cannot know a first cause, but only that there must be one. I cannot conceive a thing existing without a cause, therefore I say there must be one. But a first cause means what exists without one. That is, I cannot conceive it. Hence, too, I cannot conceive creation, though I know there must be a Creator. It is merely saying, I am a creature, and must think in the order of my being.

⁺A cause, I apprehend, is power producing from a will working somewhere. I say "somewhere," as school-men speak, there is a "cause causata," and "causa causans."

Goodness or love, omniscience and omnipotence, involve in them perfect wisdom; only all this supposes a God, with a free will to exist, before any attribute can be assigned to Him. If not free to act, omniscience and omnipotence are simply null.

One class of philosophers -- unable as we are, in the nature of things as creatures, to conceive a creation (for the creature must think in his own order, that is, creature order; he can no more have an idea of creation than create -- power is not in him), judges "Ex nihilo nihil fit."⁺ For him it is true; but it is only the great fallacy, common to philosophy, of taking our capacity of thought and action as the measure of what may be, which is simply absurd. It is our measure as to power, be it of thought or action; we must think or act according to our nature, and can think no more as to forming ideas. But it is wholly false if it deny the consciousness of what is above us and applicable to us receptively. We may be acted on mentally and physically by that which is no possessed power in us. Active power or capacity for it is not the measure of receptivity.

⁺Out of nothing, nothing is made.

Further, I may negatively be conscious of the necessity of a thing of which I can form no idea, because it is beyond my order of being. Thus I naturally ascribe an effect to a cause, a power producing it. I see a thing becomes, begins to exist, as it is before me; I at once ascribe it to some cause. I am so formed as to suppose a why? It cannot be without some cause. It is not a formed idea of what the cause is, but the conviction that there must be one. It appears to me as an effect, and effect contains the idea of a cause in it. Hence I believe in creation. Not that I form an idea of it, but that negatively it cannot but be.

I have already said, the nature of the proof demonstrates that I cannot form an idea of the thing proved in itself. But there is clearly seen eternal power and godhead. And here note that creative power involves eternal power, for all begins by creation, and all creation begins. But what creatures must be, that is, exist absolutely without a beginning. "I am," therefore, or absolute existence, is the one just revelation of God as such.

We have thus one personal God -- "I am," supreme, absolutely free, omniscient, omnipotent, wise, the Creator. These are, so to speak, natural attributes; moral ones are righteous, holy, good; known to man not by ideas or thinking, which is impossible, for then man's mind would be at least the equal of God, that is, He would not be God at all; but by conscience, or the knowledge of good and evil, the proofs in the creation around us of creative power and wisdom, and in spite of the undeniable, utter degradation of man, in corruption and violence, and the monstrous deities into which he had merged it, the idea of God, the abiding sense of unity, supremacy, absolute godhead, everywhere found.

If Jupiter be suckled by a goat in Crete, the idea of supremacy remains. If Krishna lives with the milkmaids, in time he is an incarnation of Vishnu, and Vishnu is Brahm, the rest Maia or Illusion. The gods are mortal; God is not. It may be Bathos, or Silence, or as unknown as you please, when the feeble mind of man tries to have a formed idea; but before it acts, behind the gods of imagination or lusts or fears, there is not only godhead, but one God. The Manitou of the Indian, the eternal being before Ahurmazdha, was active for good, or Ahriman, to spoil his work.

And remark here, that where ideas flow from a relationship in which we exist, which belongs to our nature in its original constitution, it may be by thinking and imagination, education, habit in religious things, priestcraft, be perverted, falsified, degraded (and the mind with it), or reasoned against from the inadequacy of the mind to master it as an idea; but the roots of it are in the nature. To have it falsified, there must be something to falsify. "Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret." Hence, prone as the human mind is to indulge its imagination, stop short of God whom it fears, and have gods and idols which it can manage after its own lusts and thoughts, yet, when the truth of the relationship is brought out, the soul recognises it.

The unity, supremacy, omniscience, omnipotence, of God, and our responsibility to Him, are owned, when divine revelation has brought them out, as the only truth, by all. I do not mean by that, that the mind of man cannot or does not seek to disprove it, and have no God at all, because it does not like one, does not like responsibility, and likes to be supreme -- at least to have no one above it. But this is an effort, and an effort whose effects never last with the masses; that is, with man according to nature -- an effort, too, always connected with oppression or violence and profligacy, as in the fall of the Roman Empire and in the French Revolution. Morality must disappear; for there can be no morality without responsibility, and responsibility without God is impossible. For to whom am I responsible if there be not one above me? Responsibility refers to relationship, and all relationship, even human, is founded on relationship to Him. Without Him self-will acts; each one will have his own, and man becomes a mixture of the devil and the brute, or is kept down by power because it must be, or worse; while power in result will cultivate superstition, because of its sway over men's minds. And, indeed, where faith or revelation does not give a true sphere outside self, man cannot rest in self, and he will make a false one. Hence, under Satan's power, the religions of the world.

Revelation, in making known the true God, meets -- not the knowledge, but the wants of the human mind. It is the witness of its own truth, because it meets and clears out those springs in the soul which were the subjective adaptation to the relationship in which it stood in truth with God; and the objective revelation perfectly meets them, fits in, and so far God is known.⁺

⁺Hence, where revelation exists, God is owned where there is no true conversion. Hence the superiority morally of Protestantism (which owns the true revelation, and uses it personally) to Popery, which has set up a mythological system of saints, etc., and established a priesthood, which is always, and must be, if God be not known directly and immediately. In Protestantism the conscience has to say to God immediately as revealed: in Romanism not -- the priest is a director.

If we take Scripture, we find there the attributes of God -- the one true and only God -- shine out, and in every page, with unclouded lustre. He is one, supreme, the Creator of heaven and earth, of all things; knows all things. If we go to heaven, He is there; to hades, He is there (Jeremiah 23: 24); can do all things. His eye and presence are everywhere; He is the eternal God; He is righteous and holy; His goodness is over all His works. The cravings of the heart of man are met with the clearest and fullest revelation of God. I refer to the Old Testament, because there God, as such -- the one true God -- is fully and specially revealed in contrast with idols and man's imaginations. It is its special, direct revelation, with the law of His mouth -- though promises and prophecies accompany it.

The New fully confirms it, I need not say; but there is a much fuller revelation in the Father sending the Son for the accomplishment of His ways in grace, and this characterises it. He does not give a revelation, He is revealed. Hence, though of course the attributes remain true, it is not attributes which characterise it, but what He is -- light and love; righteousness and holiness necessarily coming in -- but His own. Not the requirements of man's for Him, which quite alters the character of them as revealed. In the Old we could say, "The righteous Lord loveth righteousness." "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Now, He -- Christ -- is our righteousness; we are made the righteousness of God in Him. It is in the New Testament we find God revealed in Christ as light and love, and we, "light in the Lord," and partakers of the divine nature, have to walk in the light, and know, through the redemption that is in Christ, that perfect love that casts out fear.

This is more than attributes, as we have said, though it confirms, is in a certain sense the source of, and makes us to know them all, and give each its own and full place.

THE MOST HIGH

I have been looking into the force of the Hebrew words for most High. That it ultimately refers to God in the millennium as the supreme God then manifested, to the exclusion of what is false, is evident. This is the force of the word -- One who, to the exclusion of and superiority over all others, holds the place of the one true God, but exalted as supreme in government. Jehovah is, as we know, the God who is in relationship with Israel, but He is the supreme God, the Most High. The full statement of the title, and the time of taking it, is in Genesis 14: 19, 20, 22. Israel's enemies are entirely discomfited, and delivered into his hand, and the heir of promise blessed of Him who possesses heaven and earth. He is supreme, and has taken all things into His possession.

Still God is, of course, always such, and referred to in trial as the One who will set all right. When the Lord is just coming into the world to set all in order, the question is raised, Where is the secret place of the Most High? Where is He to be found as a protection? Whoever finds Him will have the protection of Abraham's God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the place of promise. Jehovah is it, the God of Israel. And in fact the full divine care of the supreme God, the God of promise, is found, possessor of heaven and earth, revealed in connection with the Melchisedec priest.

Hence, too, when Nebuchadnezzar is restored from a state that represents the character of the empires which began in him, he owns the Most High; Daniel 4: 25-34.

In the Psalms the use of it is frequent. In Psalm 21 it is connected with the royalty of Christ as the glorified Man and King. His hand will find out all His enemies and by the favour of the Most High He will not be moved. In Psalm 46 God is again in the midst of His people on Messiah's triumph (Psalm 45). The tabernacles are those of the Most High. His power is fully displayed in the earth, Jehovah being with Jacob. So more fully as to the world in Psalm 47. In Psalm 50 Most High is connected with the judgment of God in power. In Psalms 9, 10, 55, and 57, it is calling upon Him in this character by the remnant when in distress, the first of the two latter speaking of the distress, the second of the delivering supremacy over all the earth. Psalm 73 is the first of the third book, and the power of the Most High despised by the adversaries; but, going into the sanctuary, their judgment is discovered. The years of the Most High are remembered in Psalm 77, His way is in the sanctuary and in the sea; not looking to heart-failing in man, but to Jehovah, the Supreme, who accomplishes His good pleasure. In this and the next it is Jehovah's right to this name, as in all the history of Israel. For this is all Israel. Psalms 82 and 83 are both judgment at the close, and in the fullest way to recognise that Jehovah is the Most High over all the earth. Psalm 91 has been spoken of. Psalm 92 is the same perishing of the enemies, and exalting the true David. Psalm 97 is expressly as Jehovah reigning, and as Most High over all the earth, and exalted above the gods when He comes to judgment. In Psalm 107 it is Israel re-gathered, who celebrates God's government, and His chastisement for their rebellion against Jehovah who is the Most High.

We have the Most High in Daniel 7, though in most of the occurrences it is in the plural for "high" or "heavenly places." There its connection with God's title, and making good His dominion, and this connected with Israel, is evident. Thus, though Jehovah is looked back to in self-judgment in the history of Israel, as Psalms 56, 57, 73, 77, yet the force of the title is evident.

A FEW WORDS ON THE TRINITY

The application of numerals to divine or any moral being is absurd.⁺ We do not mean the same thing by unity in figure and in minds. But I deny that God was, or ever could be, fully revealed as one. He is one; but He never was revealed as one. He was revealed to be one in contrast with a multiplicity of gods. But when revealed to be one, He was not fully revealed. He existed always in trinity in unity -- not that I pretend to fathom this, but I know it, because, when fully revealed, He is so revealed. When He was revealed as one, He did not suffer Himself to be approached, carefully shewed this, dwelt (as so made known) behind the veil. In a word, He used various sensible figures to shew that He was not known, that the true light did not shine, and that the way into the holiest was not yet made manifest.

But when He does reveal Himself, the Son is on earth, yet in the bosom of the Father. He is the image of the invisible God. He that has seen Him has seen the Father. The light of God was in the world, but man did not see or comprehend it. The revealed One, the Father, was known or to be known in goodness by the Son. Though the invisible God was made known by Him who was His image, yet if He had ceased to be invisible, Christ would have ceased to be a special revealer and image. If He had not perfectly shewn and revealed Him as really manifested (that is, if He had not been God), no love, goodness, forbearance, patience, power -- no revelation would have been. If He had not been Son, He could not have revealed the Father to us as such.

But this is not all. The darkness comprehended not the light. The Holy Ghost became power (when the needed work was done to put us according to God's holy and righteous nature into that place, without which He would not have been so known, that is, in truth) to give competency of apprehension, and to reveal, not as object but as communicating power, having quickened us so as to have a capacity to apprehend. I am not saying this by mere deduction, but from the revelation of God.

Without the Trinity love was not known, righteousness, holiness -- the spiritual nature of God and purity as such. That is, He never was revealed as He is and always was. All the true nature of God, that is, what He is, without the Trinity is unknown. The Father wills; the Son quickens whom He will; but because we have separate wills, why necessarily have the Father and the Son? The Spirit distributes to whom He will; but this is not separate from the will of the Father and the Son. They have not the same counsel but one counsel, mind, purpose, thought; yet they act distinctly in the manifestation of that counsel. The Father sends the Son, and the Son the Spirit. Yet when the Son comes, He is not thereby separate from the Father. "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." So He casts out demons by the Spirit of God; yet He casts them out. There is unity in all that constitutes oneness when we speak spiritually -- not unity as one by arriving at the same things, or union, or by being united, as we are by having only one Spirit dwelling in all, but -- by being one in eternal being; so that all else flows from that one will and counsel, yet so as that distinction in action in that will is revealed to us: not distinct will, but distinct willing.

⁺This refers to ideas opposing the Trinity as set out in Scripture.

Not that I have the least pretension to fathom this divine mystery where all are God, all one God, God all three; yet the Father is revealed, the Son reveals, the Holy Ghost quickens and makes known. The Son who reveals is not different from the Father whom He reveals, or He would not reveal Him. By the Spirit who quickens and makes known, we are born of God and know God dwelling in us. He reveals Him to us by His own presence and is in every way the power of God, active in the creature.

Nor could the creature reach to God; or God would not be God. It is simply impossible; for if finite reach to infinite, there is neither finite nor infinite. And the infinite God could not, as such, reveal Himself to a finite creature. Nor is this mentally true only; for if God in His glory had done so, the creature could not have existed before Him. So if morally revealed (that is, as righteous and holy, and simple glory, that is, "in essential glory"), man could not have stood before Him. There was contrariety morally. Not even love would do; for what was it to man as he was? No link, no desire, and, if man was a sinner, no fitness in the simple display of it.

But in the Son by the Holy Ghost, by the work of Christ and the operation of the Holy Ghost, God is revealed; and in the love of the Father, righteousness and holiness are maintained and glorified, with capacity of communion in enjoyment of both the Father and the Son and intelligence of all these ways conferred by the presence of the Holy Ghost.

Hence, while John says God so loved the world, we find, whenever he speaks of grace and power bringing man into the knowledge and enjoyment of God, he speaks of the Father and the Son, adding afterwards in the words of Christ the presence and work of the Comforter. John is the one who speaks specially of the revelation of God, not of the presentation of man to God, though he does this; as Paul also speaks of the revelation of God, but specially of man's presenting to God.

Thus we see that there could be no full revelation of God, but through the Son by the Spirit, and thereby of the Father. The full revelation of the one God is only thus -- Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This, this only, is what the one God is, one identity of will and being, so that they are essentially one and one only, yet distinct in willing and acting (and we can distinguish them in willing and acting: hence we commonly speak of persons), yet never willing or acting but in the common will and unity of nature.

I fear much human language on this. But I affirm that the only full revelation of the one true God is the revelation of Him in the Trinity. Our prayers rise up the same. Through Him (Christ the Son) we have access by one Spirit unto the Father.

THE ABSOLUTE

There can be no absolute knowledge in man by his own reason, but only relative. God only is absolute; all other existences can be only relative, because there is only God absolute.

There is that which is next to it -- the "I," which is out of time and space, and by its nature as such precludes relation; but it does not make the "I" absolute. First, there is no consciousness of absoluteness in it, though it helps one to the idea from the negation of relationship, while a negation is not a notion of the thing contradictory of that denied. But, further, consciousness (or the "I") is corrected by perception; for I perceive other things -- not the "I." Be they ideas or things, it is all one, they are not the "I"; and the "I" becomes relative, is not absolute, existing in itself or infinite. The "I" is not "I am." "Am" is affirming something about "I": and as man I get into relativeness at once. When one says "I," infiniteness is excluded as time; but when the "I" reflects on itself, there is (I do not doubt) the consciousness that it is not absolute but dependent, has a source or cause, cannot say "being," though it can say "am" -- not "becoming" (that is false) but "am." If I say "being" in any other sense than "am," I make myself God, as "I am." But, not being, I have to inquire what I am becoming, because what is not absolute has possibility of change: and what has possibility of change in becoming has necessity of becoming to be, that is, though existing, is not absolute, but flows from and depends on an absolute Being.

If it be inquired, if my relationship even with perceived things denies my absoluteness, has God not relationship with what exists, with me? None but what is the fruit of His own will. I am necessarily in relationship with what has caused me to be, by reason of which I have become, or with things which exist without my will. I am in relationship according to my being; I exist in that condition: God does not. He may form such relationships; but they are the fruit of His will; and His being remains in its own absoluteness. I have no doubt that man has an intuitive consciousness of relationship, and of relationship to a superior Being, independent of himself, with whom he is in relationship, though his ideas of that Being may be utterly false and corrupted; but that which is false and corrupted is in his natural intuition. Mind cannot know God, because relative cannot know absolute. But if imagination works, it corrupts the intuition mythologically. If mind works, it shews by its efforts its incapacity to reach what it is; but both the mythology and the efforts shew that there is the intuitive idea which sets the imagination and mind respectively in movement. But there is more than this. The immensely wider extent and preponderance of superstition, the rareness and shortlivedness of mental rejection of God theoretically, prove the power and strength of the intuition above mere mind. This may despise in its pretentiousness the intuition of a Being above us on which we are dependent; but the intuition is master of it always. Indeed, in detail the strongest minds are therefore grossly superstitious, because the want of the soul has not through the mind its natural pabulum.

Hence Renan and Scherer are perfectly right when they say, "all is relative"; and perhaps even when they say, "all [save the 'I'] is relation." Even what the "I" is, is entirely relative. But it is because they are wholly ignorant of God, who alone is absolute.

That science is become history is true, because thought has run itself out to the conviction of its incompetency, and can only relate what it has been thinking with a partial point of truth in it, but not the truth, of which the mind is incapable and owns itself such by making history of science. That this is all that can be, it is incompetent to say. It can only say and does admit that this is all it is competent for; because it cannot go beyond itself, and, being only itself cannot say of itself that there is nothing else which is competent, or that in some other way it cannot be arrived at or received. I admit and accept of its confession of incompetency.

Scherer reduces man to the lowest estimate of judgment of God and good. "Le vrai n'est plus vrai en soi" (the true is no more true in itself): a ridiculous sentence, because "le vrai" then cannot be. "Le vrai, le beau, le juste meme se font perpetueilement ... ils ne sont autre chose que l'esprit humain." (The true, the beautiful, the just reproduce themselves perpetually: they are nothing but the mind of man). -- (Revue des deux M., Feb. 15, 1861.) Now this is a statement that no nature can be, in apprehension or being, above man; or else "le vrai, le beau, le juste," may be "vrai, beau, juste en soi." Nor is this all. As to man they are relative, because he is so; yet, if there be a superior relation to One who is absolute, there is a fixed "vrai, beau, juste" morally in relation to Him, because He is the Absolute. It is simply a total denial of God or anything beyond the changing states or apprehensions of man; and makes man the end and beginning of himself; for if there be another thing or being to which he is in relation as end or beginning, there is as regards man a fixed measure of true, beautiful, just. So that this is merely the declaration that there is no relation beyond self; for if man is the measure and changes, it is simply self. This is philosophy.

Now I admit the partial truth (with a cloud of thoughts about it in philosophising), of which modern philosophy can only give a history, being, even as to this partial truth, past the power of conceiving truth. But progress is questionable. One man reasons from perceptions and sensation to prove God, another from final causes, another from intuitions, another from an innate perception of the absolute. All are true as a subjective, intuitive, or intellectual necessity; but they never reach objective knowledge either way: and man vacillates between all of them and arrives at -- concludes -- nothing! But the want and the craving do prove the truth, not of what the object is, but that there is an object -- an unknown one. It is the "unknown God." You cannot know, but you cannot dispersuade that there is something to know. Hunger is not food, or the knowledge of food as possessed; but it is an undeniable proof to the hungry (take it as reasoning or want) that there is food to be known. And this moral condition is because man, in whose nostrils was breathed the breath of life from God, is thus in nature formed for God, and has not God.

Thus, when men have made the Logos the human mind or the human reason -- the impersonal reason -- with a vast system of philosophy to give it a body, there is a germ of truth; for there is that spirit in man which comes from the inbreathing of God originally. Yea, in wretched Pantheism there is a germ of truth; for God is above all and through all. All too live and move and have their being in Him. By Him all things consist. But where God is not known objectively, this centres in self: "Ils ne sont autre chose que l'esprit humain" (the most degraded of sentences); and centring in self is the perfection of degradation. But all these germs of truth, the truth (the word of God) gives us as certain truth in two words without the cobweb spinning of philosophy which proves its incompetency, the mind of man vacillating between systems formed from their germs without the true object of them; for that is philosophy.

But the truth does more; it gives us their true object as beginning, present fulness, and end, with the assurance of knowing as we are known, knowledge being now in part. And it takes us out of self by an object. And now see the divine wisdom with which this is done. I want the absolute but cannot have it, because I am in a relative condition; yet, if I have it not, I am reduced to what "n'est qu'humain" -- self occupied with self. In Christ I have the absolute become relative, giving me the absolute goodness in coming into relation, perfect love and perfect light. But I have it more fully. I have the truth as to everything from the supreme God to sin, the world, the devil its prince, death itself and the dust of death with triumph over it. If I can see, I have the perfect "vrai, beau, juste"; and if not, I have it relatively to me -- to man. But now I have it maintained to my soul in God, in Christ's life as perfect man relatively to God, and to the whole character of God in the atonement on the cross. I get absolute moral attributes glorified in God at the cost of abnegation of self in man (that is, in man who was the Son of God), love, righteousness, majesty, and truth. God was glorified in Him.

Thus I have the absolute in qualities maintained for my mind -- my moral mind -- in the cross, and self absolutely gone in man; I have the absolute in good become relative, so that my heart can and does know and delight in it. Could God's ways be more perfect or more wise?

Wise philosophy objects to this display of God's absolute character at Christ's expense, not seeing that it is the additional beauty and moral excellence of His giving Himself -- the moral perfection of man, as absolute as what is relative can be, and absolute in Christ because He could give Himself. "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again," yet this, that it might be perfect in man, obedience to His Father -- "this commandment have I received of my Father." But how can philosophy understand this? "Ils ne sont autre chose que l'esprit humain"; that is, self varied in its hopeless efforts to enlarge but never getting out of self. We cannot but in a subordinate sense give ourselves, because we are relative: we are not our own; for what is relative is bound to conformity to that relation. But, God having revealed Himself in Christ in grace to us, the discovery of this supreme relationship in absolute claim does free us from all others and lead us to give up self in all things in which it is sought, while sanctioning the relationships in which God had originally placed man, or to which he is rightly subjected as being of God Himself, such as magistracy, etc. Yet these may be given up (I mean natural relationships as connected with self) by a superior motive, the divine object taking possession of the soul in active love to others.

How admirable and divine the whole scheme is! The very wants suit, taking man out of self by the absolute become relative and perfection in the relative toward God and toward man, while the absolute is maintained to our souls in every sense by the sacrifice of Christ and man's perfect abnegation of self in the same to glorify God. The result is man dwelling in God (and God in him) and that in glory; this last known only in hope through positive revelation, yet felt to be necessary because of the preparation laid for it (see beginning of John 17), the rest enjoyed now, though this could only have been by divine actings (and we have it by divine communication as to truth and power, which is another subject), but when known, enjoyed as known truth in itself. He that believes not has made God a liar; he has not believed the record or testimony; but he that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself.

But if all be relative and relation, according to logic by the doctrine of excluded middle there must be an absolute. Not that this makes us know anything but that there must be the thing. For the truth of excluded middle is, I suspect, always simply that the term is really a negative or involves one -- that is, proves that there is an intuitive consciousness that there is the thing negatived, not that we know it, and I suspect is never true but in the case of the absolute. Thus, if I say, It is good or bad, it is only if I view the term absolutely that I can say so. It is a colour, therefore not white or black, both which negative absolutely all colour. It is when a term implies that it embraces in its nature all but its opposite. Both need not (indeed cannot) be absolute, but one must be; and the reasoning is always from the non-absolute to the absolute, which can exist without anything else existing. Nothing else can; for a thing, not being absolute, is in relation. It is simply therefore the proof of the intuition of the existence of the absolute.

It is a mistake to suppose that metaphysical scepticism denies the certainty of knowledge within the sphere of knowledge. It only affirms that the finite cannot know the infinite -- that no conclusion is the truth, because it is not the knowledge of God. Truth is what is told, not what is concluded; and hence, as to what is beyond physical fact, it must be a revelation. Once God is admitted, certain abstract general conclusions can be drawn because they are involved in the meaning of the word; they are merely the expression of the relation. But they are not the truth, because this speaks of fact. Now it is not necessarily a fact that the relation subsists intact, and that man has not denied it: Christianity teaches that he has. At any rate, it is not proved he has not -- yea, it may be proved he has. For fatalism and the moral immutability of man are absurdities. Our will is at work. Nor does the unchangeableness of general laws as to facts or results touch the question of will. If it proves motives, it proves a will to be moved: of this I have spoken elsewhere. Until a will be denied, it cannot be denied that a given state in relationship may be departed from. Hence even right conclusions as to the relationship are not necessarily the truth, though they be right. Indeed all the effort to insist on general laws is the revolt of man's heart against the relation with God being according to what we are, and the unwillingness to admit we have broken it.

I do not enter on the proofs of general laws from without, because physical general laws do not touch the question. That man acts by a will, without contradicting them, is evident; yet as to him all depends on what his will was. He builds or does not build a house: gravity and every other law remains the same. But he may have been selfish, or unjust, or generous in doing it, whether they be or not. I think my nature as ideally abstract as most philosophers'; but this does not affect the question whether there are divine facts which meet these ideas, and whether they are not the just idea for which God formed as so having them. Thus, supposing man God's image in his constitution, the ideas flowing from this would not be the source or end. But God (or the revelation of God as being the truth) the cravings of a dependent creature sought after, but heeded not. Yet it is equally true, whenever he pretended to have anything to meet the wants or to form a system by them without God, he was in open rebellion by independency. And this is what shews the fulness of simple Christianity (which totally rejected, as evil, heathenism and philosophy), and yet the measure of truth but real departure from God of the Clements and Origens, [that is, the so called "fathers,"] who accepted these cravings as part of the truth. They were not, though the truth met them when not simply lusts. Christ alone is the truth; His word is, because He is as He said, "altogether that which I also say to you," John 8: 25.

I do not lose sight of the absolute in speaking of absolute qualities: if I have one, I have the other; and what is relative is, if simple, absolute as a quality. In common use it is found by negation of what is or of variety. Some words or qualities are only relative. Still, when truly known, they become absolute. Thus "heavy" is simply relative; but when I know it, it is attraction: if there were none, it is absolutely negative in respect of weight; and as weight is relative, I can conceive its absence, because its presence is not necessary; for it is a relative quality. Absolute Being is God alone. But, taking man as a centre, we may speak practically of certain things as absolute when they are negative.

The great blunder of Schleiermacher, and the source of the worst infidelity now, is that he has taken the Holy Ghost's work in us -- very likely in himself -- for intuition, or specially collective Christian consciousness. He made divine teaching, in which case it is real, to be a title of human judgment on what the Holy Ghost gave. This is, I suspect, the key to the whole system, itself probably the fruit of Kantian philosophy and its offsets. The whole hangs on the church's not believing in the positive operation of the Holy Ghost. For all that Scherer and Bunsen, etc., pretend on their best side is simply Schleiermacher. Thus the Bible is Christian consciousness then: we judge it by Christian consciousness now. Hence it is, as Scherer says, the mere history of partial apprehension of truth; and of course, as every philosopher trusts himself, we judge scripture. That is, there is no revelation; for revelation must have authority or is false. Be it that the church was before the New Testament and the latter written for believers; yet the question is not thereby touched, whether it was not written by the power and direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost to give certainty and a divine record of those things in which they had been instructed. If the consciousness of believers was there, it was not to reproduce this but something else. It was to confirm and correct theirs by a divine statement of it, and give a sure record of that divinely-taught truth. Thus its being given to believers is, as far as it goes, a proof that it was not merely the expression of religious consciousness as then developed.

THE RELATIVE AND THE ABSOLUTE

I have largely sought to shew elsewhere that knowledge is relative; that is, necessarily according to the form and measure of being which knows. I am so constituted as to conclude certain things; and they are true to me. I meet a closed door, and am such that I say, matter exists, and is extended, etc.; and two cannot be in the same place at once; and it is true for me. But a spiritual body could pass through a closed door. This, however, is not my manner of existence nor consequently of knowledge. I cannot know what is true for spiritual bodies, because it is not my mode of existence.

But when Mr. Mansel accepts Hegel's dictum that the Absolute must include all that is actual, even evil, I deny it. It is all a confusion of terms. What is relative or moral is confounded with essential attributes. I do not say with Augustine, that evil is a negation; but I do say it is failure or inconsistency with a relationship in which anything is, and supremely with God; and hence it cannot be connected with Absolute, because this is the opposite of failure in the relationship. In a creature there is nothing absolute, and the only right thing is dependence and obedience. If I cease either, I get out of relationship to the Absolute, and yet I cannot be the Absolute; I am only false to what ought to be my relationship to it. Absolute is the truth of everything: but in all but the Absolute, in the nature of things there is only dependence on it; and if not this, there is not truth (that is, there is the opposite of the Absolute, and this cannot be in the Absolute). Satan was a liar from the beginning and stood not in the truth, for there was no truth in him. Dependence in nature, in independence of will, is not in the truth; but that, in the nature of things, cannot be in the Absolute.

Mr. Mansel's pretended analogous syllogism is false in every way. A circular parallelogram is a contradiction in terms, and within the scope of human knowledge it cannot exist. The Absolute can exist. Hence there is no comparison. The contradiction in terms is in saying evil can be in the Absolute, because evil is falseness to relationship, and this is, by the very idea of the Absolute, a contradiction. The whole in Hegel and Mansel is a want of moral discernment. Power is in the Absolute, as is the truth of everything. Hence power (that is, independent power) out of the Absolute cannot exist -- is a lie if it be set up. But a lie cannot exist in the Absolute, because all in it is in the truth of it, for it exists; and what is pretended to and is evil, because it exists only in the Absolute, does exist in truth in the Absolute, and therefore it is not evil.

There is another point. It is a mistake to suppose that I cannot be certain of the necessity of the existence of that of which I cannot conceive as existing. For my form of existence obliges me to recognise the existence of that which is out of the form of my existence, and which I consequently cannot conceive. If I have a relative existence, it is in relation to an absolute; for, in result, relation supposes this; but because it is relative, I cannot conceive it. Thus in a particular instance argued on elsewhere, I am so constituted as to see that there cannot be a thing existing stamped by design without a designer. In a word, I am so constituted that I believe in causes -- hence in a first cause. I feel that for what is there must be a cause. But this is just what is false as to a first cause. I am so formed as to have the sense of cause and effect, because I exist as an effect. This is my relationship. Hence I have no idea of what an existence is which has no relationship to a cause, because, in my nature and necessary form of thought, I exist in such relationship; yet this very relationship forces me to see and own there is. Hence I have an idea of the Absolute, but not of how it subsists. But if I set up to be without the Absolute (that is, not in relation to a cause), or to be absolute, it is evil -- false. But this evil is not therefore in the Absolute, because that existence in Him is truth, not false; the evil does not, cannot, exist in Him; for the Absolute is, in the nature of things, absolute truth. That is, each thing in Him is the truth -- is what it is in its true nature, or is not the thing. All that Hegel and Mansel say is from the want of perceiving what Absolute and evil mean.

But I do think, in spite of all that has been said, that in Christ we have a revelation of the Absolute, not in itself (for a revelation seems to me to deny this in its nature, for it is not being, but the revelation of being); but still that which is is revealed. Hence He is the truth. But He is, and so manifests Him who is; He emptied Himself to do it; Philippians 2. Now reason has nothing to do with the truth, because it has only ideas in the mind; and they must exist in the mind. It can only conclude what must be, never what is. This is in its very nature the nature and value of reasoning, such as it is. But truth is the declaration of what is; it is not what is, nor is it a conclusion of what must be, which is only a result in my mind; but it is the declaration of what is.

Hence no theology is the truth. But Christ is the declaration of what is; He declares what God is. He that has seen Him has seen the Father. "I have manifested thy name." He is not as truth the Absolute in itself; but He is the Absolute in Himself. All the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Him. Hence, as revealing it through a medium, as a concrete person down here, He is not the Absolute; but as the Absolute is in Him, and He makes Himself nothing (He is, as man, a mere servant), the Absolute is perfectly revealed. And so even as to man; because man being in Him an absolute and perfect servant, yet perfect in service, we have the truth of man. As to evil, it was revealed as to both its weakness and its power in man and Satan by its relationship to Him and God in Him: so this was the truth.

What is the Absolute? Self-existence, love, purity. I do not think there is more. If I have a feeling that is not love, I am acted on by something (that is, something is above me). I am not independent; but divine love is not moved by what is lovely (though God may delight in it when it is). And purity (figuratively light) means that there is nothing inconsistent with perfect existence -- independence of all that could be or make inconsistency with love. If corruption were there, something has acted on self-being to make it what it was not when incorrupt. Light is not hidden by anything and shews what everything is, and hence is justly called by the image -- name of light.

I do not call power the Absolute (though God be Almighty); for its action supposes will; that is, it is not what is in its nature. The Absolute can be preceded by nothing, but is itself: love is itself; light is itself. Power is wielded by -- it is what the Self-being ('who is') has, not what He is. God, though all-wise, is not wisdom more than power, and for the same reason. I do not call righteousness or holiness the Absolute. They are the relation of power and nature to something else. Hence the written word, which is the truth, calls God "God," "love," "light"; not power, nor righteousness, nor holiness. Power and wisdom belong to Him: He is righteous and holy. But these are relative, particularly the two last -- hence not what is, though they characterise.

But then man has no apprehension at all of love and light by reasoning; he may have in effect of power and righteousness by seeing the effects. God reveals Himself, and makes us partakers of the divine nature, by which we understand it. It is not as if we were it; for as men, we must be nothing (as Christ made Himself) to be in the truth and know God. For if we are something in ourselves, we deny the one Selfbeing and our relationship to Him. In the degree in which we are nothing by the revelation of God and the enjoyment of Him in the divine nature, so far we know the Absolute. But God has outwardly, that we may be nothing, revealed His love and acted in it when we were nothing -- were independent in will without self-being, and hence haters of God. This was fully brought out in the cross where we had only sin, and thus it was pure and supreme love in God; and hence death of the old man that hates is brought in, by which it is nothing; and then the willing nothingness of the new man (we are servants) in which we enjoy the Absolute, God, and serve, which is love -- the proof downwards that we are partakers of the divine nature. In the temptation in the wilderness the enemy sought to take the blessed One out of the place of God being all and Himself the servant.

Mysticism (and self-scrutiny as often preached) has a right principle; but from ignorance of there being no good in us, and that it is by positive action of love and light towards us that we are made nothing of, and that God in love and light is all, it goes all astray and sets up the self it would have done with. It is by the foolishness of the cross and of preaching -- by divine love wholly outside us, and our salvation accomplished wholly outside us, and grace so manifested, our sins so purged by a work of God in Christ and dealing with Him -- that self is made nothing of. We never know we are nothing, nor are glad to be it, till we know we are worse than nothing.

But no Hegelian or Fichtean spreading out of individuality into the race, or a kind of absolute of humanity, can do this; because after all self makes a part of the whole, though largely volatilised. It is not the denial of self, because I go to make up a part of the idea -- that is, self does. But God is outside myself, and I as a Christian am absolutely delivered from it. Christianity seems to me in this divinely wise; and the more simply it is received, the more we have its wisdom, because self is thus done with and God glorified. On the other hand, it is true that we must be born of God. If I am not partaker of the divine nature, I cannot know Him. I am light, and I love in my new nature in the Lord and in the power of the Holy Ghost, or I could not know God who is such. It is not knowing myself, because I am no self-being, but a partaker of this nature; but being so, I am capable of knowing the Absolute morally, though not as a self-being. And thus I am in the truth, because this dependence is my true relationship. A holy loving nature delights in God being what we are not -- in His being above us: if not, self would not be destroyed, we should be evil and not the Absolute.

"Cogito; ergo sum" (I think, so I exist) does not seem to me unambiguously true. If I say, I think or feel, and therefore there must be an "I" (that is, I must exist), it is true. But "I am" is something more; it means properly self-being. Now, I apprehend, self-being does not think, it knows. Thinking implies ignorance, imperfection, drawing conclusions (which is the opposite of knowing). "I am" is the necessary source of all -- hence must know all. "I know" expresses the order in necessary precedence of things (perhaps this led to Plato's idea). "I think" is therefore not I am, but I exist.

I do not admit that, if I could judge of the attributes of God by my mind, I do not need a revelation; because acts may be needed for my reconciliation, both as to guilt and moral condition, and the exercise of grace which I may require to know to make them available. I may need, in order to the attribute being exercised, to know them from Himself. The only other supposition is that I so know what God is that I can conclude absolutely to what He will do, so as to be able to announce all He must do. But this would not reveal that it was done. It would be only a mental deduction. Nor would this be possible, because it supposes that I am as perfect as God, or I could not judge, as He, what to do. Besides, His doing may be in connection with some constitution of the Godhead which is not an attribute at all, but a fact known only by revelation. Note, as such, action of God must be in time for us, because we are in time. There is the question of its being done; and if God is love, He will shew it at some time and in some way suited to the object. If I am a sinner (and who will be mad enough to say that this world or his own heart is in its normal state? All know they are not), the whole thing is absurd, because it disables me from knowing intellectually, and the exercise of attributes must be of a special kind toward such, which a perfect man could not even conceive -- he could not even understand the want. The sinner confessedly would be alike incapable of knowing; and his supposing himself an object of it would prove him unfit for it and insensible to it. In every point of view the supposition that a knowledge of attributes (if it existed) would preclude a revelation is wholly false. If God be love, the knowledge of this would make His own expression of it (that is, a revelation) a part of the display of that attribute, and a necessary one.

It is a great blunder to think that our knowledge of qualities is all that constitutes religion or even the basis of human affection. All this reasoning I deny. Besides, attributes are not known by man so as to form a religious basis. If they are, shew the example before Judaism or Christianity. The theology of Kant is as bad as the religion of the devil, or worse -- it has not a divine affection in it.

For two and indeed three reasons, I do not think much of the argument from qualities in us to the attributes of God. For if I say I feel goodness is a good thing, and it must be infinite in God, it is really an innate consciousness of God, of which I suppose the seed is in every one; and I should not say much against it. God must be perfect: I feel this is good, and it must be infinitely in Him. But there is a combination of qualities -- goodness, justice, holiness, power. In man, say goodness, justice. Now in finite and imperfect man I understand this, though they may be at the expense of each other. But when I make them infinite, they really exclude each other logically. I do not know how to combine them; and my infinite perfection of a quality in me becomes absurd. First, because we must look for combination; and this in infinitude I am incapable of. I doubt very much that there is any combination of qualities in God. Each act is right relatively to Himself and displays Himself; but we must speak of them so. Next, according to my powers what is infinite excludes all else. Thirdly, when a being is superior, the qualities of attributes are completely changed. I believe the cross has taught me the perfect reconciliation of these attributes in infinitude; and now I have the way, it confirms me in the conviction that they could not be in God Himself simply as such. "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him."

The reasoning which speaks of the Absolute comprehending all is to me mere confusion, because it takes physical and moral infinitude as identical, as if being and qualities were the same. The Absolute, if I connect it with physical existence, becomes simple pantheism, because being or existence must be absolute. And all these things have a side of truth. But qualities are not beings. In particular, evil cannot be infinite, because it is relative and supposes something pre-existing as to which it is evil.

Further, all the reasoning as to forgiveness by God, simply because we can, is stupid confusion. I admire one that forgives, because he gives up self. And in this sense God may be said to forgive freely, though it is not quite exact. But when one forgives in the sense of wrong or disorder (not to self, but) either to others or to common moral order, there is a giving up not of self but of good. It is either indifference to evil, a giving up of all public moral order, or saying that there is no moral government nor ought to be. And so we judge in human things. A judge or a law that forgave all crimes would be nonsense; nor would men admire it at all even if selfishness were not concerned. Ought there not to be a moral government testifying to the difference of good and evil, right and wrong? The beauty of forgiving personal wrongs has nothing to do with it, proves nothing about it, is sophistical clap-trap. They have to prove, not that it is beautiful for man to forgive as giving up self, but that there ought to be no moral government, which is quite another question.

"Sustaining modes of being" is, I apprehend, very confused and loose language. Is it a mode or a being which is contained? What contains them? What is a mode of being? or can there be modes of being in the Absolute? I should deny it. Absolute is really an abstract conception, not a being at all. A being is itself, and cannot have or contain modes: if absolute, it has its own. When men speak of an absolute being, they do not think of a personal being. Supposing an absolute personal being to create, does the being cease to be absolute because a creature exists and is in relation to it? Yet it cannot have a creature mode of being, for it is absolute. Absolute (unless it is a mere abstraction, that is, nothing) supposes nothing before it on which it depends, but does not suppose nothing after it and dependent on it -- does not hinder its being infinite, unless we confound ideal with physical infinitude. But its being absolute precludes its containing a mode of being which is not absolute. The Absolute supposes not only a possible but an actual existence out of all relation; but it toes not suppose that it ceases in se to be absolute because it becomes a cause. A cause cannot as such be absolute: the terms have no correlation. But a Being who is absolute does not cease to be so by being a cause, by willing. That is, there is no contradiction.

So when it is said, If infinite, it cannot become (that is, a cause), this is merely a loose employment of the word "become." It becomes nothing in se by being a cause; it remains absolutely the same. Something is produced outside itself by its will. If infinitude meant material extended, then indeed it would be impossible. It will be said that it acts, while before it was quiescent. It does not change, but displays itself. Display of self is not change, or self is not displayed. Had it been always displayed, it would be in a limited, not absolute, state. If creation were always, then it was not creation, or display had a necessary relation. Will was part of the Absolute. It displays will in creating and in not always creating. Had it always created, it would not have been a display of self in this respect. It was absolute and sufficient in itself: this was displayed by only creating when it pleased. By creating it displays that it was not necessarily quiescent (that is, dependent on something, not absolute).

Thus the difficulty (that is, if it be good to create and will was to be a cause, must it not have been always?) is only introducing time into the thought of the Infinite and Absolute. It is a confusion of thought; and this does prove that I cannot conceive how the absolute exists -- though I know it does -- because I exist not absolutely.

There is no necessary relation in causing: indeed the idea of causing denies it (though I am aware there are those who hold a law of order and no being, but this is not properly a cause). When there is an I a Being -- who causes, there is no necessary relationship but the contrary; in the caused being there is. If it can be said, I am, I create, I destroy, there is absoluteness and no necessary relation. Aristotles, and Origens, and Fichtes may deny it, because they introduce time (that is, my mode of being, into God's) to get an idea of how. But if this confusion be avoided, and it is only confusion, creation and absoluteness are not contradictory. The idea of eternal matter is not really possible to us if we reflect; because we, being caused, are so constituted as to feel the need of a cause for existence, forcing us to infer that there must be a self-existent Being, but making it impossible to conceive that mode of existence. Pantheism reduces existence to matter, and so denies absoluteness and unchangeableness.

I admit creation is an object of faith, not of knowledge; I can only know it when created. But it is no coming out of God as emanation, and going back. What I am in relation to, God has formed according to the apprehensions of it He has created in me. There is no existence independent of Him, nor place where He is not sustainingly; but He does not exist in it. All these difficulties the simple words of scripture make as plain as possible: "God created"; but "by him all things consist." Their difficulties arose from making pure intellect God. Then you must have the intelligent and the intelligible (that is, ideal objects in the mind at least).

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE INFINITE

All effort to make consciousness, or self-consciousness, a rational perception of difference and identity is simply infirmity in abstraction. If I think of another, I know that I am not that other; but this is not necessary to, and no part of, the consciousness that I exist. When not asleep, I live in the perpetual consciousness of my existence without thinking of any other. Consciousness is necessary to human psychical existence. When I reflect on it, I may draw conclusions as to another; but this is reasoning about consciousness. Neither is it intelligence. This means "I know," and has an object; but I am conscious of myself. To say that I am conscious of "I" makes "I" an object of "I" is absurd, and is really a denial of consciousness. When I speak of it to another and reason about it, then I make the conscious "I" an object of my reasoning; but then it has ceased to be consciousness.

It is this supposing with Plato that pure intellect is the beginning of existence which has falsified the reasoning on these points. Take Hegel's definition of subject without predicate, and you get at once the counter-proof of what I say. My affirming something about "I" does determine it; but this is a proposition, not consciousness, which, it must be repeated, ceases the moment I reason. For thus I have before me a thought which is not consciousness. It is the thought of "I" looked at as an object of reasoning. And this is not self-consciousness of existence; for "I" as a thought is not "I" existing, but a mere thought. The moment I have a thought, I have something about which "I" is occupied, which is not self-consciousness. Where logic begins, self-consciousness ceases. We are constituted so as to be conscious of ourselves.

There is every confusion by making infinitude of good in God an extension; and this runs through ancients and moderns, Aristotle, Hegel, etc. Mansel answers them well, but does not, I think, reach the truth. If we speak of ideas we have human thought, and, of course, no conception of the infinite. Thus, when Aristotle says, The infinite is the whole potentially but not actually, we have parts, extension, and -- nonsense; but not an approach to infinitude as it refers to God. "The whole" -- of what? If applied to God, this is necessarily materialism or pantheism; it is very true if speaking of mere mathematics. But it is only an abstraction; and, applied to being, it is a contradiction; for a being is actual, and has ceased to be simply potential. The secret of all their fallacy (into which Mansel has fallen) is this: their infinite is the infinite of matter, that is, the infinite of finite, which is infinite nonsense. It may be all well enough on their ground, because they go no farther. But as to consciousness and infinitude, Mansel has not taken up any ground of truth as to man or God. The whole theory is materialism or Brahminism.

But consciousness, self-consciousness, is the hinge of all this. I affirm that I am so constituted that I have the instinctive consciousness of "I." This Mansel has not at all seen. I do not take Descartes' dictum -- "I think and therefore am" (that is, as if it made no difference). When one says "I think," one must have a thought to think (that is, an object, the intelligible as well as the intelligent). But when one says "I," there is self-consciousness. I am so created as to say "I." This does not say Descartes is wrong: he is right; but in his syllogism consciousness is the object of his reasoning. "I" is a thinking being, and therefore "I" is a being. But this is drawn from consciousness, and has no force save in it. Yet it remains true that I can say "I" as the expression of self-consciousness. But, having this self-consciousness, I have senses; I am so constituted as to have the knowledge of existence with self-consciousness, and that as an excellence. It is that to which thought attaches itself. I cannot have knowledge without it; I can have sense and memory, but not reflective thought.

Hence, I attribute self-consciousness to God as necessary to intelligent existence, though I may not know the mode of it in God; I have no doubt it will be different and infinitely superior. I believe it to be different in God, because these reflex acts on self appear to be a state of imperfection -- those reflex acts which are not consciousness, but through which I reason and estimate it. I cannot have consciousness of an object, and therefore cannot say that a dog has self-consciousness, because, it cannot be such if I see it in another. My knowledge of what it is in myself is imperfect: there it is an object; but the consciousness is there to have knowledge (perfect or imperfect). Hence I do not know how it exists in God, because I cannot have knowledge of it. This is objective knowledge, imperfect even as to myself, absolutely impossible as to the how in God.

Only unconscious existence is brute matter -- is what we mean by brute matter. It may have power by attraction, whatever it is; but consciousness makes the difference of having a basis for reflection: hence language.

The confounding moral infinitude (that is, absoluteness of perfection) with extension, which I have noticed is a very great blunder. But then I freely own that in strictness we cannot speak of attributes in God (moral ones). It is only a human way which (speaking reverently) divides God into parts. God cannot be or do evil: to say this is a limitation of power is only a delusion. If I say that He cannot do what He pleases, for He cannot do evil, the "cannot" applies to "what He pleases," not to the power of God. As to acts of power, He can do everything. It is morally impossible that there should be in Him the contrary of what He is, that is of good and right. But this is not limiting power or anything; it is denying a limit to goodness, and saying it is absolute. Infinite goodness means merely goodness always perfect as goodness. That this is after an imperfect thought as to God I admit, because it takes one characteristic by itself (that is through our finite nature), for nothing in God is characteristic (that is, special and in part). It has been noticed elsewhere how thus Christ had no character, but was always what He ought to be wherever He was. Perfect goodness He was, but not goodness by itself as we conceive it. He was firm and severe where He ought, and good in that; He was tender and affectionate where He ought, and good in that; He was seemingly hard and deaf to seed, and unchanged in goodness in that -- in all love to His Father, and obedience. The divine nature in man which produced one produced all, perfect in each place in relation because perfect in itself.

Fichte's statement as to personality is totally false. It is not what you have become acquainted with in yourself, but the you that has become acquainted. Mansel's answer is economically true, because they go on this ground, but it is inadequate. I judge the whole system false for the reason stated, that thought is confounded with consciousness. Further, all confound the knowledge of with the knowledge that. I know certainly that I am; I have no real knowledge of what a soul is, or of its mode of acting through senses and a body. Whether it be separate or not, I am so constituted that, when I do not think or reason (perhaps if I do), I believe in a cause of effects, and that existence in form or with anything characteristic supposes a cause -- hence, a First Cause. But for the same reason that I know there must be, I cannot know or conceive it. That is, knowledge that is not and may prove that I cannot have knowledge of. So I may have knowledge that there is such a thing as endless, infinite, eternal; while the very words prove that I do not -- cannot -- conceive it. But the negative of finite is not the same as the conception of infinite (that is, as its affirmation); and I have the sense of negativing finite though no positive conception.

Further, if I think about myself, I am finite and relative. If I judge the consciousness in connection with other things, consciousness is not relative and not finite or the contrary in itself. I do not admit that absolute must be infinite or finite. Consciousness is absolute; it has no qualities, no objective appearances or anything else. It is "I." I am something; I think, do, perceive, etc. Hence I learn that the "I" is finite; but consciousness is only "I."

Now I cannot conceive an infinite "I," because I am a finite "I"; that is, I can have no positive knowledge of it; but its absoluteness as consciousness in me makes me understand the possibility of the existence of another absolute consciousness which may not be finite. As I learn the finiteness of my conscious "I," and can in certain respects understand it, so I learn the certain existence of an "I" which must be conscious (that is, not as a stone), and that it cannot be, as I am, finite, which is absolute in its "I," but relative if it pleases, because I know it has pleased. But the how or what of its consciousness or relations (that is, creation, sonship, redemption) I do not and cannot know that, because I negative the finiteness of that which is my knowledge. But I do not think a negative is the same as an affirmative, or is nothing in mind, though it be nothing positive. To say so is to say that all must be clear in my mind or that it does not exist, which is false. I have a thinking, feeling, perceiving, judging, and, if right, adoring, if wrong, God-hating, inward existence. What it is I have not in the smallest degree a clear idea of. So I have of God, to whom I clearly deny necessary relationship, finiteness or material infiniteness, whom I do not limit in will so as to deny relationship, yet in finite knowledge I cannot say what He is, but existence of whom (I can say what He is not) is not nothing in my mind, though I cannot say what it is, because I do know by consciousness what it is to exist, and I deny the conditions in which I exist.

I cannot quite accept the denial of capacity to abstract in the human mind (that is, the estimate of a quality without a being it is attached to). It is apt to run into personification in order to get a clear idea. To say I must think of some one good to think of goodness is not true. It is merely saying that, if I think of good acts, I must think of some one. But attributes, though for us a necessary conception, are a very inadequate one of God; if pushed to consequences, even false. We may speak attributively (practically), but not predicate anything of God; because then I separate the quality and get it in itself. I must make it infinite, and so exclusive in my mind; and other attributes are reasoned against. Thus if I say God is good, and therefore cannot do this or that, I have made Him only this, and all is false.

I deny that consciousness is in time, or has a "before" or "after." Consciousness denies it in fact and in the nature of things. You must add "was," or "will be"; but then I have lost consciousness, which is necessarily only present, and this is not time -- is not measured, nor is time thought of.

Mansel at the end of Lecture III happily contradicts himself. He is not exact. Thus, when he says we can conceive such attributes at the utmost only indefinitely ... but we cannot conceive them as infinite, how can he make the distinction if he cannot tell what infinite is? That one word proves the fallacy of his whole statement. But infinite, I have already said, does not mean material in infinitude; and attributes (that is, predicates) spoken of God are always false when taken as the truth.

To say that things may not be what their appearances are is nonsense. What is a thing? what an appearance? I know nothing of a thing save its appearance, that is, its relation to me. I have no other thing as a thing than that. The only other thing to mark it is its resistance to will, its contrast with the "I"; so that will goes where I cannot. It hinders the change of the relationship of "I." That is, I know its existence in contrast with "I" active in its absoluteness, or "I" as a spirit. This we call matter: why not? Hyle, if you please (a spiritual body not so; but this is faith; it confirms the other).

Indefinite and infinite are not the same. Indefinite does not know whether a thing stops or where. We are so constituted as to believe necessarily in the infinite (finite implying it), but the reason of that precludes my knowing it. Finite is some apparent (or possibly apparent) being in what is the object of perception; but because that is finite as perceptible existence, I speak of its ending. Being limited, I must and do therein suppose and mean that beyond a limit there is what is beyond limit, illimitable. My idea of limit supposes this: I limit knowable existence, but its being a limit is in my mind in every case in spite of me. A thought that its being stopped or limited is a possibility of prolongation. It might go farther (that is, I have an idea of what is beyond limit). Finite instead of excluding is founded on the idea of infinity. I have the idea that it is, must be, in idea; for stopping gives (or is identical with) as an idea, not stopping, but proves that the sense that there must be is identical with the sense of. The thought that it stops is founded on being stopped somewhere, that is, that it might go on. It is merely saying, I am constituted with the sense that there is space (that is, where a thing may stop or not stop) and duration (that is, where it may or may not cease). I cannot but think infinite must be, but never think of it as the object of human power of thinking, for when, as to a clear conception of what is, I think of what is, I think of what stops so far as any object of thought can go. I deny that mere infinitude in the sense of space has anything to do with God. Endless time onward is more accessible to me because I can have the idea of continuance when I have existence.

In space the object of thought becomes itself extended, whereas a thing only exists in time or eternity. It is no part of itself. It may always exist, does not need to stop, the past (as they say) cannot in itself be thought of, because I have no known existence to go on with but in time or now. Taking now, however, I can conceive continuance; but the thought is more imperfect though certain in its nature.

We feel no need to suppose God infinite in space (on the contrary, it shocks us); but in time we do. The reason is simple. Infinitude in space is gross, material not a moral central will and action. I do not judge of God as finite in space, because I do not materialise Him; but if He ceases in duration, and that is finite as to it, He ceases to be, because to endure when anything exists is not to cease to be. I fully believe there is an instinctive sense of God as supreme, that is, supreme as to us, and reasoning on what He is is consequent on this. It is a blunder to suppose that not being the author of evil limits Him. He can, as to power, do anything; but limiting means a stop being put to something in the direction in which it tends or might continue; whereas no evil is in God to be stopped. Power does not create evil. Were God the author of evil (save physical evil or punishment), it would be a limit to what He is -- good. Mansel has not kept clear of the material idea of infinity. His adversaries are on that ground; but his great defect is not seizing consequences, at least in his reasonings, for he does state the thing in Lecture IV.

But I deny the sense of responsibility and a law to be the same thing or either of them the knowledge of good and evil. A law may be the rule according to which we are responsible to One who has authority over us, but it is not the responsibility itself. Man was responsible before he had the knowledge of good and evil; and he had a law which implied no such knowledge. Responsibility is to a person: a law may be its measure. The knowledge of good and evil is a capacity of nature to discern right and wrong where there is no law. "So the man is become as one of us, knowing good and evil." A law may give me God's measure of it as to me, and so the divine law did as to man. But obedience always and in everything is what we are responsible for if the One above us is supreme -- has such claims over us -- to keep the law, if He has given one, and every commandment He gives. But this is only what the responsibility is shewn in. The knowledge of right and wrong is in itself a contrast with law, because it is in us, and there is no one to whom (if that be all) we are responsible. We may be also responsible to another; and he, if a moral governor -- not otherwise, holds us responsible according to that knowledge.

All as to law, moral obligations, man a law to. himself by reflecting God's law, is false. Conscience is not pleasure, because there is lust; and conscience and sin came in together. Will and lust combine, and conscience is against them. But moral obligation is only rightly known at all when God's claim of obedience is allowed; for mere conscience is mere misery, or combines with pride and self-approbation. To say that the knowledge of good and evil is necessarily implanted as a law by a lawgiver is utterly false. For this knowledge is in God, and what higher spiritual being has implanted it in Him as a lawgiver? It can therefore be otherwise. We have it by sin.

The absolute claim of obedience is the highest obligation, moral obligation, if you please. Now that I have got a knowledge of good and evil, I shall surely attribute that to God and own His judgment. But only when Christ is revealed can it be said that the nature of the Deity is the absolute standard; for requirements from, are not necessarily conformity to, His will, which cannot be dissociated from His nature as a requirer. But duty does not flow from the nature of the superior, but in all cases (superior is not) from the relation in which the obliged person stands to the superior or any other person. No doubt, if the relation be with a divine Being or formed by Him, it will be right, and from some higher motive be right, though the relation be evil as a Christian slave. But obedience is right to God, though there be no law (it may be tested by a law) and no knowledge of good and evil in itself. Then a knowledge of good and evil enters by disobedience. We become as to this as God; Genesis 3. Hence there is the knowledge of right and wrong without reference to a superior, though reference may exist, and, I doubt not the least, has been perfected with it. Lastly, a law may be given, testing the obedience, not in innocence, but with a perfect measure of right and wrong, including all moral relationships. Christ is more than all this. He is the manifestation of the divine nature in man, and, when we are partakers of it, becomes the model and example, as well as the source of our walk and duty.

It is obedience as His was, because He was a man, to His Father, in the place in which He stood, and so our mould of obedience, not to a claiming law, but having no will but God's perfect in moral estimate; but it is also love as Christ's was, because it is the divine nature. Being holy too (that is, with a knowledge of good and evil), it has a horror of evil and is separated from it, but in us it is separated to God, which alone can be the separation from evil in us -- in a creature which must have an object.

This gives a special character to Christ though He ever looked to His Father, and, as man, lived in dependence on Him, and, as man too, rejoiced in the joy that was before Him. Yet He was an object, instead of having one.

As regards personality, the conscious "I" is personality, though it cannot explain by reason in what it consists; but absolute dependence on God destroying personal freedom is all confusion. Dependence is equivocal. It means that I must derive existence and all here -- more, have all from Him, or that I feel dependent on Him -- look to Him. All this leaves out will, as contrasted with the obligation of obedience. Most of what is called personal freedom is simply sanction of sin. I ought always to obey -- "Lo, I come to do thy will" was Christ's uniform and sole motive. If freedom means that God does not purpose evil or hinder good, it is quite true; but if it means a right to have a will of one's own, it is sin -- atheism. A man being really set to choose between evil and good (he may be, for trial to shew him what he is) is alike horrible and absurd; because it supposes the good and evil to be outside, and himself neither. If he is one or other in disposition, the choice is there. To have a fair choice, he must be personally indifferent; but to be in a state of indifference to good and evil is perfectly horrible. If a man has an inclination, his choice is not free: a free will is rank nonsense morally; because, if he have a will, he wills something. God can will to create. But will in moral things means either self-will, which is sin (for we ought to obey); or an inclination to something, which is really a choice made as far as will goes. In truth it is never so. Man was set in good, though not externally forced to remain so. He first exercised his will -- free-will, morally speaking -- in eating the forbidden fruit, and was therein and thereby lost, and since then he has been inclined to evil. Dependence lies in this -- that a creature must depend on God. He does so joyfully in perfect good, and on whom it comes has the claim when he knows God. Independence in will (there cannot be in fact), and disobedience, its fruit, are the condition of the old man. Dependence and obedience are the characteristics of the new man -- of Christ. Save what grace works, God does leave the will free; but it tends in its nature away from God; because it is will. And the not looking to God must have an object below man. That wretched freedom man has, and perseveres in it but for grace, and resists the motives of grace, because it calls to God, to dependence and obedience of heart. And will wills itself: only one can be born of God, and have a new nature -- Christ as our life, and so be a new creature.

Personality is evidently in self-consciousness. Reality, that is, material reality, is that which hinders in its nature my will from finding nothing. I cannot of course have the consciousness of another's personality or self-consciousness; but I can see that he is one who has it, and know what it is by my own self-consciousness. Is a person in a swoon? I have lost part of the evidence of what shews personality. And if personality be lost in a swoon or like state, it only shews we do not know by reason what constitutes it, the link between soul and body being momentarily suspended; but the spring from which to reason is gone, has ceased, so that there can be none: I cannot say "I," which begins reasoning. I have no doubt it is the soul. But if the swoon was for ever, and I knew there was no self-consciousness, I could not conceive of it as a person. Yet if a soul was there and it could be two hundred years asleep with the body, I should conceive of it as a person. If I did not know it had a soul, I should say I could not tell.

Mansel's notion of body is merely the scholastic notion of substance. I say there is matter because according to my constitution two bodies cannot be in the same place. I cannot go through a door (a spirit can); but by God's will it is such that what I meet resists my will without any will of its own.

Nor do I say consciousness moulds, nor that we only know phenomena, as Kant, etc., though there are apparent truth in this. God has so constituted things, and me, and others, that certain things produce certain effects and impressions on me. If a man with jaundice sees yellow, it is merely that he for the moment is so constituted, being in an abnormal state; but the knowledge of the constitution in both is in the same thing producing regularly the former effect.

To say with Kant, that the object is a phenomenon is nonsense, because the phenomenon includes the perception in me. If it appears, it appears to some one. But a thing is what produces the effect. If it be asked, What is it? I cannot tell. Not a phenomenon, but what has produced a certain idea in me and others. What I think of first is my perception; but perception makes me think of what produces it. A dream only shews that memory and combination, without the conscious will. may continue in that state.

That the truths as to God are only regulative is abominable and untrue. Truths do not regulate passions; and in religion, if true, God is revealed in His absolute nature: not as material extension, of course, it is a low material idea, but as He is. He is light -- He is love; Christ is the perfect revelation of Him. It does not satisfy philosophy, because philosophy has nothing to do with it -- it has only ideas, and no idea is love. "He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." To say that action, not knowledge, is man's destiny is very bad indeed. The knowledge of God -- that is, the Father -- and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, is eternal life. And we have fellowship with them. Action is a mere consequence in its place, because we are then, as partaking of the divine nature, like God, and have to act in love in our little sphere. And this correspondence with the Absolute is exactly what, if not required, is given. We know God and are imitators of God; we are dependent, no doubt, but truly.

The energy of matter is said to be motion; of mind, consciousness. I doubt this. Mansel always leaves out self-consciousness -- its truest and deepest name. Will is the energy of the soul. For either consciousness or will we cannot find the link with matter. There are pairs of nerves, one of sensation (consciousness), another of motion. But the energy in Mansel's sense -- analogous to motion -- is clearly in the latter. No man can discover the link, it is true, how will raises my hand. But Mansel is infected with what he reasons against. Gracious kindness, goodness, relationship with man according to divine qualities, are not inferior to the natural notions of infinitude, etc, which are really material.

It may be alleged that will is no action of the mind. This is matter to be decided by the definition of mind. If taken strictly as the thinking power, thinking (not consciousness) is its energy. Mansel has blundered all through, because he has judged thought to be the first element of mind, and infinitude to relate to matter or space where God is spoken of. In the last he has fallen into the trap of the enemy.

As to cause, it is power operating by design; not that the design and the power are necessarily united in the agent producing. The design may be in one only mind, and power set in motion in another. Hence causes have been distinguished in nature, inaccurately perhaps in division, but justly, into causa causans and causa causata. Will. design. Power in activity are a cause. The how may not be known; but this does not hinder my seeing a cause and effect. When I say cold causes water to swell, God is supposed to have so constructed as to design, His will to have led Him so to form it, and the power is seen in effect. How it comes about physical science may or may not discover, but can only come at last to created ordinances. God may have produced uniformly or universally operative force, which we call a law, and sustains that continually by His will. It can only be so at any moment by His will. When He does not will it, it ceases. Laws need not be changed for a miracle, but that the same will should operate sovereignly by those laws. Thus suppose the presence of the soul in a body according to a given law animates it in a given way which we call life. A person dies. God calls the soul back into the body to be perfect according to the given law. No law is changed, but a miracle is performed. Supposing nerves and muscles operate in a particular way where communication is established with the brain, the communication has been interrupted, never formed. By one word (that is, by His will) God, or one acting by His command, restores the communication. Now law is changed, but a miracle is performed. It is not a mere general law. It is the will which formed the law acting, not in suspending it in any case, but causing by an act of power the existence of a case in which its operation was renewed or begun where it did not before. A body specifically heavier than water sinks. The attractive power of the earth is not changed, but the body is so constructed by will and power for a time that it does not operate on it, and a man walks on the water. This does not suppose the action of the will and power of God: that is a miracle, but not a change in the laws of nature. The will of God may withdraw an individual from the power of a law without changing the law as a law at all. The exception only proves the rule. Men have said, If God stopped the earth for Joshua, so as to make the sun and moon stand still for Joshua, all would have been flooded and destroyed; just as if He would not have stopped the motion of all at the same time (that is, the action of the moving power). What stopped the earth stopped all with it, my head as well as my heels. This is ridiculous. The question is, Can God will? He is not God if He cannot. Can I?

Mansel is on wholly false ground as to this, because (while saying it is impossible by ideas) he confounds the revelation of God with ideas of Him, or human knowledge. He does not see here revelation of God in Christ, with the Holy Ghost giving perception of it and dwelling in us. Hence he runs back to acknowledge the incapacity which is true of mind as absolutely true, and makes the test of truth the harmonious consent of man's faculties. If so, I have no test as to God; for they cannot know or test Him. A revelation is another thing; first, objectively, and then by divine capacitating power to the soul. God is light; Christ was the light of the world. God is love; Christ was love in the world; but the eyes must be opened to see the light, a new nature be communicated to enjoy it. The same thing must be to estimate the love, as shewn to me a sinner (without which in its own uncaused unsustained character, that is, as divine, it is not known) and as enjoyed by a saint -- perfect as putting me in the absolute enjoyment of it, for it makes us to be as Christ (see 1 John 4), and that in full righteousness and holiness. (See his Lecture 5.) How sad that any sentence should be exactly the opposite of what Christ meant!

Even if I take the conscious "I" as marking knowledge of a person, I have no objection to use it as regards the Trinity in speaking of human language. For why -- because the conscious "I" in man supposes distinctness from any other "I" -- should the divine consciousness be a human one? Why not the consciousness of subsisting in unity -- not ours? We cannot conceive it by our minds so as to explain it in language, but yet can recognise as truth undoubtingly "I and my Father are one." We apprehend it not by thought, but by the Spirit. He "hath given us an understanding that we should know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life." The perfect revelation of God in Christ is the strongest proof that limited existence to our minds (or the contrary) has nothing to do with the perfect revelation and knowledge of God. Love, holiness, absence of evil, presence of good, were there. He was limited as a man on earth as to space, yet He was all the while in heaven. He conferred power to work miracles elsewhere, and wrought them far off from Himself; yet it was a power in Him. He was the truth. He shewed that everything was from God by direct revelation, and all evil, its opposition to Himself, vanity by the revelation of the true God. I recognise a perfect absolute revelation of God in Christ. I "know God." But this is a revelation of the Trinity -- Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, yet one God.

When I have spoken of the consciousness of personality, yet of unity, I would not darken counsel by words without knowledge, or pretend to speak metaphysics on what is known only by revelation (but of which, when revealed, I may see the perfectness), but find the Lord saying, "I and my Father" (that is, consciousness of personal distinctness), yet He adds, "are one"; so that there was the consciousness of unity. And why not? Why should not distinctness of willing and acting, and the consciousness of it be there, yet in perfect community of undistinguished Godhead without separate being, as a source of being able to say "I am"? None could have known it (part of its character as known is in revelation): but when revealed, I see not why we may not see its perfectness, and that indeed (which is the way we know it too) man would have had nothing to say to God as a moral being without it, or only in this way. And so it really is; but we come to it by our wants, not by metaphysics, which I have no thought of applying to the doctrine. But having a revelation, one sees how it connects itself with the human conception of it.

As to moral law, the notion that it is of necessary and universal obligation, and so absolute (that is, not subject to the forms of human conception), that it must be "the measure and adequate representation of the moral nature of God," and that our knowledge of the divine Being is identical with that of our own moral duties, is just the fruit -- wise as men may think themselves -- of unsound educational or traditional ideas about the law, as if it were the highest rule, the transcript of the divine mind. It is nothing of the sort. Had men only seen God's activity of love in Christ, and that it is our pattern and rule -- in a word, Christ as the full revelation of God in every way, all this confusion would have been avoided.

Law is an authoritatively imposed obligation. This cannot be God's nature and position. His liberty in love (and there is no love without, but in, liberty) is wholly set aside (that is, the whole activity of His nature, His nature itself, for He is love) if this principle be true. To make law my nature is to make love impossible.

Besides, the application of the moral law to God as law is impossible, whether we take it as love to God or your neighbour, or the prohibition of evil, as is evident. But it is not because i the moral law is not absolute, that is, above human thoughts. Such reasoning is just the fruit of not getting beyond thought (Mansel's and Kant's error here).

Morality, or moral obligation, is in the nature of all relations which imply a claim; it is the bond flowing from them. That man has had all manner of rules is true; but when God says, "The man is become as one of us, knowing good and evil," it certainly implies that right and wrong was of an absolute nature. But it is the application of a law which makes obligatory a course imposed by authority (though it may be moral too). The knowledge of good and evil is the perception of it in itself, without a law or its being imposed. God does know, doubtless, good and evil according to the perfection of His own nature. But it is a condition of His nature to discern it; it was not of Adam's before his fall. He was innocent; he enjoyed God's goodness unsuspectingly, and did nothing else. There was no occasion to discern, nor capacity to do so. In the fall he acquired this capacity. He could now say, This is good and that evil; but he was under sin.

That moral law is excellent and absolute, because we discern good and evil, is a mistaken way of putting it. What we have is a capacity to discern right and wrong, not a law, but a moral condition of my mind. But, on the other hand, it is not subject to forms of thought, because it is not a question of thought. It is in the nature of the relationship; it is conscience, and not thought; it may be in us misled by thought.

It is all a blunder to say obligations cannot arise by relationship; because I may learn the existence of a relationship, or I may be brought into a relationship. Thus, so far from thinking a moral obligation cannot be formed, I affirm that all obligations of a Christian are new, because he reckons himself dead and alive to God through Christ as risen. His obligations flow wholly from his new condition. This may call for recognising under the condition something that subsisted before, as parents and children, etc.

The reason it is wholly untrue that the knowledge of good and evil gives us God's nature is, that the knowledge of good and evil is the source of discerning right and wrong, which right and wrong flow from the relationship a being is in. Now God is either in none (unless within Himself, of which we cannot judge, because it is so), or, if He enter into any in creative will, He is not in the same as we are. Hence the obligation cannot be the same. All we say is, that He will not destroy (as between ourselves or between us and Him) the terms of relationship in which He has set us. If I had slaves or children and gave them something to enjoy in equal shares, it would be wrong for one to take from or defraud the other; but if I had not given up the title, I might do so. If God has revealed His nature to me and my relationship to Him, He does not change, and so the duty abides. But if the relationship changes and I become a son, the duty does.

The capacity to discern good and evil is the capacity to discern these duties or the breach of them. But if the relationship is one of authority, then there is duty to obey. There may be a mere arbitrary command; and I say the thing (if I have the knowledge of good and evil) was not bad in itself, but obedience is the place of one subject. Thus it was with Adam: there was no evil in eating of the tree if it had not been forbidden. It was only the test of obedience. Now we have more than this. I say such a thing is wrong even if not forbidden. As to the measure of it, I may be misled Hence God has given a prescribed measure -- the law. But the faculty of such discernment is in me. I call something wrong. I have a personal faculty to discern that the act does not suit -- is not conformed to the relation in which the responsible being stands. One takes a knife from another: I hold it to be evil. A parent does so from a very young child: it is not evil, but good. It depends on the relationship.

Hence the only true absolute good is free. It is love, God Himself, and that in fact in the highest sense where there is no obligation at all, but where the responsible one had failed. If God, though surely sovereign, gives a promise, I expect Him to fulfil it, though I do not deny higher reasons may lead to its not being accomplished. But as a general promise, I reckon on it, because in that act He has been pleased to put Himself in relationship. If there be a higher claim, it may fail, but is in His own sovereign knowledge. But I can say, It is impossible for God to lie, because when He has given His word, He has been pleased to oblige Himself. He might for higher reasons destroy the one to whom the promise was made, and it would fail; but He cannot be inconsistent with what He is. But it is important to remember, what moralisers seem anxious to forget, that the knowledge of good and evil came to man in and by that in which he fell.

That relationship is the basis of the sense of right and wrong is every way evident. Thus, not knowing the relationship of angels among themselves, I cannot tell what is right and wrong among themselves; I do of human creatures; I say they must love one another, and love and obey God. I must not worship them: they must worship God.

Moral duties then are absolute in so far as that they do not depend on ideas as formed by any means at all, but are the judgment of an internal capacity; they only subsist in known relationships and last as long as they. But they belong to relationships; they are the expression of one's consistency with it. And as long as I conceive it, I conceive the duty. Right and wrong did not exist for Adam in themselves (that is, without a command). It is not merely responsibility personally to God; that there was. God forbade. Man might not eat; but there was no sense of a thing wrong in itself, because inconsistent with a relationship, he being able to judge of it itself. There was nothing inconsistent in Adam's mind with his relationship to God; his mind followed it without a question. He could think of nothing in itself inconsistent with it; that nature of thought was not in his nature.

But there is a difference between God's knowledge of good and evil, and mine. I deny wholly that human morality is manifested in the form of a law of obligation. The knowledge of good and evil is the internal consciousness of what is conformable to position and relationship without a law of obligation. Yet it is not properly absolute, because it flows from relationship; only it attaches to the idea of the relationship as so contained in it. Moralists on both sides seem wholly wrong here. Goodness, properly speaking, is not morality, but love exercised where there is not an obligation. The only difficulty is to distinguish Adam's case from right and wrong. The eating of the tree was no departure from conformity to the relationship Adam was in to God; he would have eaten it innocently as a matter of course. It was wrong simply to do what was forbidden, because forbidden. This leads to distinguish responsibility to a person absolutely, and the knowledge of right and wrong. That is, law and morality are opposed in nature; though law be the right measure of right when it recognises existing relationship, but where the law makes the obligation of the particular case, this means that otherwise there was not and could not be any knowledge of right and wrong (it would have denied Adam's innocence to suppose any), but an arbitrary command, however wise a one.

To say that duty ought to be followed, is only saying there is duty. But two straight lines enclosing space is somewhat different; it means if two do not approach they do not meet. God knows good and evil, that is, He recognises relationship as it exists. I know good and evil now (that is, my will apart). I recognise these relationships as they exist; but what has this to do with God's nature? His morality, speaking reverently, would be based on the relationship. He is in Himself; but He is in none, as we have seen, unless He pleases to put Himself in one: I am by virtue of my place. He recognises mine, and judges, but is not in it. I deny eternal morality save as an idea; it has no relation to Him at all. Absolute morality is nonsense. God did not create morality, but the relationship without which there could be none. If one supposes only the absolute God, there is no morality. Morality in respect of what? I cannot suppose it but with created responsibility, that is, creatures and consequently relationship.

I am disposed to think that, such as man was, he must have fallen to get the knowledge of good and evil. He knew no good objectively so as to prefer it in innocence. The test he was under was not preference of good to evil or evil to good, but obedience. It could not have been the former, because he must have known the two to decide (that is, not have been innocent). But then to go right with that knowledge he must have been a holy being, that is, a being with a spiritual nature divine or sustained of God which in nature delighted in good and abhorred evil, so as not to be in a state of probation because the decision was in the nature itself, so that there was nothing to test. But if he came to know good and evil, and was not decided against evil, he was already in an evil state. Besides he could not get into a condition to decide between good and evil; and if he had not known them before, he must decide; he has to exercise a will as free, and thus he is out of obedience (the only right state) and is in evil. A nature formed holy and sustained of God is decided in nature, and then only obeys. God could have given such a nature to man; but then it would have been a new creation, as it is now.

It is a mistake to think infinite power in itself inconsistent with finite power. Two infinite independent powers cannot be, because they contradict each other. They are not infinite, for they cannot destroy each other. But power being only the faculty to do all things, not the actual doing of them, the existence of a finite subordinate power is no contradiction to God. Creation tends to give the idea of a final cause, a framing will, and hence can hardly be ascribed to a finite agent. But forming new objects on subsisting laws may well belong to such.

EXAMINATION OF MILL'S LOGIC⁺

The question is a grave one, how far, when no general idea or quality is predicated of an object, but it is only said "is," two objects are before the mind. But Mr. Mill is, as to this, all wrong and inaccurate. When I say "the sun," I already suppose such a thing and its existence, or I can have no object before my mind at all. "A round square" gives no object or idea to be -- Mr. Mill's example -- affirmed about. What he does not see (and the whole book is in my judgment very shallow) is that what is affirmed in saying "the sun exists" involves unexpressed that it exists now. Time present is affirmed; but whether I say "was," "is," or "will be," I have an object of which the existence is before my mind, or there is no object before it. He shirks the word idea, because an idea in the mind supposes an object with which it is occupied. It may be only a poetical possibility, but its existence is assumed poetically. If I say "is," or "exists," I affirm that it is a fact now. It may go farther, for the present supposes in its nature all times or none; it affirms a fact, and leaves past and future wholly out. If I say, "I am," I cannot say "I" without a conscious object; "am" adds little to any idea of it. There is no other object. "I" carries "am" with it; and the only danger is that "am" makes it too absolute by excluding beginning, "was" and "will be." "I" involves my existence as spoken of. "I thought "; that is passed. "I will give "; that supposes an "I," an existing object I have in my mind. Yet I may not exist to do it; but the object is an object in the mind, and existing there as an object thought, whatever is affirmed about it. The verb substantive affirms that it is not only an ideal object, but an actually existing one -- "God is." If I say "God," I have a thought object, an object before my mind; if there be no such thing thinkable (as "a round square "), I am talking nonsense. It is an assumed object, and I cannot think it without thinking of it as an existence. I do not say "existing," for that says now, but an existence. When I say "is," I affirm actual existence now, and past and future are not in my mind. It is an existing fact, and, as every present puts me in a present time (that is, has no time at all), it is an affirmation, taken by itself, of eternal existence.

⁺ A System of Logic, by John Stuart Mill, 8th edition.

The reader must bear in mind that these are only MSS notes jotted down while reading the book.

It is totally false that no belief can be afforded. If I say "my father," my hearer believes, if he receives what I say, that I have had or have one, and disbelieves what I say if he does not think so. Thus, if I say "Adam's father," I disbelieve the whole account in Genesis. If I say "Cain's father," and another does not reject what is said, it is believing he had one, at least agreeing in it. If I say a "round square," he has no object before his mind to affirm about. When it is said "affirmed of something," something is affirmed before anything is affirmed about it. The sun exists, or my father exists, goes on to say it or he which is exists now. And the present involves no time -- that is, contemplates no duration for a time, and hence is either the simple fact of now, which has no duration, or involves eternity -- a now that never ceases to be now,⁺ for now is unity, not duration -- when the present is used not as now, it is a true unabgeschlossenes Aorist (i.e. Aorist of unspecified time). "I dine every day": what time is that?

When I say, "God is," I affirm no time, but existence: and, if I add nothing, eternal existence. Existence only is affirmed of Him, and, if true, always true. If I say to any one "God," I call his attention to an object, which I cannot do if there be no such object. I do not say in existence now, but as an object to be thought of as existing (I do not say when). But I think of His Sein, though not necessarily as seiend. If "the sun" suggests a meaning, what meaning? That there is such a thing as sun as an object of thought; not "is," as presently existing, but as an existence. If I say "round square," I have no object of thought at all; it is not an existence even for thought; it has no meaning. The importance of this in "I am," "God is," is evident. And this is evident when other words are used predicatively. "God created the world." If "God" does not convey the thought of an existing object, the proposition has no sense at all. That is, without affirming at all that God exists or did exist then, naming Him affirms, not as an inference but in the word itself, an existence, a Being which did that. So if I say, "the sun heats," "sun" gives me the thought of an existing thing. I say something about it, but I speak of something about which I affirm. And one could pertinently say, There is no such thing as a sun to heat. That is, he does not believe, not the proposition about heating or the sun's heating, but what is contained in the word "sun." If I say "The moon heats," one might say, No, it does not. That is, he disbelieves what I say about the moon, he denies the proposition; but, in denying the proposition, he accepts the affirmation that there is a moon to heat or not to heat, and knows it is affirmed, and believes it. In what I have said of the sun, he disbelieves it. Thus if one speak of, say "a round square," I say there is no such thing, I disbelieve what is said.

⁺Hence, when I say "God is," "God" necessarily represents to the mind an eternal, self-existing, or uncreated Being. No beginning and no ending is in the thought; and it can be said absolutely of such only. "Is" affirms being. It may be used for "exists," and then it has not its absolute sense. San and dasein are not the same thing. Man exists; the world around us exists; but I could not say "is."

And this Mill really admits in chapter 1, sec. 3 when he says, "What we do, what passes in our mind, when we affirm or deny two names of one another, must depend on what they are names of; since it is with reference to that, and not to the mere names themselves, that we make the affirmation or denial." Just so; but then there is a "that" which we affirm or deny about. This is "what we do, what passes in our mind" -- that is, mind takes cognisance of the reality of the object as an existence, believes it, or can have no proposition about it. Again, Names, chapter 2, sec. 1. "Names are not intended only to make the hearer conceive what we conceive, but also to inform him what we believe. Now, when I use a name for the purpose of expressing a belief, it is a belief concerning the thing itself, not concerning my idea of it." If then a name expresses my belief in the thing, he, if he goes in with what I affirm about it, acquiesces in the thing as an existence, a thing; just what I insist on. It is a complete contradiction in terms of what he had said: "There is as yet nothing to believe." If I express a belief concerning the thing, so can he, or (as I said) tacitly acquiesce in the belief I express, to go on to something else said about it.

Names are the names of things. And when I say "Franklin," or "sun," or, what is infinitely more important, "God," I am naming a thing and "expressing my belief" in that thing, and the hearer too, if he acquiesces, whatever else I may affirm about it. But I cannot talk of Franklin if there be no Franklin to talk about; nor about the sun if there be none. All propositions assume then the subject and predicate as things or existences.

Hence it is evident that reasoning, inference, logic, supposes existence, an object; that is, it is always preceded by belief. I cannot reason about nothing, I cannot infer from nothing. I do not say, therefore, logic has nothing to do with belief; but that it is based on belief. To put it in a more palpable way, suppose I say "Drumdrum is white." If you think I am serious, you will say, What is "Drumdrum"? If I answer, There is no such thing, you will at once say, Then you cannot say it "is white": that is a proposition, supposes the subject to be a real thing, that is, believes it. "Is" goes farther when it is a copula -- that is, affirms a quality of the subject. It affirms present existence. If I say "gold is yellow," I speak of it not only as a thing, but as an existing thing. If I say "Fuimus Troes," "fuit Ilion," I speak of a thing, but as no longer existing. That is, belief is necessarily antecedent to all reasoning, first, of the affirmation in the premises; secondly, further, that the thing affirmed about is a thing, the word therefore conveying an objective idea to my mind. But more, the conclusion is never an object of belief, though in practical life it becomes so. It is a conclusion, a necessary consequence if the premises are true, involved really in them, and so a means of belief practically. But all that is affirmed is, not that the conclusion is true, but that it is involved in the premises and no more. What I believe or deny is what is in the premises. I say, "then so and so follows." What I say is "must be" -- "gold is yellow." Then, I believe there is a thing called gold, and that it is yellow. I add, all yellow things are ugly. I believe that of yellow things; but gold is a yellow thing; consequently if these two propositions are believed, gold must be ugly too. But I infer the thing, because I have no direct evidence of the fact, or I should want no inference. I quite admit that practically it induces the belief if gold still exists, but I must believe this to turn the inference to a fact I believe.

I believe by experience or testimony, and by that only; I conclude from the nature of language and thought, which never goes into fact, because it is only the nature of thought, but supposes it, because I cannot have thought without an object thought of, a thing. When my knowledge arises from testimony, reasoning may help me as to the credibility of testimony from experience of the world and men and the like, from which I reason to the credibility; but what I believe is still the experience or the testimony. I believe that there is an innate consciousness of God -- not an idea of God. Such as I have may be true or false as to many things I affirm about Him. I believe that He can make Himself known. This is experience. I believe that He has made Himself known in an external way, that is, by a revelation. But this is not a matter of inference, nor can it be, but of experience or testimony, supposing capacity to receive it. I may reason to banish the folly of false reasoning; but that appeals to facts, as all reasoning must. A conclusion must rest on premises, that is, on facts; but they are known by experience or testimony. And so even scripture speaks. "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself; and he that believeth not hath made God a liar." That is experience and testimony. In conclusion, then, belief precedes logic always. If I say "gold is yellow," I affirm two things -- that is, believe them or present them for belief -- that gold is, and is of a certain colour; but I have drawn no conclusion at all. There is no reasoning as yet whatever, no logic. It is what is stated as believed by experience or testimony. Mill's statement is wholly and essentially wrong, and is the basis of his infidelity. And a very poor one it is, and only shews how very inaccurate and illogical a mind he has.

The extreme looseness and carelessness of the book is surprising. There is a kind of impudence in its character. "Truths are known to us in two ways: some directly and of themselves; some through the medium of other truths. The former are the subject of Intuition, or Consciousness," Introduction, section 4; in the note he tells us others make a difference between the two: Intuition of objects external to our minds; Consciousness of our mental phenomena; but he uses them indiscriminately; and then he admits that something is known antecedent to all reasoning, but, if known, believed; then he gives being vexed yesterday as consciousness, whereas this is memory; by inference only, about what took place when we were absent, the events recorded in history, or the theorems of mathematics. The two former we infer from the testimony adduced; but this is not an inference at all, it is belief of the testimony, right or wrong, without any inference at all; or traces of what has happened. This may be called inference; but to put knowing what has happened by testimony, or theorems of mathematics, on the same ground of inference, is nonsense or impudence, or rather both. It is to get rid of knowledge by testimony, which he states thus: "Whatever we are capable of knowing must belong to the one class or to the other; must be in the number of the primitive data, or of the conclusions which can be drawn from these." Now, I know it is cold at the poles, and that Constantinople is a city in Turkey. But it is not primitive data, nor a conclusion drawn from any such. People have told me so, which is neither one nor the other. This is not honest, that is the fact; and so to state it is impudence. It is convenient for infidelity.

I deny that logic judges anything but the justness of an inference; nor does it determine whether evidence has been found. It settles whether, the premises being given, the conclusion is just, and no more. Whether the premises are true is a question with which it has nothing to do, save as they may be a conclusion from prior reasoning. It only says, granting the premises, such a conclusion necessarily follows; that is all. It may use subsidiary helps, as definitions, divisions, etc.; but inference from is all it judges of -- of truth, never. Hence the scholastic rule, "Contra negantem principia non disputandum est," page 9.

In page 3 Mill says every author has a right to give whatever provisional definition he pleases of his own subject; but if the definition be false, he deceives from one end to the other, as all the reasoning depends on it. Thus in Milner's End of Controversy, the author says, A rule of faith, or means of communicating Christ's religion, and hence proves the Protestant rule of faith unfit to be such. It sounds all fair, the Bible being used to communicate religious knowledge; but a rule and a means of communicating are not the same thing, and his whole book is a fallacy, unanswerable in great part if the definition be let pass. A mother may communicate Christ's religion, but she is no rule of faith. People have no right to deceive and mislead by a fraudulent or false definition, and this Mill does.⁺ Thus when Mill says testimony to a fact happening when we are absent, or a theorem of mathematics, are alike inference, he is deceiving his reader if he has not his eyes open to what he is about. So, when he says -- for thus he uses his false division -- "Whether God, and duty, are realities, the existence of which (page 8) is manifest to us a priori by the constitution of our rational faculty; or whether our ideas of them are acquired notions," etc., not of consciousness or intuition, but of evidence and of reasoning, it does not follow it is rational faculty or acquired notions. It is not necessarily nor really one or the other; nor are our ideas of them the same thing as their being realities; all is grossly loose. Nor is it the same either to say, "not of consciousness or intuition, but of evidence and reasoning." For a priori rational faculty is not intuition or consciousness; and, so far from admitting the greater portion of our knowledge to be matter of inference, I deny that inference gives any true knowledge at all. It may be a help or a short end to get at what is sufficiently near it to act on, but it is never knowledge. I agree with Bain (page 43), that to say such a smell or sound is not white, is nonsense; colour does not apply to either. It is astonishing what an inaccurate mind Mill has.

⁺He also professes to take "cause" as meaning merely an antecedent, without entering into effectual causes, and so to define it; but, when the statement is lost sight of, he takes it as a certain and proved point.

In page 7, "The science, therefore, which expounds the operations of the human understanding," etc. What science is that? We have had none such spoken of. Here he speaks of it to exclude metaphysical inquiries from logic. Be it so, though it be difficult save as a mere examination of the laws of inference, at any rate from its subsidiary parts as definitions. But then logic is a science (page 2). Logic is a science -- "the analysis of the mental process which takes place whenever we reason," "a right understanding of the mental process itself, of the conditions it depends on, and the steps of which it consists." Now, these two statements are contradictory to one another, only so vague, so indeterminate, that though one affirms and the other denies as to logic, a certain part of a general science not elsewhere named, it is impossible to say they do or do not so contradict one another. Still "a right understanding of the mental process itself" is pretty much the same as "expounds the operations of the human understanding," and so far he plainly contradicts himself. Again, the whole book depends on the difference of intuition and logical inference, yet no one could tell from it what intuition is. Nay, it is carefully obscured by the statements in page 5: The object of logic is to know how we come by that portion of our knowledge which is not intuitive (whatever that is). Yet "logic neither observes, nor invents, nor discovers, but judges," page 9. But judging is not coming to any part of knowledge, but ascertaining the accuracy of what is before my mind, eliminating what is not accurate. If logic discovers nothing, it is no way of coming to any knowledge. It is not practically true that it discovers nothing; it does not in fact or directly, but it does to my mind. I would dissuade a man from ascending Mont Blanc. Constant white is bad for the eyes, but snow is constant white: snow is bad for the eyes. This is very simple; the conclusion is, as often argued, involved in the premises, but it is not in my mind before, and in this sense I discover it. It is the means of putting two things together in my mind by means of a middle thing, which were not together there before. Everything is not so simple. Every man is an animal; all animals die; man dies. This is not exact knowledge; it involves man being a mere animal, and the second premise assumes that, and may be false if the first be absolutely true. It affirms that an animal necessarily and universally, in the sense in which it is used in the first premise, is subject to death, for that is what "die" means here; and in the absolute sense I may combat both premises. This makes the statement of two names for one thing, as Hobbes, evidently false. Man may be an animal as to qualities which make anything such; but if all other animals die, he may be exempt from it. It states that man and death are colimitaneous, of which we have no proof; though a matter of general observation, which is in general sufficient for conduct, but it is never truth in itself. This could be met by denying the major, that all animals die. Death is not a quality necessary to constitute anything an animal. If it were nothing else, it assumes that what has happened constantly always must happen, which is not necessarily true. There may be impeding causes. Man may have to act on it in the world in which he does observe, but it is never truth.

As regards "relative" and "relationship" (page 45), Mill's adopted statement is poverty and superficiality itself. It has nothing to do with a series of events. They may be the fundamentum relationis, but cannot be the relation itself. Relative or relation is merely that a thing is before the mind in relation or reference to something else, not simply in itself, in what it is related. Where this is an important and constant reference, there is very commonly a word expressing it, as subject, son, father. And even the verb is so used. I say, relatively to Asia, India is a small tract of land, but relatively to England a very large one, and so on. That dissertation relates to political, not physical, geography. Hence more widely; he related to me his history. (This may be from another etymological sense of the word.) At any rate relative is when, in thinking of anything or speaking of anything, my mind or even the word refers to something besides that of which I think or speak, and states, where it is a relative word, the nature of the reference: what I said related to such an one, that is, referred to him. Hence a relative word is one which expresses this reference, as "son" makes me think of "father," "subject" of "king" or other ruling authority, "citizen" of "state." But the thought as to the two is not the same as Mr. Mill asserts. The fact is not the same, not even in father and son. One is the attribute of paternity, the other of filiality. Begetting is only the way it is formed; father is not a series of events, but present reference to what he is towards a son. Begetting, in man's case at any rate, is the cause of that, but not it, for it is continuous and begetting is not. Begetting is not the relationship at all. It is over before the relationship begins. So in king and subject. Subjection is thought of when I say subject, and in the subject; authority in the king, when I say king. And here by what events he got it has nothing to do with the matter. It may be birth, conquest, election: the relation is in all cases consequent on an event if referring to it. It is a character in one which refers to another, and is a link or tie in thought to them. Mill's account is degrading and false too, for the series of events must be finished before the relationship begins. But it gives him the opportunity of denying all moral character to it; whereas relationship in living beings gives duties and affections according to the nature of the being. There is no relationship of this kind between an apple-tree sprung from a pippin and the tree the pippin came from. I he kind, if according to nature, may be the same. So that if I say apple, I suppose an apple-tree, but there is no subsisting tie or link formed by God. In mere animals this is merely animal as long as the necessities of animal nature require it, but that is all.

Where there is a moral nature, there is a moral relationship according to it. Husband and wife are that. It means a relationship in which the formed tie is to be maintained according to its nature. I quite admit that this is outside logic; but then all duties and right affections, all thoughts and ideas connected with the relationship are outside logic; that is, everything that man is as a moral being. Hence no rationalist has ever found a basis of morality. Conscience, happily, is often better than logic; but one time it is general utility, another following nature, and other things. It is wholly and only living up to the relationships we are placed in. Yet Mill says (page 8) nearly the whole of human conduct is amenable to the authority of logic. Logic has nothing good or bad to do with it. Nor is it, as he says, the science of evidence. Logic has nothing to do with it. There is no science of evidence. There is observation of human nature, and the motives which govern it, which help to ascertain whether evidence is reliable. But he carefully obscures this word, as he does others. I must say, to seek to defeat truth. Evidence or testimony has on the face of it nothing to do with proof by inference (see note, page 5), but he obscures this point too. There testimony is spoken of, and as to this it is said (page 9), logic does not find evidence. Then we have the evidence of consciousness. But is the testimony of another evidence, supposing it proved credible, or thought so? Find it out from Mr. Mill if you can. It would open a door to faith on adequate testimony, without reasoning or inference, and that would be intolerable.

From what I have said of constancy of link or tie, another distinction arises as to relative words and relation. There are many relative words where there is no relation. Thus, robber is a relative word, but you cannot speak of a relationship between them, nor have you a word for him who is thought of in the relative word. I say lessor, that is a subsisting relation, and I have lessee. I rather think, at any rate it is so in many cases; the relative word, where there is only one, exists where the character abides in that one, specially in the active and passive, -er, -or, and -ee. At any rate, where the relative character subsists, there is a relation in common language. Where not, there may be a relative word. Where the relative word expresses a relation, it is never an event or series of events. The assertion is merely an effort to put a pig and a man on the same level, and deny subsisting relationship and duty. (See page 8, sec. 4.? All active words are relative, but there is generally no relationship.

As regards page 49, the only thing logical proof does is to shew that the conclusion, which I have not yet admitted, is contained in the premises, which I have, though of course in reasoning I may deny them. All that is believed is what is stated in the premises, upon whatever ground it may be, consciousness, sight, experience, or previous proof even. The statement implies and means to say that formal proof, as afforded by logic, is that which produces belief, or makes it tantamount.⁺ I believe what I am conscious of, have by intuition, which he admits is no part of logic. I would add experience of what goes on outside us, and, I add, testimony to facts which are not properly propositions, though as to some of course they may be so stated, but are believed, not by logical proof. So that, if a proposition or assertion be made of it, there is no logical proof, it is believed by sight or testimony.

All he says as to this is radically false. Nor can existence as a fact be said to be two things, one predicated about another, like qualities. When I say "the sun exists," as we have seen, unless the thought "now" be introduced, it is not affirming a second thing about a first, but that the first "is," which is involved in saying the sun. For if no sun's existence is before the mind, I cannot say "the sun" as we have seen. Introducing the idea of time "was" or "now is" is another thing affirmed about it, when I recognise it as a thing, that is, mentally its existence. Even if I say "the sun was," I say nothing about it; there is no attribute attached to it.

If I say such a man is a good man, it is a proposition, but the facts of his life shew it. My testimony may be believed. I may make a conclusion of it, as he who does so-and-so is a good man, but he does so-and-so; he is a good man, then. That he does so-and-so is believed; there is no logical inference, if I say he does so-and-so as the proof: it is merely defining goodness if I put it in a proposition to infer from it. That is what I mean by goodness; the acts experienced prove the heart of the man, not logic. If I say, he who does so-and-so is a good man; A does so-and-so; he is a good man; I turn it into a logical form; but what I know and believe is that A does so-and-so, from experience or testimony, and that is the proof of his goodness; the first premise is merely what I mean by goodness, or at least the testimony of what I mean by goodness experimentally to my mind. His doing so-and-so, not logic, proves goodness; the facts do, if what I mean by goodness is proved by them; but a definition is not an inference. When I say good, I mean something without any inference at all; the facts that shew it are no inference, but I believe the goodness because of them. But all this is a vital principle. The statement is tacit infidelity, as all that went before is. Belief is not by logical proof, never even. The things believed are in the premises, as I have said; and besides, consciousness and intuition, and, I add, testimony, are grounds of belief. The two first, he admits, are no part of logic; the latter he shirks.

⁺But this is wholly false, and at any rate applies only to discourse (Logos). I see a man; I believe it without any proposition. If I say such a one is there or here, there or here is asserted about him; but when I see him I know or believe it without any logical inference at all. Existence, we have seen, asserts nothing save in mentally adding "now."

Mill's inaccuracy of mind certainly unfits him to write on logic. In his Categories, page 55, feeling is a state of consciousness. This is false really, and according to the next sentence. There it is said, "Everything is a feeling of which the mind is conscious "; but then I am conscious of the feeling, and the two things are distinct, which they are. Feeling is an effect produced in me by some external cause. I am conscious of this. In consciousness there is a reflex activity of "I" as to what I feel. I take cognisance of it. When I say "I am," I introduce an activity of "I" about something. "The mind is conscious," that is, the mind (or "I" mentally) is in operation about something; that something produces the feeling.

Let it be colour supposed in the object, or the effect of it my mind if I am so to take it, is an object of which I take notice. But if it be "of which," it is not the state of consciousness I am in about it. If the language of philosophy is no more accurate than this, it had better not set about to teach. The division, too, lower down, is false; for thought is as large as feeling if it embraces everything we are conscious of; only here he has proved what I have said above. We think and so have the consciousness, and the red colour is something we think of. The whole statement is the utmost confusion and inaccuracy of statement.

I doubt too the accuracy of distinguishing imaginary objects from the thoughts of them; because they exist only in the mind, and what exists there, and only there, is a thought. I may so connect it with other things as to give it a thought reality, as with yesterday and eating the loaf, or the plant and the bud; but the thing itself is only a thought. There is no object in the mind save the thought itself. Existence may be added to the thought by circumstances, but the thought is all there is. His distinction of sound and colour (page 56) as being, or not, a name of the sensation, is all groundless. I think of the sound in a trumpet as well as in my ear, and the colour in the object as well as in my eye. There is no name of sensation distinct from what produces it. It is merely the nature of sight connecting it more sensibly with the object. A trumpet and sound are two things, because the sound is produced, not in the trumpet. Whereas in a white box I conceive the white as always in it, not being produced in it as sound.

What is in page 57 is the same confusion we have spoken of, confounding consciousness with the feeling we are conscious of. If I am hurt in my body and feel it, say pain in my hand, my mind is not pained. That is quite a different thing. My mind is conscious of the pain, but that is not the pain itself. How it comes by nerves is another question. But I may be conscious of a mental sensation or a bodily one, and these are not the same. As to the perception of an external object, no doubt what I am conscious of is the sensation produced in me. But I judge it comes from a given body; for where the action of that is intercepted, the sensation is not there. But this is judgment. But we have certainty of the relative existence of material objects, because they make the action of my will impossible. I cannot walk through a wall. It is not feeling or touch, but my purpose in hindered. But this is only relative, as some other being may be able -- I believe, can.

Page 59 is all inaccurate. Some do and some do not. Sovereign and subject do not. "Physician" does not, it is hardly a relative term. Some are a single act, as mortgagor and mortgagee, and with others suppose a title, as sovereign, and no acts. All is utterly inaccurate, but mortgagor and mortgagee connote nothing about a court of justice. The want of accuracy of his mind is puerile. Indeed, superficiality marks the book.

As to substances, I admit that what the mind takes notice of passes in it. Yet, as I have said, material resistance of matter, where my will works, proves the existence relatively to me of matter. It is not a sensation; it is a fact. Thus, when Mill on relation speaks of the judge's dealing with a debtor as only a sensation, supposing he had the debtor put in prison, it is not merely a sensation. Prison means being shut up, so that, sensation or no sensation, you cannot get out. You are a prisoner. Your body is shut in. But further, if white be only a sensation, it may exist without saying "of." I can think of whiteness without an object, and have the sensation, though more dimly perhaps; in a dream quite as vividly, which, however complex, is only sensation. Next, if I say "it produces," I affirm a quality; let it be intuition, or habits of thought and language formed experimentally. When I say snow is white, I have as much the thought of snow as of whiteness. It is defined unexceptionably, he tells us; the external cause to which we ascribe our sensations. Well then (be it that I am so constituted, as the way of explaining it, to which I do not at all except), I have the thought in my mind of an external cause, as well as of that which is the particular sensation or attribute. The sensation in my mind gives me the thought of an external cause, as well as of whiteness or any other attribute. I can say "red snow "; but, red or white, my thought of snow is distinct therefore from my thought of red or white. And I have this thought. So if I say snow is white and paper is white; objects are in my mind, call them bodies, external cause, or what you like, as well as whiteness. When I say external cause, I speak of something, but of what is other than the effect it produces. Cause and effect are not the same.

Nor is it the same thing really to say opium puts me to sleep, and to say it has soporific virtues. One affirms the fact as true; the other positively asserts, rightly or wrongly, a quality existing in opium as a universal fact about opium. Nor is it true that a man having no child, I do not call him father merely; he is not a father. This is false, and the whole comment on it is beating about the bush. I do not talk scholastically of substance and attributes. It is a mere ideal abstraction. But an external cause of a sensation and a sensation are not the same thing. And I judge rightly that, if an object always produces a sensation, and in its absence it is not produced, but by an effort of mind having been received, there is what men call an external cause. I may know that it is a mere effect of the reflection of light from a given body, but there is an external cause, be that cause scientifically what it may. I knock my shin against a stone, I have the sensation of pain; pain is not a stone. You will tell me it comes from muscles. Well, pain is not muscles, but a sensation through an effect produced by the stone on the muscles conveyed by the nerves. But whatever the cause, it is not the sensation caused. Further, I doubt the justness of the statement -- "to the senses nothing is apparent but the sensations." This is not correct. They produce the sensation, or rather it is produced in them, and the mind takes cognisance of it. The external cause acts on the senses, and, by these, causes, produces the sensation, which, I readily admit, the consciousness of my mind notices (page 63). If I know only my sensations, I cannot conceive an object but by them, nor, consequently, their non-existence. I may conceive the others without one of them supplanted by a different one; but I cannot conceive no conception. Hence the whole argument has no ground at all, and for sensation there could be no residuum when the absence of the sensations is supposed. It proves nothing but that there is no sensation when there is none. I have already noticed sensations apparent to senses as a fallacy.

The proof of the existence of matter is elsewhere, and untouched, excluding other matter, and obstructing my will; that is, it exists relatively to me. If there is an external cause, no matter what you call it. But here also is a mistake. The materiality is not the cause of the sensations. There are external causes commonly called qualities or attributes. Of these I can only say there is a cause of something which produces the sensation. The substratum is not, as such, the cause of them, unless it be touch, which in one aspect is the perception of matter. Nature of the thing (page 65) is too vague to have any value in reasoning. "Nature of" generally means qualities. The existence of matter for me is known; its nature is to hinder progress of other matter, as my body. Beyond this "nature" conveys no idea at all.

I can only know what affects "I." So that the word has no meaning; I can only know it by "I," that is, by my power of knowledge. "I" is necessarily the limit of "I's" knowledge by the power of "I." Only I may be acted on by a power above or beyond "I." But Cousin is wrong; for if there was no "sujet sentant, on ne peut pas dire qu'ils agiraient encore." There would be nothing affected, and I can suppose them physically inert. To conceive them existing, moreover, there is a conceiving power, and, if by acting I mean in a being conscious of it, it involves the consciousness also, and it must be mine, or I know nothing about it. I cannot think of a consciousness I have not got; if I realise it, I have it. Hence all Cousin's argument falls through. I cannot say "agiraient autrement," for I cannot conceive "autrement" than I conceive. All this really means the powers I have cannot go beyond themselves, which is the meaning of the word "power"; but that I am made so as to be acted on, and in this I go no farther than I am acted on. I am conscious of it. That is not the being acted on, feeling, but my perceptions of it. Of course that ends in itself, save that, when acted on, something acts on me, for it is not constant. Of this I am conscious, but only in that in which it acts on me. I am in a relative state, and it exists in that in which it acts on me, relatively to me. The result is really this: I am in relationship with a scene around me, and outwardly part of it, formed to act on certain sensibilities I have, with a mind which takes notice of the sensation produced -- is conscious of it by taking notice of it. But this does not go farther than the attributes or qualities which then by long habit and constitution we attribute to the object which so acts.

This is not a logical conclusion, nor merely long experience. A child tries to take hold of an object which it sees; it may measure wrong, but seeks the object; so even does a dog when attracted to it. Matter is not perceived abstractedly, but something known sensitively by its attributes or qualities. But matter is proved by its resistance to other matter and my will; for I, having a material body, as well as senses and mind, am in relation to matter as disabling my will from doing what it seeks. Matter is obstructive. But all this is only my relationship with a world, of which, in this respect, I form a part. But then, note, this only recognises a material sensible world, subject to me in thought, if not in fact. I discover it and its qualities, and its materiality, but no more. It is pure materialism in the limits of thought. If I go no farther, all action me other than on my senses, or material obstruction to my will, is ignored or denied. There can in the nature of things be no morality, no influence even of a stronger mind on mine.

As to the knowledge of God, or any idea of Him (though idea is an incorrect word), it is impossible, because He is not the object of sense or physical obstruction of will. But this is false upon the face of it, because men have an idea of God, not an object of senses or material. I do not go so far as to say this is a proof that He exists, though this may be strongly urged, and has been, for I think the true knowledge of God is mainly at any rate from another source or inlet; but I say that it proves all this and other metaphysics wrong, because men have, not exactly an idea, for it is not from sense or physically obstructed will, but an apprehension of God for which this system gives no place. I do not say how they got it, but they have it, and that these systems fail to account for moral qualities, goodness, love to a parent, authority, right and wrong, which are in our minds, but do not enter into this account of names or things at all.

Mill is so very inaccurate and careless, correcting others only by inaccuracy of mind, that save for this he is hardly worth reading. He says thus (page 88), we affirm that something is not, which is absurd on the face of it, for if I can say something, I cannot say it is not. I can take a supposed being; there is a griffin, or a dodo; and deny the proposition. There is not, etc. A particular quality may be denied of something. We say it familiarly.

The true word is, there is not anything, or no such thing. If it be merely a predicated quality, then It is a positive affirmation about the subject. "Maoris are not black." This affirms something about Maoris. What? not black. But the secret of this is, he has settled that a copula "is" is another word than "is" exists. But though modified by the predicated quality, it is still the identically same "is." It means not that the subject is simply (that is, exists), but that the quality exists, or does not exist in that subject. But it is always affirmation, or supposition, of existence of something. Where "not" is placed, I am quite indifferent.

Again he says we know mortality by one death as by number. This is an utter blunder. I know death as well, but not mortality, which means that men are liable to death. For men mortality is an inference to universality from multiplied experience; where one man's death does not prove that at all.

I have already said his division of feeling is wholly false, for either thought is a mere sensation (and he confounds consciousness, and what we are conscious of), or it is an active exercise of mind, and not a feeling. Volition is not a feeling, unless I confound consciousness, and what I am conscious of. Matter gives us no sensations (unless the pain of a blow be so called, save obstructing the will, of which he does not speak); attributes or qualities do. So that the unknown body is not the cause of our sensations; for, were it so, it would be known by them. I know white and black. The substratum is assumed to exist as sustaining these so-called inherent qualities, but it produces no sensations.

As to mind, I am conscious of knowing, not merely receiving a sensation, but of activity about them. So far I know it. Saying "unknown recipient" (page 68) means nothing, or supposes it to be an object sensible so as to form an idea, really assuming objective materialism in it (which denies its nature, which is thinking). To say recipient is equally false, as leaving out the principal distinctive part of it. Mind is known in its own consciousness. It knows itself not objectively, but consciously; and recipiency is not its principal character. I am so constituted as to receive impressions of objects, but this is not properly mind, which begins when I begin to judge of the impression, or go on farther. Mind (and other capacities) may be acted on by higher mind, but this is another point.

I add, in page 68 there is the usual looseness. Myself cannot be my mind, because my mind supposes myself distinct from mind, and mind to be something I possess.

As to attributes (page 69) there are no other states of consciousness, which is the knowledge of attributes, but sensations. They may produce pleasure, but that is not knowledge of an attribute. Relation I have already spoken of. He is all wrong. "Father" has nothing to do with any fact or phenomenon. You can only say we are so constituted as to have a sense of the relationship. Of my being generated I know nothing, and I am a child only after all that is over. I did not exist till it was. It was a relationship with one by whom I was begotten.

As to present facts, the accomplishment of them all would not make a man a father, nor produce the sense of the relationship. Filiality, as in the mind, is a part of our nature, and even of animal nature, as far as it goes. We are so made. In a large class of relations the acting of a cause produces a relationship, but it is not the relationship itself. This is a state in which one is toward another, not what caused that state. Those not such are quantity.

I have spoken of propositions. A word on their nature (page 94). I do not admit that "man is mortal" is the same thing as "every man is mortal." The last is a fact as to every individual, the former an assertion as to his nature, which is quite a different proposition. So as to wine or food, it has nothing to do with quantity; it affirms something of the nature or quality. Food is necessary, or metal is requisite, is a thing characterised by that word. It is food, it is metal -- that thing.

Assent is merely that I make the proposition mine, and affirm it. "Mahomet is the apostle of God." My assent is merely that my mind too says so. If I say "No, he is not," I reject it, I disaffirm it. If I do not know, it is left as no proposition in my mind about it. The looseness of Mill is inconceivable. In page 93 "general name" is used without a word of what that means. In page 97 we have "these theories" without any distinct theories having been mentioned. Again, "a golden mountain" is no proposition at all. I do not see any difficulty in seeing what the mind does in believing. I affirm the proposition. I say "gold is yellow." Propositions are not assertions about two things, and this contradicts his whole previous system that attributes are never anything but our conceptions; substance or body, an external thing that causes them. When I say gold is yellow, I affirm that gold is the external cause of the sensation of yellow in my mind. When I say Mahomet is or is not the apostle of God, I affirm or deny what 'apostle of God' represents in my mind of the person Mahomet. The predicate is always a conception of the mind, not a thing; the subject is a real or supposed object. If I say a centaur is a fiction of the poets, fiction of the poets is what I conceive as characteristic of it; but centaur is a real thing; not an animal, but I speak of a real thing, a description in the poets. And of that which does exist in that description, I affirm that it is a fiction; what I think of is not an animal, but a description, which I affirm to be a fiction. Further, my belief has not reference to things as he states. The impression made by that outward thing upon the human organs has not, save as a simple sensation in the mind, anything to do with the matter. He denies his previous teaching. And if a sensation, it is his conception of gold.

The whole of this (page 97) denies what is previously taught. He does not believe a fact in saying yellow, but a conception in his mind; for nothing else, he has told us, is meant by yellow. Besides, what does he believe? -- a fact relative to the outward thing gold, or to the impression made by it? Two distinct things, the former of which he has stoutly denied before. (See pages 67, 69, and 70.) We assert simply that we have a particular sensation (page 98). Digging is not a proposition; so that is all nonsense. When I say "fire causes heat," I do say that the thing called fire causes a sensation in me. Yet I admit that logic is not concerned in belief, but in shewing that the conclusion is contained in what is believed already, namely, the two premises. But then he is wrong altogether. I inquire neither into what believing is nor into the thing believed, but into the conclusions being rightly contained in the premises. If I take the simple proposition, the only question is, Do I affirm it in my mind? Does my mind say "gold is yellow"? Of this evidence alone is the ground, and this has nothing to do with logic. The question is, Does or does not gold produce in men's minds the sensation called yellow? That is a question of fact, the effect of something in the mind; and I cannot begin arguing till that is settled. This may be a conclusion drawn to start afresh with as true; but it always starts from what is believed on evidence, and when it is a fact that is believed, logic has nothing to do with it -- cannot in its nature. He confounds assent or belief with the evidence of truth.

Hobbes is wrong, because the quality is not the name of the thing which has it. Man, if six feet high, is not called by the name six feet high; one is not capable of being called by the other. Logically, it would make the predicate of an affirmative proposition universal, which it is not. White is not connotative. It attributes the quality whiteness to any given object, and connotes nothing. If I think of white without an object, I can only think of whiteness, and white is the form of word which attributes this to any object. (See page 104, sec 3.) Snow is white. I think only of snow, and the sensation it gives me. Hobbes's mistake is in calling wise a name of Socrates, as if they embraced the same extent. It is a quality of Socrates, but may be affirmed of a thousand other things, or else we could say, wise is Socrates (page 102). But the explanation of connotation is extremely confused (page 31).

So, in page 102, it is not the attributes connoted by man which are mortal at all; they are not necessarily accompanied by the attribute mortal. It is the man in whom they are who is mortal. Man may have all the attributes of a man, except mortality, or many of the same attributes be found in one who is not a man. Hence, he speaks of objects possessing the attributes, which falsifies all his statements. When man suggests or connotes a number of attributes which make up the idea, mortality is another attribute I add to these, but not another name for the united attributes which go to make up the name man. It is not a name of man, but of one of his attributes. The predicate is one attribute of the subject, but, if it have become the name of a class, the class is formed of all that have attribute. "Plato is a philosopher" only says, Plato has the quality so predicated of him; but if men have agreed to make a class of all possessing that quality, the word puts him in that class. If I say a potato is a solanum, deadly night-shade is a solanum. It merely in each case attributes a quality or qualities; but men have agreed, rightly or wrongly, to classify a set of plants by having that quality or qualities. It is not the name which makes them a class, but the common possession of the quality expressed by the name. If I call a monopetalous flower, possessing certain other phenomena of form, a solanum, whatever has these forms is a solanum; the name only states it has. If I say a dog barks, does not mew, barking is not a class, because barking, as a fact, does not make a class, because the thing does not characterise sufficiently other individuals to bring them together in my mind. See further on this point more clearly and fully discussed. I affirm (page 105) that the object did already belong to the class, though I did not know of it. A single sensible attribute does not make a class, and some classes are in nature, indeed, all really; but many may be formed for scientific convenience which are not obvious classes, as pig, ox, horse are, metal even. If the diamond is combustible, it always was combustible; all the difference was the ignorance of men. Combustible means what can be burnt; and that was always true of diamond, though man, through his ignorance, could not say so.

The more I read on these points, the clearer it is to me that we are created in a system of which, corporeally and in our natural faculties, we form a part; consequently all our competency of perception and conception is within the limits and necessarily so, of the system of which we form part. We may be mentally a more reflective, and so superior, part. I do not speak here of what connects us with the Divinity, but of our natural faculties. We may have superior powers of reflection as to what we perceive, but our perceptions are all of it and necessarily according to it, for we are part of it. And if I can say, as a matter of proof, that what is material exists, I can for that reason, as already said, only know it relatively. My reflective powers create a difficulty, because I know it is an image on the retina I perceive, not the object directly. The dog sees by an object on his retina, and has no difficulty, but seizes a man or a piece of beef, and he is right; and if nothing hinders, he succeeds, and defends his master from a robber, or satisfies his hunger. So does man; but he is not quite sure it is a man or a piece of beef he sees, rather sure it is not, because he is wise. But the whole truth is, that all is relatively true, most of the accounting for it is nonsense; but we belong to a system, and can only think in it. For after all I do not see an image on the retina any more than the object which produces it. It is only an object, and the conception formed in my mind is only that I am created (or, if that offends, constituted) so to perceive; and objects in the same creation or world around me are constituted to produce the impression with which mind occupies itself, no more to be accounted for than the impression produced.

We are so constituted (that is the whole matter), and confined to the constituted system we belong to, only perhaps to rule it. Hence language cannot get out of it, for we think and so speak according to this constitution. And these wiseacres cannot get out of it. Substance is something that causes a sensation. Is it then something or not? You only know the sensation, a point further as to your reflective powers of analysis and reasoning. But you must say "something." Try and do without it. Just so of attributes, only another kind of something. You have got sensations; you are so constituted. Something produces it. The system you are in is so constituted. But you have a will as well as sensations. And with the best will in the world a man in a secure dungeon cannot get out. He has, no doubt, the sensation of the door and walls. But he has more -- a will wholly arrested, because as to his body he is of the same system as the wall, and, thief or philosopher, he cannot get out. The dog is in the same plight; as to this he is part of the same system. Only the philosopher, seeing we know only sensations, tells me I have no knowledge that a wall is there, or conceals his ignorance on the same ground by saying substance is "something" which produces a sensation.

But I will follow yet some details.

All seems to me confusion and inaccuracy in page 98. Heat, we have been told, is only known as a sensation in me. Now it is not my idea of heat, but heat itself. If heat is in the fire, the fire does not cause it; if in other objects, the whole sentence is obscure.

But, to turn to the import of propositions in page 112, I deny that in a noumenon they affirm causation. If I say Socrates, I think of a person existing, but not of his causing anything. If I say John Brown lives in Brentford, I am not thinking of a cause of anything. The definition is false. If I say a stone, as believing the existence of matter as a noumenon, I do not think of its causing anything. If I go on and add its attributes -- hardness, compactness, weight, form, whatever else -- these are phenomena known by sensation, not as noumena at all. Sameness is not resemblance. Resemblance supposes a difference in something, but certain phenomena in the objects alike. Two perfectly white things have the same colour, they resemble each other in that, but that supposes other phenomena in which they do not. There may be perfect likeness, if the object itself be known to be different, as a portrait, or two brothers. But in some way the objects are known to be different.

Next, all is confusion as to what he says of a class. A class is where many objects, different in a number of qualities, have some characteristic ones the same, and in this sense essential ones, so that a common name is given to them. To call snow, as he does, a class, is just nonsense. It is one thing, though a general name for repeated cases of that one thing existing. But when I say man is mortal, I do not speak of a class at all, though the word may imply it if such a class be known. I affirm of man the quality which makes him a member of the class designated by it, if such a class be known. Some predicates are merely a quality, as mortal; others are a class already formed, as animal. But there is another thing to be noted here. Very often, in predicating a quality which may form a class, I predicate only as regards the subject partially, if the subject be a compound idea. I speak only according to the phenomena.

Thus, "man is a corporeal being" does not mean wholly so for one who believes he has a soul distinct from his body. Corporeal means he has a body, which is true, but not that the body is the whole of man, or a different name for the same thing. It only affirms that man has that quality. So man is mortal, that is, he naturally dies. Only that quality is affirmed of him. What else there may be of him, or may not be, nothing is said about. The class is merely by having a body, or dying as a being here; and, so far as regards that quality, he belongs to the class distinguished by it, but no more. If I say man is a corporeal being, but man is one person, composed of body and soul, but all corporeal beings are divisible, therefore souls are divisible as well as bodies, it is sophistry; and here logical forms are justly used to detect it, because corporeal applies simply to the fact of having a body. Here the sophistry is evident; it identifies soul and body, which I have therefore expressly added, which possession of a body, though it classifies man, does not. It is not using the class, but affirming the quality of man, which, if there be such a class, puts him in it, as to the point expressed in the quality.

Now snow is not a class, because it is not a quality predicable of different objects which can be so qualified; snow is an object, and is snow. But then, though Mill has partly stated what I have insisted on above, by want of distinguishing, in fact, he has misapprehended the matter. White is a primary sensation, and indeed hardly makes a class; but the great mass of class words are not so, they are experimentally formed, and the quality experimental, not sensational, or at least scientific discovery of like qualities known by sensation so as to form classes. Hence, though the proposition only affirms the possession of a quality, the quality is as used a general one formed by experiment. Thus, diamond is combustible; combustible means simply can be burned by heat, a word invented on discoveries of what could be consumed by heat. When I say snow is white, white is a simple sensation, though it can in certain cases classify where sensations of colours are in question; but combustible, though a mere quality, is not a primarily sensible one, but a class word. That a diamond is so was not yet discovered, but combustibility was, and by discovery a diamond to be such. So mortal is properly still more a class. When applied to a class, man or all men, it is only a conclusion drawn from all we know dying, affirming that men are naturally all subjected to it, as animals also are. They cease to be in this state of existence; and what is quasi-universal is felt to be necessary. It is strictly a class experimentally formed.

A man might die, and I could not say man is mortal. It might be only criminals, or only good people, or only man in some circumstances died, till I found the contrary. Thus some classes are formed, and the only inquiry is, if the individual belongs to it. It can hardly be strictly said so of mere sensible qualities; but belonging to a class even in this case is very often the only important point where the sensible quality connotes some other which constitutes the major. Snow is white, but white dazzles the eye -- snow dazzles the eye. But I cannot say, as he alleges, gold is a metal, if there are no others, unless certain various qualities combined are agreed to be called metal; but words are not so formed but by the experiment of several having certain qualities, coherence, weight, ductility, etc. It may so happen, as "Christians are men," and men from singular qualities being alone; but then it is not a class, but observed unity in these qualities. It is a word representing a definition only.

But when I say such a thing is white (page 116), it is not resemblance. When the name was first given, however this was, it meant that sensation; and when I say a thing is white, I merely say it produces that sensation; it connotes nothing nor any resemblance. My mind may go on to this (page 117). I doubt the possibility of the co-existence of two states of consciousness. As I always find in a thing attributes which cause certain sensations, and pass instantaneously from one to another, I conclude their simultaneous co-inherence. It is not, therefore, simultaneity in time, but a conclusion to coexistence in what produces the different sensations; hence that they are all constantly there.

In page 119, "thoughtlessness is dangerous," is not the same as thoughtless actions; one is a state of mind or character, the other the effect of these. The latter may be actually fatal. Thoughtlessness is dangerous because it tends to these; when the act is there, it is over, and the danger passed in ruin, mischief, or escape. Nor are any of his propositions in this page the same. "Prudence is a virtue," states what prudence is. Prudent persons, etc., affirms something of persons, and may be taken as a conclusion drawn from the other. The attachment of the virtue to a person is different from something being a virtue; and this indeed he goes on to shew. Nor can I say in so far as they are prudent, for, as he says, prudence in a wicked man is no benefit to society at all. But then all his reasoning about it and equivalents is confusion. Prudent persons or acts are no way the same thing as prudence. Prudence is a good thing always in itself; when you pass into persons or acts, the whole matter is changed. A prudent act or person may be pure mischief, and more mischief by being prudent, because acts or persons introduce other things besides prudence into the thought, and what is good per se may lose its goodness when connected with something else mixed with it or using it. I use it now merely to shew that such are not equivalent propositions. Even whiteness as a colour is not the same as the sensation of white; for whiteness is the supposed producer of the sensation, and not the sensation itself. If I say whiteness is not to be attained or produced, it is not the same as to say the sensation of white is not.

I return to page 104. What he says here is all wrong, because when I say snow is white, I assume the known class white already gathered up from various objects. The conception of white does not follow the judgments, but, white being known, I know by the conception various objects are so. Now white is a class for me, and so I use it in the proposition, because white connotes other things which I want to affirm of snow, which forms my minor. Thus, snow is white, but white dazzles the eye -- snow dazzles the eye. Classes are made by attributing certain qualities to various objects common to them all, and not to other objects, as I say metal. And the objects with the line drawn round them by this word "metal" belong to the class, and, materially speaking, form it. I cannot say, till I have made a class by the conceptions contained in it, gold is metal. I say gold is heavy, malleable, ductile, etc.: when I say so is platinum, silver, etc., I then have a name including these or other qualities, and call those having them "metals" as a class.

It may be one attribute, as white, but one attribute hardly forms a class from its being only a single conception, and it is simply a repetition of the same conception, not a class of objects which has received a distinct common name so as to form them into a class, as metal. If I say white is pleasant, it is really whiteness, and not a class, but a single conception. If I say white flowers are beautiful, I classify them, because I have a selection of objects combined into one set by themselves, and so a class. For a class is a class of some things distinguished from others which might by certain common qualities be confounded with them, but are distinguished by others peculiar to a certain number of them. He is wrong in saying (page 115) it does not retain the same meaning. It does, but another individual is brought into the class because it has the qualities which form the meaning of that class word. It did belong to that class, but we did not know it. This is unintelligent: and the framers of language did and do what he says is so absurd, as when they said metal. If other metals have been discovered, that is, things having the qualities embraced in the name, that alters nothing. We may, of course, from fuller knowledge of qualities, change or improve classification. Common distinguishing qualities make a class. A mere single conception of sense, to say the least, is a bad class word; because it does not combine by adequate resemblance in what is peculiar what distinguishes things from others generally like them so as to be confounded. Connected with other analogous things it may; nor can it be said it cannot form a class. Classification is "an arrangement and grouping of definite and known individuals."

Pages 108-9 are also false, because when I say all men are mortal, it is true that I speak of men as known by the attributes expressed by the word. But this is only the phenomenon presented to sense or matter of evidence. Hence I can only say that the connotation is of men as phenomenal here. Hence, really the subject of the proposition is taken strictly in its extension, not in all it does or may connote -- all men who are the subject of my observation of men in general down here; and hence it is absolutely necessary to bring in extension strictly, for so only it is true. It is thought of only through the "intension" or attributes; but this only includes ordinary phenomenal man, and can only apply to those whom I know or see; that is, the proposition is TRUE ONLY as taken in extension. Add here, the proposition is only a conclusion from a particular to a universal, for the only phenomenon I have is death, not mortality. The extent of the class, therefore, is "apprehended and indicated directly "; for if I say man from phenomena or attributes, I take in only what is phenomenal. All the cases of ordinary phenomenal man we have seen have died; therefore phenomenal man is subject to death; the phenomenon has accompanied the other phenomena, but this strictly brings in extension. Phenomenal men are all that we speak of, and speak of all of them as such.

As to his minuter analysis (page 119) of "prudence is a virtue," all is as usual vague and unsatisfactory. It gives definitions of virtue which are no equivalents at all; a virtue is not equivalent to a mental quality, etc. Just now prudence was equivalent to prudent persons or actions; they are not a mental quality. Nor is virtue a mental quality. Virtue gives a whole class and order and principle of conduct in spite of difficulties, and when he says a mental quality because prudence is one, he confounds the subject and predicate, because the definition must give the whole of what is defined; and if I say a mental quality, virtue is only one mental quality and if prudence is that, there is no other. His statement is that a mental quality is equivalent to or a definition of virtue -- can take its place. But, further, it is not a cause of God's approval but the object of it, whatever causes Him so to approve it; nor, though it is not so thoroughly false, is a quality beneficial. Still beneficial refers to what the beneficial thing causes; approval is a state of mind in another caused by the motives which govern it. What he states of the ground or foundation of the prudence is the prudence itself. If these things are in a man, I say he is prudent, because they are prudence. But if no conduct follows, nothing is beneficial. What he calls facts or phenomena which are the ground of the attribute are no facts or phenomena, save as prudence itself is one. The whole statement is in the highest degree unsatisfactory. When I say "prudence is a virtue," I give a character to prudence, without any facts, phenomena, sequence, coexistence, causation, or resemblance whatever. He admits it does not involve any conduct; consequently there is nothing caused by it. When I say beneficial, I suppose some activity towards others, or deliberate abstinence from it in which others are concerned. Whereas prudence is merely an abstract quality, and I declare it a good one without any facts or phenomena.

But there is a use of logic flowing from classification which I must notice.⁺ A main distinctive feature is taken to form an under-class or species, that is, the under-class is made by it of a wider class (or genus), and by this feature the class is denoted, as rational animal; and the subject comes under it, the predicate expressing the species and genus containing it, the class word forming the species expressing only a given important attribute of the class. But it is important to designate another attribute as belonging to the subject, one unknown to or unnoticed by the person reasoned with. That this other attribute exists in the predicate is affirmed in the minor, and so is affirmed of the subject. Thus, all men are mortal, that is, subject to death, but all mortal beings are so by living by blood (or by blood being their life): therefore all men live by blood. Now mortal, though forming a class, only speaks of liability to death; that is the meaning of the word and no more, and I say no more. I affirm a second truth in the minor -- namely, how or why beings die or are subject to death, in no way comprised in the word mortal, but giving a reason for all mortality. The syllogism merely gives a secure method of affirming the facts so that the conclusion follows. The word mortal means something and only that, liability to death; but if man be in this class, mortal, and I shew that something else does belong always to this class, though not in thought contained in the word it is named by, I have added something to the knowledge contained in the major.⁺⁺

⁺Locke takes all the properties. Of this farther on. It is important to note that some predicates express only an attribute, as mortal, though a class may be made out of them; others are a class, as animal.

⁺⁺ All this on classification in Mill is wrong.

In verbal or essential propositions classes are of different kinds, some natural and obvious, some from experimental observation, some more arbitrary. A man is a real thing or being. It is not merely that a class of two-legged mammals without reason is not reputed a man. I care not about the word; but here the word does not make the class, but the class the word: call it homo, or anthropos, or mensch, is all alike. Universal intelligence has distinguished that kind of being; the class existed, or the nature which constitutes it, before it got a name. I believe (and important principles are contained in that) God gave it as Adam did to the animals; but whether this were so or not, the thing was there before it got a name. It was not a horse nor an ox, nor a biped mammal with no more reason than these. A man was there to be called and have a name, and a distinguishing name, as horses, oxen, etc., were, and the difference known. In other cases the class was the result of experience, as weight, ductility, and other distinguishing qualities existed, and men made a class for convenience; but the qualities on which the class was founded were not words, but things. I am not now reasoning how or when the knowledge was acquired, whether by sensations produced or not. I accept that in general; but language is formed in the relative sphere of existence in which we are and in which we know, and the language is formed according to the system and accepts the things as real; and if men are to speak, for whom the sphere around them exists relatively, the language which expresses their thoughts must express the existence of things, which, relatively to them and their thoughts, do so exist. They may grow in this knowledge -- form, where experiment has been their ground, more satisfactory classes; but, though in different ways, the difference which makes a class is not verbal but real, and the word is only the expression of it.

Hence saying a biped mammal without reason is not a man means merely not reputed a man, is false. He is not reputed 8 man because he is not one. Such a thing may exist, but it is not that thing to which the name has been given, and which is in fact a totally different thing from what the irrational biped is. You may call the irrational biped mammal man if you like, and the rational one fear or crut, if you like to be foolish, but the two things are as distinct as they were before. The fear is a fear, and the man is man. Mill's statement is childish trifling. Nor is it the whole of the attributes, which assumes all classes to have no existence but in words, as the nominalists, confounding different kinds of classes. If a man was born with one leg, or six fingers, he is a man still, though some of the regular physical attributes are wanting or excess. You will say this is only accidental difference. That is, you fall into the distinction of essential and accidental. Besides, attributes as a whole differ. There are black or Negro races, Turanian and Caucasian races. Supposing for a moment I say all descendants of Adam are Caucasian. But he Negro is not a Caucasian; therefore he is not a descendant of Adam. Suppose the Negro has the general physical constitution of man, the power of progress, the faculties, language, the consciousness of responsibility, conscience, reference to the idea of God, abiding relative affections of wife and children, has to say to God and men, as subject and fellows, an immortal soul, for we are only supposing, should I say he is not a man?

I do not believe a word of the theory of distinct races, and the want of truth in the idea makes the conclusion difficult to me; because known relationship to God is shut out by it, which I believe to be of the essence of man's nature; but if all this were true that God had created two races of men, "A man's a man for a' that." I utterly reject the idea, but the difference of black and white, prognathism, and even woolly hair, would not hinder his being a man if God had created him apart. It would set aside one great and important origin of a class, namely, common origin. The only question would be, Is that essential to being a man? I believe it is fully, but on Mr. Mill's ground it would not. They have not the same attributes, but in his sense they would be men, they have the attributes which constitute a man. His reasoning is false. I believe the theory to be wholly false, because it denies what is, as revealed, essential to man. Actually in relationship to God I do not believe such men could be; but if they were, they would be men, though the whole of their phenomenal attributes were not the same, and they had not the same ancestor. If you take in all men as one race, as I do, there may be several attributes different; but while their moral nature, and even physical, essentially is the same, they are men, Adam's children. If there be no essential attributes (that is, what makes man a man), and accidental ones, a yellow-haired German of olden time is not a man if I am.

This may seem long on such a point, but it is vital; because it makes phenomenal attributes everything, and the real classification of things -- the fact that things are what they are besides mere phenomena -- is wholly denied. Men may make classes for inconvenience, and give a name to represent each; but even here there is no real ground for a class but in actual things which distinguish some from others; and there are classes of being which God has made, and one wherein man stands alone, though in certain essential aspects, not connoting all that is in him, or in the name of the class, he may be classified in these aspects with others. As I may say, created intelligent beings are responsible. Angels are created intelligent beings, and so is man, or the like. To have classes true, we must have the qualities in common which they have by God's creation, or at least His providential ordering. I have nothing to do with any scholastic speculations on essences to explain essential differences.

I have already shewn that to say giving an attribute, as "rational," to man teaches nothing is a fallacy. It is the direct path to knowledge where the predicate involves a quality not affirmed in it about man. Man is a rational being. I only affirm about man that he is a rational being. And it unfolds, as to that, what man is, one particular quality: but supposing that quality involves in man or anywhere else consequences not pressed in it, as every rational being is responsible to God, this will be as true of an angel, say. It is not merely what is in man as an equivalent; it leads me by another larger proposition, applicable to man and other beings, and not known to be true of man till the knowledge of the second proposition acquired. It is not a phenomenal attribute of man like rationality. It is true of rationality wherever it is, from the relationship in which all rational beings stand. I am not speaking of man, but of rationality; but he, being so, comes under my new proposition as belonging to that class.

And this is a most important element of error in these logical and metaphysical systems, that they can only take up what is phenomenal, and all the greater and more important part of what man is and truth is -- relationship -- is left out. They can discuss his relationship with mere phenomena by sense or consciousness, but this last only mentally or in the reason, and that is all. All that is true and abides, naturally or spiritually, is outside this. Death, or the dissolution of things, closes phenomenal, and, as to mere mind, now possessed state. Hence it is said in Job as to wisdom, "Death and destruction have heard the fame thereof with their ears"; they know the end of what man has now; of what is beyond, of positive knowledge, of what abides, they can tell nothing. All logical knowledge is phenomenal with its consequences. The mind, as such, cannot see beyond the system with which it is in relation as such. Only it should not deny anything beyond it, but own its own limits which indeed it cannot help, only honestly.

But as Mill returns to his classes, I must add a few words to clear this point up. He is all wrong. Some predicates are class words formed by man, some a particular attribute. Thus, man is an animal: that is a class word, a class formed by man as to language, but from nature and by a difference existing in it. So really gold is a metal. This is a word formed to designate, by a collection of attributes, several objects which possess them, and are characterised by them, and distinguish them thus from others which do not. When I say man is mortal, it is one attribute, not a class in itself. I merely affirm one thing about man. Now, if I use a class word which only takes up one or some attributes to make a class, and leave others unnoticed, and if I affirm of the subject all that may be said of my class predicate absolutely, I may contradict something in the subject which does not come in question in the predicate. There may be some quality in the subject which does not hinder the class word being predicated of it, but may make untrue that which is true of others in the class. Thus all animals at some period cease to exist. This is phenomenally true. Man is an animal. Man ceases to exist. I conclude from what happens phenomenally to all animals, and even to man as such phenomenally, what may not be true of him for some other reason. If I assume, as I believe, he has an immortal soul, which does not come into the list of attributes included in the class word "animal," though phenomenally as an animal externally he does. And so Ecclesiastes takes him up. It is what is under the sun, the days of the life of his vanity. This comes from assuming phenomena to be all, which, with consciousness, is all man's reason can do. But he cannot say, man cannot have an immortal soul.

And the possibility proves the reasoning defective and false. And this is the whole question with metaphysicians and logicians; for experimental reasoning is their all, and it must be incompetent to pronounce beyond its own power, limited by the sphere to which it belongs, while it cannot say there is nothing beyond it, for it does not see beyond it. When I merely predicate one attribute, it is not quite so much so because I confine myself to the phenomenon predicated, as man is mortal. Only I may pursue it farther, and so run into it; but it is then not speaking from the known qualities of a class, but a positive new affirmation going beyond the predicated phenomenon. If I merely say "man is mortal," I merely affirm the phenomenon that we see men die as a rule, which is true, phenomenally true; though it be not beyond the reach of preventive power if God so will, but for man's sphere it is true. If I say all that is mortal ceases to exist, I go beyond the phenomenon and introduce a new proposition. It ascribes a new sense, or attribute, to mortal. Taken as a phenomenal class, animals do, and man too as animals in this world. It is as a class true; it is not true that the attribute mortality contains in it "ceases to exist." The statement goes beyond the phenomenon, for as to that they do cease to exist.

But a word more on classes. The notion that general terms or essences of classes are only the meaning of the name, that the whole of the attributes means the essence, and the taking all classes to be of the same nature, makes all the reasoning of Locke and Mill to be false. Some classes man has made for convenience of arrangement, some more from the nature of things, as a metal; but some general terms are not classes. Thus when I say "man," it is a being I know, not a class made by man from attributes or phenomena. I am conscious of a personal living existence. I know others through intercourse or through facts. They are a race, not a class. I know what a man is, for I am one, and find others of the same race, born as I am, and like me. I am not a dog, nor a horse, nor a pig, nor an ox, nor if there were Houyhnhnms who had reason would they be men. Man is a known race. Reason is essential to man. Yet if there be an idiot born of a human father and mother, he is a man, an exceptional idiotic man; whereas if there were a race physically just what men are without reason, I should not call them men; they are not of the same race.

Races are real things. Essential differences are negative. Not having them excludes from the class, as want of reason the supposed race; possession of them may make a class, but does not make a race, as the supposed Houyhnhnms. Hybrids, which some insist on, only prove this. They are called mules, distinguished from the races their progenitors belonged to. According to creation races may approximate in their extremes as to make it difficult to classify them; but this proves nothing, however interesting, as to God's way of acting. You may shew that the nucleus of a cell is the inorganic seat of life, and write a long book about protoplasm; but this does not prove a man is a pig, or a pig a man. I may have to learn the attributes of this race, or many of them, after I know it. The word "man" is not a collection of attributes, but a general term for that race; and I then learn what the attributes of that race are. He is a living being, with reason and power of abstraction, hence capable of progress. He has an immortal soul. But all this I learn about man after I know him de facto as a race. If true, they were always true of man, at least as now known to me, but they formed no part of my idea of man. I know the race, and then learn about the race. When the word speaks of a class distinguished experimentally, as metal, then, though often vague, still in principle it involves in it the whole of the attributes which constitute the force of the word. So of all races as well as men. What is a pig? It is an animal born of a boar and a sow. I learn that it is carnivorous and herbivorous, but I knew what a pig was before I knew that. Of course there may be varieties and species, and we may turn pig into a class name.

What Bain says, note to page 112, is utterly false, indeed absurd. Supposing there was a report that the dodo existed, and search is made say all over the world, Mauritius and all, and I say the dodo does not exist, in fact it really never had, what has that to do with its disappearing and becoming extinct? (My family had a large life-size good picture of a dodo, now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.) When I say dodo, I mean a supposed bird thus thought of, and I say it is a supposition, it does not exist. Such reasoning is child's play. I exist, and am conscious of it; what is that in contrast with? I admit relativity in phenomena, and insist on it. But that is not all. I could not use the word "is," or "exists," without its giving the idea of existence to my mind; and, if used with any word by itself, it affirms that idea of it -- predicates the fact that there is really such a thing. I doubt its being a category. All the rest, at any rate, assume existence.

I have spoken of classes. White is not a class really, because it does not really give an attribute which adequately distinguishes other like things from one white set (unless I speak of colours, when it does). For class means attribute or attributes, by which certain things are distinguished from other like ones, and so clubbed together. Mill accepts most of what I have said, but by denying races makes all false. I have said that many classes are the act of men, but founded on natural qualities, as metal. That is, man invents a word to combine many distinct things in community of certain characteristic qualities which distinguish them; and the word is invented to give a common name to things which have the qualities, not to express the qualities themselves, so as that, if there were only one, it could be used. It is the result of the experimental knowledge of several having them. But if we call races classes, then it is not the act of man which has formed the class in any sense.

I do not think that class is a good word for this. If I say a man and a pig, it is no act of man's mind which makes any class. He calls an animal of that race a pig, and knows it is not a man. But there is no mental combination to form the class, if class it is to be called. A pig is a pig by creation, and now by birth. Nay, so far from it being the whole of the attributes that make a class or verbal general name equivalent to one where the whole of the attributes are included in the idea, there is no class at all; for if all the individuals have them, they are the same, there is no distinction. A class is only, when there are some qualities common to a certain number of objects otherwise distinct, that I classify them by a word expressing their possession of them in common, as metal, including gold, iron, copper, etc.; but if each individual object had all the qualities of gold there would be no class, all would be gold. Thus man is not a class, animal is, because there may be and are man and brutes connected in particular qualities. But he is wholly wrong in taking the general name as being the expression of qualities, so as to make it indifferent if one object or many, and a class or not, as being the meaning of the name and a class word, indifferently or not.

There are class words. Animal is, metal is, founded on qualities no doubt, but qualifying objects by their common possession of them. If I have only a word embracing all the qualities of a being, it is not and cannot be a class; if only some, it may. Thus, God is a general term, he says, to the Christian or polytheist. But the Christian or Jew, when he says God, takes in in principle all His attributes. He is one, almighty, eternal, omniscient; He is, and He only, absolutely. "God" takes in, at any rate, such attributes as absolutely preclude His being a class. There is no quality in common with the polytheist's God, for he has many of them, which exclude the qualities of the one. Even if I say mermaid or ghost, as in thought I take in all that they are, it cannot be a class, for all who are such are the same wholly; mermaid is mermaid. Where all the attributes are not taken in, it may become the name of a class, though where there is a race, and not man's combination, they will be only, as woolly-haired men, accidental differences. In fanciful names it is merely a question whether the fancy has formed a class or not. There may be many dragons having certain fanciful qualities in common, others not, and so be under a common name of class. Here, of course, all is man's creation, and he may invent as he likes. His statement that every name, the signification of which is constituted by attributes, is potentially name of an indefinite number of objects, need not be of any, may be of only one, is false. Suppose unity and omnipotence or even the last, be among the attributes, there can be only one. But if constituted by attributes, and I take in all, it is not a class; it may be a race. If only of one, it is no general term at all. We do not create a class by general names.

All this theory is wrong. If I say man, it is a general name; but if I take the whole of his attributes, it is a race of the same beings, not a class. Classes are made by men, by selecting qualities, and combining and distinguishing by them. In a word the whole of this is wrong, and wrong in the most important way. Races are popularly called classes, but then they do not rest on the meaning of words, nor are formed by men mentally (pages 132-139). Pages 139-141 are all obscurity and confusion. The question is not whether one or infinite qualities are in question. The essential difference is negative; it does not make the class, but the class is not the class without it. One quality, as white, or Christian, or mathematician, does not make a class (unless in respect of things constituted by colour or sciences or religions), because a man is just as much a man whether a Christian or a mathematician or not. These ideas do not enter into the conception of man; reason does. A being formed as man, as a general term (a race so qualified), without reason is not a man; but, if reason be in an angel or a dog, he is not therefore a man. A man represents a being not with the knowledge of all his attributes, but of such as constitute a man. (This is a question of the possession of language as expressing thoughts which normally is inseparable from human reason; that is, man is so constituted.) If one of these be not there, he is not a man.

Thus, if Negroes and Turanians were created apart, still if they had these qualities they would be phenomenally men; that is what man means. They might then be considered sub-classes, and man would be a class word, because there would be qualities in the Negro or Turanian inseparable from their being such not in the others which enter into the class. If I say pictures very white in their colouring are not pleasing -- are too glaring; paintings are things formed by colours, hence one colour or another is part of their constituted existence, and so as to paintings they form species, though white or green be a single sensation. So in various earthly substances. Some have a set of qualities which make them metals; here, though natural differences, they are of sufficient importance to man by these qualities to make them a class; they melt, etc.; if they will not, they are not metals. Other things may melt, as sugar; that does not make it a metal, but what will not melt is not a metal. It may be one or many qualities which distinguish, but what makes a class is what distinguishes a certain number of objects from others similar in other respects, when the difference is such that where, if what makes it is absent, it would not be of those things to which the name is attached.

But when Mill says men have made classes, "a sense artificially given to the word for technical purposes," in the case of races, as man, ox, it is not so; it is merely observation of real differences. The word is expressive of the object as an object. When used as a class, it is not artificial but real, as observed. If a true class, the name is given because of real differences observed. That man gives a name to those that have is merely saying language belongs to him; but he cannot make a class without adequate distinctions belonging to beings of the same general sort, combining many of them together, part from others of the same sort. To lose this by scholastic mistakes of essences is only blinding oneself. Names for classes may be made by men; but if rightly made, the class is not made but discovered or known intuitively, which is only a way of discovering. I know a man is not an ox. Man and ox express this, they do not make the distinction. I may have then to ascertain by thought what makes the difference. They both live as animals live; have flesh, bones, blood, die as existence here (for that is all I can say phenomenally) -- that is, in many very important things they have qualities in common.

What makes the difference? It is not artificially given for the purposes of science; the form is different, the race is different. In the genus animal I distinguish two classes; the name is quite immaterial Man has given that (the ox cannot) but I have to discover what is the real point, the quality or qualities without which a man is not a man normally, is not of that class in the genus animal. It is not a question of some or inexhaustible differences, but adequately distinctive qualities which combine a certain set of things contained in a larger class formed by having common properties. I have ascertained these distinctions combining many individuals of a larger division, without which they are not so combined or divided, as contrasted with a quality which leaves the differences which constitute the class where they were, so that, with or without it, the class subsists just the same, as red hair in a man. I thus possess the class. I may discover afterwards differences more or less important, which confirm the justice of the classification, or inform me as to the qualities; but if already adequate, I have my class. Thus language with man, cooking if you please, a sign it may be of the reflective use of materials as contrasted with instinct, but which is useless, as it may be merely the expression of reason, a thing by which reason may be discovered, however poor a one. It is quite immaterial what caused them to have the essential difference. I believe it was God; but for logic or man's mind it is merely phenomenal. And, save the notion of substantial essences, the Schoolmen were right, and Mill wrong. If the Schoolmen seized on what the name connoted, so as adequately to distinguish, by means of certain properties, those things which had them from those which had not, they did right. It is what makes a class, and that only, though others may be discovered.

Thus if I discover, by whatever means, that man has an immortal soul, I have a quality which, as well as reason, constitutes man what he is, as contrasted with other animals, and a more important difference; but, with reason, the class is right, because there is in man what there is in no other animal. And when I have arrived at what makes man to be man, all the rest which do not unmake his being man form no species. I have an infima species. Suppose there were men with reason, and not with immortal souls, I have two classes of men, if I still call them men; at any rate I have two kinds, which I can separate into classes. I do not believe this possible, because I have no idea of existence in moral things but as God made them; and thus the thought is necessarily inaccurate. But infima species is right -- that is, a class adequately distinguished by qualities which make it what it is, which consequently cannot be subdivided, so that one division should not possess what makes them both the same thing essentially as man, though you may add qualities which leave it what it is, as woolly-haired, black-skinned, etc., Caucasian, Turanian; but all possess what makes them men. For the ethnologist they may conveniently be made species of. A man without a soul or reason is not a man as God made him. A red-haired or black-haired man is alike a man; but if the qualities which constitute the class remain, it is of that. That is the infima species. Whether classes be rightly formed is another question: but it is a question whether we have rightly followed facts; and here races come largely into question, because the distinguishing qualities follow them, and they are more readily perceived than others, and they are classes which God has made, and from which man with all his wisdom cannot get out. If God has approximated classes in given cases as He has, man may make hybrids, but he only proves his impotency by doing so. The distinction therefore between differentia and accidens is in the nature of things, and the foolish instance of cooking proves it. It is merely an expression of man's having reflective reason to use materials. It is not accidental, but what proves, however poorly, the essential difference. What he states as making the difference of genus and species is only true phenomenally or in the measure of man's mind as acting, not as acted on or even conscious.

In section 6, page 144, he merely puts forward what I have noticed in the case of colour, that if we take a word for a genus from any real fact, and use the species without adding any quality to make one, confining the difference to what is true only within the genus, then we may form classes, but we no quality. When I say man is a rational animal, I add a quality to animal. It is not merely what is not connoted in the word, but I falsify the use of the word itself as expressing the class if I add it, for thus an ox is not an animal, only man is. But when I say man is an animal, with four incisors, one canine -- leaving out erect, for man only is, it is an added quality to animal -- with four or two incisors, or no canines, an animal is as much an animal as before. It does not add any quality. These facts do not come into the circle of connotation of animal, and he is as much what is called animal as before, and only animal. When I say rational, it admits animality, but adds what is not in the notion of animality; when I say four incisors, he is no more than an animal, after all, nothing besides being an animal -- nothing is added. I have already said the possession of an essential difference does not make a thing to be of the same class (strange to say, Mill takes the two examples I took), the want of it puts him out of it (save the question of normal state of a race); but if a dog had reason, it would not make him a man, but we should have two classes of rational animals.

But God has not formed things so. He has made classes; and so man must take them, for his reason is relative, and within the sphere so made, and we cannot really go beyond it. It may (for reasons beyond, sometimes perhaps within, our ken), be morally impossible. We do not know in everything, we may in some, how things are adapted in creation to one another. Comparative anatomy has shewn it within nature. Without it the reasons may be weightier and deeper. Thus os homini sublime dedit, not to go farther than outside, and feet and hands, instead of only hands or feet, may be so adapted to reason, or more, that we cannot suppose, say, that a dog should have reason, with any just thought at all. To meet their reasoning, I have sometimes supposed things which are not: but I deeply feel man as having reason is within the sphere where he is placed -- the highest in it no doubt, but in it. I have no doubt there is a relation to God also, but his reason is phenomenal in its source: I deny that it knows God at all. We may prove there must be a cause; but, as said elsewhere, if we can, it proves we cannot know it.

But in this part (pages 144-147) Mill is again all wrong in virtue of his principle, for Linnean or other classes do not add an idea to animal; they are as much a mere animal as before (very convenient for science no doubt, but that is all); not a species, though possibly necessarily as I have said, suited to it, because it adds nothing to the contents of the word animal -- with four or all incisors he is an animal just the same. When I say rational, it adds an idea to animal which makes it really another thing from a mere animal. Man has not really two meanings, because it is not merely an artificial designation, but the name of a being we know, of which we give the true character by the difference or class term, as an animal by what is purely animal. Cooking is really a proprium, and proprium is merely what is caused by the essential difference.

Demonstration is not another kind, but merely proving it is so, caused by or necessarily connected with the essential quality, as, save organic defects, language belongs to reason (or rather to thought) in man. It may be convenient to distinguish, but it goes with what makes the species. Only some may be more obvious than others -- some essential differences involve more consequences than others -- but the propria are really more identified with ess. diff. than with accident. The accident we have practically spoken of; it is what leaves the individual or individuals in the universality of the class they belong to. It adds nothing to what the class name connotes; a yellow-haired race of men leaves what is meant by man where it was. A rational animal does not leave what is so, where animal puts him.

But if there be reality in classes (and there is when justly made), a definition by genus and specific difference gives more knowledge than the sum of all the attributes. In the first place, the latter is impossible and false, because there are many which contradict each other, and have nothing to do with the real explanation of the word, as woolly-haired, red-haired, prognathous, brachiocephalous, and dolichocephalous. I cannot introduce all these and their contraries as describing man. They do not make the difference of man and other things, but only of men amongst themselves. You cannot numerate all the attributes; and if you do, you have lost what makes him man. But this makes differentia and accidens clearly distinct in meaning: one a quality, without which a thing is not the thing named, a difference from other things: accidens, a difference in individuals, which still are the thing named. Proprium also is a constant difference caused by essential difference.

I do not dwell on giving a definition of one's own meaning of a word; it is arrogant. Words may be ambiguous, or their meaning changed by time, then of course we may explain; but it is at best the extreme of nominalism that there can be no definition of a thing. If so, there can be no mathematics, for though words must be used, they are part of human nature, and we are men; but be it circle, kreis, circolo, or what it may (and variety of language proves it), I am defining, if I can, a thing. And if the thing does not exist, you cannot it, as Mr. Mill's "round square." Some definitions are poor ones, as the shortest line between two points. That is a fact about a straight line. I say a line described by a point always moving to the same fixed point; a curve, one described by a point which never does, but always turns farther from it. This is by the bye.

(Page 152.) Provided the attributes are what make the difference of man (phenomenal man), and that involves adequacy and reality of difference from things not man. But if I use a class word embracing them, with the essential difference or differences, it is much more informing, because I connect it thereby with a large class in very important elements as such already formed in my mind, as a rational animal formed so and so, as given by Mill. You cannot define a simple sensation as white, because it is that, and that only -- has no qualities but whiteness.

What he says of eloquence is all false; he defines it by its effects, which may fail by the state of those addressed, and yet the eloquence be sublime. It is perfectly intelligible to say, "all his eloquence, however elevated, produce no effect whatever: they were stern and unmoved." Eloquent is not the name of one attribute only. It is the power of presenting facts or thoughts in a way adapted to stir up the feelings or thoughts emotionally natural to man, or desired by the speaker or writer. A white object is quite another thing than white (page 155).

(Sec. 3, page 155.) I do not admit what declares the whole of the facts to be the only adequate definition, but do not enlarge on it; because the difference is often more important, as rational animal denies rationality of other animals than man. This may be inadequate too if there is more than one essential difference, but generally or often these are only propria. But what I have already noted is all important, all this is only phenomenal. The Houyhnhnms, which I supposed before, not being realities, do not really come in question, because it cannot be said that it is possible. The form of man may be a necessary proprium. At any rate, classes are derived from observed facts, and cannot go beyond them. I deny that we can make classes which will be really such; and as Mill admits they are taken from nature, he must admit it. But of this I have spoken, only I should speak more strongly of it now.

It is true that this judgment of definition by genus and difference or differences only applies to the created world. Such only is phenomenal, so that we can in any ordinary way classify it (it is all that is subjected to our language) -- at any rate classify adequately. When I come to Creator, it is evident that class can have no sense; but then I cannot define Him either. He cannot be measured by an inferior mind, and if it be not inferior, He is not really God; there is no God. And there is no summun genus at all really, for the highest carries me up to One who cannot be a genus, or He is not what He is. My summum genus must be a creature, not being, unless I deny creation and am an atheist, which, though he may strive to be, I do not believe man can be, though he may forget God for the creature, or corrupt the thought of God. Being is not exact, because though I may take it in a general way as a thing existing de facto, yet if I drop out creation, I falsify the idea of being when not being per se. Because, if I say I or a man exists, it is true; but I cannot say I, a man, without having the idea of having begun to be. And being, when applied to God, means one who did not begin to be, or some one was supremely before Him who caused Him to begin to be; and of one who never began to be I can form no idea, for I am finite; it is out of the sphere in which I exist, out of the power of mind. Human thought always and necessarily ascribes beginning as an idea. Negatively I can speak of it. I say infinite, etc., but I cannot conceive it positively in thought, because I am finite. I exist as to my status of thought in time. I may drop the idea of time, and only think of present being, I, and put together always and is. But when I think of that really, I must think of Creator and created. I can conceive what is always going on, because it is. But I cannot think of a living thing nor a formed thing (and man knows no other), without a beginning in its very nature. We talk of matter, but it is scholastic mysticism, of substance which gives no idea at all. We know nothing but what is formed, whatever formed it. There is no abstract idea of matter. For convenience we may make an abstraction. But there is no idea or conception, all our knowledge is phenomenal.

As to page 157, it is all well as phenomenal, but only in that way. And I suspect that all definitions are just solely in the relationship in which they are used, at any rate so far as forming classes. Thus a rational animal, or take all the essential attributes and enumerate them. It is what man is in this visible creation of which he forms a part, corporeally in distinctive form, as compared with other animals. It is man in this created sphere: all well in its way, in what is subject to mind. But if it be in relationship with God, that has nothing to do with it. I must take in an immortal soul, conscience, responsibility, subjection, lusts, passions, love morally to God and man, consequent guilt, and so on. Hence, as I have said, metaphysicians have no ground of morality or obligation of relationship. The very definition becomes different, though the other remains true in its own sphere, but convertible in the sphere it professes to define, only in the sphere and relationship in which it is spoken of; in another it has nothing to do with it, or is false. Mind deals with what is subject to it: subjecta veritas quasi materia; but this excludes God and all moral thought, all I am subject to or any action on me.

This confining of definition to particular relationships, a really material point, is proved by Cuvier's definition cited page 158): Man is a mammiferous animal, having two hands. I have no objection to this. It refers to his classification as an animal. That is a particular relationship in which he stands, leaving out therefore, as to reason, what essentially distinguishes him from other animals. It is just in the relationship he is viewed in, but leaves out, and properly, what belongs to another aspect and relationship. So of the alleged adequate enumeration of attributes. It may be true and adequate in the relationship it refers to, totally false if another relationship be in question. If I say he is only that, it cannot be said. He is that in a given relationship, and that is all the justness and adequacy definition can be said to have. They belong to such a sphere, and are true in it. I admit man's knowledge is phenomenal, or some inference from it as existing in the sphere he does; but the question remains, Is there no other? Cuvier says what man is qua corporeal animality, metaphysicians what he is mentally; and we may add, in connection with the world subject to him, and that is all he can mentally, that is, by the power of intellect. But is that all the relationship he is in? I wholly deny it. It will be said, Prove there is another, or how can we know it? Not by intellect, as is evident, for professedly it is outside it. But intellect never loves: is that nothing in man? Love did not, it is true, exist in Greek.

But to go down -- parent, child, husband, wife; I take natural relationships on purpose. Intellect cannot deal with them at all. Have not men hated Christ, the thought of Christ? What has intellect to do with that? Do not they dislike to think of God and responsibility? What has that to do with intellect? Intellect does not hate. Why is a child to obey its parents? -- will intellect tell him?

While on the topic of definitions, I would notice as a signal instance (page 153) of utter mental incapacity and incorrectness, I believe through moral blindness and absence of sense of responsibility falsifying every mental apprehension (for man is a moral being, and must think morally to think rightly) -- at any rate, as an instance of incapacity to define -- "Fault may be defined a quality productive of evil or inconvenience." Unless I introduce character -- a fault in his character, which is loose and inaccurate and only fit to be used when it is failure in responsibility -- it is his fault, otherwise defect is the word; but unless in this special way fault is not a quality at all. It is an actual failure. All the confusion in pages 160, 161, is from not seeing that his whole system of definition and classifying is false.

Man as such is popularly known, as Mill says. The enumeration of all the attributes never enters into men's minds, nor even a definition, till men begin to think and analyse their thoughts. Thus adequate definition is one thing, complete knowledge another; definition seizes such attributes as suffice to determine and define it in the midst of and from other subjects, as a rational animal of such a form. The thing is known in itself. I can see and hear a man. This defines it in the midst of others only in the relationship in which it is defined. The full knowledge of what man is must tell me all his attributes, and, if really full, in all his necessary relationships, that is, the relationships in which he exists as man.

As to scientific definitions, they are not arbitrary, but pass from the obvious qualities to more exact distribution by the progress of knowledge, and though drawn from nature, are, as a class, made for convenience. Thus acid meant sour, and does, but a man must be a chemist to know what the word has come to mean in chemistry. But, in what is ordinary phenomenal, not scientific, discovery, thought and language cannot be separated; we think in language, and a great deal of the dissertation on "verbal and real" consequently is beating the Horse is a mere word, but I think of a thing if I say air. A horse leaps; it is not a word leaps. No doubt forms of propositions are the same, as I may say a centaur leaps; but if I do say it, I am thinking of a thing real or fictitious, half man and half horse, believed true experimentally, I suppose, from the Thessalians being horsemen; so that Mill is all wrong here. When you come to facts, you can only take in centaur that which is thought, what attaches to the word; in triangle too; only centaur, being taken from imagination, cannot go beyond it, whereas triangle being taken from a mathematical shape, I can pass from the thought thing to the examination of the actual thing. What is implied has nothing to do with the matter, it is what is expressed is in question in any proposition.

Again (page 165) we arrive at no truth by reasoning, but only at conclusions; if the premises are just, then the conclusion is necessary. The name denotes the thing, and in reasoning by means of the name, I reason about the thing, man being so constituted as to think of things by words. He cannot invent a thought; I believe he may put them together, as a centaur or a griffin, but he thinks a thing in doing so. He seems to me always to forget that human knowledge and definition is drawn from phenomena. Thus a circle is not learned by "may exist," but from what I observe and know, even if not physically described, but thought of according to certain known qualities. The whole of the statement in pages 165-7 is absurd.

"Through the point B draw a line returning into itself, on which every point shall be at an equal distance from the point A," is a definition of what you are doing, as circle is a word for what you have done. A circle is a figure every point of whose boundary-line is at an equal distance from a given point (A) within it. You may call it 'bosh' if you like, but such a figure Englishmen are accustomed to call circle; and the thing is what I think of when I say a circle, and so does Mr. Mill, for without ceremony he says, the circle being now described. Hence B C D being a circle, that is, such a figure agreed to be called circle, two certain lines are by supposition equal. All that is a settled fact, when I have got my circle and my radii; but by drawing the secant of the arc within the two radii I have an isosceles triangle, and can go on farther in my mathematics. I do not reason about the word circle, but about a thing to which having certain qualities that name in English is given. When he says B A is equal to C A, not because B C D is a circle, but because B C D is a figure with the radii equal, it is about as much sense that man is not a quadruped, not because he is a biped, but because he has two legs or feet. All I see nearly "self-evident" is that he is talking arrant nonsense.

The question of dragons or serpents is decided by the very important principle that the conclusion of a syllogism never states a truth, but a conclusion; that if the premises are true, the conclusion follows. It is a mere consequence of the premises. It does follow justly that there are such serpents, if dragons are such things, etc. The question of truth lies in the premises. A dragon is not a dragon means; this is another statement. Hence the conclusion always is "therefore." The whole of this, too, is nonsense.

A definition does in one sense refer to the meaning of words; but the word represents a reality, and, as we think in language, the word represents the thing thought of as the basis of further reasoning, the attributes of the thing represented by the word being taken, as far as known, for granted. Thus, if I say there can be no quadrature of the circle, it is not of the word circle there can be no quadrature, but of the figure represented in my mind by that word. All this is folly; so of page 168. Suppose I say the figure called circle is a figure having a boundary-line of which every point is equidistant from one given point in it; or a circle is a figure which, etc.; one is a definition as much as another. Adding "idea of" merely puts it in the mind, and defines it there as such. It is just as much a definition of that idea, only dragon having no reality, it makes it untrue de facto; but the two are definitions one as much as another. A dragon being a thing, etc., the idea of the dragon is the idea of the thing, etc.; one is exactly as much definition as the other, one taking it as an assumed fact, really an idea, the other as an idea. It is true that a circle has such an attribute, also true that what has not is not a circle. What man can make is not the question. A straight line is as clear an idea as possible, and justly reasoned about as such; very likely a man could not make one. Points and lines are all ideal; but the great point here is that there is no demonstrative truth, but merely demonstrative conclusions, truth being assumed. The therefore is a plain proof of it.

The absence of all moral feeling and basis for it in the author's mind is shewn in the remarks on "just," as well as the loose character of his thinking. "Just" is what is due to a person in the relation in which we stand towards him. The want of reality, and all being words in his mind, makes even his logic poor. I add a syllogism is really this, If so-and-so is such, and if such be so-and-so, then, etc. There is such a total absence of the power of abstraction and analysis in the book, that it is wearisome to deal with its statements. He has no idea of just, or noble, or mean, but by a comparison of objects so called to find a common principle. The moral instinct of man seizes the force of words so employed without always asking why it so estimates them; but the moral nature estimates morally. Of this, of course, he has no idea. It may be a useful exercise of mind to analyse its thought, but that is all; the apprehension is there without it. Moral sense, though not of course infallible, determines it.

A few words as to mathematical terms. All here, too, is superficial. He never can distinguish between objects with qualities and the quality itself. Of length he says, that is, of long objects; but the two things are quite different. In common use we are occupied with objects, but we are here defining. Now we exist in space as in time; it is our mode of existence, and both are measured and partitive. A point is nothing; it is where a thing begins, or, more strictly, a division of space or time begins; it is where a given thing begins, and its absence ceases by the existence of the thing; it is that in which the division of space begins, or of anything existing in space. Length is the distance, when the same direction is followed from a given point to a given point, the part of space in distance between the beginning and end. It is not the thing, but the part of space in which, from the first point of the thing to the last point, the thing exists. Now, we do think of things in space and of space as occupied by them, the object being wholly immaterial; divisible space is our necessary way of thinking: so far from not thinking it we cannot think otherwise. Length is the quantity of space in one direction; breadth is exactly the same thing, only for convenience, as occupied with objects, we take the same thought of one object in another direction, strictly at right angles perhaps; but the direction only is different, not the idea. A point is merely where the distance in space or division of space begins, and can have no existence consequently in it; a line is merely a metaphorical use of a physical thing used to measure distance; length is merely the direct distance between the two points where the division of space contemplated begins and ends. If I postulate, I must think of an object, but space is not an object: it is the manner of existence of objects for us, or of our finite mode of thinking. Everybody knows what space means. No one can define it, because it is the mode of existence and thought for us, in which exists everything we can think of, in the sphere we exist in as thinkers.

Nor is the inquiry what is just or virtuous, justice and virtue, the definition of a name merely; because if I define the word, it is by stating what the thing is (if it denote really anything) which the name speaks of. If I say virtue is the moral energy which does what is right and just in spite of the difficulties or temptations which stand in our way, and there be such qualities or character, I state the real qualities or character of which the word stands as the sign in the remarkable instrument of thought and communication bestowed on man, called language. An infidel may think there is no such thing really as virtue, but there is; and when, if needed, I explain the word, I explain or define it by what the thing is. I can hardly conceive a lower moral state, without question of religion, than that of which this part of Mill gives evidence.

A circle seems to me a line described by a point moving round another given fixed one, always at exactly the same distance; it then necessarily, if carried all the way round, enters into and ends at the point started from. There is no postulate to describe it. "Always at the same," or "not always at the same," is as easy one as another; and to say it postulates something is to say that we must postulate describing any figure at all, to deny which is to deny the existence of mathematics. Circle is merely a word which, for the convenience of language, represents such a figure. Take a fixed pivot and move a steel line attached to it round, and you have It as to the means of objective thought; and, so far from it being a postulate that such a line or a circle can be drawn or may exist, I do not believe it can be drawn, and so Mr. Mill states. Whether it may exist I know nothing of; but in both cases I know what I want to draw, and do it as nearly as I can, assuming its perfection, which is in its definition and nowhere else, and from that I reason.

Though, of course, there are equivalent propositions which prove nothing, many are not so. And I reject, as I have done, the sum of attributes being a definition. Objects are really known, as a man, and then defined by what distinguishes them to the mind, and the words stand for the object known, and the distinctive quality may be discovered to involve truths not present to the mind in the object, and so further knowledge be acquired. I reject also, if it is what follows, its being a truth, as he says (page 180). It is not a truth as so following but a proved consequence -- if the premises are true, and no more. Logic has nothing to do with truth. Truth rests on testimony.

As an instance of the looseness and inaccuracy of Mill's mind, I notice (page 181) "incapable of reason," which is nonsense -- of reasoning perhaps. Nor do I accept his list of predicables. The making the definition of a word the sum of its attributes falsifies the effect of the syllogism, as does his inaccuracy. I have already stated that what makes a being a man to me is not the sum of his attributes. I am ignorant of the half of them; but he is a man to me, and to a savage, and rightly so (yea, even to an animal). Hence if the minor applies a quality from the admitted predicate of the major, not in my idea of man, I increase my knowledge. Supposing I know nothing of life being in the blood, and it is discovered as to animals, and I admit man is an animal, I have to conclude he so dies. I have already said truth and belief are only in the premises. Of course all that is true was always true in the system I am of; but my growth in knowledge is by discovery, and I may by general terms of acquired knowledge learn particular things by just conclusions as to what is included in the general term.

But, further, death is not mortality. There is an inference that because so many have died, all do; but this has nothing to do with the syllogism, save as the believed premise. The kind of syllogism is not a fair test, because the subject of the minor is only an individual of that of the major; whereas, as said above, a class word justly predicated may contain or involve an attribute not included in the mental idea of the subject of the major; whereas, by the rule de omni et nullo, in the instance given, it is on the face of it not true when it is an individual of the class. But no observation has made me know even here that the Duke of Wellington dies. It is a direct and mere inference from the premises that all men do, however I had learned that. Unless I had heard of God's sentence I could not have told it, that I know of, for Adam's lifetime. It might have been a puzzle for centuries. The syllogism never proves the fact, but the consequence. All men are mortal is not the cause that the Duke of Wellington dies. It assumes it, if he be a man; but it proves it to me because I cannot deny either of the premises. Logic has nothing to do with facts, but with mental consequences. It is this (as often said) that makes all Mill's reasoning false. It proves he must die, not a fact but a consequence. For here the fact is not so. The Duke of Wellington is not dead; but, as men are mortal, and he a man, he must die -- at least is mortal. Testimony is the only proof of truth or fact, save personal experience. Nor was mortality known because death was, identified here with Mill's usual inaccuracy.

But the whole idea of Mill as to syllogistic reasoning is wrong. It is only reasoning, and this to prove the justness of a conclusion, not heretofore admitted, from what I do admit; and he admits "it is indispensable to throw our reasoning into this form when there is any doubt of its validity." This is all it is meant for. It may thus convince of facts as to a given subject which form no part of my idea of the subject, which having been otherwise discovered and admitted are predicated in the major, and then, the subject of the major being in the class predicated, this asserted in the minor brings the subject of the major into the condition so asserted. But, as I have already stated, the only thing believed is what is in the two premises (which of course may be contested but is assumed by the syllogism); but if the form be right, no doubt remains as to conclusion so far as phenomena go. A syllogism is only, "If so and so, then "; and this it does perfectly in the sphere of man's knowledge, what is subject to sense and experience; but the statement that the inference is in the premises, as I have said, has nothing to do with the matter. They are assumed truths, and the syllogism has nothing to do with how acquired; they may be by observation, or consciousness; they may be, if I believe it, by revelation, or by any other way. The syllogism assuming their truth says that excessive brightness dazzles the eye; I say to one who has never seen snow, But snow in sunshine is excessively bright (which he believes on my testimony); therefore, snow in sunshine dazzles the eye. The syllogistic conclusion is just, there is no difference at all in the premises. He knows by experience what dazzling the eye means, by testimony what snow is. The conclusion is certain -- he knows what snow does, which he did not know before.

But all Mill's ground is false. In reasoning from particulars to particulars, the fact may be true, but it is false reasoning, and not what thoughtful men do. His instance only shews his inaccuracy. "A burnt child dreads the fire," is not reasoning, it is instinctive fear; and if a thing looks like fire, it is equally afraid of it -- an instinct mercifully put in animal life even, but not reasoning; its reasoning value is found in another proverb, "The scalded dog fears cold water." The man must have had an extraordinary opinion of himself, with such a mind, to undertake to write on logic, pace Sir J. Herschel, Archbishop Whately, and Mr. Bailey. But it is also all false that, if John and Thomas die, etc., the Duke of Wellington will die. I suppose before Adam died, Enoch went up to heaven; should I rightly say Adam will? If ten had done so, not more truly. When Cain killed Abel, I had seen death. Man was capable then of being put to death. But would he die if let alone? I had seen him live 600 or 700 years, and nobody died; then I should have concluded he could not, he was not in se mortal. But when I have seen or known everybody die for thousands of years, I conclude that man (this being, this race) is mortal -- that is, dies as left to the natural phenomenonal course of his race. It is not that particular men have died. Man is mortal, or even all men are mortal, is quite a different proposition. There has been an induction as to the nature of the race, Enoch and Elijah being excepted, as happening by the intervention of extrinsic power. Consequently I say the Duke of Wellington certainly (if no such power intervenes) will die, for he is a man, and such is the fate of his race. I can say, as a conclusion phenomenally considered, the Duke of Wellington must die, etc. It is a perfectly correct conclusion, supposing I believe in revelation, and, spite of all the Mills and Voltaires, there are those who, by grace at least, have sense enough to do it; but this is not my question. Supposing I believe that the sentence of death lies on man, I say man is mortal (save by intervention of extrinsic power). Some may suppose that great men or wise men do not, are taken to heaven like Hasisadra, or deified like Hercules or Nimrod; I say, No, he is a man, and he is mortal. The conclusion is as perfect and as certain. And that is what the syllogism is and does; it draws a conclusion from assumed truths. How they are discovered has nothing to do with the syllogism, which is just as sound a conclusion if the premises were false as if they were true. The premises being true has nothing to do with the justness of the conclusion, nor has the way the truth of them has been discovered. It is not necessarily by inference at all. The discovery, be it of Sir W. Hamilton, Mill, or Berkeley, is a mare's nest (pages 209-240). The form merely assures accuracy in drawing the conclusion.

I repeat here (page 232), saying that man is mortal is not the same as that A B C, etc., died. The difference is as real as it is grave. It may be, if universal, a just induction; but dying as a fact, and subjection to death, are distinct things. I might have seen the whole world destroyed by the flood, and not justly conclude that men must die of themselves naturally, as we say, and therefore I could not have said the Duke of Wellington will or must die. Put the syllogism and try. So many millions of men died, perished in the flood, therefore the Duke of Wellington will die (without it). Is there any just conclusion there? As to conclusions to particulars and general formula being the same, it is the same; it is every way false; the induction in either case is false as reasoning. It may contain motives in the structure of the particular case involving the result; but then it is a general formula, in its nature applying to that structure, and the proposition is only true because it is general -- that is, true in the nature of the thing, so that it is false from particular to particular, and always is so as reasoning. But Mill is all wrong (as is Whately) when he says that the major is an affirmation of the sufficiency of the evidence on which the conclusion rests. It states the proposition, but says nothing of the evidence one way or another, nor of the induction on which it is founded, nor is it necessarily founded on an induction. It is the basis of assumed fact on which the syllogistic reasoning is founded. In the common disputations they denied the major or the minor as facts (or distinguished), or the conclusion, which last alone referred to the syllogistic process.

(Page 235). All his reasoning here shews nothing but the grossest mental incapacity. No one doubts we infer from particulars very often, as that Tenterden steeple was the cause of Goodwin Sands; but it is never sound as reasoning, save as above when it involves a general proposition which sagacity often instinctively sees. So that Mill is wholly wrong, does not see how it becomes a general proposition, which alone makes the conclusion just. Some men die, therefore others do, is never just as reasoning; all men do, therefore such and such will, is; though I may call in question the truth of the general proposition. And though all men include the one, the reasoning is just because it does. The question is, if Thomas will die? I say all men do, and he is one of the all, therefore he will -- not that he dies because of it, but that I know he will because he is. He dies because he is mortal. The conclusion is not generally necessarily, but to the truth as to some from what is true as to all; and the conclusion as to some from other some is no just conclusion at all -- never is. Why should I die because Socrates does? But if I have justly arrived at the subjection to death of all, with which induction the syllogism has nothing to do but assumes it, it is true of Socrates or any one else. That is, the general proposition is essential to the conclusion; if not, the dying of all other men would prove nothing as to all. Man is mortal, such as he is; it is his nature. Man is mortal, that is, the general proposition, which is everything; the "conditions of legitimate induction" (page 236) cannot be realised as to the Duke of Wellington at all without the general proposition, however arrived at. Mill does not even see what he is reasoning about. I admit that "the general conclusion is never legitimate unless the particular one would be so too," that is, as to the fact; if it were not, the general one would not be true. But that is arguing from the general to the particular; which is exactly the conclusion of the syllogism, by means of a middle term.

The question is, Can we arrive at the conclusion as to the particular one without the general one being true first? That is, can we justly say A B C died, therefore the Duke of Wellington is mortal? That is "Mill's logic." His statement is quite true, being the principle of syllogism, and refutes, if it were needed, his whole system. That we take the trouble of stating the general proposition has nothing to do with the matter; but it is an indispensable condition of the validity of the inference. Thus if I say A B will die, for he is a man, this truth assumes that all men do. For clear inference the latter is stated as the major premise. If all men do not die, I cannot say the Duke of Wellington will; he may be of those who do not.

I have, singularly enough, anticipated in my notes nearly every question Mill has raised. Here (page 224) he confutes himself completely. "There is no contradiction in supposing that all these persons have died, and that the Duke of Wellington may notwithstanding live for ever." Just so; that is, you cannot argue syllogistically or really from particulars to particulars, which is what he says you can. If 999 millions and 900 thousand had died, and 100 thousand not, there is no proof at all that A B will die; it may be 9999 to one he will, but there is no proof of anything. You must have a general proposition for proof. The way, as I have said, I acquire the general proposition has nothing at all to do with the proof in the syllogism which assumes and starts from the general one (liable, of course, to be contested by the adverse disputant). If I had lived in Adam's time, and no one had shewn mortality (not death merely), and I believed scripture, I should have said all men are mortal. Adam and all his children will die, for they are men (save prevention by power). If observation was my ground, I could not say any one would die. The general proposition may be rightly or wrongly accepted, but that is another question. But, as he says, there would be a contradiction if the general principle be assumed, not if only particular cases; that is, a syllogism is sound reasoning because it lays the basis in a general proposition; and Mill talks nonsense in his reasoning about it. But I repeat, with the reasoning of the syllogism the actual truth of the premises has nothing to do. It is a contradiction not to admit the conclusion, assuming the premises. That the premises may be obvious or require proof is evident, and may be partially true, as I have said as to animals. Animals cease to exist; man is an animal; therefore man ceases to exist. As existing here in time, qua animal he does; but it is only partially true, because animal and man are not equivalent terms -- man is more comprehensive.

Water dissolves lime; if I put this lime into this water, it will dissolve it. But the water is already saturated. We have thus to distinguish the accuracy of propositions. Water will dissolve some lime is alone true; and this water is water with its full complement of lime. What a weariness to turn to this from the truth, from the word of God! But I pursue, the rather as here (pages 240-247) the cloven foot comes out, though it is really only going over again the same false ground; and Mill clearly proves, in seeking to do the contrary, that general propositions are the only way of real conclusions. Thus as to arsenic (page 242). I have no need to go to other inductions from qualities. What produces a black spot under such circumstances, etc., poisons. No matter whether metallic, volatile, or what else, if everything that does so poisons. The induction is as to the nature of the thing which does produce blackness, that is, to a general proposition: All that does so poisons. Supposing all that does so does not poison, I can draw no conclusion from such a spot. That is, a general proposition which states the nature of what does is absolutely necessary to the argument. If only some articles, alike in this, do, I may add, A spot-producing article if also metallic, volatile, etc., does these qualities are necessary to make it universal, that is, determine its nature as poisonous; but I have my general proposition. Everything that produces such spot, being also metallic, volatile, etc., poisons, has that nature destructive of physical life in man. I learn it in every known instance, and when I have (any exception being from an extraneous cause), I say "every," I have a general proposition as to its nature, and hence only applied to every case because it is its nature, and so always such. The justness of the induction has of course to be settled. That is, my major premise may be contested, but with the conclusion this has nothing to do -- that is based on its being true, and, if true, the conclusion is simply certain.

And this he admits in the government case. No government: that general proposition is the foundation of all -- "a generalisation from history." The similarity is not the question -- another false principle of his. It is in this the same, it desires the good of its subjects: the nature and principle which governs the point is ascertained. This government acts in the same way. It certainly is not likely to be overthrown (for likeliness is the point to be proved here). Then comes question as to the fact. Now this is not a question of inference at all, but of testimony. Is it a fact that I believe the testimony, or not? If I do, I say with certainty. Supposing twenty instances of disinterested intelligent witnesses had occurred. This may or may not be true, and may or may not be believed to be true. To draw my conclusion, the government must be the same in this; if I believe the testimony, I say it is the same, as no government, etc.; this is not likely to be overthrown. This is an inference justly drawn, and the inference certain according to the premises, but "may be believed to be true" gives no inference as to fact at all as to this government. The witness of intelligent disinterested witnesses affords no ground of inference. It may be all necessary and right for common human life, but has nothing to do with logical inference. I may be a bad judge of the witnesses, or ill informed as to them, and other witnesses being true does not prove them to be so. Moral probabilities are very important, but they have nothing to do with logical inference. I can say, if these say true, this government is not likely, a certain inference on a hypothetical truth, and so far logical; but what depends on the moral estimate of my mind as to the personal qualities of witnesses has nothing to do with logical inference. It only proves incapacity to judge of reasoning to say it does. The resembling other cases is no part of what I believe on testimony at all even, but the fact of that in which they are the same. Nor is it reasoning from particulars. His starting-point was no government, and supposing this true only of some, the possibility of overthrow even, if so, not its unlikeliness, would be proved. The whole argument is trash, save as it clearly proves he is all wrong. Being asserted to do so by intelligent, etc., was no mark that it did so in its nature or qualities, but merely a question, Do these de facto speak truth as to its qualities? of which their testimony is no mark at all as an attribute in the government. But all this is to get rid of evidence, and subject the matter to logical inference that nothing might be believed, and always rest in this "may be believed to be true," and nothing be believed at all. Now, reasoning or syllogistic conclusion is certain if the premises be true, and evidence may be morally or absolutely certain too. This makes all uncertain in logic and in testimony. I do not a moment admit that every step in the deduction is still an induction. The deduction does not begin till the general proposition or nature of the subject expressed in the predicate is, through induction or other means, assumed to be true. In the deduction there is no induction at all.

All he says as to mathematics is mere unintelligent materialism; as if, because his fingers and compass could not be absolutely true, his mental apprehension of it could not. His head is no wiser than his fingers. The certainty is no illusion. He supposes that mere materialism is all we have. But we exist in space and time, and space is divisible. What is material phenomenally exists in space, and the matter is not the subject of thought but that mode of existence, and this gives form and measure, and of this mathematics are cognisant and demonstrate the equality of dissimilar forms, etc. But his idea of a point, etc., is not only false, but wholly inapprehensive of the truth. A line is that at which divided space begins and ends, the limits of any such division, or of two which meet. And if I enter on existing matter, or the space it is in, I am not at the limit at all. Hence a line properly is a non-existent thing, as the limit of a thing, or of two spaces which meet, must be; but I necessarily so think from my nature. A point is the starting-point or end of the line, or any point where the mind divides it. A straight line is that whose direction is invariably to a fixed point. So surface is that where matter ceases or begins. If I pass into an existing thing, I am not on its surface. When we make lines physically, they are sufficient to represent them to the eye for the mind, but this is all. If I take what is physically marked, I have lost the idea of line. And we, as finite, living according to space and time, necessarily think in it. If the radii are not equal, it is that the circle is not a true one, not that equal radii are not true of any circle: if not, it is not a circle at all. And so far from a right angle never being true, it is necessarily true, and I cannot help thinking of an exact one if I think of it. Supposing a line so conceived as above, and for practical use any line drawn, let one cross another at any angle. Let one move round in the direction to enlarge the smaller of the two angles. I necessarily pass through all angles till the lines are identical, and at a given point a right angle; I must do it. The physical exactitude is a mere question of physical skill. In the case of a line one cannot form a mental picture of a line, for its essence is not to be a material existence at all, but the mode of existence of that of which I can form such a picture, that is, existence in divisible space; and it is his reducing all thought to mere objects, so as to apply the phenomenal facts as to that to all thought in the mind, which makes all his system false. Geometers just define it for practical use; but Mill never thinks nor gets beyond what he picks up to comment on. All human reasoning is built on hypothesis necessarily. The only difference of geometry is that, occupied with what actually exists in nature, the hypothesis is incontrovertible. Mere definition or axiomatic assertion may be well or ill founded, but the relations of space, quantity, inequality exist in the necessity of our thought; and geometry has only to discover what they are, and, as in all true deductive reasoning, the conclusion is necessary.

Some mathematical definitions are very stupid. "A straight line is the shortest line between two points." This may be and doubtless is true, but is no definition, not what a straight line is, but a quality of it. "Straight" is whatever never swerves from one direction towards a point fixed as regards the point from which it starts. Every basis of deduction is an assumed truth -- and as to the nature of what is spoken of -- only mathematics dealing with the forms and measures of space deal with that which exists as true in the nature we belong to. Man is mortal, or man is a rational animal, may give rise to a thousand questions other than such as belong immutably to the nature of space, the sphere or time, the condition in which we now exist.

His change as to equal magnitudes (page 264) makes the whole thing false. There are equal magnitudes which cannot be so applied to one another as to coincide, though those which do are upon the face of it equal. I suppose "magnitudes equal to the same" to be a delusion in terms, even if convenient for practice. The magnitudes here are the same. I think the proposition that two straight lines cannot enclose a space may be demonstrated, for let them start from two separate points and these are not united by them. Let them start from the same point -- either they are identical (only one line really) or perpetually diverge. The true definition of a straight line, one which never diverges from direction to one fixed point, makes all this simple. I dare say geometry may be more convenient as we have it; but what we want in it logically is to give right force to terms, and so to definitions. What we have said of straight lines is not (page 266) an induction from the evidence of our senses (rather nonsense, by the bye) but is necessarily demonstrated from the meaning of "straight."

And this introduces another fallacy of Mill's, founded on his assertion of general propositions and ignorance of their nature. Of course they may be contested, but in all deductive reasoning are assumed. But as reasoning from particulars (Mill's theory) is clearly false on the face of it, and no reasoning at all -- that is, no legitimate inference of any kind -- so the universality of a general proposition is not all. That all men are mortal is a fact. They have been so in all known cases; but the induction goes farther, and involves, perhaps is even tacitly based on, another: Man is mortal, which affirms something of the nature of man which is other and more than the fact that all are involved in it. And this is the meaning of what is universal is necessary -- that is, certainly must happen according to the nature. "Straight" is a line of a particular nature, one which never deviates in its direction; if it does, it is not straight. So a circle; it means a boundary line enclosing space whose distance from a point within is always equal. Now Mr. Mill's reasoning that it comes from observation is false upon the face of it; for he says there never was a perfect circle nor line seen, nor can there be, he declares. Hence it cannot be observation which has given me the idea of a perfect line or circle, for there is no such thing to be observed. It will be said, I correct its aberrations in my mind. Correct it by what? By the idea I have of it; that is, I have an idea to correct it by, not an idea in the sense of a mental image. I know what equal means. This I may have learned experimentally; but knowing what equal means, I know what circle means without seeing it or forming any image of it in my mind.

Saying, too, I cannot reason about nonentities is false; for modes of existence (as time and space) are not entities, and I can, though with perhaps more difficulty, reason about them. And here the part which language takes is forgotten. I may have learned what "equal" is by observation (not by inference and inferring nothing from it); but I exist in space, and divisible space and time, and I know what number is, and I think in this order, and equal becomes an abstraction from the things I may have learned it by. I apply it to entities; but it is not an entity at all, yet it is a perfectly intelligible word. I have no mental image before me when I say equal or unequal, though modes of existence suppose for us that things exist; but they are not existing things imaged in the mind. This materialism has rendered all Mill's reasoning false. I have an idea of straight and circle, lines or forms, with certain qualities which exclude from them all lines and forms which have them not. And if nature or art does not, as Mill says, furnish such, then I say a true circle does not exist in nature, and art cannot make one, though what it makes is meant for it, and answers practically for deductive reasoning, because it is meant for it, and supposed to be it. I do not take Euclid's axioms; because they are taken as sufficient for mathematical purposes, not meant to have the precision necessary for logical discussion. Let us bear in mind that all syllogistic reasoning is on the assumption of the truth of premises -- that is, hypothetical; and if true, the conclusion is always "must be," never really "is "; never truth affirmed in itself, but a conclusion, though always a necessary one. That two lines cannot include space is demonstrable, and no real axiom, but a necessary consequence of their nature, the meaning of "straight" being assumed, of which, whether I have ever seen an exactly straight thing or not, I have a perfectly clear thought.

As to the burden of proof (page 267), it is a feeble defence, but Mill has proved it; for he tells us that no one has ever seen a true straight line or true circle. I have already said that the only difference of mathematics is that the truths we start with -- space, divisible space, form, etc. -- are in the certain nature of things, that is, our own mode of existence. Hence unless I know God and what "I am" means, in which there is no space or time, all thoughts, or rather attempts at thought, of what is eternal outside them are negative and cannot be otherwise -- infinite, immense, and so on. I exist in what is divisible space and time, and with human power I cannot go beyond it. When I say I am, the thought has no past, no future -- that is, is negative of finite time. It is the nearest to eternity I can come, and by a tacit negation. It is always now.⁺ Hence, when used absolutely, it negatives time absolutely; when said of myself, it says, I exist now.

What Mr. Bain says is clearly false (page 272), for we have no really straight objects to compare, and I cannot say "bent or crooked" without understanding what "straight" means, to which another object may be an approximation. That the knowledge which makes it understood suffices to verify it, is true; but for a very different reason. Straight means what does not deviate; but from what? All his reasoning in pages 274-5 is founded on different meanings of inconceivable. Whewell used it as tantamount to impossible, Mill as what the mind may or cannot apprehend, he having nothing but observation and experience to judge by, but the impossibility is in the nature of the things. Two are not three in the same sense, nor bent and straight. It is not simply that I cannot conceive two straight lines enclosing a space, but they cannot enclose it. It has nothing to do with the information of my mind or its habits, which is all Mill can speak of. The thing, according to our mode of existence and thought, cannot be. It is not merely that in my condition of mind it cannot de facto be thought: in my state of existence it is not thinkable. All his reasoning is not worth a straw. One is the effect of prejudice or education; the other is in the nature of the things. My having ascertained it or not is the state of my mind; the other is the state of two straight lines. And it is quite possible that, while my ascertaining the fact is a matter of scientific progress, I may learn, too, that, things being what they are (and so only can I think logically and as to nature), it could not be otherwise. Thus it took great progress to learn the uniform and universal laws of gravitation; but, once learned, the sun being an enormously greater mass, that principle being true, the earth, once set in motion, must go round the sun.

⁺Everlasting only supposes continuous existence from now, ex parte post, so called, or ex parte ante.

So with combinations in the reasoning of both these gentlemen. If things were not definitely combined (though experimentally learned), we could not have a kosmos, an ordered universe. There might have been another combination possible (but not according to that in which we live, hence not conceivable by us); but to have order and distinct bodies, there being diverse elements, they must be definitely combined to have these distinct bodies. Uniformity and order cannot exist without it. Whewell, on the main point, defends himself needlessly and to no purpose (page 283). The question is not, save for myself, if I conceived distinctly or not, nor do I trouble myself with actual axioms more or less correct; but is there such a thing as a straight line conceivable which is not a crooked one, and a circle which is itself not an ellipse nor a square? Necessary conclusions are those rightly drawn from admitted premises; necessary truths are those which follow necessarily from the facts certain in nature. They are also facts. I learn them perhaps by reasoning. Geometry proves the equal quantities of distinct forms. I join by a straight line two radii of a circle. I have an isosceles triangle; whatever may be deduced rightly from that necessarily follows, and may involve important discoveries. The uncultivated mind has no clear idea of what makes it impossible for him, therefore it is not so, of course. And though I cannot conceive a world with different chemical combinations, as I belong to this and am not a creator, I can conceive there may be; just as I may conceive there are a thousand chemical combinations yet undiscovered. But chaos man cannot conceive. It is combination in a definite way which comes into his mind, if any; but any particular combination must be for an ordered kosmos.

True axioms, then, are relationships which are in nature and for our existence always and necessarily true. When I define a thing in mathematics, I take a fact in the relations of space or number, not an existing object, but a relationship mentally conceived, one which is important for further reasoning, though there may be a thousand others; not, as Mr. Mill says, denying other attributes, but selecting that which makes it important. What I take necessarily and absolutely exists, not a physical object, an object of sense, but a relationship in the nature of things, say a right angle. Now all angles exist infinite in number. I take one where, two lines crossing each other, all the angles are equal. There must be such, for all angles exist (they are the mere relation or difference of direction of two lines from one point),⁺ therefore this does: only I take it for further use. So there are infinite forms circumscribed by a continuous line, never straight, but returning to the same identical point. There is, therefore, one of which the circumscribing line is always equidistant from a point within, that is, all whose radii are equal. I take this one, because from this quality (there may be twenty others) all the system of trigonometry (its sines, cosines, versed sines, etc.) flows. But the existence of these relationships is in the nature of things, not objects (though if true they may become such), but as to which it is impossible that they should not be. I learn many consequences, as I do from the ellipse or other forms which in astronomy become of the greatest importance: consequences that are also true as relationships -- say as Kepler's laws -- much more certain and certainly accurate in mathematics than by observation. If facts, they may be observable of course, but their certainty is mathematical, that is, in their nature not experimental. I repeat, all deductive reasoning is hypothetical; that is, it assumes the truth of the premises.

⁺Angles are mere quantitative angular space, part of the whole circle of space round a point. A right angle is one of four equal ones which take in the whole space.

(Pages 290, 293.) I come to numbers. Mr. Mill tells us that 1 = 1 is not certain, because a pound troy is not equal to a pound avoirdupois. This is a sample of Mill's logic. He says we must think of ten bodies, ten sounds, etc.; but I do not think of bodies or sounds at all, not even if such are before me, only of their relation in number. I think of ten. I can say ten is not nine, and think of no body or thing at all. Two and one is no definition of three at all; it merely states that, if I add one to two, it makes what I call three; but two and two making four, 3 + 1 making four, and so on, shew this has nothing to do with definitions. We cannot define numbers, because they enter as a primary idea into my condition of existence in the divisibility of quantity or the unity of an undivided object, as three parts, one sum. You cannot define colours for an analogous reason, nor sounds. They are primary sensations in the latter cases, the mode of my existence in the former. The word is merely the sign of it; but I am one, another person speaking to me is one, and we are two. When I say "two," it shews that it is not the object of sense, for the two are different, but unity or numerical quantity that I think of. The word "four," as applicable to all objects, represents none. It represents four, the number, a mode of separate existence. The objects are not the subject of thought, but the number of them, and therefore I can compute without referring to any object; the relations developed are relations of number, and nothing else. Nobody denies that objects are numbered, but thinking of number is not thinking of the objects. They exist in space, in time; but space and time are not the objects of sense that exist in them. To confound reasoning of "one" and "one pound," as if it were the same thing, shews an incapacity of mind which may not be impossible, but it is certainly "inconceivable" in one pretending to teach reasoning or logic: the difference is in the pounds, not in the one. But mathematical arguments as to quantity are just as certain. What have quantities, as man has combined them in commerce, to do with abstract relations of quantity? This is all child's play in logic.

I need not enter at any length into the question between Mr. Mill and Mr. Spencer. Both base their reasoning on exact experience, and both are all wrong. If, as Mr. Spencer says, I feel I am cold, and cannot conceive I am not, this is not past experience. Nor is it necessary to talk of the opposite being inconceivable. A present positive feeling is for him who has it certain. Mr. Mill's answer is simplest nonsense. He says, I can conceive not being cold; but Mr. S. evidently means that when I feel cold I cannot conceive being not cold then. But they are, in order to make experience the sole test of truth, making my conception of a thing the only question, not the thing itself. If I have a toothache, the pain is something, though, of course, I conceive it; and in the cases we have been considering -- circles, numbers, etc. -- my conceiving it has nothing to do with it. The thing has the qualities; the form or number is what it is. There are numbers which convey no idea to the mind, but I can calculate them with as much certainty as if it were two or three: the certainty is in the numerical relation, not in any conception; and, be the circle big or little, the relations of sines, cosines, etc., are just the same. Conceiving depends on the conceiving power, not on the truth of the thing. "That what is inconceivable cannot be true," is as false as can possibly be; for conceivable depends on the capacity of the conceiver, not on truth or not. Besides, a man may be certain in his conception, and deceived -- think himself made of glass, or Louis XVI; he is mad, no doubt, but just as certain. It is inconceivable for him that it should be otherwise. Mr. Mill distinguishes between inconceivable and impossible. I may use the former for the latter; but if the difference is made and it is just, I had already made it. The whole argument is not worth a rush. What is impossible cannot have been a matter of experience, and rests on the nature of the thing, not on conception or experience at all. And a thing may be impossible and yet supposed, or so far conceived, as that the square of the hypotenuse is not equal to the squares of the two sides. This is impossible to be true from the relation of the quantities. I may have to discover it, but it is in the nature of the thing always so.

As to contradiction or an excluded middle, I must add used in the same sense. Thus, snow is white; snow is not white. If snow is white, what is not white is not snow. What is red snow? It is in all its essential qualities what makes it snow, but it has been coloured in some way; and contradiction is simply such negatives that is, says the affirmation is not true, consequently the negative cannot be true if it is. But this supposes the term used in the same sense. A man is one single I, but there are body, soul, and spirit, which may be separated. But what Mill says is, as usual, wrong (page 321); for an unmeaning proposition is none at all -- is not true nor false, not as a proposition, but because it is not one at all. He is wrong, too, as to matter. What is infinitely divisible cannot be said to be not infinitely divisible. Whether matter exists or not has nothing to do with the question. The existence of matter is another proposition, the truth of which is assumed in the one we are treating of, as is always the case mentally. The incapacity of Mr. Mill in analysing is really astounding. Nor has sight or touch anything to do with it. Thus, if chemistry has shewn, as alleged in the atomic theory,⁺ that divisibility cannot be carried farther, then the up to that divisible thing is not infinitely divisible. Infinite divisibility may be applied to space without matter in thought. If I get space, I get extension; and if I do, I can conceive part of it.

⁺But this is merely physically. Mentally space is always divisible, because it has extension, or it is not space.

In the quotations from Spencer we get the usual reference of everything to experience. Now as to phenomena I should insist on it. But reasoning has nothing to do with it. I know, without any phenomenon, that when I say a thing is not, I do not mean that it is, but to contradict it, that I am saying that the proposition is not true; if it is true, it is not true to say it is not. I have nothing to do here with the experience of objects, beyond which these men cannot get. I say, whales are mammals; it is said that whales are not mammals. If I use the word in the same sense both cannot be true, because one says the other is not, and it cannot be true and not true in the same sense. Yet I have no experience of whales -- never saw one to examine it -- only I know that in the usual ordinary sense of the term it is a great fish; but I have no experience of the matter; only I know what a proposition is, and what not means.

I deny altogether that all our knowledge comes from induction, or that induction gives us any truth at all. Induction gives us what we have to act on as men, in a multitude of cases; for Mill carefully leaves out belief in testimony. But induction only gives us a high degree of probability. Induction does not give us truth; testimony alone gives us truth. But he admits that what induction does is to discover and prove general propositions. He insists on ascertaining individual facts, but all this is sophistry.⁺ Because I do not infer from some observed cases to one, unless it be the observation of all; for if not, you can draw no inference; it concludes from constant recurrence in all cases without other cause; it is true in all cases, hence in any given one; otherwise in none, unless that it is uncertain, for some are and some are not alike, or at least only probability. It never gives truth as such. "Observation of known cases" means of all known cases, or is quite false; but from all known cases universality is concluded. But this is the general proposition.

⁺Indeed in page 331 he says, "In strictness, indeed, the result of the problem is a general proposition." To be sure it is, and must be -- here in the case of mathematics.

The inference is to a whole class, because it is true of the whole class in all observed cases. "It does not hold at all, or it holds in all cases." Just so; but my induction is from its having been so in all observed: if it has not, I cannot infer that it will; and of cases not yet observed I only infer it of one, because I infer it of all. Only, as I have said, it tacitly but really affirms the nature of the thing. "All men are mortal" is really a conclusion as to man's nature from having known all to die as to human knowledge. All diameters of a circle are equal is the nature of a circle having all its radii equal. But here again the cloven foot comes out, that the inquiry into a scientific principle or an individual fact is just the same induction. Now, a principle or the nature of things is a matter of induction from many or all observed facts, but an individual fact (save as identical with a scientific principle) is never a matter of induction, but of testimony. I know he reasons about it to shew that I believe by an induction as to credibility; but this, however much it has its place, does not in itself give any induction in believing the fact. I believe the testimony that the fact is, and infer nothing about anything. I may shew it is folly not to believe the testimony, and infer I ought; but that is reasoning or inferring as to the testimony, if I do this (not always the ground or belief, nor even of divine faith), not as to the fact. I believe on testimony, which is no induction at all; and this in the next pages he does not deny.

Page 329). The senses or testimony must decide on the individual fact. Inductions may, of course, then be made; but what he says about the syllogism is all false, as before. It is always and only deduction, and not induction. Even in practical affairs the inference to a particular case would not be just, unless true of all such cases, for if not, this one may be a similar exception; and so he admits in the first sentence in the next chapter. It is really wearisome to pursue such absence of all exactness of mind. This definition of induction? (page 333) says all I have insisted on, as to the whole class or general proposition being its true character. But syllogism is not induction, but deduction. It does not give probability, however high, which is all induction can do, and therefore nothing certain, but a necessary and certain conclusion if the premises be true. The case Mr. Mill puts is induction, and of it syllogism says: Argumentum a particulari ad universalem nil valet, and for a deduction certain in its nature, that must be; it is an induction from given cases to a class which may or may not be well founded. It is an induction; there is a conclusion, namely that every A is B; whether it be fairly conclusive depends on circumstances. If this and that A are sufficiently numerous and none contradictory are known, then it is a fair induction, such as men have to act on. But it is not a syllogism -- must be if the premises are.

Of the use of syllogism I have spoken; it connects with certainty, by means of a middle term, ideas or an idea not connected or contained in the subject as announced, and which is called in question. Every man is an animal; every animal lives (as such) by blood; therefore man lives by blood. The middle term animal connects life by blood with man, which is supposed to be in dispute. He is wrong in saying ascertained as to every individual in it. That is not it. It is ascertained as to every individual that has come under observation, and so I conclude as to one which has not. That is induction, the nature being really always introduced, though the process be not analysed in our minds. And this view of induction he admits to be true in pages 334, 335. But syllogism is wholly distinct in its nature, and gives on admitted premises a certain conclusion from them. The induction, if it be sufficient to prove the nature, is practically sufficient so far as phenomena go; but never in se certainty. But this point of the nature of things is of great importance, though it simplifies things much.

I need not follow the mass of useless verbiage in the controversy between Mill and Dr. Whewell. Mill sums it up in one sentence as to Kepler, but shews himself wrong therein; for, as is evident, Kepler's law was an induction, only one ready-made for him in the necessary rules of an ellipse. Having found a number of places and movements of Mars, he inferred all the rest: only the inference was ready-made for him. But as to the question of nature itself, what is in Mill (ground of induction) and Whately is vague and unsatisfactory, though there is a general presentiment of truth in it. Nature and its uniformity come up in three distinct ways. First, uniformity of relative existence, that is, of what is always true in nature as it subsists, as space and form, mathematical induction, which is really merely discovery of what is constantly so. Secondly, the effects of power in nature, which may or may not operate constantly, as gravitation or certain chemical affinities or effects. Thirdly, subjection to some law or power which operates universally. The second is probably the law of nature. I do not conclude because John and Peter have died that all will. Abel's death by violence, and all men's, save eight, by the flood, could not have proved it, because it was not the course of nature that all would have died by nature; but I conclude that John and Peter will die because all have. My reason is that the universality of it, without other external cause, makes it a law of man's nature; but as it is not in the subject itself apparently, but subjection to a law of necessity, I must shew its universality in the natural course of things, which practically proves its necessity in every cause. Yet it is not proof, that is, certainty, though quasi-certainty. He who believes scripture knows we shall not all die. It is what in a person or being in his normal state is contrary to his nature, for he lives. He is subjected to it, he may be even violently. Hence I can only conclude while that subjection continues. But in chemical affinities or gravitation it is in its normal state that it so acts; it is its nature. Seeing this, namely it is its nature, the law of it if you please, I reckon on its doing so in all cases, because it is its nature. This may be both learned and confirmed by observation, and, no doubt, possibly the generalisation induced; but from one clear adequate instance or many I have its nature.

In geometrical induction it is, as I said, discovery of the nature or essential qualities of one form; and these never vary, they are the qualities of that form. What he says of only proving that that circle is only so and-so is a mistake. It is what a circle, any circle, is. Colours do not give just ground for induction. They are not what the thing is -- its nature. Black swans, however, were known -- rara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygno. What he says of abstraction is wrong. It abstracts a quality from all it may be found in, as whiteness; or a thing as a nature abstractedly from all in which the nature is found, as a man, or man; a circle, etc. It is not connecting known facts by common characters, but taking the characters apart from the facts. Man is so-and-so, whiteness dazzles. It is the quality of being in its nature apart from the objects in which a quality is, or individual instances of a being or an act: as "Reading much tries the mind": "Living by warm blood is the property of all beings who breathe through lungs." It is really that the nature of the thing has been discovered. In all cases it is, so far as one instance shews, the nature of the thing that the induction is sure (for mathematics is a discovered fact of relation of quantity). When it is only from all known instances (though adequately for human conclusions) and the nature of the thing not shewn, it is not, properly speaking, certain; as mortality is not the nature of man -- that is, a living being; but subjection to something which produces it. But there is another kind of inference, not from cases or all cases to the one not observed, but to the cause of the case itself. This may be from other similar cases, but not necessarily. Thus if, having gone round part of an island, I find in a strait I have not surveyed the tide setting in strong through it, I conclude it is open at the other end, for the current could not so set through it under given circumstances if it were not. This is a legitimate induction to the cause of the phenomenon, and then to the state of things which allows the cause to operate and is its formal occasion.

But I deny wholly that belief in oracles, or Whately's popular superstition, is induction from experience. They may try and justify their opinion by experience. It is evidently the power of unseen things on the human mind. Its cause is not experience. What invented it? What set it up? I do not admit any proof in induction (page 352). When one man has died, the conception of being mortal is not arrived at at all. Nor is it properly a conception. I conceive death. Mortality is a moral judgment as to the condition of the living where that conception has no place. Nor is abstraction description. But I do not dwell on these points. But if generalisation from experience be induction, it cannot be proof. In material facts of the course of nature it may, but that is not really an induction from instances, but the discovery of the uniform law of the course of nature in which we exist. It does not assume the uniformity of the laws of nature, but discovers, and in that sense proves, it in the cases where it is so. I do not (from some cases of bodies falling, since nature is uniform) infer that other bodies will fall, but learn weight or gravity as a law of nature from all bodies (not hindered) falling. What I have discovered is the law (or uniformity) from all known cases, not some from an abstract idea of uniformity.

I have no contest with uniformity of laws of material nature; my question is about the inductive process. I admit habitual experience gives a general feeling of a uniform law in the order of nature. But even in this it is only present phenomena. The sun rises and sets, and I expect it to do so. But the most accurate science says this order must have begun, and it must end. I shall be told this is a mere general law; be it so (though it makes phenomenal induction a poor and foolish thing). But it proves that proof by induction from observed instances to others, on the assumption of uniformity in the course of nature, is no solid ground of reasoning. For this reason: the earth had a beginning, that is, as Mill admits, there was a change. That is, uniformity, which means no change, is not true.

If one boldly says beginning to exist is from a law (not to say that it is nonsense), where is the proof of it as a law? from what other causes is the induction made? What was the antecedent of which its existence is the sequence (called cause)? If I am told it was the effect of cast-off portions of a revolving sun and cooling mass, what was the antecedent of that? Whatever cooling of the sun may be affirmed, if matter be inert and has been set going, some force has set it going which is not in the inert matter. So, if the uniformity of the principle of weight is there, what put it there? This regards change and beginning, and motion is change. Where there is none, the case is even plainer. "Fire burns," he tells us, does not relate to time. Of course not, but "fire burns" is a statement of its nature, and what it is as such, what consequently it always as such does. There is no inference at all from cases known to cases unknown; it is known already and always that fire burns. He tells us (page 254) that this uniformity of the course of nature, or government by general laws, "is an assumption involved in every case of induction." In page 255 again:" That the course of nature is uniform is the fundamental principle or general axiom of induction. It would yet be a great error to offer this large generalisation as any explanation of the inductive process. On the contrary, I hold it to be itself an instance of induction ... . Far from being the first induction we make, it is one of the last." This is singular. It is an assumption involved in every case of induction, the fundamental principle or general axiom of induction; but then it is a late induction -- that is, it is not an assumption at all, but an instance of induction, which of course must have been made without it, for it is one of the last inductions made-that is, it cannot have been assumed before. It is known by induction, the fruit of it; but the induction was made always by assuming it. It is always taken for granted to have proof by induction, but the induction must be made or it is not known; it is itself induction, in which it takes itself for granted.

His only answer to this is, for he admits it, that it is no more than the major of a syllogism. But this is no answer at all, for he admits that the major is necessary to prove the conclusion, though no part of the proof. What is necessary thus to prove all inductions is itself a matter of induction, when it is not there though necessary! But the answer is in itself unfounded. The major is part of the proof -- ground I have already gone over. Thus man lives by blood, therefore man is mortal. Here is no proof whatever of anything. I say, Why so? I answer, which is the major, because everything that lives by blood is mortal. My minor only brought it into this class, the major proved it was mortal. He would say, Your major had to be proved. Of course it had. But that has nothing to do with the proof of the syllogism.

In fact, moreover, universal laws of nature are not assumed. A universal law of gravity is discovered by observation, generalises withal by finding that it explains all the phenomena of movement in the universe, though gravity is only a name for the fact. But nothing of a universal law is assumed here. It is, as he admits, an induction, and an induction which could not yet be made. I find by experiment that water presses equally in every direction, another general law, but no assumption of universality. But when I find in every case coming before me that there are fixed principles of nature, and that it is in a general way necessary for the order which constitutes the kosmos, I accept it as a general principle of that kosmos -- that is, in the physical order of things. It is a result of induction. But this proves the inaccuracy of Mill in saying that it is the basis in every induction; for it is not in any of these, by which it is ascertained. That is, his principle is wholly false. Nor does it go beyond material elements or physical nature; but we cannot expect Mill to get beyond materialism.

But then to assume it is a universal basis of induction because it is in material things is wholly unfounded. He may amuse himself with chemistry from Bain and Sir John Herschel, but this is superficial work, and shews a will. He says (page 329): The validity of argument, when constructed, depends on principles, and must be tried by tests which are the same for all descriptions of inquiries. Now an inquiry whether alkalies neutralise acids is not tried by the same test as whether man is morally responsible to God, and what God is, what morality is. And Mill has shewn elsewhere the effect of this materialism in declaring his belief of an impotent God, partially good and unable to do better with the materials ready to His hand, whencesoever they came. Doubtless he had felt physical evil personally, and knew, as evidently he did not, nothing else, nothing of the truths involved in conscience. His theory is -- we are to perfect what has been made imperfectly.

The induction by simple enumeration is true where it is the expression of nature, for that reason; one instance of an effect well ascertained to be attributable to a chemical agent is so for the same reason. When I cannot say it is nature, it is the highest probability where no other cause is, as ordinary mortality. Violence, disease, or not, men equally die as to animal life; phenomenally animals the same. I then say it is the present order of nature. When I say alkalies neutralise acids, or hydrogen and oxygen in given proportions make water, I get, as far as men can ascertain, their nature as to that. And I to not, however, draw an induction properly in this case. It is the nature of alkalies, and these gases so united make water. I do not predict, save to the ignorant. They do not resemble, as Mill would say; they are the same, not in corporate unity, which has nothing to do with the matter, in action. Alkalies do that, not "have done" nor will," though each be true; they do it. When I conclude from instances to instances, it may be more or less likely, because, if tolerably many, there is probably a common cause; but it is no proof of anything: but if I ascertain the nature of the thing, that is an induction, and so far practical proof. But this only applies to material nature, not to a law binding everything with a phenomenal kosmos. Consequences prove antecedents, but only where it is the nature of the thing; sequence in itself has nothing to do with it. He admits the fact; but if it does not in one instance, it is no proof in any.

Day follows night, that is, light darkness; but it is not of the nature of darkness to give light, or to cause it, and the sequence has nothing to do with causation, laws of nature, or induction. That is propter, quia post. Where a thing produces anything, then I pronounce on its nature, and it is always itself when not hindered. His chemical instances may be all very well as trivial illustrations of means to discover producing causes, though he never travels beyond materialism; very pretty experiments borrowed from others, which not only are confined to material things, but do not analyse the true principles even of them. They are mere means of scientific discovery, beyond which his mind cannot go. He does not see the difference I have noted. The black or white swan, or grey crow, says nothing as to nature; it is a mere fact, and swan or crow is merely a class made ill or well; and all the white swans in the world would not prove there was not a black one -- has nothing to do with it. The only important principle evolved here is that he is obliged to rest all on testimony, as in all questions of fact we must. Most of the laws of nature are simply facts, and there is no induction whatever, but adequate ascertainment of a fact; as that hydrogen and oxygen make water: only in the details we must see that other causes do not come in to produce or have hindered.

As to cleverness in experiment, his cases may be all very well, but have nothing to do with the logic of causes. I cannot see any induction in ascertaining the laws of nature, though clever induction may shorten the work in guessing or probability (not proper invention). The fact is there, and the fact is learned. A clever mind may think of means to ascertain whether the fact is such; a well-informed mind knows what may eliminate, what would confuse. But if hydrogen and oxygen always make water, there is no induction. If a third element be there which hinders it, I have to ascertain where the true law or uniform fact is; but all this is mere ascertainment of facts by observation. As to the result, that is the fact. You have nothing to do with following them.

I quite admit cleverness and knowledge in the use of facts. When Leverrier or Adams discovered that Uranus's motions could not be accounted for, all the difference was that they could not see what caused it. The law of gravity was known: it was an instance of it. The irregular movement proved the presence of the object, just the same as sight would. The cause and result were identified.

The reason why testimony that there were black swans could be received was that colour does not alter the nature at all. Wearing heads under arms clearly ran counter to the natural structure of a man. You cannot say there can be none such, but it is too contrary to nature, and so to probability, to receive it. Experience would not help us with the swans. If colour had to do with nature, as the black spot from arsenic, it would at once affect our judgment.

As to his case of abuse of power, there is generalisation, but his conclusion is, as usual, a Tenterden steeple one. How does he know that education will ever elevate character, or destroy the love of power or its abuse? The only conclusion to be drawn is that no forms hinder the love and abuse of power found in man, and no system of education yet invented has corrected his nature (pages 354-372). He had before told us (page 258) that mathematics were not certain: now their laws are rigorously universal.

If truth is investigated by evidence, neither induction nor logic is such at all. He naturally avoids all efficient causes, looking only to physical ones; in which, too, all is false, because he has confounded cause and sequence, and things apparently necessary with cause. It is the merest fallacy to call it causation where it is simply sequence. Be it that I learn what is a cause from it by eliminating other concomitants, but then it is a producing cause. Whether there be a constant sustaining will is another question: I believe it, but I may consider the ordered sequences apart as ordered. In that sense he is superficial and unanalytical still. Events, as we know them in the kosmos, have had not necessarily antecedents; this is not so, but causes. Gravity is not an antecedent of centripetal motion, nor impulse even of rectilinear. They act in the motion. What we call gravity is only the force so displayed. But the real cause is not all the antecedents where there are such. Poison kills one man, not another, the former being unhealthy, but the latter is not the cause. The poison destroyed the tissues, or corrupted the blood, etc;, that killed the man; in the other case there was adequate force to resist, which there was not in the first.

(Pages 378-9.) Language may be used carelessly, and occasion used for cause, and Mill's mind not get beyond this. We do so when, without the occasion, the result would not have happened; but this is only language. The man falling from the ladder broke his neck -- suppose this was the cause of his death; but I say slipping from the ladder, because otherwise he would not thus have broken his neck, and his weight would not have done it at all. A stone falling to the bottom is caused by gravity simply, partially hindered by the medium. It is immaterial what might hinder. It is evident that it cannot come into the cause of what it is not hindered in. He is wrong as to the surprise. The absence of the sentinel did cause the surprise, not the attack; but it was the cause why that attack was a surprise on the others; and that is what causing a surprise means, not causing the fact, but causing that fact to be a surprise. Absence may be a cause. Absence or non-existence of light (darkness) makes me lose my way. There must be a way, and a man purposing to go it; but this has nothing to do with the cause of his losing it.

I may say, in common parlance, Faust died (page 383), because he was a man; Mephistopheles not, because he was a spirit. But this does not say what was the cause of Faust's death. Poison killed Faust, his being a man did not. But the operation of the poison did not exist as to spirit. There was no cause at all at work. In comparing and saying why there was not, it is all well to say because, etc., but this has nothing to do with the cause. His whole system as to causation is wrong. To say that the existence of tissues is the cause of their destruction, because there must be tissues to destroy, is trifling nonsense, and that it is not alleged as a cause only, because taken for granted. The existence of tissues is no cause at all of their being destroyed. In page 383 he says this, in page 380 he says it is vicious tautology.

The movement of a projectile is the effect of the combination of two forces. More than one cause may be in operation, but the collection of all conditions being causes is unfounded. And he takes states of objects as causes, but this is all the grossest delusion. If a stone attracts the earth, that is not what makes it fall; were it big enough the earth would go to it. So colours are states of an object. There being causes of sensation in me is a wholly different matter. He has really a most incompetent mind.

The thing caused in my mind has nothing to do with the colour being a patient, but my senses. The action and passion refer to different objects in which the result is produced. If I give a blow and produce pain, I am in no way the patient. The whole of this in page 388 is utterly false, because the object is not agent in that in which it is patient, nor vice versa. The case of the scholar and teacher is sophistical in this, that in both mind is brought in. But even here, qua recipient from the teacher, the scholar is not active. It may set his mind working. Mill is all confusion, too, here.

In page 62 a substance or body is the external cause of our sensation. Hence, if I paint the wall white, the cause of my seeing whiteness is there. It is a simple direct cause, not an induction, at least if page 62 be just. Painting the wall is merely putting on that place what does so; the wall has nothing to do with it. Nor do I see that what he says of cause, or of conditions to define cause, is just. Cause means what produces an effect. Be it that Hume will have that we only know what is constantly antecedent. This is not true, as Reid's case of night and day shews. Mill adds unconditionally. But this is not true. His elaborate proof to shew that there is the condition that the sun must rise and set is absurd; for I have his experimentum crucis of the sun making daylight the cause of daylight -- that is, the cause known by the effect. And if I say, accounting for the sequence, it is the rotation of the earth which causes the sequence, as it is, there is the condition of the sun or light being there, and even here, as much as before, the earth may cease to rotate, or the sun to give light. But the rotation is none the less de facto the cause of the sequence -- I cannot say it will be for ever, but will be, nature being what it is: a necessary condition in every case. The man whose side was shot away led to experiments on the power of the gastric juice in digestion, the proportional ease of digestion of different edibles; but when they put the gastric juice into a vial, it was found that it did not digest save at the heat of the stomach. Here it was clear there was a condition, a certain degree of heat. But gastric juice digested the substance. If not, what did? Gastric juice in its normal condition, not else. Hydrogen and oxygen produce water by being mixed, but if mixed with a certain force the hottest fire; here is a condition, the absence of a certain degree of force in mixing them. It is not unconditionally that the mixture produces water, but the mixture of hydrogen and oxygen for all that is the cause of water. And, according to his own statement, in the case of the surprise of the army, non-existence cannot be a cause of anything. The absence of force is not existence; so that cannot be a cause. But even there he was wrong, because the army reckoned on the sentinel, and therefore it did not watch.

And now, let me ask, what sequence of antecedents and consequences, conditioned or unconditioned, makes me find the light of the sun by day an experimentum crucis that it is the cause of day? But further, this is merely an effort to insist on laws and nature's order. Supposing I make a lamp, what sequence, conditioned or unconditioned, is the cause of its existence? Every fact which has a beginning, he tells us (page 376), has a cause. All right. And the invariable antecedent is termed the cause (page 377). The lamp had a beginning, consequently it had a cause. That is an invariable antecedent, and we learn farther on that it is always followed by the same consequent; whereas there is no invariable consequence in the lamp. The lamp is certainly an existing phenomenon. Between the phenomena which exist at any instant, and the phenomena which exist at any succeeding instant, there is an invariable order of succession. Now if his explanations and definitions apply only to one class of objects, and are untrue of all the rest, they are false as such. Thus every fact which has a beginning has a cause; that is, according to his definition, an invariable antecedent. Both these are clearly not true.

I admit, every one admits, that as a general principle the course of nature proceeds according to established laws. It would not be a course of nature if it did not. This does not preclude the possibility of interference, but it is there to be interfered with if it be. But Mr. Mill's theory of causation is wholly false and wrong. But further, every fact which has a beginning has a cause. Now in the course of nature there is no beginning phenomenally, or it would not be a course. Particular effects may begin, as the procession of the equinoxes returning on their course; but this is really a continuous effect, a regular thing. Thus there is no beginning of anything, consequently no cause of anything at all, save petty details man can make by his activities. Nothing ever began, and nothing ever was caused. A thunderstorm begins, but it is the regular course really of the operation of electricity and heat. It is as regular a course of nature really as the sunrise. But what made electricity have this course?

In truth Mr. Mill merely states a phenomenal course, but cause is no real word for it; hence, to slip out of the difficulty, he confines himself to course of nature where general laws are admitted, and avowedly confines himself to phenomena, by which he means merely the visible or discovered course of nature around us, where nothing phenomenal had a beginning, that is, now apparent as apparent, or it would not be an established law; for if established now (or any time), something established it, and there is an efficient, not a mere phenomenal, cause. If constantly in operation, it has not a beginning. The whole theory is utterly shallow.

If we are to believe Thompson, the earth must have had a beginning; so that there was a cause when it was not. But that is another question of fact. Phenomenal laws do not begin, and there is no beginning at all, or, in Mr. Mill's definition, a cause before the beginning of phenomenal laws. An established law now going on is not a beginning, but a going on; and he shirks the whole real question, falsifying all the principles he lays down himself. So he says (page 397): -- The beginning of a phenomenon is what implies a cause, and causation is the law of succession of phenomena. This is a contradiction in terms, or reduces phenomena to the subjective perception by me. The light of the sun causes day -- his own example -- but that is merely my seeing it, for it is always light; day is merely that I see it. As the moon always reflects the light, the waxing and waning and lunar months, etc., are merely a question of my seeing it. The moment I have a law, I have what always is, that is, no beginning and no cause, on his shewing of what "cause" is. But this involves most important principles. A course of nature phenomenally is clearly not beginning. It is not a law nor known phenomenally as a law till it acts, and has acted regularly, as such. If learned by experience, it is going on (though if the nature of the cause be ascertained, I may conclude to its being so from one instance). That is, the fact of beginning, implying a cause, and a law of nature or regular sequences (cause meaning no more), as ascertained by experience, are contradictory to one another.

Hence of two things, one: either the course of nature began, and then I have a cause, that is, an efficient cause, outside and before that course; or it went on eternally without any cause at all. Not merely matter existed (we do not know matter unformed and whose state is uncaused, and no part of the kosmos), but the whole perfectly ordered system (with the force that governs it in its movements, regular as no man could devise it -- scarce discover, and multiform as no man can think) is perfectly uncaused and invented itself before it existed; for invented somehow it is. Matter, we are told, is inert; but it moves with a speed thought cannot realise, yet nothing has made it do so! It is here we may say Credat Judaeus Apella. Mill says he is not obliged to treat this question. But all his theory is false without it, because regular phenomena going on by established laws are not beginning. Day begins, no doubt, that is, I see the sun at a given time; but nothing is really beginning: the rotation of the earth is, as a law of nature, perpetual. If he says it is no law of nature, as it may naturally terminate, so begin, what gave the impulse? He cannot avoid efficient causes, for there are no other real ones. The attempt to reduce phenomenal causes to efficient ones was the intuitive sense that there must be such; the discovery of regular laws gradually did not falsify this, but merely the place they sought them in.

Discovery of gravity, a few general laws in chemistry -- as the law of general proportions, etc., -- proved it was not in essences of things efficient cause was to be sought (though there is more truth in it than in the denial of it). His changing conditions into causes is false as to causation. But the necessity of a cause somewhere is evident, and Mr. Mill admits it elsewhere, only an impotent one that could not make things better than they are, and we are to perfect the poor result! And the fact of general laws leads us up to a general or single cause which caused the course of nature to begin, and consequently was not of it (in the beginning was the Word and by Him all things began to be, or took place. Das Wort war, und durch ihn alles ward). But this, then, was by a will. Hence they can only continue by a will, the same that formed and gave the impulse. If the impulse was necessary to move originally, that only could cause the movement, and that will only can cause it to be now. By Him all things consist.

This is the only possible conclusion. Descartes may have gone wrong so far as not allowing secondary wills, as man's, which in their allowed spheres may be causes. All Sir W. Hamilton's reasoning (page 417) is just nil. Is the steam not the cause of propulsion, because there are cranks and condensers, etc.? The intermediate instrumentality has nothing to do with the cause or efficient power which produces the effect. All Mill's statement refers, with his usual want of sagacity, not to the point itself, but to the means of ascertaining it. Supposing I learn it by experience -- a dog, without learning anything, or using any reflex action of mind at all, moves his foot as much and as well as, or better than, I do. The cause of his action or moving is the same as mine. Foolish man may reason as to matter not acting on matter, or mind not acting on matter; but I and the dog do will, and do move our legs because we do will it. The case of paralysis proves nothing. It only shews that the machinery is out of order which communicates to a certain -- say, as they do -- distant lump of matter. Does it shew that steam is not a motive power if the crank be broken? The ascription of life by savages to sun and moon, because they had motion marking a plan, was a mistake as to the fact; but supposing it caused, as Mill and Reid say, which is only partially true, it was at the utmost a wrong deduction from too widely generalising a true fact; and this is their account of the matter. That is, they had always experienced that will in themselves gave rise to motion when so willed.

Mill (page 410) says volition is a physical cause, that is, an antecedent invariably producing a given consequent, which is absurd on the face of it, for thus it is not will. I may say, In three minutes I will strike the table; there is no consequent at all when this will exists. In three minutes I strike it when the will is positively active. Will cannot be physical, even if thought may be. Motives may produce will, conscience restrain it; but will is not subjective feeling, though this may tend to produce it; as, if a man irritates me, I should like to strike (not his talk but) him. It is not a consciousness of effort, but a consciousness of intention. Effort brings in the machinery; intention, not. If they say, and it is all they say, "I don't know how will sets the machinery in motion," I agree entirely, I insist on it. I have an intention and a will, and by nerves and muscles and a pen I write these lines, each word being what my intention makes it, if I am careful and wide awake. Can they tell how? Of course not. Is that a reason for saying, if I intend so to write, that I then have an active will to do it which puts these means in motion and produces the effect? The instruments have nothing to do with it. I must have a pen and ink. What then? They are as necessary conditions as nerves, and, say, electricity, if so it be. I speak to my friend: he understands and receives the deepest truths, say the nature of God. All I do is to modify the movement of the air by my lungs and throat and lips. Other spiritual power may be necessary; but this would only additionally prove that the animal economy through which the action passes has nothing to do with the cause. "Conscious of power" may be incorrect, because that may include the instruments of a body so wonderfully constructed to follow will; but "conscious of will" as that which somehow when in practice acting (for it may be there when it is not) causes the effect to follow. Paralysis has nothing to do with this. It refers to the machinery the motive power sets in activity: how, none can say. He can carry up the machinery to the nearest point where it receives the impulse, but that link no human mind can find; in no case can he. But however it acts, or however we learn it, active will, when the machinery is in order, does produce effects. Nothing can be without it, and no human mind can tell us the links between matter and mind and will. Mill has no idea of anything but theories of others and natural laws (page 419); the truth that lies behind he avowedly avoids; and when he touches it collaterally, he goes all wrong by the help of others (pages 411, 413). In pages 393-426 I only find shirking the truth, feebleness of mind, and want of sagacity.

The chapter on the composition of causes is all to no purpose. There is no analogy between the cases. The composition of forces is one and the same case, motive power (or attraction) acting on a distinct object. Chemical composition is one thing acting on another, or rather two things acting on each other, so as to produce a result within themselves, combining elements which, when together, form a third thing. One is mere force on an inert mass, the other the combination of elements within themselves. The total absence of all moral sense and responsibility, and the degrading character of his philosophy, are shewn in the way he speaks (page 432) of the laws of life. The way gastric juice produces chyle, or gastric juice is formed, perhaps that is within his sphere of vision, and no one doubts there is a chemical action in the development of animal life; but beyond that his thought cannot reach. What a son is to a father, a man to God, this never crosses his path. I shall be told it is no part of logic. In a direct way I fully admit it; but neither is chemistry, which is his constant hobby; and the life has nothing really to do with chemistry save in its external causes and sustainment.

It is proved now that there is no production of life from matter of itself, and that life precedes organisation and produces it. That much is hid from man, nay, all these things, I fully admit. But all his laws of life are only the form of operation when life is there. Matter does act on mind, as a knock on the head or a bad cold makes me senseless, mad, or stupid; and mind acts on matter, for I move, in spite of all the Cartesians (though in substance I agree with Leibnitz) in the world: bow I cannot say. Muscles, nerves, perhaps magnetism, only bring me to more subtle matter, and the question is untouched. Of this I have spoken. The effect of progressive heat (page 434) may be merely increased power of separating the particles. But this is no matter. It is fatiguing, his never getting beyond the nearest materialism; and we must ever remember that laws leave the question of real cause wholly untouched, as I have said.

To say that social and political phenomena are the effects of the laws of mind, is simple nonsense. It is the effect of passions, prejudices, unknown impulses, with which mind has nothing to do. Motives -- and men have to be governed by motives -- are not mind; and, whatever Utopia he may conceive, he cannot get rid of them or govern others, nor has he by any possibility a standard of result or principle which can form society. He may easily say "the good of all"; but what is that good? If reason governs each individual, is each individual competent to discern the best good of all, and to act upon it without caring for self? Love governing where it is, I understand. But reason and laws of mind never made a world happy, nor have they anything to do with it. Cold never thawed the hard earth, nor reason selfishness in man.

As to induction (page 444), I deny that its object is to ascertain what causes are connected with what effects. It is to ascertain what things are. No doubt it may be used for the other; but every major premise of a syllogism, when believed by induction, is not the statement of the effect of a cause. 'Every man is an animal' is fact derived from observation, and has nothing to do with cause and effect. This is merely the blinding effect of being engrossed by laws of nature, and incapacity to get out of the material rut in which his very narrow mind moves. And this, as the end of inductive philosophy, is the low fallacy of his whole book. That his principles are incapable of anything beyond it I fully admit.

But Mr. Mill assumes that chemistry, life, social and political questions, are all problems of the same nature; he leaves out not only the whole higher sphere of thought, admitting that induction has made nothing even of most of these, and drawing all his instructions from chemistry and mere physical nature. But this false view of induction destroys the basis of his reasoning. And it is every way and wholly false and illogical; for laws are not really causes, and physical laws are not everything -- at any rate cannot be assumed to be such; so that his whole system is false from beginning to end. The introduction of another element besides physical uniform sequence makes, or may make, all untrue; and it is wholly unfounded. He is obliged to make human will a mere physical cause or law, having never proved it is so, which makes evidently the whole system foundationless, a rehearsal of chemistry and the way of discovering facts in it, which is not logic (see page 410), but which betrays the system, and shews the flimsiness of the whole of it.

His statements as to methods of agreement are not correct. The effect of it is not necessarily A; because it is possible, and indeed common, that A without B produces nothing at all. But it is not material, as it is merely means of discovery.

The same objection applies to Canon 4, as indeed he admits. On his own shewing they are not shewn to be unconditioned, therefore not shewn to be a cause. The principle (page 466) is a false principle. Gastric juice (cold) and heat produce, neither of them, any effect on a piece of meat: join them, and they digest it. In moral things the contrary is constantly true: a woman has nothing to do with me, and no effect on my position; she marries my father, and I am turned out of the house. Nor is it evident in the case of the stars, though it may be true. The conjunction of two suns might alter every condition of man's life, in many respects morally, or burn him up; one changes nothing as originally adapted to his nature, though the last instance is less strictly exact, as one (though, as adapted, unfelt) does act on him.

Physical "phenomena" only (page 470) come under these rules, right or wrong. Organic life consists, Mill says, in a continual state of decomposition and recomposition of the different organs and tissues (page 473), and yet more strongly, "the chemical actions which constitute life." Now this is alike folly and impudence. In life in the body these changes take place: but who says this is life? In the first place, it is proved that life precedes and produces organisation (the inorganic nucleus in the cell); but at any rate the body being subject to these changes by vital power in no way says that they are life or constitute life. They are a corporeal process where life is, but more cannot be said. Of course he cannot get beyond it; and note here that he pretends to go beyond phenomena or physical causes. He may say these are the regular phenomenal causes; but, when he says this constitutes life, he touches the efficient cause, so as to settle there is none else but the phenomenal.

The dispute between him and Whewell I leave. I think some of his cases inconsequent; but all this is merely verifying inductions on chemistry and the like, interesting in their way, but which concern me little. All is material. On the composition of forces I do not think his conclusions just; the distance gone is not the same, nor is time the same; nor can rest be estimated as the same as twice the distance in opposite directions. Its consequent effects clearly are totally different. If the force were attractive, not impinging, it would not be so. Some of the difficulties he escapes by tendency and pressure.

For the mere history of science in its deductions I have no remark to make. His making induction a part of deduction is clearly false, as already noted. It is merely ascertaining the general premise for the deduction, and so he says (page 534). Nor is his statement in page 536 true in proper deduction, when the nature or law is adequately ascertained. If deduction be just, I say "must be." In mere material phenomena verification may be all well, because it is a question of material facts, which may be mistaken. But this is a question of the truth of the premise, not of the deduction which assumes it, and we are where we were, subject to particular observation of cases, unless the law or nature of the thing be ascertained: then the conclusion is certain. Verification may be all well, but it is testing the justness of the induction which establishes the major premise.

As logic, all his statements are very poor indeed. That he has interested himself in physical science may be all very true; but though it may seem harsh, the whole tone evinces, I judge, a bad vitiated mind. I am led to say this by the way he speaks so lightly and flippantly (page 534) of constructing an organic body, and trying whether it would live. The tissues at the instant of death are the same. An organised body constructed is not a living body, nor an organ's inactivity of themselves, or movable by will, the same as a constructed organism. He is no Prometheus. He admits he is quite ignorant, only flippantly taking occasion by his ignorance practically to deny life or a soul distinct from body. If a man believed there were, he could not talk of trying whether it would live. And this is flippant on what is solemn, if it be only to be or not to he; and flippancy on solemn subjects is the proof of a vitiated mind.

VOLUME 2

Why must there be ultimate laws? All may be summed up in one, and that one a constant acting of force in One who can originate force. His limiting it to sensations is limiting it by effects on us, beyond which I suppose his mind cannot go. Colours, for instance, are the result of degrees of refraction, and red is contained in white. A coloured object is from some special power of reflecting that ray. He affects to speak only of phenomenal sequences, and not of efficient causes; but if the reader be attentive, he will soon find Mill speaks of them as efficient. Causa causata perhaps; but this he will not have, because it leads to a causa causans, which no human mind can escape or conceive.

Bain's statement (page 7) is merely that we cannot now give an ultimate cause, or one nearer to it, to two phenomena. Sameness is constantly treated as similarity or resemblance, which is a misleading blunder, failing in abstraction (page 11). Induction has nothing to do with deduction, nor has verification, which is merely a means of testing its justness. It is clear that I cannot verify till the deduction is completely made; and verification also is in particular cases, and the conclusion might be true in them, yet the deduction unsound as a general one. All is superficial here, and a mere recital of material means of scientific research. Hypothesis is the short cut of genius versed in general relations and power of memory as to them, merely concluding it must be so. If proved that other circular forms did not produce equal spaces, then the proof was complete; practically it was that, supposing no cause did. As to causes being causes, see page 15, second paragraph.

I have not much to remark in this part of the book: only notice the careless fallacies of Mill (page 57). The effect might not be produced if A were alone. In the calculation of chances he changes probable into "probable to us." But this changes the whole idea, and makes the probability depend, not on the calculation of the chances based on the fact, but on my knowledge, different it may be in all, so that there is no calculation of chance. He does not believe in the Jesuit's middle knowledge. What means certain here? Some event does happen, we can say, in result. But events are not certain a priori. It was the sense of this made him add to Laplace. The two events must be of equally frequent occurrence. To get out of this he turns probable into "probable to us," unless all this is confusion. Evidently it is more probable that a man in the last stage of consumption will die within a year than that a man in good health, caeteris paribus, will. Our ignorance of it does not affect its probability, though it may our estimate of it. The logical ground (page 66) is not our knowledge, though we may have to act on it. Pages 67, 68, are all nonsense. The fact of credibility of witnesses is clear judgment of the individual, no average question at all.

In page 69 we have a very important false principle, arising from his rejection of testimony, and resting all on inferences and averages. The probability of a fact rests on our knowledge of the proportion of cases in which it occurs. Now, supposing it occurred but once, and never before, the real question is of adequate testimony, not of probability at all. Say the deluge: I have a positive testimony, confirmed in every way, supposing the earth to bear evident marks of its having taken place. I have no question of probability, but of adequate testimony; and this false and evil dependence on inference confounds past facts with possible future ones, putting them on the same ground. Testimony has nothing to do with probability; but he seems to have no idea of such a thing as truth. Besides, here and throughout we have it assumed that there can be no power in operation at any time other than phenomenal sequences; not merely that he will only consider these; which, if there be others, must put him on false ground, and which are no causes at all (from which yet he cannot escape). But he denies all others: they are not supposable to him. It is only causes in operation which tend to produce, admitting, in spite of himself, efficient or productive causes, but limiting all active power to existing phenomena.

As to past fact, probability is nonsense, or a denial of all possibility of adequate or certain evidence. In reasoning (page 82) on the sun rising he tells us: If it do not, it will be because some cause has existed, the effects of which, though during five thousand years they have not amounted to a perceptible quantity, will in one day become overwhelming. He then goes on to assume that only some long existing cause, or one arriving suddenly from a distance to be the cause, can be supposed. But this assumes there can be no agent or power beyond known phenomena. I believe in constant agency of divine power, and that this is the ultimate law; but he has no right to assume that there can be no intervention of power beyond observed phenomena. We know that it is the infidelity of the last days; but it is an arbitrary and ignorant assumption.

(Page 95). It does not prove A to be the cause, but only a necessary condition. Thus the universality of causation as a general proposition is not what is believed; but when I find a formed thing, I believe there was a former; so, if anything occurs, I believe something has made it occur. The return of day, save religiously, is not a question of general causation at all. The peasant expects the sun to rise, because it always has, by simple enumeration; and when he sees his cart, he believes somebody made it, without any generalisation, and he would think you mad, or perhaps a philosopher, if you doubted it. Thus the mental principle in these cases is quite different. But in neither case is there belief of universality of causation. Nor is universality of causation the truth we cannot help believing, that is, an abstract proposition; but, having an effect, we cannot but think there is a cause. Nor is he right in saying belief is nowhere without proof at all. Nor is it the truth of a fact in external nature which I believe here. The cart is the fact, and with it comes the belief that it was made.

Man does believe that effects, as the word intimates, have a cause. Reason never believes anything; it may test the credibility of evidence; but it is not its function to believe, but to reason. Nor does it follow that, if I cannot help believing that there is a cause for an effect (that is, that it is of necessity I do so), my belief may be of what is not true; for if there be such an instinct, it may be, and is, a truthful instinct. It is not that any particular thing is the cause, but that there is one. This assertion of Mill is from the primary fallacy that there is no ground of truth but reason, which I wholly deny. And what he says (page 99), shews the fallacy he labours under. Man cannot conceive chaos, because he is part of an order or system; nor events in it without a cause, because he belongs to a caused system; and there can be events in chaos only by action on it. If I have a notion of events in chaos, I have the notion of cause and effect; and effects are still the proof of a cause.

The belief in human will does not affect in the least the general principle of fixed laws. It is bound by them in its activity: cause and effect remain in nature where they were. Arbitrary intervention, even where there is almighty power, leaves them where they were as a fixed rule, and supposes them. What was not known was the universality, which is an abstraction quite distinct from the facts on which it is founded. And all his reasoning fails; because, if his discovery of the law uncontradicted is only simple argument and simple enumeration, all subsequent reasoning is no stronger than the basis, and this is founded on each particular case. It is merely a measure of probability; and the allegation that the major is no part of the proof, because it may have been previously proved by induction is a fallacy already exposed. All men are mortal is a proof that Lord page is mortal, if he be a man; and all he can make is a material improvement in a fallible process (page 101): but the ground was not rigorous induction (page 102). All this is very lame.

The belief in a cause has nothing to do with uniform sequence. This is the effect of laboured investigation, and gives that persistence of causes in their effects which makes an ordered system and fixed laws, and applies only to the sphere in which they are observed. Whereas the belief that what occurs has a cause is instinctive part of my nature, and hence, as far as my capacity goes, applies to all that occurs any where. Be it true or false, it is a wholly different thing; for we must not think that the law of causation is the same thing as the fact of an event or effect flowing from a cause. The former is simply the uniformity of sequence (page 108) in phenomena. Consequence connects the two ideas; but an effect flowing from a cause is really its producing it. In spite of himself, saying he will not speak of efficient causes, Mill speaks of one thing producing another. He says not efficient; but says "effects of different causes," in his other books constantly; thus pages 246, 247, 203, so 160, "the effects of causes," "the effects which these causes produce." All this is mental dishonesty. What is an effect of a cause not efficient? I have no objection to recognise the operation of supernatural power in some miracles as a case of the law of universal causation -- that is, the existence of a cause. But it clearly is not a case of invariable sequence, for the cause is set in motion by special intervention; yet invariable sequence is all he owns as cause from observation of nature. This is quite clear, however he may muddle it together. He admits, moreover, the instinctive action of mind by a law of our nature (page 110); but on this I need not comment.

His answer in page 111 to M'Cosh is null, for the law of causation is "the uniformity of the course of nature." The uniformity of the course of nature has not any exceptions that I know of, nor do events succeed one another without fixed laws. But it does not thence follow that there are events which do not depend on causes: but if there are such which are not according to fixed laws of nature, there are causes which are not the fixed laws of nature. His tacit denial of God, and of all efficient causes in order to that, plunges him into incessant illogical statements. So ultimate co-existences force him up page 113) to eat his words by admitting either things without a cause, or a cause found by ascending "to the origin of all things." And he cannot deny the fact. He is obliged to come, where all open honest minds come, to a causa causans for the ultimate coexisting properties from which uniform effects follow. There is no uniform sequence, or they are not ultimate. When he says, "if the properties do not depend on causes, but are ultimate properties," could there be a stronger evidence of will to deny a first cause? For an ultimate property is not an invariable sequence; and how did it come to exist? (See page 115, at the end.)

The rest of that chapter is all talk to little purpose about kinds. Note his only idea of moral inquiry (page 130), the chance of human actions so as to predict them. All his reasoning as to existence is false; because, when he says the Emperor of China exists means that I should see him at Pekin if there, he confounds cause and effect. He has defined qualities to be something which produces a sensation. The existence of the something, then, is necessary to the sensation. Existence is not its being perceived (page 142); it is that which is the occasion of the sensation. I may have the sensation even without the existence of the thing; I can dream or remember. But the object of what follows is to deny the force of testimony; it is an inductive law of succession or coexistence. It is neither. When I am told by a credible witness -- by one I believe -- the Emperor of China exists, there is no proof of its connection by succession or co-existence with any other thing. When the outermost planet was discovered by its disturbing Uranus in its orbit, it was no conviction that with more power it might be seen. That followed, of course; but a certain power of gravity was there, as the course of Uranus shewed.

As to resemblance, all is a mistake. When mathematical quantities are alike, they do not resemble one another, they are the same. Figures resemble each other, because in that they are the same. Two things equal to the same are equal to -- one another -- convenient for Euclid -- means nothing; it is one and the same quantity in all three. As I have said, mathematics are identity of quantity in different forms. If I have a foot-rule, it is only that, as to quantity, all three are one and the same. When it is said two straight lines which have once intersected one another continue to diverge, it is no matter of induction or observation. A straight line is one which always follows the same direction. Hence if they diverge in starting by supposition (for once intersecting one another means that), they always diverge or they are not straight at all, that is, they do not follow the same direction.

Other facts are matters of observation empirically, or may be traced to causes. We must not forget that confessedly constant sequence in itself proves nothing, not even a phenomenal cause, as day is the cause of night. He, we may be reminded, says unconditional sequence, as if the sun was always up, it would be always day -- always light, not day. Many things which are causes are conditioned, as heat with gastric juice, a certain proximity for the attraction of cohesion. All this confusion arises from real causes not being owned Hydrogen and oxygen make water, but under the condition of the power which unites them atomically according to certain laws.

The whole of the chapter on grounds of disbelief is founded on an entire fallacy, that is, assumption that that is true of which no proof whatever is given; just what I said at the beginning as to using a word with his own definition of it as if it was the truth. He assumes that experience of natural laws is the only foundation of knowledge. Evidence can only be a proximate generalisation. Possibly so on his ground, that belief of testimony is only matter of inference. But this is simply begging the question. It can only be a question of superior generalisation, because that is the only ground of evidence. But that is just the question. It assumes that God, or man, cannot reveal himself so as to enforce belief which is not true -- certainly cannot be assumed, specially when it is the point in question.

I know I am. What generalisation is that? I know that Mill elsewhere tells us that even this is known by his kind of knowledge. But this is making a farce of reason. So he asserts, if an alleged fact be contradictory of a rigorous induction from a completed generalisation, it must be disbelieved. Now his complete generalisation, agreement and difference and all, is merely inference from observed phenomena; but this assumes that any power beyond observed phenomena is impossible. But this he cannot assume, and if he does, it is merely a begging of the question and is contrary to truth, and to what he is forced to admit, that ultimate properties must have had a cause, for we have then ascended to the origin of all things; but this must have been antecedent to the laws these properties act by. One could not have a more complete proof of the fallacy of his system than this chapter. So his defence of Hume is simply the same fallacy. Whatever is contrary to a complete induction is incredible: induction from what? This merely says there can be no cause but what we see of fixed laws, which even Mill admits there must be.

Nor is it merely (page 166) that B did not follow A. This assumes only the negative of existing causes or laws. But supposing X comes in, which was not there? He does not even consider the possibility of another power which may act from itself so as that no observed action of A has anything to say to it. It is not to be credited but on evidence which would overturn the law. It has nothing to do with the law -- may confirm it. Thus resurrection supposes the law of death, is an action of power not in the sphere of observed sequences. And note here, our question here is not if it be true, but if it be impossible, for which the only ground is the positive assumption that there is no power possible outside observed sequences, which he alleges are no efficient causes at all. If what a human being can see is no more than a set of appearances, either there is no ground of believing anything, and complete induction is a fable, or I may have as good or better evidence of what power extrinsic to observed phenomena and sequences has done. So when he says (page 167) he cannot admit a proposition as a law of nature, and yet believe a fact in real contradiction to it. Now law of nature is merely existing phenomena; and this is the absurd idea that the ascertained phenomena of nature are the only possible things that can be, and not a conclusion within nature, but the denial of all action outside it, and that as possible; which is simply nonsense as reasoning, and the more so as he is obliged to admit such action at "the origin of all things." Because such a thing is, as far as we know it, there can be nothing else! There can be no other ground for this but the positive denial without proof that God can act, and affirmation that there is nothing possible but what we have observed. Yet the ultimate properties and their cause he confessedly has not accounted for. Nor within the limits of fixed laws, quite another question, is all so certain, though enough for all human purposes in the sphere man is in. Because if ABC produces abc, and BC only bc, this does not prove A is the cause of a; it may be a necessary condition of B being the cause. I must have ABC produce abc always, BC not produce a, and A by itself produce a; a concatenation of proof hardly ever to be found. And this supposes I know all possible causes which could produce a, and all to be absent. (See page 168.)

The question of miracles is not (page 167) of any cause defeated, but generally of positive power producing an effect of its own, as health restored, the dead raised, sight given -- natural laws remaining just what they were. There are the cases of frustrating the action of poisons; but there is the power of evil defeated, and all power in good operative. The moral character is as strong a part of the evidence as the power, and there is even power to communicate power. I deny that belief of a supernatural being is necessary first in order to believe miracles, because the exercise of a power wholly above nature is the proof of supernatural power; it is, on the face of it, that power. If the dead be raised, that is not a sequence of nature.

As to believing oneself capable of judging what the supreme God ought to do, it is above all things presumptuous in one who has no foundation of morality at all, though Christ's miracles are the supremacy of all good in power where evil was, of others sometimes judgment in its place. Supreme power and perfect goodness used to lead men to trust God, as leading to a yet higher good when they were in misery, is not unworthy of God. A word giving sight, the lame from birth walking, the dead raised, goodness in power meeting every case in sight of hundreds, is not possibly the case of natural causes. They do not operate so; there is no experience of it: the wish is father to the thought; and he admits the facts may be proved. The whole of this argument mocks at reason. And his other ground is the character of duty as they conceive it, in which the conceiver may be judged rather than God. One who can see no beauty in the uniform patient exercise of power in goodness to lead man's heart to trust it, may find others will know his state more than he is aware of.

No one desires to deny that "on the whole" the government of the universe is carried on by general laws. But this is no presumption at all against miracles, that is, the intervention of divine power when man is in misery to recall him to God, and give the ground of confidence in goodness in power. With a weak, scarcely benevolent, God doing the best He could (and that very bad as Mr. Mill holds), there is no need to believe anything about it. Man, he thinks, is to do better if he can. (It is a disgrace to Oxford to allow such a book.) But he contradicts himself here; practically he admits such acts of power may be satisfactorily certified (page 168). Now, supposing resurrection from the dead is (and I repeat it is not a question of a counteracting cause defeating an effect, but of power acting when the effect is produced, acting by its own energy), it may set ordinary laws in motion again, as in many cases it did, but did its own work independent of them. There was no counteracting anything generally, and, if the fact be certified, it is no question of probability or improbability. Supposing one rising really from the dead who stank after four days in the grave, what probable sequence of nature is there in that? There is no mental honesty here. And that there is deliverance from death and misery by goodness and power is worthy of God, but not to take man out of his present place of responsibility till full accomplishment be come.

He tells us (page 171) that the law of causation, number, and extension are the only cases of absolute incredibility of any exception; but what does extension apply to but to matter? Consequently there is no such thing as spirit at all. As to number, eternity, I am, is an exception. It is the stupidest limiting of everything to observed matter. To the whole class of moral motives in man even, number and extension cannot apply. What is the number and extension of a mother's love, of a child's attachment? It is brutish, his system; and if there be a cause for everything -- which I believe there is for this creation, and that cause is God -- belief in a fact (not exactly contrary to, but) independent of some recognised law of nature, has nothing to do with shaking conviction of the truth of the law (page 175), as I have said. Resurrection does not make me doubt of death as a law of nature in us now; quite the contrary. -- As to his throws of dice, I leave them to him and D'Alembert.

We have now to come to the great question of motive, human will, and fixed laws. Whatever reasoning may make of it, the responsibility of man remains untouched, because he does act by motives which determine him. But all in Mill is so loose and unanalysed that it is difficult to deal with. Thus a motive, what is it? Is it a motive when it does not move the will at all? If it is that which has determined the will, then it is mere tautology to say he is governed by motives, for it is only a motive when it does determine or govern it. Yet is there a will when nothing is willed at all. If I will a thing, the determination is made, morally the act is complete. Free to will is quite true as far as compulsion goes; for if it be compelled it is not willed, it is another's will.

Now, in all the flimsy language in which he speaks of antecedents, the difference is plainly this. In fixed laws of nature it is compulsion. Gravity acts; the earth, the moon, follow fixed laws -- cannot do anything else. It is compulsion; the movement, centripetal or centrifugal, is imposed. The action itself is a necessary one as far as observed nature goes; it is strictly compulsion both as the act and as to the acting thing, it having no thought or will or consciousness in the matter. So in all cases of fixed laws. They mean this: but there is another point. In the case of man's will the motive produces no action. Man's will or mind is the thing acted on. It is a state of mind, determination by motive. It does no more than be a motive; consequently a man may act or be hindered acting, or defer to act when the will is there, and only when he acts comes the analogy with physical effects. With the previous part, the production of the will, there is no analogy at all. Till the will is determined, there is no motive in the mind; there may be reflection of the mind on it, but it has not become a motive to me -- has not produced any effect in me. When the man acts, his will is the antecedent cause, by whatever bodily machinery it is carried out.

But another point comes in here: an object may attract the desire without determining the will, which may utterly refuse it. It is not an actual motive to the man as to his conduct. All this, which is of the essence of the question of will, to say nothing of the conscience controlling it when otherwise the will would be determined, is left out by the superficiality of Mill. Of course he has not in view divine objects, which take the mind clean out of the whole sphere he moves in, and by grace determine the will. But on his own ground the phenomenal antecedent to effect in man's conduct is his will. Motive produces no act; but, where operative, produces a state of will and no more, or rather is one, which is not a phenomenal effect at all. It is not true that the action of masses is merely individual will. Motives vary from individual to individual, and may in any individual from moment to moment. This is lost in masses which follow a general impulse, or there could not be a mass. But he admits that the causes are so endless and unknown that we cannot predict action, at most tendencies. But this is not invariable sequence or a fixed law at all.

Now a general course of corrupt human nature I do not deny.; but if I take up individual man, the whole idea is absurd. A man's recollection of his mother stops him in evil. The scriptures, a sermon, a thousand things impossible to count on, come in and arrest or form the determination of the mind called will. All he can pretend to is to see the tendency of corrupt human nature without God, which, for my part, I should not deny. If he say this is an antecedent cause, no doubt, only he cannot know of its existence, nor, if it exist, of its effect; that is, it is no matter of invariable sequence nor of fixed law at all. But even here his statements prove only that he cannot do what he pretends to do. He is obliged to do what he condemns in Bacon, only pretending to get up to the principles of human nature and bring in deduction, but forced to admit we have no sure elements to reason from. This brings in another difficulty, that all depends not on the discovery of a necessary fixed law of force (as gravity or chemical action), which cannot act otherwise, but on my sagacity in estimating motive, which involves my moral state as well as the state of those I reason about.

How clearly Christianity is above and outside all this, by a revelation of God, a new nature, and objects wholly outside the world! Mill has a feeble and partially benevolent Creator who did the best He could out of the materials He had to hand, and we are to mend His work. But then what of necessary effects of causes? This he feels and seeks to shrink from. Now that man has got philosophers (not for the first time, however) and "the highest thinkers," we may expect something of this poorly-constructed world. It has been a long while coming to find it out; nor would they, without Christianity, have had even the thought they had. Plato not only did not know God, but taught the most brutish communism, which Aristotle disapproved because, base as trade might be, selfishness was a stronger motive. The world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe. But these have gone farther: when they knew God as revealed in Christ, they did not like to retain Him in their knowledge.

But I will take up a few details. All the statements of Mill are vague, as we have seen; lusts, will, conscience, are all huddled up together; motives present to an individual's mind and character; but is it yet really motive till the will be determined by it? Then it is inducements which act upon him, and so we could foretell his conduct with as much certainty as we could any physical event. He admits fully afterwards we cannot, but only tendencies. In physical nature the physical event may be hindered, but the cause remains absolutely invariable; and this is utterly false as to the influence of motives on a man. You must know not only the man's character, but the circumstances at the moment, for a moment may wholly change what acts on him. (See pages 433, 466 sec. 2, 452, 450, 1, 2, 480, 492, 513, end of 4, 515, 540, 541, etc ) If I knew what acted on a man as an inducement -- if it be merely a thought, desire, powerful pressure on his inclinations -- I do not yet know how he will act. I quite understand that Mill would hold that the hindrance to his acting on this is one of the antecedents, but this is not merely character. I may have motives which determine wholly above character, and which subdue my nature. If these be taken in so that the purpose is determined by them, then it is merely saying if I know what has determined the will, as I have said.

Now masses, as already said, are masses in virtue of not controlling impulses, but acting on the passions, or perhaps wants, pushed to an extreme, so that passions broke out; and here, but really in each case only when all is known, the general result may be better judged of. Conscience is always individual. But this independence of individual character and principle is lost in the infidel and liberal system, as indeed Lecky admits in his history. I deny that the knowledge of circumstances and character would enable us to tell how people would act (page 422); for motives outside both, and governing a man in spite of both, not counteracting the will but determining it, may be in operation. Of this, of course, Mill has no idea. In physical causes there is nothing to form. Counteraction is another thing, the motive power remains the same.

But the slovenly mental habits of Mill are again found here. Our volitions and actions are invariable consequents of our antecedent states of mind. The volition is the state of mind, and may be produced by a motive which is no antecedent state of mind at all, nor even my natural character. It may control it, and never have been in me before; yea, set me free from it. Nor is any foreknowledge the same as divine foreknowledge. God knows what will be and absolutely, and He does not reason on tendencies and effects of character and its probable results. When I speak of will, I speak of actual determination of purpose, not of a religious or metaphysical faculty.

"There is nothing (page 423) in causation but invariable, certain, and unconditional sequence." "There are few to whom more constancy of succession appears a sufficiently stringent bond of union for so peculiar a relation as that of cause and effect." Even if reason repudiates, the imagination retains the feeling of ... some constraint exercised⁺ by the antecedent over the consequent. Now, first he had said he would not consider efficient causes, but only physical or phenomenal causes; here he does consider them, to deny them absolutely. But uniform consequence has nothing to do with cause. It may be a cause with no uniformity, uniformity with no cause (while fully admitting regular order in creation). Day and night we have seen, but so of all seasons, summer, winter, etc., so of the moon's phases; but of even more important things death uniformly follows life. Is life the cause of death? We must turn Buddhists and seek Nirvana. Sequence deceives; it is merely that a thing comes after in point of time, which in itself proves nothing even if constant. A cause is the why it follows.

Now there is force in existence. That is admitted, and force produces effect, movement, etc.; it becomes heat, etc. It is an efficient cause, an agent, uniform or not. It turns to heat where it cannot move, to movement from heat, etc., not uniform, but a power. Electricity knocks a thing down, sets fire to something, melts, kills, or takes away consciousness. If the same as magnetism, it turns iron north or south, it operates with power not uniformly, it strips a strip of bark from a tree from top to bottom, leaving the tree as it was; it twists another into small fibres in all its growth. Here I have force in this shape; power operating gives light, and makes a clock go. This is not mere uniform sequence, but operative force -- an efficient cause. But, as I have said, ascending to ultimate properties and "the origin of all things," you have clearly and avowedly no sequence, uniform or other, but operative power -- a cause.

⁺Given certain institutions, and customs, wages, etc., will be determined by certain causes ... but this class of political economists argue that these causes must by an inherent necessity ... determine the shares." (Autob. 244.) Is no constraint exercised here in either view of the case? The first is Mill's.

If I only take present order, I may stop at a constant law without seeking the cause, and this is what he professed to do, but does not do, but denies any such: it is not mysterious compulsion as if there was a will but ordained effect, an effect produced, as he is forced, unconscious of self-contradiction, to say. And necessity it is in this sense, as to matter, that according to its ordered nature it cannot be otherwise. It is compelled by the original orderer so to be. It is its nature without a will. Gravity is always the same, so that I can predict, not a tendency, but a fact. It may be hindered, but not changed while the kosmos subsists. And if we are to believe Mr. Mill (page 433), "it needs scarcely be stated that nothing approaching to this can be done" (in the case of mind). (See pages 424-5 also.) If I can change or conquer my character, can he do this as regards the ordering of the spheres by gravity?

His discussion on pleasure, pain, and habit, is empty. "We still continue to desire the action"; but I do not go further into it. In page 434 he admits motives in large masses which cannot be so accounted in individuals, again contradicting himself. And I admit, taking the run of masses of men, if sufficiently sagacious, we can judge of the motives which will govern them, though after all very inadequately, from a thousand causes. Still there may be a general estimate of the working of motives in uncontrolled man. Only most do not believe how bad he is when uncontrolled. They are, however, "the lowest kind of empirical laws," and they must "be connected deductively with the laws of nature from which they result." This, then, requires a sure knowledge of the nature of man. And here is a field of inquiry and moral judgment. One believes he is good; another, that no good thing dwells in him in the flesh; what is to be done here? Mill, that the world is such a miserable world that an impotent half-benevolent God must have made it out of the materials He had to hand. Only man, being, I suppose, better than He, is to try and perfect it. What are the universal laws of human nature? (page 435). How ascertained but by the empirical laws observation affords "of the lowest kind," unless we believe in revelation? Of the mind's own nature (page 436) he will keep clear; the laws of mind are for him mental phenomena, but this is empirical. Nature has another meaning than in human nature, which is disposition and motive, here nature properly. Mind, if it means anything, he tells us (page 436), means that which feels -- does not reason or think.

Pages 436 and 437 directly contradict each other as to what laws of mind are. In page 437 one kind are called laws of body, in contrast with mind; but it is no matter, save to shew the slovenly superficiality of Mill. What he calls confusion in page 436 he lays down in page 437. Nor is sensation really a state of mind. It is the point of mysterious union between mind and body of which the mind takes or may take notice, reflecting. But note further, though body and other states of mind may produce a state of mind, he excludes absolutely all action on the mind by mind or power extrinsic to itself, which is as important as it is absurdly false. It is to make its law like matter, the laws according to which one mental state succeeds another. But suppose a state of mind began by an influence extrinsic to it -- the commonest thing possible, for this he has no place; so that all his statement is false as a system.

In page 441 he is all wrong. When white is there, there are no various colours, they have ceased, they are not white; but white is before my eye. The rest I deny and leave.

Belief may come from habit of the idea in the mind, but there are other sources as testimony of that, as to which I have no habit. To make moral reprobation consist in association with a disgusting idea is worthy of Mill and disgust. It is curious to see how carefully he excludes testimony; one thing is recognised by the mind as evidence of another thing.

Page 449. The statement as to old and young has very little or no foundation. The formation of character has of course certain truth in it, but it is not by the laws which form it that the whole of the phenomena are produced. As to the action of circumstances on man, I must know what character is actually formed to judge of that. All this is in the air, besides all special action on man being ignored. So all on to page 456 is nothing but his fancies, and groundless too; denying not only higher principles, but natural characteristic differences of race, as of sex too. It is not true (page 458) that bodily strength tends to make men courageous. It may make men bullies over weakness if not courageous, but this all is excessively superficial and worthless.

I admit (page 459) we must know, as I have stated, the nature of a thing to have a proposition. But Mill cannot deny that all his mental laws are from empirical laws only, for even character is that. See pages 454, 455, as the result. If they are laws of formation of character, this is clearly empirical. It supposes a character must be formed to judge; but then laws of human nature abstractedly have no place, because a formed character is what I have to discover. The whole system is superficial and arbitrary. (See page 451, first paragraph.) So page 450, "impossibility of establishing any but approximate empirical laws of effects."

Laws of matter in their nature we have as gravity; it cannot be otherwise. But when I come to character and circumstances, this is not the case, though there may be empirical laws making conduct probable. But this is what he admits is not science at all, and such formation of character must be, that is, it is no science at all, besides leaving out other deeper principles. Indeed he contradicts himself, for if psychology, that is, the nature of man, be the science, then formation of character is not. Yet here psychology is the science studied (page 461). This formation of character follows, which is by circumstances, and then comes the action in circumstances. As far as this is mere knowledge of human nature or mankind, no one would deny it. It excludes all but circumstances and human tendencies as they exist, no action on the soul being admitted. All moral considerations are of course excluded, all basis of moral obligation. "Congenital predispositions" are not so far (page 462) to seek, and will never be found when man's being evil is rejected as a starting-point. It is not a law of man's nature to lie, but what makes him lie? Selfishness. Hence "lying is nearly universal when certain external circumstances exist universally" (page 449). But I do not dwell on all this part. The statement (page 469) that "the actions and passions (of masses) are obedient to the laws of individual human nature" is utterly false. Page 466 is not true. He always forgets the power of an objective end of action. The law of the individual as to this is selfishness or his own interests; of a society it is the supposed interests of the society, and more or less the individual is sacrificed to it.

Nothing can be more utterly futile and empty than all this part of the book. He takes up the principle already laid down; that, having empirical general laws, he hypothetically puts great general principles of the nature of mind, laws of mind, thence deduces consequences as to forming character in given circumstances, and so how men will act, only admitting that we can only have tendencies, and never conclude to facts. And what are these few and simplest laws of mind; few but not simple, and running into one another? (page 489). Memory, imagination, association of ideas. Now I suppose nobody denies these three things; but can anything be more absurd? Where are the passions and objects of man, his affections, and the positive influences exercised upon him? Mill admits that we must know what they are before a child can speak, the circumstances of ancestors, and what not. He admits our mental states and capacities are modified for a time, or permanently, by everything that happens to us in life. But this is experimental (page 451); the generalisations which result will be considered as scientific propositions by no one at all familiar with scientific investigation (page 452). Are the laws of the formation of character susceptible of a satisfactory investigation by the method of experimentation? Evidently not (page 452). These laws are to be obtained by deducing them from the general laws of mind, by supposing any given set of circumstances, and then considering their influence in forming character (page 457); these laws, or the principal ones, being memory, imagination, and association of ideas -- the result to be verified by observation. It being impossible to obtain really accurate propositions respecting the formation of character from observation and experiment alone (page 456), and so, knowing memory, etc., we possess psychology, the laws of mind, and draw corollaries from them, which is the new science of ethology not yet created. Yet, after all (page 458), psychology is altogether, or principally, a science of observation and experiment, by which (we have read) it is impossible to obtain any accurate propositions. Consequently we must have the generalisation of laws of mind; but they are hypothetical, only in result affirming tendencies.

Now remark here, that in true science we have nothing to do with tendencies, but with facts. The forces of gravity and laws of motion do not give tendencies, they produce certain resulting facts. They may be counteracted, and that even by the operation of the same laws; but they have nothing to do with tendencies. Hypothesis may come in to get at the law, verified by the ascertained result in facts, and it then ceases to be an hypothesis. It is a principle or law demonstrated by facts. The whole argument is trifling nonsense. Yet the constituent elements of human nature are sufficiently understood to create a science of ethology. Yet the laws are modified by everything in our life, that is, as to our mental states and capacities, are no laws at all, are matter of observation and experiment, or principally so, that is, empirical; and all the science flows from knowing there is memory, imagination, and association of ideas forming character by circumstances we do not know, and then, middle principles of how to form being obtained, we, by education, form the character to be desired. And what is that? We perfect the bungling of creation, while we must know what the nurse has done with the baby and act as a despot alone could, and not even he, for he could not manage the nurse, the passions and governing objects being wholly left out of both sciences. Now that there are these three principles in human nature everyone knows; that education tends to form character is not denied; that the observation of human nature helps to know how the general mass will act, at least tendencies hypothetically, no one denies; but such a mare's next of hypothetical science I never met with.

It is again curious to see the effort to set aside belief on testimony by attributing to it associating ideas. Such practical impotency in judging of "the laws of human nature," leaving out passions, objects, selfishness, is hard to conceive any one capable of; but there it is, and a science made of it -- one created by Mr. Mill. No doubt it is. If you want to see uncertainty and folly, read page 466. Happily there is an impassable limit to the possibility of calculating (the facts or results) beforehand (page 467); the data being uncertain and varying, only the laws are not. Now that certain principles govern human society as a general rule, no one can doubt; but the discovery of the result depends on data so complex that we cannot calculate on it. Just so; we are left where we were after the exact science of psychology, ethology, and all -- only the last science has not been created yet. Is that the case with the results of the law of gravity?

I do not admit that the sequences and co-existences result from the law of the separate elements. So that the effects amount precisely to the sum of the effects of the circumstances taken singly (page 488). Men acting in a mass are quite different from the individuals taken singly. Confederacies of men are in a moral state, and have a sense of power which takes them out of what controls individuals; and even conscience is necessarily individual. Logical deduction has not to be verified, an hypothetical generalisation which is not deduction has (page 490). It results at best (page 491) in what is useful for guidance, but insufficient for prediction, and that is an "exact science."

But even with respects to tendencies, "it would be an error to suppose we could arrive at any great number of propositions which will be true in all societies without exception." No doubt. "All the propositions are in the strictest sense hypothetical" (page 493), and cannot be verified, of course, till it is too late, because there is no constancy or uniformity of data as there is in exact science. Our conclusions are soon deprived of all value by accumulating error (page 494). So much so that "the more the science of ethology is cultivated, and the better the diversities of individual and national character are understood, the smaller, probably, will the number of propositions become which it will be considered safe to build on as universal principles of human nature." That is encouraging. (See again page 503.) The confessed fact is that, while there are assuredly principles which actuate human nature, the path as to the masses of mankind is so modified by circumstances that we must know the effect of circumstances on human nature, and the practical effect on men, and this is always changing; the "properties are changeable." That is, however, controlled the inquiry may be by the general laws of human nature, yet we have to know, if we can, its circumstantial condition, and how one state of society produces another, and that itself in given circumstances, for violence may come in, and one state not be a simple sequence of another; and of these we cannot judge even empirically; of a few tendencies we may, perhaps, if nothing intervene -- as increase of wealth, commerce, etc.

But one thing is wholly left out here even in the inquiry what is the end society tends to: what is the good and goal to be sought? It will be flippantly said the good of the whole. What is that? Who is the judge of it? I do not attach importance to his discussion on society; but though it is difficult, from his want of precision, to compare what he says, yet I make a few remarks. "The succession of states of the human mind and of human society cannot have a law of its own; it must depend on the psychological and ethological laws, etc. It is conceivable that these might be such as to determine the successive transformation of man and society (page 512). But ... I do not think anyone will contend that it could have been possible setting out from the principle of human nature ... to determine a priori the order in which human development would take place" (page 513). There is an end of hypothesis and deduction from psychological laws. "What we now are and do is in a very small degree the result of the universal circumstances of the human race, or even of our own circumstances acting through the original qualities of our species," there is an end to psychological science, "but mainly of the qualities produced in us by the whole previous history of humanity." This series of action and reaction of man and circumstances could not possibly be computed. All is therefore uncertain and empirical. There is no science from psychological generalisation, "while it is an imperative rule never to introduce any generalisation from history into the social science unless sufficient grounds can be pointed out for it in human nature." Then he goes on to say what I have quoted, that the result is in a very small degree that of the original qualities of our species.

As to progress, which he yet admits may not be improvement (page 511), it is all a fable. Not that there may not be progress in civilisation (not morally); yet is there progress in the Copts, in Assyria, Persia, Turkey, in the barbarian inroads? In mere physical arts and sciences there is in modern Europe, but not even there in fine arts. What is the progressiveness of the human race which is the foundation of philosophising? Christianity has elevated the standard of conscience, bringing in withal the knowledge and reference to one true God. But outside its influence where is the progress? But in this progress "often ... we cannot even shew that what did take place was probable a priori, but only that it was possible," and this from psychological laws! And this is an exact science, like the invariable effects of gravity! "Nothing is more probable than that a wrong empirical law will emerge instead of a right one (page 515; see pages 523, 524). Here we must know the laws according to which social states generate one another; but (page 512) the succession of the states of the human mind and of human society cannot have an independent law of its own. It must depend on the psychological and ethological laws. Here little progress can be made in establishing the filiation directly from laws of human nature without having first ascertained the immediate or derivative laws according to which social states generate one another." Only, unhappily, they have no independent ones at all -- cannot.

The vapid infidelity of page 527 I leave. "We have to take into consideration the whole of past time from the first recorded condition of the human race." Recorded where? What was that condition, and in what place? History, moreover, is too broken and interrupted to have a course of progress, whatever "the superior minds" may think of themselves. No doubt they are the men, and wisdom will die with them. See the self-complacency of page 530. The intellectual element is the predominant circumstance in determining their progress. Progress in what? I only note it here to recognise the principle. Philosophy and religion are abundantly amenable to general causes (page 539). But if there had been no Christ, no Paul, there would have been no Christianity. His perfect ignorance of the person of Christ objectively being the all of Christianity, with what it involves, has necessarily made him talk nonsense here. Circumstances may have been prepared for it; but his total ignorance of what Christianity is (or even Judaism) necessarily makes him grossly superficial.

As to the general principle of progress, it is (page 540) only precarious approximate generalisations confined to a small portion of mankind, and there is need of great flexibility in our generalisations. And "who can tell?" etc. See, too, page 541, how much "remains inaccessible to us." Unhappily the art of life (page 523), to which all other arts are subordinated, has still to be created. Rules of conduct (page 549) are only provisional. Right and wrong he has not an idea of. Morality, prudence, and aesthetics, all have to be created; but (page 544) the ends to be aimed at must be known, or laws of phenomena are useless. Most true. Some general principle or standard must still be sought (page 555). The end, however, is conduciveness to the happiness of mankind, or rather of all sentient beings. Has man no higher or better? What is that happiness? On this he is silent, save that present happiness may give way to ideal nobleness; but this in result will be mere happiness existing in the world. Of happiness, divine or heavenly, of course he has no idea. It is, at best, what is under the sun, the days of the life of our vanity. Life now is almost universally puerile and insignificant; it is not happiness such as human beings with highly developed faculties can care to have. Moral, spiritual, divine happiness, grace in the heart towards others, is simply absent from his mind. It is a blank.

I see nothing in the book but an overweening estimate of himself and his own mind, and the grossest absence of every moral feeling -- a blank, an incapacity for anything higher than reasoning on current facts, which he does superficially; not aware that there is anything beyond, which he does not possess, with only that which always accompanies it -- the secret (so not honest) pervading effort to undermine the grounds on which the assurance of it is built in others. It is a petty, superficial, pretentious work, without one tinge of any moral or elevated feeling, but the contrary; a miserable attempt to spin, out of a world he holds to be badly created by a feeble God (the only one known), by a creature badly created or grown up by evolution, a system that is to be objectless as causeless, which this creature is to perfect as well as he can without knowing what good is. Impossible to conceive anything more beyond the power of conceiving truth.

The fact is, it is simply positivism borrowed from Comte which knows nothing but what is presented to the senses, with perhaps some inferences, and leaves every moral and divine idea wholly out, and covers absurdities and rejection of what is intuitively known by what is illogical and contradictory too. It is merely the absurdity of positivism; conscience and morality all gone, as is the possibility of a higher power acting influentially on me. I am to seek the good of all. Why so? What motive have I for doing so? What is the good? Am I the judge of it, or are they? And who are they? It is as empty as it is bad. His affinity with another man's wife he calls his first marriage to her (one of mind and affection, I dare say); and then he married her after her husband's death, who was a convenient sort of man that let things go on. There was immense moral and mental weakness in Mr. Mill, he was in a state of despairing melancholy for a long while.

Now his logic does not bring out all the results, but it sows the seed in denying causation, and in teaching positivism, on which, with some intellectual principles borrowed from Kant, it is wholly based.

MIRACLES AND INFIDELITY

I send you some remarks on the scriptural view of miracles, from which infidels and the defenders of Christianity seem to me to have alike wandered.

As to infidels, any moral apprehension of what miracles are, or anything else is, of the misery of man, or the love of God, or the power and value of the truth, is absent from their minds. Exalting man as he is, the false fancy that in these days of enlightenment the lancet and the microscope have found out everything, and exploded God's truth and love and man's ignorance both together, reducing everything to general laws without being able to tell us where they came from, and thus to a materialism, which, as an able but honest materialist has said, leads them up to a blind wall beyond which they cannot get. Such is the true character of modern science: very interesting in the discovery of laws which govern matter (that is, the material world beneath us), but excluding from man every moral principle, every excellent affection, and all divine goodness and truth. They tell us that this is no part of science: I quite agree.

But are there no such things as love, and goodness, and morality, and right affections? no knowledge of God? When they come to "the blind wall," can they assure us there is nothing behind it? or tell us something of what is? Neither. It is simply excluding man from everything beyond matter, even to openly denying all responsibility, degrading man and denying God. The first they do, pretending to exalt him; the other is the stupid pretension to deny that of which they confess they are wholly ignorant (and they are quite right); though (thank God) it is a knowledge that is as open to them in God's love as to those who already enjoy its light.

There is an evidence of truth which one who has the Spirit of God cannot use to a mere natural man, though it often carries the strongest evidence with it, and in that way may tell upon him -- the possession of the thing that the other is disputing. To him who has it, it is the strongest of all evidences, different in its nature from external proofs. Take even natural things: -- I am in pain. No surgical evidence is required for him who is in pain in order to make him know it; there is no deception as to it for the man who suffers. The surgeon may shew the physical cause, a stone in the bladder, or what produced it; inflammation either of the blood, or of some mucous membrane; but with all his science he cannot tell me why it gives me pain, nor what pain is. Yet who that suffers it does not know what it is? He may talk to me about ganglions, or sensitive nerves distinguished from motor nerves. But this does not tell me one atom of what or why pain is; though he may talk, and in a surgical sense rightly, of what its cause, its material cause, is; but this is not what pain in me is. Does anyone doubt what it is when he suffers it?

That is, the most certain knowledge even in the lower creation is entirely out of the reach of science. I do not blame science for this; it is not its sphere. Science arranges phenomena, learns by experience their sequence and often with great sagacity. Nobody denies it. But it cannot go farther. I can say I suffer; I am so made, so constituted, that under certain circumstances I suffer. But no one can tell me what makes me suffer. He can tell me, very likely better than I can, the circumstances through which I suffer, and perhaps relieve them; he can relieve an animal that knows where and what it is suffering; he can trace the material part, bring in electricity or any other biological power; but what makes me sensible and suffer pain, he cannot tell me. Let him trace it to nerves and electricity and whatever you please; but electricity does not make a tree or a stone suffer, though it may make a dead frog leap perhaps (that is, produce material effects), but it cannot make dead matter feel. I feel, and hence have no doubt of it; I have absolute certainty of it, much greater than any of his science, however extensive and accurate it may be. You will tell me a dog knows it. Just so, but the scientific man does not; and that is the point I am upon just now -- that there are kinds of knowledge which are the most certain of all, which science knows nothing of -- has nothing to say to, which the boor is just as certain of as the philosopher.

Now I say distinctly there is the same kind of knowledge in the things of God; its effects may shew to others that it is there, but it is not to be explained to or by men. A man groans or writhes, and a dog howls, if he is in pain. That is not the pain, but a testimony to it. So where God dwells in man, where His Spirit dwells in him, there is no uncertainty in himself: the effect is one of which he is perfectly conscious in himself. It cannot be in itself a proof for another, because it is in himself, and another cannot be a partaker of that any more than he is of another's pain; but it is absolute certainty for him who has it, and its effects make themselves known to others as pain and illness do to those who are not suffering. It has another effect which can hardly be communicated to another. It confirms, by its inward effects, the truth and authority of the word of God; because -- if the love of God is shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Ghost given to me; if I enjoy that love inwardly as a deep source of happiness; if I can look up and cry Abba, Father, in the unquestioning consciousness of what He is for me; if my soul is at liberty before Him in unfeigned confidence, and at liberty from sin that beset me before, and from a sense of guilt which I had; if I am conscious of my connection with Christ and His presence with me -- I find all these things which I have in my heart, recognised and taught fully in that word. I find what is there said connected with the glorifying of the man Jesus when He had accomplished the work of redemption; this, with a life here wholly without parallel in holiness and love, absolutely unselfish -- meekness and self-denial and patience, understood of none -- a life which condemns me in spite of me by its perfectness, and which is yet not what men admire in their heroes, though more heroic in reality than all. This, with a statement that this Man that none was like -- save indeed in a distant measure as following Him -- was the Word (that is, God) become flesh.

I find, that is, to say my own every-day new but actual and known happiness (proved to others by the change they see in me) connected with an immense system of truth unfolded in the word, but which I find experimentally verified in my own soul (though the source of it be hidden from sense and science, and science can go no farther than inference from sense); but what that word declares to be the effect in me, by which the unseen is known and the revelation of what is divine is made to my soul -- is in fact produced there, so that what is unseen is known, and what is divine revealed; not a history, but what God is now, though revealed in that history in its outward facts; and I know the truth of it by what I possess, and the inseparable connection with all the revelation made, which is but the divine development of that of which the effect is in me.

And so scripture speaks. "He that believeth in the Son of God hath the witness in himself; and he that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he hath not believed the record that God hath given concerning his Son." The infidel will say, That is no proof for me. In effect it may be; in itself I recognise that it is not. He has it not, and of course cannot have the proof that having it gives. But this does not weaken it for those that have. No more does the doctor's not having pain alter my knowledge of having it; and if he were to tell me "I was perfectly in health: all the tissues right, and there was no cause for pain, it was imagination," I should know better; it would only prove his science did not reach to the knowledge of the cause. He will despise, too, my enjoyment of divine things, because he does not know what is enjoyed. He will tell me it is imagination; but imagination does not produce holiness and godly affections, but poetry. There is nothing permanent. It may take me out of self and sorrow for a moment, but never delivers from either -- leaves the man what he was, or worse. No man can stay the hungry edge of appetite by bare imagination of a feast. Imagination deals with things outside us which are not real; this is what is actually and abidingly in us, a present reality. It is based on what is in its perfectness objective as a source outside us, just as my friend is, though I am conscious of my affection and of his. And when human imagination seeks to make a scene with which it can be occupied, it fails entirely, bringing cannon into heaven, and making Satan the most interesting person in the dramatis personae.

Proofs may and do leave responsibility without excuse; but enjoyment of the thing itself within takes the need of proof away. "Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not; but one thing I know: whereas I was blind, now I see." Where was the proof that Christ could open the eyes of one born blind for him who was so? And, note here, we are not speaking of the truth of that history, but of the nature of the proof.

Let it be remembered that of love, obligation to God or man, or a father, or a wife, science can know nothing; it is not its business. But man's happiness or unhappiness even as man here, and everything right and comely, depends on this. Science knows material phenomena and laws and connections, and no more. Up to a certain point they may prove a connection of thought and organic structure; but of one single moral idea it is incapable. I do not blame science for this. Phenomena and their laws are its sphere. It is degrading man's moral nature I denounce. There is no love in geology or chemistry; and if, as men have done, they deny responsibility, the best answer is they are not to be trusted with my keys. Who would trust his child to them, if he had any love or sense of obligation?

They have assumed that science has left all witchcraft, possession, and the like, far behind in the dark, and in the light they have these things dare not shew themselves. But they delude themselves. That if men are completely infidels, trusting their puny reason, there is no need of superstition to dazzle them with what is false, is true because they are stone-blind already. But what is all the spirit-rapping that is in the midst of their pretended light, and putting people to sleep, and taking their minds, in a certain sense, into possession, and the coming up of spirits of the departed, the identical necromancy of which we read in scripture?

That there is a vast deal of deception I have no doubt, but they have not explained and cannot explain the half of it. Witchcraft is not gone. You may find half the housewives in parts of England stop haemorrhage instantly with a few muttered words; you may give them the number of your warts one day, and have none the next. To this day there are in France stones with certain marks upon them, to which women who desire to have husbands or children go, and which they worship, and which have jovial celebrations attached to them. They are similar to others consecrated to Mahadeva (Siva) in India, whose symbol is the linga, and worshipped by women in the same way a little more grossly. They come with a dead child in them to revive it. They are probably also connected with the worship of the dead or fairies. (See Materiaux pour l'Histoire de l'homme, 1878, 6e livraison.)

It is very easy to sit in a drawing-room or a lecture-hall, and say, See how, with our wisdom and science, all these things have disappeared! They have not disappeared; it is mere pretentious ignorance to say they have. It is very possible that infidelity, if it had penetrated where superstition reigns, might make it disappear, though bringing up the dead or spiritism is no great proof of it. Our infidels may not believe that these are spirits of the dead (I do not); but their science cannot explain what happens now.

It is very easy to say, I do not believe the facts, but plenty of other people know they happen, and at any rate the superstition is there if the facts are not facts. There is no difficulty in distinguishing such things from real miracles; but the things to be accounted for are there. It is quite idle to say it is in dark places -- I do not doubt or question that certain of them are -- not spiritism. If a man finds today he has no warts when he had yesterday, and you tell him he is living in an ignorant condition, he may say, May be so, but I have no more warts; and if he has been among the more enlightened, he may reproach them with spiritism, a great deal of which none of them has explained yet. If you ask me, I say a great deal of it is deceit; but there is that wherein there is power, not of man, and certainly not of God. Of what, then, but of Satan? In their infidelity all is of Satan, to shut out God more completely in another way.

Nor is it in the country parts of England alone that superstition wields its power. I suppose we have infidelity and scientific light enough, and philosophy of all sorts in France; yet superstition reigns there. Not only has the worship of the Virgin Mary taken largely -- increased proportions in general, but La Salette (proved false by judicial investigation of the civil authorities, and condemned by the prelate of the diocese thereupon) is now approved and in full vigour, and the poor railway that passes by Lourde makes a very good business with holy water and pilgrims; confessed to be false, yet educated English pilgrims going there. And what has science done to hinder it? It leaves both the imagination and the higher wants of man's heart and conscience wholly unreached; it cannot satisfy heart and conscience, having none; it can explain the development of ova and protoplasm; but of what comes of me when all my ova, and what they tell me can alone rightly be called protoplasm -- a living combination which chemistry cannot reach, are gone in death, not one word can they say; no gleam of hope, no cry of conscience met. A God unknown on earth makes all darker still beyond it: for God, or even for man, no love; for self, no conscience. What has science to do with them? Affection is at the utmost warmer blood as to this world!

The whole moral world is wholly and absolutely outside their reach. Morality they have -- none; they will tell me it is the pursuit of the good of all. And what is that good? and who is to decide it? Their happiness; but for no two men is it the same, if I take man's thoughts. It may be scalping, or opium, for the existence of passions forms no part of their philosophy. Many good people are not aware where philosophy has got to. Kant, in his treatise on morality,⁺ -- a man not nearly so bad as the fruits of the philosophy he set going -- declares in terms that if the will of God, or fear of God, be introduced, there can be none. It is a principle outside man. Morality is the principle of pure reason applied to practical conduct. But he admits at the end that how the principle of pure reason can be so applied it is impossible to say. Mill tells me that justice is the animal desire for vengeance modified by utility to all. Kant's is merely natural conscience with the name changed, and shutting out relationships with God and man, on which all morality is based. Mill, remark, feeling a motive was needed as a rule, makes vengeance the motive. Animal vengeance the sole motive of morality -- the rule; one which has been never settled yet, save by Christ.

⁺A translation of it is used in Dublin University.

But my object now is to take up specially the question of miracles, and see how scripture presents them. There are those who are opposed to infidelity who take them as the basis of Christianity. Infidels tell us there cannot be miracles in the nature of things; that general laws cannot be infringed; that the vast mass of evil alleged to be removed by them is the effect of natural laws, and cannot be taken out of their uniform operation; that where they are such as cannot be so viewed, as demoniacal possession and the resurrection, they are proved to be mere superstition, or false.

The first famous proof is, that they are contrary to experience; and we had not experience of miracles, but had of human falsity. But first it is to be remarked here that it is a question of induction (not deduction), which only affords probability, and this Mr. Hume admits. He weighs probabilities, the greater against the less. But inductions have nothing to do with facts. Hume says, "When at last he fixes his judgment, the evidence exceeds not what we properly call probability." Now I conclude, for all practical purposes (and man as an earthly creature has to act on such induction), that, the sun having risen day after day, it will rise to-morrow. But do I believe it shines today by experience, or induction? Clearly not induction. That is induction which calculates in the future from experience of the past, having nothing to do with facts at all. And, note here, talking of concluding for a long time hence how it will be, is throwing dust in the eyes. For it is because it has always been the same I conclude it will be. But the whole proof rests on its remaining the same. There is nothing to foretell. One is the certainty of a fact, the other the probability of an induction. I may deceive myself, reasoning badly; my senses may deceive me as to facts. But the nature of the proof is different. Induction has absolutely nothing to do with facts. Take even sunshine. I believe the fact that the sun has risen every day, not by any induction but as a fact on testimony, and hence conclude that it will; but the ground of my believing is distinct. I may question the evidence of a fact; but, question it or not, it is not induction; and if I have to reason on experience of motives or circumstances, and bring in induction, it is then only a probability and not a fact.

The scientific men say the course of the physical world is such that it must have had a beginning, and must come to an end. If they are right, the sun will cease to give its light as it has done, and the experience of the past would not be a sound induction in an absolute way. And this leads me to another important principle, the character of the experience and the induction from it, and the whole basis of reasoning from it. It is based on this, that the material phenomena in which we live are the limits of all man has to do with. Hence, in speaking of the good of all, the view of the object of man's life is confined entirely to the material system in which he lives. It is perfectly clear that phenomena and experience exist only in what is phenomenal; and induction from experience, as to what may or must be, cannot go beyond the sphere to which the experience applies. It belongs to this. It may so far go beyond what is material, as that we have a certain experience of men's passions and motives; but the motives are too various and unknown, and the will and circumstances have too much to do with it, to have any definite general laws. And this Mr. Mill admits, though reasoning as if it were not so, and declares that he was founding a new science, to which he gives the name of Ethology, as sure as any science referring to matter! for these men can pretend to anything.

But this system of general laws, which in ordinary material things no one denies, is assumed to be the only possible existing cause for anything. Yet no one can go one step beyond observed facts with which reason has nothing to do, save classifying and binding them together by experience as cause and effect, from which man has an instinctive habit of thought that they will continue. But it is only what is observed, and continuously observed. Take such a thing as death. It was only after centuries -- if the patriarchal ages are true, many long centuries -- that death could be taken to be a law of nature. Seeing a man die, or a world destroyed, would not prove it, as Mill so illogically states. Man must have seen (what was practically) all die, to make it a general law. Till then life was the general state, and death might be casual. Thus the conclusion as to anything could be only after a regularly consecutive experience of facts not known by reason at all, but by sight or testimony -- facts which (in its very nature, as I have said, and it is all-important to observe) reasoning never gives. It gives conclusions, or the natural tendency to think that what is, as a general law, will go on as it has because it has hitherto; which, while sufficient to act on, and no doubt meant to be acted on, yet can only give probability, which is never a fact, but necessary if the principles are true. That is, reasoning never can, in any case, give us a fact or truth, but a conclusion by deduction, or by induction a mere probability.

Let us have it fixed in our minds -- no facts are known by reason. Thus the fact of Christ's existence in the world, or His miracles, cannot be the subject of reasoning, but of sense or testimony. All the conclusions of reasoning, or the induction of man's mind, are founded on facts which are known without those, and form the basis on which they are grounded. But, further, experience does not touch the origin of that of which observation takes notice. The experience being of phenomena cannot go beyond phenomena. Thus, the sun rises; but what makes it rise? We may find successive sequences, and come to where we can go no farther, as well as immediate ones; but this alters nothing. First or last, we come to a point where something has produced the facts, or produces the facts, which form the experience. With that something science has nothing to do. Science does not go beyond the phenomena and conclusions drawn from it. But here I come to a power producing these facts or these laws, of which reason has no cognisance. I do exist. I do not always exist. I began to exist. Of that, the first cause to which it leads, there can be no experience. Now whether I take "causa causata," or "causa causans," is all one. I have something that has given rise to the phenomena, something which science cannot touch or reason about -- admits it cannot (even Mill and materialists do). That is, a thing being, no matter of experience and yet existing, is certain. If I say, anything had a beginning; clearly when it began, it was contrary to experience, or rather no experience did or could exist. This cannot exist, till the constant succession expressed by general laws had lasted long enough to be known as such. Science tells us things had a beginning. That is, there was a time when judging by experience had no place at all, and yet facts were there and true, or experience never could have come to exist.

I quote one passage from Mill: "This class of consideration leads to a conception which we shall find to be of great importance; that of a permanent cause, or original natural agent. There exist in nature a number of permanent causes, which have subsisted ever since the human race has been in existence ... . These have existed, and the effects or consequences which they were fitted to produce have taken place (as often as the other conditions of the production met) from the very beginning of our experience. But we can give no account of the origin of the permanent causes themselves Why these particular natural agents existed originally, and no others, or why they are commingled in such and such proportions and distributed in such and such a manner throughout space, is a question we cannot answer ... . The co-existence therefore of primeval causes ranks to us among merely casual occurrences. Not only, for instance, is the earth itself a permanent cause ... . the rotation itself is entitled to be ranked as a permanent cause. It is, however, only the origin of the rotation which is mysterious to us." This last I may touch on, but do not pursue here. He then states that no event happens in the known universe, which does not depend on some preceding one, the necessary, or in other words the unconditional, consequence of some former collocation of the permanent causes. He admits that these effects, though invariable while these causes co-exist, would, if the co-existence terminates, terminate along with it. "We can only calculate on finding these sequences or co-existences where we know by direct evidence that the natural agents -- on the properties of which they ultimately depend -- are distributed in the requisite manner," (Logic, ed. 8, pages 398-400). But all this, "at least unless some new condition of a power capable of constructing the universe should supervene" (page 400).

Another able materialist, but who declares himself at the same time a Christian, arrives at the same result, after quoting indeed part of what is quoted above from Mill.

The method of science is thus essentially sceptical, and continually leads to reject all interference of casual powers not themselves phenomena, till we reach a point where analysis can go no farther, and we are compelled to admit a primordial cause or causes, of whose nature logic and science can tell us nothing.

Thus we are conducted to a blank wall by a method which is wholly powerless to penetrate the mystery which lies behind. The only thing it conducts to is not really what these authors say. The last says, "What we may term logical or negative atheism"; the former, who could not -- being melancholy almost to madness for several years -- but see the misery and degradation in which men were, and even creation itself, and not believing in the fall of man, concluded that a God of very feeble power, but in the main benevolent, had made the best He was able out of the materials He had at hand! The simple and only true history of the matter is this -- man is so constituted that he cannot conceive a thing which has a form or individual existence without a cause. He sees something so existing: it came into existence by a cause. Hence he goes on to a primordial cause because he cannot conceive anything existing without one. But this is exactly what a first cause does, it exists without one. That is, he cannot conceive it. He knows it must be. What it is he cannot conceive. That is where man's mind ends, so that such is the result of science; "it conducts us to a blank wall by a method which is wholly powerless to penetrate the mystery which lies behind." Poor comfort to those led by it! Or, to use the larger work, and say with Mr. Mill, "We can give no account of the origin of the permanent causes themselves. Why these particular natural agents existed originally, and no others, or why, etc., is a question we cannot answer."

Now, in these statements, the substantive truth of which cannot be denied, we have the proof that the whole a priori argument against miracles entirely fails. Science, based on experience, reaches no farther than the actual sensible course of things already set in motion within the present limits of our senses or experimental discovery. Now, within that course -- and science knows nothing but that, as science -- we have, of course, no reason to expect a change so far as we reason from that, and this is all we can do. It is indeed tautology. It would not be a course of things else.⁺ But it does do something more. It leads us to the blind wall, to its own end; but to what discloses that there is something of which it knows nothing, for it proves that everything we know comes from something that preceded it. This is a fixed principle, then. There are primeval causes of which we know nothing but that they exist, save that they must have a cause of which science is simply and wholly ignorant -- cannot touch, as beyond its kind, and sphere of knowledge.

⁺This is not strictly true, if, as men of science affirm, the course itself proves its beginning and its ending. But this hardly affects present practical uses of it.

Things exist of which to science the origin is not known. What the men of science know is only the actual course they follow when they exist. Of their origin, of the force which gave them that course, what imposed on them the form of operations we find them to have, of everything that is constituent, science is ignorant; the constituted it can inquire into. Not only this, but it must, for its conclusion, have the circumstances, the collocations of existing things, their conditions of existence, just the same, or else all conclusions fail, indeed are false, have no bases, for they are drawn from what exists. Hence the condition is inserted by Mr. Mill, and very justly, "unless there is a counteracting cause." One step farther. Mr. Mill tells us, that any one who knew all the agents, their collocations in space, the laws of their agency, could predict the whole subsequent history of the universe, at least unless some new volition capable of constructing the universe should supervene. Now, there is not much science in this, which merely says that a state of things going a regular course would continue what it is unless something changed it, a proposition which I suppose no one would contradict, save by reason of another possibility that the course is a changing one (as is said to be the case), so as to come to an end.

Further, I must add that it is not necessary to change the universe: a power which could originate anything could do that without changing an atom, anything whatever, of the regular course of things, though it might introduce something new which was not of that course. Thus a man might rise from the dead and go to heaven, or an angel come down from heaven and leave the course actually known to science untouched. I am not saying any such thing ever happened, but a power which can originate does not necessarily change anything in that beyond which science cannot go. Men may go on eating, drinking, dying, and an angel come down, or a man may be raised, without anything of experienced phenomenal order being changed. This might go on as usual, and, physically speaking, its course be predicted just as before. When the man died, science came to its absolute end, to the blind wall, as much as in primeval causes at the other end, and the angel go away again, and no one care whether he had been there or not. Science can know nothing but the existing course of sensible phenomena, and presume its continuance as it is, if nothing interfere. If it attempts to go farther, it must say, I cannot answer, or knock its head against a blind wall.

But then, mark, we have this positively recognised, that there is a primeval cause, perhaps causes⁺ (for they do not like to own one -- it would be too near God -- though Mr. Mill in the most wretched way did), whose origin is wholly unaccounted for. Science has its sole task to investigate their course when they are at work, but their origin and the origin of the laws which govern their course must be ascribed to a source of which science is ignorant. The course they follow is the whole it can inquire into; their existence is a "casual circumstance," stands by itself, is no part of the general law which science can discover when it is in operation. The conservation of force now insisted on alters this in nothing; it is only a more general law, which we cannot apply beyond the universe subject to observation, nor does it reveal its origin more than the rest. Let evolution be true, which in some respects it may be, and cells and protoplasm be the starting-point of everything: you only have the starting-point of development, only what is material with possible action, as organic, on mind. As to the origin you are exactly where you were.

A volition capable of originating, science can tell nothing of -- cannot say that it does not exist. For science, save that there is the insuperable conviction of a cause, it is the other side of a blind wall. This being so, all that denies the possibility or credibility of a miracle is wholly out of court. Experience has nothing to do with it. It is not the subject of its knowledge, or this knowledge would not be experience. That knows the course of what is, and nothing more; but the origin of all that is, and of the force that acts in the uniform operations which they call a general law, is out of their reach, but must be, for these things so governed exist; and it may, of course, operate independently now, as it did in the origin, when it could not be a matter of science, for the knowledge of a general law was only when they had existed long enough, and been so operated on as to be able, to predicate a course. Of these causes or cause there never was knowledge in science. They were there when the ground of science was laid. They had an origin, and what originated them may originate a miracle, a casual circumstance, for what were originated were only "casual circumstances" at first. Science can tell us nothing about those "casual circumstances"; such are altogether out of its sphere. No experience applies here, and so of miracles.

⁺Yet the unity of plan and law is the strongest possible inductive proof that the primeval cause is one.

I do not say this proves any particular miracles to be true, but it proves the reasoning as to their credibility and possibility utterly foundationless and false. Whatever power produced or was the origin of the first, may be of the other, and is just as active in one as in the other. All the appeal to experience is only to say that the continued action of general laws, which they can explain as a mere fact, is not the same as the power that originated them, which they cannot explain at all. And even this, which in a certain sense may be admitted, so far as that it is a different kind of exercise of it, they cannot say. For my own part, I am satisfied that the force or power which created and set the universe in movement is a power which keeps it in movement. The material world would not move itself unless it was moved, and the power and will which started it must always operate to continue it, or it could not continue. This is the true conservation of force: the perpetual operation of divine will, just as it operated at the beginning in setting what appear now as general laws a-going. It is always exactly the same thing.

This force was acted by and followed a certain order in starting, by will and power; and it continues by the same power and will every instant. It has never been proved that the power which sustains is not the same power which at first originated. Science knows no more of one than the other. It only knows phenomena and the recognition of general laws by which they are governed, that is, the fact of constant sequence, or uniform effects when all is already there, the whole of which is as to its existence confessed to be a casual circumstance, just as a miracle is. Both are known by sense or testimony, and by no other means.

The infidel argument is utterly illogical. It is this -- "We cannot admit a proposition as a law of nature, and yet believe a fact in real contradiction of it. We must either disbelieve the real fact, or believe we were mistaken in admitting the supposed law." But this is merely saying there is no possible power in existence but the law of nature; which is not only not proved, but the contrary is admitted. We have seen that it is admitted that there are primeval causes, of which science knows nothing -- that it were contrary to experience. The effect B, they say, must follow from A, as it has always done, unless there be some counteracting cause; confining thus all possibilities to the existing phenomena, that is, assuming the whole question; denying anything else can be, yet admitting primeval causes. That anything happens not the consequence of existing phenomena, they say, must be disbelieved. A general conclusion that the usual phenomenon will follow no one disputes, because it always has. How the phenomena themselves did originally, unless it be a changing, not an unchanging, course. But it is not the question. That is, whether Z cannot do something, which is neither A nor B, or set A in motion to produce B. The consequence is supposed in the order of known phenomena. But the conclusion cannot go beyond a positive one: that there will happen a consequence when these causes act according to the known course. The action of power (for law is not power, but order produced by power) cannot be touched by that order, unless originating be denied, for this is power independent of existing order, and an origin, no part of the sphere of science, is admitted, were it not, its possibility cannot be denied. With that science has nothing to do.

Mill then takes the ground that we must believe in the existence of a being with supernatural powers before we can believe miracles. Now this proceeds on the supposition of our large ignorance of natural causes; a pretty plea for men of science who profess so to know nature, that the course of it is so fixed, that we cannot believe anything which contradicts that course; nay, which is not part of it. Now, when there is the consciousness that they cannot be denied, there must be previously the belief of supernatural power. But supposing we did so believe, which it is clear to me that we may and must without any miracles at all, this would not help us on a bit, because on their own shewing it may be from some unknown cause. Nay, they say that He who formed the course could not interrupt it. But this previous belief is not necessary. I may now assume miracles, for the question is their cause. Events happen which no known cause ever yet produced. They happen not of themselves. There is no antecedent natural cause discoverable; they happen only by the intervention of particular persons, and do not exist when these are not there. A man walks on the sea, stops the earth going round, raises a dead man who was buried and passing into corruption. All outward evil disappears before a given individual, a word suffices even when He is not there. No sorrow or evil withstands His word. The facts happen before hundreds of thousands, and to thousands, and nobody is able to call them in question: they cannot deny it.

You say, But I do not believe what really would be miracles, as Joshua's stopping the sun's course, or Lazarus's resurrection, etc. I quite understand you, but you do not, because they would prove the supernatural power if admitted. Now that is our present question, and you contradict your own statement; and I say, that a man who could deny that miracles cannot prove miraculous or supernatural powers, as they might be attributed to causes unknown to boasting science, ought not to write on logic, or pretend to analyse the true character of induction. "Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought." The truth of alleged miracles may, of course, be disputed, their character be investigated; but to say that miracles, if true, cannot prove supernatural power, but that this must be first assumed, is in every sense absurd, and worthy only of infidelity and men of science, who cannot get beyond phenomena and the petty investigations of the general laws which govern them; very entertaining, I admit, but which in no possible case lead to a right affection or to the sense of moral obligation.

And this is the proposition of the Humes and Mills, and of the anonymous author of Supernatural Religion.

But Mr. Mill makes one or two remarks of great importance here: "The miracle, as an extraordinary fact, may be satisfactorily certified by our senses or testimony." But then there is a power which can interrupt the course of general laws and act by its will so as to produce "casual circumstances." Mr. Mill will say there is no miracle, but a previously unknown law. I only admit an extraordinary fact. But I have a fact that is not accounted for by any known law or cause. Adequate evidence is admitted of facts, and that there is no way to account for the fact. Suppose the fact to occur at the command of an individual, and repeatedly, and to be contrary to every known law, as walking on the sea. We have clearly what is not the effect of general laws, but contrary to them, and attached to an individual and those empowered by Him. That there may be evidence of it is admitted; to deny it is merely returning not to evidence or science, but to the assumption that there cannot be, which is just a begging of the question, which before he did his best to deny practically, but now, pleading the ignorance of science, he seeks to throw necessary uncertainty on its being supernatural. We find, if adequately certified, they always happened by the intervention of given individuals, never without them; that they never happened before at any time, by any natural cause known or unknown. They belong to no general laws, and they always happened when the will of these gifted persons interfered.

The other remark is that an important element of the question will be the conformity of the results to the laws (read characters, for with "laws" given to others, save as sanctions, they had nothing to do) of the supposed agent.

I have said that the statement that a miracle can be certified by observation or testimony is important, as it was sought to be proved impossible. This may be easily understood by the statement, "If an alleged fact be in contradiction, not to any number of approximate generalisations, but to a completed generalisation grounded on a vigorous induction, it is said to be impossible, and to be disbelieved totally." (Mill's Logic, 8th edition, chapter 2, page 115.)

We have already seen there is no ground for this, for the induction is only from the course of nature known as general laws. And the miracle, if such, is a casual circumstance, like the origin of permanent causes, and has nothing to do with these laws, or it is not a miracle. The statement, then, that "we cannot admit a proposition as a law of nature and yet believe a fact in real contradiction to it" (Mill, chapter a, page 167), is simply a statement that there can be no exercise of power other than the course of nature known to us: which is simply absurd and a mere assumption, contrary moreover to their own admission -- that the origin of all is by some power which science knows nothing of.

In sum, we have come to the conclusion, or rather gathered up their admissions, that casual circumstances have taken place revealing power not within their experience or the general laws of science, and of which science can give no account. And that is just what a miracle is.

Let me now consider the way in which scripture presents miracles. It is alleged, and Christian apologists seem to acquiesce in it, that miracles are the proof of Christianity. This is a great mistake. They are graciously given of God in compassion to man's weakness to confirm the word. But the revelation of God in the word, His nature and actings, are the first things. Thus we have in Mark 16 the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by signs following; so in Hebrews 1, God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost. And this is so much the case, that a faith founded on miracles is not owned of the Lord: the moral element which links man's quickened soul with God is wanting. "Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover on the feast day many believed in his name, seeing the miracles which he did; but Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men and needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man." It was a human conclusion, drawn from the testimony of His works, and a just one; there was no new life, no moral renewal, it was "what was in man."

Hence we find as a fact in the ways of God, that, as a rule, miracles were wrought only at the introduction and establishment of a divine religious order, or where it was abandoned by those whom He had not yet abandoned; in a word, where a testimony needed to be confirmed in this way. Thus Moses wrought miracles, but no prophet in Jerusalem, where (however evil the people were) as a system the religion established by Moses remained, ever wrought miracles. When Israel had set up the golden calves, and God visited the people to maintain a testimony of the truth for a poor remnant, Elijah and Elisha work miracles. Again, whatever the miraculous power, it was to confirm the truth proposed, never for self. Paul leaves Trophimus at Miletus sick. Yet how many had he healed? Epaphroditus was sick nigh unto death, but God had mercy on him. Hence, if a miracle was wrought leading away from divine truth the miracle-worker was to be stoned; Deuteronomy 13. In mercy to man, adequate outward testimony was given, leaving man without excuse; but faith which God owned rested in the word, and its effectual working morally in the heart.

So the Lord puts the double character of His testimony: "If I had not come and spoken to them they had not had sin, but now they have no cloak for their sin. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did they had not had sin, but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father." But while condemned for rejecting this testimony, faith formed on this alone is not owned, because it was purely human assent and not the moral power of the revelation working in the heart, and faith which is owned is always by the word. Of His own will begat He us by the word of truth. "My sheep hear My voice." "He that heareth My word and believeth on Him that sent Me hath everlasting life." "The words that I have spoken unto you they are spirit and they are life." It is equally even the ground of judgment. "The word that I have spoken the same shall judge him in the last day."⁺ Thus, while special miracles confirm the truth, yet if they are not attached to the truth known from the word, they are to be rejected. The word is the test.

Further, closely connected with this is the fact that these miracles were entirely separated from any honour attached to the persons who wrought them, though of course they attested the divine character of their ministry; they were wholly a testimony borne to the Living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, and all He taught. This is true even as to Moses' works of power; as Exodus 16: 8, and elsewhere, "What are we? Your. murmurings are not against us, but against the Lord." And when once they provoked his spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips, saying, "Hear now, ye rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?" as an expression of the strict regime of the law, he was not suffered to lead the people into Canaan; Numbers 20: 10. So, Acts 3: 13, Peter disclaims all regard to himself or John, putting Jesus alone forward. The Lord's power and resurrection are that to which the miracles testified. This gives a definite character to them. There was no personal relief, as we have seen, no self-aggrandisement by them, no glory sought for themselves or for their company. So Paul and Barnabas; Acts 14: 14.

⁺See John 10: 38; chapter 14: 11; and other like passages.

Now, it was the opposite of this in every other case. It was to glorify the individual, a St. Anthony, or Gregory Thaumaturgus, or Martin, or the church corporately -- in a word themselves. They were always from motives, or for objects, which the scriptural miracles never were. The religion was already established as a religion, for which they had been needed. They were wrought in mercy to a tigress who brought a deer-skin in recompense to the saint for giving sight to her cubs, and who was told the saint could not work miracles for her if she went on with such work; or a cow was set right on which a demon was riding, whom the saint only could see, and the cow, coming and kneeling to him, was ordered to go quietly back to the herd, which she did. This saint promised Satan salvation if he ceased to tempt man. Or let any one compare the miracles of the pseudo-gospels with the miracles attributed to Christ; and if they cannot discern the difference of these and scripture, we need not be troubled about their judgment as to anything. The things I have referred to were in the very first centuries. The church was utterly fallen.

It is a constant fact in the ways of God that He gives counterchecks. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. The form of holiness cannot be received as of God if it be not founded on the truth, nor what is presented as the truth if it be unholy, nor one who presents truth itself as a minister of God if he be unholy. So pretended miracles, or apparent works of power, if used to confirm what is not the truth of the word, are to be at once rejected. I may be unable to explain them: that alters nothing; they are not of God. He can only give testimony to the truth. Let the sign be one of real power, as we have seen in Deuteronomy 13, if it deny the Lord or His word, it condemns the worker, but does not deceive him who knows the Lord and walks with Him. This supposes the truth known, the testimony of the Lord, in the word received (and that is our case), or else a heart deceived by falsehood, which, of course, cannot discern.

And here we see the importance of the scriptural fact that miracles were on the introduction of the truth and to confirm it. Their holiness of walk, truth and power, went inseparably together. It was not a record of past miracles; nor, on the other hand, when truth was there, a means to judge pretended ones by, but the truth introduced with the accompanying testimony, which none could deny. In the case of Christ, neither heathen nor Jews denied them; they might ascribe them to Beelzebub, or magic, or the shem hammaphoresh; but the facts were there.

Miracles were a present visible testimony which, in point of fact, did so affect men that the religion was established in the face, and in despite, of all the power of the world. For, after all, Christianity exists, and has had a cause of its existence. That that existence was identified with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ is unquestionable for any sober-minded person. Next to His Person and death, of which even heathen authors (of course of more weight with infidels, because they believed no truth) testify, came the truths they testified of (which indeed could not be separated from Christ's Person and work); but with these, both in the case of Christ Himself and those He sent out, miracles accompanied the testimony to confirm it, and the testimony was believed, and the religion was founded, in the midst, doubtless, of violent opposition and persecution. But the testimony and the miracles were before the eyes of those who did believe. The account is, that they saw persons who had been dead and buried, alive again and conversant with men; all sickness at once healed; lunatics, and those held to be possessed -- for the difference is clearly made -- instantly healed and delivered. And a religion, which has possessed the civilised part of the world, was founded through the effect produced making head against every prejudice and the whole power of the Roman Empire; and divine truth such as meets and heals man's soul was introduced by it.

Other religions have been compared with it. Mahometanism, everyone knows, was propagated by the sword, and gives a sensual paradise of houris, consecrating men's lusts. Buddhism, the most interesting phenomenon in the world, had no god, it was despair at the state of human nature without a remedy, and its founder obtained -- Nirvana -- practical annihilation by eating too much pork when he was fully eighty years old. Now he is a kind of god, and in one vast country where it prevails, is embodied in a man and, when he dies, another is ready prepared, and the living power passes into him. The miracles the word of God insists on were for the establishment of the faith, and the faith was established, and the grace and truth taught in it shine yet with undiminished and undeniable moral lustre, while its shell is picked at by those who do not like the truth itself, because it has a power which speaks too plainly to conscience -- proves itself too clearly for the conscience to like it.

And this leads me, too, to the character of the miracles, which, as Mr. Mill says, ought to be characterised by what suits the law (character) of the author of them. Let us consider them in this view.

Christianity views man as guilty and lost by sin, and (while recognising the law as the just measure of what was required from man, yet none having fulfilled it) purports to be the revelation of God in sovereign goodness to save what was thus lost. Now, Christ's miracles and those of His disciples were not merely signs of power, but all of them of goodness as well as power. There is but one absolute exception, and the accessory of another: the cursing of the barren fig-tree, a usual figure of the Israelitish nation, that is, of man under the old covenant (this is finally judged, and it was never to bear fruit); the other was the case of the swine, when the miracle itself was a striking and mighty act of delivering goodness, and a sufferance thereupon of the demons shewing themselves such as they were -- a sad picture of what happened to the Jews when they rejected Christ as the Gadarenes had. The allowance of the manifestation of the reality of these evil spirits is a remark of one of the old so-called fathers.

With these exceptions, all the miracles of the Lord were the expression of goodness present in power, that man might be won back to confidence in God. Every outward effect of sin, all the evil that was in the world, was removed and set aside when met by the power that wrought in goodness amongst men. This did not change man's heart, but it did reveal God's, and this was what man wanted. God came into the midst of sinful men shewing that love flowing from His own thoughts and nature was greater than the sin and evil that was in the world. For what we have in Christianity is what never was before: God come out in grace revealing Himself in goodness when man was a sinner; and man gone in, in righteousness, into the divine glory, so that God's love and God's righteousness should be revealed to sinners far from Him.

Now, no one can shew that one miracle of Christ's, or of those sent by Him, was not thus power displayed in a way suited to the present need and sorrow of man. Moses' miracles, though partly the glorious deliverance of a people and the proof of governmental care, were not always this. There were judicial wonders suited to the position of the people when God was hid behind the veil and the people placed under the law and tested there. To be exact, I should add one temporary judgment pronounced by Paul on Elymas (a sad picture of the state of the Jews resisting grace), and, after all, the means of far better blessing to the proconsul, before whom the question of the truth of Christianity was raised.

The miracles of Christ were, then, not only perfectly suited to God's nature and character, but perfectly suited to man and the purpose of Christ's mission, and the expression of it where man's heart could feel and understand it. His birth (if God was to be thus manifested, so that man should learn God's nature and feel His profound interest in him) was exactly what it must have been, a true, real man, born of a woman, but perfectly sinless; such was the suited temple of God as near to man as God could be, and yet God near to him. As to the resurrection, He having become capable of dying to accomplish the work of redemption, and having accomplished that work, there was the recognition of its effectual value for the justification of everyone that believed. God had accepted it, and inseparably from this -- a to us -- new life,⁺ and a new state of it beyond the effects of sin, in a people of which He was the first-born and head. And thus mark that all His miracles were an essential part of an immense scheme of truth, the only key to man's state in connection with God's righteousness and mercy, and the only full and real revelation of what He is which exists in the world. The infidel may condescend to have to say to God, provided He keeps far enough away from him for them to have nothing to do with one another; but this is a revelation, when man, beyond all controversy, is in sin and misery and degradation, as a fact, if there be no revelation -- a revelation of God having to do with him in grace and love, and yet maintaining His holy and righteous nature, no trace of which is found anywhere else.

But, further, while miracles were a confirmation of the word, which was the proper and express revelation of God's mind, they were also a testimony in and of themselves; for they told, not simply of power but of goodness, of God working in goodness in the midst of sorrow and misery, and that in the most definite and distinct way. "He had compassion on the multitude." Still there was distinctly and definitely a testimony to the person and truth, or, to speak again as scripture speaks, the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ, and word and works were a like testimony to it. Hence, too, both belonged specially to the Person of the Lord and His immediate followers, whose part after His death I will speak of just now.

⁺Christ had life in Himself, and could not be holden of death; but I speak of what it is for man in general.

Thus in John 10: 37, 38, we read, to the world, "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; but if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works, that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him": to the disciples (John 14: 10, 11), "Believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake."

I add what follows for another point that will come before us. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do, because I go to my Father." Again, chapter 15: 22, "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did they had not had sin, but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father." Thus both the word and the works give testimony to all the expression of the perfectness of the person who was there -- of God's living dealing with men. As to the word, this is the force of John 8: 25: "in principle and wholly what I say to you"; His words were the expression of Himself. He was the truth, and the truth thus expressed was the revelation of Himself and so of the Father. This gives a distinct character to His words and miracles, and the difference between His and all others. None could be in themselves a similar testimony. The fact that the apostles, and probably some on whom they had laid their hands, wrought miracles, and more and greater works than Christ Himself, may seem a contradiction to this.

A few words here may be called for. It was a necessary consequence of the truth as to Christ. As to His life He was the necessary and natural witness to Himself. But this manifestation of God in grace in the world was only half the truth. If He as God descended here in love becoming a man, as man He is gone up into heaven, the righteousness of God being so revealed to men through the Holy Ghost sent down. Of this the Holy Ghost, speaking and acting in men sent out by Christ, was the witness. "Greater works than these shall ye do because I go to my Father." But the testimony was still to Jesus alone: the apostles disclaimed all glory for themselves . The miracles were all for the establishing of Christ's religion upon earth, and belonged entirely to that testimony, either to His coming here from on high or to His being gone up on high as man.

No miracles of wandering Jews or Christians in subsequent times can be compared with them, and he who can compare warnings to grateful lionesses and demons riding on cows' backs, done to the honour of Thaumaturgus, must have lost every trace of moral sense and divine apprehension.

The infidels must remember that the judgment we form on things is sometimes a test of the state of our minds. The state of the church fell with the departure of the apostles, and even in their time. All, says the apostle, seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ; and John and Jude both testify that the failure was come in their days. The history of the church shews it utterly fallen in doctrine and practice at once, as all that had been entrusted to man ever had. It is all very well to talk of the primitive church with those who know nothing about it. But the doctrine and practice were such as are not fit to be put upon a drawing-room table for common reading, and that what was read in the churches forty or fifty years after John's death; one hundred years after, this corruption was general.

That superstition and spiritual ignorance governed the "Fathers'" minds, there is not the smallest doubt. Milner in his Church History admits that not one ever held the fundamental doctrine of justification by faith. I should go farther, but let that suffice. It became quite early the practice to get drunk in the churches in honour of the saints whose memorial had taken the place of that of the demi-god on the same site. In Africa Augustine tried to put a stop to it, and was nearly stoned for his pains; he excuses "the primitive church" by saying, they thought it better to get drunk in honour of a saint than in honour of a demon. But more of this in detail hereafter.

The disposition of the Jews to believe all sorts of signs and wonders is insisted on by infidels, as in the book Supernatural Religion, referring to Lightfoot, and Schoetgen, and Gfrorer, who quote the Talmud, etc. Now this is freely admitted. But such infidels forget that the Jews as a body did not receive Jesus as the Christ. Light had come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light. John the Baptist claimed repentance without miracles; those whose consciences were reached received the Lord's testimony, but none else. They might rejoice in the miracles for present comfort, but did not believe, so that the faith in Christ was exactly in contrast with this superstitious temper of the Jews. One would think that these wise men had forgotten that Christ was rejected and crucified, and that the Jews' wonderful love of the marvellous failed to reconcile them to the light -- perhaps helped to darken their eyes. At any rate the argument is worse than nothing, because they did not believe because of the truth that came with the miracles, but rejected Him that wrought them; ascribed them to Beelzebub -- anything rather than receive the truth; and the judgment they were warned of came upon them.

I should not demand better evidence of the difference of the human mind and the divine as communicated in the Gospels than for a person to read the spurious gospels, if he has patience to get through them, and compare the senseless fatuities of what was not written by inspiration in those days and the four Gospels; and if he cannot find out the difference, he is quite fit to be an infidel author. Christ, it is said, when a child was making mud birds and ponds, and it was the sabbath, and a big boy came and broke His ponds, the birds took flight and went away, and Christ said, As you have dried my ponds, may you be dried up! So he dried up and died. In this kind of way He became the means of the death of so many that His mother had to keep Him at home in the house. He maltreated the master that taught Him His letters in a like way.

Let me remark here that scripture gives perfectly and soberly according to God, what there are legendary traditions of, or the truth of God's ways in connection with Himself, where man's imagination has invented a mass of false statements to impose on man's fears or love of the wonderful. Thus, take the Book of Tobit (the expression so far of Talmudical and Jewish ideas when they had not present revelation, and the scriptural account of the service of angels), and see how the last is worthy of God and comfortable to us. The denial of these things, as if it was a settled point, and sober men had given it all up, is all very well for infidels and those who are afraid of them; but they must know that men as sober and as sound as they, fully believe in the scriptural statements of angelic administrations and demoniacal power. The Sadducean denial of a world of spirits is prejudice, not sober judgment, as if power (because it was not visible and material) could not exist.

The scriptures -- and in spite of infidels, Christians believe them -- are plain as to the ministration of angels: "Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation?" As regards the wickedness of man they do believe in the fall of man, they do not believe that God made the world as it is morally. They see man degraded in abominable idolatries where Christianity has nothing to do with it, where in the highest state of civilisation they worshipped and do worship objects that mark the lowest possible degradation, and indulge, even the wild Indians, in the careful practice of nameless degradation themselves. They know that in the centre of modern civilisation, man is let loose and boastingly casting off Christianity and God, indulging in horrors too horrible to repeat. They know that where there are not such outbreaks, and where there is a great profession of religion, sin and vileness prevail and scarce hide their face; and they do not believe that God made the world in this state -- they leave that to infidels. They believe, knowing God to be holy and good, that man is a fallen being. The evil state is a fact. They will excuse its violence as rising up against oppression, there is a measure of truth as to certain parts of this, but they are only deeper in the mire. Where did the intolerable oppression come from? and is violence, glutting in blood and debauchery, the only remedy they have? Further, God's remedy they reject, and are helping people to reject, to their own destruction.

Kuenen is referred to in Supernatural Religion as a very able book. With sufficient contradiction to make their judgment of little worth, all these rationalists are in substance on the same ground. The Pentateuch is not a really historical book at all, but a compilation from a few old documents, partly made in the time of Judges, partly in David's or Solomon's reign, partly after the exile. There, at any rate, it received its priestly form. Every divine element is completely excluded; of course therefore, no prophecy. Hence, when events later than the professed date of the writing are found, it was written after these events. Jahve was the national god, but Monotheism was only that into which they gradually grew up (through a Semitic tendency). Some think Jahve (Jehovah) a Canaanitish god; at any rate it was one party, and a small one, who held to his exclusive worship; other gods being equally recognised, even in the Pentateuch, and by the best kings. One party would have fellowship with the Canaanites; another drive them wholly out.

I may mention two cases as specimens of their systems. As it is rejected as historically true, and what professes to be of Moses invented or legends, they try and compose a system, putting things together by the probabilities drawn from man's motives; rejecting all thought of any revelation of God -- of course all prophecy and any mind of God in the matter. The whole is put together and compiled finally after the exile, with the object of exalting the priests and the authority of Jahve But I must give in my specimens:

Abimelech was disposed to unite Canaanites and followers of Jahve, and did get power thus. Gaal was a Jahvist, according to the system. Genesis 49 was written in the time of the Judges. But what is to be made of verses 5-7, the judgment on Simeon and Levi? According to them, the then state of Simeon and Levi led the poet of Genesis 49 to put into Jacob's mouth this judgment of the tribes. That comes, says Dr. Oort, from Genesis 34, written at that time, "for we know of no other inducement for the invention of this story than the covenant made between the cities of Shechem." But it is not certain that we should know the inducement, says Kuenen, and chapter 34 was written long after. Oort himself had a difficulty -- the statement in verse 13, that they dealt deceitfully. That is easily met: it is interpolated. No, says Kuenen; it is a confused reminiscence of the time of the Judges, long after Gideon and Abimelech.

It is well that those interested should know the principles of Dr. Kuenen, so lauded by the author of Supernatural Religion. At the beginning of his book, speaking of the standpoint of his history, he tells us it is one of a number of monographs of the principal religions. The idea of including the Israelitish and the Christian among the principal religions deserves approbation and applause only if there exist no difference between these two and all the other forms of religions. The idea of a special divine revelation, he says, would place too deep a gulf between them and others to count these among them. And at the end he adopts the statement of Mr. Reville, that if liberal Judaism prevails (for they have their rationalists), it will closely approach liberal Christianity, which, by its openly avowed Unitarianism, will not excite the same repugnance as orthodoxy. A fusion is hardly probable; but if all religious sects laid down their weapons, religious sentiment would only gain by it. Of course, if a man believes nothing, though there are principal religions, there is nothing to fight for. Divine revelation does not exist; and then, whether Genesis 34 be an existing fiction of the time of Abimelech, or a much later writing of confused reminiscences of that time, is very little matter, and may be left to Drs. Oort and Kuenen, who would hail a fusion of Judaism and Christianity on the ground of there being nothing divine in either.

The other specimen I would cite is, that the prediction of Genesis 49: 16, 17, is a clear proof that the chapter was written in the time of the Judges, more precisely of Samson; for then Dan rose up with some vigour. Such are the speculations we are to have, instead of the word of God, publicly accredited by the Lord Jesus and the apostles. These are merely instances that occur to me, or rest in my memory; the whole system is composed of such. I have entered more into it elsewhere. I have read Kuenen, Ewald, Bleek, Graf, and looked at others. But, as I have said, they are -- though the one upsets the other in detail so as to destroy their proofs -- just the same in substance.

Supernatural Religion is a catalogue raisonne of all the infidel German books; an advocate's special pleading against revelation. But while I avow I have not read the half of those he quotes, I cannot say he is fair in those I am acquainted with. I do not charge the author with false quotation, but with leading the reader, as to what he quotes, to the opposite conclusion to that the quoted book would, if the context be read.

I quite agree with Dr. Trench that possession means possession; the case of Legion leaves no manner of doubt. But, whatever Mede and others may say, these cases are expressly distinguished from lunacy, as in Matthew 4: 24; and not only do the Evangelists speak of devils coming out, but the Lord expressly desires them to come out. And the case of Legion seems given expressly to shew it is really so, as one of the "Fathers" remarks. Even now, with all their boasting, in cases of epilepsy the doctors on post-mortem examinations fail generally to find any adequate trace of disease. Scientific men have to learn that they are not all the world; and Christians who are afraid through their pretensions, and yield to semi-rationalism, are the most contemptible of all writers. Milman says our Lord adopted the current language of the day because unbelief in spiritual agency was one of the characteristic tenets of the unpopular sect of the Sadducees; as if the Lord Jesus would maintain as a truth in the minds of the people a false doctrine on a most important point where the Sadducees were right, for fear of losing His popularity by identifying Himself with them by speaking the truth. Why should He even have said anything and not merely heal the sick person? It is next door to blasphemy. Meyer says, all the efforts to explain away the history of Legion are useless: either you must take it as a true history; or recognise legendary parts and separate them, and take the story of the swine as the reminiscence of some mishap. He is as unbelieving on these points as the rationalists could wish. Lange's explanation, which Canon Farrar has borrowed, Meyer treats with the contempt it deserves.

The existence of good spirits and bad, the very dread expressed by them of judgment as yet "before the time," and the operation of divine power in miracles, are too interwoven with the whole structure of the Gospels to take them out without destroying its whole texture. I have already remarked, that the allegation that the superstition of the Jews accounts for it, proves only the folly of the reasoner who makes it, for they were not believed in by the Jews at all. That there are many inexplicable facts, false miracles also, and wonders done by evil power is recognised in scripture; but we are tested in such cases by them; they would deceive, we read, if it were possible, the very elect, and the power of spiritual discrimination, or the want of it is shewn; and all that the author of Supernatural Religion does is to confound them all together, shewing his own incapacity to discern. Real miracles, such as those of the Old Testament, are not at all the same as the New Testament. Divine power was of course shewn, and in grace to a people owned of God to found or guard a testimony; but the whole scene of the Lord's ministry was the expression of power in goodness in a living person there, or in a still mightier testimony to His name and redemption when He was gone.

But I ought to state why I account the statements of Supernatural Religion to be unfair. I just remark that the statement as to the book of Enoch, though very common, is entirely unfounded. The doctrine of Jude and that of this book are quite different as to the passage alleged to be borrowed. I do not call this unfair; it is too common. There was a tradition probably as to this prophecy, and the author of the book of Enoch uses it for his own objects; and in Jude the Holy Ghost gives us it, according to the truth of it. It is to me pretty clear that the book of Enoch was written by a great partisan of the Jews and enemy of Christians, and not long after the destruction of Jerusalem. He sees up to the destruction of his tower, but then can see no farther, but is full of all promises to those faithful to Judaism. Enoch, chapter 88: 22, 23, refers pretty clearly to the destruction of the temple by the Romans, and he could not perceive whether they afterwards entered the house; in chapter 92 we have the final judgment. Lawrence gives the passage in question thus from Enoch, "Behold he cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon them, and to destroy the wicked, and reprove all the carnal for everything which the sinful and ungodly have done and committed against him."

Now there is in Jude a prophecy in general analogous; but copied they are not. In the book of Enoch the saints are judged, and the wicked destroyed. Judgment on the saints is unknown to Jude. It is the doctrine of the book of Enoch, because he holds the Jews to be God's people. He says just before, "while judgment shall come upon all the righteous"; executing judgment on the preserved is the doctrine taught. Nor is the destruction of the wicked in Jude; nor is there anything of the speaking of ungodly sinners in the book of Enoch. Both the words and doctrine are different; nor is there the least proof that the book was before Jude. My own conviction is that the book of Enoch was written after the destruction of Jerusalem -- I suppose, in that case, after Jude's epistle. The idea that the prophecy was current before both is fair enough, but for copying there is no ground whatever.

There are many passages in the book of Enoch which would lead us to suppose they were taken from the New Testament -- doubtless some merely proverbial sayings used by both. Both the chronological elements and the contents of the book lead, on the closest scrutiny, to the supposition that the book was written by a Jew, who was obliged to admit the judgment of his saints (those faithful to Judaism) and treated the Christians as a perverse set, had picked up a good many truths which a Jew could own, and wrote after the destruction of Jerusalem, but sought to make the Jews still believe in the accomplishment of the promises made to the nation. It is curious as exhibiting a picture of the current notions of that day. He puts the Christ as existing before the creation, but hidden; he calls Him Son of man; but this is in the Old Testament. He makes the flood come by the world getting a tilt. I do not then speak of this as unfair. It is second-hand and superficial; but it is a current notion, only it has no foundation.

But there is what I consider unfair. The author -- as he does in countless other instances, stating as proved and certain, because the infidel clique he belongs to have so settled it, what is far removed from being so -- tells us, "It has been demonstrated that Ignatius was not sent to Rome at all, but suffered martyrdom in Antioch itself on the 20th December 115." He quotes then Bleek as witness of this statement. Now Bleek adopts the date, which had been greatly disputed, but in these words (Clark's Eng. trans., chapter 1, page 158), "Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who was martyred at Rome under Trajan, A.D. 115." In the same place (Sup. Rel., chapter 1, page 268-9), we find "there are no less than three martyrologies of Ignatius, giving an account of the martyr's journey from Antioch to Rome; but they are all recognised to be mere idle legends, of whose existence we do not hear till a very late period. In fact, the whole of the Ignatian literature is a mass of falsification and fraud."

The author quotes Milman, chapter 2, page 101; but Milman says nothing about it there. He does reject the acts of martyrdom, but expressly declares that he was sent to Rome, and in 102 gives a summary of his journey to Rome as we have it in ecclesiastical history, and quotes Cureton's epistles as of authority, and fully receives the account of his journey and seeing the brethren on the way, using it as proof there was no general persecution. The author also quotes Ewald, chapter 7, page 314. Now Ewald does reject entirely the three martyrologies published by Dressel. But he not only holds the whole history itself to be true, and the author's statement wholly wrong, receiving Cureton's Ignatian epistles, but he discusses it at length, and considers that the Syrian epistles have lost some passages which have been found in the Greek. As to Polycarp's epistle, he not only receives it, but says, appealing to Irenaeus' (3: 3, 4, a e) quotation of it, that its originating with Polycarp, people in our time have doubted and even denied, but that they were utterly wrong. "Es ist die grosste Ungerechtigkeit."

That a mass of infidel Germans, no two of whom have the same theory, and make systems at pleasure, refuting one another, and agreeing only to doubt what is true, may be cited, or Davidson, who does nothing but copy from them, no one need deny. But this seems to me very superficial, as well as unfair, in cases I have quoted. There is no original research into the questions, nor even care or fairness in quoting what is cited in the cases referred to: a vast number I have not examined. That many German infidels sustain the author in many things he says, I have no doubt.

As regards Justin Martyr, with all his details he seems to be very weak; and here also he has either borrowed or is only on the surface. That there was a multitude of accounts of Jesus current, written and unwritten, is notorious, and it is stated in Luke's Gospel. That Justin, who was of Palestine, had heard and refers to such is most probable. But these accounts never stood on the ground the four Gospels did. Origen notices (be his remark solid or not is alike as to this) that the others had taken in hand, which was merely human, not as Luke. Irenaeus insists that there could not be more than four Gospels, of which I will speak farther on, and Tatian made a harmony of these four -- plain proof that in the very earliest ages these four were distinctly recognised. That Justin, who was of Palestine, was familiar with the accounts current as published there, and reproduces them, is most probable; but no one can read even what is cited by the author of Supernatural Religion without seeing that Justin was fully acquainted with and recalls what he has read in the canonical Gospels. He does not take the roll down to copy it, but we could not have what Justin gives without our Gospels.⁺

As regards the Gospel to the Hebrews, it can hardly be doubted that Matthew wrote some account of Christ in Hebrew: at any rate early Fathers so state; but, after all, their statements are very vague as to what it was, Epiphanius saying it was corrupted, Jerome that he translated it, which would go to prove that it was not the canonical Matthew. What did he translate? It does not affect our Gospel, which is clearly original, as even the language proves. Jerome says he saw it at Caesarea and translated it; so that there was such in the fourth century. Still the statements of Jerome are so inconsistent that it is hard to draw any clear conclusion from what he says. He says he translated it, and that it was practically the same as Matthew: this it certainly was not, by his own testimony elsewhere. The writers of introductions, Bleek, De Wette, etc., say he gave up afterwards this thought, and I suppose did not like saying plainly he had been wrong; but it seems to me the dates do not bear this out. I do not think he is much to be trusted in the matter. Papias -- a man sphodra mikros noun -- assumes there was such a Hebrew Gospel by Matthew, but there were afterwards seemingly two differing editions; a few of the "Fathers" accepted it; but Origen, disposed to receive everything, says every one was free to use it if he thought it genuine, only not as authority. But it was in Aramaean; and there is no proof that Justin, a Greek, understood the tongue. He was a Greek, and though living in Palestine, it was in the Roman town Flavia Neapolis. Further, though he preferred being put to death rather than deny Christ, when, as is said, brought to martyrdom through a jealous philosopher, Crescens, yet he never gave up his philosopher's cloak, was a Platonist, and unsound in fundamental doctrines; and, though we cannot doubt his sincerity, was on the surface of Christianity. At any rate, the Gospel to the Hebrews is surrounded critically with the greatest obscurity, with no proof that Justin understood it, or was one of Papias's "every one interpreted as best he could." All this part of the book comes to nothing.

⁺Curiously enough, I have had to correct several quotations, carelessly made like Justin's, in reading over this paper.

The inspiration of scripture is known by divine teaching; it asserts its own inspiration formally, more formally if possible, than the spoken word; but its authority is demonstrated by evidence of every kind, such as no other book in the world possesses. The author quotes the writers of the Baur or Tubingen school in numbers, which is merely part of a progressive effort, not simply to undermine the authority of the New Testament history, but to do so by the invention of a system already seen through and refuted as alike historically unfounded and absurd, and which has now not merely lost its weight outside a few partisans, but has demonstrated the animus of the inventors and their untrustworthiness in every respect. It is this school that the author of Supernatural Religion relies on. We have seen that his quotations from others, themselves rationalist enough, cannot really be trusted.

There has been little real research into the character of the Gospels. The Fathers say Matthew wrote in order -- chronologically in fact; Mark, on the contrary, no one knew how (supposed as he heard it from Peter; this from the foolish notion than an apostle must be the author, from not really believing in inspiration). Now it is exactly the contrary, Matthew's Gospel bringing forth Christ as Messiah, Emmanuel sent to the Jews, but rejected of them; the kingdom of heaven, and the church and the kingdom in glory being substituted for the present establishment of Messiah's glory, gives a perfect moral order of subjects with this view. Hence, too, you have in fact no proper history with a chronological sequence. This is given in one single verse (chapter 4: 23); and we have His service in Galilee, and at the very end no ascension, but the whole closed with the remnant in Galilee and their mission to the Gentiles. In all the three Gospels blind Bartimaeus at Jericho begins the last events. There He is Son of David.

Mark and Luke are chronological, and relate events in the same order, as far as they are the same, up to the middle of Luke 9, which terminates the history of Luke (save always the last events). See Luke 9: 51. From that verse to chapter 18: 34, it is in general His last journey up to Jerusalem, introducing various discourses by the way, and adding others to the same purpose, without note of time. In general, Luke will give a quantity of events together, and develop facts which have a strong moral bearing. The difference of John is essentially this; it gives not a history at all, but Christ as God, the Word made flesh, the Jews being rejected altogether early in: the first chapter, and so treated all through.

The three first chapters are preface before His public ministry, John the Baptist being not yet cast into prison -- the two first going together; the third, the foundation principles of the new thing, being born again and the cross; fourth, Judaea left, and the transition to the worship of the Father; fifth, life-giving power, and exclusive judicial authority of the Son of God as Son of man; sixth, self-emptied and suffering Son of man; seventh, glorified Son of man, giving the Holy Ghost instead of appearing to the world; eighth, His word rejected; ninth, His work; tenth, He has His sheep at any rate (for John all through goes on the ground of electing grace), also the Gentiles ones; eleventh and twelfth, He is testified to of God as thus rejected as Son of God, Son of David, Son of man. But to take up this He must die -- episode of Bethany. In the thirteenth, He begins with what refers to His departure out of this world. These rationalists find the resurrection of Lazarus out of place, not having the most distant thought of the mind of God in scripture, nor any idea, of course, that there is any.

To return to Justin Martyr, the author's account of his quotations is not all trustworthy, and all that really bears on the true character of Justin's citation is left out. In the first place, Justin's manner of quoting is practically that of all the Fathers. They habitually quote not verbally, but put two passages together if it meets their point, just as Justin does constantly. Secondly, Justin also quotes very largely indeed from the Old Testament, which there is no question he received as proper scripture, exactly in the same way he does from the New. He writes as a philosopher to the Gentiles, and habitually quoting the Christian writings, as authority would have been useless. He calls the Gospels memoirs (a term borrowed probably from Xenophon's account of Socrates, shewing the tone of his mind), the Gospels written by the apostles and their companions, and he says they were read in the Christian assemblies. He quotes them as such expressly -- seven times we are told by those who have exactly examined the details. Five agree with our Gospels; the others have variations; one a transposition of words, probably right; the rest inaccurately recorded with the same sense, and two words added -- "and walk" -- found nowhere else. He gives the substance as it stood in his mind; the common way of patristic quotation, as of our own.

As to the other professed quotation, we find it in others of the earliest Fathers in different words and order; and, just as in Justin, by Fathers who beyond all question recognised the four Gospels and nothing else. That Justin used other traditional accounts, and perhaps the Gospel to the Hebrews, is very likely, There is no question that the four Gospels were held to be of paramount authority at that date. Tatian's harmony of the four was made only some twenty years after; and Jerome recounts the same of Theophilus a few years still earlier. When the Supernatural Religion says competent critics agree, it only means the infidel Tubingen school so hold. Take not only Westcott, who may be thought a prejudiced churchman, but Bleek's introduction, a theologian sober-minded and candid, but as free-thinking as any rationalist could desire, and the statements alleged in Supernatural Religion to be quite certain are treated as certainly false. The system followed by the author is a mere and evident effort to get rid of the large and developed testimony given with so much fulness in Justin to the Christian Gospels. The citations, says Bleek, are for the greater part unquestionably taken from our present Gospels.

Few, as I have said, in words saying it is written in the memoirs, but quoting them as they were in his mind with a reference to other current statements as to those found in other writings of the Fathers. The allegation which refers them to one given writing or to heretical sources has no foundation, though the doctrines and position of Justin would give no guarantee for his own soundness. He was doubtless a Christian, but still a Platonist philosopher. It seems another philosopher got him put to death through jealousy. This statement, accompanied by a reference to Bleek in page 289, contradicts all Bleek's teaching (as does page 293), and is as careless as it is unfounded. As to inspiration, indeed, none of them believed it; but as to the repute and esteem in which our four Gospels were held in Justin's days, Bleek is as clear and decided as possible, and as to the use of them by Justin Martyr, among others. See with other places sections 261, 2. That infidel Germans have disputed over it, as in page 288, is perfectly true, seeking by all means to undermine the scriptures and contradict the testimonies which support their authenticity. The whole of this part of the book is full of statements which are unfounded. It is not my part to go into it in detail here.

When he says (page 215) that the first and second epistles of Clement have a canonical position, it is merely trifling with the fact of their being in Cod. Alex. (There are three hymns there also.) He himself says the second was rejected, as every one knows who has inquired. In Justin's reference to the Lord's baptism, instead of all being referred to the apostles' memoirs, he carefully distinguishes what is in them, which is found in fact in our Gospels, the Holy Ghost coming down like a dove, from other things which are not there but stated by other Fathers. And this is also the case in his second reference to Christ's baptism (Supernatural Religion, page 317); what follows is special pleading. I have no interest in defending the "Fathers": one has only to read them, and specially the Apostolic Fathers, to see the difference of inspiration and the unsound and immoral stuff they write. You fall down a precipice from God to man!

It is treated as an extraordinary anomaly that Justin could quote as he did if he really received the four Gospels. It is a common thing with Fathers. Thus Bleek speaks of this when insisting on Justin's use of the four Gospels (section 87). These variations are of little moment when we remember that the Fathers seldom quoted scripture verbatim and word for word. It is in this place Bleek gives the true account of what the author makes so much about (in 288). He assumes (367) that there were a number of Gospels current -- "In how many more" Gospels; but this is falsifying the facts That there was probably a Gospel according to the Hebrews is not denied; but if there was, it was in Aramaean, which, as a rule, not one of the Fathers whose works are in question understood. A mass of apocryphal Gospels we have; one has only to read them to judge of them. Traditions no doubt there were and referred to, but gradually lost. My business is in no way to justify the accuracy of Justin, but the attempt in chapter 1, page 370, to prove his altering the text is the weakest absurdity.

Such passages are justly quoted by writers on the canon to prove that Justin was acquainted with the Gospels; but to look for the words and to insist that these must be found, and that it must be a quotation from some other, is trifling with scripture. If I were to say Jesus condemns a person looking on a woman to lust after her as much as adultery, would people justly conclude I had read the Gospels? but who that it was some other apocryphal one? It is just folly.

In communicating Christ's doctrine to the heathen for their information, it seems to me that Justin's statements are just what we might expect in a philosophical mind like his, proving clearly that he had read and used our Gospels, though occasionally referring to other traditions, as all the Fathers did. If men were to consult him for various readings, it would be the same kind of folly as the author's who is looking for the identical words. Justin is communicating Christ's moral instruction to the heathen, and it is done in the most natural way. His repeating the summing-up and motive is thoroughly so. He spoke thus, He taught thus, He said thus, just shew the true character of the citations.

The author of Supernatural Religion does not even understand the force of the reasoning. The existence of the Gospel according to the Hebrews is admitted and known, though perhaps seriously altered by certain parties, and never in the canon. The possibility of Justin having used it is not generally denied. What is said is that his quotations are sufficient to prove that he knew our Gospels. That is a question of judgment on comparing them. The possibility of another Gospel having what is in Justin does not alter this. If it be produced with the whole passage as he has it, and all else is consistent, we shall have another witness. I do not believe it is or can be. Nor have. they any hint of the existence of any such thing in all the writings of that day, save the Gospel according to Peter, the supposed reference to which is quite otherwise understood by sober critics, as it is in the only place in which Justin refers to it.⁺ What were the numerous other works in use in the early church? Various accounts were current but were lost, I may say, at once, in the prevalence of the four Gospels recognised as an authority and divine, and so used. And the author must remember that what we have in the written Gospel are the accounts of what Jesus said; and as to three witnesses or four it alters nothing if they are true. The facts may be called to memory by the Holy Ghost according to Christ's promise, according to the point they were connected with, and a writer quoting it may give it according to the point which is in his mind, and in the connection with the subject he is on suggests.

⁺The Gospel of Peter is a well-known but lost book. We are chiefly acquainted with it through an extract from Serapion of Antioch in Eusebius, H. E. 6: 12. He had found it in the assembly at Rossus in Cilicia, and not read it through, but hearing some had been misled by it, he got it and read it, and tells them that there was a great deal that was right, but some parts were perverted; but this was in 191, twenty or thirty years after Justin's death. It is mentioned by Origen in Matthew 13: 54-56 (3: 462, De la Rue). But he merely says that it was held by some that James and Jude, etc., were sons of Joseph by a former wife, and that they had received this as a tradition taken from a Gospel entitled of Peter or James. Theodoret mentions it as the Gospel used by the Nazarites. There were two kinds of Ebionites, one using only the Gospel of Hebrews, the other only that of Matthew, so that he had no idea they were the same. The Nazarites, a sort of Unitarians, holding the law as valid, who used only the Gospel of Peter. (Theod. Hoer. Fab. 3: 1, 2.) Jerome under Peter, the first of his De Viris Illus., says the Gospel of Mark was called the Gospel of Peter; but under Serapion 41 he speaks of a current Gospel under the name of Peter, under James 2 a foolish story out of the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which he says he had lately translated.

The question, further, is not whether Justin may not have known other current writings or traditions, but whether what he writes furnishes evidence of acquaintance with the scriptures, particularly with the Gospels, as we have them. We have only to read what he says to be convinced of it, the four canonical being acknowledged thus as such. The way in which the Supernatural Religion insists on verbal quotation is, for any one who has read Justin or other Fathers, perfectly absurd. Indeed, in the Apologies it is the last thing we should look for; these are addresses sent by a philosopher to the heathen authorities to give an idea of what the Christians were and did, to clear them from certain charges, and sometimes appealing, to shew the principles they held, to what their Master had said. I must say the discussion on Justin Martyr, and other like writers, seems to me to be the poorest piece of superficial criticism I ever wearied myself with reading,⁺ full of unproved assertions too, the difficulties raised by Fathers and traditions diligently searched out second-hand. The reconciling Papias and Irenaeus, and Jerome and others, proved to be difficult, but no serious research after truth at all. It is simply putting into English the infidelity of the Baur school, Schwegler, Hilgenfeld, etc., and nothing else. Of course, all inspiration is ignored. It is bringing up uncertainties of what may be, to prove what is to be uncertain, and the positive testimonies to mean nothing. What is not spoken of may be true; hence what is said cannot be. The Fathers, as to their judgment, are worth nothing; tradition is as untrustworthy for certainty of details as you please; but they suppose and prove to an intelligent mind certain facts. My faith does not rest on external evidence, but there is a certain kind of pretentious destructive criticism which is profoundly contemptible.

⁺To tell the truth, I never yet thought it worth while to finish the book.

Our critic speaks of many other Gospels, our four thus coming into an uncertain mass. But no one can examine the facts without knowing that these four were, from the earliest days, recognised as distinct. But which are these many? He speaks of the Egyptian, the Gospel according to Peter, the Ethiopians, and all depends upon this kind of thing. But these -- unless the Gospel of Peter, once mentioned in a phrase of disputed meaning -- are all the same, if we can trust various patristic accounts. Adapting an account (say the Gospel according to the Hebrews) to the Ethiopians was very natural, but is not another, and says nothing about the recognition of the four which were not counted with them, nor does it alter anything. The Gospel according to the Hebrews and the Ethiopian were not in Greek, so that reasoning from quotations is utterly without force; but it serves a turn.

I must add that I do not think an honest man, knowing our Gospels, could read the passage in Justin throughout, and hesitate one moment as to his acquaintance with them. It is a long discourse, in which he brings forward, so as to satisfy the heathen, the various teachings of Christ as they stood in his mind from the Gospels, to clear the Christians from the false notions held of them, quoting as I might quote scripture myself, sometimes verbally exact, sometimes the sense, and bringing in passages from another place which gave the connected thoughts which were in his mind for the heathen. There is one passage, "and walk," not accounted for, in reference to the cross, and not a whit more accounted for by the infidel writers. For their view of Justin's quotations there is not the least ground whatever. In one place the author of Supernatural Religion, to make it easy to think that he used a Hebrew Gospel or other Jewish traditions, says Justin was a Jewish Christian; whereas he states himself, as was the case, that he was a heathen, and after trying Stoicism, Peripateticism, Pythagoreanism, and Platonism, found rest in Christianity; visited many Grecian cities, and afterwards went to Rome. The best thing the reader can do is to read the passage chiefly referred to (in my copy of Justin, col. 1686, pages 61-66, about a tenth of the whole Apology from the beginning).

As to the apocryphal Gospels which remain to us, of which there are several, their contents speak for themselves; a proof of the total want of spiritual discernment in the primitive church, and also how impossible it was than an age which concocted, and more or less valued, such stuff, could have produced anything in the least resembling our Gospels. In this sense they afford the strongest proofs of the inspiration of the others. The Epistles according to the Hebrews, of Peter to the Egyptians, are not extant, and so afford a fine field for rational criticism; the connection of these with Justin I have spoken of. In Bleek's introduction, sec. 119, and also 87, 88, the reader will find the whole system fully judged. Bleek is a rationalistic critic. Perhaps it may be well to quote his words (Clark's Translations, Lec. 119, 1, 335): "But with regard to the memoirs of the apostles, so repeatedly cited by Justin, it is at once quite clear that these were not some single treatise, but a collection of writings differing from one another, and usually called Gospels."

Now, since he expressly attributes these writings to the apostles and their coadjutors, we are directly led to conclude that they were the canonical Gospels we have, which ecclesiastical traditions and their very titles assign partly to the apostles and partly to their fellow-labourers and disciples. The citations made from the memoirs are, at any rate as to the greater part, unquestionably taken from our present Gospels: only, like most of the Fathers, and according to his own practice in Old Testament passages, Justin uses greater freedom in quoting, and mixes together the text of different Gospels, especially Matthew and Luke. He describes them as written by the apostles and their companions. The supposition of some modern scholars that what Justin refers to and makes use of was some one distinct work is clearly false. Again: "His own words (Justin's) explicitly declare that they were more than one, and the citations themselves witness that all our four canonical Gospels were included." (Sec. 87, page 242.)

De Wette says (sec. 74, page 124) of the Gospel to the Hebrews: "This is the oldest (of the uncanonical Gospels), but its use is traceable no farther back than Hegesippus (about A.D. 160), nor beyond the circle of the Jewish Christians; for the orthodox Fathers, far from placing it on a par with the canonical Gospels, reckon it among the ungenuine." And (76, 125) as to the current acceptance of the four Gospels: "Various countries and parties in the church also furnish testimonies which run back nearly to the Apostolic age." Again, as to the Gospel to the Hebrews, he says, "But the oldest accounts contradict the idea of its being an original and independent work by representing it as apocryphal, and as wavering between Matthew and Luke." (Sec. 63, page 88.) "One of these alterations indicates a Greek original. Hence the opinion that the Gospel to the Hebrews is the most ancient Gospel writing falls to the ground." (Sec. 65, page 93.)

"Justin mentions as the source of these sayings and accounts, writings left behind by the apostles and their assistants, which he calls memoirs of the apostles, also Gospels. The old opinion that they mean our canonical Gospels is by no means contradicted by the inexactness of the citations; for it is probable, nay it is established by the repetitions that occur, that parties cited the Gospels, as sometimes the Old Testament writers, freely from memory ... and Gospels which were read in the assemblies of the Christians cannot well be other than our canonical Gospels, all of which (Mark and John more seldom) he made use of." (Compare sec. 66, page 94.)

De Wette goes into the objections which I have already gone over, but I do not go farther into them. Those whom I have now quoted are in the fullest sense rationalist writers, but sober and serious men who weighed facts, instead of indulging in inflated and foundationless speculations, where there is no trace of a search after truth, but merely the effort of an advocate to prove his point.

It is perhaps well to remark that the Gospel according to the Hebrews indulged in the grossest form of Jewish mysticism. We read, "The Saviour said, My mother the Holy Ghost took me by one of my hairs and carried me to the great mountain Tabor," and much more. (Gfrorer, Tahr. der Heils. Stuttgart, 1838, pages 332 ff.) This is quoted by Origen only saying, "if any one received it," in Jeremiah Hom. 15: 4. He elsewhere definitely declares the church had only four Gospels, the heretics many. Jerome quotes it, on Micah, lib. 2, cap. 7, vol. 6, 521, ed. Vall., where he states he had just translated it, so that it was not a mere Ebionidsh addition. So in Comm. Isaiah 11, Vall. 4, 156: juxta Evangelium quod Hebraeo sermone inscriptum legunt Nazaraei. But it came to pass that when the Lord went up out of the water, the whole fountain of the Holy Ghost descended and rested upon Him, and said to Him, My Son, in all the prophets I expected Thee, that Thou shouldest come and I should rest on Thee, for Thou art my rest, Thou art my first-born Son, who reigneth for ever.

So 4, 485. He quotes the strange phrase, "my mother the Holy Ghost took me by a hair, etc.," from the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which the Nazareans read, adding that no one ought to be offended, as spirit is feminine in Hebrew, masculine in Latin, and neuter in Greek; that thus being of the three genders in the three principal languages respectively, we might know that what is different is of none -- going pretty far in owning the work. Origen excuses it also, De la Rue, 4, 59, but on the plea that as Christ called those who did His Father's will, brother, and sister, and mother, so we might call the Spirit His mother. But the passage of Jerome on Isaiah 11 proves it was a systematic doctrine, and the Gospel probably heretical, on the system of Simon Magus and Helen. Yet Jerome translates it and says, many call it the authentic Matthew. This, it is said, was in A.D. 398. Later still, A.D. 415, he says it was in the library of Caesarea (the Nazarenes there using it); the Gospel according to the apostles, or, as many think, according to Matthew. (Dialogus 3, contra Pelagianos.) He quotes or refers to it very often. Circa, A.D. 321 he speaks of it as in the Caesarean library, and composed in Hebrew letters and words. Who translated it into Greek was uncertain. (De Viris Ill.) The Ebionites, he says, used it, joining them and the Nazarenes, where he speaks of lately translating it. But the Nazarene copy he translated. The Ebionites at any rate were divided into two classes, one certainly heretical, as were the Nazarenes or Nazarites. Origen, he says, often used it. Jerome translated it into Greek and Latin; strange if he thought it the same as Matthew, and Matthew translated by we know not whom.

That there were but four Gospels recognised is perfectly clear; for Jerome, Irenaeus, Origen, all speak decidedly. Jerome speaks of the others as concocted of the writers without the Spirit and grace of God, that to the Egyptians among them -- not naming that according to the Hebrews, but he does that according to the twelve apostles, and this (in Dial. 3, contra Pelagianos) he declares to be the same. He then goes on to say that the church has four, which the Lord poured forth as the four rivers of paradise, and four angles and rings, by which, like the ark of the Lord and keeper of the law of the Lord, she is carried on unmoveable bars (liguits); and then speaks of our canonical Gospels, and referring them to the cherubim, connects the four animals there represented with the four Gospels, and declares that only four ought to be received, and the rest as useless fables to dead heretics. (Preface to Matt 7, page 1, Vall.) Irenaeus was somewhat late in date, but he says the same thing. He says, lib. 3, 8, "There can be no more than four, nor can there be fewer. There are four regions of the world, and four principal winds; and as the church is spread over all the world it must have four columns, whence it breathes forth life. So he who sits between the cherubim has given us a fourfold Gospel, composed by one Spirit, referring, I apprehend, to the Word, the Artificer who maintains everything." And he then enters largely into the four cherubim, saying the Gospels are consonant to those in which Christ is seated. Irenaus had been shewing that the heretics themselves received, one kind one Gospel, another another, but in result all four, and were self-condemned by what they did accept; but the church all four, the sure and full pillars of the truth.

I will now cite one or two of the miracles of the apocryphal Gospels, heretical often it may be, but in general mere fables, but notwithstanding often valued by the "Fathers."

Christ was sent to one master, and told him all the letters and their meaning, and the master brought Him back, and said He must have been born before Noah. Then to a more learned one, and the master having raised his hand to beat Him, his hand withered and he died; then Joseph said to the divine Mary, From this time we will not suffer Him to go out of the house, since every one that opposes Him is struck with death.

There was a rabid boy who, when the fit took him, bit every one, and being in company with the boy Jesus, sought to bite His side, and struck it so that Jesus cried, but Satan fled out of the boy like a mad dog. The boy was Judas Iscariot, and it was the side that was pierced with the lance.

Then He was making figures of animals and birds out of mud. Now, He says, I shall order them to move. Are you, said the boys, the Creator's Son? But then He ordered them, and they went and came back when He called. At another time at a dyer's He threw all the articles out into the yard; the dyer was in a great way about it, when he returned them piece by piece of the right colour. He made all Joseph's work fit exactly.

He went out to play, but the boys left and hid themselves, and when in each house they were denied to be there, What (said He) have you there in the furnace? Three-year-old goats, said the woman; and He said, Come out here to your Shepherd, goats, and they came out like goats and leapt around Him, and the women were all terrified, and besought Him; and then He said, Come, boys, and let us play, and immediately they were restored to their proper form.

Then He made ponds and twelve little birds, three of a side and a Jewish boy, Hananus, it being the sabbath, came up and reproved Him and destroyed His fish ponds, but He, clapping His hands on the birds, they flew away piping; and Hananus coming up to destroy the fish ponds of Jesus also the water disappeared, and He said, as the water disappeared, Your life shall disappear also, and immediately the boy was dried up.

I will now take up some of the Gospel miracles, and, first of all, using that of Matthew, as the structure of the Gospel is very evident with a little attention, and the place and character of the miracles through it.

The difference of the three synoptical Gospels and the fourth is this. The three first present Christ as Emmanuel -- Messiah, the prophet-servant, and Son of man, to men, and, in a narrower sense, to the Jews. Whereas in John this is not the case: it reveals what Christ is in Himself, that the world (when He was in it) did not know Him, though He made it, and that His own rejected Him; but that He put into the place and privilege of sons those who did receive Him: a new thing, but then they were born of God, not of the flesh nor of man's will. The Jews are therefore treated all through as reprobate, but He declares that He would have His sheep out from their midst, and others from among the Gentiles; and then the Holy Ghost is spoken of as living on the earth instead of Him, when He has gone as man to the Father.

Now this presentation of Christ in the three first terminates and reaches its climax in the transfiguration, which changed all; for it was as a revelation bringing in a glorified Christ. This divides the three first Gospels into three parts: the history of the Lord up to the transfiguration (His birth, as Mark gives the prophet, being there left out); the continuance of patient mercy up to blind Bartimaeus, with various instructions, chiefly for the coming time; and, from meeting with the blind man, His last presentation as Son of David to the Jews, and the details of His being taken and crucified. Miracles Christ wrought at all times, even to the last days, when He was free in the temple, healing the ear of Malchus at the moment of His capture. Perhaps we may call the greatest of all His living miracles was His giving up His own spirit to His Father on the cross.

But, in the active life of Jesus, it is the time which closed in the transfiguration, beginning after His temptation in the wilderness, which forms the proper period of His working miracles as a testimony. The goodness expressed itself at all times in them, but that on which it rested ("or else, believe me, for the very works' sake") was from His victory over Satan, binding the strong man, till the transfiguration revealed a wholly new order of things coming in connected with a rejected Christ, from which time He forbade His disciples to tell men that He was the Messiah, saying the Son of man must suffer, though still till His hour was come continuing His work of grace. The general character of the Lord's miracles I have spoken of. The revelation of God in power and goodness is that He might be known and trusted by man, and man, wicked as he might be, have confidence in Him. As the beginning of Eve's sin was losing confidence in God's goodness by the guile of Satan (if God did not seek their happiness fully, they must seek it for themselves, as even now), hence will, lust, transgression; so now, God was there to give in perfect goodness a blessed ground of confidence in Himself; but, I add here, so graciously and perfectly suited to the state and need of man. The person who can be insensible to the perfectness of the revelation of God in goodness to man, in Christ down here, is incapable of feeling what God and goodness are.

But I turn now to look at the miracles recorded in particular as suited to the special testimony given, and first at Matthew. The general testimony is in chapter 4: 23. "And Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people," or, as expressed by Peter (Acts 10), went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him. Matthew's testimony is to the Lord as Emmanuel and as Jesus, that is, Jehovah the Saviour. For He shall save His people from their sins. He was Jehovah; but first of all Jehovah, according to promise to His own people. Hence His genealogy is traced from Abraham, and also David, to whose seed the promises were made; as Paul states it in the Romans, of the seed of David according to the flesh, a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to perform the promises made to the fathers. As this He was rejected; and then comes in another character and title, proved Son of God with power, according to the "Spirit of holiness by resurrection of the dead." This last, on which Christianity is really based, is not our subject.

The order of the Gospel is this: chapter 4: 23, He had gathered multitudes around Him. He announces to His disciples, but in the audience of the multitude, the principles of the kingdom, and who were such as could enter, adding reward in heaven itself when suffering for Christ existed. There is nothing of redemption or justification in it. In chapter 8 we have the Lord personally as Jehovah, still as rejected Son of man; in chapter 9 the character of His service down here -- grace. Chapter 10 is mission to the Jews alone, any other forbidden; but from verse 15 carried on after His departure, but still in the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come. Chapter 11 is His ministry as well as John the Baptist's in their midst rejected, but John owned by Him, and He as Son of God revealing the Father and calling the weary to Himself for rest. Chapter 12 is His utter rejection of and by the pharisaic Jews, and final break in principle with the nation. In chapter 13 He is out of the house, and unfolds the status of the kingdom when the King was rejected. In chapters 14 and 15 His mercy as being still there continues in a sovereign way, but the principles of what is brought in anew, as to both dispensational position, trial, and relationship, are unfolded; then Pharisaism, man's religion, man's heart and God's laid bare, the great foundation truths of His dealing in Christ. In chapter 16 the church replaces Judaism. In chapter 17 the glory of the kingdom does: only for all this He must die. Chapter 18 is individual and collective direction founded on the new thing. Chapters 19 and 20 to 28 complete these new principles and their consequences. Verse 29 of chapter 20 begins the last events up to the Lord's death and resurrection, only you have no ascension: the remnant are sent out from Galilee to the Gentiles.

Now in chapter 8 we have the person of the Lord as present here. First, He meets the leper. The cleansing of the leper was a simply divine work. On the other hand, not only the leper was put out of the camp, but if any one touched him he was put out too. Here the leper had seen the exercise of power in the Lord, but was not sure of His willingness, His love. "If thou wilt, thou canst." With divine authority and reassuring love the Lord says, "I will, be thou clean." But more, though He were Jehovah who cleansed in love, He had become a man in grace; He touched man, so to speak, not infected or unclean with the uncleanness of man, but healing and cleansing them in grace through faith. "He put forth his hand and touched him, saying, I will, be thou clean." Impossible to have a more striking testimony of all that the Lord was in this world than this miracle. Next I find the recognition of universal divine authority in a Gentile. Though come amongst the Jews according to promise, God could not be confined to Israel. There was greater faith here than in heartless self-sufficient Jews; speak with a word and all was done, and so it was. Next, in home mercies, He bears our griefs and carries our sicknesses (not our sins here, though these were the fruit of sin being here). He not only heals with a word divinely, but comes as man in this power to know our sorrows. Still He is the rejected Son of man, not having where to lay His head, but come into the midst of an evil world, God manifest in the flesh. Adherence to and following Him at all cost was the test of righteousness, but following Him led into dangers and difficulties. Calm in the midst of the power of evil, rejected though He might be, He commands creation. All the power of the enemy, moreover (allowed therefore to be manifested) quails and bows before Him; He not the less rejected for that, for man, who cannot drive away Satan, gets rid of God by his will even when come in grace.⁺ His presence disturbs him too much.

⁺But at the end of chapter 14 we have Jesus after the trials received joyfully, after He had rejoined the disciples in the country where He had been rejected.

In chapter 9 we have the same divine power in the midst of Israel, but the character of His mission, through His Person of course as manifesting God, still shines out. It is grace. He declares to the poor paralytic that his sins are forgiven him. The scribes in their hearts within judge Him as guilty in attributing to Himself what belonged to God only. He replies by exercising the power united to that of forgiving in Jehovah's ways with Israel in Psalm 103, while taking still the place of Son of man: "Who forgiveth all thy sins, and healeth all thy diseases." Forgiveness and healing, such was His mission if they would receive Him come in grace in the flesh. He proved the announced power and dealings of Jehovah present, but as Son of man by the exhibition of it in that part of what was announced which was sensible to men in goodness. Then He calls Matthew, not come to call the righteous, but sinners. The departure of the present Bridegroom is noticed, and the change from form to power. But then what was passing in Israel? Come to heal what was ready to die, He has in fact to raise the dead, for dead in sins we all are; but whoever by faith touched the hem of His garment was even then healed of a disease which no human physician could cure. But blind and dumb were men (Israel), as well as spiritually dead. We have here, then, miracles which shew present healing there for faith which nothing else could afford; we have what was really in its fulness being wrought, raising the dead, the blind eyes opened, the tongue of the dumb loosed, and also, as ever, the harvest more plentiful than the labourers; forgiveness and grace, the true character of what He was, being brought in, but shewed in acts which manifested in present power what man could feel in his body, as in sorrow and evil down here, what God was, and that as present in goodness in the midst of man. The character of the mission and the character of the miracles are inseparably interwoven, and both the expression of the character of God come down here and dealing in grace with man.

In the sad close of this chapter we see the effect, on man's unchanged heart, of goodness in power of this manifestation of God: rather than receive the Lord they ascribe miracles which they could no. deny to the power of the devil. But the time for entirely giving them up was not yet come. Divine patience had yet a work to do. The unfaltering love of Jesus continues to seek the poor of the flock, if the Pharisees preferred blasphemy to grace, preaching the gospel, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people, for He had compassion on the multitude, weary sheep without a shepherd. And this led to a further manifestation of power and grace; He sends others into the field, the harvest was plentiful and the labourers few. Ever is it so.

In chapter 10 we have not only power in goodness but power to give power, and this is properly divine. Their work here is wholly confined to Israel. The mission to the Gentiles was from Christ as risen (chapter 28), but by His gift they were to exercise the same power as He did. But it was seeking the remnant in Israel. If the house was worthy, peace was to rest upon it. The chapter is divided into parts all referring to Israel: their work then, to the end of verse 15; from verse 16 more general and continued, still in Israel, after His death till the Son of man came; but at present they must expect rejection; it is our lot in this world. They were not to fear. Not a sparrow fell to the ground (not merely without God but) without their Father. For the Son revealed the Father's name; but we have seen this tested men. They could not stand the revelation of God. It brought out the enmity of the human heart against good, and especially against God: an enmity which, stronger than natural ties, wrought most where the relationship was nearest, and where the hated object -- for hated, alas! as Christ has proved, it is -- is more galling. The disciple is not above his Master; we have to take up our cross and follow Christ. Thus divine power and its manifestation in goodness, and its rejection, go together as before. This is fully developed in a solemn commentary on all in chapter 11. The ways and works of the Lord are summed up as testimony to John Baptist, now in prison, on the question, Art thou He that should come? The blind saw, the lame walked, the lepers were cleansed, the deaf heard, the dead were raised, the souls of the poor were cared for; but blessed he who was not stumbled at the rejected Son of man-power in goodness and rejection; the Lord gives, not receives, testimony. But the solemn warnings of the Nazarite prophet of. the wilderness, and the gracious association of grace with sinners to win them, men alike rejected. But this brought all to a point, the mighty works were in vain.

In fact the truth of His Person, too glorious for man as he was to receive, and in the perfect submission of Christ to His rejection as come among the Jews, His eternal personal glory, the Son revealing the Father in grace to burdened and needy hearts, taught submission withal by His own, that they might every way have rest, was what was really there, the new thing, and glory in grace shine out through the rejected but obedient Son of man. The twelfth chapter completes the statement of the position in which Christ is here found, as well as that of the Jews as a body. There are but two particularised miracles referred to in it. The sabbath was the seal of Jehovah's covenant with Israel; as with the rejected David, so with the rejected Son of David, all things in Israel were made common; a greater than the temple, too, was there, the Son of man was Lord of the sabbath; had they understood mercy as contrasted with mere law, they would not have condemned the guiltless. Under the Son of man's authority as Lord of the sabbath they were guiltless, but in their state of soul the Jews could not understand this.

In the synagogue there was a man with a withered hand; convicting them of hypocrisy, well-doing was the manifestation of God and not the legal sabbath. The old covenant was passing away. He withdraws and heals all that come. Meek and lowly, the time would come for Him to shew judgment. He then works the second miracle referred to above, casting out a devil. The people say, Is it not the Son of David? The Pharisees repeat their blasphemy -- He casts them out through Beelzebub. Now all was brought to an issue. If it was by the Spirit of God, the kingdom of God⁺ was come amongst them, they were openly blaspheming; divine power they could not deny; they were fully condemned, and at the end of their history would come under the full power of Satan. He did not own relationship in nature with Israel down here; those in whom His word wrought were His true relations. His connection with man was through what He brought, not what was in man, though He was a true man.

This closes the proper history of His ministry or service in Israel, though in divine mercy it continued, but with a testimony modified in character. But what His miracles were in testimony is clearly seen, and what they meant and said. His final breach with Israel leads to His going out and announcing the kingdom of heaven, but without the present King; full of interest, but not introducing any miracles. It is the first thing presented as taking the place of Messiah then presented on earth; but in chapter 14 His mercy continues, though in a sovereign and divine way, not as Messiah, Son of man, presented to them. The putting to death of John Baptist brought actual rejection close to His spirit: a solemn moment, felt deeply by the Lord, so that He retired apart, yet the multitude came; but the feeling for others or the solemnity of the moment never hindered the readiness of divine goodness. He was moved with compassion when He saw the multitudes; He meets it as Jehovah will fully in the last days, according to Psalm 132. He will satisfy her poor with bread. This as a sign He does. He then goes on high to pray -- as He now is -- the disciples left to toil their way across the sea without Him, and rejoins them and all is still; and then is joyfully received where once He had been rejected, but historically exercises the same divine power in goodness; goodness above all the rejection and heartlessness of men, those that touched the hem of his garment made perfectly whole.

⁺Note here, Matthew says "of God." That "of heaven" could only be when He was gone to heaven; it was at hand.

Chapter 15 is a very remarkable chapter, but I must touch on it only in connection with the miracle. There human will-worship, as contrasted with God's law, and really to the temporal advantage of the priests, is utterly rejected; man's religion in alleged offerings to God as contrasted with God's law. Next man's heart, the source of all the evil; and then with one of the accursed race of Canaan, so that as come to Israel there could be no blessing for her, the reckoning on God's heart in sovereign goodness met at once a response. He could not deny Himself, or say God is not as good as you suppose. He was divinely above the barriers of Judaism and dispensation, and divinely good. Again, the miracle is a present witness of what and who He is. He returns to the field of ministry in the land of Israel, and satisfies yet again the poor with bread in the same divine way. I have no doubt there is an intentional specific difference between this and the five thousand, the 12, and the 7. The latter is more specifically divine with the remnant; but it is not here the place to enter into these details of interpretation. The general principle of wonted mercy, verse 30, gives us again His full and constant character. In chapter 16 we find the church substituted for a Christ present on the earth, on the confession of Jesus as Son of the living God, and the keys of the kingdom⁺ given to Peter, but no special miracle demands our attention. In chapter 17 we have the kingdom in glory. This was the Son of man revealed in the glory of the kingdom.

Here we find the disciples themselves unable to use that power in Christ which faith would have done. Only separation of heart and spirit, and reference to and confidence in God, could wield it and set aside the power of Satan down here. This answered, so to speak, to the coming glory of the Son of man, and made Satan powerless in presence of a humbled Saviour. But now, for all that, the new place belonging to the disciples, connected with His resurrection, is strikingly brought out. The coming glory did not belong to Christ's then position (this was the fasting and praying part of His path); they were not to speak of the vision of glory till He was risen. But meanwhile He shews divine knowledge and divine power over creation. Those who collect the didrachma for the temple ask Peter if his master was not a faithful Jew. Christ shews His divine knowledge of things in anticipating Peter, but puts Peter in the same place with Himself, "that we offend not." They were both sons of the great King of the temple. Then (that we offend not) He shews His power, making the fish bring the needed money, two didrachmas, and Peter was to give it "for Me and thee." Redemption has brought us into the place of sons with Christ. Grace bowed to the lowly place, but power over all creation shewed Who was there; but grace then brought believers into the place of new and infinite blessing in which Christ stood. This blessed "Me and thee" closed, in fact, the path of Christ here with the displayed glory. We have characteristics with the walk suited to this new place of the disciples individually and collectively; but the present testimony to Christ was over: they were charged indeed not to say any more that He was the Christ.

⁺Not of the church. Keys of the church is a thought unknown to scripture.

We have one notable miracle in chapter 21. The fig-tree of God's planting, Israel after the flesh, man under the old covenant (when the Lord of the vineyard came seeking fruit), was judged as fruitless for ever. Herewith the manifestations of the truth of Satanic power in the swine are the only miracles which were not the direct exercise of power in goodness. But they not only confirm the constant character of all the others; but shew the state of man and God's judgment of that state as to man's responsibility, when all the testimony of grace and power had been given. The story of the didrachma shewed the new place in grace; that of the fig-tree, man's condition under responsibility and law as he was. In chapter 20: 17-28 are shewn Christ's and the disciples' place here below as finally rejected. Then verse 29 begins His last presentation to Jerusalem as Son of David, and God's testimony to Him by the mouth of babes and sucklings. The mercy indeed continued; but the testimony was closed. He who believed He was Son of David received sight; the rest were judged. The greatest miracles of all were His death (giving up His spirit, when He could say, It is finished) and His resurrection. But these were either for stability of faith to believers or for the display of powers in others as the subject of their testimony. Our subject has been Christ's own works as a testimony to His Person, and the true character of God as so revealed.

For the present I close this paper, already extended far beyond my thought in commencing it. It may be interesting to examine the other Gospels, and study any peculiar aspect of the miracles connected with them. But for the general principle what we have found in Matthew fully suffices, and gives a character of divine goodness and entering into our sorrows which infidelity cannot touch, and, through the hardening of heart it always produces, cannot feel or see the beauty of.

ON MYSTICISM

Montpellier, May 29th, 1849

Dear Brother, -- While travelling I read your "Life of Madame de Krudener," and I must tell you that it did me good. Occupation, without any relaxation, tends, if one is not very near the Lord, to impair the most intimate affections; and when the details of the work constitute the chief part of such occupation, they tend to narrow the heart. It is not so the moment one is near Him: then, on the contrary, such details exercise the best affections; and we delight ourselves in Him. It was so with Christ, because His life of details flowed from the fact that He lived by His Father, and was nothing else than the perfect manifestation, in man, of what the Father was. It was the produce of a heart filled with a perfect love, the expression of an infinite love.

The life of Madame de Krudener, which was passed outside the narrowness of secondary questions, recalled to me this love; for she certainly had a heart of spiritual love for the Lord; and, for my part, I have no difficulty in judging the things that are to be condemned in her walk, so that I need not dwell upon them. The one who is constantly a working bee within the hive, is free to gather only honey when he approaches flowers in the open air, whatever they may be. But I will say a few words as to what strikes me when I consider mysticism, as it is found in its best forms in Madame de Krudener and others.

Desire and love may be very exactly distinguished. Desire supposes the capacity to enjoy the thing we desire, that is to say, spiritual affections, which, as to their very nature, have God for their object. It supposes one to be born of Him, although Satan often, in an astonishing manner, imitates this class of feelings; but this state also supposes that one does not possess what one desires.

Love supposes that we have full possession of the object of our desires. It is no longer a want, but enjoyment, appreciation, delight in the object itself.

Now mysticism, while boasting much of its feelings, never gets beyond desire; while simple Christianity, giving the knowledge of salvation, puts us into full possession of the love of God. I know that He loves Christ; that love has saved me; it was He who desired me. In love He had need of me; and this love is perfection in Christ. In peace I contemplate this love, and I adore it in Christ. I dwell in Him and He in me.

I have never seen a mystic whose idea of love was not entirely at fault in its nature: it was something in man, which needed to be satisfied, instead of being something in God, which satisfied the heart deeply, infinitely, and perfectly. Thence unheard-of efforts to abase oneself, to vilify oneself, and to speak evil of oneself, as if a saved one could be anything in the presence of a Saviour, instead of being nothing and forgetting himself in the presence of so much love. When one is truly delighted in the presence of God, and beholding His excellent beauty in His temple, is one occupied with the hideous forms which hide themselves in the heart of man? I think not. We think of Him. He has given us the right to do so, by a grace which has really set aside all that we were as alive out of Christ, as in the flesh. Do we then make no humbling experience of self? I say not so. Yes, there are moments when God reveals to us the frightful secrets of that heart in which no good exists; but we do not boast, we do not say much of it, if we have truly seen God. If we try to find in man, in his love to God, something as good as the love of God to us, then we talk about it, and fancy we are humbling ourselves. This is but the vanity of the heart which knows not God, and knows not itself either; it is the true character of mysticism.

But does not such a sight of God produce a humiliating knowledge of self? Yes, when we have not known what we are, nor known the gospel which gives us the right to say, "It is no more I that live." Such was the case with Job, as with many others. He had thought of himself, of the grace in him; then he had to learn himself in the presence of God. But the gospel is the answer to all these disturbances of the soul, by the revelation of what God is, and of what God has done for him whom He knew to the. bottom, just as he was, and who has learned in the cross of Jesus what the love of God is when there was nothing but sin, and sin seen by God as we could not see it, but seen only to be the occasion of a perfect work of love.

God in His holiness, His majesty, His righteousness, His love, has found His rest in the work and Person of Christ: I have found mine there. The mystic never has rest, because he vainly seeks in man what he ought to seek in God, who had accomplished all before he ever thought about it. This is why they seek a disinterested love; but where? In man! Poor worshippers of man deified in their imagination; of a man who will never be found! Here sin is in him, in heaven he will think only of God. This is why the imagination plays so great a part in mysticism, and Satan can so often deceive by it, because the imagination and the heart of man are called into play. I do not say that spiritual affections are never there: far from it; nor that God never reveals Himself to such affections. I doubt not that He does it and thus renders the person happy, but you will find him, after all, occupied with the affections and not with God Himself. It is the chief defect of mysticism. In a word, I see it in an effort of the human heart, trying to produce in itself something strong enough in the way of affection to satisfy a heart awakened by the excellence of its Object: for I am now supposing a true awakening of the heart.

In Christ I see a divine heart, reflecting the perfect certainty of a love whose perfection cannot be questioned. It is peace. Now He says to us, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." What peace is there expressed in those words: "I know that thou hearest me always, but because of the people that stood by I said it." And this same peace is ours now; see 1 John 5: 14, 15. What peace again in those words, "I know whom I have believed," as well as in so many other passages?

Are there not, then, these exercises of the soul's desire before God? Yes; but this again brings out a marked difference. Before having understood redemption through the cross and our portion in Christ, which is its consequence, the awakened soul is exercised; it often seeks peace and rest in a spiritual progress and a love for God which are never found. But the effect of all this exercise, under grace, is to bring the conscience into play and to produce the conviction of its uselessness; that in us, that is, in our flesh, dwells no good thing. Conscience takes full account of what passes in the heart and of what we are, so that we are brought to renounce all attempt to find peace in the state of our souls. We need to be pardoned, saved; we place ourselves at the foot of the cross, but not as having immutable affections. We have discovered that we have them not, and it is not only the heart which is troubled by this, although such is the case, but conscience knows that we are lost, dead under condemnation. We see things as they are in the presence of God; we need to be saved. We no longer seek good in ourselves, under the form of divine affections; but we find it in God, in His kindness towards us by Christ Jesus; and we have peace.

Have the deep affections with which the cross inspired me ceased, because I am no longer crushed with the sense of need? No; conscience has intervened, and has set me in my place. What God has done, what He is, has given me peace; and I have divine leisure (because nothing is uncertain in my portion) to contemplate that which is perfect in the object of my affections, without being occupied with myself.

The mystic humbles himself because he still hopes to find good in himself, or he occupies himself in this, as if there might be some, and he finds only evil. The Christian is humble (and that is quite another thing), because he has given up seeking good in himself to adore the One in whom there is nothing else. Now it is not that he deceives. himself, but that the intervention of conscience, by the light of the Spirit and the truth, has put him in his place. I believe, for example, that Madame de Krudener only fully reached that position in her last illness. This is what often happens. The Moravians, while sweetly enjoying Christ, often remain at this point. She was under an obligation to love: a true thing; but she did not know love. She knew that God was love, but she wished to be it also; and this is closely allied to pride of heart, until we have taken our place, as dead in trespasses and sins, and have understood love towards us in that Christ died, and that we are dead and risen in Him.

The truth is this: there is still conflict because the flesh is in us, and the Holy Ghost has sometimes to occupy us with ourselves, and to humble us. God being Infinite and His work perfect, there is always in Him, even when our peace is perfect, that which awakens all the energy of an affection which cannot satisfy itself, although perfectly assured of the love of Him with whom it has to do. This suits the relations of a creature with God, and it is a good thing for us and does not lessen our peace. It is quite a different thing from the mystic desire to love, which is true, but which turns in upon self, because it knows neither God nor self. Yet I find my heart so cold that it sometimes does me good, because I know well enough that I was lost and am saved, not to mix this with my knowledge of a free salvation, accomplished without me, and which fully glorifies God, and God alone. But it often does harm to souls who have not been emptied before God, not having had the work transferred from the heart to the conscience in His presence.

It is astonishing from how many errors this delivers without a word being said. My human affections may attach themselves to the Virgin, but conscience ...? Is there any blood-shedding there? The Virgin is no more, as to that, than the most miserable sinner; she is a creature before God. Purgatory, the pretended repetition of the sacrifice, absolution, holy unction, and many other things vanish without controversy, like shadows, like apparitions of darkness in the face of the light, before a conscience which has already found itself, such as it is, in the presence of God, and has there been thoroughly purged by the knowledge of His work in Christ. The needs of conscience may throw a sincere soul into these superstitious practices; but for a purged conscience which knows God they are nothing. This is what gives me such horror of a system which traffics with the terrors of conscience to hide the love of God: manifestly the work of the enemy. But see, to say no more, in 1 John 4: 7-9, which touches the borders of mysticism, but with the finger of God, in what a manner, side by side with the highest elevation of communion with Him, He always replaces the soul on the simple ground of salvation by objective faith. This is what corrects the heart of man with his wings of Icarus.

Now, a few words upon your work. You are conscious that it is rather made for the world, so that it must be considered with respect to this. A life of Madame de Krudener carries us into the midst of emperors, queens, and titles. I agree that one loves to see grace everywhere, that grace which despises neither great nor small. However, the ways of God are different when He acts in the power which is proper to Him. The world is then left in its true place; and His Son, with His apostles, and His servants, are brought before its great men seated in tribunal, and this turns for a testimony. It is thus that God makes His voice penetrate into the places most distant from Him, while preserving, in its perfection, the character of His own, and of that which belongs to Himself. I admire His grace which deigns to act otherwise; but I admire His perfection as He has Himself presented it to me.

I have said that I take, as given, the worldly form of the book, and that you have therefore left to each the responsibility of forming a judgment for himself on the worldly life of Madame de Krudener, by passing lightly, and without remark, over her wanderings; the grace which pardoned all being the true contrast to the evil. I think that this reproduced itself and is found again in her spiritual wanderings, for the ways of God are just.

Her devotedness awakened my deepest interest. It is refreshing in a selfish world, the slave of formalities behind which it hides; because it is too hideous to be seen, desiring to preserve its egotism as intact as possible, without confessing it -- a world without heart -- a world without independence because it is without heart. It is refreshing, I say, to find something which overleaps the barriers and acts from motives which shew heart and love -- that love which is only true liberty.

Thus the devotedness of Madame de Krudener interested and also humbled me much. The little that I have had of it in my life made me enjoy hers, and it has been so little that it makes me admire what I see in her. But here again I trace the ways of God. When the devotedness came directly from Himself and was manifested in her ways, the energy found in them attained a result which was altogether of Him, and was guarded from the seductions of the enemy. Now God can never abandon His own ways. If man abandons them, even while devoting himself, the result is of the enemy under one form or another. One sometimes wonders that a good part of the life of a devoted and spiritual person should be passed in mistakes and wanderings; one asks oneself how the presence of the Spirit of God, necessary to produce this life, comports with these mistakes. I say, on the contrary, that in the government of God it is a necessary consequence. Can God place His stamp upon that which is contrary to His thoughts? Will He refuse blessing as the answer to real devotedness, because there is error? He cannot sanction the former, nor deny Himself to the latter. What is the consequence? Blessing is found, as well as His tender care. He keeps the foundation, even through all the wanderings; but He abandons to their natural consequences the evil and the false confidence which accompany it; otherwise He would justify evil.

If the work of Madame de Krudener had had the character of that of Paul, the seal of God would have been upon that which was contrary to His will. The mercy of God does not permit that. An ardent woman, impulsive, full of imagination, acting under impressions and influences, subject to the excitement of circumstances -- this was Madame de Krudener. The principle at the bottom was divine, that is found in the work: Satan meddles with it; he always makes use of the flesh when we allow it to act. This is the history of all such cases, and if the world judged itself aright, if it were in the truth before God, there would be no difficulty in unravelling them. But God does not explain these things to those who have them not: this would be to sanction evil, although He may bring us out of this state of grace, and He is faithful not to allow us to be tempted beyond what we are able. If we wait upon Him, there is no danger. If we are hasty, He must let us see the consequences of it. If that which is spiritual exists at the bottom, it will be found again in eternal happiness; but, in government, each thing brings its own consequences. He can, in grace, honouring the instrument, make use of a repentant and devoted woman, He has done it in His grace; but an excited woman, and one who, it seems to me, was little sensible of what she had been, is not the perfect instrument according to the ways of God, for carrying on a work. We see the consequences of this, in order that the perfection of the ways of God may be known.

I even think that a certain state of things in the kingdom of God, or in Christians, may not, according to the thoughts of God, comport with a perfect instrument and mode of action. It would be out of place; it would not even do His work. Such a thing may be extraordinary, but I do not know what the apostle Paul would do (or rather Paul would not know what to do) in the actual state of things. God always knows what to do, because He is above all. He will judge at the end. He will cause His grace to shine forth by transporting to glory those who are faithful in the confusion; but the creative energies of a perfect order are not suited to the confusion and moral culpability which result from having spoiled that order. It would be to dishonour that fresh light of first love of which Christ is the Centre and Object.

Christ Himself begins with -- "Blessed, blessed"; it was natural that this should come forth from the heart of the One who had come from heaven; but He ends with, "Woe unto you, woe unto you." Had His grace diminished? No indeed, it had but been tested, approved more glorious, His unfailing faithfulness more than ever made sure to our hearts. But He could not be at the end what He was at the beginning.

It is the same with the work. Still, the love and blessedness of the one who understands this grace are greater than before. Paul in the Epistle to the Philippians is more matured, knows himself more profoundly in Christ, than when he was in the energy by which he confounded his adversaries. His experience of Christ is more complete, and his heart thus more perfect in its feelings. Elias might compare himself to Moses, for they were together glorified companions of the Saviour on the mount; but Elias, in presence of the golden calves, could not make a tabernacle as did Moses. He was, by this very reason, a still more striking witness of the grace of God.

One more remark about Madame de Krudener, without doubt less important, but, I think, true. There was in her a lack of spiritual originality, not of sincerity: this serious fault betrays itself also in her work, and, among other things, has given it its character. She received impressions from Jung Stilling, from Oberlin, from Tersteegen, from Maria Kummrin. Perhaps this was natural in a woman; but that is why a woman cannot be a principal agent in the work. It is contrary to the ways of God. She may help, GREATLY help, but not be a principal agent; she may do things man cannot do, but not do what he does. This is true in a more important point of view. She could not receive from Christ impulses for a position which He did not give her. The love of Christ was there; the impulse came from elsewhere. Now, when it is Christ Himself who sets the heart in motion, He acts upon the man, as He also forms in us that new man whom the wicked one touches not. His presence acts upon the conscience, silences the flesh, makes nothing of man -- his vanity, his self-love, and his good opinion of himself. The whole man is judged in His presence, and the work produced is of Christ Himself, whatever may be the vessel. If there is a danger of its being otherwise, a thorn in the flesh is sent.

When we receive our impressions and impulses second-hand, the flesh and the heart are not judged at all, although the love may be in us. Flesh and the heart are reproduced, and the agent is exposed, by his very activity, to all sorts of traps of the enemy, which, on their part again, are reproduced in the work. This was the case with Madame de Krudener; but she certainly will not lose the fruit of her devotedness, of which I do not in the least, for my own part, doubt the sincerity. But there was too much of man in her, and man is always false. It is so true (it is important to notice it) that, while tasting the love of Christ, she never really knew the gospel, as being herself in the presence of God, until her last illness. And then she immediately perceived that she had often mistaken her imagination for the voice of God; for it is only there that man dies, and that God shews Himself alone such as He is. Now as long as man is not dead, Satan can use him, and spiritual discernment is wanting. The fact of the accomplishment of visions proves nothing in these things. All that also accompanies the power of the enemy; but the spiritual man, being humble, easily judges these things when God places him before them, and when he takes the word of God as the absolute guide of his judgment.

These, you will say, are remarks upon Madame de Krudener, and not upon my work. Except a few words of blame, you have said nothing about it: this is a poor compliment. You are mistaken. Of compliments, it is true, I make none; but the best, the true, praise of a work is that it produces thoughts in the one who reads, and such has been the effect of your work.

In our state of imperfection, every moral position has its own season, and, instead of starting clear from the perfection and riches of Christ, the process with us is generally gradual, and thus alas! we reproduce ourselves in our work, even after we think we have judged all.

In a life of Madame de Krudener, it would be important to know what works she habitually read; they betray themselves sometimes! Oberlin may be recognised. He was a devoted man, but with an unbridled imagination, a heretic, whose errors bear their fruits now, while that which might be admired by man, and even by the church, is lost and forgotten; for the judgment of God is not that of man. Tersteegen also may be recognised: I do not know if we could trace any others; but this would be one of the elements which formed Madame de Krudener's public character. It is well, in order not to feed the vain curiosity of the public, that your volumes contain so little of the views which acted so powerfully upon her life; yet in order to judge rightly of it, we should need to know a little more.

ON THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD AND HIS COUNSELS IN GRACE

Although we may speak of change or variety in the revealed ways of God, there are certain fundamental principles of His acting which remain unchanged. These are things which flow from the nature of God, and must be. So a man "must be born again" to enter the kingdom of God, whether the man is Adam, or Paul, or any one else; he must get a nature which can enjoy God. So also as sinners we must be washed in the precious blood of Christ before we can have any part with God. But the character of His ways, His mode of acting, is not always the same. And this is simple; for our individual salvation and what concerns this is not the first thing in God's revelation, but the glory of God. He is displaying His glory, and He has ways of glorifying Himself.

There are two great subjects set before us in scripture in connection with this (that is, always supposing salvation settled, as the groundwork of all for us; for it is not till we are born again, and have peace with God, that we are free to enter into His mind as revealed), viz. --

1st, The government of God in this world; and

2nd, The sovereign grace which gives sinners a place according to His own counsels.

There is a direct government of God, and there is the exercise of sovereign grace which gives special blessing in His own presence.

The Jews are the centre of the one, and the church of the other, after Christ, of course, who is the Centre of all.

By the government of God in the world I do not mean that universal government which He exercises over the universe -- what is called providence -- in the exercise of which even "a sparrow does not fall to the ground" without Him; but the direct government of God on the earth. There is no doubt He also deals in government with His children even now, but as to this world the Jews were the centre of His acting in that respect.

You will see what I mean in Deuteronomy 32: 8, 9. "When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the peoples (not people) according to the number of the children of Israel; for Jehovah's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance."

"Most High" is always the name of God used to denote Him as supreme over the earth. See, for instance, what Melchisedec said to Abraham, when he came out to meet him, after the defeat of the kings who had carried off Lot, "Blessed be Abram of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth" (Genesis 14: 19); and also in Daniel 4: 24, 25,9 where God is announced by this name to Nebuchadnezzar as the One who in His government of the earth was about to interfere in judgment upon him. "This is the decree of the Most High which is come upon my lord the king: that they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and they shall wet thee with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over thee, till thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will." And this is also what Nebuchadnezzar was brought to own as the fruit of that dealing. See verses 33-36.

In connection with the earth and His people at different times, God has revealed Himself by different names, which are characteristic of different relationships. It is, of course, always the same God, although known in a different relation. In Psalm 91 we get all these names of God (except Father, which was not then revealed) grouped together in their proper connection. "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of Jehovah, he is my refuge and my fortress: My God [Elohim]; in him will I trust." That is, he who has the secret of who the Most High is, shall have the blessings of Abraham's God. Jehovah is the God of the Jews, and so Messiah, in the second verse, answers as it were, the riddle put in the first, saying, "I will say of Jehovah, He is my refuge and my fortress: my Elohim; in him will I trust." In verses 3-8 the Spirit declares the consequences of this (verse 9 is the Jewish people speaking), and Jehovah puts His seal upon it in verses 14-16.

God revealed Himself to Abraham as "the Almighty" (El Shaddai). Abraham was called to be a pilgrim, with none but God to look to, so He is revealed to Him as the "All Powerful One."

To the Jews He is "Jehovah," the force of which is, "Is, and was, and is to come." See Exodus 6: 2, 3: "And God said unto Moses, I am Jehovah. And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them." (See also Exodus 3: 18; 5: 3; 7: 16; 9: 1, etc.)

"Most High" is not yet fulfilled. (See Revelation 19, etc.) "Father" is the name by which He is known specially to Christians. (See John 17: 26, and 20: 17.) On these revelations of Himself God has also founded responsibilities as to the walk of His people, which are specially connected with and always dependent on the relation in which He is known.

Thus, to Abraham, in Genesis 17: 1, God said, "I am the Almighty God: walk before me and be thou perfect." Abraham is called to walk before Him in the power of His name as the Almighty One, not allowing anything inconsistent with this, for nothing but perfection in the relationship which God has established will suit His nature. To the Jews He says in Deuteronomy 18: 13, "Thou shalt be perfect with Jehovah thy God"; for what characterised the Jews was that, as a redeemed people, they were brought outwardly near to God. We hear of His dwelling with men for the first time (Exodus 15 and 29: 45); for God's dwelling with men is consequent on redemption. To us He says, Matthew 10: 48, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." We ought to manifest the Father. Brought as children to God, we are responsible to shew what our Father is; for we are the epistle of Christ, of Him who perfectly manifested the Father, overcoming evil with good, and displaying the grace of God amongst men. The relationship of Father is revealed only in Christ. The prophets are occupied with God's claims on Israel from the past, or Israel's future, according to God; or with God in the government of this world.

As Most High He will settle this world as He pleases; and Deuteronomy 32: 8, 9, shews us that Israel is the centre in His actings in this character, "He set the bounds of the peoples," etc.

In another place (Ephesians 1) we get the Second Man charging Himself with our failure as responsible men (the first Adam being thus, so to speak, set aside for us) and glorifying God in this place; and we get the sovereign grace of God connecting men with the Second Man, who has cleared away our sins as responsible under the first Adam, and perfectly glorified God where the evil was and as made sin; and thus the perfect foundation was laid for the accomplishment and revelation of the counsel of God. It is God's thought and purpose to have us with Christ and like Christ, His own blessed Son in glory, and to give us now, in this present time, the knowledge that we have this place. We have this place now, though we are not in the glory yet; we are associated with the Second Man in glory, and are to be like Him. "The glory thou hast given me I have given them," etc. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

There is no uncertainty about this; it is sure; although Christians have even been bold enough to say it is a humble thing not to be too confident about salvation: a sad proof of how Satan can use for the time being even a Christian to carry out his lie against God. Faith is always sure. It has set to its seal, by grace, that God is true, and "We have the earnest of the Spirit," says Paul; "therefore we are always confident." (2 Corinthians 5). It is no humility to be uncertain or to doubt, but the opposite. True humility is to own the grace as entirely of God, and our place in Christ in the full sense that we are nothing in ourselves, and what is of self only evil and without God; but that now we are in Christ. If you doubt, it is thinking your own thoughts when God has spoken. When God puts the best robe on a worthless sinner, the greatest humility is to bow and wear it, knowing that all else is unfitness and rags, and that God has given us that. If you begin to wonder if you are fit, or to say I am not fit to wear it, it shews that you think it possible you could be fit. The Father "hath made us meet for the inheritance of the saints in light." True lowliness is to accept God's gift in grace. It would be folly or worse for us to think of being like God's Son; but when He says so, we must just own it, and give up our own thoughts as bad and take Him as good. We have no business to think when God has spoken; our business is to believe.

If God says we shall be like His Son, we know we shall, for He has said it. This is the only true humility -- giving up the thought of what we are for God as perfectly bad, and taking the thought of what God is for us as perfectly good. The prodigal may have thought he was humble, and may seem to some now to have been very humble when he was saying that he would ask his father to "make him as one of the hired servants." But this was before he met his Father, and was just the reasoning of his own heart, but a reasoning founded on weighing the sense of sin with some sense of God's (his Father's) goodness which did not yet know how to take all from love. It only shewed he did not know the Father's heart. So, when really in the Father's presence, there was no place for such a thought; nor did he then say so. It was not the prodigal's fitness that was in question -- hell was his desert -- but grace found the Father on his neck with the kiss of reconciliation. Did the prodigal question the Father's act? Did he say then, "make me a hired servant"? No, he could not then; he simply received the Father's goodness and lost sight of himself in His wondrous love, and, as has been remarked, we then hear only of the Father, not of the prodigal.

And so it is: true humility will always receive from God. It is no question either of thinking or reasoning about the possibility of what God has said. What right have we to think or reason when His word is that we are to be like His Son? We are to take as a gift from God what He has for us, what He has wrought for us, and what He has made us in Christ. Our fitness is for hell, neither more nor less; but God has chosen to put us in the place with Christ, not to our glory, but to Christ's, though glorified we are. The counsels of God come first, for they were before the world; but they were not revealed till Christ had died in the world, because this was the ground on which all rested in their accomplishment. God goes on through scripture revealing His ways, and (as it is His history of the world, His ways in the world, with man in the world, too) thus the word of God is, in its testimony, from the fall of man right on to the book of Revelation, my history in some form or other -- what man is, what I am, with whom God thus deals. Every individual believer goes through it in his own soul -- some quickly, some slowly; but each, individually, experiences the character of that which God was bringing out from Adam to Christ.

But before the world existed at all, as Ephesians tells us, God had His counsels about a people who were to be in particular association with Christ. I never get the counsels of God, properly speaking, that is, we never get them brought out (I do not speak of election), till Christ died. See Ephesians 1: 1-4. "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world," etc. It is not the choosing being before the world which constitutes its sovereignty, because the grace of God would be just as sovereign if it chose us now, today, or any time. But this expression shews that before the world existed He had His thought and counsel about a certain set of people. He chose them independently of the world; and therefore this shews that they are not of it, although in it, of course. Christ confirmed this of those whom He chose, "they are not of the world even as I am not of the world" (John 17: 16).

We find the same truth in 2 Timothy 1: 9, 10: "God, who hath saved us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ," etc. This is no question of election here, even if it be involved, but that a place in Christ -- the sovereign calling -- was given us before the world began, but was not made manifest till Christ came.

See also Titus 1: 2, 3: "Eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began, but hath in due times manifested," etc. The counsel of God -- that which was in God's mind connecting us with Christ, and was before the world existed -- came out in the gospel, and never came out till after Christ came and died and made atonement.

In creation we get another thing, and a different thing -- not a counsel but a responsible being placed in this world. The first thing he does is to fail. This is so all through the history of man; the first thing he does is failure. The first thing we hear of Adam is that he fails; the first thing we hear of Noah when he had offered his sacrifice after the flood is that he gets drunk; the first thing we hear of after the law is given is that, before Moses came down from the mount, it is broken; the priesthood is set up, and the first day, they offer strange fire, and the high priest never puts on the garments of glory and beauty to go into the presence of Jehovah in the most holy place, nor it would seem at all, except when consecrated. So even in Christianity, as responsible to God, for Paul says, "All seek their own and not the things that are Jesus Christ's," and that after his decease evil would prevail from without and within. And John can tell us there were many Antichrists whereby it was known it was the last time.

Man in responsibility always fails. Man was never in his innocency the head of a people; and as for Noah, he was, so to speak, a drunken head over the world. In Adam there is only and total failure and judgment executed. Created in innocence and beauty, he distrusts God and listens to the devil, who said that God had jealously kept back the best thing: then lust comes in, next transgression, and all is over as to his state; he shrinks from God, and is turned out of Paradise. The world goes on and is so wicked that God brings in the flood. After that Noah fails directly. And as I have said, the priests never put on their garments of glory and beauty except when consecrated; and the Jews were a law-breaking people. In every place of responsibility the first thing we hear is man's utter failure. Not that there were not exceptions through grace; but, as to man, the inevitable result of responsibility is failure. As to principle Cain completed the sin of man: the main feature of Adam's sin was sin against God, that of Cain's was sin against his neighbour; and these two make up the sum of all sins.

In Paradise we get side by side the two principles about which men have been fighting ever since, namely, man's responsibility and simple communicated grace; the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life. We find these two trees in Eden: the tree of responsibility, or the knowledge of good and evil; and the tree of life. In Christ alone are both principles fully brought to an issue, God glorified as to them, and blessing secured. He has met the failure in the fruit of the tree of responsibility, and secured eternal life, and the accomplishment of God's counsels in sovereign grace, and that in righteousness. God shut man out of Eden before he ate of the tree of life, and thus reserved His principle of grace for fuller hopes. Indeed to perpetuate life in sin would hardly have been in the ways of God.

God's promise to Abraham raised no question of responsibility; it was a simple promise in grace. See Genesis 12 simply, "I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing, and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." God took care that before the law came ("the law was 430 years after," Galatians 3: 16, 17) the principle of grace should be maintained. But righteousness was all-important, and the law raises the question of righteousness, recognising man in responsibility; and so in it we get the two trees in principle, but the tree of responsibility before life: "Do this and thou shalt live."

Israel failed, as all have but Christ, who was perfect in every way. God still tries man, however. He sends prophets to call the people back to law, and so "the law and the prophets were until John." Obedience was the way of happiness for man under God's government of the world, so the prophets called back to obedience as the way of man's happiness. This, too, failed, as God says, in touching grace, "And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes [or continually and carefully] and sending; because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling-place; but they mocked the messengers of God and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of God arose against his people, till there was no remedy" (2 Chronicles 36 15, 16.)

At last God sends His Son. He said, "I have yet one Son, it may be they will reverence my Son," and He would try man by His coming. "They cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him." In Matthew 21 we find God seeking fruit from that which ought to have yielded it; and so Christ, when He came, first looked for fruit. He desired to find (verse 18, 19). "He hungered. And when he saw a fig-tree in the way he came to it, and found nothing thereon but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever; and presently the fig-tree withered away." He cursed it -- this was nature judged, that flesh should NEVER produce fruit, for there was nothing in man in the flesh to suit God. Plenty of profession, outward show, and assumption to be something, "but leaves only." "There is none good; no, not one." And so He said, "Now is the judgment of this world." The world was judged then, although that judgment is not executed yet; in grace God tarries the execution; but still there was the complete ending of all human responsibility as regards the record of it. Each individual may have to come to conviction of it, of course.

But according to the gospel, Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost, not in probation whether he would be so. All is proved worthless; for the husbandmen not only killed God's Son, who came looking for fruit, but also rejected all His invitations and Himself come in grace. If God spent His Son in the effort to get man's heart back to Himself, it only shewed that his heart was enmity against God, and would not own Him. He came with perfect grace, and shewed He had power sufficient to bring every blessing to man; all His miracles were blessing to man except the cursing of the figtree, which was not, because, after all, there must be the judgment of the flesh. The cross then comes in, and proves not only that man is a sinner (we get that in his being turned out of Paradise), but that man is in himself irreclaimable. This closes the first Adam's history -- the history of man responsible in the flesh, and it was the end of the world; that is, morally, the world was ended and judged. So the apostle speaks in Hebrews 9: 26. "Now once in the end of the world" (literally "in the end [or consummation] of the ages," those ages in which God was testing man in responsibility as a reclaimable sinner) -- "hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself."

Christ came to seek fruit and they had none for Him. He came to make a feast, as the expression of God's grace to them, and they would not sit at it. In the two parables (Matthew 21 and 22) there is not only the end of the history of man in responsibility, but also the rejection of Christ come in grace. The mind of the flesh is proved to be enmity against God; and we must learn that there is no good in us. But God does not give up His grace, it superabounds over all man's condition as a sinner, and an irreclaimable one.

This is just the difference between the synoptical Gospels and John. The first three -- Matthew, Mark, and Luke -- are the presentation of Christ to man to be received, and with proofs of power sufficient to remove all the effects of sin; but behind all you find the difficulty that man is in the flesh, and the mind of the flesh is enmity against God. John's testimony starts with this, that He was not received, and therefore coming in that grace which was above all the rejection. In chapter 1, "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came to his own and his own received him not"; so God comes out in grace. The flesh is looked at in John as having disowned Christ, and therefore his Gospel all through is election and grace. There is no such language in the other three Gospels as He uses here in speaking of man. He goes to the roots and principles of things in John, and so He says, "Ye are of your father the devil," speaking to sinners, and "no man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him." But He says, I'll have my own sheep notwithstanding what man is. Thus, on the rejection of His word in chapter 8 and His work in chapter 9, He gathers them, whether of the Jews or of the Gentiles, to the one Shepherd, and gives them eternal life. So in John 1 we find Him received by those who were born of God, not of the will of man. "To as many as received him to them gave he power [that is, title, authority, or right] to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God," John 1: 12, 13. There I get the people of God. Man's responsibility is closed: he is a lost sinner; he has been in a state of probation, and it is over.

Now, although the ground of man's responsibility is over in the sense of having wholly failed under it, when proved in every possible way, yet as to moral dealing with each individual, the responsibility is there to the full; and as an individual under moral dealing, a man has to go through the history of the process of responsibility and its failure; but he goes through it to bring out this, that he is lost already. He has to prove the truth of God's verdict that in man there is no good thing; and so the result of the principle of responsibility is for him to find out that he is lost, that the responsibility is over; not as if it was not true, but because he is lost and ruined, as the man who has lost all his money by foolish ways. It is important to keep up responsibility, but the individual is brought to the consciousness that on that ground it is all up with him. Man is lost. We have spent every farthing, and have only debts; these we have if that is any good. It is all over with the first man, and no mending of him will do: he is lost and ruined; but Christ came to save the lost.

Now the Second Man is set up. It is not a mending of the first man, but the substitution of the Second. There is no improvement or correction of the first man (although we are practically changed if we come to Christ), but the sins of the first Adam are all cleared away; and, secondly, the tree itself is cut down by the roots for faith. In the cross we see the responsibility met completely; Christ has met all the failure, the fruit of the tree of responsibility, and has glorified God in so doing. Man has brought in confusion; but Christ came, met the case, and cleared the scene, and triumphed over all. When He came, God's character as to facts was compromised, and there was no escape. If He had saved none, but at once cast off sinners, it were righteousness, but there would have been no love. If He had let all pass, when man was a sinner, and in such sort saved all (which man would call love, but which would not have been divine love, for God is holy), where were the righteousness? But Christ came. Well, surely in the cross there is righteousness against sin, as nowhere else, yet there is the infinite love of God to sinners.

In Him, in Christ, I get both the trees of Paradise united, fulfilled in grace, bearing our sins and putting away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and becoming life according to righteousness. I am brought to the discovery of what I am, and then I see Christ has died on the cross and has taken the whole thing on Himself. When I see Him -- the Son of God -- dying on the cross, I say if this is not righteousness judgment against sin -- I do not know what is. But whom is He dying for? -- the guilty sinner. Well, if this is not love, I do not know what is. On the cross we get every attribute of God perfectly maintained -- His majesty and truth, as well as His righteousness and love very claim met, and God perfectly glorified in the Person of Christ, the Lamb of God. He was there making atonement for sin that the gospel might go out to all the world; and as to believers, bearing their every sin. The whole thing is met there, and the believer's responsibility cleared away, as to sins, that he may enter into responsibility on a new ground, that of a child of God. He has met fully, and completely, and absolutely, all the fruit of man's eating the tree and all the sins of the believer (his responsibility). This, of course, does not touch the believer's responsibility to Christ or to God as a believer in Christ; for this is of a new order, and comes in upon a different ground.

But in the cross God's character is not only maintained but fully glorified; for the death of Christ is the perfect putting away of sin⁺ and of all that belonged to the first man. We, therefore, as believers, are crucified with Christ; we are not in the flesh but in Christ. We are dead to the condition in which we were as children of Adam, and we are in a new position altogether; in Christ we are children of God. All that we were has been met and settled on the cross, and a new life has been given to us, so that now we are not in the first Adam but in the Second Man. The fruit of the first is all taken away, and the tree itself cut up by the roots for our faith; we have died with Christ, been crucified with Him. The responsibility is met by the atonement, and He Himself is the eternal life; so the two trees of Paradise are fully reconciled.

⁺This, in its fullest effect, reaches, I doubt not, to the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. But the believer knows its efficacy for himself now. I do not here speak of those who believe not. They are doubly guilty.

Now the counsels of God come out, because He could not bring them out till redemption was accomplished, and righteousness fully established, and in respect of all that, too, which called it in question. The ground we stand on is not now God's forbearance, because what we have is not promise, but the accomplishment of promise. It was forbearance He exercised towards the Old Testament saints, passing over their sins, but it is in the atonement we see His righteousness in doing this. Now God is righteous in saving a poor sinner -- just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus; and because righteousness is now established, my standing is not founded on responsibility as a child of Adam, but on redemption as a son of God. It is a new footing and foundation. Not only are my sins put away, but that which has put them away has so vindicated the righteousness of God, and glorified Him, that man has a place at the right hand of God in glory.

With regard to this Christ could appeal to the Father righteously to give Him that place. "I have glorified thee," He said, "glorify thou me," and Jehovah answered, "Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thy foes thy footstool." This puts the Son of man in the glory of God; and God has given us a place and standing in Him, clear of all the responsibility of the first Adam. But there is responsibility now for us, and it flows from and is measured by this very standing.

We have thus the two trees in grace -- the tree of life, and the tree of responsibility. Under the law we saw it was responsibility first, and then life. In grace it is first life, then responsibility.

Not only are my sins gone, but I and everything belonging to me buried in the death of Christ; the "I" merged into Him as to life, as it is written, "Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me," and the life I now live is in the Risen One. He rose, and is now seated in glory in virtue of what He did as man, and has sent down the Holy Ghost to unite to Himself as Head (having taken this place as man in heaven) believers as members of His body, and to reveal all the counsels that were about us before the world was; and this is the church. The Christian is united with Christ, where He now is, we are seated there, and blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Him. The Head is there, and we, the members, are, by the Holy Ghost, united to Him.

Now comes in the responsibility of the Christian. True responsibility flows from the place we are in -- not as having to get into the place, but as being in it. Seeing our place we can learn what our responsibilities are; else we never can assume responsibility. You are not responsible to me as children or servants, because you are not my children or my servants. If you were my servant, your duties and responsibilities would flow from your being so. You have totally failed as a child of Adam; and now, if a believer, God says you are a child of God. Well, now, let us see if you are walking as a child of God in all your ways. This is our responsibility. We are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, and are left in this world to shew out the character of such. We are the epistle of Christ, and have to see that we are a good one, known and manifestly so before all men. Christ should be so seen in us that he who runs may read.

If you are in Christ, Christ is in you; and our place is a settled one. Christ is before God for us, and we are before the world for Christ. What is laid on us is not responsibility before God as a child of Adam, but as a child of God. I am not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, and the life of Jesus is to be manifested in our mortal bodies. There is our responsibility, and it is an individual thing. You will see the individual put always first in scripture, because the individual must be put right before there can be any church. The epistle to the Romans deals with the individual, so also does the first chapter to the Ephesians, till we come to the last verses. We always have truth brought out for the individual before corporate blessing is unfolded or responsibility is enforced. We are saved by Christ individually and owned as brethren.

This leads on to relationship with Christ and with one another. Our relationship with the Father is that of children; our relationship with Christ, first, that He is not ashamed to call us brethren, and then as members of His body, and so baptised into one body by the Holy Ghost. This is the effect of God's work, and we are created unto good works, which God has fore-ordained for us. The ground we stand on is not our works: Christ stood on that ground once for us, and if we did we should be lost. We stand on Christ's work and are saved, and the Holy Ghost has come down and united us to Christ as His members; and he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.

This brings out what the church of God is. The Holy Ghost never came down to earth before that, although He was the immediate agent of all God's works. All immediate action from creation onwards is the Holy Ghost -- He is the direct agent, but never came till the day of Pentecost.

We must never confound the action of a divine person with the coming of a divine person. All things were created by the Son and for Him, but He never came till the incarnation. So the Holy Ghost wrought all through, in creation, prophecy, etc., but never came till Pentecost; and speaking of this Christ said, "If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you," John 16: 7. Not only has He come, but what is of special importance is that when on earth He dwells in the believer and in the assembly. This gives another character to the church. God never can dwell among men except on the footing of redemption. We never hear of such a thing in the Old Testament until redemption has been accomplished in figure. He visited Adam, but never dwelt with him -- He talked with Abraham often, but never dwelt with him. But as soon as He redeems Israel, though only figuratively and outwardly, for the first time in scripture, we hear of His coming to dwell. (See Exodus 15, and 29: 46.) He came in the cloud, and His presence and glory dwelt in the camp of Israel.

When the church is brought out, it is said God dwells in it spiritually: "Builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit," Ephesians 2: 22. This dwelling of God with us is the fruit of redemption. It is distinct from being born again; it is founded on redemption; and the Holy Ghost dwells with us because we are washed pure and spotless by the blood of Christ. Immediately after redemption holiness is mentioned as a necessary consequence of God's presence. "Glorious in holiness" is His name this side the Red Sea. "Ye shall be unto me a holy nation," Exodus 19: 6. "Be ye holy, for I am holy." He must have a clean house to dwell in. In the Old Testament figure a man was washed with water, sprinkled with blood, and anointed with oil. So we are quickened, and feel our need, are brought under the blood of sprinkling and cleansed by it, and then sealed by the Holy Ghost. It is God's stamp on us that we have been cleansed through faith in the blood of Christ. God cannot seal an unbeliever; this would be sealing wicked men, and sins, and corrupt flesh. It is God's seal on one that has life. "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father," Galatians 4: 6.

By the indwelling of the Holy Ghost we are sealed and linked with Christ in heaven. Our place is on high, though we walk on earth. The church is associated with Christ in heaven; but it was in consequence of His ascension that the Holy Ghost came. He could not have come before. The church could not exist as an actual thing on earth till the atonement, till Christ had died and risen; and the idea of the church could not be revealed till after His death. The Jewish system was maintained by the middle wall of partition being kept up; there was to be no connection with the Gentiles. The church is founded on the breaking down of the middle wall of partition. You cannot take scripture and not see that even the idea of the church could not be revealed until Christ had died, gone up on high, and the middle wall of partition had been broken down. In the church there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, but this would have been sin till God removed the wall of division by the death of Christ; Ephesians 2.

We get before that (in Deuteronomy 32: 43) such a word as "Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people"; but there is His people: the nationality is kept up, and the Gentiles are kept distinct from His people. The Jews were the people who had the promises; but the One in whom all the promises centred came, and they refused and crucified Him; so they must now come in on the ground of mercy like any poor Gentile. There is no difference, for they have all alike sinned. God fulfilled His promise, but the Jew who had it rejected the fulfilment. So then the middle wall of partition could be broken down, for both came alike under mercy. All nationality now is merged in Christ. He now sits in glory as man, and the Holy Ghost whom He has sent down links us with Him. The distinction of Jew and Gentile is abolished, and the church is the dwelling-place of the Holy Ghost. If you had had a mention of the church in the Old Testament, Judaism must have gone. The church is a heavenly body, the Head being in heaven.

Now, if you appropriate Old Testament promises and apply them to the church, you drag it down from heaven to earth, and put Israel quite out of that place which God in His sovereignty gave to His chosen people. Individually we get much comfort for our hearts and instruction, too, from God's dealings with Israel; for (besides great truths as to God's nature), what happened to them happened to them for ensamples, and is written for our admonition on whom the ends of the world are come. See, for instance, Deuteronomy 8: 2-4, which is the history of God's dealings with them in the wilderness. So we too, in a spiritual sense, are put through the wilderness, and learn God's care of us and our continual dependence on Him for every need and each step of the way. God took care even of the wearing out of their coats all the time, while He sought to teach them what they were. We are in the wilderness, and need to learn to know the God of the wilderness. We are left here to find out both what we are and what He is, and we have the same principles to guide us as led Israel in their wanderings.

Being children of God, however, our home is the Father's house, and Christ has gone there to prepare a place for us. This leads us at once to the coming of Christ, not as a matter of prophecy, but for us, as He said, "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am there ye may be also," John 14. This is not prophecy, which is concerned with the government of this world, and is connected with the Jews who are the centre of prophecy. We are identified with Christ, and were in the counsels of God before even the world was, and so are not of the world at all. He has promised to come first and put us in our right place beside Himself; and when prophecy comes true we shall be with the Lord. We are in heavenly places in Christ, and our conflict is there now; "we wrestle ... against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places."

So completely is this in Paul's thoughts that he does not once speak of going to heaven -- it is to depart and be with Christ, not go to heaven, though no doubt it is heaven. But we must wait till He comes to be fully in the same likeness with Christ. As an individual, the promise I have got is that I shall be conformed to the image of His Son, but I must wait till He comes and I see Him as He is for that; and so I try to be as conformed to Him as I can in this poor mortal body. (See 1 John 3.) If I should be absent from the body while I wait, I shall be present with the Lord -- in heaven doubtless, though this is not the thought. But I am not conformed to the image of Christ till He comes and I am raised or changed.

The appearing of the saints in glory (Colossians 3: 4) will prove to the world the oneness of the place which God has given us with Christ. He is the first fruits of them that slept; not of the wicked, but of His saints; and they will be raised because He delights in them, as Christ was, because God delighted in Him, though He indeed could not be holden of death. They will be raised in glory, fashioned like unto His own glorious body, and this is the fullest seal put upon the righteousness of God. We shall all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, but we shall appear in glory. It is not then our eternal state has to be settled and judgment pronounced whether we are saved or lost: we shall be glorified when we get there. Paul has been with Christ these 1800 years, and are you going to bring him out to have his case settled? We shall give an account of everything to God from the time we were born, but we shall be in glory when we give it. We have an account to render as Christians, for we are responsible as to how far we have glorified Christ with gifts and all He has given us; and as to how far also we have grieved the Holy Spirit who has dwelt in us; but it is the saved who give this account (the others at the day of judgment, of course, before the great white throne).

When I die I shall be happy; but this is not, however, blessed as it is, fully what the Lord promises me; I am told I shall be "like Christ." "As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly," 1 Corinthians 15. This is our hope. I am to be like Christ when He raises me, and glorifies me; I am to be conformed to His image when He comes; and as regards the church, the marriage of the Lamb does not come till then.

The only proper hope of the Christian is to wait for God's Son from heaven. When He will come, no one knows. The church was in the counsels of God in eternity in Him before time began, and the Holy Ghost said, "Of the times and seasons ye have no need that I write unto you." When the last member of the church is gathered in He will come; but whether at midnight, or in the first watch, or in the second watch, or at cock-crow, neither you nor I know. It may be tonight, but this is known only to the Lord. He is Sovereign, yet He "is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

THE COMING OF THE LORD -- THAT WHICH CHARACTERISES THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

I purpose to take up a subject which I feel to be deeply important -- the coming of the Lord Jesus -- and to take it up, not proving it as a doctrine, but shewing that it was originally a substantial part of Christianity itself. The groundwork is Christ's first coming, and His atoning death; but when we look beyond the foundation, then we see that the coming of the Lord Jesus is not merely a bit of knowledge, but a substantive part of the faith of the church of God, and that on which the moral state of the saints, and, indeed, of the church of God, depends. You will see, in going through the passages which I will now quote, that it connects itself and is mixed with every part of Christianity, characterises it, and connects itself with every thought and feeling of the Christian. A person could not read the scriptures with an unprejudiced mind without seeing it: it presents itself to you in almost every page.

Some people have taken the pains to count how many times it occurs; but what I say is not merely this, but that it is so connected with every part of Christian life that, if you take it out, you take away what gives its character to the whole Christian life. It was identified with the system as announced to the world. I take conversion: people say what has that to do with the Lord's coming? That is part of what they were converted to: "to wait for God's Son from heaven." This waiting for God's Son from heaven characterised their conversion. They were converted to serve God, surely; but, also, "to wait for his Son from heaven," 1 Thessalonians 1: 10.

There are two subjects with which scripture is occupied, when personal salvation is settled: one is the sovereign grace, which makes us, redeemed from sin, like Christ in the glory: this is the blessed portion of the church of God; and the other is the government of the world. The Jews are the centre of the government of this world; Deuteronomy 32: 8. "When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For Jehovah's portion is his people, Jacob is the lot of his inheritance." There we get, in the government of the world, Israel as the centre. Israel would not have Christ, and so was set aside for the time. God's throne was taken from Jerusalem at the Babylonish captivity, but a remnant spared and brought back, that the king might be presented to them; but Him they refused, and are now set aside till His return. There are only sixty-nine weeks of Daniel definitely⁺ fulfilled. The last week is not fulfilled; it is not come.

⁺Christians know that half the last week is passed, comprising the time of the ministry of Christ. But for unbelief only sixty-nine are passed. Hence the covenant is made for a week. But God only counts from the beginning of the last half week, a time, times, and half a time.

So as to the great feasts. You have got the Passover fulfilled. "Christ our passover is sacrificed for us"; and the feast of Pentecost has its fulfilment in the descent of the Holy Ghost; but the feast of Tabernacles is not fulfilled at all: you have no antitype yet whatever.

But here the other blessed work of God comes in, that meanwhile God is calling out poor sinners to have a part with His Son, and be like His Son; for we are predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He may be the firstborn among many brethren. He has taken us poor sinners to have us in the same glory as His Son. That is another thing from prophecy, which gives us the portion of this world and the Jewish people. When He shall appear, we shall appear with Him in glory.

The Christian's position, as to the coming of the Lord, is that he is waiting for Christ to come according to His promise. People say He comes at death; I reply, Do you make death the same as Christ? If this were the case, we should have Him coming hundreds and hundreds of times; whereas we only read of His coming twice (Hebrews 9: 28). Shall I tell you what will happen when Christ comes? Resurrection! This is quite a different thing from death. The coming of Christ is, for the saint, to be the end of death -- exactly the opposite; I believe nobody can find a trace of the thought in scripture that Christ comes at death. Instead of Christ's coming being death, it is resurrection; we go to Christ at death, it is not Christ who comes to us. Blessed it is "to depart and to be with Christ"; "absent from the body, present with the Lord." But I am to shew that this thought of the coming of Christ mixes itself with and characterises every part of Christian life.

In the first place, we have it in conversion, as already said. They were converted to wait for God's Son from heaven. I will turn to other passages in support of it, but I will go through Thessalonians first. In chapter 2 of the 1st Epistle, at the end, the apostle speaks of what his comfort and joy in service were. He had been driven away by persecution from the midst of the Thessalonians, and writing to them speaks of his comfort in thinking of them. But how? "For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?" He cannot speak of his interest in them, and joy, without bringing in the coming of the Lord Jesus. Again, as regards holiness (end of chapter 3): "The Lord make you to increase and abound in love ... to the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God and the Father, at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints," 1 Thessalonians 3: 13.

As to the death of a saint, they were so thoroughly looking for the Lord, that if a person died they thought he would not be there, ready to go to meet Him. They were wrong in this, and the apostle corrects their mistake. But now people say, when a saint dies, we shall go after him, we shall follow him. Here there is not a word about it. Suppose I were to go and say to a Christian now, who had lost some one dear to him: "Do not be uneasy, Christ will bring him with Him," he would think me wild, or find it utterly unintelligible; and yet that is the way the apostle does comfort them: "Them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him" (chapter 4). He then shews the way He will do it: "We which are alive ... shall not prevent them which are asleep." "Prevent" is an old word for anticipate or go before. The first thing the Lord will do when He descends is to raise the sleeping saints. He is going to bring them with Him: if they have fallen asleep in Him, their spirits will have been with Him meanwhile; but then they will receive glory, be raised in glory, be like Him, as they had been like the first Adam, and, going to meet Him in the air, will be for ever with Him; and when He appears He will bring them with Him, and they will appear with Him in glory.

You get it in a general way in chapter 5, where he desires their whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. This hope, then, is a part of the Christian state in every aspect. Conversion, joy in service, holiness, a believer's death, the goal of blamelessness, all are connected with the coming of the Lord.

Turn now to Matthew 25. The wise virgins take oil in their vessels, but they all go to sleep and forget that the Bridegroom was coming; but what I have specially to inquire here is, What was the original calling? The statement, clear and positive, is, that they went out to meet the Bridegroom, but while He tarried they "all" slumbered and slept -- they all forgot His coming, the wise as well as the foolish. They got into some comfortable place: bivouacking in the open is not pleasant to the flesh. But at midnight the cry is heard, "Behold, the Bridegroom!" The thing that roused them up from their sleep was the cry, "Behold, the Bridegroom!" The original object, then, of the church was to go and meet Him who came; but even true believers forgot it; and, further, what awakes them up from their sleep is their being again called out to meet Him at His coming. Then you get in "the talents" the same thing in regard to service and responsibility. He takes His journey and tells them: "Occupy till I come."

Another very striking fact as to this truth is, it is always presented as a present operative expectation. You will never find the Lord nor the apostles speaking of the Lord's coming, with the supposition that it would be delayed beyond the life of those to whom they spoke. It might be at cock-crowing or in the morning; but they were to be waiting for God's Son from heaven. In the parables referred to, the virgins who went to sleep were the same virgins as those who awoke up; the servants to whom the talents were entrusted were the servants who rendered an account of them at His return. We know centuries have passed, but He will not allow any thought of delay. "In such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh." "Blessed is that servant whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching." Again, what was the cause of the church's ruin? It was, "My Lord delayeth his coming." It was not saying, "He will not come, but he delayeth his coming." Then the servant began to beat the men-servants and maid-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; and this brings on his judgment. If the bride loved the Bridegroom, she cannot but wish to see Him. Her heart is where He is. When the church lost this, she settled down to enjoyment where she was; she got worldly; she did not care about the Lord's return.

Turn now to Luke 12, and you will find how this waiting for Christ characterises the Christian, and therewith the serving Him while He is away. "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." They were to have their loins girded, their lights burning -- such was the characteristic of a Christian. They were to be as men that waited for their Lord to open to Him immediately: their affections in order, and full profession of Christ, but watching for their Lord's return. It is not having the doctrine of the Lord's coming: the blessing rests on those who are watching, "like men that wait for their Lord." "Blessed is that servant whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching." They must be girded and have their lights bright while He is away, and watch for His return; and then He makes them sit down to meat, and girds Himself, and comes forth and serves them. Now they must be girded and watch; our rest is not here. But, says the Lord, when I have things all My own way, you shall sit down to meat, and I will gird Myself and come forth and serve you; I will make you enjoy all the best that I have in heaven, and I will minister it to you: only be found watching.

Christ is for ever, in grace, a servant according to the form He has taken. He is girded now according to John 13. They would naturally think that, if He were gone to heaven in glory there was an end of His service to them. But He tells them, "I am going away; I cannot stay here with you, yet I cannot give you up; but as I cannot remain on earth with you, I must make you fit for Me in heaven. 'If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me.'" It is water here, not blood. "He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet." Lifegiving conversion, as well as salvation, is fully wrought; but if we pick up dirt in the way, even as to communion and the walk, grace and advocacy is there to wash our feet and have us practically fit for being with God where Christ is gone. Growth there is or ought to be, and, as to the unchangeable cleanness of the new man, this is certain; but if I have not been watchful, I shall pick up dirt in my path. I cannot have this in heaven, nor in communion with what is there, and the Lord says in effect, "I am not going to give you up because I am going to God and glory, and so I must have you in a state suitable to that, and washed as you are (though not all, for Judas was there), keep you fit, restoring you when you fall. But you must be watching while I am away."

It is a comfort to me to know that all the virgins woke up in time, and I believe all His saints will wake up before the Lord comes. The difficulty to the heart in looking around is that so many do not receive it. But the true service of the Lord is connected with watching. That is the state to which the blessing and the heavenly feast is attached. Then you find another thing, serving while He is away; and the result of this is, "Of a truth I will make him ruler over all I have." It is far better to eat, as is said of Israel, of the finest of the wheat, and that in the Father's house; but if we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him. With the serving in His absence, I get the ruling; as the heavenly feast with watching. The Lord then goes on to what we had in Matthew, the saying: "My Lord delayeth his coming."

What the Lord is pressing as to watching and serving is, "I am coming again; you must be watching for Me, as men that wait for their Lord": that was to be their character as Christians. Supposing all the people in this town were actually watching, waiting for the Lord from heaven, not knowing the moment He would come, do you think the whole town would not be changed? A person once said to me that, if everybody believed that, the world could not go on at all; and the Christian cannot in a worldly way.

If people were waiting for the Lord from heaven, the whole tone and character of their life would be changed. I may have the doctrine of Christ's coming, when I am really not looking for Him; but I should not like to be heaping money together when the Lord comes -- I should, if possible, huddle it away out of His sight.

Turn now to Philippians 3. Paul was running a race, and he forgot all things else but the goal; and how does he speak of Christ at the close of that chapter? "Brethren, be followers together of me ... for our conversation [our living association] is in heaven, from whence we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ," etc. He had seen Christ, and would not be content till he was like Him in glory. To be with Him then, was, no doubt, far better; but it was not the goal of his heart. People talk of going to glory when they die. There is no such thought in scripture as being in glory, when we depart to be with Christ. Most blessed and happy to be with Him! This I would surely press; but it is when He comes that He will change these vile bodies and fashion them like unto His glorious body. I am waiting till I get my body changed, to be like Christ in glory; and, what is more, Christ is waiting too.

The Lord's coming affects all the truths of Christianity. Christ is not now on His throne at all. He is sitting now, according to the word in Hebrews 10 (and quoted from Psalm 110), at God's right hand, sitting on the Father's throne, as He says Himself in the promise to Laodicea. He has settled the question of sin for them at His first coming, and they have no more conscience of sins, they are perfected for ever; and to them that look for Him shall He appear a second time without sin unto salvation. He is expecting in the heavens till His enemies be made His footstool. Why does He say "His enemies"? Because He is sitting down after He has finished all for His friends, that is, those that believe in Him. Have all your sins been put away out of God's sight? If not, when will it be done? That you grow in hatred of them all -- All right! But if they are not borne and put away on the cross, when will it be done? Can you get Christ to die again? Can you get any one else to do it? If it is not done, it will never be done at all: but it is done, and therefore He says, the worshippers once purged "have no more conscience of sins"; "for by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified."

If you look now at Colossians 3, you will find the same thing in its full result held out as our hope. "When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." The first promise He gave the disciples when going away was His coming again. Do not be troubled (as they naturally would be on losing the Friend for whom they had given up all); I am not going to be all alone in My Father's house. There are many mansions there, I am going to prepare a place for you: do not be uneasy; I cannot stay with you, so I must have you up there with Me, and the first thing is, "I will come again and receive you to Myself." It is not one by one by death, but by resurrection for the dead, and change for the living, His actual coming to receive them, raised or changed, to be with Himself where He was gone, and like Himself, that we shall be in glory with Him.

Again, at His departing from His disciples left down here, what was the last they saw of Him? They saw Him go up before their eyes, and the angel said to them, "Why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus shall come in like manner." His coming is wrought into the whole texture of the Christian life.

What is scripture's last word? "Surely I come quickly Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus." In the same way you get it at the beginning, with warning and threatening, Jesus Christ, the Faithful Witness, the First-begotten, etc, "Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him" (verse 7). Then at the end (prophetic instructions are over: I do not enter into them), "I, Jesus, have sent Mine angel," etc.; "I am the bright and morning star." Now I get what these saints who were watching, and those only, see. There is no star to be seen when the sun is risen. They see the morning star, while it is yet early dawning; for the night is far spent, the day is at hand. Here He calls Himself "the root and offspring of David; the bright and morning star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come." If the bride has got the sense of being the bride of Christ, she must desire to be with the Bridegroom; there is no proper love to Christ unless she wants to be with Him. Abram said of his wife, "She is my sister"; then the Egyptians, the world, took her into their house.

I just add that you get here the whole circle of the church's affections. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come [this is to the Bridegroom]; and let him that heareth say, Come!" That is, the Christian, who has heard the word of his salvation, joins in the cry. Then those who thirst for some living water are called to come. The saints of the church can say, though they have not yet the Bridegroom in glory, that they have the living water, and so call, "Let him that is athirst come," and then address the call universally, "Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely." This they have, though not the Bridegroom. What I find then is, that, in the word of God, the thoughts, and feelings, and conduct, and doings, and affections of Christians, are identified with the coming of Christ. Take all these things, and you will find that they are identified with the coming of the Lord.

Take the first Epistle of John, chapter 3. "Behold, what manner of love," etc. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God [that is settled], and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." Beloved friends, we are "predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son." This is what God has purposed for us. When are we to be like Christ in the glory? When He comes. It is not when a person dies, and the spirit goes to be with Christ, for then he is like Christ when Christ was in the grave; and I do not want to be like Christ when Christ was in the grave; but if I die, I shall be like Christ as to that, but this is not what I want, though blessed in itself. I want to be like Him in the glory. When will that be? When He comes, He will change our vile bodies and fashion them like to His glorious body; so here "it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but when he shall appear, we shall be like him." Now mark the practical consequences upon the man that has been in his faith brought up to God's purposes. "He that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself, even as he is pure." I know I am going to be perfectly like Christ in the glory; therefore I want to be as like Him as possible down here.

You find here again what the holy scriptures are explicit in teaching, that holiness also is always referred to conformity to Christ in glory. I shall have that likeness to Christ in glory, and nothing else is my standard. You will find one passage already quoted: "That he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints." The perfection of the Christian is to be like Him when He comes. What again I find, as to Christians, in 1 Corinthians 15 is, "It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory." We have the blessed assurance that accompanies true assured hope of the first resurrection and its results.

We shall be perfectly like Christ when we are raised from the dead. We give an account of ourselves, but it is when we are like the person to whom we are to give an account. The full efficacy of His first coming has been lost, and therefore people are not comfortable when thinking of His second coming. But for the saint "Christ is the first-fruits, then they that are Christ's at his coming." Is Christ the first-fruits of the wicked? Surely not. Just as Christ's resurrection of the saints will be a testimony of God's approval of them as in Him. As we find in Luke 20: 35, 36, "They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage. Neither can they die any more, but are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection"

Could anybody shew me a single passage about a general resurrection? There is no such thought in scripture. You get Matthew 25 quoted for it, that the goats and sheep represent the two classes; but He has come in His glory down here. He is not sitting on the great white throne: before this heaven and earth flee away. Here He is come and sits on His throne. When He does come and sits there, He gathers all the Gentiles, the nations, to judge them. It is the judgment of the quick or the living. You have three sets of people, not two; and you have nothing of resurrection. You have sheep, goats, and brethren. (Matthew 25: 40.) So far from its being a general resurrection, there is no reference to resurrection at all; it is quite a different subject. Further, the only question is, How have they treated His brethren? The ground of judgment does not apply to ninety-nine out of a hundred of those who are to be judged, if it were a general judgment. Those that have had the testimony of the kingdom before He comes to judge the quick, will be treated according as they have received God's messengers, but such only are in judgment.

And now the point I return to is, that the coming of the Lord influences and forms the whole life of the Christian. You cannot separate anything in the whole course and ways of the Christian from the coming of the Lord Jesus; and there is but the first coming and the second coming. He has appeared once in the end of the world, and to them that look for Him shall He appear the second time unto salvation. It is true that He comes and dwells in us, but we speak, with scripture, of actual coming. If you take holiness, or service, or conversion, or ministry, or a person who has died, they are all connected with Christ's coming. He warns them to be found watching.

I might quote other passages, but I have quoted enough to shew that the Lord's coming is connected with everything in the Christian life. When we see Him as He is, then and then only shall we be like Him, according to God's purpose. And now I only ask, Are you waiting for God's Son from heaven?

His bearing the sins of many is the only ground of hope for any sinner: that is, the finished work which enables us, through faith, to look for Him when sealed by the Holy Ghost. Then, I say, what am I waiting for? I am waiting for God's Son from heaven. Can you say, I am watching for Christ? I do not know when He will come. "Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching." I do not ask you, Do you understand about the coming of the Lord? To wait for Him was the thing they were converted to. The thing that woke the virgins up was, "Behold, the Bridegroom!" Are you actually waiting for God's Son from heaven? Would you like Him to come tonight? Peter explains the delay. He says His long-suffering is salvation, not willing that any should perish. What would you think if He were to come tonight? Would it just be what your soul was looking for? I am going to sit down to table, and He is going to gird Himself and come forth and serve me. People think that it would stop the gospel to be waiting for God's Son from heaven. Did the acceptance of God's testimony about the deluge stop the preaching of Noah? Far from hindering, it was what gave edge to all. May the Lord give us to be ready, when He comes -- found watching for Him!

THE OLIVE, THE VINE, AND THE FIG-TREE

I trust, dear brethren, that our souls may be directed to the importance of speaking as before the Lord. What we are speaking of is not merely like man's thoughts and circumstances, but the things of the Lord. May we all keep this in mind.

I would take up in connection with Romans 11 the wild olive-tree. It is the expression of the character of the Gentiles, who are told, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, to remember that they were "strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world." It is of great importance to understand the exceeding wideness of that expression, "Gentiles in the flesh" -- "the wild olive tree." What we want is "to have no confidence in the flesh." We see what the flesh is in Philippians 3. "We are the circumcision," says the apostle, "who worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." All the character which he gives to the flesh is the "concision," strictness of ordinances, legitimacy of descent, works of our own: these three things are marked as repudiated flesh, though of a religious claim. They are also of great importance as marking the character of the flesh under all circumstances. The resurrection cuts off all boasting in natural descent. My descent is that I am born of God; John 1: 13. We are "sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty." When we come to look at the fairest character of the flesh in the world, what is it when compared with being sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty? If there were any title to anything in the flesh, the Jew had it; for the Gentile to talk of ordinances, descent, etc., is indeed folly.