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THE DOCTRINE OE RETRIBUTION.

BY THE AUTHOR OP THIS VOLUME,
The Philosophy of Natural Theology.
An Essay_ in Confutation of the Scepticism of the Present Day,
which received a prize at Oxford, November 26, 1872. By William
Jackson, M.A.
Mr. Jackson's Essay embraces tlie following subjects ; I. PhUosophy '
of Design.— II. Conditions of Knowledge.— III. Beliefs of Reason.—
IV. Production and its Law.— T. Causation.— VI. Responsibility.
8vo, Cloth,  $3 00
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, Publishers,
770 Broadway, Cor. 9th St., New York.
Bent by mail free of expense, on receipt of price.

THB

DOCTRINE OF RETRIBUTION:

EIGHT LECTURES
PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
{N THE YEAR 1875, ON THE FOUNDATION OF
THE LATE JOHN BAMPTON, M.A., CANON OF SALISBURY.

WILLIAM JACKSON, M.A, F.S.A,
{Formerly Fellow of Worcester College,*)
AUTHOR OF "THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURAL THEOLOGY," "POSITIVISM,"
" RIGHT AND WRONG," ETC.

Ifrfo furlt:
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & CO.,
770, BROADWAY. 187 6.

E XTEAC T
FEOM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
OP THE LATE
EEV. JOHN BAMPTON,
CANON OF SALISBURY.
¦  "I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the
" Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford for
" ever, to have and to hold all and singular the said Lands or Estates
" upon trust, and to the intents and purposes hereinafter mentioned;
" that is to say, I will and appoint that the Vice- Chancellor of the
" University of Oxford for the time being shall take and receive all
" the rents, issues, and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, repara-
" tions, and necessary deductions made) that he pay all the remainder
" to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, to be estab-
" lished for ever in the said University, and to be performed in the
" manner following :
" I direct and appoint, that, upon the First Tuesday in Easter
" Term, a Lecturer may be yearly chosen by the Heads of Colleges
" only, and by no others, in the room adjoining to the Printing-
" House, between the hours of ten in the morning and two in the
" afternoon, to preach eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, the year
" following, at St. Mary's in Oxford, between the commencement of
" the last month in Lent Term and the end of the third week in Act
" Term. " Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons
" shall be preached upon either of the following .subjects : — to confirm
" and establish the Christian faith, and to confute all heretics and
" schismatics — upon the divine authority of the holy Scriptures — ¦
" upon the authority of the writings of the primitive Fathers, as to
" the faith and practice of the primitive Church — upon the Divinity

vi Rev. John BamptorCs WiU.
" of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ— upon the Divinity of the
" Holy Ghost — upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as compre-
" hended in the Apostles' and Nicene Creed.
" Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lecture
" Sermons shall be always printed, within two months after they are
" preached ; and one copy shall be given to the Chancellor of the
" University, and one copy to the Head of every College, and one
" copy to the Mayor of the city of Oxford, and one copy to be put
" into the Bodleian Library ; and the expense of printing them shall
" be paid out of the revenue of the Land or Estates given for estab-
" lishing the Divinity Lecture Sermons; and the Preacher shall not
" be paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed.
" Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be qualified to
" preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath taken the
" degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the two Universities of
" Oxford or Cambridge ; and that the same person shall never preach
" the Divinity Lecture Sermons twice."

INTRODUCTION.

npHE preliminaries desirable for an intelligent
-*- perusal of the following Lectures are stated in
the first of the series. Some such explanations were
imperative upon an author who had to preach his
book before printing it ; and this circumstance super
sedes a good deal of what would otherwise have
formed prefatory matter.
The Doctrine of Eetribution is, I wish to . impress
upon my readers, a contribution, and only a con
tribution, to a subject as vast as it is interesting —
the Philosophy of Natural Eeligion.* Any adequate
* The subject is, in fact, very much wider than may be generally
imagined. It is so linked with the Philosophy of Natural Theology,
as to make in strict propriety a part of the same connected Whole.
From my first Lecture above cited, a fair idea may be acquired
concerning the exact relations between these great provinces of the
Science of Human Nature. It is there shown that Natural Beligion
may be treated simply as the logical consequent of Natural Theology;
— or it may receive an independent grounding upon the truth of
Moral Distinctions ; — or, thirdly, these two Methods may be made to
illustrate and verify each other. For reasons there assigned, I have
preferred to employ the second Method, but with a constantly recurring
regard to the third ; and this kind of recurrence I wish to be considered
i»s occupying the relative position of a confirmatory argument. The
strength of such a verification will be much more thoroughly appre-

via Introduction.
discussion of this subject as a whole, must involve
details which might very probably occupy not eight,
but eight times eight Lecture Sermons. Finding
myself compelled to isolate one line of thought from
its allies and supporters, and to treat it separately,
I have ventured on endeavouring, with earnestness
of purpose, to answer the most anxious question ever
asked by the reasoning mind of Man — the question
whether Retributive Justice is or is not sovereign
over human Futurities ? Along with an affirmative
reply, comes the determination of another enquiry.
For, if the facts of our Moral nature distinctly point
to a finality of Retribution, they must also prove the
reasonable truth of certain Eeligious beliefs, which
transcend Man's present existence and constitute a
Natural Eeligion.
In attempting a valid reply to these very solemn
human demands, I have adopted a method very
different in two respects from the kind of discussion
not uncommonly used by recent controversialists.
Writers on Natural Eeligion often commence by
submitting to critical examination some form of
Faith which has been familiar to their childhood,
and which rests its claim for acceptance on grounds
of praeter-natural evidence. This Belief, they strip
eiated by an occasional reference to my Essay on the Philosophy of
Natural Theology, published just a year ago. And this is particularly
the case with respect to Lectures III., IV., and V. ensuing, together
with the first half of Lecture VIIL, because upon the topics they
contain a great number of facts and illustrations are given in the
1874 volume, which did not appear well adapted for recital from the
pulpit.

Introduction. ix
of every supra-mundane character, — its transcendent
doctrines included. They then go on to scrutinize
the residuum. There is little difficulty in predicting,
from the beginning of such a process, what must
necessarily be its result : a caput mortuum — a de
vitalized mass of formal dogma, neither human nor
yet in the least divine. Nothing for a struggling
man to live by, — nothing in the strength of which
any earnest man would dare to die.
The Method pursued in these pages is a reverse
procedure. It does not set out from considering
what has been held religious, but from what is
ascertainably natural. The portraiture of Natural
Eeligion is outlined after an examination into the
specific character and attributes of Human Nature.
Of this investigation, the results are placed in a
variety of lights, and are repeatedly tested and veri
fied. In such-like respects, I have been unsparing
— perhaps at some risk of putting a strain on my
reader's attention. It may, however, be hoped that
the forms of oral address, which are carefully kept
unaltered, will lessen the dryness of that ever-
pertinent enquiry, — Is what has been said probably
or certainly true ? *
* The maintenance of those actual shapes into which the several
Lectures were cast, has caused a few repetitions. The Bampton
Lectures are not delivered consecutively; e.g., my own preaching
turns occurred, as follows : February 21 ; March 7, 14 ; April 11, 18 ;
and May 2, 9, 30. It is impossible, under such conditions, to avoid
the necessity of reiterating statements which may easily escape the
memory of auditors. So far as philosophic argument is concerned,
" Intervalla vides humane commoda."

x Introduction.
But all tests of reasoning must yield the palm of
exactness and stringency to those most powerful
touchstones, — interdependence, and coherency. And
their application to my argument forms the second
difference of Method to which I have alluded.
A Drama or Epic Poem ought, we know, to contain
within itself a beginning, a middle, and an end. The
same requirement is yet more legitimately demanded
of philosophical thinking. Every conclusion ought to
link itself with a demonstrated truth or an axiomatic
first-ground by that kind of connection which, grow
ing naturally out of the one, culminates with an
equally natural meaning and propriety in the other.
Philosophic thought which answers this description
is evidently both coherent and interdependent. Its
flaws, if there are any, will be readily perceived. But
when the cohering parts are sound, the whole can
safely be pronounced a Eeality.
Thus much I have said for two reasons : — one, on
my own account, and in order that whether my
reader agrees with me or no, he may see that I have
done my best to assist him in judging for himself.
The other, because it seems time that some serious
protest should be entered against the fashion of
making English Philosophy into a department of
English light literature. It may be true, that Easy
philosophies must always dispense with principles,
— for the plain reason that the discovery of princi
ples is no easy task. And it is never difficult to
cover up the hiatus valde deflendos by smart and
plausible writing — by the quiet assumption of an

Introduction. xi
ipse dixi — or (safest of all) by relegating everything
which the ingenious writer or intelligent reader may
not happen to know, into the abysmal Profound of
the Unknowable. "With the employment of this
much-misused phrase, all endeavour after coherency
is, of course, resigned. But let it be emphatically
understood that the opponents of Doubt and Denial
in their modern forms — from dogmatic Atheism to
moral and religious know-nothingness — do with un
compromising purpose accuse those airy shapes, one
and all, of an incoherence thorough enough to make
them, while glittering as soap-bubbles, like soap-
bubbles, disappointingly unsubstantial.
In antithesis to the incomplete and ungrounded
treatment which I venture openly to condemn, I
have on each occasion stated the first principles
upon which I myself rely ; what certitude I attach
to each ; and why I conceive them to claim our
assent. In like manner, I have tried to make it
clear that the issue and end of my reasoning is in
consonance with the functions distinctive of Human
Nature ; and, therefore, with our acknowledged aims
and aspirations. So far as regards Mankind, I can
not but be of opinion, that such a harmony is in
itself a conclusive argument. How much more so,
then, when its consonance is greater, grander far, —
wide as all we know of the Universe, and lofty as
our purest and noblest thoughts concerning God !

CONTENTS.

LECTURE I. PAGE
THE SUBJECT IN PEESPECTIVE . .  1

LECTURE II.
THE ANSWER OF CONSCIENCE  til
LECTURE IIL
SCEPTICISM WHEN THOROUGH  .103
LECTURE IV.
FIRST PRINCIPLES  . 143
LECTURE V.
THE PREROGATIVE OP HUMANITY  . . 171)
LECTURE VI.
MAN'S INNER LAW AND LIFE  223
LECTURE VII.
GROWTH, TRIAL, AND TRIUMPH  257
LECTURE VIII.
ABSOLUTE TRUTH AND THE SOLEMN HEREAFTER .... 23<)

LECTUEE I.

THE SUBJECT IN PERSPECTIVE.

LECTUEES.

LECTUEE I.
Habakkuk i. 12.
"Art Thou not from everlasting, O lord my God, mine Holy One ?
We shall not die.
0 Lord, Thou hast ordained them for judgment ;
And, O mighty God, Thou'hast established them for correction."
r I TEE BE are periods of the world's history when
-*- nations seem to live through many ages in one.
Those are times in which women must weep, whilst
men's hearts bleed inwardly.
A period of this kind in Europe was the transition
from the last century to the present. We who read
the narratives of French revolution and French con
quest, feel no surprise that, among those who saw such
monstrosities, many lost their reason. Young heads
grew grey in a single night ; numbers of middle-
class men and women became depraved, — some
times even devilish. A Hke period in Palestine was
that which culminated in the first faU of Jerusalem.
It came slowly, as great horrors are wont to come.
Prophet after prophet stood upon the tower of his

4 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i.
watch, to look for the day of the Lord. That day
rose like the morning spread upon the mountains, — a
dawn making darkness visible. They who thought
and felt for their race asked eagerly, " Watchman,
what of the night ? Watchman, what of the night ? "
And sad is the soul of any human being whose inward
eye sees farther than his fellows !
Let us try to picture for ourselves something of
what the prophet Habakkuk saw; — saw, that is, in
part with his bodily eye, and in part with the eye of
his spirit. In these fields of vision he blended the
prospect of two opposed cities — the one near, the other
at a distance. He pictured them as their builders
made them. He beheld them in their human life
and moral meaning. He saw both as they would
be when a few brief generations should have passed
away. The city to which the vision came was built upon
a rock, and begirt by circHng hills : "As the mount
ains are round about Jerusalem, so is the Lord
round about His people." Between those hills were
stony valleys with steep watercourses — the " wadies "
of the East and of Spain. Behind stretched lonely
downs, over which sheep heard their shepherd's voice
and followed him to find green pastures. Elsewhere
was the wilderness of crags and thickets ; and amidst
them one might be alone with the wild beasts. East
wards, beyond the palm trees, flowed the stream that
had been crossed by the pilgrim-fathers ; and "down
it, where the Hmestone ridges are overlooked by high
volcanic summits, lay a deep secluded vale. Here

Lect. i.] The Sicbject in Perspective. 5
slept the lake of desolation — the heavy waters of the
Dead Sea.
The recollections, the anticipations, which these
various scenes naturally awakened, I may leave to
your imagination. One circumstance we will not
forget. There was in the prophet's mind a " central
point " round which every remembrance and every
hope clustered : " Beautiful for situation, the joy of
the whole earth, is Mount Zion, the city of the Great
King." Not for site alone, nor for its own sake only,
but because of its law of Eight and Wrong : " For
there are set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the
house of David." And again, not of David only, nor
yet only for Judah : " Out of Zion shall go forth the
Law, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem,"
" The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the
Lord, as the waters cover the sea."
Did this seem Hkely to be verified now ?
From the mountain of the Lord's house you cannot
descry the strongholds of the bitter and hasty Chaldee.
But he comes, terrible and dreadful; and shall iron
break the northern iron and the steel? Below yon dim
horizon are the rolHng plains which Abraham crossed,
in search of a purer law and an heritage as yet
unseen. Yonder glides the slow flood of yellowish
water, on the far side of which Abraham's fathers
served other gods. Beside it, and bestriding it,
stood the city built by the might of Chaldean power,
and for the honour of Chaldean majesty — the adver
sary and antitype of the City of David, and of God.
Was this Babylon the seat of independent sove-

6 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. I.
reignty at the time when the prophet spoke ? If so,
he foretold the end from the beginning. If not, he
spoke Hke her who saw
" The phantom of many a Danish ship,
Where ship there yet was none."
However this may be, he must have felt as Dante*
felt when he heard the words of that plaintive hymn
— " 0 God, the heathen are come into Thine inherit
ance." And, like Dante, he wrote the lament of a
nation which was socially lost because it had ceased
to be morally alive.
In the prophet's day the law was slacked, and
judgment did not go forth. Therefore the foreigner
took the Hebrews in his net. They were made " as
the fishes of the sea " — a lawful prey — creatures over
whom there are rights, not men with rights of their
own. They became " like the creeping things that
have no ruler over them" — no ruler, that is, in any
true sense — no man and ruler of men. These things
the prophet saw. He saw another and a contrasted
event to foUow afterwards ; but his eyes rested first
on the moral and social degradation.
Such as he described was the fate of the peoples,
nations, and languages, who came to the plain ol
Dura in the province of Babylon, to bow down before
the greatest golden image the world had ever adored.
The ears of the multitude were soothed by the sound
of aH kinds of music. Their souls were enthraUed by
the glittering emblem of Plutocracy, fittest of all
* Purgatorio, Canto 33.

Lect. i.j The Subject in Perspective. 7
emblems for great Babel, the city of merchant-
princes, and Hghted up (as we may picture it) by a
sun bright as Napoleon's sun of AusterHtz. Certain
of these strangers must needs weep tears of shame :
captives themselves, and mourning over the captivity
of their country's gods. They thought upon the
conqueror's question, "Who is that God that shaU
deliver you out of my hand?" They thought upon
his burning fiery furnace. They fell down and wor
shipped the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king
had set up : three men, and three men only, excepted.
These three were captives of the great king.
Food, clothing, shelter, Hfe, — all dependent upon his
lightest word. Bitter is the exile's bread; but more
poisonous the dainties tossed sometimes to the slave.
Yet those slave-satraps — a smaU unthought- of few —
fulfilled the foresight of the prophet. They practised
what he preached, when he said, " Art Thou not from
everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One ? we
shall not die."
And this was the second event which our text
places in antithesis with the first : a foretaste of the
great victory which wiU-force should achieve over
world- force ; a symbol of Eternal Justice set over
against the brief triumph of the covetous and violent
Chaldee. Now, to what wisdom, to what principle
of knowledge, or assent, shaU we ascribe the prophet's
words ? To Faith ? Yes : in the form under which
they were uttered, and by virtue of the insight and
foresight which spoke and wrote them, for a genera
tion that should Hve at the end, just as the speaker

8 The Doctrine of Retribution. lLect- x-
himself lived at the beginning. In this form, and
with this kind of certitude when earthly events
seemed adverse, they were Faith. In another form
— shaped, that is, by the laws of thought, springing
up from our human intuitions, an efflux of that
Hght which lighteth every man that cometh into
the world — in this other form, and resting on the
primary beHefs of practical Eeason, the very same
words might have been true Philosophy. Does it
sound strange to say Philosophy ? I shall hope to
show clearly in what sense and to what extent the
assertion is true. Meantime, you may remember
how a great poet — no distant neighbour to Oxford —
repudiated the judgment of fools, and found Philoso
phy neither harsh nor unmusical. He beHeved her
to be what he himself called her — Divine.
You may verify what I have said.
If in evil days you put the same questions to real
Faith and to real Philosophy, the answers will coin
cide. Ask, for example, Must we be content to suffer
in a righteous cause? Are we sure that our sorrows
shaU be turned into joy ? No contradictory repHes
to these and such-like questions have ever been
uttered by them of whom the world was not worthy.
AH have said the same thing — saint and sage, prophet
and apostle, Socrates and Boethius — from the first
Hebrew to the last Gentile of that noble army, that
great cloud of witnesses, who died rather than speak
or act a falsehood. A Httle incense on an idol altar
was no large handful : but it was an infinite untruth !
For this reason, and for one other reason, I have

Lect. i.j The Subject in Perspective. g
chosen a verse of Old Testament prophecy to be the
text of this Lecture, and to stand as a fit motto to
the whole series. The one other reason I may as
weU state at the outset. It is this : —
The prophet spoke in foresight as well as in faith.
What he said was a strong assertion not of what
would be only, but of what must be ; and it was
meant to be received and acted on by those who
should live when he and his generation had been
gathered to their fathers. With a similar hope,
although with immeasurably humbler credentials, I
desire to dedicate this present course of Bampton
Lectures to the youth of this University. In this
wish I shall have, I am sure, the true-hearted
sympathy of elder men. The things I am about to
say are things which I myself, and those who think
with me, cannot but feel and know to be unfaflingly
certain of their' accomplishment. On the assurance
of these eternal verities, we willingly rest our hopes
for the solemn Hereafter. Being ourselves persuaded
that there is no " peradventure " in the case, we
desire to persuade others also.
Before all, to persuade the young. And this for
the best of reasons. You, who listen to me this
morning, wiU have no choice but to be sharers— some
of you, possibly, prominent actors — in a vast crisis of
. affairs. Few educated persons who have watched the
world for twenty years, can avoid a deep-felt convic
tion that one of the greater periods of change which
befal civilized Europe is impending, — or, to speak
more accurately, has begun : I will not say, "begun to

io The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i.
run its course," for such a phrase would savour of
FataHsm. Let us hope that it may await the direction
which brave hearts and manly heads shall impress
upon it. Beyond a doubt, soon as always, the ex
ample of England wiH have much to do with the
practical solution. Soon, as of old, Oxford will to a
large extent influence England. It is Oxford's honest
boast that hither come in numbers the flower and
promise of English homes, and that few of the many
remain and go away without knowing that Oxford
has been to them a fresh home-circle of thought and
purpose, whence aU carry in turn aspirations and
lasting memories. If you can but crown your Hves
here with true Amaranth, there wiU be no sorrow in
the long remembrance.
Let me point out to you some evidences of the
change which has set in : —
Seventeen years ago there was preached from this
pulpit a series of Bampton Lectures One object of
which was to show the failures of certain philoso
phies, and the mischievous tendencies of others.
These lectures were much listened to, and more read.
They excited a great deal of controversy. Amongst
hostUe critics some considered the lecturer unfaithful
to philosophy itself. Other some were of opinion
that he attached consequences to certain philoso
phical systems, not intended by their authors. In
short, they questioned the equity of his interpreta
tions. I mention this unfriendly criticism solely with the
view of impressing upon your minds one remark-

Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 1 1
able fact. People in those days could scarcely credit
the existence of a nineteenth century Atheism.
Deism was a possibility, — so was Pantheism : but
who ever knew an Atheist ? What a change has
come over us now ! We have buildings set apart
for the propagation of Atheism. There are journals
devoted to its advocacy, or (as the writers think) its
demonstration, in one at least of its shapes. I say,
in one, because Mr. Stuart Mill divides Atheism into
two forms : first, the dogmatic denial of God's
existence ; secondly, the denial that there is any
evidence on either side, which (he adds), for most
practical purposes, amounts to the same thing.
You may feel surprised at hearing any Atheists
spoken of as Dogmatists ; but French Positivism, in
its early times, maintained that to assert Atheism
was to dogmatize, and to show oneself a bigot. A
person might as philosophically be a Theist as an
Atheist." The right course was to assert that aH
knowledge on the subject is impossible. Parisians
are, however, addicted to neatness of statement ;
and this may predispose them to Dogmatics. At
aU events, they made progress in the bigotry of
Atheism. We have it on Communist authority that
the Eevolution of 1871 was atheistic. The same
journal teUs us that this fact was a sufficient reason,
and constituted the reason, why the sacrifice of the
Archbishop of Paris was urgently — nay, imperatively
— demanded. " We," (said these Atheists,) " owe it to
ourselves — we owe it to the world." The world did
look on ; but perhaps the Archbishop's murder may

12 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. t.
not have altogether advanced the cause of dogmatic
Atheism throughout the whole world.
In our own country, Dogmatism of this sort is
upheld, amongst what may be termed the lower
middle-class, by Fatalists. Nothing draws more
rapturous plaudits from such an audience, in an
atheistic lecture-room, than the plain assertion that
man is a machine ; that he is driven by natural law
in the same sense that a splash of mud is thrown
by a carriage-wheel. Whatever wickedness he does,
the fault is in Nature, not in him. And he need
not fear Eetributive Justice. Eetribution would in
itself be unjust. Neither is there any Hfe where
justice can be done.
Amongst educated circles, dogmatic Atheism is
best known by feeble imitations either of Strauss
or of Haeckel. The former passed from sceptical
Theology to the denial of Theism. The latter en
grafted upon an extended evolution-system certain
metaphysical theories, which landed him also in
Atheism. Men belonging to either camp are usually
bigots. One class tells us that belief in God is an
outrage upon their religious feehngs. The other
describes all writers and speakers as unscientific
idiots, if they reach any conclusion short of atheistic
Mechanism. I have said enough to show you that there is a
change since 1858. Let me now direct your thoughts
to the second kind of Atheism mentioned by Mr.
MiU. It is by far the more widely spread, and is
much more likely to gain influence in a country

Lect. I.] The Subject in Perspective. 1 3
which calls itself "practical." To say "There is
no God" wiH be held by most people the saying of
a fool or a dreamer of abstract dreams. But to say
" There is no evidence that a God exists" is quite
another thing. It saves the labour of some non
commercial reasoning ; it serves as an apology for
rehgious indifferentism.
A curious history attaches to this last mode of
denying God. Eather more than a century ago,
Scotland made France the present of an " Easy
Philosophy." This was the name given by David
Hume to his own system ; and he meant to place it
in contrast with more abstract reasonings which
seriously attempt to determine, in one way or
another, the great problems of thought and life.
Hume's " Easy Philosophy" was an irony — a purely
sceptical contribution to what was called the French
Illumination. Compared with some other con*
tributors, his ironies seem modest. Most here have
no doubt heard the story of Hume's seventeen
dinner companions, who accused Voltaire of narrow
ness because he was a Deist, while they themselves
were Atheists. Hume died before the first French
Eevolution; therefore we cannot tell what its
influence might have been upon his mind. But the
remarkable point is this : when dogmatic Atheism
feH into disrepute, Hume's Scepticism survived.
Comte claimed him as his own ancestor, and
endeavoured to requite this country for the gift
bestowed on France. It was, of course, returned
in a condition more systematic and less ironical.

14 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i.
It also underwent much development. Yet, as I
have already noted, it was not dogmatic Atheism, —
and thus far remained true to the sceptical stand
point. StiU, the advance seems very considerable.
Hume thought Deism a very useful doctrine. He
asks one of his correspondents to help him with
arguments in its favour. Comte thought belief in a
Deity superfluous, and therefore he dispensed with
it. He also dispensed with the idea of a personal
life beyond the grave. In other words, he rejected
both. I am obliged to speak in this way of his
teaching, because he loved system as dearly as the
most extreme dogmatizer. Consequently, in dis
pensing with these infinite beliefs, he did in fact
renounce them. Thus, therefore, he forsook the truly
sceptical position, and left to Hume the glory of
continuing its best representative man.
Comte's gift of Positivism to England was not
appreciated whole and entire, as he expected. One
reason is, that in his later days he felt the need of
something more emotional than cold systematization.
A calendar of ceremonial observances was the result ;
and it alienated numbers among his disciples. Yet,
what is now commonly called Positive thinking has
leavened the minds of English-speaking men, here
and in America, to an almost incredible extent. The
advance over Hume has been also maintained. Let
me give you one conclusive illustration of this fact. -
The late Mr. MiU left behind him three remarkable
essays, pubhshed since his decease. They clear up
an enigma which had perplexed MiU's admirers.

Lect. I.] The Subject in Perspective. 1 5
He exercised a reserve on rehgious subjects which
(to quote a safe authority) "perhaps even scandalized
some of the more ardent and on-pressing spirits."
In this posthumous pubHcation are discussed the
aU-important beliefs in God and immortality. MiU
does not aUow them the position of beliefs. He
characterizes them as hopes only, and adds many
Hmitations. StiU, as hopes, he advises us to cherish
them. They are, in his view, contributions to
individual happiness ; they are also useful to man
kind. Here, then, he resembles Hume. Now, for
these cautious predilections Mill is held by .his
friends unfaithful to Positive thinking. He is pro
nounced guilty of aberrations as great as Comte's.
His memory is mourned with a kind of contemptuous
pity. The surprise and disappointment expressed on this
occasion by leaders of Positive thought, furnishes a
fair index to what, in their opinion, is the logical
outcome of their method. It would appear unable to
tolerate even the modest hope that there exists a
God, or that He reserves an immortahty for men.
Such is the attitude maintained by no unskUful advo
cacy. It brings to its advocates personal credit,
praise, and pecuniary gain. What may be the next
stage of its evolution — what the method portends to
its disciples — are questions which people wUl answer
differently, according to their estimate of certain
other elements of change. As a rule, every crisis of
thought and feeling which shakes traditionary beliefs
wiU make, if it does not find, a corresponding crisis

16 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. l
ia affairs. It so happens that, coincidently with the
spread of Atheism and Scepticism, there is going on
a vast social re- arrangement. The movement is not
confined to England. On the contrary, it is felt by
every civiHzed nation, from Eussia, across Europe, to
America, and so round the globe. For example,
Germany is engaged with problems deHberated on by
the CecUs of Queen EHzabeth's day. The heat of
our own sixteenth century mind-friction blazed out
into flames of genius. Philosophy, poetry, and re
hgious thought so ennobled men's souls as to save
our after-struggles from some stains of infamy which
have disgraced other nations. Through the darkest
of our dark days, national morality never became
quite extinct. But I suppose the danger to us now
lies in the comcidence I have pointed out. The set of
thinking takes the less noble side as the trying time
comes on, — just when the hour of social change is
toUing what sounds in some ears a tocsin. Life is
short ; and if Hfe in this world is held by change-
lovers to be all that human beings can look for, the
temptation to make the most of it by injustice,
robbery, and wrong, is very great indeed. One
obvious consideration may seem to counterbalance
the dread. In this country events move slowly when
they depend upon abstract indoctrination. Even
Napoleon had a value for our absence of ideology.
It may be, also, that the great heart of England wiU
remain sound in its abhorrence of foul play. How
ever these things turn out, we shaU aU agree upon
one maxim — national, European, world-wide. There

Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 1 7
can be no true progress for mankind, either physical
or social, without a corresponding healthiness of
moral insights and beliefs. And the reason is plain.
If these are weakened, public opinion alters its
current, or loses its vigorous tone ; there is risk either
way, and it is quite possible both risks may occur
together. In considering the perU of social change, it is
not easy to forget that the disturbing idea of indi
vidual moral change is raised in every honest spirit —
particularly every honest young spirit. Now, I am
quite sure that disbeHef of the kinds I have been
describing must make a very great difference to any
human being. Every one of you who has to choose
his lot in life wiU choose, if he disbeheves, differently
from the choice of a firm behever. And every one
whose Hfe is fixed wiH work out its perplexities
differently. Of one fact you may, with me, feel
confident. To be reaUy good — a thing much greater
than being sentimentally good — is a very hard choice
for three-fourths of mankind. It is hard to be poor
and honest; it is hard for better-off people not to
requite crooked poHcy by crookedness ; it is hard for
every one to speak the truth : and we aU know that
justice is harder than generosity. When we think
on these things, they bring to mind St. Paul's pre
cept to " endure hardness." We remember also St.
Peter's exhortation that Christians should be as
" strangers and pilgrims," — strangers from the
immoraHties and disbehefs of a mixed world, because
pUgrims to a purer world than this. But to act upon
2

1 8 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. I.
these maxims, most of us want first to answer
Pilate's question, "What is Truth?" If we feel
a certainty, or probabihty, that social and individual
goodness depends upon such and such beUefs, this is
a very strong reason for investigating them. But
the final aim of our investigation must be to discover
whether they are ascertainably true.
I have now explained why it is that I feel in my
inmost soul a deep longing and desire to make you
companions in my own certitude. The problems I
wish to discuss with you are amongst a small number
of earnest problems to which we may accommodate
the Socratic position — that wrong-doing and igno
rance are identical. No man can be cold or half
hearted in respect of them, unless their true nature
is more or less hidden from his eyes, — so paramount
appears their ultimate issue.
Along with the first beginnings of history the vast
debate began : Have moral Eight and Wrong neces
sarily opposite issues ? When Cain slew Abel, which
was the better, the happier man ? One of these,
" being dead, yet speaketh." It is no less true that
the question of Eetribution, as at first mooted, turned
upon consequences to follow in the life now present —
upon joys and sorrows over which death draws a veil.
A hoary head found in the paths of righteousness is
a crown of glory ; but the grey hairs of the violent,
the unjust, and the treacherous shaU be brought
down to the grave with blood. Or, next, if the evil
doer escapes, "fret not thyself"— his chUdren must
be houseless, and beg their bread. Worst of all,

Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 1 9
when birth-sin becomes the punishment of sin com
mitted. The law of visiting the iniquity of the
fathers upon the chUdren unto the third and fourth
generation of them that hate God, is recognised in
our nineteenth century as a biological law : it is
called by the name of heredity. In England and
elsewhere, philanthropists have been for some time
at work devising reformatory schools and other insti
tutions, to mitigate the social consequences of this
direst of all known diseases. It is now found true,
as it was at the era when the Second Commandment
was written, that the degradation or loss of the
spiritual idea of God is the hardest obstacle in the
way of elevating crime-debased children to a higher
moral sense. This heredity — this stern conception of
Eetributive Justice — is in our day a generalised fact
of social science : it was accepted as an Article of
Faith in the days of the Old Testament.
But, before the close of that ancient Canon, there
was a visible widening of the horizon. The march of
time brings with it a march of foresight. We indi
vidual men and women are aU members of a body
corporate. We can say, " This people is my people,
and their God my God." The good or evil which is
slow to drop upon ourselves, or our generation, will
assuredly befaU our race. And this wider conception
is again conformable to the most modern doctrines of
Sociology : " What the units are, that will be the
aggregate." You cannot pUe cannon-balls into the
shapes you build cubes of granite. And in living
forms there are forces, the function of which is to

20 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i.
resist disintegration. If, now, we imagine these turned
into repeUents — no longer uniting forces, but posi
tively disuniting — we shall have a Hvely image of
the effect of demoralised opinion. Class repels class ;
man flies off from man. A people whose inward Hfe
is sound survives outward attacks, times of misfor
tune, panic, and depression. A nation moraUy half-
dead faUs asunder. It has sown the wind ; it shaU
reap the whirlwind.
The convictions reached, before life and immor
tality were brought to light through the Gospel,
were very strong. Put into calm English, they
may be thus stated : —
There is substantive Eight, and its contradictory
is Wrong. These two are for ever irreconcUeable.
Eight shaU be crowned at last ; Wrong shall be
finaUy defeated.
Under aU wrongful tyrannies the righteous might
say, "Art Thou not from everlasting, mine Holy
One? We shaU not die." Throughout every kind
of calamity he might keep a personal confidence : —
" I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will joy in the God of my salvation." *
If Hfe itseU became desperate, the righteous hath
hope in his death ; and the end of that man is peace.
When St. Paul described the Christians' triumph, he
made but a shght change in the message of Hosea : —
" 0 death, I will, be thy plagues ;
0 grave, I will be thy destruction." f
* Hab. iii. 18. f Hosea xiii. 14.

Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 2 1
And the first Church was consoled by the remem
brance that, before themselves, " others were tor
tured, not accepting deHverance, that they might
obtain a better resurrection."*
I need not adduce paraUels from the nobler classics.
You wiH not easily forget why Antigone chose a
Hving sepulchre : you have all read, or to speak
truly, you have aU seen, the Furies of Orestes. They
portray the eternal laws which Socrates desired to
meet with a quiet conscience. Therefore he stayed
in prison, and was content to drink the hemlock.
Nay, more, — he enjoined a sacrifice to iEsculapius,
whose cup cured that disease with which the un
moral atmosphere of Athens had oppressed him.
We all feel how, in the Socratic tragedy, there is
an approach to the New Testament.
We feel, too, that the Christian idea of Eetribution
is altogether emancipated from the Hmitations of
the ancient Theocracy. It rests upon the distinct
facts, that here we have no continuing city, but we
seek one to come. The individual behever is taught
to look broadly upon Hfe, and to know, for a cer
tainty, that temporal power and prosperity are very
far indeed from being indications of the favour of his
God. For example, in those days the Eoman Empire
had its course to run, and during that period there
remained to it the golden sceptre, the iron sword,
the purple vestment, — even though the sceptre was
an instrument of unlawful tyranny, and though
sword and vestment both were dyed with blood.
* Heb. xi. 35.

22 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. I.
Neither could the Christian expect to be above his
Lord,— that Man of Sorrows, to Whose image a pre
destined conformity was, for each one, the strongest
assurance of his hope. Being reviled, he was not to
revile again ; being persecuted, he was to suffer it — ¦
committing himself to Him that judgeth righteously.
But let emperors and peoples, gainsayers one and aH,
, tremble ! For they must, one and aU, stand before a
judgment-seat, that every one may receive the things
done in his body, according to that he hath done,
whether it be good or bad.
This, then, is the New Testament answer to the
two main questions which are for ever agitating the
great heart of Humanity. A life is set before us
which its worst despisers must admit to be brotherly,
pure, noble, sublime. How these Christians love
one another ! How faithful they are to their Leader,
Christ ! They despise riches, torments, pleasures,
death ! Can we, think you, look back and say that
their life was not only subHme, but Happy ? What
is the verdict of you who are here this morning ?
Would you give the bene vivere of our old friend
Terence for an Apostohc Euthanasia, together with
an Athanasia to foUow? The most Platonizing of
EngHsh bishops thought of the Hfe which now is,
when weighed against that which is to come, as of
a single night passed at a wayside inn. The Port
EoyaHst exclaimed, " Let us labour and suffer; we
have aU eternity to rest in." One who, fighting
with wild beasts, was a spectacle to angels and men
reckoned " that the sufferings of this present time

Lect. I.] The Subject in Perspective. 23
are not worthy to be compared with the glory which
shaU be revealed in us."
Why should I say more ? Most of you have asked
your own hearts how far you could count it aU joy
to endure hardships ; and whatever your feeling
was, or is, upon the subject, you wiU have seen that
the Christian choice is essentiaUy a waiting for the
Unseen. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also
reap. The event is certain, but the harvest is not
immediate ; neither to sinner, nor yet to saint ! A
great thinker, who thoroughly knew the world, ob
served, " Because sentence against an evil work is not
executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of
men is fully set in them to do evU." * Christianity
has not annihilated the delay ; and no doubt it stiU
forms the real cause why, when a Christian reasons
with men upon righteousness, temperance, and a
judgment to come, so few omit an "almost" from
their conclusion.
Is it not repeating an obvious truth, to remark that
both in excluding the " almost," and also as regards
each practical element of the true life pictured by St.
Paul, Philosophy — if not falsely so caUed — will always
coincide with Faith ? But the philosophic ideal is not
a Person — it is a maxim ; the phUosophic persuasion
is not a supra-rational assent — it is a reasoned-out
conviction. StiU, in both Faith and Philosophy, the
conclusion is an act of WiU : an act so determinate
and so complete that our whole being goes forth
in it. For PhUosophy, as weU as for Faith, this
* Ecclesiastes viii. 11.

24 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i.
volition includes the deliberate choice of a satisfying
future, over a present which is felt, at best, to be
inadequate, — incommensurate, that is, with the vast
longing of Humanity. The same choice impHes that
present happiness is not looked upon as necessarily
the lot of the righteous. The delay of judgment,
the stay of execution, counted by the unbehever as
"slackness," is an admitted factor of moral proof
concerning the Eternal " must be." It is also an aid
to demonstration in the highest school of Philosophy
— the science (that is to say) of Natural Eeligion.
It seems worthy of remark, that there exists one
book of the Old Testament, — a most puzzling book
to the majority of commentators, — which makes this
patience of saints and sages the subject of a religious
dialectic. In the eyes of his censors, Job, the Eastern
chieftain, appeared a guilty man, brought down by
his sins (pride among the rest) to a dunghUl and a
potsherd ; even as we see the haughtiest of Chaldee
despots suffering for his boastfulness, after the manner
of a frenzied dervish. The king was driven from
men, his body wet with the dews of heaven ; and his
understanding departed from him. Job retained his
understanding, held fast his integrity, and asserted
that " The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they
that provoke God are secure;"* whUst "the just
upright man is laughed to scorn." f For, " ShaU we
receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not re
ceive evil ? " I Out of the whirlwind God answers Job,
and teaches him a lesson of diffidence in the presence
* Job xii. 6. t Md. 4. + Ibid. ii. 10.

Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 25
of the Incomprehensible. Yet God decides against
his antagonists, because " Ye have not spoken of me
the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath."*
In other words, Job maintained the theory of
Divine government by general laws ; and, while every
phrase and every figure is redolent of the far East,
he argues Hke a philosophic reasoner, or a modern
Christian morahst. Perhaps we shaU be right in
saying that this book and Ecclesiastes are the two
Scriptural documents which occupy most nearly the
standpoint of Natural Eeligion. Job in his agony —
the Preacher in his disappointment — fix their eyes
upon the God who made Orion and the Pleiades,
— the God who appointed human life and human
labour. They inquire what relation He bears to us
in our hours of sorrow, and when the years come in
which we shaU each of us say, " I have no pleasure
in them." And this is the side of Natural Eeligion
which commands the attention of most men, even
when half-indifferent. Again, the very fact that these
two writers argue, instead of teaching dogmaticaUy,
gives them a very peculiar position. They are, for
both reasons, adapted to minds clouded over by the
part-sad, part-angry spirit engendered by the attri
tion of a jagged life which seems to lead no-whither,
— likewise by that kind of autumnal feeling certain to
descend upon us aU when we burn our dead leaves.
At such times of pause and remembrance, men who
scarcely expect a syllable of answer never refrain
from asking, "Can there be satisfaction for human
* Job xiii. 7.

26 The Doctrine of Retrihction. [Lect. I.
longings beyond the grave ?" and, " Is there a final
distinction between the just and the unjust ? "
Now both these are very principal problems of
Natural Behgion. And I have dwelt on the peculiar
aspect of two canonical books, because the method
of inquiry to be pursued in this course of Lectures
compels us to leave on one side the region of dog
matic teaching, and to proceed as the writers of Job
and Ecclesiastes proceed. Our reasoning must stand
upon other grounds than received doctrines, in order
that it may be allowed its rank among evidences
and scientific arguments. We must therefore treat
these two great problems, and the problems they-
make inevitable, in the light of open questions, to be
thought out by men for whom they are matters of
Life and Death.
You wiU perceive that we are entering on a wide
field of inquiry. Lest it should seem vague Or
indefinite, let us set a mark on the horizon where
we hope to find the meeting-point of earth and
heaven. This point is the Doctrine of Eetribution.
For, if it be a truth of the moral law that Eight and
Wrong are correlated by Good and Evil, and must
severaUy bear their respective fruits at last, we may
even now take up our parable and say, "Light is
sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright
in heart."* But "When a wicked man dieth, his
expectation shaU perish: and the hope of unjust
men perisheth." f That is to say, there is a final
distinction between the just and the unjust. There
* Psalm xcvii. 11. f Prov. xi. 7.

Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 2 7
reaUy is a satisfaction for human longings beyond
the grave. Eetributive Justice, although delayed, is
not uncertain. The moral axiom upon which Eetribu
tion rests — the moral law by virtue of which it comes
to pass — are as sure and as unerring as the firmest
principles and most absolute laws of Nature. This
may be termed our Fact-knowledge of the Doctrine
of Eetribution. It may safely be so termed, because
Morality is (as I shall endeavour to show) not only
one, human fact, but the human fact of our universe.
To a Theist, Retributive Justice appears evidently
enrolled among the attributes of God. For the God
in whom he has placed his trust is the Moral
Sovereign of the whole Cosmos. If we beHeve in
His existence, we believe that justice must be done.
And if not done in this life, then must there exist
some other sphere in which God shaU bring every
work into judgment. Therefore, he that feareth the
Lord is bidden to " trust in the name of the Lord,
and stay himself upon his God." WThereas to the
self-deceived unrighteous it is said, " This shall ye
have of mine hand : ye shall He down in sorrow." *
Hence we see how different roads converge to the
same point ; and in this main belief, underlying
Natural Rehgion, the Moral PhUosopher and the
Natural Theist — if I may thus speak — both meet and
agree. Here, however, we must carefully observe that
Natural EeUgion is by no means identical with
Natural Theology. " There was never miracle," says
* Isaiah 1. 10, 11.

28 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. I.
Bacon, "wrought by God to convert an Atheist;
because the Hght of Nature might have led him to
confess a God." To record the truths discerned by
this light is the business of the Natural Theologian.
He registers them with the object of leading Man to
the confession of a God. Yet for this light to shine,
it is necessary that Man should (in Baconian phrase)
consider himself as Nature's "minister et interpres " ;
he should wait upon Nature with a loving eye, and
translate her meaning into human thoughts. To
succeed in his translation, Man must take with him
the fact that he is not only Nature's interpreter, but
Nature's interpretation- — her "word-book." The rule
of knowledge, as well as of Being, appears absolute,
— that every higher thought, every higher existence,
must explain lower thoughts and lower existences.
This rule would seem to be the truth involved in the
Positive Philosophy of Comte — the vital germ in his
systematizing. How far that growing point has been
fairly developed by Positivism, is a different ques
tion, and foreign to our inquiry. Whatever may be
thought on this subject, none wiU doubt that Man
is visibly this world's highest fact. In him, there
fore, and by correlating him with the world he
inhabits, we shall find its most certain explanation.
Linked in a thousand ways to the world, yet differing
manifestly from it — in the world, yet not truly of the
world — Man is (so to speak) the great supra-natural
element discoverable in Nature. In this spirit, Job
turns his human eye upon the starry heavens, and
infers from their glory and beauty the invisible things

Lect. !•] The Subject in Perspective. 29
of God. In this same spirit, the Preacher examines
human nature itself, and concludes, " Fear God and
keep His commandments : for this is the Whole of
Man."* St. Paul unites both preacher and patriarch.
He maintains that what may be known of God is
manifest both in and unto mankind. His invisible
things are shown us visibly. We may ourselves feel
after and find the Lord. Such, then, is the utterance
of Natural Theology, and upon such grounds it speaks.
Natural Behgion, as strictly defined and distin
guished from Natural Theology, does not need to ask
the previous question, "Is there indeed a God?"
In reasoning out its principles, we may proceed along
very separate paths. One is to assume the conclu
sions of Natural Theology, and argue from them to
the relations wliich they determine, the duties they
impose, and the feehngs they excite, when Man is
viewed as standing in the presence of his God. This
is the easiest way of conducting the discussion ; but
it is not to aU minds a method the most satisfac
tory. Another path sets out from the truth of Moral
Distinctions, and leads to the estabhshment and
definition of the doctrine of Eetributive Justice, as
weU as of the law of its ultimate development.
You wiU not faU to observe that, if the truth of
Eetribution be thus estabhshed, Natural Theology
gains a fresh and confirmatory evidence. And such
a result is too valuable to be neglected in planning
the method of these Lectures.
On the whole, it appears advisable to adopt a line
* Ecclesiastes xii. 13.

30 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i.
of reasoning which unites in itself the advantages of
the two paths just indicated. It wiU be my endeavour
to rest the conclusions of Natural Eeligion — and above
all, its main and most essential doctrine — upon the
truths of Pure Morality. But from time to time,
and at various landing-places of the argument, it will
be wise to compare them with the positions which a
Theist must needs occupy in regard of the questions
at issue.
For example : —
A Theist has answered for himself the question,
"Is there indeed a God?" Upon the grounds
justifying this answer, and upon other correlated
grounds, the advocate of Natural Rehgion may take
his stand. The inquiries he may thus put to his
consciousness are such as these : What difference
does the known existence of a God make to us men ?
What is there in our nature manifestly responsive to
the demands made upon us by a belief in One Who
is Divine ? Is our life now present marked by the
capabilities of such higher things as are suggested by
so much as we can perceive of His Nature ? And
does human life bear the impress — or does it not —
of aspiring towards that nobler elevation which wUl
bring us nearer to Himself ?
Concerning every one of these questions the Moral
Philosopher may ask : How far do the naturaUy
resulting answers agree with the conclusions which
I have already reached by arguing from the truth of
Moral Distinctions ? There is, indeed, every reason
to expect that the comparison will show an absolute

Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 3 1
coincidence between the results of the Moralist and
those of the Natural Theologian. And this coin
cidence is likely to be most clear and complete
respecting the greatest of human concerns — the
tenet of Retribution. God is of purer eyes than to
behold evU. He cannot look on iniquity. Therefore
the righteous shall not die.
From both the comparison and the conclusion,
you wiU draw another most important inference.
Natural Religion differs very widely from Natural
Theology in the fact that it is not an abstract, but
an applied PhUosophy of Theism., As befits practical
science, I shaU, consequently, employ the simplest
order and kinds of reasoning, stated in the least
technical sort of language. And I shall venture to
vary the terms I apply to mental and moral phe
nomena, much as they would be varied by any one
engaged in ordinary conversation. This plan wUl, I
think, yield the most inteUigible mode of expression,
and also the best means for avoiding the mischief
attaching itself to real or imaginary connotations.*
* If any one wishes to understand the risks of connotation, and
how much may, by its aid, be alleged against doctrines thus construed
and misconstrued, — let him read Mr. Herbert Spencer's " Principles
of Psychology," Part VII. chap. iii.
Few thinkers, probably, will consider all Mr. Spencer's connotings
tenable. He supposes, for instance, that the idea expressed by the
personal pronoun " I," must necessarily connote the thought of a
" Thou.'' Such an altruism — as Comte would call this thought — such
a remembrance of his neighbour ever present to every egoist, may
hold scientifically true in Sanscrit Philology : it may be practically
true in the golden rule of Christianity. But is it true for common
life, or in any current system of Philosophy ?

3 2 Tlie Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i.
To this distinction between Natural Theology and
Natural Eeligion, you wUl add one further inference.
Their contrast is broadest on the emotional side.
The evidences adduced by the Natural Theologian
excite wonder, veneration, faith. But Natural Re
ligion is Man's incense, — the incense of his spiritual
Being sent up from earth to heaven. Without this
incense from Nature's interpreter, the world he ex
plains must be so far sUent that no voice speaking
from hence could confess the existence of a God.
The song of the birds in our English hedgerows, the
myriads of sounds which pervade those vast American
forests where Man's foot has never trod, — these, one
and all, in their countless varieties, are the expression
of animal enjoyment, animal affection, and animal
Hfe, in their wonderfuHy diversified phases. It is true
that Man Hkes poetically to depict the lower crea
tion as it were in fuU sympathy with himself. He
imagines that even mists and vapours, when they rise
at the blush of morning, may be participants of his
adoration, fellow-worshippers before the eye of Him
Whom he desires to praise. Yet, in solemn truth, it is
not so. The inexhaustible beauty, the indescribable
loveliness '-of the world we look upon, may aid our
human reason in its delineation of God — may make
our human heart swell at the mention of His name.
In this sense, the whole creation does truly join with
us ; but Man alone can give voice to the sublime
idea. It is his tongue, his divine power of speech,
which must utter the truth that there exists a God
who is our Sovereign, our Father, and our Judge.

Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 33
Our Judge ! This is the crown which Natural
Rehgion places on the moral doctrine and law of
Retribution. For the rightful power and adminis
tration of Retributive Justice are thus centered in
a sublime Personality. " He doth execute the judg
ment ofthe fatherless and widow."* For, "a Father
of the fatherless, and a Judge of the widows, is God
in His holy habitation." \ These texts coincide with
our human idea of Retribution. We do not conceive
of it as merely the bestowal of happiness upon Virtue ;
but rather as the setting right that which is moraUy
wrong. He, therefore, who administers Retributive
Justice, appears in our eyes as in all ways the oppo
site of arbitrary. On the one side, He is no respecter
of persons ; on the other hand, He is no vindictive
executioner. To smite or give justly is to be just.
And shaU not the Judge of all the whole world do
right ? \
There is, we may observe, a tie between men of
ruth and pity, such as that felt by the Indian chief
who petitioned for death by scourging, rather than
the white stranger, though justly condemned, should
suffer it. This emotion, seldom eradicated, except
amongst the ministrants of superstitious torture, bar
barian, pagan, or papistical, makes true Retribution
sorrowful to the Judge. Our Oxonian Talfourd wept,
whUst the criminal he sentenced to die only smUed.
Talfourd did his duty at the cost of suffering to him-
seU. Had he stood by and seen the murderous deed,
* Deut. x. 18. t Psalm lxviii. 5.

Compare Gen. xviii. 25 with Rom. iii. 6.

34 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i.
he would with just resentment have felled its perpetra
tor to the ground. Both these cases— the judgment
painfully pronounced, and the vengeance which might
have been easier— form examples of purely Retribu
tive Justice.
We have thus cleared ourselves a way by which
to approach and gaze upon the real lineaments of
Justice, — Justice embodied in the law which lends to
Death his terror and his sting. Those lineaments
may be stern, but we are sure they must also be
sorrowful; for they are a living Image graven on
our nature by the finger of One who desireth not the
death of a sinner. " Turn ye, turn ye : why wUl ye
die?"* The great and good are apt to confess with
sorrow that they have outraged the law of Nature
and of God. But how often is that law outraged,
without any compunction, by those of us who are
neither great nor good ?
We have likewise arrived at the ideal of Divine
Mercy. By no means capricious, but just, or as men
speak, austere : yet not without traits of what we
caU human tenderness. He, Whom we darkly behold,
is not inaccessible to the pleas of oppressed sorrow
or of inevitable ignorance. His quality of Mercy is
not strained, but droppeth like the gentle dew from
Heaven. Because not strained, but the utterance of
Equity, it is reconcileable with Justice. Or rather,
we may say it is the highest, purest Justice.
The importance — the exceeding utihty and worth
attaching to this view of the Divine judgment —
* Ezek. xxxiii. 11.

Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 3 5
may reasonably appear to transcend all powers of
estimation. If it be true, how vast the truth,
since this selfsame truth naturally appertains to
all worlds of Being like our own ! How great its
value to our world, may be seen by reflecting on the
influence it ought to exercise over our moral des
tinies ; and, according to the law by which moral
destinies rule physical destinies, we must add, over
our whole destination — the whole history of our future
and final development. Take, for example, the social
crisis through which, as I have said, European civiliza
tion — nay, the entire civUized world — is passing. For
many years past men have heard much respecting an
internecine war between Religion and Philosophy.
A war this, which has lingered on with many and
various alternations. It has shown itseK incapable
of decision, and, by the very conditions of the combat,
it may be thought necessarily interminable. Neither
belligerent power seems able to make peace within
its own territory. Religion has been split into fac
tions ranging from Sacerdotalism to Rationalism, and
these two extremes are even now active elements in
its character. The divisions of Philosophy are not
less fatal ; they are probably more profound. On the
one side transcendental beliefs strive tp feed their
pristine fires : on the other side we have the dim
lights, the restricted powers of phenomenology. An
outlook this latter, not reaching beyond the three
score and ten years of mortal life, and therefore
possessing no hold upon affections which claim to be
immortal.

36 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i.
So far as the vision of a purely philosophic thinker
can extend, no approach can be made — at least in our
day — towards a decision of the momentous contest,
save and except through the Doctrine of Retribution.
In this one doctrine there seems to be life and hope.
And the reason is plain: this doctrine is the issue
of a Hne of thought which must exercise a chasten
ing as well as an invigorating effect upon both con
tending parties.
It denies the name of true Philosophy to any
system which does not assert amongst its foundation
principles a severe and independent Morahty. It
refuses to admit the possibility of any real Rehgion,
if divorced from the unbroken sovereignty of moral
maxims. For it maintains that moral Truth known,
practised, and attained, is our appointed human path
way to a sphere of knowledge which is truly Divine.
So that when we speak of Humanity our speech
enfolds within itseH Theology. And in this spirit
St. Paul views the Law as our religious as weU as
our disciplinary schoolmaster.
Such then is the scope and aim of our high argu
ment. Its conduct may be summarily characterized.
My first step must be to depict in some concrete
way what manner of thing is absolute Morality.
This must be so done as to manifest the "why"
of human action. And, along with it, must be
shown by what necessary consequence the "why"
of action may determine the " how," together with
its most dominant circumstantials. These points
will make up the subject of my next Lecture.

Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 3 7
Amongst them, one point wiU stand out pre-emi
nently clear above aU the rest — the belief in a
futurity of moral distinctions. Retributive Justice
to be influential must be inevitable ; to be supreme
it must be absolute. We cannot acquiesce in it as
a permissible tenet, a thought of what may be, and
would be excellent, if true, — a hope dear to us as
a cherished emotion, and beautiful as a moral senti
ment. Our ordeal is too rough, the battle of life too
stern, for such an acquiescence to endure that Cross
on which, as on an altar, must be offered human flesh
and blood, broken bodies, and souls into which the
iron has entered. An aesthetic belief may, for its
lovehness' sake, be dear — almost as the drops which
visit our sad heart. But suppose that heart is to
be pierced — bruised to powder — burned away in a
slow-consuming furnace of affliction : then, if Morality
be anything less than insight and knowledge, the
victim wiH feel that he dies as he has Hved ; that he
has Hved as he was born — in vain ! Whatever is
strong, good, and safe to live by and to die by, must
be the very Hfe-blood of our nature as Men ; whatever
else we think or feel, this we must know and possess.
Or, to speak more truly, it must possess us. So
possess us, that we may be conscious of our human
inability to Hberate our own Being, and, therefore,
our Future from its enduring domination. A power
from time to time made present to our conscience
n0W) — a power which we feel will continue present
always. It is on grounds of this kind that we determine

38 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect, i.
how to act under circumstances of deep trial, when
our moral constancy becomes the subject of some
crucial experiment. And in this manner the " why "
of moral sanctions determines the "how" of choice
and activity.
Next in order, fairness seems to demand that we
should enquire into the main characteristics of such
objections as are likely to be urged against this Hne
of thought. The enquiry need not be long. In
modern day, one definite character pervades them
all. They deny or doubt Man's power of attaining
transcendental truth. According to the strength of
the doubt entertained is the thoroughness of denial.
The objections themselves, therefore, when put into
words, assume different shapes, and are described by
different appeUations. But, running through them
all, we may observe an ascending scale of Phenome
nalism. It rises step by step, from the diffused
Positive thinking which tinctures so many of our
serials, up to full-formed and systematic Scepticism.
Attempts have been made to place Natural Science
in antagonism with transcendental beUefs. They have
faUed (as we shall see) for two reasons. One, that
no science is possible without some universal prin
ciples which are its laws ; and that aU universals
transcend experience. The other reason is, that the
noblest enlargements of our scientific territory are
neither verified nor verifiable, as phenomenahsts and
Positive thinkers assume to be the case. On this
subject I shaU hope to show that a number of writers*
upon whom Mr. MUl's Theism jars ungently, have

Lect. I.] The Subject in Perspective. 39
mistaken, or at aU events have misrepresented, the
Natural Science indagatio veri as practised by our
greatest authorities in this country.
Contrariwise, the PhUosophy to be maintained in
these Lectures asserts the existence of a Truth-power
in Man, capable of apprehending a moral antithesis of
Right and Wrong so axiomatic and so absolute as to
carry with it, by consequence, the reahty of other
transcendental truths. Now the most stringent mode
of testing any system or idea is, after presenting it in
outHne, to take it to pieces and put it together again.
When taking it to pieces we try its principles one by
one, just as if we were sounding separate pieces of
railway iron- work, to see that aU is in travelling trim.
Whilst putting it together again we examine into
the coherence of these tried principles, and consider
whether they authorise our conclusion.
The former part of this process suggests several
methods of trying each separated principle of Thought.
One is to see what difference must be made by the
absence of each, suppose we agree to deny or so far
doubt its vaHdity as to make its elimination appear
our necessary result. It may be found that to eHmi-
nate this same truth means in effect to turn aU truth
out of doors. An example good and apt wUl come
before us in my third Lecture. Deny the laws of
knowing, and you make knowledge impossible.
Therefore you cannot know that the behef against
which you argue is untrue. If any one affirms its
truth you must let him alone ; you at least have no
right to deny it. For in every step of your denial

40 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i.
you employ a law or principle which you have already
denied. In point of fact you have by implication
denied yourself. And to be without the power of
knowing anything is to cease from being a man.
This consequence — a reductio ad absurdum — shows
us that knowledge— the fact, I mean, of knowing any
kind of truth — affirms the existence of some truth-
power in Man. And this proof of its existence is
easUy confirmed by the history of speculative thought.
For instance, both Kant and Hume equaUy asserted
that universal truth and necessary truth are foreign
as ideas from Sensation ; it is impossible that they
can ever be given us by any amount of experience-
As we have said, and shall distinctly see, mathe
matical and modern science comprehend such truth.
They find it there where alone it can be found — in
streams springing out from that fontal weU — the
truth-power which is a dotation and heir-loom of
Humanity. The moment these words are uttered, one is
strongly tempted to reflect upon the first birthplace
and descent of such a power as this. But all similar
reflections I must steadily avoid. My business is
to investigate facts, and, as far as I can, to describe
their real nature, their significance, and phUosophic
interpretations. CoUateral reflections, however fairly
deducible, I must leave to the learned leisure of my
auditors. In pursuing the proposed investigation, I shaU,
for clearness' sake, place the kinds and degrees of
doubt already characterized side by side with my own

Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 4 1
affirmative arguments. The comparison, or perhaps
I should say the contrast, wiU illustrate as weU as
test every step of the putting-together process. It
wUl also, I am afraid, cause some strain upon both
your memory and your attention.
Among these contrasts, the sharpest is the one to
which allusion has been made : I mean, of course,
philosophic Scepticism. , The self-contradiction in
tellectually involved in it has now been briefly noted,
but deserves much more extensive illustration. This
I shall attempt to give in the course of my third
Lecture. There is another way of looking at the contrast.
Scepticism is inconsistent with firm moral beUefs,
because it denies aU real knowledge — aU truth, and
aU truth-power. It does so on aUeged speculative
grounds. During the earher phases of its specula
tions it puts Morality out of sight, but saps the
foundations of the moral code as it goes on. The
sap itself would, in an argumentative point of view,
convince no reasoner ; for it consists simply of
questionable observations upon human life, — such
as the supposed dead-level of society; the absence
of moral differences between man and man ; nay —
what seems more important stiU — the absence of
any tangibly great difference between men and
animals. Yet, points of this kind wiU gain credence
when intellectual truth is conceived unattainable,
when human Reason has been degraded into per
ception and recollection — a sense of proximity, of
similarity, of sequence, — and beyond these small

42 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i.
powers Httle or nothing. But if it can be shown, on
the contrary side, that to degrade Reason ends in
the seH-confutation of the argument employed in
its degradation,— that Scepticism becomes at last
philosophic suicide, — then the intellectual sceptic is
sUenced, and, in the enforced sUence of speculation,
Morahty must resume its sway. For the world
cannot go on without its working movements, its
powerful springs and levers. Let practical truth be
denied, and Morality be reduced to convention, then,
pari passu, peoples and nations become herds of
human animals. Man's nature, like brute nature,
becomes visibly red in tooth and claw. The abso
luteness of moral axioms is historicaUy verified at
the cost of many sorrows. It was so when Jerusalem
feU. It has been so throughout two great French
revolutions. The next ground principle of our Philosophy is
that Moral Truth must, in its own nature, be true
for us, and for all beings constituted like ourselves.
One whole Lecture * wiU not be too much for the
enunciation of this principle. I shall examine the
moral First-truth in connexion with other axiomatic
principles inalienable from the human mind. Hence
you wiU perceive how impossible it is to ostracize
Morahty without obliterating the character and
constitution of Humanity.
In order that this important pivot of my argument
may obtain sufficient iUustration and verification, I
shaU next endeavour to demonstrate that, among all
* The Fourth.

Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 43
the attributes specifically distinctive of Man, Morality
is the one most ascertainably pre-eminent. And I
confess myself unable to conceive a stronger verifying
process than this. For no fact can be more evident
or less disputable than that no amount of meta
physical refining, no subtle theories of science can
ever take us out of ourselves, or make us cease to
be men. To attempt so hopeless a task, is to put out
our natural eyes in the expectation of getting new
ones. Or, we may Hken it to an endeavour after
more just views of things carried out by applying an
eye to the wrong end of a refracting telescope. It is
right and good for us to correct the idiosyncracies of
individuals. We may appeal from them to the proper
attributes of the human species. We may on all
occasions make due allowance for the "personal
equation," — and I ought to add for the tribal and
popular equation also. In fine, we may, or rather we
must, "keep ourselves from idols," and abjure the
u lumen madidum" for the " lumen siccum." The
one is a shadow-haunted phantasy, — the other pure
practical Reason. But we must remember that to
be practical it must be pure in more than one respect.
Pure, not only as we speak of pure speculative
Reason, but morally purified and unspotted. We
can hope nothing from Thought overclouded by
prejudice or partiality; we can hope nothing from
a soul steeped in sensuality or sloth.
To realize pure, because purified, human truth, is
the aim of a Philosophy which does not seek its
purpose by listening to the Tempter's voice, " eritis

44 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i.
sicut Dei "; but, by patient investigation of what is
knowably true to us as men. Knowable, that is, by
our highest attainable reach of Reason distinguishing
us most obviously from brutes. Ascertainable, also,
by its conformity to our essential manhood, in its
breadth and length. Verifiable, by its conformity
with the law of our nobler progress ; a law written
on our moral natures, and repeated in our history.
From what I have said it wiU be seen that my
fourth Lecture, with which this Hne of thought
commences, is almost entirely constructive. As to
the rest — the remaining moiety of the whole course
— I must be brief ; for those Lectures do not as yet
exist even in outhne. Their general plan wiU be to
show that the moral first-ground cannot be main
tained apart from the assertion of a future Hfe after
death and a final distinction in the destiny and
development of good and evU men. This assertion
constitutes what may be caUed the transcendental
element in the doctrine of Retribution. Eeal UtiH-
tarianism leads to its affirmation as a reasonable hope
and probabihty. Independent Morality asserts it as
a fact made imperative on human belief. Whilst
the putting-together process goes on, I shall en
deavour, at each step of the argument, to prove that
a morality of this kind, independent in its code,
transcendental in its issues, necessitates a Eeligion.
This religion is rightly caUed natural; because in
arguing the question of religious Evidence it stands
prior in thought to mpra-natural rehgion ; and is
founded, as a logical system, on the characteristic

Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 45
attribute of Humanity. At the close of each Lecture,
therefore, the step gained in Moral PhUosophy wiH
be viewed as a step gained in reUgious knowledge ;
and wUl constitute, if you please, each Sermon's
practical apphcation. I shall also venture on con
firming my conclusions, by paraUehng them with
the conclusions of Natural Theism. These wiU be
deduced from the principle that, so soon as the
existence of a God is made known to us, we cannot
but discern that our race must have certain deter
minable relations with Him.
As to the arguments. It wUl be right, first, to
demonstrate that the moral antithesis or axiom is
truly and properly Human. One great proof to be
employed results from a contrast of Man's nature
with purely animal nature. It is needful to state
this proof distinctly, because so much has been said
lately on the resemblances between men and animals,
that the undeniable facts of contrast may seem to
have slipped out of mind.
A comparison of the moral — that is, the truly
human axiom— with the axiomatic principle of Induc
tion will, next, show us that the former claims a
certitude of equal, or, to ourselves, of superior strength.
It is also more verifiable than the procedure of apphed
Science. Hence we infer a vast and solemn lesson.
The law of Nature's uniformity carries in itself a
forecast of Nature's dissolution. The law of absolute
Morahty prophesies human permanence when mate
rial nature undergoes that tremendous transformation.
I shall try to compress these related topics into
one Lecture — my fifth.

46 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i.
Another subject, however, and a much broader one,
underlies the comparison between men and animals.
From age to age one mournful idea rises afresh upon
Thought's troubled sea. Human nature and brute
nature cannot be very widely dissociated, because
both have their whole ground of being in the entity
of inanimate nature. This conception in repeating
itself puts on different garbs suited to its several re
appearances. With the advance of physical science,
it has overpassed the mud of ancient Nile, and the
time " Cum prorepserunt primis animalia terris."*
It has swept through many geological periods of
Hfe, — and across periods void of life. It strives to
connect Man with the first substratum ofthe palpable
Universe — luminous matter, endowed with motion,
governed by immanent law, and destined to unfold
itseU not only into worlds but their inhabitants ; into
all that Hves, thinks, feels, fears, suffers, rejoices,
doubts, disputes, or believes. This is a reaUy syste
matized Materialism ; and we are compeUed to ask,
How does its possibiUty admit of being tested ?
The answer appears equaUy short and simple. By
its Law.
To examine this mechanical hypothesis must be
the business of my next, that is, my sixth Lecture.
In law Hes the essence of the whole proof or disproof.
If there be an affinity or likeness, not a contrast or
antagonism, between the law of material Nature and
the law of Man's Nature, then our Faith in Man's
* Horace, Sat. i. 3, 99.

Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 47
survival beyond bodily decay is,, as Mr. Mill reckons
it, a "hope" rather than a belief. If, furthermore,
any Theist or Natural Theologian has attempted to
buUd his system in the manner MiU censures, — either
by a deification of Nature and her law, or by a denial
of the misery and evil existing under Nature's
dominion, and as a consequence of her mechanism, —
such a systematizer must have forgotten or ignored
the words of one who is the greatest amongst Natural
Theologians : " The creature was made subject to
vanity." *
The antitheses to Nature and Nature's law are
moral insight, duty, holiness ; to live and to die for
and in God. But when we state the fuU truth to
ourselves, a practical question arises, than which few
are more serious,— very few indeed more perplexing.
The question runs thus : — How can Man hope in
his Hfe and heart to overcome the antagonism which
he encounters ? to be in the natural world, yet not of
that world ? to use it, not as bound by its law, but as
its sovereign, according to his own free will and for
his own human purposes ? I shall attempt to remove
this perplexity, which so deeply saddened MiU, by no
sort of theorizing, but by a matter-of-fact solution.
We may know that this world is not our aH. And
this knowledge cuts the web which Nature-wor
shippers call destiny and fate. Nay — our Eace has
seen men of like passions with ourselves who have
attained this knowledge, and have Hved and died
in its Hght and' strength. And in their Hves and
* Eomans viii. 20.

48 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. I.
deaths the unmoral contrarieties of Nature are trans
figured into a discipline, a holiness, and a crown.
For no truth can be more certain than this : — If our
human immortality is the triumphant sphere of
Man's perfected moral evolution, then the knowledge
of such an immortality must be an aid and incentive
to present moral endeavours. It must assist and
comfort us in the arduous soul-development impera
tively required by Man's Conscience.
With the conclusion of my sixth Lecture, enough
may seem done to satisfy the requirements of Moral
PhUosophy in general. Enough, too, for elucidating
the doctrine of Eetribution with which we have
specially interested ourselves. But we must not
forget that the reason why we are thus interested
consists in the fact that Eetribution has appeared to
us the horizon-point where Earth and Heaven meet
together. In plain words, it marks the inosculation
of independent Morality — the morality of purified
right Eeason — with the tenets and maxims of Natural
Eehgion. The former teUs us, with the emphasis of
an absolute law, that the performance of much that
is often irksome, and sometimes extremely painful,
is a " must be " imperative upon the human Being as
contra-distinguished from the human Animal. The
latter tells us that a religious conviction, which ought
to be distinguished from the moral sense of duty
or Rightness, is also a birth-gift and heir-loom of
Humanity. In my seventh Lecture I shall desire to show that
both these propositions are practicaUy true. For this

Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 49
purpose I shaU venture upon two enquiries which
are prudently shunned by every person who writes
merely to buUd up a system, — who argues, that is,
for an unmoral victory. You wiU, I hope, feel as I
do, a desire to follow after Truth as far as we can,
even though our gains may seem fragmentary ; and,
Hke explorers in a land stretching its Hmits far
beyond human ken, we can only estimate each real
step in the search by a valuation of its separate and
intrinsic worth. For practical use — the one test of
working Power — it will be expedient to show that
the "why" of moral duty is not an otiose but a
fruitful principle, — that it guides honest minds to the
" how " of action. And this connection between the
sanction and the method of moral right-doing must
form my first subject of enquiry. The second wiU be
of an equaUy practical character. It appears right
that the same moral law should be viewed under a
rehgious aspect, because one proper characteristic of
independent Morality is that, whUst arising from an
insight into truth, it affords also a test of truth.
Never, indeed, could it become an evidence of true
Rehgion, were it not a touchstone of rehgions falsely
so-caUed. The religious man regards it as a law
divinely written on the heart ; it cannot, therefore,
be at variance with any other Divine law. But it
may be much at variance with the law of teachers
who make God's commandments of none effect by
their tradition. Now if this be true, it must follow
that rehgious duty and moral law wiU harmonize ;
they wiU be at one. Whether viewed morally or
4

50 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i.
reUgiously, our duty to our neighbour will be found
altogether one. Our duty to God will to a certain
extent— so far, that is, as God is naturally knowable—
be one. The proof and iUustr ation of this harmony,
this at-oneness of independent Morahty and Natural
Rehgion, ought to be ehcited from an examination of
the conditions under which we are required to do our
duty. Are they such as to coincide with our concep
tion of God ? Of a Being, I mean, conceived by us
not in the Hght of a Judge only, nor a Sovereign only,
but also of a Father and a Friend ?
No enquiry can be more solemn or more anxious.
Were this life all, it would have to be answered in
the negative. But if the moral law be absolute, if
the doctrine of Retribution be a truth, then this life
is not aU ; it is knowably the reverse of all, and the
external conditions of duty with which it surrounds
us are neither harsh nor inappropriate to pilgrims
of hope and patience. And the same is true of the
internal conditions of duty, the laws of vohtion and
soul-development. In this respect, God has, indeed,
provided some better thing for us. He has not only
made a way of escape from temptation, but has also
given us, even now amidst temptations, the victory.
He has done this by consohdating the innermost of
social ties, by conferring on Man the means of entering
into the closest and most powerful bands of union
and communion ; the strength of which is correlative
to his own dangerous weaknesses. And looking into
this Divine institution as into a mirror where Almighty
Goodness has glassed itself, we see that our human

Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 5 1
idea of absolute duty finds an appropriate corre
spondency and complement in the supra-human ideal
of a spiritual society, — of a Church.
With the end of this seventh Lecture the whole
course might close. We shall then have traversed
its lines of reasoning already laid down. We shall
have reached the goal proposed to us — the coincidence
between the results of the Moralist and those of the
Natural Theist. What we conclude from the absolute
truths of Morality, and notably from the doctrine of
Retribution, wiH have been shown to harmonize with
those relations between God and Man which ensue
upon the conclusions of Natural Theology. Retribu
tive Justice underlies this meeting-point ; it underhes
our certitude of a future Hfe, and the glorious super
structure of Natural Religion.
In order, however, that no kind of reasonable
verification be neglected, I shaU endeavour to make
of my last Lecture something more than a summary
and synthesis of the elements of thought already
preceding it.
My purpose is (as I have said) to avoid technical
language, and employ plain and popular forms of
speech. To maintain this rule, I must omit certain
kinds of argument : metaphysical reasoning, for
example, and such psychological questions as belong
to the rise and progress of our common Humanity.
My positions wiU, therefore, rest throughout upon the
facts of our moral nature — the existing constitution
of our Conscience, WiU, and Being, as men. I shall
not attempt to traverse the debateable ground of

5 2 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i.
what is caUed Anthropogeny, nor discuss supposable
conditions prevenient to what we now are : the
embryo states and cradle of life of mankind.
Fact-argument is, of course, the kind of argument
most welcome to the generality of auditors, because
most used in common-sense affairs. But concerning
aU facts of human Life, Thought, and WiU, there is
one difficulty which may at any time be raised. It
may always be said, these are facts only because
men are not reasonable. Men accept as truth what
they wish to believe in consequence of custom, pre
judice, or predilection. Were this a just account of
the matter, the old fable might be quoted against
all human knowledge. Our world of thought would
rest upon an elephant ; its elephant stand on a tor
toise ; its tortoise hang in air ! But the lesson would
tell equally against all knowing, thinking, speech;
against irrehgious creeds as weU as reUgious ; against
doubt, denial, disbeHef. To a practised reasoner,
this and aU other such difficulties appear a cloud-
army. He is weU aware that the irov cttoo, the fulcrum
for the lever, the first-grounds of Reason, must exist
somewhere, or else Being itself must melt away into
iUusive NihUism. But
"Has nugae seria ducent
In mala derisum."
This eighth Lecture, therefore, wiH attempt to
show that such assents as are demanded by the
doctrine of Retribution are not extensions of belief
got by any process— supra, infra, or extra Naturam

Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 53
Humanam ; but truths given us by that truth-power
of Reason to which the apostles appeal, to which all
evidences of Religion appeal, and on which all Man's
scientific knowledge necessarily reposes.
Sciences themselves have their gradations. The
science of metaphysics is defined to be the science
of First-grounds — the account of why we accept
any knowledge or any truth at aU. When I say why
we x accept, I mean why we are constrained to such
acceptance by the very law of our Humanity. I shaU
venture, then, just so far over the metaphysical
border-line, as to prove (I hope successfully) that to
reject or call in question the first-grounds of Morahty
and Retributive Justice is to deny, not only our
knowledge, but our power of knowing — to deny, not
only practical life and reality, but, along with all the
rest, our Beason. For nothing can be plainer than
that if Reason's sovereign gift to us is a circlet of
truth, we are not at liberty to break it up and deal
as we please with its fragments. We have no right
to say, "Let this be treasured as a pearl of price,
— let that be cast before swine." Such unfounded
usurpations might befit the tyrants of Reason ; but
I ask you to be Reason's disciples, — to be sincere
and heart-whole in your discipleship, — above all, to
be consistent.
Thus arguing, I shaU, as on other occasions, sup
port and verily abstract thought by the results of
common -sense, and by our experience of life in the
concrete. On such topics I . hope to cite sufficient
authority.

54 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. I.
My last Lecture must close with what quaint old
Fuller might call a " Pisgah Sight" of Natural
Rehgion. A few words as to Method may be expected from
me. I shall say them, and then have done with
this view of my intended argument. We are about
to deal with first-truths. Let us recall some valuable
doctrine which the ancestor of Oxford logic taught
in his Athenian School respecting them, They cannot
be proved deductively, because, being first, there is
nothing prior from which to syUogize. But we can
prove them in the most palpably stringent manner,
by demonstrating the absurdity and impossibihty of
denying them. Furthermore, their harmony with
other known truths is no mean verification. On
these doctrines Aristotle founds his method.
Our method wUl be a foUowing of Aristotle ; and
the Aristotehan method is the widest possible. Its
first-truths are given us in Consciousness : Aristotle's
Practical Reason — the Lumen Siccum of Bacon — the
Pure Practical Eeason of Kant. We begin, there
fore, by interrogating Consciousness. Next, we are
unable to deny them without affirming that which
is absurd or impossible. FinaUy, they are accordant
with other knowledge. And the more widely these
symphonies are echoed in the different spheres of
human life — science, aesthetic art, phUosophy, emotion,
sentiment, aspiration — the better for our argument ;
because we are Hstening to a concord of the True, the
Beautiful, and the Good.
Our method involves, of course, an appeal to the

Lect. i] The Subject in Perspective. 55
history of human civilization, and some criticism of
what is written there respecting the subjects discussed.
A recalcitrant disciple of Mr. MUl tells us that it was
MUl's partial adoption of this procedure which caused
the antagonism between him and those who have
renounced his ultimate teaching. You may, there
fore, Hke to recoUect the method preferred by them
on our subject. It is extremely narrow, and may
with fairness be described as a dogmatic vUipending
of Human Nature. Their contempt for Humanity is
shown by their dwelling on its lowest traits, and
absciding its nobiHties as iUusions. The circle of
Man's hope, belief, and knowledge thus becomes
" Small by degrees, and beautifully less ; "
tiU truth is reduced to a vanishing point.
My own view of Human Nature includes those
abscided nobiHties. Yet it can never be correctly
accused of Optimism. I argue, not only from the
good which Man endeavours, but from the evU
he has done. The darker aspect is the foU of the
brighter ; and both aspects show the moral vitality
of Man. They do so, because the inexorable social
law deduced from Man's history has not caUed good,
evil ; nor evil, good. If you hesitate to admit this
statement, reflect that it is proved true by the
patent fact of Progress. For progress cannot be
evolved apart from some insight into evU, desire to
root it out, and endeavour to plant and nurture some
goodness in its stead. Should this wide generaliza
tion appear too wide, consider that seH-education —

56 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. i.
the task and duty of us aU— is in miniature exactly
the same thing as social progress on a larger and
grander scale. Consider, likewise, how much moral
insight Eemorse pre-supposes, and remember that
in one sense we all make Death. The sting of death
is sin, and the strength of sin is a law known or
knowable by ourselves.
For aU these reasons, I ask you to agree with me
that the widest feasible method is the safer, as the
more philosophic. It seems evidently safer, because
if a certain kind of truth can be shown to possess the
assenting sympathies of Humanity, — if it appears to
be the indigenous growth and blossom of our nature,
— it may claim a primd-facie probability in its favour.
" There is," says MUl, " a certain presumption of the
truth of any opinion held by many human minds,
requiring to be rebutted by assigning some other real
or possible cause for its prevalence." * Such a method
is also more philosophic. For Philosophy aspires to
represent the widest and deepest thought of Mankind.
Let this thought be adequately represented, and the
doctrine of Eetribution — nay, the whole cycle of
Natural Eehgion — has gained its first ground. Yet
not its whole ground, unless PhUosophy be en
cyclopaedic. Eeasoned-out Thought is far from
being the whole of Man ; although this conception
would certainly be nearer truth than systems which
conceive him as a register of observations. Now,
Natural Eehgion is, as we have intimated, the going
forth of our entire human being towards a trans-
* Three Essays, p. 128.

Lect. i.] The Subject in Perspective. 5 7
cendent human Futurity, and towards an Author
and End of our existence Whom we legitimately
apprehend as transcending both our own nature
and the natural world by which we are in this
present life environed. Its evidences must, there
fore, resemble in variety the evidences of Natural
Theology. Eespecting them, MUl writes : " The
evidences of a Creator are not only of several distinct
kinds, but of such diverse characters that they are
adapted to minds of very different descriptions; and
it is hardly possible for any mind to be equally
impressed by them aH."* A conclusive reason,
surely, for the method which I have proposed.
The subject itself on which we are entering has
attractions for more than one character of mind.
It may reasonably attract the man who, after
deUberation, has chosen for the guide of his life,
Christianity. A harder and less common choice
than most persons seem to imagine. Now, Natural
Eehgion has an immediate relativity with the wider
evidences of Christian Eevelation. These are classed
as internal, and external. Suppose the truth of
Natural Eeligion once accepted, we have already
gained an insight into the previous question under
lying all evidence for Eevelation. We see, in the first
place, why, and in what respects, Eevelation is desir
able. Moreover, we can appreciate its interior fitness
for the needs and shortcomings of our nature. This
kind of appreciation forms an internal evidence of
considerable value. Taking, then, the aspirations of
* Three Essays, p. 138.

58 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. I.
the human soul, its unsatisfied longings and noblest
tendencies, distinct but undeveloped, we acquire some
estimate of the goodness and greatness of Christian
precepts, sentiments, and principles. Such an esti
mate yields an internal evidence more valuable still,
and one which increases in force as we ourselves travel
heavenwards. It thus realizes the ancient pUgrim-
promise, — "As thy days, so shaU thy strength be."
Again, the main external evidence of supernatural
words Hes in an appeal to supernatural works. Ob
jections against miracles whether grounded on phy
sical laws, or on any other basis whatever, all merge
in the doubt acutely suggested by Hume : " Can the
probable strength of testimony outweigh the a priori
improbabihty of a miracle ?" In holding this balance,
the scale of testimony has been deprived of some
weight by the observation that eye-witness is often
mistaken. How much more, then, its repeated
echoes ! The right answer Hes in a scrutiny of the
opposite scale. Are miracles inherently improbable ?
Questionless, they are so, if viewed as isolated oc
currences. StiU more improbable, if resolved away
as facts often are resolved away. But how, when
viewed in the concrete ? If Natural EeUgion be
true and right, they are natural expectations. So
far from being improbabilities, if they were absent
Christianity would be caUed to account for their
absence. Mohammedanism was so called to account;
and the argument has been thought unanswerable.
To a reasoner not as yet persuaded to be a
Christian, Natural Eehgion must appear of the very

Lect. I.] The Subject in Perspective. 59
highest importance. If demonstrated, Eeason and
Hope have now ceased to be at variance. The sup
posed antithesis has disappeared. Our human soul,
if not naturaUy a Christian (as Tertullian thought it),
is by no means atheistic, nor yet sceptical. Least of
aU can it ever be indifferent. At an interval, pos
sibly, but still at no hopeless interval, it places some
kind of trust in a Hving and just God.
To a patriot or philanthropist, what can be more
welcome than the belief that Human Nature is no
lifeless waste, incapable of religious culture, and,
when most civilized, the least visited by that one
warm and repaying hope which can Hft us above
ourselves and help us to "do justly, and to love
mercy, and to walk humbly with our God" ? Such
help is in the hope that this God " wiU be our
Guide even unto death," — in the trust that, what
ever our lot may be now, whatever be our un
satisfied capabiHties of knowing, loving, and of true
upward-looking aspirations, there exists a better Life
more able to satisfy, more adapted to ennoble our
natures. It is a life as yet unseen ; " but if we hope
for that we see not, then do we with patience wait
for it."

LECTUEE II.

THE ANSWER OF CONSCIENCE.

LECTUEE II.
St. Luke xvi. 25.
"Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime
receivedst thy good things, and likewise lazarus evil things '. but
now he is comforted, and thou art tormented."
MY text belongs to the only word-picture of the
Gospel which portrays a soul in suffering,
and also a reverse — another soul in loco refrigerii.
The part of this picture most impressive at all
times is that central point of iUumination where the
Hght of Paradise appears thrown across the shadows
of a gloomier scene. The brightness and the dark
ness are contrasted together, and both placed in anti
thesis with the more passing shades and sunbeams of
this Hfe now present. The seH-indulgent pleasures
of earth are not crowned by fehcity in heaven. The
sorrow and degradation of an earthly sufferer are
not reckoned worthy to be compared with the glory
revealed in him.
Whatever other purposes our Lord's picture may
have been intended to serve, one of its effects appears
reflected in the lives of the early Christians. Nero
stood out before their eyes the vera effigies of that
Antichrist, whose main characteristic it was to shed
the blood of martyrs. The latest known type of

64 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. ii.
Nero's face represents him as a sated voluptuary,
wearing the hard, cold, cruel smUe which indicates
that sensuahty has put on its final phase — the pleasure
of beholding pain. Ordinary seH-indulgence usuaUy
impHes indifference to the sufferings of others ; but
the more debasing kinds of animal propensity always
pass the bounds of indifference, and make the human
beast feel a loathsome dehght in human torments.
"There are persons," says Mr. Stuart MiU,* "who
have a real pleasure in inflicting, or seeing the in
fliction of pain. This kind of cruelty is not mere
hard-heartedness, absence of pity or remorse ; it is
a positive thing, a particular kind of voluptuous
excitement. The East, and Southern Europe, have
afforded, and probably stiU afford, abundant examples
of this hateful propensity. I suppose it wiU be
granted that this is not one of the natural inclina
tions which it would be wrong to suppress. The
only question would be whether it is not a duty to
suppress the man himself along with it."
Such undoubtedly was Nero, and many another
brutal persecutor. Primitive Christians nerved
themselves to endure, by deepening the shadows and
defining the glories which their Master had placed
in contrast : witness the awful scenes drawn by the
African enthusiasm of TertuUian, and the exclama
tions of rapture attributed to tortured and dying
men. As times grew calmer, earnest souls grew calmer
too. A worldly life could expect no beatific issue;
* Essays, p. 57.

Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 65
for it is impossible to make the desired gain out of
both worlds. A steadfast Hfe, so unselfish as to be
void of offence towards God and Man, was acknow
ledged as a high and noble attainment. It was as
if the scenes of a pious and tranquil old age drawn
by Plato had been Christianized and made more
serenely beautiM. The world now present is depicted
as a dissolving view, — that upper world as a city
not built with hands, an inheritance that fadeth not
away. In dealing with the subject of Eetribution, it
cannot be doubted that words exercise a misleading
influence upon thought. For if we put aside the
stronger — I might say coarser — difficulties, raised by
some objectors and to be noticed hereafter, there is
a refined and an almost indefinable dread upon minds
endowed with strong imaginative powers, lest the
pure motives from which they desire to pursue good
ness should become sullied by a reference to its
personal benefits, remembered at the moment of
volition. Such a feehng was expressed in this church
by a former vicar, with his usual felicity of language.
We get a glimpse into something of the same kind
from the attitude assumed by the present President
of the British Association towards Natural Eeligion.
Both in him and in Dr. Newman there is also a
decided trust in emotional feeling or sentiment, as a
foundation for assent to the most sublime kinds of
truth. Trains of thought leading the same way ap
pear blended in the posthumous Essays of Mr. Stuart
MiU. When three such different thinkers are visited
5

66 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. ii.
by an approximately like kind of impression, we may
be sure that it is one which deserves consideration.
Let us bear it therefore in mind as we proceed.
You wiU probably have been struck at the beginning
of your Ethics by the manner in which Aristotle
advances Happiness in his vanguard. He inscribes
on its banner the maxim that it deserves to attract
us all because a substantial, as well as an ultimate,
object of pursuit. This, you know, has given rise to
many controversies on the question of Eudaamonism ;
and they have in turn connected themselves with
enquiries into the nature of pleasure and utility, and
with discussions how far these latter are either aims
or criteria appertaining to human Morality. Any
one acquainted with the language of Hume, Paley,
and Jeremy Bentham, may feel at once satisfied of
the superior purity and refinement of moral character
stamped upon the Ethics of twenty-one hundred years
ago. We meet with a similar phenomenon in Cicero,
who exacts, as obvious duty, rules of commercial
honesty and truth which are utterly ahen from the
age we Hve in ; and which, if enforced from a pulpit,
would stamp the preacher as an enthusiast or Utopian
visionary. Such plain facts raise a presumption
against all theories which make Morality a sort of
social development. No one wUl accuse the Gospel
of having introduced into Ethics pleasurable enjoy
ment, self-indulgence, or seU-interest, as principles
of Christian activity. Neither can we say that
society has regressed since the era of Alexander
or the last days of Eoman oligarchy. We must

Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 67
therefore maintain (as indeed seems to be the truth)
that those lower motives advocated in our eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries are the utterances of a voice
never quite sUenced in human creatures : the natural
language of that side of our being on which we ap
proach animality. Thus viewed, the older and more
noble maxims which we have cited are not expressions
indigenous to pleasure-loving Greece or to brutally
luxurious Eome. They are the reactions of higher
natures against the degraded tones of their times.
0 si sint omnia ! Would that it were always so with
both Pagan and Christian Philosophies !
Leaving Hedonism in shadow for the present, we
may remark that Aristotle was fully aware how even
the most ordinary human comfort, much more happi
ness, is, in this disjointed world, very often incom
patible with virtue. The conditions of Hfe he lays
down for the happy man are, he knows, very seldom
realized. Next, what is to be done when the question
lies between right and suffering ? In moderate tempta
tions, such as are common to man, the answer is clear
to his mind. But it may come to the aicrxxoTa and
Seivorara — the most shameful of intolerable torments.
Here the greatest of systematic pre-Christian moralists
hesitates, where a Christian father would have made
a deliberate stand. Yet one admires Aristotle's hesi
tation. There is no attempt to cover up his shrinking
from torture; no excuse to blind his reader. His
is sheer sympathy, — feUow-feeling with human nerve
and brain. The philosopher does what it is unusual
to do : he puts himseH by the side of a mutilated

68 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. ii.
feUow-creature, and asks, What should I say or do ?
The exact question which three-fourths of us never
ask ! If you wUl steady your thoughts in face of
this question of questions, it wiH become a vast inlet
of knowledge ! There is strong mental Kadapcns, —
a very real purification of the Soul gained by con
templating terrible dilemmas of Eight and Wrong,
Greek tragic issues, Scandinavian myth-enigmas,
and other such dark things which underlie this Hfe
of ours, yet are seldom apparent on the surface of
its much-concealing stream.
Few prose writers of our own age have ever brought
to light so many of these half-hidden (almost always
neglected) horrors, as that author of realistic fictions
who was buried in Westminster Abbey nearly five
years ago. By way of prelude to one of them, he
wrote a brief account of his travels on the Continent,
and entitled it "Pictures from Italy." I will read
one or two passages from his sketch of what he saw
in the Pope's Palace at Avignon. They wiU recaU
to most persons here a dreadful and revolting descrip
tion, which is unfit for recital in this place. As you
Hsten to my short extracts, let me ask you to reckon,
if you can, the amount of untold, unremembered
misery implied in Charles Dickens's narrative. Misery
not Hghtened by one touch of sympathy then ; misery
so unimaginable that tears are never shed over it
now. Misery enacted by men who are to us like
phantoms passed away — the torturers and the tor
tured — yet aU recorded, and their names written
somewhere.

Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 69
"A few steps brought us to the dungeons, in which the prisoners
of the Inquisition were confined for forty-eight hours after their
capture, without food or drink, that their constancy might be shaken,
even before they were confronted with their gloomy judges. The
day has not got in there yet. They are still small cells, shut in
by four unyielding, close, hard walls; still profoundly dark; still
massively doored and fastened, as of old. . . . On, into a vaulted
chamber, now used as a store-room : once the Chapel of the Holy
Office. The place where the tribunal sat was plain. The platform
might have been removed but yesterday. Conceive the parable of
the Good Samaritan having been painted on the wall of one of these
Inquisition chambers ! But it was, and may be traced there yet.
" High up in the jealous wall are niches where the faltering replies
of the accused were heard and noted down. Many of them had been
brought out of the very cell we had just looked into . . We had trodden
in their very footsteps. . . . Then, into a room adjoining — a rugged
room, with a funnel-shaped, contracting roof, open at the top to the
bright day. . . . The Chamber of Torture ! And the roof was made
of that shape to stifle the victim's cries ! * . . . There the furnace
was : there they made the irons red-hot. Those holes supported the
sharp stake, on which the tortured persons hung poised, — dangling
with their whole weight from the roof. ... A cold air, laden with
an earthy smell, falls upon the face. It comes from a trap-door in
the wall. One looks in. Downward to the bottom, upward to the
* It might seem uncandid were I to omit from these pages Mr.
Dickens's strong antithesis between the Inquisition and Christ-like
Christianity : —
" See the stone trough ... for the water torture ! Gurgle, swell, hloar,
burst, for the Eedeemer's honour ! Suck the bloody rag, deep down
into your unbelieving body, heretic, at every breath you draw ! And
when the executioner plucks it out, reeking with the smaller mysteries
of God's own Image, know us for His chosen servants, true believers
in the Sermon on the Mount, elect disciples of Him who never did a
miracle but to heal ; who never struck a man with palsy, blindness,
deafness, dumbness, madness, any one affliction of mankind ; and
never stretched His blessed hand out but to give relief and ease ! "
Compare the speeches of the various high personages in " Queen
Mary" (published since I wrote), particularly the protest assigned to
Cardinal Pole.

70 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. ii.
top, of a steep, dark, lofty tower ; very dismal, very dark, very cold.
The executioner of the Inquisition flung those who were past all
further torturing down here.
" Again into the Chapel of the Holy Office. . . . A little trap-door
in the floor. . . . Behold the oubliettes of the Inquisition ! Subter
ranean, frightful, black, terrible, deadly ! ... My blood ran cold as
I looked down into the vaults where these forgotten creatures, with
recollections of the world outside — of wives, friends, children, brothers
— starved to death, and made the stones ring with their unavailing
groans. But the thrill I felt on seeing the accursed wall below
decayed and broken through, and the sun shining in through its
gaping wounds, was like a sense of victory and triumph."
Place yourself, in imagination, each or any of you,
beneath the vault of yonder rugged room. Picture the
scene at least two or three times, and each time put
to your own heart a problem. Begin by laying aside
the thought of friends from whom, when once a
prisoner, you are severed. Not a soul of them wiU
ever see you again. No one can even conjecture
where you are. You have been trapped, it may be,
in a lonely street, and brought hither under cover of
night. Fix your attention entirely upon yourseU.
In another ten minutes you must undergo the Ques
tion : what answer wiU you give ? WUl you confess
to these men, according to the example of St. Paul,
' After the way which they caU heresy, so worship I,
the God of my fathers, beheving all things which are
written in the Law and in the Prophets " ? Or wiU
you deny your own convictions, and return to a
creed you have quitted in obedience to Scripture and
the Church primitive — that Church which was most
pure and incorrupt ? To do this would be to obtain,
at the very least, easy death ; probably no more than

Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 7 1
a short penance ; possibly, seclusion in a weU-known
monastery. To denounce your friends, and enter the
service of your tormentors as a spy, would be to gain
life and much that makes life luxurious, if not
splendid. Of these last basenesses you pronounce
yourseU incapable ; but as to the former, think
quickly, for you have not much time to think. What
profit shaU there be in your blood when you go down
into the pit ? You shaU go down in silence. No
protest of yours— no word, nor deed, wiU ever be
known : neither the fact of your death, if you die ;
nor yet your existence, should you continue to Hve in
any other vocation than the abhorred one of being a
spy upon your friends. Such is the policy of this
tribunal. In this situation, if Eight and Wrong be thought
to depend on utility or non-utUity, Eight and Wrong
are at an end. Pleasure is a different affair. Some
kinds of pleasures are always accessible to Hving
animals. Eemember what Archdeacon Paley says
about pleasure.
" The greatest quantity of it ordinarily attainable in human life is
what we mean by happiness, when we enquire or pronounce what
human happiness consists in.
" In which enquiry I will omit much usual declamation on the
dignity and capacity of our nature ; the superiority of the soul to
the body, of the rational to the animal part of our constitution ; upon
the worthiness, refinement, and delicacy of some satisfactions, or the
meanness, grossness, and sensuality of others ; because I hold that
pleasures differ in nothing but in continuance and intensity." *
So far the Archdeacon.
* Moral and Political Philosophy, Book I. ch. vi.

72 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.ii.
Such a Hfe as yours wiU not last long ; you may
therefore omit what that eighteenth-century divine
writes respecting the Hmits of time and repetition.
The notion of your being wearied out by the
happiness of pleasure is, in aU HkeHhood, an ab
surdity. Quick, then,— for you deliberate as Damocles
feasted. This Hfe present has some charms left, but not
any connected with usefulness towards your fellow-
creatures ; nor yet with any importance your martyr
dom might possess in their eyes.
The debate is personal, — a question for reasonable
seU-love : a very different thing from that iron
question before you.
The whole matter can be stated in ten words,
— WUl you Hve, compeUed to make your life a
lie? Is it imaginable that any human creature, clothed
in shrinking flesh and blood, would, in so horrible a
moment, faU to ask himseK or herself, Am I sure
there exists an Immortality, — a just requital in a
Hfe after death ? Am I quite certain that I shall
reaUy Hve again, beneath the rule of a righteous
God? If this seK-interrogation is inevitable, does it not
appear that we have found a case in which the idea
of Eetribution wiH form a very essential beUef, and
the thought of our exceeding great reward no im
proper consolation to a struggling half-dead man
or woman? Half-dead with horror, — not on your

Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 73
own account alone, 0 foreboding soul, — but because
near you crouches another being, more dear than the
ruddy drops that visit your sad heart. To this other,
your answer is all significant : one fate enfolds you
both in its grim embrace. No matter who this other
may be, — your daughter, my father ; your sister, my
young friend ; or it may be your affianced bride ; —
whatever that crouching Form may be to you, —
daughter, sister, bride, brother, father, husband of
your heart, — it enshrines the jewel you love best,
the spirit that responds to yours. And life or
death, — ease or the bed of pain and the dark dank
oubhette, — the piecemeal dying and decaying ; —
such is the alternative waiting for the words of your
mouth. We need not pursue a theme so agonizing. It is
one with respect to which Facts that make us blush
for our species have unhappily overpassed the farthest
range of Fancy. Its interest to us now turns upon a
single point. And we may determine it. There are
not twenty persons in this church who would refuse
to die.
You would die, because it must needs be more
terrible to Hve, — to Hve and despise yourself, hate
yourself, condemn yourself, every day of your hfe.
And when Death comes at last, you must needs feel
and know it most terrible of aU so to depart.
You would die, because to Hve must be the exist
ence of a brute animal, and not of a Man. You would
die, because the Choice rests with yourseU. You can
neither evade it, nor throw it upon fate, frenzy,

7 4 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. ii.
ignorance, impulse. It is a choice which caUs out
your central Being. You are face to face with an
issue infinite; and the lot, once chosen, is immutable.
Immutable for yourself, and for the one you love
better than self, — nay, than all the whole world
besides. It is obvious how, in the choice of strangHng rather
than life, the chooser naturaUy bends his eye upon
the behef in Eetribution, whole and entire. How
natural it is to think of the tyrant inquisitor, claiming
to wield infaHibly-directed thunderbolts, as of one
who shaU himseK be stricken : —
" I say to thee, false Priest,
A ministering angel shall my dear one be,
When thou liest howling."
Or, if the sufferer loses the thought of his hateful
tormentor in love and sorrow for the partner of his
torment, then does not that doctrine which affirms
" the recompence of the reward " seem the true non
dolet, — the sole anodyne for the beloved of his. soul ?
To think of that dear one's pain as swaUowed up in
immediate blessedness unspeakable, — to hope that
its vision and realization may sustain the failing heart
of flesh, and dull the anguish of those slow-moving
hours, — shaU we not all say, this is human ; — true for
us, and true for aU beings endowed with Hke affec
tions throughout the universe ? And should we not
say the same of a second thought certain to come
in,— the thought of sharing that same Infinity of
bhss ?

Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 75
Such, then, is the most striking aspect of the
picture we have been contemplating. Let me now
caU your attention to one special circumstance con
nected with it. Those thinkers who fear for their
purity of moral aims, the sHghtest shadow of self-
consoling hope, entertain no such misgiving when
they behold the tears of the oppressed, — of them
that have no comforter ; — while on the side of their
oppressors is power, — but they have no comforter.*
Here the Fountain of Hope seems to spring up in its
proper place : it is, according to the oriental meta
phor, like an eye in a desert land, looking from earth
to Heaven. Could we reaUy believe, that sorrow iin-
moraUy — or even w./>moraUy inflicted — has no appeal;
that injured righteousness is hopeless as the sUent
grave ; — could we divest ourselves of each thought
and sentiment which tells us the exact opposite, —
then the world would indeed appear, through one or
more of its fairest portions, nothing better than a
vast lazar-house ! We should praise " the dead
wbich are already dead, more than the living which
are yet alive." We should say, "Better is he than
both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not
seen the evU work that is done under the sun."t But
in the veiy moment of our so speaking, we should
feel that our speech was at once to God and to Man
untrue. We should recoU from our own disbehef in
horror, and maintain with aU our might, that " God
shall judge the righteous and the wicked." \ " For
God shaU bring every work into judgment, with every
* Ecclesiastes iv. 1. t lb. iv. 2, 3. I lb. iii. 17.

76 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. ii.
secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be
evU."* Having adverted to these truths, we leave them for
the present; simply affirming that they are truths
for us, — true in the fact of their being the essential
glasses and optical arrangements, through which our
Moral Eye looks ; just as there are other optical
arrangements and glasses, never alienated, nor ahen-
able by our human Understanding. And if these
affirmations are true for us, then are they true also
for aU beings in a like manner morally constituted.
Let me now rather caU your attention away from the
end in view, (that of Eetribution,) — and direct it to
those Ethical Distinctions, on the reality of which
our present knowledge of the ultima ratio is surely
and certainly founded.
Turn back your. eyes to the scene we drew. This
(as you wiU perceive at a glance) affords an instance
where the inner and nobler element of our Being uses
its outer envelope as a base mechanical slave, — com
mands it to suffer, to languish, and expire, — and
accounts such absolute sovereignty no unrighteous
usurpation. Is it possible, then, that our Soul can be
but the rhythm of an organized body ? — our Morahty
a weH-tuned music made by nerve and brain ? Were
this supposable, it must naturally follow that when
the face blanches, and every nerve thriHs with anguish,
— when sight and sense almost refuse their functions,
— when the brain itseU sickens and whirls under the
torture, and from sympathy with another's torments,
* Ecclesiastes xii. 14.

Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 77
— then, surely, kinship and birth would assert their
ties, the body would modulate its rhythm, and the
soul yield to the terrible dilemma. Then, surely, the
moral law would become inverted, — iXecus croi (" be it
far from thee ") would become its sentence, — and the
torn flesh gain a respite from its rack.
The same yielding of Soul to body must necessarily
ensue with equal certainty in aH or any of the foUow
ing cases, which have been maintained by sophisti
cated logic, — provided, that is, all or any of them could
be held true. If, in the first place, Eight and Wrong
were mere modifications of pleasure and pain. If,
again, our sense of Duty were simply a transformed
sense of earthly Interest. If, furthermore, we could
know nothing of a Good higher than gross Corporeal
good. FinaUy, if Truth and Morahty had no eleva
tion, no superiority, when compared with sensual
enjoyment, or with cHcumstances easy and useful to
the sons of clay. Were any of these propositions
true, the Soul could never command the body to
suffer. Each sufferer's counsel to his best beloved
would repeat the " Be it far from thee " which Christ
pronounced the voice of Satan, heard in the person of
Simon Peter. But let these propositions be esteemed
false ; — and, contrariwise, we hear Duty speaking a
peculiar language, — far — very far different from the
accents of physical pleasure or pain, of expediency
and utility, of all else that measures the Immortal
Conscience by a mortal standard — or of aU that
doubts or denies its ImmortaHty. And this language
of Duty is a Tongue spoken by Men, — it may be by

78 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. n.
other reasoning creatures. Perchance, it is one
amongst the many tongues of Angels.
Yet the savans of the last century boldly asserted
that Morahty was nothing better than weU-dressed
usefulness. Many of our young thinkers now are apt
to speak of Bentham or Mill as the chiefs of Utilita
rianism ; — forgetting its Hneal descent from the
speculations of David Hume.
" This circumstance," he says, " of usefulness has, in general, the
strongest energy, and most entire command over our sentiments. It
must, therefore, be the source of a considerable part of the merit
ascribed to humanity, benevolence, friendship, public spirit, and other
social virtues of that stamp ; as it is the SOLE source of the moral
approbation paid to fidelity, justice, veracity, integrity, and those
other estimable and useful qualities and principles." *
Sentences, these, as wide and incisive as anything
that Bentham ever wrote. They are, also, in har
mony with the general tenor of Hume's other moral
maxims ; — strung, as it were, upon the thread that
runs through all his Sociology. We may grant that
more recent rhetoric is often more vigorous. As, for
example, when Bentham writes, or is supposed to
have written, —
"The talisman of arrogance, indolence, and ignorance, is to be
found in a single word, an authoritative imposture, which in these
pages it will be frequently necessary to unveil. It is the word
' ought,' ' ought or ought not,' as circumstances maybe. In deciding
you ought to do this, you ought not to do it, is not every question of
morals set at rest ? If," he continues, " the use of the word be
admissible at all, it ' ought ' to be banished from the vocabulary of
morals." t
* Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, Section UT. Part 2.
t Deontology, I. p. 32. Though published professedly from Ben-
tham's manuscript, some doubts have been thrown on his authorship :
a point of no consequence to my use of the passage.

Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 79
Strange, that the author of this edict of exile
should never have reflected that to require for
Utility's sake the ostracism of " Ought " from our
vocabulary, is to confess that this same " Ought " —
this verb of Duty — is, after aU, a distinctly Human
utterance, — an utterance which lives and breathes
through the noblest languages of Man. It gathers into
itself the idea of an inward constraint which alone is
perfect freedom ; of a noble mark at which the Spirit
aims ; of a soul-culture which is the most Beautiful as
well as the Best. For, as Undine truly says, every
creature aspires after that which is higher than its
firstborn self. The Law of the Sublime is written on
the nature of the lowly ; — and Man, who is the highest
of aU, is also the real Voice of the world. He inherits
and explains it, as its Tenant, its Interpreter, and
its Spokesman. And in this respect the " Ought to
do " sounds to human ears as something more than
a rule for our Moral governance ; — it is in itself a
prophecy of better things yet to be revealed in us.
That the utterance of Duty is reaUy prophetic, as
weU as supreme, may appear a verified fact, if we
revert in thought to those ages when Moral Truth was
most lavishly tested by imprisonment, torture, and
death. Why did the Babylonian Captives defy the
tyranny of the great King,- — or the Maccabee victims
resist the wiU of Antiochus ? Why did Christian
Martyrs undergo all that the barbarism of Eome's
camifces could invent ? Why labour, as bondslaves
maimed and miserable, in underground caverns for
ever banished from the common sun, the goodly earth

8o The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. ii.
and air ? The reason in each case put on the reh
gious garb of its own age and period ; but in no case,
probably, was there insight as to the present mun
dane issue. There was, doubtless, many a hopeful
thought directed to the supra-mundane sphere. There
was a behef, too, that he who fought against God, —
Epiphanes, Nero, Antichrist, — fought for his own
destruction. But to us the result has become wide,
deep, firm, beyond all possibility of anticipation.
The blood of the Martyrs has been the seed of the
Church ; and many a fair harvest-field has grown
golden through its vitahzing force. That blood has
also germinated into the choicest plants of our
Church's vineyard, — rehgious freedom, — the freedom
of Conscience, Eeason, Will. I say WiU, — for WiU
was tried against iron, — and came off victorious from
that grim conflict. The primitive martyr who bore
pain died in hope ; yet unconscious of the benefit
which would foUow to mankind, — a benefit which our
own Anglo-Saxon race seems Hkely to make world
wide. And the same is true of the period when our
English priests and bishops triumphed over Marian
degradation, fetters, and flame. The proverb, hap-
pUy vulgar in England, that " Honesty is the best
Policy," represents in homely phrase a maxim made
absolute by the Moral Law : that right doing must
finaUy prevaU — and prevaU for final good. Yet,
how this prophetic maxim should receive an earthly
accomphshment, — Duty never waited nor asked to
know. Duty accepted with certitude of faith the
affirmed eternal " Shall be."

Lect. ii. ] The Answer of Conscience. 8 1
To see the absoluteness of this truth, we must
examine its elements one by one. Most of them are
involved in the example chosen as the' main subject
of this Lecture — suffering for Conscience' sake. But
to be appreciated, they require separate iUustration.
Observe, first, as flowing naturally from my latter
remarks, one salient point which may be caUed the
Paradox of moral performance. The very thing
which seems to coarse perceptions unhkely to be
obtained by Self-Denial, is the goal reached, — the
prize enjoyed as its inevitable consequent. Take,
for example, the case of an ascetic philanthropist : —
" If," says Professor Grote of Cambridge — " If a man's life is to
be spent in the service of his fellow-creatures, in promoting a ma
terial happiness for them, he must not have the idea that a material
happiness is what he wants for himself; he must find his own happi
ness in the success of his labours, and in the sight of their happi
ness ; where indeed he • will find it most abundantly, and in a form
far more real and intense than any material happiness could be :
so that philanthropy is the best self-love, always under the all-
important consideration, (which renders vain a good deal which
philosophers have said upon this subject,) that it is not from such
policy, and with a view to the happiness of self, that it is practised."*
The truth here is plain. Were Philanthropy con
taminated with Self-love, it would cease to be
Philanthropy. It would become that trade-benevo
lence, which has disgraced many a public character
in England and America : a sort of benevolence
which in this country, happily for our morals, has
been from time to time requited by exposure and
criminal degradation.
Philanthropy is the opposite of Self-love, — they are
* Grote's Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy, p. 104, note.
6

82 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. ii.
mutual exclusives ; the very thought of the one con
sumes, like a flame of fire, all thought of the other.
And yet, paradoxical as it may seem, the Mint of
Nature and of God has stamped Happiness — pure
and elevated happiness — on the obverse of every
medal inscribed with the legend of self-control and
seH-devotion. It is the same paradox as the great
heathen's assertion, that although perfect happiness
is attendant on perfected Virtue, yet the votary of
pleasure or self-gratification wUl inevitably ruin both.
How often has this pulpit echoed with lessons of
Asceticism, more or less refined ! And how many
men of high aims and pure conscience are better and
happier for those lessons ! When one thinks of such
realities, one feels proud of one's own University,
and glad to be a missionary to its nobler youth.
The paradox of Philanthropy is likewise the para
dox of Martyrdom. The grand difference is that the
medalhc obverse — the Martyr's crown — pre-supposes
a Heaven, where bright things will shine their
brightest. Our next step may appear easy in comparison with
the first. It may seem a Hke, but less, paradox to
say, that Usefulness is best secured by a purely
ethical disregard — nay, contempt— of Utility. This
consequence turns, no doubt, on the tone and temper
of mind produced ; and an observation of these effects
cannot but be instructive. Theoretically, the asser
tion of Eight and Wrong, in opposition to Expediency,
is supposed to harden a character. Independent
Morality has been associated with sternness ; while

Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 83
general considerations of utihty, and an eye to con
sequences, are said to soften men's dispositions, and
make them tolerant. But facts do not bear out
either conclusion. In the School of Bentham, bene
volent Utilitarianism flowered, — and the elder Mill is
ever eulogized as its pride. Mr. Grote, the historian,
had opportunities for observation, was a friend of
"the Benthamians," as he terms them, and was not
the man to set down aught in malice. Yet his cen
sure points to cynicism, asperity, and something Hke
detraction.* If, then, such is the influence of a noble
regard to Utility, what will be the effect of an ignoble
and contracted SeU-interest ?
In truth, the self-regarding question, " Who will
show us any good ? " is an up-growth no more indige
nous to Moral Eeason than it is to the soil of Faith.
The answer in all ages is the same : The light of
supreme Truth is also the light of the supreme Good.
But, as the sun darkens aU earthly fires, so does
* Mr. Grote's impression may be distinctly gathered from a letter
printed by Mrs. Grote in her Life of the historian : — " G. Grote to
G. W. Norman, May 1819. London. ... I have breakfasted and
dined several times with Bicardo, who has been uncommonly civil
and kind to me. I have met Mill often at his house, and hope to
derive great pleasure and instruction from his acquaintance, as he is
a very profound thinking man, and seems well disposed to communi
cate, as well as clear and intelligible in his manner. His mind has,
indeed, all that cynicism and asperity which belong to the Benthamian
school, and what I chiefly dislike in him is the readiness and seeming
preference with which he dwells on the faults and defects of others —
even of the greatest men ! But it is so very rarely that a man of any
depth comes across my path, that I shall most assuredly cultivate his
acquaintance a good deal farther."

84 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. n.
Eternal Truth, (which is one side of the manifoldness
of Good supreme,) obscure and utterly eclipse the dust-
born maxims of selfish calculation. It may appear,
in an argumentative way, to thee and me, 0 logical
controversiahst, that we should each of us, above
aU things, secure our own selves. But suppose the
thought of a so-seeming Expediency poisons the fount
of virtue and uncontaminated happiness ? Suppose
the self-interested pursuit ruins our best and highest
SeU ? Shall we not thereby live to frustrate our own
logical conclusion, — to stultify our rule of choice, —
" Et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas ? "
Had the faithful, in the Papal Inquisition at
Avignon, chosen to Uve, would Hfe have been worth
the having ?
This instance may remind us to enquire how
Expediency prospers ? Did the Massacre of St. Bar
tholomew prove a final Utility to France and Eome ?
Has Spain been tranquilHzed by her ages of Inquisi
torial decimation ? When the Eomans crucified six
thousand slaves at once, because it was politic so to do,
was such policy a symptom of vitahty or of decay ?
Did the Jewish state grow vigorous by her ruler's
base Utihtarian maxim, "It is expedient for us that
one man should die for the people"?* Was this
Expediency the language of Moral Eight ? With as
much falsehood, and as Httle truth, we might say
that vox populi was vox Dei, when the people cried
out, " Crucify Him ! Crucify Him ! "
There is, indeed, a very similar lesson taught us by
* S. John xi. 50.

Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 85
the High Priest and his citizens. The infaUibiHty
of the People, and the certitude of the supreme law
of human advantage, are both negatived. Yet both
are kindred doctrines. Here is a case in point : —
" The community," wrote Mr. James Millr in a passage justly
castigated by Lord Macaulay — "the community cannot have an in
terest opposite to its interests. To affirm this would be a contradiction
in terms. . . . One community may intend the evil of another ;
never its own." *
Like other verbal contradictions, this one does not
hold when applied to realities. Communities, like
the individuals composing them, act every day from
interested motives in a manner most effectively
opposed to their own interests.
Nothing is more ordinary than to hear a man com
plain that his life has been a failure, — for which he
has only to blame himself and his advisers. Nothing
is more historical than to find a community taking
vengeance on some political scapegoat — some Pro
fessor of Statecraft, who never could have persuaded
his fellow-countrymen, had they not been seH-per-
suaded into hearing him, and adopting his ww-moral
expedients. * For both passage censured and strictures referred to, see the
Revieio of Mill's "Essay on Government" in the Miscellaneous
Writings of Lord Macaulay, about two leaves from its commence
ment. Early in this paper, the critic remarks on the singular ten
dency of Utilitarians to do as we shall find M. Comte guilty of doing,
— i.e., to substitute assumed or a priori principles for the slower and
more careful process of Induction. The same tendency leads such
reasoners to neglect verification by experience. Compare Macaulay's
strictures — pre-eminent as specimens of his peculiar debating power —
with Huxley' on Positivism (Lay Sermons, p. 162), J. S. Mill on
Comte (pp. 83-5); and with pp. 91-2 post, and footnote appended.

86 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.it.
Let us take by way of illustration a case often dis
cussed by leaders of the People, and almost always
wrongly determined.
That the good citizen should yield his own manifest
private advantage, for the sake of a fairly probable
pubhc good, is an evident dictate of the Moral Law.
Any real lover of his species would be the first to
confess and act upon it. But does the Moral Law
equally countenance any body-politic which makes a
practice of over-riding the rightful interests of its
individual citizens ? View the sacrifice from both
opposed sides, as a spontaneous act benevolently
done, or as a forced " benevolence " — an exercise of
summum jus. It is plain that many communities
would pronounce one and the same thing to be in
both cases expedient. Yet, in the long run, the
adverse moral rule of respect for individual rights
wUl certainly be found to coincide with social well-
being — understood in its widest acceptation. We
may here reflect with sorrow how few States, large
or small, have at any time learned the lesson, Fiat
Justitia, Coelum runt. We may also draw an obvious
inference that the Moral Law never does command
the thing which is -inexpedient, nor yet does it com
mand the expedient thing because it is expedient. It
commands the act, because, being expedient, it is
also right, just, and equitable in foro conscientice. A
further plain inference is that the very fact of this
double consideration of the Expedient and the Moral
establishes an intrinsic distinction between our two
human faculties consulted — our sense of what is

Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 87
useful and our sense of what is right. They may
agree, or they may not. If they do agree, so much
the easier our course. If they disagree irreconcUe-
ably, in reaHty and not in phrase only, the supremacy
of Eight ought to be admitted. And (as we have
seen) there is reason to believe that its admission
must be honest and honourable in the first place ; in
the second, it will be found at last a worldly-wise
course of action.
Yet the fact appears undeniable, that some contest
between the apparently Expedient and the apparently
Eight, is an occurrence which must always be ex
pected in a world hke ours. Examples are written in
every book of Thucydides. Examples are written
in the book of every human life. It has, there
fore, become a question urgent upon the morahst, —
Can we discover a plain "rule by which such ques
tions shall be determined, without a show of Uto-
pianism on the one side ; on the other, without any
reproach of unworthy compliance with base motives
and impulses more germane to the brute than to the
human creature ?
Several answers have been suggested, as solutions
of this practical difficulty. One rests its efficacy
upon the culture of our Moral sense — a hope shared
in common by philanthropists and legislators at
almost all periods of history. Let a man cultivate
his Conscience as the garden of his Soul, — as the
vineyard of bis Lord. Few of us are ignorant what
acuteness of insight becomes the peculiar property
of a woman true to her heart and her sex ; we feel

88 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. ii.
how much we may learn, and have learned, from
the mind and music of that delicate Moral beauty.
Such are often the companion Spirits * given us, as
part of our human education ; and he who has always
lacked that influence of Woman, lacks (as Dr. John
son said of melody) one sense additional to the
ordinary five. This fact, which will be affirmed by
most men of the world, as it was by Lord Lytton
in almost every book he wrote, — this single fact is
sufficient to prove tbe existence of some cultivable
Ethical insight. It is to this selfsame insight, this
faculty divine, that the Scripture appeals when it
says, " Love thy neighbour, and the stranger, as
thyself." t "And as ye would that men should do
to you, do ye also to them likewise." J
These words of Moses and of Christ have (as is
weU known) elicited the admiration of men who
differed so widely in their religious tenets, as to
agree in Httle besides this most penetrating ethical
aphorism. Now, the human endowment implicitly re
ferred to, — the power which renders so noble a maxim
intelligible and appropriate to us, — that power which
renders us capable of regarding ourselves as other than
ourselves, and of looking at the things of others as if
they were our own,- — is a power separating between
Man and Brute, and involving the history of our
* "A Spirit, yet a Woman too ! " (Wordsworth). Compare Dante,
Purgatorio, xxx., xxxi.
t Leviticus xix. 18 and 34 ; Matt. v. 19.
% Matt. vii. 12, xxii. 39, and Luke vi. 31. These double parallels
make up one precept : the former texts containing the -principle of the
commandment ; the latter its practical application.

Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 89
most clearly distinctive Intuitions. It shows us
what our Moralities ought to be ; it also shows us
the central secret of our own Volitions. To see our
selves as other than ourselves, in an ab-extrd light,
enables us to say with Horace, " This was unlovely."
To see others even as it were ourselves enables us to
spend and be spent in the common service. Thus
doubly seeing, we live a twofold life, — not for self
only, but for Humanity, and therefore in the purest,
truest sense, for God.
As plain and practical Canons of Duty, no one
will question the supreme excellence of the precepts
such as those aUeady quoted. If it be desired to
link them with Ethical Science, — and if the question
arises, Where is their evidence and ground of
determination ? — our answer need not be far to seek.
Such words as these, successfully addressed to
Human Nature, and obtaining from it both echo
and assent, lead to no doubtful presupposal of two
very important conditions. The first, that they
must meet with a sufficient affirmation from our
Nature itself; otherwise they would remain in
operative. The second, that in order to bear the
noble fruit they have borne, they must not only
faU upon ground the reverse of barren, but they
must needs carry within themselves some germ of
vitality, some truth-producing Truth. And the more
difficult obedience to such lofty precepts may appear
in any man's eyes, the more absolutely certain must
also appear the existence of these two essential con
ditions. Hence, Hkewise, the greatest encourage-

go The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. ii.
ment for us to investigate in the direction to which
they point. For, be it remembered, what we want
to discover is a living type which embodies an
intelligible First-Truth ; not a mere abstract state
ment of generalized facts, but a formative principle,
a genetic law of Duty capable of a verification in
like manner with other laws of human activity. Let
us observe, however, that laws of this kind must be
carefully distinguished from the law and method of
Physical Science. The reason of this distinction is
plain : the latter are mechanical, and pertain to a
grand Mechanism ; but Man is not a machine. Were
he some such sort of Thing, — not a Person to wfll
and choose, but a determinately moved and driven
Thing, — then, indeed, the question suggested by the
horrible torture-chamber at Avignon would never
have been answered in more than one way.
The kind of Law we seek may be more definitely
apprehended if I give a few moments' consideration
to some recent endeavours of speculative thinking
on the subject. They have not been very prohfic in
results ; and therefore what is to be said will easily
lie in brief compass.
Tentative systems, or the rudiments of systems
framed to meet the demands of exact Science, have
of late years issued in theoretic Sociology. Its
conception is attributed by zealous disciples to the
French founder of Positivism, who wrote on the
subject himseU, and laid down rules for the guidance
of those who were to work at its elaboration. The
curious point attaching to these rules is that, as he

Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 91
observes, they exactly reverse the method of the
Inductive Sciences. Within its own strict limits
every Inductive Science subjects its Universal laws
— those especially which involve hypotheses — to a
verification repeated from time to time by every
fresh investigator. And it is on this pivot of experi
mentation that the certitude of such sciences always
turns triumphantly. But the method of Comtist
Sociology inverts — we ought perhaps to say anni
hilates — this procedure. The results of experience
are to be verified by the Universal laws of Human
Nature ; and such laws are to be received as laws
already known to us : a principle which may seem
in danger of assuming the chief points in debate, —
assuming them, that is, by an unconscious process,
familiar enough in the reading of those who study
the history of Speculation. Comte's plan was to
analyze and generalize the whole intellectual annals
of Mankind. He wrote (quite natuially) a Comtian
Philosophy of History. There is, of course, as much
room for theorizing here as in his analysis and
classification of the sciences. Indeed, Mr. Mill
considers both these encyclopsedic labours of almost
equal value. To any one who accepts late scientific
appreciations of Comte's philosophic arrangements,
this praise must appear the reverse of complimentary.*
* For an estimate of Comte's bookish unreality as regards Physical
Science, I need only refer to Professor Huxley and Mr. Herbert
Spencer. Concerning our special subject of Mental Science, Mill
has sufficiently exposed the absurdity of substituting for Psychology
a new version of Gall and Spurzheim, vastly inferior to the original.
In Metaphysics Comte was simply uninformed, and could not have

92 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. n.
But whatever his analytic data were worth, they
had, it appears, little final influence on his Sociology;
the outcome of which was to assign the true develop
ment of the human Eace not to its character as
formed by action and interaction, but to its specu
lative opinions. And this conclusion, when applied
to social Hfe, issues (wonderful to relate) in the
absolute control of existence by Positive thinkers
armed with despotic powers. The idea of a con
trolling despotism Comte drew from his Eoman
Catholic education : Positive thought was of course
the ne plus ultra of his own Humanity.
Enquiring further, we pass over M. Comte's later
vagaries on the subject of Polity, and ask with some
curiosity in what light the required laws of Human
Nature have appeared to recent thinkers more or less
imbued with the leading doctrines of Positivism ?
Speaking generally, we find that, though elevated
to the rank of laws, these desiderata are merely
averages ; in other words, they are generahzed facts.
They do not, therefore, possess the essential quality
of being in themselves " genetic." You wiU more
fully perceive the value of this distinction if I observe
that an average death-rate is useful for the informa
tion of Life-Assurance Offices, but the generalized
explained the difference between an absolute idea and a logical
abstraction. It is curious that when systematizing Biology, he fell
into the same inversion of the Inductive process as he did respecting
Sociology, and based the special upon the general — an error properly
exposed by Mr. Huxley. Though praising Comte's historical prepara
tions, Mill says, " He has not created Sociology ... he has done
nothing in it which does not require to be done over again, and better."

Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 93
fact, per se, does not enable us to lengthen life. The
contrary is true of the biological laws which govern
mortality : their object is to promote health and
length of days. Another mischief arising from
averages, — perhaps I ought to say another fallacy,
— is that, if looked at, as they have been vulgarly
looked at, in the light of genetic principles, they
confuse most important Moral distinctions. For,
when we come to action, the Truths we must keep
steadily in mind are not drawn from any average
standard of what is, but from the PhUosophy of
¦what ought to be. And this Philosophy, depicted
for us in the Hving portraiture of History, shines
out as the reflection of noble achievements — the
lesson of good Exemplars. As a law written on our
hearts, it is the high aim of which Aristotle speaks, —
the poet's thought :
" We may make our lives sublime ! "
Yet in such lofty lives the average-compilers see
only exceptions to their law. Nay, more — with the
true spirit of average -making intellects, they class
great Spirits as eccentricities. Hume's and Buckle's
social laws are suggestive of some Utilitarian Physical
Geography, which might account plains the true
beauty of the world, and mountains its deforming
wastes. In our world of Humanity we have reason
to thank God that there are high summits bathed
in brightness, since lower levels He too much in
shadow. The ideal " ought to be," (in itself the end
and fulfilment of Man's Being,) is, when personified

94 The Doctrine of Ret> ibution. [Lect. ii.
by individual men, its actual realization.* It exists
in our world oftener than ordinary minds suspect,
and it interprets our hidden Life for us. To show
this was the task and glory of Charles Dickens.
You, my young friends, will find that tbe average
assumed to be the "what is," can never in point of
fact guide you correctly. You will discover that the
difference between man and man, in regard of such
virtues (for example) as Truth, Justice, or Disinter
estedness,- — is a chasm so vast as to resemble a great
gulf placed between them. If you believe that every
man has his price, you will be wrong. If you think
that all pursue their own interest, because it is their
private interest, experience will contradict your
theory. And as for Truth, — the contrast between
individual men in this respect, is as great as between
Mephistopheles and some saintly spirit walking in
the Hght of God's presence.
One inference from what has been just said is this :
No moral law can be truly Moral unless it contains
what I will venture to caU an Ideal element. But
by this word Ideal, I am far from understanding
anything unreal. The element I mean is a growing-
point for which the soil of our present life is not
always rich enough, f Every now and then we see
* Hence the Philosophy of teaching by example, — a philosophy
presupposed in every chapter of the Old Testament. So, with
Cicero, History is " Testis Temporum, lux Veritatis, vita Memoria?,
magistra Vitae, nuntia Vetustatis." De Orat. II. 36.
t The sense of this inadequacy is one reason why the life Man now
lives must always appear not only unsatisfying, — but (what is far
more exact) essentially disparate to Man's higher nature.

Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 95
what strikes us as a superhuman stature. Such
realized ideals satisfy, so to speak, the aesthetic
instincts of our moral sense — they are the " fair
souls " which the great German poet could admire
even when they differed widely from himself. Human
: spirits, thus beautiful by reason of their words and
works, are, by the fact of their existence, verifica
tions of the truly genetic law after which we have
been enquiring. They are rainbow clouds — witnesses
giving us encouragement to "lay aside every weight
and the sin which doth so easily beset us."
It is but just towards Comte, on whom we have
animadverted, to add that he felt the need of an
Ideal, and condemned his whole scientific system
without it. Like Mr. Mill, he was on that ac
count himself condemned as unfaithful to Positive
thinking. Another inference seems plain. Little need be
looked for from the modern science of Sociology at
present. Mr. Herbert Spencer, who has thought
and written on the subject, entertains small hope
of its results for many years to come. "Very Httle
is," he says, " to be expected." *
Without accepting every reason he gives for this
conclusion, there may remain with most people a
strong persuasion of its general correctness. Another
position of Mr. Spencer's will command assent. He
severely censures the political schemer who, by
means " of a legislative apparatus, properly devised
and worked with due dexterity, .... expects to
* Study of Sociology, p. 390.

96 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. ii.
get out of a stupid people the effects of inteUigence,
and to evolve from inferior citizens superior con
duct."* By these words he expresses that deep-
felt necessity which interests us in the belief that
propagandism of Moral distinctions is a duty incum
bent on each and all of us. The noble foundations
of Oxford were intended to make missionaries of civi
lization at the very least. That vocation belongs to
our University. Some of us here may teach the
teachers in Church and State — at aU events the
teachers who leaven the masses of this country.
Would not our vast lower classes be better for the
solemn lesson that the Law of Eight and Wrong
is true for us, and therefore must be true for us
always ? That, being absolute, it has its issue in a
sphere where justice is done — a final Empire of
Eetribution ?
Or, state the lesson in a converse manner. Set
out from the recompence of the Eeward ; the future
Good or Evil which constitutes a natural Law of
Eetribution. The awe inspired by this tremendous
Law of Laws, — the strength of which arms Death
with his terror and his sting, — springs from the
knowledge that Eetributive Justice metes out to
* "Just as the perpetual-motion schemer hopes, by a cunning
arrangement of parts, to get from one end of his machine more
energy than he puts in at the other ; so the ordinary political schemer
is convinced that out of a legislative apparatus, properly devised and
worked with due dexterity, may be had beneficial state-action with
out any detrimental reaction. He expects to get out of a stupid
people the effects of intelligence, and to evolve from inferior citizens
superior conduct." Study of Sociology, p. 6.

Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 97
every one the Judgment of his noblest Ideal ; that
it follows always the strict rule of the "Ought to do"
— the " Ought so to be." Bring this truth home to
the Pharisee. He asks no longer what the pubhcan
is, but what he himself ought to have been — yet is
not. Let it come home to yourselves ; and you may,
I trust, see it in a more hopeful Hght. That higher
life to which your best nature prompts you, cannot,
if matured, continue without its glorious fruit. If
you can rise above self, you shaU attain far more
than seK can give. Despised, it may be, now, you
shall receive honour then. Listen to the better
voice that pleads in your heart, and you wiH turn a
deaf ear to the whispers of sloth, sensuahty, and sin.
I began this Lecture with a picture, terrible yet
true. High Heroic questions take us away from the
trivialities and plausibiHties of existence. Phari
saism is the self-flattering comparison with other men.
Average Morality, elevated into a Moral or rather an
Un-moral law of Hfe, is really nothing better than
gross Pharisaism. Men look into the statistics of
gambling, fraud, swindhng, drunkenness, violence,
murderous assaults, and kickings to death. Folding
their hands, they utter a devout " God, I thank Thee."
Yet these barbarities are but vulgar versions of their
own loose talk, smaU envies, and gentlemanly scep
ticism ; their absolute neglect of Duty, and of aU
that raises Man above the brute. Now, put aside
for the moment easy indifference, and look at stern
moral issues.
I have placed a question before you — very whole-
7

98 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. ii.
some because very extreme, — but I should like you
to make it stUl more stringent. Eobe it in whatever
vesture seems most influential to your own judgment.
Only let the case be a plain, concrete, human problem
of the choice between Eight and Wrong. Above aU,
keep it clear from all subtle refinings, and analytic
oppositions of Science, falsely so-called. In order
that you may do so, let every consideration of seH-
interest, seU-pleasing, or even self-ease — every warm
sympathetic influence of natural affection — be on the
side of speaking and acting an untruth. Make the
consequences of truthfulness as horrible as you can.
Place torments almost intolerable before your mind's
eye. Think that you have to do with persons who
feel (as Mr. MUl wrote) " a real pleasure in inflicting,
or seeing the infliction of pain." With such torments
and such tormentors full in view, say, first, have you
any doubt whether Eight and Wrong is a shadowy
or a real distinction ? — whether it is not, in this ex
treme case, a Beality, which neither self-interest nor
seU-ease, nor even natural sympathy and love, can
dissolve into a good man's dream ? And have you
any honest doubt in your heart, that the Fiat of
volition which will finally give outward shape and
substance to this inward Eeality, is also an actual
humanly Existent Power? Upon this ground only
are you justified in prophesying that if you now re
ceive these evil things, you will finally be comforted,
whilst they who receive their good things, so appraised
by base spirits — the delights of voluptuous cruelty —
will then be tormented. And which wUl righteously

Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. 99
be found the more severe ? — the torments they now
inflict, or the torments of Eetribution ? No primi
tive Christian had a doubt on this question.
Say next what ought you to do ? If you hesitate,
let a heathen moralist tell you — •
" Summum crede Nefas animam prseferre pudori."
If you cannot feel sure of yourself, what would you
wish to do ? What will you desire for the dearest
Life of your soul to choose ?
And now : Do not omit to make a present practical
use of this question — the old question we have had
before — WiU pitted against Iron. Eecal to your
selves the fact, that the unswerving Eightness which
is imperative in extremes must a fortiori be a duty
when to render it is an easier thing. If you ought to
maintain the truthfulness of your life, even at the
cost of offering that life as a sacrifice — what ought
you to do when the world smUes upon you, when tbe
freshness of youth and health throbs joyously in each
free pulse ? The eye of Eetributive Justice has
looked upon many and great masteries, since martyrs
first were crowned ! That same eye looks search-
ingly into all temptations " common to Man." Wilt
thou, then, full in sight of that Divine Eye, sell thy
soul for gold, for passion, for perversity — for next to
nothing ? Art thou so poor a creature as not to fight
against thy foe ? Art thou so blind as not to discerd
the fast-coming captivity ? If it be true of civU
liberty —
" Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow,"

ioo The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. ii.
surely, surely, to lie down and yield to Sin is the act
of a Moral dastard, of a degenerate enervated spirit !
This is Oxford, not Capua ; you are English young
men, not worn-out and spirit-weary barbarians !
At all events, do not part with the Idea of an abso
lute Eightness — valid now, and valid always — a Truth
to live and die in. As we have set it out this morn
ing, it is not science, but a preparation for science.
It is of the nature of a moral judgment ; and stands
in the Hke relation to Science as that which Faith
bears to Knowledge. Both are the preparations and
precursors of some deeper and clearer attainment.
In proportion as the mind of any man, who judges or
believes by a pure insight, makes progress in morality
and spiritual intelligence, he becomes more highly
endowed with the powers needful for certitude, philo
sophic, as well as religious. Faith ripens into know
ledge, Judgment into science. The gain to us is
great. We are in the condition of men " who, by
reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern
both good and evU." We confirm our primary moral
decision by the verification of our own satisfactory
moral development. We do more than confirm, — we
extend the field of our insight. We look (that is)
through an improved optic glass, endowed with
superior definition and penetration. We see farther,
we see more, — and more exactly. At first, we saw
that the distinction between Eight and Wrong was
vahd for us, and that we ought to be guided by it.
Neither could we help inferring, that to be imperative
on us, it must be valid for all time, under all changes,

Lect. ii.] The Answer of Conscience. i o i
and beyond the Hfe we are now Hving. But, superior
insight enables us to see the ultimate Why and How :
why we ought to obey this same moral law, — and
how we shaU apply it truly on each given occasion.
And the answers to these two questions make our
knowledge all of one piece, and thus give to its
validity another kind of verification.
We have put the Law of Eetribution on a Moral
trial this morning. The sentence besought was that
of a concrete moral Judgment,, respecting a crucial
case and Question.
Next Sunday, I hope to put the same law on an
xm-moral trial, and so to approach the enquiry,
"Where lies our higher appeal?" I shall begin
with Scepticism, and leave absolutely immoral views
tiU we have delved more deeply down into the
foundations of Morality.

*if* Additional Note on pp; 90^2 ante.
Let it be observed that the Sociology here described is something
wholly distinct from what is termed Social Science by the philanthro
pists, whose useful Congresses have earned so many welcomes and
acknowledgments. The difference may not seem very unlike that
which subsists between M. Comte's Politique and the Constitutional
Science, or art of Statesmanship employed by English Politicians.
Any true Sociology will have to ground itself upon the data induc
tively collected by students of working Social Science throughout
its various departments. And the latter, to be used practically,
necessitates a frequent appeal to legislation, which in turn is closely
linked with Sociology. It may therefore be worth remarking that in
the article before cited, Macaulay censures James Mill as follows : —
"It is remarkable that Mr. Mill, with all his affected display of
precision, has here given a description of the ends of government far

102 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. ii.
less precise than that which is in the mouths of the vulgar. The
first man with whom Mr. Mill may travel in a stage coach will tell
him that government exists for the protection of the persons and
property of men. But Mr. Mill seems to think that the preservation
of property is the first and only object." Yet, curiously enough, he
does not censure him for omitting from his description the grand
objects of promoting the moral together with the physical well-being
of the citizens, — their educated intelligence together with their pro
ductive powers and accumulations of property.
These omissions are placed in a sufficiently clear light by the
several tendencies of Social Science operative at the present day ;
and every such correction is extremely valuable, since our heartiest
assent must be given to the principle enunciated by Macaulay in his
next following Essay : — " We say with Bacon — ' Non, nisi postremo
loco, ad maxime generalia veniatur.' In the present enquiry, the
science of human nature is the 'maxime generale.' To this the
Utilitarian rushes at once, and from this he deduces a hundred
sciences. But the true philosopher, the inductive reasoner, travels
up to it slowly, through those hundred sciences, of which the science
of government is one."

LECTUEE III.

SCEPTICISM WHEN THOROUGH.

LECTUEE III.
St. Matthew vi. 23.
" If thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.
If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is
that darkness!"
r I THESE words are true of Nations, as well as of
-*- individual Men. In observing their verifica
tion by events, we more frequently find it in the
histories of Peoples, than in private biographies.
The reason is that cause and effect, when written
large, are more conspicuous and less mistakeable.
You may remember how Aristotle lays down a prin
ciple simUar in meaning, and not very dissimilarly
expressed from the wording of my text.
Although chiefly applicable to religious and moral
darkness, the same principle holds true in the sphere
of inteUect. It is natural that such should be the
case. These two provinces of human life are really
two separate aspects of a Eeason one and indivisible.
This Eeason we may cultivate in differing spheres;
and from so doing we expect different results.
Compare England with Caffre-Land. See the
enormous superiority of her intellectual eye. And
is there not an enormous superiority of moral eye
sight also ? It has been the boast of England that
in Morahty her light was the steadiest and brightest

106 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. in.
among civilized nations. For example, she claimed
the honour of always keeping her word. And we
remember periods when her commercial honour and
her political promises were held out as being equally
irreproachable. We tried to look through an unsophisticated Moral
eye last Sunday. We are now to enquire into one
kind of sophistication. The positions of an Atheist
or a FataUst respectively, deny the power or the use
of seeing anything to bodily sense invisible. The
position of a Sceptic is to question both use and
power ; but not to deny either absolutely.
All these three characters are, in private affairs,
likely to be guided by feelings which result from
circumstances, — that is (in scientific speech) from
their environment. If national affairs permit the
reception of such doctrines on a grand scale, the
effect of each and all is to degrade public opinion —
to excuse, and therefore let loose, the worst passions
of Mankind.
We wiU study Scepticism this morning in the
person of David Hume. I choose him as being a
typical Sceptic of keen and cultivated intellect. It
is convenient, too, that we need not be over-reti
cent about him, since he long ago became a pubhc
property. I see no reason, however, for dwelling
on his private career. It is sufficient to say, that
his character was good-natured, vain, and social.
Pleasure loving, — on which account he betrays cer
tain immoral arid more un-moxal tendencies. His
sceptical writings are extremely important. Their

Lect. in.] Scepticism when Thorough. 107
pleasant banter earned them immediate influence
in France. English people enjoy ironies only to a
limited degree, and are often as much puzzled by
them as enlightened. In our day Hume's progeny
is chiefly Materialistic, in the immoral and irre
ligious sense of that ambiguous word.
His great recommendations for our purpose are
two. One, that he is thorough in his Scepticism :
with him the world is all an optical shadow. The
other, that he is a distinctly modern Sceptic.
Ancient Scepticism, we may remark, is of a totally
different cast. As has been observed,* the Greek
assailed feeling and sensation first of all, — whereas
Hume assumes their veracity, and proceeds to attack
universal truths, because not contained in the em
pirical circle — the circle of sensuous perception.
The issue is universal Doubt : —
"We have, therefore," he says, "no choice left but betwixt a
false reason and none at all. For my part, I know not what ought
to be done in the present case." And again, " The intense view of
these manifold contradictions and imperfections in human reason has
so wrought upon me, and heated my brain, that I am ready to reject
all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more
probable or likely than another. Where am I, or what ? From what
causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I
return ? " f
A man in the posture of mind thus described is,
* By Hegel, Die Logik (Encycl.), sec. 39.
t Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. I., P. 4, 7, (Green and Grose, i.
p. 548.) A knowledge of the Treatise is indispensable to real
students. On its value and relation to Hume's later works, see
Mr. Green's Preface to vol. i., and Mr. Grose's remarks, iii., pp. 37-9
and 75-7.

108 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. iii.
or ought to be, reduced to inaction. Hume repre
sents this natural result as follows : —
" I am," he adds (just after the last quotation),—" I am confounded
with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most
deplorable condition imaginable, environed with the deepest darkness,
and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty."
Of course, upon many men the natural effect
would be either Pessimism or Indifferentism. Hume
had too much of the Boswell about him to become a
Pessimist ; but he saw that, if his use or misuse of
Eeason thrust him down into darkness, he could
hardly expect Eeason to raise him up again. He
reminds us of our text, — "If the light that is
in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness ! "
The phUosopher felt at times constrained to forsake
Eeason. He appealed against her to the commonest
of all common sense.
" Philosophy," he tells us, " expects a victory more from the
returns of a serious good-humoured disposition, than from the force
of reason and conviction."
The most wonderful circumstance remains behind.
Conviction was, after all, not a rational conviction ;
only a persuasion convenient in practice. The very
next sentence runs thus : —
"In all the incidents of life we ought still to preserve our scepti
cism. If we believe that fire warms, or water refreshes, 'tis only
because it costs us too much pains to think otherwise."
Every honest thinker must be glad of Hume's
surprising outspokenness. It is more than a little
surprising in a person educated by French Jesuits,
and used to see economies of speech, reticences of

Lect. hi.] Scepticism when Thorough. 109
all sorts, valued and practised every day. Under any
circumstances, such cool, half-bantering, sceptical
talk, seems a phenomenon to be accounted for in a
young man of seven-and-twenty. How easily does
the rogue laugh Actualities out of court, till nobody
can tell the difference between a lake and a mirage !
Common-sense people were used to speak with some
confidence of the little fact that fire warms. Our
young sage sets it down among disputable topics.
Yet a man may keep this and other pet beliefs,
animi voluptatisque causa, as Csesar says of British
hares, — if, that is, he happens to fancy them ! They
are not worth the labour of extinguishing ! Eeality
is thus vaporized into Credulity. And when we
pass from the outer to the inner world, Ideas appear
with Hume no safer than Eealities. They are the
rehcs of impressions, once made through the senses,
and since fallen dim. Hence, the idea of a mathe
matical point is simply impossible. That which has
neither length, breadth, nor thickness, never im
pressed itself upon any sense. Exact Equality and
InequaHty, a Eight Hne, the Infinitude of geome
tricians, are no ideas proper to our poor human
mind. As a matter of fact, Infinity of all kinds is
inconceivable ; and with the Inconceivable, we, who
are the slaves of " every schoolboy's " intelligence,
can have nothing whatever to do. The universals
which people have called primary truths must either
be refracted palpabilities, or they must be accounted
Nothings. Henceforth let no man look in the face
such reasons as he may suppose himseK to possess

i io The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. iii.
for any fact, natural law, moral distinction, or meta
physical first-ground. He who asks for Truth does
so on pain of being driven to reject, with our young
sage, and with a great many schoolboys, all belief,
aU reasoning, all first principles ; and to consider
no one opinion more likely or more probable than
another. And what now has become of our Moral
Eealities ?
In his more mature years, Hume lost the fire, but
not the frosts, of his youth. His delight is to congeal
some Hving Truth. He compounds a freezing mix
ture, and leaves it to do all he wants. The work is
slow ; but (as Hume feels) it is sure. He is in no
haste to burn down anything : the snows of Russia
are stronger than the flames of Moscow. Upon
this mode of procedure he bestows the name of
" Easy Philosophy." He contrasts it with the toil
and austerity of abstract disquisitions. In a mild,
forbearing way, he tells us that, in his time, "the
matter was carried further, even to the rejection of
all profound reasoning, or what is commonly called
Metaphysics."* Yet accurate results possess, he adds,
among other good qualities, the considerable ad
vantage of subserving easy and humane philosophy.
There has for some time existed another and less
flattering name for this celebrated system. That
name is current in certain parts of the European
continent which do not He within the boundaries of
France. The working thinkers of those parts call
this holiday wisdom, a " parlour-fire philosophy."
* Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, S. i. (G. & G., iv. 6.)

Lect. hi.] Scepticism when Thorough. 1 1 1
Within the boundaries of France it was, long before
Hume wrote, esteemed the only polite philosophy ;
and from Charles the Second's reign downwards,
its essential principles — or negations of principle —
have never been altogether lost on this side the
Channel. We must add that to French Scepticism
manner is quite as important as matter. Gibbon
learned from a Frenchman that peculiar irony,
which convinced his opponents how impossible it
is to refute a sneer. From another Frenchman,
Hume derived his pleasantry of Doubt. What praise
so high among advanced thinkers in those years, as
the glory of resembhng Voltaire ! And who more
hard to answer ?
For the appreciation of a philosophy, as respects
either matter or manner, no method is so ready as
the weU-worn, but odious, path of comparison. Con
trast with our Franco- Scot the Hfe and labours of
his great North-German antagonist. Kant was
himself of Scottish descent ; but born and bred in
an atmosphere very different from that breathed by
Hume. At his mother's side, and not in a Jesuit
seminary, the Scoto-Teuton acquired the first prin
ciples of Truth. All his days long Kant held fast,
and exercised, those firm man-like virtues, which
had been most prized in England during previous
generations. His manner of subsistence was to work
for his own Hvehhood. In management, he showed
himself exact— a good accountant. Slow to determine,
he was of inflexible resolution ; his existence uniform,
some would say monotonous ; a celibate, because he

112 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. iii.
found it hard to wive and thrive; no traveUer,
though delighting in books of travels ; but a stay-
at-home, industrious, self-controlled MAN. Life
with him was both honest and earnest ; and his
philosophy was a part of his life. What he did,
he did for aU time. How could he otherwise move
Mankind by an influence obtained at sixty-four?
No verbal economies in his books : his much-criti
cized obscurities sprang from a jostling of thoughts
too numerous to pass singly through the portals of
speech. To quit Hume's flowery rhetoric, and open
a volume of the stiff German, is like exchanging a
gay parterre fiUed with exotics for a native forest,
— vast, vigorous, tangled, high-arching, and sublime !
The one is a sauntering ground, where ladies meet a
smiling sage, and talk in a ready indeterminate way.
The other is a dim retreat, a silent shade, fit for
manly thought with a real meaning in it ; or for the
deliberate MoraHties of a reasoning Will. Our in
teUectual eye looks down long perspectives, solemn,
perchance sombre, but well repaying a diligent life
long exploration.
The youth who disciplines his mind with Euclid,
Kant, and Aristotle, wiH need no other inteUectual
athletics to give it tone and muscularity.
I have dwelt at some length upon the characters
of thought, speech, and action, displayed by two very
typical philosophers. My reason is this. For the
object we have in view, philosophy must be con
templated not as an abstraction, but as a human
activity. Natural Eeligion is the going forth of a

Lect. in.] Scepticism when Thorough. 113
Man's whole natural Being. Philosophy in its highest
aspect is nothing less than a phase of Natural Ee
ligion. The man who philosophizes brings forth his
innermost Life, and sets it in the light of his own
consciousness. He examines himself ; criticizes ;
estimates the strength and limits of his own Eeason
as a thinking Power, a volitional Power, and a
Power sensitive to that which is noble, beautiful,
divine. And when this is done, and his entire
Being is (if we may so express it) penetrated and
lightened by the Light dweUing in his soul, the true
Manhood of the man goes forth to his Eace ; the fire
burns within him, and he speaks with his tongue.
Our studies here make us know the wonderful
mightiness of speech — how great a matter that little
fire kindleth. A solitary man (Hke Kant) evokes his
central LHe into such utterance as time and strength
permit. Soon it becomes to a reflective portion of
mankind, not his but their Life ; their thought and
being. Just as heat is a mode of Motion, so is Philosophy
a mode of Humanity. Springing out from elevated
Souls, as from unsealed fountains, it flows down to
each and all of us, Hke a vast, many-voiced Life-
stream,— as it were a thousand times a thousand Hves
and tongues in one. This manifold voice speaks to
us in the cool of our day; in the darkness of our
vision-haunted night ; or when the shadow of Death
faUs athwart our path. Whether we wiU hear or
whether we wiH forbear, it speaks always of great
things. It teUs us that the true heritage of our Eace
8

114 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. hi.
is to be transfigured ; to Hve a nobler, yet a human
life, when things mutable and material shaU have
perished or have been changed ! Physicists inform
us that our sun is slowly burning out his fires ; that
the forces which move our planetary system are
waning now, and are doomed to wane away. Then,
its orbs must collapse. Then, our cheerful Earth,
with her seasons, colours, light and shade, rest and
motion, wiU cease to be a Human World. But, if
Philosophy reads Earth and Heaven aright, we may
hope to grow, while those glittering orbs wax old, — ¦
we shall be, and be good, when they decline and
disappear. Thus looked at, a Man is of more worth
than a world. What, then, is the worth of a whole
world of mankind ?
We can only calculate this sum in terms which
transcend our finite understanding. We have to raise
our known Moral Distinctions, by the power of infini
tude. We have to contemplate them in the dawn-
light of an Eternal sphere, no longer cribbed, cabined,
and confined, but free, effectual, Hfe-giving, absolute.
Briefly, we must contemplate them in the dawn-light
of a futurity of Eetribution.
In the ordinary course of events we are all very
slow to apprehend the possibUities of these great
things. What we cannot paint in our imaginations
we are apt to put aside as inconceivable ; not know
ing that the eye of Eeason may see far beyond that
horizon where Fancy's wing grows weary. We are
slower still to connect our unfathomable Future with
our shalloiv Present. How can our slight duties, or

Lect hi.] Scepticism when Thorough. 1 1 5
our Httle wrongs, now done, stand related to Eetribu
tion and ImmortaHty ? Not at once, but slowly, and
after a time, we learn the secret. When the scars of
sins, long cicatrised, have ached for years, we begin
to suspect it. Life, sorrow, and death-beds, teach
us the rest.
A small seed, we know, if cast into the earth, may
grow up a stately tree — a shadow and shelter from
the storrn — -a house of life to birds of the air which
come and lodge among its branches. With us, too, a
seed is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. We
have, also, another sowing and another harvest. He
that soweth to his flesh, of the flesh sliall reap cor
ruption. A Httle seeming error, a venial fault, a
hidden bad propensity, makes the whole head sick,
the whole heart faint. It is the little rift, that
widens tiU it sUences the music of the soul; it is
the little speck that moulders away our fruits of
purity and peace ; it is the little worm that eats out
a life which should bloom beyond the grave. It
slays the Spirit, whose heritage was (as we said) to
be — and be good — when suns and planets dechne and
disappear. One striking lesson more remains to us. A slight
falsity — nay, even a carelessness of Truth — may silence
the music, and perplex the plain speech of Natural
Eeligion. It may moulder and eat out the vitality
of philosophic Thinking, till Thought corrupts, and
becomes unwholesome — poisonous — contagious. The
special wonder is, that the rift, the speck, the worm
may appear to be far away from the central core and

116 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. in.
soul of the philosophy. As we develope our main
topic, the Eeality of my statements may become
increasingly clear to you. And the easiest method
of attaining our object will be to contrast, yet more
exactly, the two philosophers, together with their
systems aHeady placed in antithesis. It is not, of
course, my intention to criticize either system.
Kant has been annotated, controverted, explained
a hundred times over. Hume is now edited and
commented upon with care and fulness. My plan
will, therefore, be to marshal certain small-seeming
falsities in a human, not an ab extra, line of view ;
and to range over against them the great truths of
Moral Distinctions and Moral Eetribution.
Suppose, then, we ask ourselves, why we are bound
so to wiH and act, that the principle upon wliich our
vohtion proceeds might safely serve as a governing
maxim for the law of the whole Eace ? This " Why ? "
(you will perceive), is the pivot on which the justice
and necessity of a final Eetribution turn. Now, what
connection is here apparent with the following
common-sense trivialities ? Why must a stone cast
upwards faU ? Why must two and two make four,
— not three, nor five ?
Yet consider. Are these trivialities really obvious
t6 common-sense, when we ask, first, Can we explain
the " must " in either of these latter cases ? Next :
If we cannot, is there any principle by virtue of
which we ought to accept the Inexplicable ? In point
of fact, whoever answers those trivial questions, has
penetrated into the inner substance and heart of the

Lect. hi.] Scepticism when Thorough. 117
universe. Hume's contention was that they are
unanswerable ; we may put them amongst beliefs to
be kept if tve please ; but we can unsheU no kernel
of Truth by examining them. Kant asserted that
they are answerable ; that it is worth a life's devotien
to answer them truly ; and that, when answered, the
consequences to Truth are infinite. And by Truth
he meant human Truth ; the Truth by which we
ought, as men, to live, — the practical Truth whick
can translate us into a futurity of happier progress,
when we come to die.
The problem I propose first, to examine is the one
which is most abstract. You may take it as a rule,
that whatever principle seems at first sight very
useless, otiose, and recondite,. is in fact most likely
to move the world of Men. This, wholesome rule
underlies the excessive dread, felt by ordinary English
men, of opinions which appear im their eyes poetical,
enthusiastic, or remote from common sense. Their
dread, though extreme, is by no - means absurd. A
false abstraction of Pohtical Economy may move
and mislead the masses. Even educated minds often
mix together in one vague " delencla est," a plain
evil, an innocuous usage, and an institution posi
tively beneficial. Throughout our individual hfe,
some undefined thought, some proverb, some proposi
tion so large as to sweep a world of impulses into its
net, comes back upon us in our quiet hours, makes
us uneasy when we might be at rest, and stirs us up
to spasmodic action. The recollections or regrets
that cause our cheeks to burn, or our ears to tingle,

118 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. iii.
seem small in themselves, and often far away from
immediate interests ; but they move our innermost
feehngs notwithstanding.
At this moment the word " Unthinkable " is just
such a motive Power. It appears strong enough to
relegate many reasonings and more beliefs into an
ostracism which may outlast at least one generation.
Yet surely there is something shadowy, not to say
spectral, about the dread which this word inspires.
Who ever succeeded in "thinking" himself '? Has
any one of us the least conception what a Self is
Hke, — how it exists, — how it energises ? How many
of us have settled the question of what constitutes
any IndividuaHty ? Would it then be wise to say,
— We are essentially Unthinkables, therefore we are
wow-entities? Yet some of us are tolerably sub
stantial entities, in mind, will, and activity, corporeal
and incorporeal. There is to us no stronger fact in
the world, than that you are you, and I am I. The
force of the fact as a basis for Eights and Duties,
Property and Eesponsibility, and as subversive of
Socialism, Communism, and other fraternal modes
of robbery and wrong, appears to consist in its
being a Concrete, not at aU an abstract Truth. For
this reason the wow-entity of a Meum and Tuum is
not maintainable in a concrete shape ; yet it has
been, and is, maintained on grounds of an imagina
tive and easy-philosophy description. The more
fancifully abstract, the more likely to be found un
answerable. On approaching Hume's most renowned abstrac-

Lect. in.] Scepticism when Thorough. 119
tion, we feel that a kind of awe is inspired by it. No
one can exactly revere Hume ; but no informed
person can help being impressed by his power. And
this strength of his, (some of it springing from his
masked earnestness,) is by no means Ulusory. Hume
was (as the systems of philosophy tell us) influenced
by the great French Illumination ; and, in his turn,
he influenced it. This means, in plainer language,
that he shared in forcing on that vast movement of
thought, which seemed not unlikely to change the
whole face of civUized society. It first entranced,
and then disappointed ardent spirits, such as our
Balliol Southey,. Cantabrigian Coleridge, and Words
worth affiliated to both Universities. It faUed where
they expected it would succeed ; it had no effect in
elevating men's spirits by new maxims of purity and
peace. In this sense Madame Eoland and a host of
others lived and died in vain. In this sense the
Goddess of Eeason was worshipped to a purpose
worse than vain. Yet the movement was not in
effectual. It did alter the map of Europe. It has
not been without its consequences to the map of
France. We EngHsh felt a blast of the whirlwind
years ago ! We feel it with some distinctness now !
Whenever such is the case, we are sure there has
been a moral Force at work, or (as some in this
instance prefer to say) a very immoral one. Hume,
like others of the Illumination, had (I fear) a criminal
intent upon Morahty. He approached the object
aimed at, first through abstract argument, secondly
by analysing, that is, dissolving away, an elementary

120 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. in.
factor of Human Nature. The effect of both assaults
was to make Morahty Conventional.
We wiU (as I said) examine the abstraction first.
I aUude, of course, to Hume's celebrated theory of
Customary Association.
At a glance we may perceive what a power is
here for easy-philosophy to handle. Habit is second
nature. We are all the creatures of Habit. Why
should not Habit account for modern prejudice, and
old-fashioned principle also ? Why should it not
make us think as we do think, on universal truths
and on universal interests, — on our sociology, polity,
Morahty ? If it can be shown that we survey the
inanimate world, — Matter, Force, Law, — through
glasses fitted to our minds' eyes by Habituation, is
it certain that we do not also survey the intelligent
and moral world by aid of similar optics ? At all
events, Eeason cannot — does not — govern Moral
Choice. Justice being some kind of Utility, pro
perty is no more than a customary arrangement :
respect for human Eights — perchance for human Hfe
(either our own or other people's) — or, again, for
human truth, rectitude, purity, may well be neither
more nor less than convenient fashions of feeling.*
* Bead, first, the following non-ethical propositions : —
(1) "A blemish, a fault, a vice, a crime ; these expressions seem
to denote different degrees of censure and disapprobation ; which are,
however, all of them, at the bottom, pretty nearly of the same kind
or species. The explication of one will easily lead us into a just
conception of the others ; and it is of greater consequence to attend
to things than to verbal appellations." — Inquiry concerning the Prin
ciples cf Morals, App. iv. (G. and G. iv. 287.)

Lect. hi.] Scepticism when Thorough. 1 2 1
As customs, we may deal with them all ; as customs,
we cannot say that any one of them holds good in
any Hfe but this. Yet if we cannot affirm a vitality
(2) " Most people will readily allow, that the useful qualities of
the mind are virtuous, because of their utility. This way of thinking
is so natural, and occurs on so many occasions, that few will make
any scruple of admitting it. Now this being once admitted, the force
of sympathy must necessarily be acknowledg'd. Virtue is consider'd
as means to an end. Means to an end are only valued so far as the
end is valued. But the happiness of strangers affects us by sympathy
alone. To that principle, therefore, we are to ascribe the sentiment
of approbation which arises from the survey of all those virtues that
are useful to society, or to the person possess'd of them. These
form the most considerable part of morality." — Treatise III. 6. (G.
and G. ii. 372.) Compare the fuller statement of the Principles of
Utility and Love of Approbation, Inquiry, etc., S. III. P. ii. sub fin.
(G. and G. iv. 196), and S. V. P. ii. init. (G. and G. iv. 207.)
Next consider the consequences deducible as to Moral Distinctions,
taken from the outspoken Treatise.
(1) " The rules of morality are not conclusions of our reason." —
Bk. III. i. 1. (G. andG. ii. 235.)
(2) " Moral Distinctions are not the offspring of reason. Eeason
is wholly inactive, and can never be the source of so active a principle
as conscience, or a sense of morals." — Ibid. ii. 1 (p. 236).
(3) " In short, it may be establish'd as an undoubted maxim, that
no action can be virtuous, or morally good, unless there be in human
nature some motive to produce it, distinct from the sense of its
morality."— Ibid. ii. 1 (p. 253).
(4) " A promise wou'd not be intelligible, before human conventions
had establish'd it ; and that even if it were intelligible, it would not
be attended with any moral obligation." — Ibid. ii. 5 (p. 285).
And as to our Duty in regard of them : —
(1) " Beason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions,
and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey
them."— Ibid. Bk. II. iii. 3 (p. 195).
(2) [A few sentences further on] " 'Tis not contrary to reason to pre
fer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger."
I quote freely from Hume, because his writings show much that is

122 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. hi.
in Moral maxims apart from our habituations, — if
there is no essential distinction between Eight and
Wrong, indelible, and pertaining to the eternal Then,
— surely there can be no cause why we should act
upon it Now. ' Farewell, a long farewell, to the hopes
of good, and the terrors of wicked men ! Farewell
to moral certitudes, and moral restraints ; above all,
to the Belief in a just Eetribution !
In this manner the question, all important to
Natural Eeligion, assumes an abstract shape. Have
we, or have we not, any ground for asserting that,
independently of us and our transitory customs and
habits of thought, there exists any uniform connection
between things or events themselves ? — any nexus
binding them together ? This question may be
answered with the same wo?z-ethical result in two
opposite directions. Each of us may say, "All
things are fluent, and I cannot control them." Or,
" All things are necessarily determined, and I can
generally veiled by those on whom his mantle has descended. They
show, for instance, the connection existing between intellectual Scep
ticism and a denial (direct or indirect) of Independent Morality. For
its principles the Sceptic substitutes maxims and motives which appear
non-Ethical when viewed in the light of an unsophisticated Con
science. It is well to see with Hume what premises lead to such
and such conclusions ; it is well to see conversely how a given set of
conclusions stand connected with such and such premises. I do not,
however, mean to charge all modern theorists with an intentional
concealment of un-moral pedigrees. Many among them are guilty less
of conspiracy than of larceny ; they have been at Hume's feast of
knowledge, and stolen only a few of the scraps.
Against one poisonous scrap in particular we must protest, — -the
practice, that is, of adducing motives which rule "the baser sort " as
a fair representation of Man's Moral Nature.

Lect. in.] Scepticism when Thorough. 123
alter nothing, — no, not even myself." It may seem,
too, that all things 'must be either fluent or deter
mined. If we hesitate to say which, we stand
convicted of Ignorance. Whichever way we do
pronounce, we stand convicted of Impotence ; be
cause either way our volitions remain without
influence upon the stream of Events. They are,
in fact, a part of it.
Hume approached Causation from the side which
in his day was most obscure. He censures what he
calls beginning at the wrong end, — " examining,"
that is, " the faculties of the Soul, the influence of
the Understanding, and the operations of the Will."
For these, he substituted "the operations of body
and brute unintelhgent matter," and proceeds to
discuss them more suo* A very notable circum
stance is that in his Inquiry (which I am now
quoting), as well as in his more outspoken and com
plete Treatise, there appears a want of separation
between our perceptions of things outside us, and
the emotions we feel stirring within us. They are
confounded together under one general term — "im
pressions." "Ideas," the Entities of Plato, are
with Hume less lively perceptions — pale shadows —
poor rehcs of impressions passed away.f
* Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, Sect. VIIL, Part ii.
(G. and G. iv. 76.)
t Ibid. Sect. II. (G. and G. iv. 13, 14.) " By the term impression,
then, I mean all .our more lively perceptions, when we hear, or see,
or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or will. And impressions are
distinguished from ideas, which are the less lively perceptions of
which we are conscious, when we reflect on any of those sensations

124 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. hi.
As regards Causation* in the Natural world, the
"imagination" receives from two successive objects
an impression of sequency. f There happens, in fact,
or movements above mentioned." A few sentences before, he likens
ideas to images reflected in a mirror truly, but in colours faint and
dull. Compare Treatise, B. I. i. 7 (G. and G. i. 327) : "An idea is a
weaker impression," etc.; also pp. 375, 481.
The term "impression" is vague enough; but what shall we say
to the following account of Causation (Inquiry, S. VII., G. and G. iv.
62)? — "This connexion, therefore, which we feel in the mind, this
customary transition of the imagination from one object to its usual
attendant, is the sentiment or impression from which we form the
idea of power or necessary connexion. Nothing farther is in the
case. Contemplate the subject on all sides, you will never find any
other origin of that idea." Customary feeling, imagination, senti
ment, impression — a sufficient account of the most essential among
human "ideas" ! And not the least attempt at discrimination ! No
thinker can form an adequate notion of Hume's unfixedness of speech,
till he tries to write out the main principles of Hume's system. The
curious question is, " How far is this laxity intentional ? " It is at
all events convenient.
* Causation is itself an idea. (See last Note.)
t Compare with Inquiry before cited, Treatise, B. I. iii. 14. (G. and
G. i. 464.) " Such a relation can never be an object of reasoning,
and can never operate upon the mind, but by means of custom, which
determines the imagination to make a transition from the idea of one
object to that of its usual attendant, and from the impression of one
to a more lively idea of the other. However extraordinary these
sentiments may appear, I' think it fruitless to trouble myself with any
farther inquiry or reasoning upon the subject, but shall repose myself
on them as on establish'd maxims." A custom, an imagination, an
impression : here are Natural Science and Moral Philosophy ; and on
the side of easy thought their foundations are complete. But suppose
the Law of Nature's Uniformity is not an objective Truth; and
Man not in fact the parent of his own immoral actions, there appears
at once an end to all the Inductive Sciences, as well as to all human
Accountability, — " Decipimur Specie Becti."

Lect. in.] Scepticism when Thorough. 125
a sequence of impression upon impression. Use and
custom determine the mind to infer, or expect, stUl
further sequences. To expect a sunrise, to infer
that a human being will die, are examples of this
mental determination.
"The necessity or power," he says, "which unites causes and
effects, lies in the determination of the mind to pass from the one to
the other."
Hence, we can say fire will burn, because in our
apprehension this is true ; but we cannot say fire
must burn, if we mean thereby anything more than
a "must" existing in our own mind. That such is
Hume's meaning, seems ascertained beyond doubt
by his very next sentence : —
" The efficacy or energy of causes is neither placed in the causes
themselves, nor in the deity, nor in the concurrence of these two
principles ; but belongs entirely to the soul, which considers the
union of two or more objects in all past instances. 'Tis here that
the real power of causes is placed along with their connexion and
necessity." *
To put the case in a few words, the "must" is
true for us ; but it may, or may not, be true for the
Universe. In the mouths of most men this phraseology would
mean Idealism. In Hume's it meant blank intel
lectual Ignorance. Except as the means to an end
he did not care to throw doubt on realities ; he did
care always to throw doubt on human understanding.
But he could not do the one without doing the other.
* Treatise, B. I. iii. 14. (G. and G. i. 460.)

126 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. in.
For if the elements of knowledge are doubtful, are
we not barred from saying that realities are certain ?
On Hume's principles, says his latest editor, it is
impossible to explain the world of knowledge* So
far as the natural world is concerned, we may act
on the truth of Causation ; but behind each act Hes
a wholesome reserve of Ignorance.
Can this reasoning be applied to the Moral world ?
Yes: Hume does so apply it. The "must" is
here again true for us. The mind infers the same
sequence in the actions of Men, as it did in the
phenomena of nature, and for precisely the same
reasons. Neither is there any perceivable difference
in the necessity of the Causation, nor in the certainty
of our expectation. Yet there is an inevitable difference
between the two several cases — the Worlds without
and within us ; also between the conclusions severally
to be drawn concerning them. These conclusions
Hume leaves to his reader's sagacity. Both in the
Natural and the Moral world, the efficacy of Cause
is only empirically true for us, and therefore not
absolutely true for the Universe. In the world
without, what we call effect may be event ; at least
we cannot say it must be more. But then, here
* Mr. Green in General Introduction, I., S. 294. When my first
four Lectures were written, this valuable Edition had not been pub
lished. The Treatise appeared in time for me to quote Mr. Green's
dictum when preaching my third lecture, and to alter most of my
references by adding to them the Oxford pagination.
In Hume's later years, he hid his nihilisms from common eyes
by ostracising the contents of Treatise, B. I. Pts. ii. and iv. ; — an
" economy" which left his system philosophically baseless.

Lect. in.] Scepticism when Thorough. 127
comes in the inevitable difference. What is true
for us will necessarily be true for the world of
Morality, because that world is not outside but
within us. The one morally good thing is a good
Will. If, therefore, the " must be" of the Will is
true for us, it is true for the inner — that is, the
moral sphere in which our Will moves.
Hume, of course, would prefer saying, wherein our
WiU " is moved by the strongest motive." On the
" constant conjunction " of act and strongest motive,
he uses the well-known, well-worn weapons of Fatal
ism, — or, as its modern advocates have re-named it,
Determinism. He is equally emphatic on the general
uniformity of human character, and the ease of con
sequent prediction concerning what each man will
or will not do. Uniformity of character may be
compared with the uniformity of inanimate nature so
far as the power of prediction goes ; and thus under
stood, we can, as Hume says, ' ' never free ourselves
from the bonds of Necessity." * In the outside world
we think the "must be," but cannot certainly know
it. In the world within, what we think as true for
* "We feel that our actions are subject to our will on most occa
sions, and imagine we feel that the will itself is subject to nothing ;
because when by a denial of it we are provok'd to try, we feel that it
moves easily every way, and produces an image of itself even on that
side, on which it did not settle. This image or faint motion, we
perswade ourselves, cou'd have been compleated into the thing itself;
because, shou'd that be deny'd, we find upon a second trial, that it
can. But these efforts are all in vain ; and whatever capricious and
irregular actions we may perform, as the desire of showing our liberty
is the sole motive of our actions, we can never free ourselves from
the bonds of necessity." Treatise, B. II. iii. 2. (G. and G. ii. 189.)

128 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. iii.
other men, that same "must" we cannot but lay
upon ourselves. Thus, as natural Causation con
victed us of Ignorance, so Moral Causation convicts
us of Impotence ; or at best of the bondage ensuing
upon a balance struck between our lack of knowledge
and our human heritage of imbecihty.
It will not, I think, escape you that the more
Motive resembles (as in some modern theories) an
efficient or producing cause, and the farther it recedes
from the Aristotelian idea of a final cause, or object
of pursuit, the more absolute appears the subjection
of Man to mechanical Law. His actions are en
chained; his Will is determined by the "must be."
And the chain becomes doubled in strength when
individual character is looked upon as a fragment of
universal character, and men are supposed to be Hke
each other, as pebbles in a brook are like each other.
The possibility of a powerful religious influence upon
character was a thought foreign to Hume's mind;
feeble, too (as it would seem), were his ideas of self-
formation and seU-reformation. Yet, without these
last-named endowments, all that is Manlike in
Humanity has vanished. For the crown and glory
of our Human Nature, and its loftiest distinction
from mere brute nature, is that we can elevate our
selves, improve our best faculties, enhance their
vigour, form increasingly noble habits, and, by the
exercise of self-discipline, mount high above our
original selves.
Such, and nothing less, is the hope of self-change
never relinquished by any human being, except an

Lect. hi.] Scepticism when Thorough. 129
incurable trifler, a madman, or a vice-besotted wretch.
Yet it is the element of our nature which Hume is
bent on dissolving away. Contrast this undying hope
with his survey and estimate of Mankind, as described
by his best biographer. It runs thus : —
" How very clearly we find these principles practically illustrated
in his history ! A disinclination to believe in the narratives of great
and remarkable deeds proceeding from peculiar impulses : a propen
sity, when the evidence adduced in their favour cannot be rebutted,
to treat these peculiarities rather as diseases of the mind, than as the
operation of noble aspirations : a levelling disposition to find all men
pretty much upon a par, and none in a marked manner better or
worse than their neighbours : an inclination to doubt all authorities
which tended to prove that the British people had any fundamental
liberties not possessed by the French and other European nations."
Mr. Burton concludes by saying, " Such are the
practical fruits of this Necessitarian philosophy." *
At first sight Hume's judgments appear less philo
sophic than worldly-wise. Every modern reader feels
struck by the thought, "How Hke they are to the
opinions which pass current along with another
habitual maxim : —
"  Quaerenda pecunia primum est,

Virtus post nummos."
" Get Money, Money still !
And then let Virtue follow, if she will."
Yet, when we observe more closely, there appears
this salient distinction between the vulgar worldling
and the philosopher. Men given up to selfishness
and a mercenary mind are always apt to see their
fellow-men in a light reflected from themselves.
* Burton's Life of Hume, Vol. i., pp. 278-9. 9

130 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. in
Their own low standard of what is Eight, True, and
Good, causes them to maintain views which are a
slander upon our highest Human Nature. Such
views do, in fact, amount to a disbelief of not the
highest only, but of all that is otherwise than very
mean and base in Humanity. Yet these same men,
who thus assert the empire of baseness, often express
regret at their own shameful conclusions. The apo
logy aUeged for such conclusions is that they follow
from a bad experience of mankind.
With Hume and his modern disciples— for Hume
is a representative thinker — the case is exceedingly
different. His low estimate of moral character
sprang (precisely as his doctrine of Necessity sprang)
from a system of thought, which he placed before"
the world as weU-reasoned wisdom. Look at this
kind of phUosophy from any side you wiH, and its
mischief- working power appears evidenced by its tone
of ethical degradation. MoraUy, it is bad enough to
do evil actions, but it is far worse to justify the
wrongs, or to have pleasure in men that do them.
Socially, the homage paid by vicious minds to virtue
is often insincere, and may be downright hypocrisy.
Yet it has a tendency to check contagion. Strange
to say, Society sometimes runs far less risk from
vicious practices than it does from vicious theories.
A wicked play, poem, novel — worst of aU> a wicked
phUosophy — is the most deadly of aU pestUential
ferments. The reason is plain. The hateful mien
of vice is the gross, seH-degraded example. The
attractive mien is the plausible, glozing apology.

Lect. in.] Scepticism when Thorough. 131
This, as Milton tells us, gives a most certain title
to princedom in HeU. Neither can we ever forget,
that the man who deliberately argues his intellect
into any act of treason to his better nature, has
barred himself from his only possible defence — the
plea, namely, that he did it ignorantly, in unbelief.
It is because Hume is a representative thinker,
that we find in his writings a subject for careful
examination. He is sometimes spoken of as in
heriting the mantle of Locke. But he wore it " with
a difference." Locke was an Englishman, and an
Oxonian. What Locke meant was Empiricism, not
Scepticism. He had so intense a dread of Disbelief,
that he did in the seventeenth century what Mr.
Huxley has done in the nineteenth — he advocated
the suppression of Atheism by penal enactments.
On the other hand, how significant is the fact that
Hume was Scoto-French, and educated in France,
you may perceive if you recollect that Hamilton,
like Kant, was Scoto-Teuton, although, unhke Kant,
he was educated here in Oxford. Hume's philosophy
(French-born) appertained to the French " IUumina-
tion" ; neither is its essential Thought and Meaning
even now dead in France : Hume was the great
ancestor of Comte. The neat Frenchman founded
(as we have said) a, religion from which Heaven and
God are shut out, along with a theoretic system per
fectly well fitted to form the base of such a worship.
Comtism is, we have said, very rarely accepted in
its entire sweep ; but it has leavened thought in
France, England, and America, to an extent almost

132 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. HI.
incredible. At this moment it is giving rise to
new and far-reaching speculative developments. The
noteworthy fact seems plain,— what continues most
leavening in Comte's theories, what is most aHve and
energetic in Positive thinking, may be imphcitly
found in Hume. From Hume, too, have floated
down the more keen-edged maxims of Scepticism
now circulated throughout English society. He may
also safely be pronounced the true progenitor of its
educated, easy, Indifferentism.
Yet, strange to say, the Logic of Events has tho
roughly and absolutely confuted Hume. To see this
distinctly, we must try to see with distinctness what
was the indubitable but undeclared outcome of his
ground- prin ciples. They appear wide enough ; for
they relate to human Hfe, abstract speculation, and
the world we Hve in. And these correlative grounds
of belief and action mutually supplement and sup
port each other. What then was their Effect ?
LUe, says this Philosophy, is a poor thing — for
each, for all ; but nobody has a right to complain.
A law of average Morality, bad enough to be average
baseness, is entitled the Law of Human Nature. It is
in practical every-day wisdom, what a law of Neces
sity or Determinism is in abstract or metaphysical
reasoning. Happy men — or, at least, happy enough,
if we do but know our own happiness ! Accountability
is impossible. It is a task too high for our impo
tence. Eetribution has been the weak souls' dream.
Let it become a thing of the Past. The poverty of
our nature pleads our exemption from Justice ; and

Lect. hi.] Scepticism when Thoroitgh. 133
to creatures such as we are, Escape and Evasion
may suffice. We can hope for nothing better : —
" Fallere et effugere est Triumphus ! "
Or, to quote a modern " confidence " in print, —
" I feel that I am as completely the result of my nature, and im
pelled to do what I do, as the needle to point to the north, or the
puppet to move according as the string is pulled."
And again — more wooden still, —
" I cannot alter my will, or be other than what I am, and canno
deserve either reward or punishment."
These sentences are published under the joint re
sponsibility of a gentleman and lady, both advanced
thinkers ; and they show that Hume's labours have
not been thrown away. The Master is, however,
more complete. He paints a view of the broad
Cosmos and the Aspects of Nature, as beheld by
tutored eyes, appropriate enough for the background
of a philosophy of Determinism — sufficiently appro
priate, because sufficiently wrapped in shadows.
Measureless, as we have seen, is the impotence of
Man. Measureless the haze of Doubt in which his
objects of pursuit and his powers of pursuing are
alike involved. Irremediable, also, the uncertainty
whether what is truest for him is at all true for
extended experience — true beyond Death — true else
where in the Universe. And the sphere Man in
habits has its light and shade adapted to his uncer
tain eyesight. The world surrounding us aU, is like
a succession of dioramic scenes passing over a stage
on which we gaze. We have no true interest in the
imagination of their reality. What promise of aught

134 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. iii.
that is Permanent can exist in a dissolving trans
parency ? Eegarding the outer world, it is to us
much the same as these poor Hves of ours. We are
again spectators, — spectators free from praise or
blame. Who can detach himself from the adamant
circle drawn round his human lot ? Who can fix
fast the rope of sand, the moving particles as they
become events outside him? The control of our
environments, or of our Hves, self-change and self-
training, are visions no less dreamy than immortal
self-duration. Of Man's waking existence the true
guides are his passions, appetites, desires ; his seH-
ease and self-interest ; his love of sympathy and of
applause. These guides are morally and socially safe
as well as supreme, — they make and keep each man
estimable ; they are the builders and guardians of the
State. But beyond this present waking existence we
assuredly know and hope nothing. Nor yet have we
cause to apprehend possible Futurities of any kind.
In few words : — When' we speak of Duty or Virtue
we mean and can only mean — a rule or mode of Hfe
consentaneous with the private wishes of an indi
vidual and those of the society in which he Hves.
Upon these — their balance and resultant — he depends
for his Moral code, its maxims and its sanctions.
Now, what has the logic of events said to these
things ? Are outward events, we ask first, ascertain
ably nothing more than faded impressions, ideas
fallen dim ? Physical Science has by its progress
answered this question. The law of Natural Uni
formity,— no consequent without an adequate ante-

Lect. iii.] Scepticism when Thorough. 135
cedent, no change without a cause of change, — is a
Law as firmly written on the Physical Universe as the
laws of Inertia and Gravitation. And this thorough
certitude of the principle upon which aU inductive
knowledge rests, is one of the vast services which the
study of Nature has rendered to Morals and to Eeh
gion. Here is one sure instance of a behef traversing
every sphere of practical Thought, ascertained true
for us, and in itself, by a verification wide as the
known natural universe. Examine this behef, and
you find that it became our human property through
conditions under which Moral belief must in like
manner become ours. Hence results a lesson, good
for us aU. Do not accuse your own reasonable
natures of falsehood and treachery ; accept their data
reasonably, and in accordance with the laws governing
those angles of vision under which they are presented
to you. In few words, trust your own human view
of the Universe. Let exceptions and allowances,
such as those which observers of the heavens term
"the personal equation," be taken to estabhsh the
rule. And this acceptance of a rule — this trust — is
the plain contradictory of Hume's systematic depre
ciation of Man's Intelligence, his hollow banter of
human Beliefs, his fixed faith in human imbecUities.
The very same law of Natural Uniformity helps
us to establish the truth of that Moral poiver of
Causation which Hume took such pains to explain
away. This it does by force of the sahent contrast
between a mechanical chain of events and the varied
effects — that is, the various purposes — carried out by

136 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. hi.
a VoHtional Cause. The outward world is governed
by fixed laws. Put an alkali and an acid together in
water, — they will always act, react, and combine into
a neutral. But place the same wicked pleasure
within the same man's grasp at various periods of
his career. He wiU not always clutch it. At one
time he wUl go after it straightway,
" As an ox goeth to the slaughter,
Or as a fool to the correction of the stocks."
At another time he will " eschew evil, and do good,
— seek peace, and ensue it." The man who thus
chooses diversely preserves his Individuahty ; but
the moral phases of his character are changed. He
may have grown soul-sick at his own sinfulness.
He may have accused himself, judged himself, con
demned himself. Hence, he may have learned "to
labour and to wait." Or he may have found a sudden
freedom from his griefs and fears, Hke that haunted
wretch who dwelt among tombs crying and cutting
his flesh with stones. Whatever the incidents of
change may be, one and the same contrast with
mechanical law remains. Earth's natural substances
preserve their properties, their affinities, and their
chemical behaviour. The mind of Man developes
itseU, educates itself, is recipient of higher influ
ences. And the transformed human being acts as
he feels it right and good to act.
We have said how Hume endeavoured to represent
our Nature as barred from inward change by a fixity
of character almost as invariable as cold material

Lect. in.] Scepticism when Thorough. 137
laws. To this argument we shall get occasion to
recur, as it still continues the palmary argument of
modern Determinism. Meantime, it seems wonderful
to remember that there was a still more sweeping
confutation in reserve for the philosophy which
fettered Humanity fast, — so fast that Eetributive
Justice might seem an empty shadow, Eight and
Wrong the phantoms of a troubled brain.
The world has never seen a real— that is, a really
consistent — FataHst. What human being ever ac
quitted from blame the false friend who consciously
and wilfuUy defrauded or otherwise betrayed him ?
In this opinion I find myself supported by Mr. Mill.
That experienced observer goes with me one step
further, in saying that many men and women are
fataHsts in regard of their own actions. Csesar had
his fortunes — Napoleon his star. Necessity inward
as weU as outward is often the tyrant's plea. It is
not infrequently the conscience-salve of some English
Pharisee, who, for a show, makes long prayers and
prayerfully devours widows' houses.
By parity of reasoning it would appear probable
that there never has existed a real Sceptic. An
absolute Sceptic is of course impossible, because he
would have to disbelieve his own Disbelief — he would
hold it doubtful whether it be possible to doubt. It
may also be true that no human creature ever so
entirely divested himself of that upward tendency of
his Being as to keep moral zmcertainties perpetually
predominant. But there are, we aH know, many
practical Sceptics — men who seldom act upon the

138 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. in
dominant thought that from evil words and works
evil consequences must one day ensue. Over their
actions they would seem to write one universal
"pereunt," while they blot from their consciences
the final " et imputantur."
Neither does Scepticism require any great energy
of decision in order to be extremely mischievous.
If a person is so far uncertain concerning the Here
after as to think that it deserves no sacrifice, — of
him we may truly say, "he that is not with us is
against us," and against his own vntue and happi
ness besides. Briefly, the dread of self-sacrifice, the
inabUity to endure hardness, the wish for indulgence
in some vice the heart is secretly inclined to, clothe
Scepticism with its emotional aUurement, and
sharpen its inteUectual persuasiveness. Great, there
fore, the responsibihty of many a modern thinker
who furnishes reasonably-sounding pretences to that
worst weakness, that birth-sin of Mankind !
Upon Hume, and others like Hume, — educated
people of both sexes — some gay, thoughtless, glitter
ing — others gravely, sternly earnest, — a much higher
and much more awful EesponsibiHty rested. It is
bad enough to congeal the warm life of an individual
Man, and poison his heart's best blood. It is infi
nitely worse to scoff and smile away the better
thoughts of mixed and mighty multitudes. The
only excuse for those scoffers comes from the hope
that they knew not what they did. But is it easy
to suppose that the historian of Scotland and the
Stuarts could be unversed in the history of national

Lect. in.] Scepticism when Thorough. 139
epidemics ? Surely he, and such as he was, must
have known how impalpable, yet how energetic, is
the virus that envenoms a people. Subtle and un-
perceived as the germs of zymotic disease, gaining
strength as they spread, and intensified by the
vapoury heats of overcrowded cities, — such, and in
like manner, the pestilential breath of demoralizing
opinions passes over whole provinces, fevering vast
multitudes as it flies. Some races appear more
susceptible to its poisonous atmosphere than others ;
but national calamities and passions make even the
calmest and most phlegmatic susceptible. Even so
it had happened in Scotland ; so, too, it was about
to happen in France.
The free-thinking philosophers of that period were
no wiser than the educated circles of ladies and
gentlemen for whom they lived and wrote. We,
looking back nowadays, are apt to wonder how they
could so perilously sport with the world's received
maxims and modes of thinking. The truth is, these
people were supported by their world's sympathy ;
the mistake they made was to forget that there were
in Europe — and notably in France — other worlds,
with other ways of Hfe and feeHng quite outside the
exclusive pale of their own.
Unmindful of this social fact — yet perhaps not more
unmindful than the French Court, the French Church,
and the French Noblesse — a clever circle, pervaded by
Scepticism of every kind and degree, was bent on illu
minating the French people. Inflamed with zeal for
the emancipation of Mankind from evils indescribably

140 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. hi.
gross, they kindled their new Illumination where the
shadows of despotism and superstition lay deepest.
We may figure to ourselves a tall Lighthouse, with
its lantern bright but colourless upon one side, —
on the other fiery red. In the former direction, it
stands like a benevolent giant overlooking heights
beneath which the waters sleep in security. In the
reverse direction, it flashes an ensanguined glow
across sunken shoals, jagged reefs, and currents
raging tempestuously. Just so, this iUuminative
wisdom of free thought blazed out between the two
contrasted classes of the French nation : the class
which enjoyed life without care, and the class which
toiled serf-like and hopeless. Beheld amongst the
calms of aristocratic conventionalism, what could
appear better adapted to the idle, disillusionised men
and women of that hoUow and frivolous upper- world ?
Its quiet clearness seemed like the enlightenment
of an ironical Koran, preaching libertine freedom.
There is always an incessant craving for strong
sensations when life appears short and tedious, and
when the ghastly skull cannot be whoUy hidden by
rosebuds garlanded before they be withered. To
such hearts and heads, Easy Philosophy brings
certain alleviations ; its tranquil brilliancy, though
cold and pale, is soothing. Its promise seems to be
security in wicked pleasure, — under all circumstances
— Security.
But, what was the other side of the Lantern like ?
It gleamed blood-red and fiery over the sons and
daughters of civilized servitude,— the part-educated,

Lect. in.] Scepticism when Thorough. 141
half-famished, whole-desperate dweUers in the dark
places of society. They, too, craved strong sensations.
Concerning such, we may take up our parable and
say, — " Over them was spread an heavy night, an
image of that darkness which should afterward re
ceive them : but yet were they unto themselves more
grievous than the darkness." * Unto themselves first ;
next to their cynical Lords and Ladies ; to the French
race ; and to all Europe ! Of any pure and spiritual
teaching, they would have asked, " Wherefore is light
given to him that is in misery?" To the misery-
maddened no light was or could be so welcome, as
that lurid blaze of unbelieving philosophy, which
burned away their fears of a future Eetribution, and
by consequence set their passions and their vengeance
free. Had there existed prophetic insight among the
reasoners of polished France, the visible fact that
their Philosophy shone out over such terrific shadows,
would have been a danger-signal ofthe coming wreck.
But no warning voice was heard, tiU the flame of
atheistic selfishness was answered by the furnace-fires
of that Terror which consumed all human ties. Do
we, in these days, wonder that no warning was
heeded then ? Would any similar warning be more
effectual now ? Fatalism and Atheism are preached
constantly amidst the plaudits of ignorant English
men. How many highly-bred pohticians deem the
matter a thing of the slightest consequence ?
Hume would never have set cities on fire, beheaded
* Wisdom of Solomon, xvii. 21.

142 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. in.
or hacked to pieces human beings, — least of aU the
refined, the noble, the educated. But he must be
reckoned among those who sneeringly scattered
smouldering embers, and bequeathed to others death
by the inevitable conflagration.
Think, — for a single moment picture to yourselves,
— what it was to run the gauntlet through a mob of
murder-wearied, more than half intoxicated, man
and woman slayers.
See, here is a Cup ! It is red outside and within,
— deep, ensanguined, red. WeU may it be so! — it
is held by blood-stained hands ; it is filled from
aristocratic veins. Drink, you that desire to Hve,
was the cry,- — drink, and live you may. The fame
of one nobly-born maiden * is immortal, — she did
drink that her Father might continue in Hfe. For
a brief half-hour father and daughter, aged man
and stout-hearted girl, were the idols of those who
worshipped Unreason, Fate, and Fury. No lack of
such worshippers in those days : renegade noblesse ;
priests that blasphemed; lawyers who enacted de
crees of blood and fire ; orators for ever sharpening
the citizens' passions and their poniards.
Madness everywhere ! — the ringing tocsin — the
rumble of the death-cart — the heavy knife that
descended every second minute; whUst no open
mourners dared to go about the streets.
Seldom has the Logic of Events been more com
plete. For this was the Beacon-blaze of the great
French IUumination !
* Mademoiselle de Sombreuil.

LECTUEE IV.

FIRST PRINGIPIES.

LECTUEE IV.
Psalm Ixii. 11, 12.
" God hath spoken once ;
Twice have I heard this ;
That power belongeth ukto God.
Also unto Thee, 0 Lord, belongeth mercy :
For Thou renderest to every man according to his work.''
rpHE Psalmist here expresses one of the most
-*- transcendent convictions entertained at any
time by any human Soul. It realizes for us the
existence of a supreme Sovereign, Who is also a
redresser of Wrongs and a rewarder of Eighteous
dealing. Who does yet more : He has regard to
the duties and devotions which leave those that
render them unprofitable servants. But He, of the
plenitude of His mercy, requites them with good
measure, running over, given into their bosoms.
To the essential ideas conveyed, the form of words
into which they are thrown is of small consequence.
But it so happens that our Lord adopts the outward
shaping bestowed on his thought by the Psalmist.
" The Son of Man," He says, " shall come in the
glory of his Father with his angels; and then he
shall reward every man according to his works."
One great beauty of this saying consists in its
exquisite transparency of expression. It recognises, 10

146 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.iv.
with unmistakeable emphasis, three grand ideas.
First, The Eeality of Moral Distinctions. Next,
Their coming affirmation and their empire over us,
who (whether we like it or no) are heirs to vast
Futurities. Thirdly, The certainty, equity, and clear
ness of the Criterion employed in separating between
man and his feUow-man.
This whole series of principles moulded into facts,
and destined to absolute completion, is represented
as a future consummation of the present discipline
and development of our race. When the world we
inhabit put on long ago its glorious apparel, the
morning stars sang together, and the sons of God
shouted for joy. When the Eace which now inhabits
this world grows ripe for its more developed phase,
the Sovereign of Mankind is portrayed in shining
state, attended by His holy angels. He appears
creator-like, in His inauguration of a new and noble
existence, reserved for the spirits of just men made
perfect. Those righteous souls, who have thus reached
the required stature of their growth, are to possess a
world which cannot be shaken. Their trials, and the
weary, tearful times of their pilgrimage, are over.
The clouds are roUed away from their upward vision.
Faith has yielded place to sight. Now, therefore,
their patient endurance obtains its crown. Accounted
not only faithful, but sure and steadfast, they receive
a kingdom which cannot be moved.
The natural lesson follows, — that we who have
not yet attained, should serve God acceptably, with
reverence and godly fear. For Eetributive Justice

Lect.iv.] FirstPrincipus. 147
is more than one-sided. " Our God is a consuming
Fire." The point here remarkable to us, is that every
one of the three ideas contained in our text, and in
the parallel sayings of our Lord, is found among the
principles of Natural Eehgion. Add that the basis
of Moral truth (which underlies Natural Eeligion)
cannot but be as distinctly tfwo-sided as the scriptural
doctrine of Eetribution. Every moral " ought to do "
is always attended by an " ought not to be done."
And if happiness be allotted to a fulfilment of the
" Ought," then, pari passu, a loss of happiness wiU
attend upon the perpetrated " ought not." The Law
of Eetribution, in order to be Ethical, must follow
(equitably as well as naturally) upon both right and
wrong doing. Both ways, it must find its issue in a
just recompense of reward.
That outcome of Morahty which is commonly
caUed Eetributive Justice, has occupied some of our
attention. We saw that, as a matter of fact, the
sense of EesponsibUity asserts and re-asserts itself
under the most varied phases of our environment.
Under diversities of social life, for example, as wide
apart as old Jerusalem and modern Konigsberg.
Under diversified modes of thought and feehng, such
as ruled the beginnings of our Eace, and such as
in our hard nineteenth century still lead to self-
control and self-sacrifice. There are no two beliefs
so thoroughly Anglo-Saxon as those embodied in the
" I ought " and the " I am accountable."
With these two sturdy beliefs is connected our

148 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.iv
sense of shame. The man who comphes with some
baseness, either to save himself from pain or to
acquire new means of enjoyment, cannot be made
to feel himself anything better than a dastard. And
this is true of most men — from an Indian Chief
to a traitorous mob-courtier, or even a renegade
Churchman. He who conquers through suffering, is
ennobled both in his own eyes and in the estimation
of his feUows. This, again, is pre-eminently true of
all Christian and Anglican martyrs. It is true of
Eegulus ; it is true also of Howard, the philan
thropist. At the close of the last, and beginning of the
present century, the main questions relating to Duty,
Responsibility, Moral law, Moral distinctions, and
their issues, put on (as we have already seen) a
Hfelike aspect. They were cast into this attractive
mould by the ironical philosophy of Hume, and the
earnest antagonism of Kant. If we remember that
the former was born in 1711, and died in 1776 ; the
latter, born in 1724, Hved on till 1804, — we shaU see
the significance of this antithesis. A very ready and
certain method for any one to convince himself of its
importance, is to translate the philosophical language
of that day into the modern scientific terminology
which veils its metamorphosis. We see then how
complete is the pedigree of Thought.
The question of questions, under which all other
issues are naturally ranged, and from which they
derive their special interest, may be stated in these
words : How far is Man merely a Spectator, — how

Lect.iv.] First Principles. 149
far a real Agent in the affairs of his existence ? The
scope of this question is rendered apparent by ob
serving the conditions requisite for answering it.
The balance between looking on at our tragedy or
comedy of Life, and exerting a causal energy upon
its scenes and events, can only be decided by our
estimate of human knowledge and human Will
power. The Sceptic always prefers to state the
terms of this estimate in a destructive form, and to
ask (as Hume was never weary of asking) how vast
is Man's ignorance, — how vast is Man's impotence ?
He wiU often like to add (as Hume added), that the
evidence of these imbecUities is for ever meeting us
on every side.
In my last Lecture I quoted some of Hume's most
favoured evidence. From a metaphysical point of
view, he pronounced Man's knowledge as resting
upon no first-grounds of certitude. From a social
point of view, human actions were held resolvable
into motives, always the reverse of sublime, often
Httle better than bestial ; and dependent on a typical
character which can yield small hope of change,
— still less of self-education. That our character is
thus formed for us, even now remains (according to
Mr. Mill) the strongest argument of modern Fatalism.
There does exist a rejoinder, but it turns on a princi
ple not mentioned either by Hume or his nineteenth
century disciples.
In all that belongs to Life, we must on each
occasion await the next swing of the pendulum.
The license of one age gives place to the austerities

150 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.iv.
of another : the court promotes the convent, and the
convent falls before temptations common to man,
and so the circle is again complete. The doubts of
Hume awakened the criticism of Kant. A theory of
life, ignoble at the best, was belied by a noble life ;
and this nobUity was in turn the honest outcome of a
phUosophy, to which we all look back as era-making,
in the same sense that Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle
were era-making. We feel, as weU as know, this to
be true in the case of the great German, no less than
in the case of the great Greeks. True, also, in the
same way, and for a precisely similar reason. These
four thinkers went to Man's Nature for starting-
points of Truth ; plastic Laws under which we all
see, understand, believe, hope, and learn to live an
intellectual and moral life, at first and at all times.
The practical teaching of the four, otherwise different,
met in one distinctly human position.
This conclusion is, in point of fact, the inevitable
result to which thorough Scepticism itself works'
round. And that all Scepticism, if fairly stated and
reasoned, must at last become thorough, is plain ;
because unless Scepticism succeeds in demolishing
the vaHdity of Thought, it ceases to be Scepticism.
What, then, is the process of demohtion ? Answer
this question, and you will see that by virtue of its
own Method Scepticism is shown to be an Unreality.
It can only destroy the validity of Thought by
assuming that the laws of Thought are valid ; it
must use Eeason to disprove the truth of Eeason.
But if Thought be invalid, and Eeason no safe source

lect. iv.] First Principles. 151
of truth, it necessarUy follows that the thinking and
reasoning by which the Sceptic reaches his conclusion
must have been from the first invalid and unsafe.
The whole sceptical argument, therefore, was and is
an Ulusion, — and Truth Hes in a precisely opposite
direction. This, always, is the logical felo de se committed by
argumentative Doubt. Hence Kant's criticism may
be viewed as a protest against reasoned-out suicide ;
a life-preserver amidst the philosophical shipwreck.
All our own every-day existence is a simUar protest,
and becomes (by parity of reasoning) a verification
of that antagonistic system of Thought which asserts
some ultimate Truth-power in Man. Hume (as we
have akeady seen) did himself, in his common-sense
hours, feel his own conclusions, or rather his endless
want of conclusion, as a sufficient evidence to prove
his arguments hollow. In this feeling he was con
sistent with his utUitarian maxims. A man to be
useful must act with earnestness. But no man wiH
act earnestly without earnest convictions. The issue
of thorough doubt ought to be a waveless slumber of
the soul — a hesitating, or at least an expectant,
Quietism. Kant's protest was perfectly natural. The serious
Teutonic spirit can never rest content with trifling
away serious existence. It is point-blank opposed
to that wretchedly frivolous spirit which feels satisfied
with depreciating or denying the great aims of Hu
manity. In its nobler view, Man is in this world
sovereign over all that is merely sensitive. He shed

152 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.iv.
a glory over Nature from the light of his own Being.
Outside impressions, — the shifting circumstantials of
Man's environment, — -rush inwards through the open
avenues of his bodUy senses. They come like shadows,
but can never so depart. They enter in — a long
procession, an ever-passing train of individual objec
tivities. Once entered, they receive order, clearness,
harmony, significance, from the sovereign laws of
human thought. That which was a disconnected
event, and in itself transitory, is converted into the
Hnk of a chain. That which was figured as fluent,
vanishing, a fragment of the Manifold and Mutable,
becomes fixed, and conditioned upon the Universal
and the Absolute.
Look, for example, at the physical sphere. By
this same universal " must be," we gain access to
the mechanism of the Heavens. We are enabled to
explain the phases of our world's satellite, and the
translation of our world in space. We distinguish
the movements of our planetary system, in relation
to ourselves, and also to the starry barriers of the
sky. With the elder Herschel, we break through
those remote barriers, and gaze backwards upon the
realm left behind us — from a far-away distance, real
and evident to the Mathematician, but overpowering
the wUdest imagination. So simply a matter of fact
is this, that we are obliged to accept the absolutely
inconceivable. Truth becomes stranger than fiction ;
plain prose outsoars the most sublime glancing of
the poet's eye. Our own world, our own system,
appears, to scientific sight, a part of that double-

Lect.iv.] First Principles. 153
belted galaxy, which the vision of our body and of
our fancy looks upon as traversing the distant Uni
verse. And through those immeasurable regions far
beyond, there float, balanced in clear azure, suns,
systems — formed and unformed — amidst a Space
stretched out into infinitude ; and sown with worlds
like grains of rice thrown broadcast over the wide
spread waters of Orissa.
Strange, too, is it not? how we — Hume's imbecile
fellow-creatures — should have found means to ascer
tain that the elementary components of orbs and
systems of orbs, glittering in the limitless Sky-ocean,
are identical with the useful elements found in this
world, — with substances which enter into the compo
sition of our earth, our bodies, our food, our clothing,
our arts, arms, and hearths ! * Nay, more than this.
From Nature's uniformity it follows that the thing
which hath been, must be. We read a Nebula into
a Sun with revolving globes around him. We watch
* We know even the sidereal distribution of substances which we
have been accustomed to call our own : —
" It is a curious circumstance that some of the whiter stars, such
as Sirius, do not appear to contain anything but hydrogen ; at least
we have no indication that they do ; other stars again of less white
ness, in addition to hydrogen, have such substances as iron, sodium,
etc.; while yellow, orange, and blood-red stars, and variable stars,
appear to contain in their atmospheres substances which are com
pounds." — The Unseen Universe, Sect. 159. [The brighter stars of
the Sirius class shew indications of sodium, iron, and magnesium.
The absorptive strata appear to be thick and under great pressure,
as well as of a very high temperature. Compare Schellen's Spectrum
Analysis, Part III., Sect. 62.]
The composition of wwresolved Nebulas will occur for mention in
my sixth Lecture.

154 The Doctrine of Retribution, [Lect.iv.
the Comet as it flies away, and foretell its return.
We know when the eclipse, or the transit, must come
to pass. We register their phenomena, and verify
our own verities. And when we have done all this,
we can properly understand why a stone thrown
upwards must faU down. We have demonstrated
what we knew prior to our cosmical experience, —
the truths of number, measure, and magnitude. We
acknowledge them as true for us, and true for the
whole material Universe.
Were this all, Man could scarcely be spoken of
as branded by Nature with extreme ignorance. But
this is not all. The great Greek Moralist questioned
mathematical first-principles out of the mouth and
mind of a slave. So, too, from a raw English lad
may be questioned out the axiom which underlies
demonstration, and enables us to convert rough ore
into sterling thought, without fearing that the logic
of events wUl confute us. This axiom is the surest
of aU principles- — tlie principle of contradiction.
Knowing that if our inward vision is true — and
cannot but be true — this principle is also a certain
logical truth, we proceed to infer, and to employ
our inferences as premises for further stages of
inferring — chain after chain, conclusion upon con
clusion- — tiU we reach some new world of knowledge ;
vast, it may be, as the gain of a second hemisphere.
Neither do we feel apprehensive lest our science
should be found an oblique shadow, or our Eeason
a meteor spark. And surely it is better for us that
we should know and acknowledge these facts, since

Lect. iv.] First Principles. 155
they are knowable, and given us to know : better far
than to conclude, with David Hume, " that we have
no choice left but betwixt a false Eeason or none
at all."
An affirmative philosophy stands opposed to the
negations and blanks of Scepticism, not only in its
conclusions, but also in its discovery of binding
laws. And it is, in its highest nature, synthetic. In
this view, the destructive analysis, which forms the
approved method of Sceptics, appears nothing better
than an attempt to reduce valuable substances into
worthless elements. The mere statement of this
result stamps Scepticism as suicidal in respect of
Utility, just as we have seen it suicidal in respect
of Validity. That is to say, — As its procedure in
validates itseK, so its results are simply useless !
And the coroHary seems obvious : Scepticism cannot,
in strictness of speech, be termed a Philosophy ; much
less a PhUosophy which satisfies the requirements of
Human Nature.
What, then, is the contrasted amount of satisfac
tion to be gained from an opposite Method ? Suppose
you contemplate a Geometrical diagram, you will
perceive that one or more principles are made evident
by the truth of its construction ; and these, when
stated, you recognise as axiomatic. In other words,
you perceive a theoretically certain " must be," prior
to aU actual experience, and often whole centuries of
time in advance of it. Now, one use of verification
when it does accrue (as in this case it has accrued
from the measurement of Earth and Heavens), is to

156 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.iv.
verify, first, the principles themselves ; next, the
truth of that kind of insight which discovered those
axioms and affirmed them. And the possession of
such insights is an endowment characteristic of
Man. The Mathematical insight, which is our common
property, having been found safe, there arises a
presumption in favour of the vahdity of our other
axiomatic insights, provided they possess a history
sufficiently resembling the history of the insight
already verified. For instance ; — There arises a pre
sumption in favour of the axiom on which Logic rests
over and above its own inherent certitude. We all
perceive its truth. We are unable to deny it. We
cannot help denying its contradictory. Thus the
history of the logical axiom runs paraUel with the
history of Mathematical axioms.
This same point of presumptive evidence a priori
gives rise to some further notable consideration. Any
axiom is, we suppose, a truth shining by its own
light. So let it be ; yet each valid example of
axiomatic truth adds strength and Ulumination to
another. Consequently, the evidence becomes ac
cumulative ; or, if you please, verificatory. Taking
the two instances just adduced, the whole effect on
the mind may be stated as follows. Just as Mathe
matical axioms are accepted prior to all appHcation,
so the grand principle of Logic claims to be accepted
prior to its employment. And after this first claim
is put in, a kind of confirmatory claim appears
reasonable, anterior to any question of /ac^-verifica-

Lect.iv.] First Principles. 157
tion, because the d-priori conviction in this second
instance is not ivithout precedent. One set of veri
fied axioms — to wit, the Mathematical— must cause us
to expect the truth of another axiom — that is to say,
the Logical ; and we feel this probability would be
just were no other kind of verification feasible or
forthcoming. It is true, indeed, that we are able to
find a subsequent and final satisfaction from the
coincidence of fact or experiment, with, first, our
primary conviction, and, next, our probable expecta
tion, which was superadded from analogy and pre
cedent. But suppose no fact-verifying process had
ever been possible, we might stiU have kept a suffi
cient confidence in our certitude already acquired.
Suppose, on the contrary, that it has been not only
possible but actual — as is really the case — we must
needs feel a fresh certitude, sufficing in itself, suf
ficing also because closely connected with our own
previous experience.
Another extremely instructive point is, that our
acceptance of the Logical ground-principle per se
appears far from being brought home to us in the
same manner as our acceptance of the axioms of
Geometry. There is, in their case, an outward form
or schema, — an appeal to sensuous perception as weU
as to Eeason. The principle of Contradiction, on the
other hand, is suggested as well as assured to us by
a purely abstract process. Its very entrance into the
mind comes to pass through a medium, " from out
ward sense refined and clear." Poetry is, we know,
a more simply ideal art than painting or music,

158 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.iv.
because it is clothed in a vestment woven by the
human mind, instead of addressing us under the guise
of a sensuous presentation impressed upon the animal
eye. So, too, the foundation-principle underlying all
inference robes itself in our human traveHing attire
of Thought, — which is (we may say without being
poets) a plumage alive with winged words. And
those vitalized pinions are given to no creature
below the race of reasoning, and, therefore, articu
lately-speaking men.
It happens, however, that the whole of our Life is
perpetuaUy adding material confirmation strong to
the formal certitude claimed by this ground-prin
ciple of direct demonstration. Here, again, as in
the example of Geometry, a never-ending process
of verification cannot fail to repeat the lesson,
" Trust your own Intuitions."
I must now conduct you to the spectacle of a more
recondite kind of Trust. A trust, as absolute in its
way, as our assurance of mathematical or logical
First-grounds. Yet it occupies a different position
in the science of mind, and opens out to our view a
different territory of human insight. Amongst aU
the wonderful procedures of Man's thought, none
seems so marvellous, as regards either its origin, its
realization, or its results, as the process of Induction.
Its work has been going on since Man first tenanted
the world. It surrounds us, from the cradle to the
grave, with a mental atmosphere in which our whole
Eace works and marches onwards continually. Yet
no subject of psychological investigation has been

Lect.iv.] First Principles. 159
so tardy in attaining ripeness. None so slow to lay
bare the secret of its energy to the philosophic eye.
Compare Hume, Kant, and Hegel. Upon one
topic you will find an accordance. Nor will any
deep thinker henceforward hesitate to affirm that
the universality of the Inductive principle, (the sole
characteristic which makes its value inestimable,)
is given by the Mind of Man alone. It compels
our assent before experience ; no alleged experience
can ever be weighed in the scale against it. Neither
could any supposable mass of favourable experience,
heaped up mountains high, reach the absolute eleva
tion to which it rises, — nor yet, if ever so broadly
expanded, attain the completeness of its rule over
the whole material universe. Human experience
may, in a sense, be said to verify its truth. 'But
such verification appears, when examined, to yield
not an enlarging, but a limiting and defining effect
— a greater precision and exactness of application.
And, so far as this limitary effect is concerned, it
stands in diametrical contrast with the verifications
of applied Geometry.
The whole subject of Induction is (as I have said)
surrounded by unsolved and half-solved questions.
You wiU have observed that the practice of Aristotle
varies. Sometimes, when he uses Induction, he
enumerates instances ; sometimes he boldly lays his
hand upon one single typical example, and by its
appositeness leads up his auditor's mind to grasp a
whole idea. Bacon's scheme of Induction must strike
every reader who understands him as truly gigantic.

1 60 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. iv.
By the unintelligent it is voted thoroughly Utopian.
Modern Science has, however, culled from it a
method of interrogating Nature by. crucial questions,
answering the same by crucial experiments ; and sub
jecting hypotheses thus gained to successive verifica
tions. Sir Isaac Newton's breadth of sweep, gained
by his poring over a wide cycle of facts tUl the light
of some verifiable theory dawned upon his intellect,
may seem, in some eyes, a nearer approach to the
Baconian scheme than the practice adopted by later
philosophers. How this Hght of theory arises, we
cannot tell ; but it does in fact arise. So writes
Dr. TyndaU, who looks upon its law as a possession
assigned to Genius, and likens it to a kind of Inspi
ration.* Or, to use another of his similitudes, the
process may be compared with the clearing of a
mirror, or photographic plate. The mind, thus
brought into an unclouded state, receives a lucid
image. And such a final image is the result sought
by the philosopher's Induction.
This account of the Inductive process may appear
to several here much more complicated — more deli
cate in adaptation, and bearing, on the face of it,
less warranty of certitude than they have been ac
customed to imagine. Yet, as you aU know, the
certitude becomes, in effect, absolute. The truth
is, that what seems broad and simple enough in
general outline, must often be extremely refined
and tentative amongst the lights and shades of
specialized definition. And the nobler the science,
* Fragments of Science, pp. 57, 58, 60.

Lect.iv.] First Principles. 161
the more likely this contrast to ensue. Primd-
facie theories are always facile in appearance. The
functional application of them is immensely diffi
cult. So, too, Doubt and Denial are easy. The
difficulty lies with Proofs and Affirmatives. Most
of you may remember the old and true adage,
" Unus asinus plus negabit in una hora quam
centum philosophi in centum annis probaverint."
I must venture on showing you two further charac
teristics of the great Inductive Law ; both equally
remote from the conceptions commonly formed of
it. As regards the first, one of the most subtle
among our own metaphysical Theologians is not
unsupported by the most Utilitarian of Professors
belonging to another University. And, indeed, the
truth of the case is plain, when once distinctly
stated. Our primary belief in the Uniformity of
Nature, our earliest assurance—" that the thing
which hath been shall be," — springs from an im
pulse to believe, prior not only to reasoning on
the subject, but also to every kind of empirical
justification. For years, we all accept and act
upon a maxim which not one in a hundred
amongst us is able, in after life, approximately
to explain. No rhetorical power on earth would
argue us out of our belief in Nature's Uniformity.
Yet, very few of us reflect that both its kind of
certitude, and the connateness of its origin with
our human consciousness, manifest a very near
approach to the characters of our natural behefs in
Moral Distinctions and in God. So connate with
11

1 62 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.iv.
the beginnings of our life, does this last-named
Theistic belief appear to Mr. Hume, so deeply in
woven with the earhest fibres of our being, that he
classes Theism amongst the instincts or pecuhar-
attributes of Humanity. His words are : —
" The universal propensity to believe in invisible, intelligent power,
if not an original instinct, being at least a general attendant of human
nature, may be considered as a kind of mark or stamp, which the
Divine workman has set upon his work ; and nothing surely can
more dignify mankind, than to be thus selected from all other parts
of the creation, and to bear the image or impression of the uni
versal Creator." *
Whether this and other similar behefs are pro
perly termed instinctive or not, no way concerns
our present investigation. Our business lies with
the actual character, — not the origin of our primary
behef in Eetribution, together with its moral correla
tives. Yet, if we do find cause to view such beliefs
in the light of Instincts, we ought carefully to add
that they are instincts appertaining to a nature
endowed with Reason. LUe, as we see it in vegeta
bles or Infusoria, becomes altered by the introduction
of a nervous system, and appears stUl more changed
when subjected to the dominion of nervous centres.
Precisely so, Instinct may undergo most real altera
tion, simultaneously with the very first dawn of
Eeason. It may afterwards become metamorphosed,
and be translated into a new and glorious shape,
as Reason arrives at its sovereignty over the per
fected human creature. This hypothesis would ex
plain much that is dark respecting, the paths by
* Natural History of Religion, Sect. xv. (G. & G. iv. 362.)

Lect. iv.j First Principles. 1 63
which automatism inosculates with the spontaneous
movements of our human Will-power. It may ex
plain much respecting the empire of Habit over our
lower nature ; and the manner in which our higher
Self uses fresh Habituations, to conquer and control
inferior impulses and desires, — that is, to change our
own character, and by such change to acquire new
aims, new motives, new vohtions. The whole sub
ject deserves a long and careful consideration, and is
sure to repay the toils of some nineteenth century
philosopher. In whatever way the question of Rise and Progress
be argued, we must now leave it in the shadows. It
has been fertile in hypotheses which range from
innate Ideas, the doctrine of Anamnesis, and a
faith in former worlds of spiritual life, down to the
modern theory of derivation by heredity — that is
to say, the inherited and assimilated experience of
numberless generations. But Natural Religion deals
with the observed and observable facts of our existing
Moral Nature, and does not concern itself with specu
lations founded on an embryology. And this course
must appear to be a dictate of right reason. Just
as the embryonic brain is not identical, in form or
function, with the brain of a Kant or an Aristotle —
(although pre-supposed and involved as a foregone
condition) — exactly so, let the exercise of our prac
tical Reason be conditioned as it may, there is no
necessary identity of operation between its present
insights and its formative, and part-formed, uses,
throughout periods long passed away.

T 64 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. iv.
With this protest, never to be forgotten by any
Moralist, I pass to the second remarkable character
istic of Inductive Law which I proposed elucidating.
We saw how pure were those abstractions upon which
rest the mathematical sciences, as well as the science
of all Reasoning. Should any one feel at all doubtful
respecting the essential abstractedness of Geometrical
axioms, let him consider that Francis Bacon assigned
Mathematics to the province of Metaphysic, by reason
of this very character. As regards their entrance
into the mind, we have already observed a difference
between them and the primary axiom of Logic. Not
withstanding this, we must agree with Bacon, that
they are, of all Forms, the most abstract and sepa
rated from Matter.
But what a salient contrast do they present to the
ground-principle of Induction ! This principle cannot
be called a formal first-truth. It is from its very
beginning concrete ; bound up (so to speak) with our
material existence, and the facts of our material
environment. Our Reason does not look forth upon
a visible schema, or diagram, displaying some self-
evident truth to the inward eye. Much less does
Reason represent to itself an ideally-conceived, prin
ciple. What Reason sees, is a fact or an event ; and
from the present infers the future, — from the parti
cular asserts a knowledge of the universal. I have
dwelt on this phenomenon elsewhere,* and cannot
repeat myself, but may just mention the circum
stance, that these and similar insights controlling
* Philosophy of Natural Theology, p. 256 seq.

lect.iv.] First Principles. 165
our practical Hfe (moral and aesthetic), our relations
to the outside world and our knowledge of its forces^
ought -all to be included under one collective designa
tion. I have therefore ventured to bestow upon the
whole genus one common- name, and have called
them Beliefs of Reason. The first word, "Beliefs,"
is not inappropriate to the reliance they, from the
first, inspire ; and it has the merit of not saying too
much. The addition "of Reason." limits such in
stincts (*/ we may so term them) to the sole Rational
inhabitants of this world. Reason in itself thus
finally appears to us, who are endowed with its living
essence, as the exact opposite to any imaginable
accretion of sensuous elements} or any bundle of
heterogeneous properties. A mode of existence, iUus-
trative of what it is unlike, may. be found in those
composite animals whose blossoming- lives resemble
flower- clusters grown together. Reason sits, so to
speak, at the centre of our world, — a. world exhibit
ing before the eye of Reason its several zones of
pure Thought, mixed Truth, and operative Behef.
Throughout all these zones Reason looks with equal
eye : when we speak, therefore, of Man's practical
Reason, the phrase is not meant to differentiate an
Entity, one and indivisible. But, just as we mentally
distinguish the hollow and the sweU of a curve, even
though the curve be a mathematical, not a tangible
line, so (to borrow a simile from Aristotle) we may,
with like propriety, distinguish the differing, activities
of Reason. The Diverseness we speak of is not in
the Principle, but in its operation. It springs not

1 66 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.iv.
from any modification of the working essence, but is
given by the sphere in which Reason works.
The Law which our Reason enunciates for the
sphere of natural events— the Inductive Law of
Science — may be expressed by various forms of speech,
negative as well as affirmative ; yet each and all
assert the same universal " must be." We may say,
" There is no change without a cause of change ; "
or, " Every consequent must have its antecedent, —
each antecedent its invariable consequent." Either
way, we mean to express our firm belief in the Uni
formity of Nature, just as was meant, in days of old,
by that short but emphatic maxim, " The thing
which hath been, shall be."
Precisely in the same manner, we both say and
believe that, throughout the Moral zone, even as
throughout the physical zone of the world, a Law
embodying an immutable " must be " is, to the eye
of our Reason, universal. The different operation
of the Must (a fact which we also perceive and
assert), is consequent upon the difference of subject-
matter controlled by the Supreme formal Law. In
the sphere of physics, where Things as they exist
can neither originate nor terminate Motion, the Law
is necessarily mechanical. In the sphere of Volition,
Persons not Things are the subjects of Law. They
are able to commence actions, and to hinder them.
The necessity, therefore, becomes Moral, — the " Must
be " is transformed into an " ought to do." However
people may argue or refine on such topics, this again
is a persuasion which no arguments can eradicate

Lect.iv.] First Principles. 167
from the human mind : "I know I ought not to have
done it " wUl always be the utterance of multitudes
whose sin has found them out. " You ought not " is
the phrase of a Father to an erring child. Husbands,
wives, friends, neighbours, all urge the same plea.
The " you ought," or " I ought," stands through our
whole lives absolutely imperative. " There is a
nobihty of aim open in some way to every man.
You ought to embrace it " is practically said to every
youth, by every tutor, every professor, every Head of
a House in Oxford. It drops from the lips of our
golden-mouthed preachers ; it beams out from the
example of many a self-controlled, self-denying
votary of Religion. " These things bring a man
peace at the last," is the consensus of all your guides
and aU your exemplars. And consider how often,
when all seemed against it, before the eyes of aU
Oxford men, the " I ought " has been victoriously
maintained. Here, for example, in this very church,
within these four waUs, Anglican prelates, lawfully
anointed, were brought to bay by their persecutors,
and required to affirm a Falsehood. Although the
penalties were loss of earthly substance and position,
imprisonment, cruel mockings, and death by fire, the
" I ought " prevailed. It prevailed here ; it prevailed
in sight of the old grey waUs of Balliol, and the Saxon
tower of St. Michael's. There the sacrifice of Duty
was consummated. There one Bishop said to his
companion in torture, "Be of good comfort and play
the Man. We shall this day light such a candle by
God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be

1 68 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.iv.
put out." These words still stand true. True for
England, — true for Oxford ! We Oxonians have
often been censured for clinging too fondly to the
records and customs of the Past ; and false prophets
were not wanting, more than two centuries ago, who
foretold the approaching Romanism of our whole
University. Yet what was the answer pronounced
at Magdalen, and repeated through Oxford, when
James the Second tried that question out ? And if
the question wTere tried again, what would be our
answer now ? There are in this church, men who,
like myself, have reason to mourn the loss of friends
remaining in the same land, but no longer walking
to the same House of God. Yet, for many here, as
for me, the " I ought " remains the same. That old
Bishop's words are not dead, but living. We would
rather ourselves die in the slow-consuming flame,
than yield aUegiance to the proud false Dogma which
has torn by its perplexities the breasts of some
among our lost friends, and of others our fellow-
countrymen. We would resist, not only in theory,
but also in practice, the Schism-causing pretensions
of Papal Rome. So long as the power of Resist
ance shaU remain to us, and to leaders of men
like-minded with our humbler selves, the resolve
(long ago spoken) wUl be echoed, and re-echoed, —
" That no Italian Priest
Shall tithe or toll in these dominions."
In saying this, we may all wish to say likewise, —
" Great is Truth, and mighty above all things." *
* 1 Esdras iv. 41.

Lect.iv.] First Principles. 169
The- "ought," which is ours now, will one day
become the final " Must be" of the Universe.,, No
real martyr for conscience'' sake has ever failed to
place trust in this principle. The Patriarch, when
forsaken of mankind, and reasoning over the battle-
cries- of Right and Wrong, said, " I know that my
Redeemer liveth." * Socrates looked for undying
friends, powerful, eternal, immutable, when he swal
lowed the juice,, and felt his limbs grow cold. The
Mother and "her seven sons, in Maccabee times^
offered their bodies and lives for the laws of their
Fathers, believing that the King of the World should
raise them up, wh© died for His laws, unto everlasting
life.! The last instance brings with it, another- reflection.
What we have- already said, results from the insight
of Reason, directed to the practical, that is->the Moral,
Truth-zone- of our earthly existence. But add to
this- the conclusion of Natural Theology — the Belief
in a righteous God.. We rise- to our knowledge of
Him. through His attributes; some- visible,. some dimly
seen. From them, inscribed on Nature, and on oub
own Nature, we revere Him as our true Cause,, our
Law-giver, and our Judge. We are,, at once,, sure
that the sighing of the prisoner shall come before
Him ; that He will not be forgetful of them that are
appointed to die. And it is God alone Who can
finaUy take away the veil that is spread over all
nations, and ransom them from the power of the
grave-. To the man who believes in God, and realizes
* Job- xix.. 25.. t 2 Maccabees vii.. 9;.

1 70 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. iv.
God's presence, the simple " ought to do" is irra
diated with a new clearness ; it seems to pervade
the soul through higher avenues of sense. He feels
himself impeUed by a desire to please his Lord, — he
cherishes in his heart a sentiment of loyalty, devotion,
and love. And a human being, thus strengthened and
renovated, becomes as it were a Law unto himself.
It cannot be that every heart of man has been
visited by emotions so sublime, by affections so happy
and so vivifying. Neither, again, can we expect all
human minds to be equally clear-sighted in regard
of the " ought, and ought not to do." We are, early
or late, made aware that the fact is contrariwise. In
looking at Life, we must begin by placing on one
side many cases of stark moral insensibility ; which
can only be paralleled, in the physical sphere, by
such phenomena as colour-blindness, complete ab
sence of musical ear, and other congenital imperfec
tions. The intellectual world presents much closer
parallels. Incapacity for apprehending the most
obvious common-sense propositions has clouded the
existence of many a son of Genius. Inability to learn
Geometry is not an uncommon thing ; indeed, if geo
metrical power were more generaUy possessed, there
would be a great diminution of inconsequential rea
soning. I myself knew a gentleman who had amassed
a large fortune in business, and occupied the station
of a county magistrate, yet was altogether unequal
to abstract thought. And so far did this inability
extend, that he cpuld not perceive the truth of several
amongst Euclid's axioms. The effect on his judicial

Lect. iv.] First Principles. 1 7 1
functions was notable : they were performed with the
most indiscriminating austerity.
Putting aside such instances as these, an equal
power of apprehending moral truth must never be
expected amongst men. Yet, at first sight, we may
feel surprised by the greatness of its inequality.
Suppose the phase of this world now passing before
our eyes could be taken to represent the whole
history of Mankind, — then the admitted antagonism
between Moral first-principles and the insusceptible
state of full many an inward eye, might appear hope
lessly enigmatic. But, in numberless instances, we
discern — in more we infer — a strong and sufficient why.
To go no farther than our own country, one cause Hes
heavy as an incubus upon the hearts of those who
are conversant with vast cities, and the birthplaces
and wild-beast dens for youth and age contained in
them. The heroism, sometimes the Quixotism, of
home-missionaries, both male and female, bears per
petual witness to this mournful reality. And, when
we pass from the annals of the Poor into an atmo
sphere of what is called Respectability, no one can
help, observing causes enough, and more than enough,
for the spread and heredity of moral short-sighted
ness. We hear maxims, against which the better
nature of the speaker must revolt. We see examples
sometimes carelessly wicked, sometimes ingrained
upon men's lives by a long course of Indifferentism,
and by the habit of asking " What is Truth?" with
out any serious search for a reply. And we know
that, just as moral epidemics pervade certain eras of

172 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.iv.
history, (we in England need go no farther back than
Charles the Second's day,) so, too, Man's individual
procHvities to self-indulgent vice must at all times
be frightfully contagious. Selfishness and sensuality
are now, as always, like the pestilence that walketh
in darkness, and the destruction that wasteth at
noonday. In our present imperfect state,. Retribu
tion most frequently takes the form of sin punishing
sin. Often a man's or woman's whole existence is
wrong and wretched,, themselves being judges. Some
times the children judge their fathers and mothers ;
more commonly they imitate their wicked example.
And this, as we have observed,, is at once a statute
of Retribution written in the Old Testament, and
a law of Heredity asserted and. explained by the
foremost of modern Biologists..
These facts considered, we might imagine that, in
the lapse of ages, Morality must become extinct.
But it is undying, — more tenacious of vitality than
grains of wheat unwrapped from Egyptian catacombs,
which even now produce their hundredfold in Devon
shire cornfields. Men,, in their thoughts,, accuse one
another ; very often they accuse themselves ; often
there is a contest as well as a self-accusation. " That
which I do I allow not : for what I would,, that do
I not; but what I hate, that do I." * " There is
another man within me, that's angry with me, re
bukes, commands, and dastards me." +
Often the self-accuser proceeds to absolute self-
condemnation : —
* Eomans vii. 15-. f Peligio Medici, Part II.,. sect. vii.

Lect.iv.] First Principles. 173
" 0 coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me ! —
The lights burn blue. — It is now dead midnight «
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.

I am a villain : Yet I lie, I am not.
Fool, of thyself speak well : — fool, do not flatter.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
I shall despair. There is no creature loves me ;
And if I die, no soul shall pity me :
Nay, wherefore should they, — since "that I myself
Find in myself no pity to myself? "
Such as King Richard's, is the passionate remorse
of any unscrupulous man of the world, — a man of
impulse and action ; firm in resolve, weak only to
be again firm and wicked. But there are natures
deliberate in sin, although remorseful ; hearts which
are self-broken, yet brokenly live on. Before their
eyes is a horror of great darkness ; a dreadful sound
is in their ears ; within their souls an overpowering
sense of ever-present inability. No light : much
pain : and hope itself departed. Small strength to
wish, and none to work a change : —
" It is as if the dead could feel
The icy worm around them steal,
And shudder, as the reptiles creep
To revel o'er their rotting sleep,
Without the power to scare away
The cold consumers of their clay ! " *
So wrote one who had felt what he described, and
* The Giaour.

174 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.iv.
who rushed upon its terrors, oestrus- driven into strong
and wUd sensations. They were strong, — and he told
them to the world in immortal verse. The world
admired the lurid glow of his genius : but that power
soon passed from us ; it was quenched, like a lamp
which could not be replenished;, and even so went
out into darkness.
Great examples are great teachings. In them we
see the typical Hneaments of Man. When a painter
or sculptor shapes out our human form, he seeks it in
its finest physical mould, either for stern strength or
for elevated beauty. The typical Soul is strong in
its Humanity. And the truly human Soul, neither
perverse nor depraved into something bestial, may
be likened to a piece of Imperial tribute-money
well coined and undefaced. Such a Soul bears, in
its sorrow as in its hope, a persistent Image and
Superscription of its supra-natural Life. In this
way, Strength continues to possess a" kind of
Beauty, truest in its excellence when Strength has
been true to its purpose. In this way, Hkewise,
we perceive that the True is pre-eminently the
Beautiful. Great examples are more than great teachings ; for
what they teach is always some typical lesson, pre
pared, and worked into human shape. They impress
the mind as realities concrete and salient, — the very
opposite of attenuated theories ! It is worth a thou
sand theories, to know the hard fact that Remorse is
a solitude ; that there does actually come upon bad
men such a fate as Moral desolation. And, when

Lect. iv.] First Principles. 175
we come to great lives, and fhe life-work of great
thinkers, we get from them reahzations of the main
primordia of Human Nature. In eacrj case, the
actual experience of a loyal worker and his work
verifies some connate element of truth ; whether that
truth be speculative, or practical. Such a verifier
of the higher Mathematics was Sir Isaac Newton.
With the grand axiom of Logic we associate the
name of Aristotle. The Law of Induction calls up
the philosophy of Bacon. The most typical man,
whose thought, work, life, and death, illustrate and
verify the Moral axiom, has been deemed, for ages,
Socrates, — a clear proof that Moral Insight is not a
gift of recent anthropogeny, of modern civilization,
convention, or development ! Yet, in speaking of
Socrates, I should like to subjoin the admirable
memory of Kant ; nearer to ourselves, and wher
ever best known, there always the most highly
appreciated. I have now been drawing word-pictures of four
elementary Human Truths. In describing them, I
have varied my language so as to avoid technical
names, which of necessity imply artificial classifica
tions. Besides, in the present transitional — perhaps
half-nebular — state of psychology and systematized
Ethics, it would seem mischievous to employ tenta
tive language. Let it be ever so distinctly stated
that the terms used are provisional, they seem almost
certain to awaken foregone theories of some kind.
If we incline to consider these four elements of Mind
instinctive, they must not be thought of as resem-

176 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.iv.
bling Instincts commonly so called. If Beliefs, they
are not acts of Faith. " Intuitions " and " Innate
Ideas " are phrases which connote a great deal. In
using them, we must needs explain that the Ideas
intuited exist in the higher world of Reason ; that
they cannot be likened to fixed forms of thought and
language, but are more like germinal growths, —
powerful in seizing upon and assimilating their own
appropriate pabulum^ but with definite vital pro-.
cesses and developments of their own. The safest
way is to treat every such elementary state as a fact
imperfectly explained ; and to investigate it in the
fruits it bears. These are of two kinds : the first
factors of thought infer Methods of after- thinking ;
they also imply a tendency to unification with other
mental elements — if, indeed, we may look at Mind as
an expression of underlying Unity.
Meantime, when we meditate upon our deep-down
Moral Insight, leading to an urgency of Moral Law,
and upon our human Will-force, performing or contra
vening the work of that Law, it is impossible to
avoid an impression of mingled hope and sadness.
How wondrous it seems, to think what you, and I,
and all mankind, might have been — nay, would have
been— if our race had grown up steadily true to
itself! What we might become, even now, if each
generation chose to leave the best legacy to each
succeeding age ! God grant us here present, strength
to turn the " might become " into a " may be " ! In
this way, above all other ways, can we make sure of
reahzing our individual aspirations after a Life better

Lect.iv.] First Principles. ijj
and more perfect than the mixed existence forced
upon us by the conditions of the world we are now
inhabiting. Conditions from which we hope one day
to find ourselves set free !

\* Note on p. 173 ante.
Had the following extract from Lord Byron's Giaour been entirely
fit tor recital in the pulpit, it would have been quoted, because ex
ceedingly direct : —
" The Mind, that broods o'er guilty woes,
Is like the Scorpion girt by fire,
In circle narrowing as it glows,
The flames around their captive close,
Till inly search'd by thousand throes,
And maddening in her ire,
One sad and sole relief she knows,
The sting she nourish'd for her foes,
Whose venom never yet was vain,
Gives but one pang, and cures all pain,
And darts into her desperate brain :
So do the dark in soul expire,
Or live like scorpion girt by fire ;
So writhes the mind Remorse hath riven,
Unfit for earth, undoom'd for heaven,
Darkness above, despair beneath,
Around it flame, within it death ! "
Compare the celebrated passage of Cicero pro Ptoscio xxiv. (67) : —
" Nolite putare, quemadmodum in fabulis saapenumero videtis, eos,
qui aliquid impie scelerateque commiserint, agitari et perterreri Fu-
riarum tasdis ardentibus. Sua quemque fraus, et suns terror maxime
vexat : suum quemque scelus agitat, amentiaque afficit : suas malas
cogitationes eonseientiaaque animi terrent. Hfe sunt impiis assiduse
domesticaeque Furiae, quae dies noctesque poanas a consceleratissimis
repetant." Add Juvenal's measured words (Sat. xiii.) : — 12

178 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.iv.
" Exemplo quodcunque malo committitur, ipsi
Displicet auctori. Prima est haec ultio, quod, se
Judice, nemo nocens absolvitur."
Out of many paragraphs of Aristotle, let the following be read as a
prose comment on Shakespeare's Pilchard III. I am happy to quote
them in the language of Mr. Williams's translation : — " A man's per
sonality is chiefly, if not entirely, centred in his Eeason. Thus, then,
the good man will wish to hold continuous communion with himself,
inasmuch as such communion cannot but be pleasant to him. For to
him the memories of the past are happy, and the hopes of the future
are bright ; and memories and hopes of this kind are full of pleasure.
He has, moreover, abundant store of thoughts on which to feast his
Reason ; and it is with his own pains, and with his own pleasures,
that he most of all feels sympathy. . . . When a man is abso
lutely bad, and when his every act is a sin, then he neither has, nor
even seems to have, any of these feelings towards himself. One
might, indeed, almost say that he cannot possibly have them, if he
be bad at all. For the bad are at variance with themselves, so that
their desires lead them one way and their better wishes another.
. . And, since they have in them nothing that calls for love,
they can feel no affection towards themselves. And, hence, not even
in their own joys and sorrows can they have any sympathy with
themselves. For their soul is like a city which is at variance with
itself, and the one part of it, by reason of their sins, is grieved that
it has to abstain from certain things, while the other part is pleased
thereat ; and the one drags them this way, and the other drags
them that, like beasts when they rend a carcase. . . . From all
this it clearly follows that the bad man cannot feel towards himself
as towards a friend, since he has nothing in him worthy of affec
tion." — Nicomachean Ethics, B. IX. ch. iv.
The Science of Human Nature seems much the same amongst highly
endowed minds, although many centuries apart.

LECTURE V.

THE PREROGATIVE OF HUMANITY.

LECTURE V.
1 Peter iii. 15.
"Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you
A reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear."
r I "THIS text, like many others, illustrates the grand
-*- principle that our human life, to be satisfactory,
must be all of a piece. If any one is inclined to
make either his faith or his philosophy into a thing
of shreds or patches, he will find that the Scripture
rebukes him. Apart from that living insight which
belongs to every kind of belief, philosophy becomes
a wisdom which is foolishness unto God ; an oppo
sition of science falsely so called. Neither does
Scripture permit Faith to be isolated from that
Reason which is Man's divine dotation. My text
proves this. And another Apostle says to his Gentile
converts, "T speak as to wise men" (philosophers,
that is — lovers of wisdom in the truest sense) : "judge
ye what I say."*
* " The truth is, that science and religion neither are nor can be
two fields of knowledge with no possible communication between
them. Such an hypothesis is simply absurd." The Unseen Universe,
Sect. 258. Goethe had said long before : " As soon as we set out
from the principle that Knowledge and Faith are not given to destroy
each other, but to supply each other's deficiencies, we shall come
near to an accurate estimate of the Right." — Johann Falk's Goethe,
Cap. iv.

1 82 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. V-
The Scriptural treatment of this subject is deeply
interesting to us, because it lends the sanction of
the Christian Faith (the most practical of all Faiths)
to a philosophic method — which, again, is of the
greatest practical value.
Looking from the side of Christianity upon the
four reasonable Beliefs enumerated in my last Lec
ture, it is easy to see that if none of them were
true, nor known by men to be true, Christianity
itself must be voiceless. Suppose no such insights
existed, there would be no human language in which
Christian Oracles could speak, no human ear capable
of receiving their utterances. To use St. Paul's
graphic simUe, we should be Barbarians in respect
of their meaning. The Word of God implies a faculty
of vision in its messengers ; it implies also the
elementary factors of apprehension in those to whom
its messengers are sent. God draws us with the
cords of a man. He deals with Man himseK, in this
and other respects, as with one made a little lower
than the angels.
Viewed from the side of Philosophy, these Insights
stand in a double relation to our knowledge. First,
they enable us to know the Natural World intel
lectually. Without them Experience would be as
voiceless as supernatural revelation. Suppose the
principle of Contradiction feU short of axiomatic
value, — suppose we had no universally certain data
for measuring magnitude or duration, number or
succession, — how should we reason upon theorems
prior to experience, or transcending it? Suppose

Lect. v.] The Prerogative of Humanity. 183
Nature were not known to be Uniform, neither did
each change postulate a cause of change, how should
we obtain verification for our reasonings ? Our
Science of Nature must shrink into chronicled
observations — " like Orient pearls at random strung."
In the second place, could we by any possibility
imagine a human world without a sense of moral
distinctions — a world where all men's daily conduct
was a contest of daily self-interests, without any
thought of Responsibility, or any idea that Wrong
would ever inconvenience the wrong doer — we shall
all feel assured that human life, Civilization, Progress,
and Ideal happiness, would in sucb a world be
inconceivable. In saying thus much, I cannot but observe that,
for clearness and useful purpose, a good many further
statements and illustrations are required. If I omit
them I cannot hope to carry you with me ; and if I
fail of showing you how much is to be said for the
principles at stake, I fall short of my object. The
difficulty is, how to make the needful statements, and
to put the subject in various lights, without exceeding
the proper bounds of a Lecture. This difficulty I
have felt all along. And the only plan for curtailing
explanations seems this : I must say simply what
appears true to my own consciousness. In so doing,
I leave you to supply some qualifications, obvious
enough in themselves, but, if always added, lengthy
and wearisome. You will be, also, kind enough to
understand my brief statements not as dogmatic
assertions, but as so many answers of consciousness,

1 84 The Doctrine of Retribution. |Lect.v.
and so many judgments (the best I am able to furnish)
upon the subject-matter. You must finally give me
credit for holding back whole regiments of reasons.
The parade of those reserves you would find tedious,
and I should feel that most of them were needlessly
paraded ; because among my statements there are
many which you will neither deny nor doubt to any
real purpose.
In examining the four principles dwelt upon last
Sunday, some people might possibly say we have
here a question of connate ideas, or intuitions, as
distinguished from derivative or educated ideas.
Not to criticize this employment of the word Idea,
(a word better kept for better uses,) I would earnestly
protest against every mode of enquiry which pre
supposes two or more theories or hypotheses con
tending for the mastery. There is certainly much
more of the Unknown in relation to our first grounds
of science, than of the Known. Probably none of
us ever will or can know all we require for our entire
satisfaction, until we attain some higher sphere of
Thought, immeasurably beyond anything we can
suppose possible while human life remains what it
is at present. And is it certain that all of us will
ever attain such insight ? It is not every man's
feat to scale Olympus now ; nor yet may every one
hope in a higher state to sit upon that true Parnassus,
where Poetry and Reason, Philosophy and Religion
are all at one ; all known in perfection, all supremely
beautiful : — " Too fair to worship, too Divine to love ; "

Lect. v.] The Prerogative of Humanity. 185
unless indeed they are visibly united as attributes:
in an Image of the Highest — a Personality com
manding our intellect and our affections in every
act of adoration.
The safest rule for each of us respecting First-
Truths, is never to let go anything which it is given
us to apprehend. If we cannot know everything, it
does not follow that we are disabled from knowing
some things. And if we store up what we clearly
discern ourselves, and appreciate what other people
have clearly discerned, the practice will not be
without its profit. It is the practice of a good
householder, who brings out of his treasury old
things and new.
The first facts which men in general have perceived
respecting axiomatic truths, form the reason why
they are called axiomatic. They are indemonstrable;
and we cannot do without them. To try and demon
strate any one of them, is to begin by begging the
whole question ; to try and do without them, is to
find them indispensable. Without any one of these
four, a whole province of human thought and activity
is (as we have intimated) absolutely extinguished.
I purposely avoid such questions as whether there
exist other axiomatic insights,- — and how many can
be defined as certainly human ? Or, again, what may
be the history of these axioms — their first mode of
appearance in the world of Men — their pre-historic
archaeology— their embryology ? Such-like questions
would be endless.
Next after the fact that they (the four Truths

1 86 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. v.
under examination) are axiomatic, comes their cha
racter of being genetic. None of you can accept
and keep them, whilst you see, hear, observe, and
think, without finding synthetic knowledge crowd
in upon you. You are perpetually enlarging your
circle of discovery ; and this enlargement is exactly
what I mean by synthesis. And when you have
got some considerable acquisition of knowledge in a
concrete lump, you may take it to pieces, — that is,
decompose it. At its base you wUl find an axiom.
With this your analysis stops. No axiom can
be decomposed. It is the height of uncultured
ignorance — rank dxratSeucrta — to ask a further
reason — to attempt analyzing a primary element of
truth. In saying this I have said a great deal, and must
try to show cause for it. The most comprehensive
mode of dealing with indemonstrable and unresol-
vable Truths, is to begin by bringing to the test
of Consciousness those characteristic maxims and
organizing Laws which rightfully ensue and claim
acceptance by virtue of each several Axiom. But
this critical process presupposes some considerable
amount of attention and skill on the part of him who
sits by as judge, when Consciousness is interrogated.
It is best, therefore, to take a further step after
wards, and endeavour to verify the results of our
own appeal. It would be impossible for me to
attempt so much in regard of aU four axioms,
within any reasonable limits ; I must, therefore,
point out common characters of agreement among

Lect. v.] The Prerogative of Humanity. 187
them, and then dwell mainly upon the axiom under
lying Morality.
Every genetic truth — that is, every first-principle
prolific in consequences — carries with it some aUied
truths which, when it is applied, or intended to be
apphed, it absolutely necessitates for its own practical
purposes. These allied truths may be called col
lectively its apparatus. Taken one by one they are
termed Postulates, — a word most obscure, and the
reverse of forcible or reasonable, to any mind which
has not considered the conditions of genetic pro
cedure. In Euchd, few young students define to
themselves the true position of Postulates, tiU they
observe that Schemata cannot be constructed with
out them, and that without schemata theorems would
be useless. For some sciences you can construct
sufficiently convincing schemata in your own imagi
nation ; and a truly-conceived schema is often the
shortest road to a denial or an affirmation. It is
thus that Ideas may often be translated into unbend
ing Realities.
For example : In the apparatus, without which
the principle of Contradiction would be useless, are
contained such mental schemata as the Categories ;
and they (like the primary axiom of Logic) appeal
to our consciousness for the validity of their distinc
tions. To any one versed in the history of Oxford Logic,
it wUl be no surprise H he encounters endless con
troversies over the first-grounds of Morality. Logic
would seem more secure than Ethics. Yet no science

1 88 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. V.
has been more scorned than Logic, — no reasoner
more vilipended than Aristotle, — especiaUy by that
race of metaphysicians who (to use Edward Irving's
phrase) "handle an Idea as a butcher handles an
ox." Next after the postulates, or apparatus, necessitated
by an axiomatic truth, in order to its becoming
genetic, follows another demand equaUy stringent,
and equally characteristic of each several axiom.
This second necessity is Method. Let it be observed
that the severally characteristic methods do not
admit of interchange. It has been often attempted
to apply Schemata to metaphysical reasoning, but
the attempt is an acknowledged failure. Symbols,
unboundedly powerful in algebraic processes, can
only be used under certain limits by the physical
sciences. In moral sciences their use would be
absurd. The absurdity seems to be a confirmation
of the fact that moral truths and inferences should
be viewed in a concrete shape. Method, however,
must be mainly determined by the scope and extent
of any given science ; and these essential points
must in turn be determined by its first-ground. The
character of each axiom will necessitate the aims it
makes possible, and by consequence the processes
adapted to those aims. For instance, mathematics
are founded on magnitude and number. They
measure the material universe ; and it matters not
to them whether the All is Finite or Infinite. Yet
they cannot gauge Thought. Arithmetic cannot
time Thought ; Geometry cannot circumscribe it.

Lect. v.] The Prerogative of Humanity. 1 89
We see here a world of difference between existences
commonly called Material and Immaterial. And the
distinction is worth holding fast ; since the most
ordinary attribute said to be distinctive of Material
things is equally true of Mind. Matter, we are told,
is impenetrable ; you cannot get one piece of timber
inside another. But can one Soul be thrust inside
another Soul ? Nothing in the whole universe
appears so defiant, so difficult to penetrate, as Soul.
It is hard, absolutely hard ; involuntarily shut, even
in its tenderness, against the entrance of other
Souls. It remains throughout life essentially alone.
Hence the poet's question, —
" Why should we faint and fear to live alone,
Since all alone, so Heaven has will'd, we die,
Nor even the tenderest heart, and next our own,
Knows half the reasons why we smile and sigh ?"
Yet aU this may be changed at death. Loving hearts
await that lesson ; for nothing can be conceived more
absolutely blessed than an inward union of Souls.
One chief encouragement to hope, as Milton hoped.,
is found in our Spiritual exemption from the scope
and laws of the weighing and measuring sciences.
Take another and an allied example. The Law of
Induction, which rules all natural science, is the
Law of Nature's Uniformity. Outward Nature is
here meant ; and her course has generally been
thought of as Uniform. Even in those ages when
Miracles were expected on the most trifling and in
congruous occasions, they were alleged violations of
the order and sovereignty of Nature. It was this very

1 90 The Doctrine oj Retribution. [Lect. V.
circumstance which made them worth recording.
The Inductive Law, and the scope of Physical
Science, extend, therefore, over the measurable
Cosmos. With its bounds they cease and are
determined. In point of fact, Physics determine
and define their own sphere, for they commence
by positing a kind of existence, which in the nature
of things must have had an Antecedent, unknown,
and, to the physicist, always unknowable. The
beautiful cloud which floats amidst stellar spaces,
burning with a faint and twilight ray, is the first
fact upon which both Measurement and Nature's
uniform Law alike take their stand. The utter blank
beyond stimulates the imagination of the scientific
thinker. Yet his laws of Force and Motion have
no appointed spheres beyond those lovely forms of
attenuated Light. There is no Archimedean fulcrum-
point outside the Cosmos, whence these Powers can
move even so small a world or system as our own.
Compare with this second limitation the im
measurable sweep of Thought. The primary axiom
of our understanding has respect to incompatible
Judgments, and affirms in them an opposition of
truth and falsehood ; to which, in the sphere of
actions, corresponds the Moral incompatibUity —
the opposition of Right and Wrong. Concerning
the vast importance of this oppositeness of truth
and falsehood, throughout the whole realm of
Thought, none but a meditative reasoner can
form the most remote conception. But how shaU
we measure that realm, — the scope and extent

Lect. v.] The Prerogative of Humanity. 191
of Reason ? We see at once that Thought must
be co-existent with thinking substance, and co
extensive with thinkable objects. To us men, the
only thinking substance known (not in its essential
Being, but in its manifestations), is our own inner
Self, revealed to us. Numberless efforts have been
made to identify this thinking substance with our
palpable human brain. All those efforts have been
failures, for a sufficient reason, which I wiU render
in the words of Mr. Stuart MiU.
" There are thinkers," he observes, " who, because the phenomena
of life and consciousness are associated in their minds by undeviating
experience with the action of material organs, think it an absurdity
per se to imagine it possible that those phenomena can exist under
any other conditions. But they should remember that the uniform
co-existence of one fact with another does not make the one fact a part
of the other, or the sa:ne with it. The relation of thought to a
material brain is no metaphysical necessity, but simply a constant
co-existence within the limits of observation." *
And in a preceding paragraph he asks, What is
the verdict of Science ? — (meaning, of course, In
ductive Science) : —
"It does not," he says, "prove, experimentally, that any mode
of organization has the power of producing feeling or thought. To
make that proof good, it would be necessary that we should be able
to produce an organism, and try whether it would feel; which we
cannot do ; organisms cannot by any human means be produced, —
they can only be developed out of a previous organism." t
If, then, we interrogate phenomenal Nature, the
answer we gain is that there exists a material con-
comitancy in the operations of thought, which, for
* Essays, p. 199. t Ibid, pp. 197, 8.

192 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. v.
our environing world, is also a material condition.
But whether this condition is anything more than
the result of a present nexus, — a mode of inter-com-
munication between two spheres — the Spiritual and
the Material, now allied, yet essentially dissimilar, —
no science of Nature can inform us. As Dr. Tyndall
truly says, "We try to soar in a vacuum the
moment we seek to comprehend the connexion be
tween them." * Interrogate Thought per se ; and
it yields, neither in its axioms nor yet in its aim
or scope, the slightest appearance of Limitation.
Mathematics, physics, do (as we have said) limit
themselves. But, so far as Thought is concerned, its
apparent claim is to be Unlimited. And this claim
is confirmed by the reflection that each self-limita
tion of Thought becomes a new nisus formativus —
a spring of onward movement in thinking. The
negative gives rise to a fresh affirmative ; and this
process seemingly extends ad infinitum.
* Address at Belfast, ed. 7, p. 59. Compare Preface to same
edition, page xxix. " Given the masses of the planets and their
distances asunder, and we can infer the perturbations consequent
on their mutual attractions. Given the nature of a disturbance in
water, air, or ether, and from the physical properties of the medium
we can infer how its particles will be affected. The mind runs
along the Ike of thought which connects the phenomena, and from
beginning to end finds no break in the chain. But when we
endeavour to pass by a similar process from the physics of the
brain to the phenomena of consciousness, we meet a problem
which transcends any conceivable expa ision of the powers we now
possess. We may think over the subject again and again ; it eludes
all intellectual presentation : we stand at length face to face with the
Incomprehensible."

Lect. v.] The Prerogative of Humanity. 193
Now, this specific nature of Thought, and the
validity claimed by its axioms, together give a
sufficient assurance that, if the Universe contains
myriads of thinking Beings, the laws of Thought,
true for us, are true for them in respect of the
thinkable objects presented to their apprehension.
If the principle of contradiction could be invalidated
at -all, we should never be able to say "This neces
sarily is true, and that is necessarily false." Our
case might be the one invalid example. Here,
again, appears a close resemblance to the Moral
axiom. We could not assert the actual supremacy
of Right ; and that its antithesis is necessarily
Wrong, in any instance, however small, were the
Moral distinction anything less than a supreme
Reality — a Power authoritative, absolute, and un
deniable. In both these cases — the Intellectual
and the Moral spheres of Truth — their claim is a
transcendent vitality, a sufficing insight. If trans
cendent as regards our world's present boundaries,
and unlimited by laws of Space, then surely pos
sessed of a primd-facie claim to transcend the
cycles of what mortals call Time, and to exist in an
unmeasured Futurity. The plain fact seems to be,
that any attempts to limit Thought and Morality
are endeavours to weigh the imponderable, and
measure what has neither, figure nor dimensions.
There are other reasons for the Permanence of
Thought and Moral Truth, which I cannot now
enumerate. But it may be worth whUe to recal
the argument which satisfied Goethe, as he told
13

194 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. v.
his friend on the day of Wieland's funeral. A
noble soul is a culminated Perfection — a star in the
Zenith — a Mind-force become absolutely inestimable.
Its extinction appears to be forbidden by the law of
Conservation, written on the face of the Universe.
It would be inconsistent with the Parsimony of
Nature. Moreover, Human Nature has always felt
how human was this belief, — how Inhuman must
be a doubt of it. Is not Man, in fact, the most
finished and complete Reality of the world he in
habits ? * Far above its vegetative existences ; its
lower animahties, Httle better than shapes moulded
by the skyey influences of which they are suscep
tible. Far above all richer forms of Hfe — richer,
but stUl lacking Man's Thought and Moral Insight.
And U such is, indeed, his true position, then the
very outcome and set of his Being carries an
evidence that his worth claims continuance ; that
his onward, upward tendency is a prophecy of per
manence — and the chief instinct of his whole nature
not less veracious than lower instincts daUy and
hourly verified. Without a Belief in Permanence,
the larger part of Man's horizon would be veiled
in utter darkness. When spurred to exertion and
earnest endeavour, he would say, with hopeless
despondency, —
" Enjoy this span of life ! 'tis all the gods afford."
Far, far different, from that nobler and more truly
human thought, —
* See Johann Falk's Goethe, cap. iv. In this spirit Goethe calls
" Man the first Dialogue which Nature held with God."

Lect. v.] The Prerogative of Humanity. 195
" It must be so.- — Plato, thou reason'st well !
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after Immortality ? "
It surely makes not only some, but an immeasur
able difference to you and me, whether we believe,
or do not believe, that our Thought-power and
Moral-power, — the objects of our care and culture,
our hope and our self-devotion, — shall or shall not
be extinguished. All Oxford — our whole glorious
University — was founded in the faith that high
thinking and noble living, both in themselves and
in their issues, endure for ever. And if, as a
Pietas Oxoniensium, this belief is kept by us, it wiH
help our hardest work when no other reward is in
prospect. To use old Herbert's words, this Faith,
without which the Law of God would be powerless, —
" Makes drudgery Divine."
A very different toil from the sordid task of grinding
in the intellectual mill, for the sole sake of such
money gain, and other gains, as may probably wait
upon success ! And thus it will be with us onward
throughout our lives': they must be always poor,
always miserable, unless we can hold fast the Postu
lates of Thought and Morality, and find in them
the truths of our inward Permanence and Freedom
from the material law of dissolution.
Looked at philosophically, these various Postu
lates appear ascertained to us by the undeniable
validity of the axioms which necessitate them. We
have seen good cause for this absolute, though

1 96 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. v.
indemonstrable, validity. If, moreover, it can be
esteemed a justifiable hypothesis, to say that our
primary insights have grown up to their present
strength and amplitude through long periods of
continuance, — if they form a legacy of culture and
attainment bequeathed from age to age : a blessing
sent down to children's chUdren during many gene
rations, — then it will manifestly follow : — first, that
these endowments are (as we have said) genuinely
human ; next, that they have been certified unnum
bered times, examined and confirmed with each
successive act of registry. Ancestral axioms and
postulates for Thinking and Doing, are heirlooms
of ancestral verification — monuments ratified afresh
with every fresh descent. The possibility of looking
at our insights in this way is a good motive
(amongst other motives) for calhng them Beliefs
of Reason. It is a good motive, also, for assigning
a Primacy to the one truth most surely charac
teristic of Human Nature — the best ascertained,
therefore, and the most completely verified.
For whensoever we examine the four axioms
before enumerated, with a view of selecting by
comparison the one thus distinctive of Humanity,
we may be sure that the special axiom on which
Morality rests, will always gain by the scrutiny.
It is true, that all four ought to stand or fall
together— they ought in reason to be rejected as a
whole, or as a whole to be accepted. Whether
we speculate over a mathematical problem, or ob
serve the Natural world, and philosophize on its

Lect. v.] The Prerogative of Humanity. 197
Production or its destinies, we always do and always
must look through a human eye, and think with
a human thought-power. There is no fact of Ex
perience — no proposition in Logic — no Moral maxim
— which can to us be otherwise than thoroughly
humanized. Whoever speaks of beholding nature
or human nature from a point of view extrinsic to
Man, is after all a Man himself, and will be most
clear-sighted when most true to his Humanity.
Yet, if any of the four axioms under comparison
can be held most absolutely human, it is that one
upon which Ethical truth and the truths of Natural
Rehgion are founded. For these are the distinctive
qualities which remove Mankind farthest from the
merely animal sphere. A not unfair test is the
favourite one of observing the points in which the
unreasoning animal creation most nearly approaches
Man. But the problem is in fact unsolved. The
higher creatures recognize and remember persons,
places, and times. They associate observances
taught them, with the recurrence of appropriate days
and occasions. Their arithmetical powers are often
subjects of interest ; but we have not yet decided, by
satisfactory experiments, whether the bird or quad
ruped can count beyond two. You will all recollect
the story of the dog and the three roads. It has been
vouched for in pagan philosophy ; by less ancient
naturalists ; and is sometimes repeated as the record
of fresh personal observation. If the narrative may
be trusted (and there is probable reason to think it
may), we are clear that a weH-bred, well-tutored dog

198 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. v-
can, not only count three, but subtract, or perhaps
proceed by something like logical abscission. Then,
as to rudimentary Induction, experiment is a familiar
resort with highly-improved animals; as with the
elephant and the foot-bridge, the cat or dog once
scalded or snared, and in other instances. Every
creature has an evident trust in the uniformity of
his world — the world in which he collects food,
builds his shelter, or makes provision for progeny,
or for his own metamorphoses. The domesticated
creature trusts in the uniformity of his higher
world; the Human world on which he depends, —
that world of Man, to whom he looks with confi
dence for continued care and kindness — a confidence
often ill repaid, but still unshaken. We see this in
the horrible histories of vivisection. The tortured
animal continues, amidst his agony, to caress the
hand of his tormentor.
But, in bar of all approaches towards Humanity,
there has always been a fatal limit. What unreason
ing creature, however highly developed, is educable
in the sense that a human baby is educable ? Tbe
teaching of an infant-school is removed by an utter
disparateness (if 1 may use a word not in Richardson),
by which I mean, not only a disparity, but an in-
effaceably disparate character, from the powers of the
whole Animal kingdom. Self-education seems more
hopelessly remote still. Throughout the ages during
which animals have Hved, suffered, and sickened,
they have never attempted to cure a disease, or
aHeviate the pains of an injury. Man is the only

Lect. v.] The Prerogative of Humanity. 199
physician and sick-nurse of organized creatures. But
all other limitary contrasts fall short of the Moral
interval. No creature void of Reason has ever been
known to sit in self-condemning judgment on its own
life. None can exercise the faculties, and act upon
the primary insights underlying remorse, repentance,
and seU-reformation. Now, in proportion as we cul
tivate within ourselves these toUsome endowments,
we make our lives pre-eminently human. Man's
stern morahties draw a boundary line, which cannot
be overpassed, between sensitive impulse and de
liberate choice ; between the movements of animal
life, which amuse and please us, and the sentence
of a Law written on our hearts : accusing or else
excusing our daily deeds and our daily neglects.
We watch, with pleasure, in our dog or horse, such
manifestations of hope, fear, and grateful attachment
as our own training and culture have caUed forth.
The being of the creature seems nerved by a striving
to meet its master's wishes, and gain approval from
his eye. This is perhaps the highest state ever
attainable in animal existence. It is simply one of
impulse, strengthened by custom ; and we like to
trace in it some resemblance to our own impulsive
feelings and habituations. Yet the law of Morahty,
deep down in Man's nature, removes the likeness to
an infinite distance. When a man loves, the tide of
affection turns back upon its source, to sun itself
beneath the light of Reason ; to gain strength from
the inevitable self-scrutiny which reigns supreme
over emotion and sentiment, as well as over purpose

200 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. v.
and action. What was feeling becomes Will — high
resolve, tinctured with duty and devotion ; an affec
tion which, to be eradicated from the Man, must
tear away his heart-strings ; —
" They sin who tell us Love can die ! "
Man's real Love will never die, if Man himself is
immortal ! The same Moral Law vindicates itself
throughout all social ties. For Society is not gre-
gariousness. A herd of men would not be a nation.
That very idea is an absurd misnomer, except when
human ties have been relaxed by some disruption
in the history of a people. True human society is
Moral Sociality; and the best patriotism, a truly
human self-education. Train yourselves in strict
morahties ; and you wiU be true to your own interests,
the interests of your country, and to the aim and
Ideal of Humanity.
Let me add to this topic, from which we must
now pass, some thoughtful words of Wilhelm von
Humboldt : —
" If we would point to an idea which all history throughout its
course discloses as ever establishing more firmly and extending
more widely its salutary empire ... it is the idea of our common
humanity ; tending to remove the hostile barriers which prejudices
and partial views of every kind have raised between men, and to
cause all Mankind, without distinction of religion, nation, or colour,
to be regarded as one great fraternity, aspiring towards one com
mon aim — the free development of their moral faculties. This is
the ultimate and highest object of society ; it is also the direction
implanted in Man's nature, leading towards the indefinite expansion
of his inner being. ... By a double aspiration after the unknown
future and the unforgotten past— after that which he desires, and

Lect. v.] The Prerogative of Humanity. 201
that which he has lost — Man is preserved, by a beautiful and touching
instinct, from exclusive attachment to that which is present."*
Man is, in truth, the only creature detached by
the law of his nature from the Present. This single
fact contains, in itself, a Prophecy of that Future, in
which alone the earnest endeavour of his manhood
can be completely realized.
We must now turn our attention another way. We
have seen that, among the four axiomatic and inde
monstrable beliefs underlying all we know of Nature
and of ourselves, two have a special reference to the
universe which can be weighed and measured — the
universe of fixed law and order — the Mechanism of
the Heavens, and the Mechanism of the world we
live in. The other two axioms refer to another
Universe of imponderable, non-measurable, Entities
—the Universe of Thought and Moral Truth. Yet
all four coincide so far forth as they are genetic prin
ciples — that is to say, axioms from which Discovery
and Knowledge grow. There cannot but be differences
of results, and differences in the processes of growth.
What we have now to find and explain, is the Method
which concerns us most — that Method by virtue of
which the Moral Insight of Mankind necessitates the
acceptance of Natural Religion.
It is quite true that to many minds the enquiry
will seem needless. With them, the undeniable
aspiration, the instinct, the sentiment, will always
appear sufficient grounds for believing in Retribution,
* Ueber die Eaw'.-3prache, iii., 426.

202 The Doctri?ie of Retribution. [Lect. v.
Immortality, and God. Unquestionably, this hunger
of Humanity is an integral part of our nature. And
we might ask, with Aristotle, ShaU man's appetition
be in vain? This "deep-set feeling,'" says Dr. Tyn
dall, " since the earliest dawn of history, and pro
bably for ages prior to all history, incorporated itself
in the Rehgions of the world. ... To yield this
sentiment reasonable satisfaction is the problem of
problems at the present hour. . . It is vain to oppose
this force with a view to its extirpation."* So truly
is Natural Religion, with its feelings of awe, reverence,
and wonder, "woven into the texture of Man." I
am not aware of any rational answer to this Hne of
thought. Its conclusion seems to be inexpugnable,
except at the cost of denying the worth and reahty
of human feeling, experience, knowledge, — in one
word, of all the rest of Man.
Our present business, however, is to vindicate the
claims of a Method ensuing upon facts as positive
as any which the universe contains. We have to
show that this Human Fact-science so far transcends
the material circle, that Death becomes no more than
a triumphal archway on the road of its royal progress.
What is meant by this Method, we shall most
easily demonstrate by comparison. I wiU adduce
for this purpose the best known of Fact-methods, —
the method of physical science.
* Address at Belfast, as printed for the Association, p. 31 : Ed. 7,
p. 60. The last quoted passage was removed by Dr. Tyndall from
the published editions of his Address, but is given by him in his
Preface to Ed. 7,,p. viii.

Lect. v.] The Prerogative of Humanity. 203
When we look into the history of the Inductive
sciences, it is evident that the principle of Induction
has not always been very prohfic. It was not so
whenever it suggested a bare method of inference
from the simple enumeration of observed examples.
Typical instances, such as you see frequently in
Aristotle, require much practical insight for their
exact appreciation. They lead an intelligent mind
easily up to a truthful judgment, but are thrown
away upon the unintelhgent. The greatest con
quests of Induction have been gained by a system
of interrogating Nature, framing questions and de
vising crucial experiments to answer them — the
boast and beauty of the Baconian philosophy as far
as it is practised in modern day. There is, of course,
a difficulty in applying this Method so as to make
sure of our inferences. To frame a question we
must have already framed some hypothesis, — Hmited,
perhaps, and tentative, — but still some hypothesis.
If Experiment agrees, Hypothesis grows stronger
and wider. To be truthfully comprehensive, new
facts are wanted — and, by consequence, new experi
ments. Finally, suppose aU seems complete, and a
type or law of Nature appears ascertained to us, we
must have a verifying process. Hence, continued
experimentation. I daresay you know that Dr. Faraday's wonderful
power lay in devising experiments adjusted to the
points of the hypotheses suggested by his teeming
brain. You may remember, also, that Hypothesis is
generaUy the work of a trained scientific Imagina-

2 04 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. v.
tion — a mixture of genius and experience. It will
also seem to you that the Inductive principle itself,
the law of Nature's uniformity- — the aphorism " No
change without a cause of change " — must per se
have' acquired a wonderful stability from the per
petual use of experiment, the ever-resulting gain of
verification. But now comes a most serious enquiry. Men
speak of Natural Science as pre-eminently experi
ence. Its validity, we are told a thousand times
over, rests first, on facts experienced, — next, on
experimental verification. Are these statements
absolutely true ?
We know that they are open to very damaging
questions. And from the answers to these questions
we derive a different account of the matter. So
different, as to necessitate another speculative basis
for physical science, and another confirmation for
its conclusions.
We may be quite sure that aU sciences will
endeavour to become philosophies. It is weU if
they do not pretend to rank as the Philosophy. To
this general rule, Natural Science is no exception ;
it has been, and still is, striving after some hidden
Unity, some Hving principle, to explain and lend
form and movement to the whole. This attempt
has modified its scientific grounding and pro
cedure, as you will perceive from the foUowing
examples. Writing upon the newest department of biological
science — Anthropogeny — Mr. Huxley defines its

Lect. v.] The Prerogative of Humanity. 205
position and the position of several other scientific
conceptions in these words : —
"It need hardly be said, that in dealing with such a problem as
this, science rapidly passes beyond the bounds of positively verifiable
fact, and enters those of more or less justifiable speculation. But
there are very few scientific problems, even of those which have been
and are being most successfully solved — which have been, or can be,
approached in any other way.
" Our views respecting the nature of the planets, of the sun and
stars, are speculations which are not, and cannot be, directly verified ;
that great instrument of research, the atomic hypothesis, is a specu
lation which cannot be directly verified ; the statement that an extinct
animal, of which we know only the skeleton, and never can know any
more, had a heart and lungs, and gave birth to young which were
developed in such and such a fashion, may be one which admits of no
reasonable doubt, but it is an un verifiable hypothesis." *
Now, does Natural Science require verification
before it demands our belief for its statements, or
does it not ? Mr. Huxley goes on to say, that
"unverified, and even unverifiable, hypotheses may
be great aids to the progress of knowledge — may
have a right to be beheved with a high degree of
assurance." Why, then, may not other transcendent
assertions, if credibly grounded, have a right to be
beheved? The distinguished Biologist takes the
familiar instance of evolution, and observes that " if
it be admitted that the evolution hypothesis is in
great measure beyond the reach of verification, it
by no means foUows that it is not true, still less that
it is not ofthe utmost value and importance."
In his assertion of transcendent Beliefs the Bio
logist is fully supported by the Physicist. In Dr.
* Academy for January 2, 1875, p. 17.

206 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. v.
Tyndall's preface to the seventh edition of his well-
known Beffast Address, he remarks : —
" I am blamed for crossing the boundary of the experimental
evidence. This, I reply, is the habitual action of the scientific mind
— at least, of that portion of it which applies itself to physical investi
gation. Our theories of light, heat, magnetism, and electricity, all
imply the crossing of this boundary. My paper on the ' Scientific
Use of the Imagination,' and my ' Lectures on Light ' illustrate this
point in the amplest manner  The kingdom of science ....
is completed by fixing the roots of observation and experiment in a
region inaccessible to both, and in dealing with which we are forced
to fall back upon the picturing power of the mind."*
These accounts of the methods used by Natural
Science-Philosophy in its wider generalizations, are
very plain and ungainsayable. They may probably
outweigh — they certainly ought to outweigh — the
intolerable positiveness of inferior men, who, dweU
ing on the confines of exact and popular thought,
speak the dialect customary in that twilight region.
Their incessant outcry is this : Natural Theology,
Moral PhUosophy, and Natural Religion, are trans
cendent, and ought to be rejected. For they are
wanting in the rigorous proofs of physical discovery,
together with its rigidly required and attained veri
fications. These are the Baconian laws, — this the
Baconian method. These laws and this method are
now extended over the whole domain of Philosophy.
The outcry of such writers is false, both in asser
tion and inference. It was long ago evident that
Natural Science had become magnificently trans
cendent. Sceptics refused to hear this truth,
* Preface, p, xiv.

Lect. v.] The Prerogative of Humanity. 207
because they desired to keep an excuse for remain
ing sceptics. Hence the anger with which Dr.
Tyndall's paper on the Scientific Use of the Imagi
nation was received in sceptical circles. He had
broken their idol of Physical Science-method; he
had himself advanced into the forbidden territories
of the Metaphysician. In so doing, he had aboHshed
that supposed antagonism between the methods of
Natural and of Moral science.
Mr. Huxley has done worse. For, in the article
already quoted, he speaks with calm contempt of
"those so-called Baconian Principles": "which,"
he adds, " everybody talks about and nobody dreams
of putting into practice." Moreover, he observes, in
favour of his own behef, as we Moralists may observe
respecting ours, that if those Baconian principles so-
caUed " forbid us to draw the one conclusion, they
forbid us to draw the other."* By such prohibition,
therefore, a vast territory of Natural Science would
be lost. As a matter of fact, the true Bacon forbade
nothing of the kind, either way. He contemplated a
Natural-Science Philosophy, rising up to unverifiable
issues. He beheved in Moral Science, Natural Theo
logy, and Natural Religion. He accepted them, with
their present proofs and verifications, and their future
transcendent finalities.
We may, therefore, hope to hear less continual
iterations of "Experience and nothing but Experi
ence," — an outcry false (as we have seen) both in
premiss and in conclusion. We may hope, also,
* Academy, as before.

208 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. v.
that the true value of Moral Distinctions — verifiable,
and verified in the history of Mankind — wiU for the
future be more fairly appreciated.
You will now perceive that the method pursued
by Moralists has gained by comparison, — just as we
anticipated. It will gain stUl more, if we place in a
stronger light certain contrasts between the mental
axiom on which Induction rests, and the teachings
of Experience. As to the first, the grand Principle
of Uniformity, it is absolute. But could any limited
experience have given it that unlimited vahdity ?
Would a hundred million and one verifications make
up the Universality of an absolute Law ? The actual
event may be altered the hundred million and second
time. So far as Experience can go, an empirical
law of continuance founded on observed unifor
mities may very possibly be subject to the inter
ference of one or more hidden laws, which (like
the stern Lords of Ravenswood) " bide their time."
It is actually so with the late Mr. Babbage's calcu
lating machine. One uniform law of its numbers
appears to be going on for ever. Of a sudden, at
the hundred million and second number, there is a
change : a new law annuls the old one, and takes its
place, to go on and on in long array ; then, in time,
to be superseded. We cannot say that this same
event is impossible, or even improbable, if we build
our desired Universal Law upon the fact of Nature's
present and observed sequency. An enormous induce
tion by simple enumeration may have yielded this
generahzed fact-law of experience ; but, after aU, the

Lect. v.] The Prerogative of Humanity. 209
enumeration never can be exhaustive, and the final
fact itself may be exactly the other way. As far as
Nature's persistent Uniformity is concerned, the law
of Experience does in effect resolve itself into Hume's
old theory of custom and expectation. In simpler
words, it is a law not really universal.
But this is not all ; and so very much confusion of
Thought exists upon the whole subject that it seems
worth whUe to clear up one further point. Most
persons are apt to mix together in their minds the
two very distinct conceptions of which we have spoken.
One, the axiomatic belief given us as a primary truth
underlying all our Inductive processes. The other,
the visibly uniform course of Nature, as it now exists,
and forms our customary experience. Upon this
confusion is founded what some call the common-
sense question, others the absurd question — " Will
the sun rise to-morrow and always?" Upon this
same confusion, again, is based the optimist theory
of an infinitely perfectible human race, living eter-
naUy on in this world, which also is theoretically
held destined to endure for ever. Now, if we try to
answer the question about sunrise first, we must say
that for to-morrow it is so probable as to be a prac
tical certainty. At all events, no human being who
predicts it can be laughed at by other human beings
who live to discover his mistake. Were our Earth's
rotation suddenly stopped, our then existing Race,
with aU its works — its cloud-capped towers, its
gorgeous palaces, its solemn temples — would aU be
hurled, quivering and shattered, with irresistible vio-
14

210 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. v.
lence, into the desolate fields of Space. Next, as to
the optimistic belief in endless duration, we know
for certain that the axiom, change always correlates
every cause of change, is sure at some time to be
verified by a change in Nature, — itself so vast as
to baffle computation. Her present umform appear
ance does in fact cover sufficient cause for the greatest
of all conceivable changes. Physical science, after
some oscillations of opinion, has presented us with
a view of the Universe, not altogether unhke that
which sixteenth century astronomers loved to dis
cover in Aristotle. He had supposed luminous
matter to be given off by stars in the galaxy — the
nebulous belt of which seemed to ghmmer with the
incandescence of a mighty Comet for ever reproducing
itseU. From such a material the star of 1572 was
thought to derive its birth. A conjecture of Demo-
critu's (in which the ingenuity of your Manilius may
have interested you) is now allowed to contain more
truth.* Cloudy Hght has been extensively resolved
into distant star-clusters — clusters^ that is to say,
of suns and systems so immensely remote as to be
reckoned another Universe ; or, if I may borrow a
foreign phrase, other Universa distinct and separate
from our own. The rays of some such far-away stars
floating in the infinity of Distance have (by compu
tation) travelled 700,000 years before reaching our
* " An major densa stellarum turba corona
Contexit flammas, et crasso lumine candet,
Et fulgore nitet collato clarior orbis ? "
M. Manilii Astronomicon. Lib. i. 754-6.

Lect. v.] The Prerogative of Humanity. 2 1 1
globe.* Yet, after aU these deductions are made,
extensive fields of ttwresolved nebulous matter are
shown to us, carried back by powerful telescopes
from familiar constellations to unfamiliar and almost
impenetrable tracts of Space. So large are certain
masses thus revealed, that two million times the
size of our Sun has not been thought an impossible
calculation. In old Indian Philosophy, some such
general condition of matter is represented as a fifth
element, out of which the heaven and stars were
formed. Modern science has for years considered
and reconsidered this cosmical question. The daring
hypothesis of Buffon is known to readers of his
Natural History. But among scientific circles it
became lost in the deeper views of Herschel and
Laplace, f Their astronomy has now been confirmed
* The distance represented by such figures must appear practically
inconceivable. But some idea of what is meant by speaking of other
Universa may be formed in this way : — First, the light of Sirius when
it reaches the eye has travelled about twenty-two years, of Arcturus
twenty-six, of the Pole-star fifty, of Capella seventy-two years. Next,
consider our own Universe : the real magnitude of the Galaxy is
unknown, but Herschel's estimates reached 18,000,000 stars. The
light from its most remote regions is computed to be, when measured
in time, 10,000 years distant. What then must be a remoteness
measured as 700,000 years ?
It is, of course, obvious to common sense that calculations of this
kind are of a subtle and refined description. Their results must
needs be approximates. Modern science, however, tends more and
more to astonishment, and its prose transcends the most sublime
imaginations of poetry.
t It is a fact not known to " every schoolboy" that Laplace built
upon the foundation of Kant, whose great work, Allgemeine Natur-
geschichte und Theorie des Himmels, was published in 1755. The

2 1 2 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. v.
by spectroscope analysis. Matter, vaporous in con
dition, shining with a faint luminosity, agitated by
rotary motion, and holding in a diffused state elements
which belong to our world, — matter so diffused, so
unfit for, yet necessary to animal life, is looked on
as the precursor of our present Universum, and of
other external Universa, if I may so speak.* The
remarkable point about this book is that it unites in one view the
Mechanism of Nature and a Teleology recognized throughout the
Universe ; in other words, it is a combination of Natural Science with
Natural Theology. A very brief sketch of its contents, abridged from
Ueberweg, may not be unacceptable : "The fundamental philosophical
idea of the work is the compatibility of a mechanical explanation of
nature, which, without arbitrary limitations, seeks in all cases a
natural cause in place of all other causes, with a teleology which views
all nature as depending on God.
" Kant, therefore, sees elements of truth in the opposed doctrines.
That the forces of nature themselves work intelligently, bears witness
to the existence of an intelligent Author of nature. Matter is subject to
certain laws, left to which alone she must necessarily bring forth combi
nations of beauty. But this very fact compels the assumption that God
exists. For how were it possible that things of various natures in com
bination with each other should strive to effect such exquisite accords
and beauties, unless they owned a common origin in an infinite Mind,
in which the essential qualities of all things were wisely planned ? . . .
" Since God works through the laws implanted in matter itself,
the immediate cause of every result is to be sought in the forces of
Nature themselves. The original centrifugal motion which, together
with gravitation, determines the course of the planets, is also to be
explained by the agency of natural forces. It originated when the
matter of the sun and planets, which was at first an extended,
vaporous mass, began to shape itself into balls, the collision of the
masses causing side motions. The genesis and stability of the system
of fixed stars are to be conceived according to the analogy of the
genesis and stability ofthe planetary system."
* The student who wishes to pursue telluric elements to our sun,
the fixed stars, and the mighty masses of unresolved nebulae, should

Lect. v.] The Prerogative of Humanity. 213
order of things we behold had, therefore, a beginning
from what, before that beginning, must have been
an inconceivably great chaotic cloud. Respecting
the nebulous circle once co-extensive with our own
system, it is computed that several miUions of cubic
consult Dr. Schellen's excellent Spectrum Analysis, part iii. The work
has been well translated by the Misses Lassell, and is edited and
annotated by the eminent Dr. Huggins. It is charmingly illustrated.
I subjoin two or three very short excerpts : — " Telescopes leave us in
uncertainty as to whether these nebula? are masses of luminous gas,
which in the lapse of ages would pass through the various stages of
incandescent liquid (the sun and fixed stars), of scoriae or gradual
formation of a cold and non-luminous surface (the earth and planets),
and finally of complete gelation and torpidity (the moon), or whether
they exist as a complete and separate system of worlds. ... To the
spectroscope we are indebted for being able to say with certainty that
luminous nebulae actually exist as isolated bodies in space, and that
these bodies are luminous masses of gas. . . . The spectroscope, in
combination with the telescope-, affords means for ascertaining even
now some of the phases through which the sun and planets have
passed in their process of development or transition from masses of
luminous nebulae to their present condition. ... It is hardly con
ceivable that a system of such a nebulous form could exist without
internal motion. The bright nucleus, as well as the streaks curving
round it in the same direction, seem to indicate an accumulation of
matter towards the centre, with a gradual increase of density, and
a rotatory movement. . . . Half of the nebulas giving a continuous
spectrum have been resolved into stars, and about a third more are
probably resolvable ; while of those yielding a spectrum of lines, not
one has been certainly resolved by Lord Rosse. . . . Those nebulae
giving a continuous spectrum are clusters of actual stars, while those
giving a spectrum of bright lines must be regarded as masses of
luminous gas, of which nitrogen and hydrogen form the chief con
stituents." (Sect. 67, Spectra of Nebula and Clusters.)
Another useful book for those who wish to acquire vivid ideas of
the Cosmos, its forces, and its phenomena, is by Messrs. Nasmyth
and Carpenter — a most interesting volume entitled " The Moon."

214 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect v.
miles of its vapoury matter would be required to
weigh one single grain.
Such being the primordia of all material existence,
conceivable and actual, the force of gravitation in
duced a consequent approximation of the molecules,
converted motion into heat, and thus lighted up the
lamps of the Cosmos. How beautiful the warmth
and brilliancy in which our species has basked, the
tongues of men and angels might fail to say. So
beautiful, that no one can wonder at untutored minds
thinking the Universe Divine. So beautiful, that a
theory of infinite duration and infinite optimism may
appear thoroughly natural. Yet it is not really so.
It cannot be so. The same science which gauges
the beginning of the Universe assigns to it an end.
The Universe is not a mere collection of Matter ; it
is a thing of Energy : we may never liken it, says
Physical Philosophy, to a candle not lit ; but rather
to a candle that has been lighted. It cannot have
been burning from Eternity; the time will come
when it must cease to burn. Its aggregation and
condensation have produced light and heat — the
sources to us of energy, nutriment, enjoyment. But
this very fact makes us " look to an end in which
the whole universe will be one equally heated inert
mass, and from which everything like life or motion
or beauty wiU have utterly gone away." * Or, to
put the thing in another shape, — as we find it put
by a second authority, — the universal " store of
Force, which can only suffer loss and not gain, must
* Balfour Stewart, Conservation of Energy, Sect. 210.

Lect. v.] The Prerogative of Humanity. 2 1 5
be finally exhausted." * In the same way that our
conjectures as to the time of a beginning are baffled,
so too as to the time of an end. It is sufficient for
us to know, that just as each one of us must endure
the thought of his individual death, so must our race
endure the like thought collectively. Still, let it not
be forgotten that the physical philosophers who thus
write are not unmindful of a more solemn fact.
The one I have last quoted — Helmholtz — does not
omit to add that " the human race has higher moral
problems before it, the bearer of which it is, and in
the completion of which it fulfils its destiny." \
And so it always was with PhUosophy. So it
always must be. Put Physical and Moral Existence
side by side, and examine their conditions in the
light of facts, so far as facts disclose them. There
can be no doubt which promises the longer duration.
* Helmholtz, On the Interaction of Natural Forces, in his " Lectures,"
p. 191.
t Ibid, p. 193. To quote a third authority : — " The earth will
gradually lose its energy of rotation, as well as that of revolution
round the sun. The sun himself will wax dim and become useless
as a source of energy, until at last the favourable condition of the
present solar system will have quite disappeared.
" But what happens to our system will happen likewise to the
whole visible universe, which will inevitably become a lifeless mass,
if indeed it be not doomed to utter dissolution. In fine, it will become
old and effete, no less truly than the individual : it is a glorious
garment, this visible universe, but not an immortal one — we must
look elsewhere if we are to be clothed with immortality as with a
garment." Unseen Universe, Sect. 193.
These paragraphs would have been cited in the text, but the book
in which they appear had not been published when this fifth Lecture
was under preparation for the pulpit.

216 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. v.
Our reason is plain. The known' condition of Natural
existence is self- destructive. The known condition of
Moral existence is self-developing. Man's Moral life
exemplifies the laws consequent upon its primary
axiom in such a manner that there appears no limit
imposed upon its Development. The Development
of the Natural world, observed by us, contains in
itself an apparently sufficient cause of arrest and
final alteration.
Yet, as regards both instances- — the Moral and the
Physical also — the primary Truth grasped by human
Reason remains equaUy unshaken, and is equally
assured of ultimate verification. Over against the
grandest of aU suicides — the Suicide of Nature —
stands the axiomatic Law of Natural Uniformity, the
Insight which teUs us that change always correlates
a cause of change. The coUapse of the Material
Universe will stand, to this law, in the relation of a
magnificent example. And thus the First Principle,
as given to Man in his Thought, will be unmistakeably
verified by the termination of that present visible
scene of uniformity, to which common thinkers cling
as their best ascertainable ground for believing in
the Law destined to survive it.
In reading the most recent conclusions of modern
science, one cannot help recaHing the impression
made upon certain men of old: that, "since the
fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were
from the beginning of the creation."* Hence they
rejected the Church's teaching that "the elements
* 2 Peter iii. 4.

Lect. v.] The Prerogative of Humanity. 2 1 7
shall melt with fervent heat."* Yet this seems to
be our nearest conception of the inevitable finality.
The axiomatic Law on which Induction is based
wUl, therefore, gain a conclusive triumph from a
change which may appear to us as ultimate. We
ought, however, steadily to guard ourselves against
imagining that this ultimatum closes anything be
yond our limited telescopic view into physical futu
rities. When we are told that the universe will no
longer be a fit abode for living beings, we must con
ceive the wTifitness as having reference to the Forms
of Life now and here known to us. But, can we say
what will be fit or unfit, when Human Spirits are not
unclothed, but clothed upon, so that Mortality is
swallowed up of Life ? What of that Spiritual Body
which shall succeed this corruptible flesh and blood ?
— what of Forms, such as do not require a sustenance,
so ethereal- sounding, of the honeycomb ? — of Forms
given to those which shall be even as the Angels ?
What we do know and ought to hold fast, is the
reality — not the probable conjecture, but the actual
fact- existence — of a Moral Life which claims in its
own nature to transcend the limit of physical death.
Its claim can be nothing less; because the essential
condition of true Moral Life is freedom from the
chain and determinism of the tohole material sphere.
To some extent, each one of the four axioms
examined coincides in asserting for itself some kind
of transcendental existence. The world of pheno
mena cannot be the whole world, otherwise Science
* 2 Peter iii. 10.

218 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. v.
is impossible. There may be discerned in every
Cosmical law some constructive principle transcend
ing all phenomena. When we think such a law, we
think a Somewhat which was before them and is
now above them all. And this Somewhat is not
given us by inanimate Nature, nor yet by any kind
of experience. It is mirrored in our oivn Nature ;
and its transcendent character admonishes us not to
predict ' for ourselves a final dissolution. Whatever
Truth-power transcends phenomena, transcends the
Law of their mutability, and, by consequence, nega
tives every supposed likelihood that it is itself and
in its own nature extinguishable.
With this coincides the voice of Human Instinct —
the " non omnis moriar " of Man.
But above all, and firmer than all, is the Moral
Contradictory. An " ought " or " ought not " claims
an unlimited obedience whensoever the antithesis is
distinct. It claims the whole Man. If any person
feels doubtful whether, in any given case, the Antithe
sis is sufficiently distinct, let him ask the question
Is this " ought to do " a maxim which it would be
right and excellent for all Beings morally constituted
to observe ? The answer wiU decide. By the one
character of Universality is established an empire
over each individual agent. Because it is Universal,
the Moral Law possesses the force of a categorical
Imperative supreme over action : in other words,
it possesses the force of an Ethical Necessity. But
this is very far from being aU. That very same
force extends its sovereignty over other realms. It

Lect. v.] The Prerogative of Humanity. 2 1 9
becomes, in its consequences, the strongest and
most absolute Necessity conceivable, not only for
an individual Man, for his race, and for other Beings
morally constituted like himself, but also for each
portion of the Cosmos physically linked with the
ultimate destinies of Mankind. We have seen that
the accustomed glories of sun and moon, planets and
stars, carry the causes of their change within them
selves ; and must fulfil the uniform law of Natura
by yielding to those causes. Yet the Law governing
their change remains when they wax old and perish.
Now, the Moral Law is a Peer of the Law of Induc
tion, in respect of its seat within the Soul, and its
primary claim to be accepted and made a ground of
human activity. It is far more than a Peer, when
we consider how much that claim involves. For
under what conditions can Morality accomphsh its
warfare and put on its robes of Victory ? Not (we
are quite sure) under the present conditions of our
mortal life, nor yet of the world we live in. Why
the conflict between Good and Evil should exist, is
a very deep question : the fact that it does exist, is a
reahty patent enough to us all. Whosoever ivill do
right must count upon making himself in some way
a sacrifice ; and it requires a firm Insight of Belief to
look beyond the veU which covers all the eyes and
most of the hearts of men. The crown of Right-
doing awaits the end of the battle ; and that comes
only with the end of life. " The last enemy that
shall be destroyed is Death."
Under no less conditions can the Moral Law, as

220 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. v.
given in our human nature, establish its lawful su
premacy. It is, by right, universal. In this Hfe
neither the All, nor even our All, can be subject to
its sovereignty. It is a transcendent " Must-be."
Therefore, its true going forth, conquering and to
conquer, we now see through a glass darkly.
Yet the conquest is sure, if the Moral Law hold
true and firm. In this way only can that Law be
realized to our joy. We that go from step to step,
from struggle to struggle, and from strength to
strength, shall appear before God, the Judge of un
numbered moral conflicts and degrees of strength,
— and we shall appear in Glory ! In a glory more
resplendent because it throws a clear light upon our
troubled course overpassed, and shows us the future
promise of being holy, as the Object of our adoration
is Holy. In this way can the Moral Law be re
alized, — and in one other way : by the achievement
of the needful condition, that everything opposing,
and exalting itself as adverse to uprightness and true
hohness, shall pass away and its memorial perish
with it.
And when these two conditions are accomphshed,
there subsists nothing to hinder our unending pro
gress in all we desire most — in all we love best.
Hindrances are placed beneath our feet. Above our
heads, above our eyes, above our hearts, is an Ideal
of Perfection, absolute and sublime ; beautiful with
out change ; attractive to eye and heart ; satisfying,
yet not satiating, for ever and for ever.
That the Moral Law does really command us to

Lect. v.] The Prerogative of Humanity. 22\
keep this Hne of Progress, and that its command
contains a Prophecy of Future Retribution, I shall
hope to make yet more evident in my next Lecture.
We shall see, I trust, that it postulates and receives
a supplement of religious Realities.

LECTURE VI.

MAN'S INNER LAW AND LUE.

LECTURE VI.
1 Peter ii. 17.
"Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour
the king."
r I THIS text tells us to honour the King, as one to
-*- whom honour is due. To fear God with that
dutiful fear which is the beginning of wisdom. To
love the brotherhood, because the Members of Christ
are one body corporate. But why to honour all
men, unless the very fact and being of Humanity
carries in itself some claim to superiority, some
cause why we should pay honour to each member of
the whole family of Mankind ?
My last Lecture assigned reasons for a vast specific
superiority of Man compared with the beasts of the
field which are put under his feet. And the more
we proceed to examine Human Nature, in itself, and
by comparison with all lower nature, the more
plainly shaU we discern that it claims, or ought
to claim, a supremacy of honour now in this
inhospitable life ; and hereafter, with greater ab
soluteness, in a sphere less unfavourable to human
aspirations. Yet it is not surprising that men should fear
and hesitate when there appears proffered to them
15

226 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vi.
an eternity of Good. Questionless, when Hfe and
Immortahty were brought to Hght by the Gospel,
Christianity might easily seem too good, too happy
to be true. And so it is with the evidence divinely
inwoven into our Human Nature, and teUing us of
a ReaHty far beyond our present grasp ; compared
with which the passing scenes through which we
now live on, are but as a shadow and a dream.
Both these opposed thoughts grow upon us aH
with growing years. The tissue of the Past
looks more dreamlike ; the Future is seen to be
our essential existence. Yet, as a future for us,
it appears far transcending all that has been ger
mane to our past doings, aU that it befits creatures
hke ourselves to expect. Even a glimmering hope
of such great happiness seems too good to be true.
The same natural doubt has made most persons
pronounce Optimism as remote from truth as Pessi
mism. Human Perfectibihty has appeared a baseless
vision. This thought must certainly be resigned,
if coupled with the idea of an ever-continuing, ever
seU-developing, Earth-occupying Humanity. Had
there been no Natural Science reasons for expecting
change in the outward Universe, incompatible with
this idea, other reasons of a stringent kind would
prevent our so theorizing. Every such theory is
a forgetfulness of human ignorance, — and something
worse stUl. It is a mistake which overclouds what
is per se reasonable and clear, by the annexation
of what is dim and disputable. Worst of all, it is
the cow-mixture of two disparate thoughts; the

Lect. vi] Man's Inner Law and Life. 227
fusion of a moral certainty along with a physical
condition necessarily uncertain.
Moral Truth comes to us as being in its own
nature uncompromisingly true. The " ought " in
Morality is as distinct as the " must " in mechanical
Nature. The Moral contradictory of Right and
Wrong is as absolute as the logical contradictory of
True and False. It is no less certain that Right
and Wrong can never coincide, than that two
parallel Unes if produced to infinity wiU never be
made to meet. There are "internal and opposite
angles " in the Ethical sphere, wide enough to
determine an eternal separation of the two courses
infinitely prolonged. In this world, that which we
ought to choose, and that which we ought to eschew,
are set over against each other. Both are given
us as objects of contemplation, together with an
internal evidence that both are always to remain.
apart, always to continue irreconcilable. Why Evil
should have been set over against Good at all is
(as I have observed) an enigma unsolved. And its
solution must wait till we know whether aU the
stellar systems are inhabited ; whether Evil exists
in each or all of them ; whether spiritual influences
can travel from one stellar system to another, even
as light travels ; and whether the present condition
of our own small planet is a rule or an exception, — a
continuing or a transient shadow. It may be that
we now dwell in the lazar-house of the Universe ;
that our meagre developments and mournful strifes
are (so to speak) spectacles to spiritual powers in

228 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. VI.
high places. That when our own inward vision
becomes from earthly dross refined and clear, we
shall see this world's EvU, as a black drop in a
translucent ocean. And that, relatively to our
individual selves, Good may be a manifest and a
final victory; sin effaced by Righteousness; mor
tality swallowed up of Life. God grant it to us
all ! And may we all pray for it !
The President of the British Association con
cluded his Address, at Belfast, by comparing himself
and his audience to streaks of morning cloud, which
must melt into the infinite azure of the Past.
PoeticaUy understood — and understood as he meant
it — of the artificial education and attainments of
Man, the comparison is just and true. But I am
glad to use it as the foil and antithesis to another
thought. My contention this morning is that Moral
Being can never melt away, — that it is ineffaceable.
Once risen into clearness, we cannot plunge and
drown it in the twilight Past. It is onward-looking
and upward-looking. If it were not Prophetic, it
could have no present vitahty. But it is a child of
Hope, — a plant having its blossoms in the future.
We may accommodate the poet's words to its verna
tion now : — " These flowers, as in their Causes, sleep."
By-and-by they will be unfolded ; and then no one
wiH doubt that their life is sprung from the eternally
Beautiful, and is imperishable, —
" Bright Effluence of bright Essence increate."

Lect. vi.] Man's Inner Law and Life. 229
We now come, in order due, to a most important
point. Any speculative difficulties which may have
environed the apprehension of Moral Distinctions as
axiomatic, wiH probably be found to rise from one or
both of two causes. The former cause is a Hmitation
of philosophic method, more or less untenable. The
latter consists in a process something more than
Hmitary. A practice of setting up artificial depart
ments of thought and knowledge, and then isolating
them. A practice sure tc extend- itself over every
realm of Thought, and afterwards over1 our thinking
Powers themselves. As if Human Reason — one and
indivisible — could first* be disorganized and next be
treated as a sort of confederate • Republic : a psycho
logical United States, — each State- a separate Do
minion, and the several States sometimes at peace,
sometimes in antagonism amongst themselves.
Both these causes of difficulty coincide in producing
a false Method of philosophic procedure. They are,
therefore, well worth examination. The primary
Ethical beUefs in which we are speciaUy interested
must at aU times be gainers by every fair enquiry into
the Conditions of human certitude.. Errors of Method
are incidents never unlikely to befal scientific men ;
and from them- to be propagated downwards till they
become rooted as vulgar errors. To find out where
science misleads the people, is always an endeavour
useful per se. It shows the truth misrepresented in
its truest light ; sifts away any chance error attached
to its representation by friendly advocates ; joins
again the divided cycle of Reason ; Hnks thought to

230 The Doctrine of Retribution. elect, vi.
thought, insight to insight, belief to belief. Now,
this cycle of Reason is broken by iH-conceived Method
more fataUy than by any other cause.
That the Moral contradictory of " ought " and
" ought not " should share in the difficulties common
to aU Practical phUosophy, is quite natural. That it
should encounter difficulties arising from the dislike
of men to be self-controlled, and to believe themselves
responsible subjects of Retributive Justice, seems
also natural. But that its difficulties, quoad the
grounds on which it is based, or the tests which
ascertain its truth, should be out of analogy with
the rest of our human knowing and believing, does
not appear a. thing to be naturally expected, prior to
investigation. A remark this, which introduces the
question — How has this point turned out after
investigation ? It is certain that no such, difficulty
has ever prevented some of the greatest thinkers our
world has seen from asserting the absolute truth of
Moral Distinctions, upon grounds which must be
held valid, provided that any phUosophy, or even any
knowledge beyond registered phenomena, can be held
attainable by Man. Thinkers of this class give, in
point of fact, a well-earned primacy to Moral truth.
They assert that it, above aU other kinds of truth,
clearly brings to light those wide principles upon
which the whole arch of our Science reposes. Indeed,
it is this very width of their own circumference of
vision, — the broad sweep of their arguments, — which
have made and stiU do make the conclusions of those
deeper spirits unfamiliar to speakers and writers in

Lect. vi.] Man's Inner Law and Life. 231
general. To fly round the vast circuit of philosophy,
is as hard as to exchange our limited cosmical con
ceptions for a view of the Universe which surveys
the stellar heavens, the dark spaces, and cloudy
star-dust of the skies. For some minds, it seems
an equally hard task to accept the truth that our
Earth is not reaUy the centre of all worlds and
all systems ; nor yet Mankind, (its half-civilized in
habitants,) the cynosure of all reasonable creatures.
Let us Ulustrate this state of mind by comparing
the Past with the Present.
Three centuries ago, certain men found it very
hard to alter their conception of the Universe. And
instead of trying to fly round the vast circuit of
philosophy, and penetrate the s'teUar heavens, they
stopped their ears, and consecrated their obstinacy
by the names of Orthodoxy and InfalHbility. To say
that the Earth moved, or that the Sun, (not our
globe,) is the centre of our own smaU system, was
Heterodoxy — Heresy — Death! It cost Giordano
Bruno seven years of life — it led him to the stake at
Rome. Such was Papal Italy. Here, in England,
amidst the summer-bloom of her poetry, and the
dawn of a new scientific era, our Oxford Hooker
complained of his age as " weak in brain." Yet, has
the nineteenth century found a wide philosophy any
easier than did the sixteenth ? The tendency of our
day is to speciahze labour, to departmentize business ;
and Science has obeyed this secular law. Hence,
improved means of research in each several specialty.
But, hence also, a way of looking at all human

232 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vi.
culture from limited and particular points of view.
Each larger division of Science claims to have a
method of its own, — and every worker in each field
has a natural faith in the method he understands
best. The Law of Jurisprudence and Civil History
is a very different affair from the Law of a Physicist
or Biologist. Neither are mechanical and dynamical
Laws coincident. So far, no harm is done. Nine
teenth century Bigotry begins with the next step ;
— and, as may be anticipated from the character of
our age, it is a Bigotry more scientific than rehgious.
Take an example common to many thinkers. Of late
years the word " Force " is a favourite subject with
writers and speakers. It is used as a convenient
description of a good many ideas extremely distinct,
and occupying contrasted provinces of Thought.
Force may mean a mechanical law in operation ; it
may describe some observed energy of vital dynamics ;
it has also been appUed to the Vohtional activities
of Man.
Now, a word will always be the most readily ex
plained, from its simplest sphere of employment. It
is easy to measure force in terms of material and
mechanical law, — that is, by the specific Laws ex
hypothesi governing that portion of the Universe
which Hes as far distant from Human Volition as a
clod of earth, a metal, or a stone, is from the genius
of Shakespeare, the inteUect of Bacon, or the morahty
of Immanuel Kant. Yet, the despotism of Method
is relentless ! The partial mechanist wants to rule
the world of Men by Mechanism ! — genius, inteUect,

Lect. vi.] Man's Inner Law and Life. 233
and morality are to be ground down under his Law.
AppUed to Mankind, this Law is called Determinism
— another name for Fixity and Fate,— which again
are names for the Law of stocks and stones. All that
is best in Humanity is thus blotted out. But a realm
of unvarying Physical Uniformity is the exact Con
tradictory to our infinitely variable and varied human
activities. The very conceptions are mutually ex
clusive. Michael Faraday was moral : a clod of
earth is un-moial. A man who commits intentional
murder ought to be hanged ; but suppose a large
stone faUs by the law of gravitation, and kills half
a dozen men, there is, really, no ethical good in
hammering the stone to pieces. Physical law knows
nothing of Virtue or Vice ; — yet to be virtuous is to
be humanly right. And Human Rightness implies a
Law of Choice exceedingly different from Gravitation.
To put his Law of Choice into moral movement, — to
be that law unto himself, — is the noblest aim of Man.
The endeavour, — the very idea of endeavouring, — is
an exercise of Volition. The endeavourer obtains
praise, because he is not driven, as a machine is
driven, when he does his human work. He does not
rise above earth in like manner as a stone cannot
choose but rise, when it is hurled upwards from a
catapult. The thought of a Moral ascent was realized
before his inward eye, ere yet it was chosen by his
Will. We praise his Ideal : he discerned it to be
good and noble, because it was Right. Afterwards
he did his best to attain it.
History verifies, on a large scale, what individual

234 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vi.
experience teUs us concerning the Law of Moral
Choice. Whole communities share in this same
insight ; and the oftener they act upon it the clearer
does the Ethical element appear. Convert the
singular moral noun into a plural ; add to the word
Right the letter S. For Rights, social and pohtical
(the progeny of Right), whole hosts of men have
suffered. Rights of thought, of person, and of con
science ; — not Utilities because they were felt to be
useful, — but Rights because they were felt to be right.
Not right for each individual sufferer only ; for his
class, and for the age he lived in only ; but Rights
undying, — the world-wide Rights of Man. Above
all others, those Rights without which men cannot
exercise their Man-like birthright of Moral Choice.
And these are Rights for time, and for eternity.
Whatever Theory may, or may not say, the
verification of History is express concerning the
great fact that Mankind has found true Manhood
in this energy of Moral Choice — this constancy to
Rights domestic, social, and civic. Amidst all the
ignorance and savagery of ancient Rome, its ancestral
code of Law (the religion of the State) was (as we
are sufficiently informed) the life-blood of old Roman
vigour. In the strength of their seU-control and
self-devotion, the Romans won their greatness. In
the decline of that moral strength, they lost it. To
hold fast the Manlike Law was to rule the world.
They became slaves themselves when they let it go.
Along with it all was lost. Honour, public virtue,
home Rights; and every personal Right of free

Lect. vi.] Man's Inner Law and Life. 235
action, speech, and thought. The Epicurean and the
Stoic were products indigenous to those wretched'
times. It mattered Httle which of these two philo
sophies a man professed. Destiny and Chance, — a
fiuent and a determined world, — are exactly the same
thing, when he can no longer aspire to an Ideal,
assert a Conscience, or rule the current of his life.
In other words, his Chance existence is his Destiny.
He must take what comes ; therefore — carpe diem.
He must live as a dog lives ; so he may as well
snatch, like a dog, what he can.
A noteworthy fact amongst the realities of Ufe is
thus explained. Any terrible despotism, such as that
of the Roman Csesars, — most terrible because most
immoral, — has a similar effect upon human beings
with atheistic Fatalism ; unreal enough in other
respects, but stiU a Fatalism which loosens the
bonds of Responsibility and annihilates our belief
in Retribution. The caprice of passion in its lowest
forms is the one chance-existence natural to those
who Hve under outward tyrannies, — tyrannies which
bind Volition from without. The inward tyranny of
Fatahsm destroys the very idea of Volition from
within, and, therefore, lets loose the same caprices
and passions in their worst and wickedest shapes.
Fury and sensuousness, in turn, lead to a despotism,
as more cities than Paris can testify. These forces
both act and react : under a Roman despotism the
natural production was a Petronius ; from the
licentious creed of French Fatalism issued naturally
French Caesarism. And the end is not yet !

236 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vi.
It is thus that the logic of events confirms the
conclusions of a broad philosophy. There is no
cause why an axiom underlying Moral truth should
not be as validly axiomatic as the first principles
of Mathematics, Natural Science, and the art of
Analytic reasoning. To deny one primary behef, is
to throw doubt on the reahty of aU. And it is
equaUy clear that a denial of those consequences,
which follow the individual character of each axiom,
is to shake its foundation. For example, the first
principle of Nature's uniformity postulates a Se
quence equally uniform, extending throughout the
whole sphere of Nature's operation. This has been
called the method and model of Nature ; and when
construed by us to our understandings, it is shaped
into the method and model of Natural Science. But
we have seen that, whereas the Law of Nature's
Uniformity is a " Must be," the human Law of
Moral Right issues in our " Ought to do." The
method and model, therefore, of human activity is
not uniform, but administrative, and, therefore,
variable. Adapted, that is, to the Right and Wrong
of the diverse trials and perplexities of life. . For
the rule of Right, whUst absolute, is not dead, but
living. We see how true this is, in a moment, if we figure
to ourselves what may be an impossible Unreality,
yet conceivable by Theorists ; a confusion, that is
to say, between the two spheres. It seems strange
to any one who examines first principles that such
confusions are conceivable ; but we must waive

Lect. VI.] Man's Inner Law and Life. 237
the difficulty, since they have been actually con
ceived. Suppose, then, we extend a moral law of Human
Nature over inorganic Nature : the result is gross
Anthropomorphism. Suppose we extend the laws
of inorganic Nature over Human Nature : the result
is an %ranoral Mechanism. Were any one to make
his life an endeavour at working out the method and
model of Nature, his life would become a human
blank. "If," says Mr. Stuart Mill, in a discussion
ofthe so-called practical maxim of " conforming to
Nature," — "If action at all could be justified, it
would only be in direct obedience to instincts, since
these might perhaps be accounted part of the spon
taneous order of Nature ; but to do anything with
forethought and purpose would be a violation of
that perfect order." But without forethought and
purpose, where is Morality ? Nay, more, — could Art,
CivUization, Society, exist under such a servitude ?
"If," continues Mr. Mill, " the artificial is not
better than the natural, to what end are all the arts
of life ? To dig, to plough, to build, to wear clothes,
are direct infringements of the injunction to follow
Nature. .... AU praise of CivUization, or Art, or
Contrivance, is so much dispraise of Nature, — an
admission of imperfection, which it is man's business
and merit to be always endeavouring to correct or
mitigate." * Need we be surprised when, from these
premises, Mr. MiU draws the inference "that the
order of Nature, in so far as unmodified by Man, is
* Three Essays, pp. 20, 1.

238 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vi.
such as no being, whose attributes are justice and
benevolence, would have made, with the intention
that his rational creatures should follow it as an
example " ? A little further on he writes, " In sober
truth, nearly all the things which men are hanged
or imprisoned for doing one to another, are Nature's
every-day performances." And, again, " The order
of Nature is constructed with even less regard to
the requirements of justice than to those of benevo
lence." *
These sayings of Mr. Mill's deserve careful con
sideration ; and, in my judgment, convey some very
wholesome lessons. But I must guard myself against
a misconstruction. The feelings of gloom and fear
with which Mr. Mill regards such facts, are not the
feelings which they inspire in my own breast. It
seems to me undeniable, that (as Mill speaks) "the
ways of Nature are to be conquered, not obeyed —
her powers are often towards Man in the position
of enemies." \ But why should we grieve that our
earliest incentive to a study of Nature's laws,
and an imitation of her processes, is the desire of
fighting her with her own weapons, overcoming her
inclemencies, and guarding ourselves against her
vicissitudes ? To this very encounter a first utter
ance of the Old Testament had evident regard : —
"Replenish the earth and subdue it." The law of
the natural world is a rule of iron ; but the Will
of Man can either break or bend the strongest iron.
This fact he learns in his battles with Nature's
* Three Essays, pp. 25, 8, 37. + Ibid. p. 20.

Lect. vi] Man's Inner Law and Life. 239
Titanic powers. Some he makes his servants ;
others he turns aside or evades. From both kinds
of contest he learns energy, and the maxim —
"  Vitanda est improba Siren

Desidia."
It is also quite true (as Mill remarks) that the
earthquake of Lisbon spared the righteous no more
than the wicked. It would have been a miracle, not
a natural fact, had so just a discrimination occurred ;
if, that is, the law of Nature's Uniformity had been
metamorphosed into an administrative Law paying
regard to Right and Wrong. In truth, the theme
" is something musty," — one gets weary of the immo
ralities charged against this same earthquake ; they
were sufficiently celebrated long ago by Voltaire and
by Goethe. Their real lesson is the sensible one —
that, in choosing the site of cities, it is wise to avoid
the paths of volcanic streams or showers, and the
currents of underground vibration. It is evidently
unwise to trust (as some citizens have trusted) to the
relic of a patron saint.
We learn a further lesson from Nature's un-moYali-
ties. We will not call them im-morahties, with Mr.
Mill — since they are not transgressions of the Moral
Law ; they are simply blanks, where Morahty is
unknown, because incongruous as well as impossible.
On this account, the Natural Law forms a direct and
instructive antithesis to the Law of Humanity.
Instructive, I say, because the opposition throws
into high rehef the rule of what we " ought to do."

240 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vi.
Were those men, upon whom the Tower of Siloam
feU, sinners above all the dweUers in Jerusalem ?
But should not all be special sinners, — sinners above
others, — against whose life the Magistrate beareth
not the sword in vain ? Nature's Law can make no
distinctions ; it is un-moral, because it is fixed and
uniform. Each Hnk in her operations is fast bound
to a link preceding, and so on backwards to the
hidden beginning of the chain. Mill is thus perfectly
correct in saying that in all things which concern
Justice, Benevolence, or other Moral distinctions, —
(and these things make up human life,) — no maxim
can possibly be worse than to follow Nature, to adopt
her Method for our own. His reason is our reason :
Nature cannot discriminate. She cannot spare the
good and punish the evil. But it is Man's duty so to
do. She smiles upon aU alike ; upon all alike she
brings sorrow and calamity, — heart-rending, often
almost insupportable. Man's plain duty is never so
to do. The very ideas of Nature and Morahty are
mutuaUy exclusive ; they cannot be brought together
in words. We say that a Man is bound to be just,
benevolent, and seK-denying. Such language would
be an absurdity if applied to Nature. The absurd
consequence is voided by the impossibility of the
application. Man is, also, bound negatively : he must
be neither unjust nor ungenerous. But, except in a
figure of rhetoric, who speaks of Nature as " injusta
Noverca," or styles her ungenerous and harsh ?
Mr. Mill does, indeed, allow himself the use of
such phrases. He stigmatizes Nature's "habitual

lect. vi.] Man's Inner Law and Life. 241
injustice,"* and her "most supercilious disregard
both of mercy and of justice, "f He also animadverts
upon the perfect and absolute recklessness of "Cosmic
forces." He states the truism — and, indeed, it is very
true — that a question between two men is quite a
different thing from a question between a man and a
natural phenomenon. Hence any one would be justly
rebuked, " who should be so silly as to expect common
human Morality from Nature." \ True, indeed ! How,
then, can we be positive that Nature made Man?
—made him in his actual essential being, Morality
and all ? Might we not expect from the Parent of a
race which can reckon many moral heroes, some
shght regard to the elementary principles of Morality
— such matters as human children know ? Or, if the
real Mother of the Gracchi and of Aristides pays
no deference either to estabhshed rights, equitable
deahng, or merciful forbearance, — no, nor even to
ordinary justice towards individual men, — yet might
she not respect Utilities ? Is there no movement
towards Morality, however remote, to which we can
look, for restraining her Immoralities ? Mr. Mill
evidently knew of nothing at all likely to pro
mote even the commonest decencies of life ! He
says, in a despairing tone, "All which people are
accustomed to deprecate as : disorder ' and its con
sequences, is precisely a counterpart of Nature's
ways."§ Such being the case, is it not just possible that not
* Three Essays, p. 35. t Ibid. p. 29. % Ibid. p. 28.
§ Ibid. p. 31. 16

242 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vi.
Nature, but God, made Man ? Made him a Person,
while He left Nature a Thing ? A Being possessed of
Will and Reason, contrasted with a mere machine ?
A Moral Cause, and not a Hnk in Nature's un-moral
chain ? Again, I refuse to caU that chain im-moral ;
the latter word suggests that Man and Nature are, in
some^sense, measures of each other.
Mr. MiU's language might easUy raise this idea.
He personifies Nature, and writes of her as a malig
nant Goddess or a barbarous Roman Matron : —
" Hoc volo, Sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas.''
He describes, at length, " hideous deaths such as the
ingenious cruelty of a Nabis or a Domitian never
surpassed." "Such," he says, "are Nature's deal
ings with life. Even when she does not intend to
kiU, she inflicts the same tortures in apparent wan
tonness." * Yet he might have granted her the
virtue of Patience. To yield us food, warmth, and
shelter, she submits to be placed under the plough
and the harrow, under hammers and axes of iron ;
to be hewed, burned, and blown to pieces in every
conceivable manner !
But enough has been said, I hope, to show you
how incommensurable are Man and Nature ; how
disparate their spheres ; how far apart natural laws,
invariable, necessary, immanent, from Man's Causal
powers, determinable in more than one direction,
spontaneous, acting upon things outside him ; and
also (what is of infinite importance) acting upon and
* Three Essays, pp. 29, 30.

Lect. vi.] Man's Inner Law and Life. 243
modifying his own original character. Without these
he would be un-moral and irresponsible. Putting
aside the ao-usive employment of the word Immoral,
together with its connotations, there seems nothing
in MiU's statements which the most temperate
reasoner can deny. We cannot be said really to ty
rannize over Nature, any more than Nero tyrannized
over the timber and marble which he built up into
his golden house. Neither does Nature, in sober
truth, give us food, fire, clothes, or shelter ; we (as
MiU might have said) wrest them from her ! In
plainer language, we put Natural productions to
very reasonable uses.
What, then, is the true teaching of Mill's Essay,
thought over during a period of from ten to twenty
years of philosophic Hfe, and bequeathed as a dying
legacy to the world of letters ? It brings us, in fact,
more than a few lessons, — and aH are of a grave and
important character, weU worthy serious attention.
No doubt they will receive this attention in due
time. There wUl be a gradual subsidence of the
horror and amazement felt upon the discovery that
MiU had stepped so far into the circle of Theism :
that he had actually believed in the Potentiality of a
Divine Being* who, though mediatized in respect of
His Sovereignty, is still, in a supra-natnxal sense,
* The inexplicable fact called Matter is in Mill's Philosophy
nothing more than a Possibility of Sensation. (Compare post Lecture
VIII. init.) His " potential" view of the Divine Being must there
fore be considered a rather strong affirmation; and so it seems to
have been understood by his mal-content disciples.

244 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vi.
Divine. Disappointed Atheists will recover from
the shock of finding that Mill allowed to this idea
a possible influence upon human hopes, lives, and
hearts. Controversy on such topics will die away;
there wiU be a lull, a hush, a silence ; and then it
will be more calmly considered what consequences
are involved in this view of Nature. The force of
its author's moral indignation, his determination to
personify, denounce, and detest the smiling, immoral
Syren, will give point to each epigram, and render
its impression indelible. And the welcome which
has been accorded to this Philippic — its acceptance
by so many schools of thinkers — cannot but interest
a multitude of admirers in making its lessons plain.
Let me mention one or two of those lessons.
1. No one will, henceforth, presume to say that
Nature is in itself the model study of Man. Ex
perience here coincides with the anticipations of
philosophy. Our commerce with Nature has been a
warfare in which we have used laws we knew she
could not break, as arms and instruments against
her domination. When we want to contrive a new
thing, we correlate with our ideal object some power
of hers, either as it is, or as we mould it. We turn
a portion of her force into a fresh direction, just as a
mUler turns a brook to work his water-wheel ; just
as an inventor gets steam from water itself, or elicits
an electric current from a combination of natural fac
tors. These things, and a thousand other things like
them, make up one kind of human study. So, too,
the taxonomy and behaviour of inorganic forms, — of

Lect. VI. ] Man's Inner Law and Life. 245
organized vegetable products, the habits, the instincts,
and the laws of the Animal Kingdom. But, if these
things alone were to be our study, the highest spheres
of human life would have vanished. Where would
be our Sociology, Politics, Civilization — the whole
educational sphere of our existence ? Lost, together
with everything which belongs to justice, truth,
benevolence, and other elements of Sociability ! If,
in the arts of Hfe, we had followed the rule naturam
sequi, we should (as MiU remarks) have remained
naked, and subject to all kinds of inconvenience. If
in our social, .that is, our strictly human lives, Justice
proceeded upon.maxims gained from that other rule
naturam obseruare,. — we should (to borrow another
remark) bite and devour one another. In all these
ways it is plain that the Humanity of Man's world
is founded upon principles not contained in Nature,
— antagonistic to her laws,- and far transcending all
she does contain, and all she ever can attain. Let
this disabihty be clearly apprehended, and a world of
fallacy disappears..
2. MiU's Aspects of Nature show, further, the
futihty of any approximations between Man and
his haU-conquered enemy, drawn from theoretical
Anthropogenies. These cannot soften down the
contrasts between Nature and Human Nature. No
amount of supposed metamorphosis can get over a
difficulty, the stubbornness of which consists, not in
an hypothesis, but in a fact. Could it be imagined
that Man was at any time like Nature, he would not
then have been Man ; but something else. Yet, he

246 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vi.
never could have really been like her ; the difference
must have always been world-wide. Habit to Man
is second Nature, — but you cannot habituate a stone
into faUing upwards. He is capable, she incapable,
of Moral discipline and discernment. He is teach
able, she unteachable; he educates himseU, she
cannot be educated even by him. Compare the
features of this antagonism as you will, the charac
teristic which makes Man human is educabihty and
self-educability. Man can find sermons in stones;
but were he to preach for ever to stones, he would fail
of persuading them never to kiU the innocent. We
learn the truth of all this very strongly from MUl's
maleficent volcanoes, earthquakes, and inundations.
3. Another unfounded hypothesis receives a
simUar death-blow. What possible pretence can
remain for assuming that Man, from the contem
plation of Nature, will create a Science yielding
an exact account of her and her ways, — discover a
law that rigorously directs her disorders, injustices,
cruelties, — and ivhen this is done, arrive at the
further discovery that he has, in doing this, created
the only true science of Himself ? Nay, — more
monstrous stiU : that what he has always conceived,
and does stUl conceive, to be the true science and
law of his own nature and his own world, must be
set aside by reason of his incapacity to read himself
aright. He has. (it seems) a correct eye for the
Natural world — that Thing with which he is in polar
antipathy ; he has none for the only Being known to
him by Sympathy — the inner Being presented hourly

lect. vi.] Man's Inner Law and Life. 247
to his own introvertive consciousness. Yet such are
the assumptions of men who, having spelt Force
into the letters of a language adapted to stocks and
stones, would persuade us that this is the only Force
known or knowable — the one Force supreme over a
machine-made universe of Men !
The truth is that such systematizers write and
discourse in one groove, till speech dominates over
thought. They mistake a form of expression for a
reahty of Being. As Mr. Herbert Spencer* truly
says —
" The mterpretation of all phenomena in terms of Matter, Motion,
and Force, is nothing more than the reduction of our complex symbols
of thought to the simplest symbols ; and when the equation has been
brought to its lowest terms the symbols remain symbols still."
"But," writes Professor Huxley, as if with a designed
comment on Spencer, —
" But the man of science, who, forgetting the limits of philoso
phical enquiry, slides from these formulae and symbols into what is
commonly understood by Materialism, seems to me to place himself
on a level with the mathematician, who should mistake the x's and
t/'s, with which he works his problems, for real entities ; — and with
this further disadvantage, as compared with the mathematician, that the
blunders of the latter are of no practical consequence, while the errors
of systematic Materialism may paralyse the energies, and destroy the
beauty of a life." t
HappUy for Humanity, our Nature revolts against
becoming a kneaded clod. To use Bacon's words,
"A sparkle of our Creation-Hght, whereby men ac
knowledge a Deity, burnetii still within."]: And
* First Principles, sect. 194.
t Lay Sermons, pp. 160-1.
X Meditationes. " Of Atheism."

248 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vi.
from the instance of Mr. Mill, we may estimate how
great a matter that little fire kindleth.
Were natural laws and forces the whole world of
Nature and of Man, whence came that Moral Force,
exerted by MiU, to vilipend the unmoral law of
Disorder? Why this appeal against Nature, and
Nature's method, to a judgment founded on senti
ments and principles pecuhar to the Mind of Man ?
Every such appeal lies from the less to the greater;
— and Man, in judging Nature, pronounces her
mferior to himself. He distinguishes, with Aristotle,
between natural necessity and moral Will-power;
and he cannot be made to think that the distinction
is untrue. He knows it through the very same
strength of axiomatic insight, through which he
knows Nature herself. For it is by virtue of such
insight that Man's Reason — one and indivisible —
instead of chronicHng natural events as things that
come like shadows and so depart, assimilates them
into the Code of Experience. And this code, by
the value of its practical efficacy, becomes the verifi
cation of his assimUating insight.
This same account is exactly true of aU primary
Beliefs ; and of the processes founded upon each and
aU of them. Each Axiom — Hke the axiom underlying
Induction — is a first-ground in Reason preparing the
path of experience, and prescribing the methods of
observation and of science. Man apphes the same
process to that special axiom underlying Moral truth,
— and frames the code of Conscience. This code,
in turn, verifies his assimilating insight, just as the

Lect. vi.] Man's Liner Law and Life. 249
code of Experience is a verification of the Inductive
principle and its consequences. And the Moral
Insight of Man, together with his code of Conscience
therefrom educed, receive (conjointly and severally)
a further Fact and History verification, wide as the
past progress of Humanity. For we may feel quite
sure that our Moral sense would never have been
spoken of as the creature of Civilization, if it had not
shone out brightly as the distinctive characteristic of
civUized human beings. In this respect, the code
of our enhghtened Conscience, with its moral Contra
dictory, antagonistic, unbending, and irreconcUeable,
must be aUowed to stand in favourable contrast with
the wider generalizations of physical philosophy,
which (as we saw in my last Lecture) are unverified,
and in their own nature unverifiable. They are (in
brief) hypotheses, deriving such probabilities as they
possess from analogical reasoning ; whilst the reality
of Moral distinctions, in all their breadth and stern
ness, is a conclusion drawn in a manner precisely
similar to the strongest results of purely Inductive
science. Nature, then, cannot be esteemed Man's model
study. Nor yet is there a shadow of reason for
supposing that his knowledge of Nature can be more
exact than his knowledge of himself. Neither is any
PhUosophy of Nature, however strict, more rigorous
in its method, or more capable of becoming our
highest or ultimate philosophy.
MiU's righteous anger against Nature's immoral
ways thus leads to the inference that he did not

250 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vi.
acquire his morahty from Nature. Nor, again, from
anything commonly understood by the name of
Utility. He does not say Nature is useless or
hurtful, — he charges her with Injustice and Im-
morahty. The charge is anthropomorphic in the
highest degree, and proclaims its own birthplace in
the stronghold of Moral insight, the one human
distinction which fixes a gulf between Man and the
whole world of un-moral existence.
Our Essayist does more than get angry : he breaks
out into loud lamentations. Neither in his sorrow
nor his anger can I pretend to agree with him. They
would both be true, both rightly placed, and under
(not over) painted by his energetic language, in one
case, and in one case only. You will guess what I
mean : that one case is, if this world were really
and indeed our All. Were the world we inhabit the
whole created Universe, or else a full, true, and sig
nificant type of the whole Universe, we should act
reasonably by joining MUl in his denunciations of
failure and sorrow everywhere — the vanity and vexa
tion of our globe, of the Cosmos of Man, of aU
things and aU Beings supposable. Were it reaUy
thus, no words could be too strong to express our
sense of the misery and misplacement of such
Hearts as throb with the desire to do good and to
be good, — of such Minds as deem nothing so lovely
as Virtue and Holiness. Neither could anything be
less germane to the Spirit that burns within us,
than to admire the ideal of Perfect Truth, Right
eousness, and Beneficence, and to strive after a

Lect. vi.] Man's Lnner Law and Life. 251
sphere where a Sovereign Will, so choosing, so or
daining, shall rule visibly supreme. As the facts
of Hfe now stand, these hearts, these minds, these
spirits, distinguish the excellent of our earth and
race. They help us to realize the Apostle's pre
cept, "Whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever
things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good
report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any
praise, think on these things." They help us to
reahze it, I say, by bestowing upon us a Hving image,
an actual exemplar, of those glorious things. But
were this world our All, the Hves of these men
would be a madness. Or, again, — were this world
a place of peaceful joy, and not (such as it is) a
world of sorrow, chastening, and discipline, the
Saintly Hfe would become impossible. We should
lose the most beautiful object our Human Form
enshrines. The heathen could say, " A brave man
strugghng with adversity is a feast worthy of the
Gods." We can, with stronger insight, say, A
holy man penetrated with a deep sense of what the
world affords as blessings, — stiU more of what the
world can never give, — with a full knowledge of
the drawbacks, the disappointments, and the en
feebling trials which beset Humanity, — cherishing.
within himself an unquenchable desire for that
thing which human nature in itseU has not — long
ing after the fruition of a spirituahty alien from
mere flesh and blood, and earnestly (oh ! how ear
nestly !) striving to attain the same, — a man such
as this, is the legible solution of the world's enigma

252 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. VI.
- — an embodied prophecy which all who run may
read. The dark things of Life become light in
him, and a hidden better Life is plainly and ascer
tainably manifested. And if he be one in a long
succession, a follower in a mighty train, confessing
himseH unworthy to tread in the footsteps of his
Leader, the Author and Finisher of his Faith, how
changed does the outside world appear — how trans
formed this tale of our daily doings and sufferances,
— above all, more solemn than aU — how transfigured
is Death !
Let us suppose, for a moment, that instead of
.maintaining a Canon of Morality absolutely true,
independent, and of intrinsic value and vitality, we
were to accept an egoistic Expediency, or what has
been caUed the waveless position of Scepticism.
How altered all would be ! Saintliness of character
we should no longer venerate or love. Humanity
would be discrowned. We might as well be alone
in a world where nothing could remain to excite our
best nature, — to raise, refine, and ennoble it. The
very bonds of our tenderest friendships and affections
must be dissolved. Each Epicurean might say to
the other, —
" Thy Duty ? What is Duty ? Pare thee well ! " *
And suppose we found ourselves thus waveless and
unimpassioned, what would our every-day existence
be worth? David Hume (in his "Sceptic") de
scribes the outcome of it all. "Ina word," he says,
* Tennyson, Lucretius..

Lect. vi.] Man's Inner Law and Life. 253
"human life is more governed by fortune than. by
reason ; is to be regarded more as a dull pastime
than as a serious occupation ; and is more influenced
by particular humour than by general principles."*
The elder Mill's opinion is given by his son, thus :
" He thought human life a poor thing at best, after
the freshness of youth and of unsatisfied curiosity
had gone by. This was a topic on which he did not
often speak — especially, it may be supposed, in the
presence of young persons ; but when he did, it was
with an air of settled and profound conviction." \
So, too, the Westminster Reviewer of the younger
MiU writes : — " To the elite of the human race, life
is perhaps preferable to non-existence." \ The same
strain of thought runs through Gibbon. Every
deeper-thoughted sceptic says, with Tennyson's
Lucretius : — " I often grow
Tired of so much within our little life,
Or of so little in our little life."§
And surely most little it is — most unworthy of all
that is pre-eminently styled Man, if — and only if—
it is not the Prelude and the Overture to a nobler,
higher, lovelier Life than this.
Yes ; let me speak plain truth : I do not, cannot
agree with Lucretius, Hume, or Mill. I should be
sorry — nay, desperate — if this world, however beauti-
* The Sceptic, last paragraph. (G. and G. iii. 231.)
¦j- Autobiography, p. 48.
% Westminster Eeview, Jan. 1875, p. 17.
§ Lucretius, as before.

254 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vi.
ful to eye and ear, however useful when subdued and
used aright, could be in any real sense the hope and
home of Man. He is, with aU his faults and failures,
capable of a better, holier, happier sphere. The gulf
between him and all other creatures demonstrates,
by its depth and width, the fact of his capabUity.
And remember that (as has been truly said) it is not
the Descent, but the Ascent of Man, with which we
have to do. The very ideas of Moral Science,
Natural Religion, Supernatural Religion, are so
many signs and indications. They could never
have existed, were not Man a creature capable of
the most exalted Transfiguration. Had this terra
queous globe been a sphere appropriate — not dis
parate — to Man, how different would have been his
past history, how different his aims, endeavours,
and self-discipline now !
The human Soul whose thinkings are above the
Moon, is in truth more great and grand than moun
tains, landscapes, earth and air, land and water. It
is worthy to remain in being when Nature waxes
old, and when our species disappears from her
present surface. And the value of this Truth is in
price beyond rubies. For what, in aH the material
Universe, is a just and worthy exchange for a Soul ?
This is the one warm Thought which Mill charac
terizes as a Hope, without venturing to term it a
Behef. As a Hope, he advises us to cherish it, for
the sake of its manifold benefits and blessings. Its
Hving presence wiU vivify and keep bright our affec
tions, and make us more good and useful to our

Lect. vi.] Man's Inner Law and Life. 255
Race. Further : it is this same appreciation which
distinguishes the meditative from the shallow sceptic.
Hume (says his best biographer) "was no propa
gandist ; and indeed seems ever to have felt that a
firm faith in Christianity unshaken by any doubts
was an invaluable privilege." * Thus, when deeply
moved by his mother's death, he' explained to his
friend that, notwithstanding his metaphysical specu
lations, he did not in other things think so differently
from the rest of the world as was imagined. Of
Hume and others, who have nevertheless argued out
and printed un-moral or irreligious speculations
instead of their own best practical convictions, it
may be said emphatically, —
" The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones."
I remember hearing Dr. Liddon ask in this pulpit,
concerning Christ, " Where is He now?" If we
asked a like question concerning Hume and other
such writers, could we confidently answer that they
are now with Christ ?
* Burton's Life of Hume, i., p. 293.

LECTURE VII.

GROWTH, TRIAL, AND TRIUMPH.

17

LECTURE VII.
1 Corinthians xv. 26.
" The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death."
rpHERE is no thought in the whole Bible which
-L lays hold of us more than this one. Death is
a Power, strong over all powers of Life or Energy,
of Possession, Pleasure, Pastime ; more cruel still,
over many of our hopes, aspirations, loves, and
sympathies. From this war there is no discharge.
Few of us march cheerfully up to encounter the
onward advance of Death.
Yet there have been periods of the world when
Death seemed the only Friend left to men' and
women. How true this was of the times at Rome
under the early Csssars, most of us know from the
Latin historians or poets, and all may read in the
pages of Dean Merivale. Those were days not to
live in, but to die in. All sorts of people — rich men,
philosophers, nobles — felt them so, and acted on the
feeling. The cause needs little explanation ; it is
clear that Morality was (so far as human rulers could
compass it) simply annihilated. The early Roman
Empire is one orgy of wine, wickedness, and blood.
We see in it what orgies do for Mankind. Perhaps
similar scenes have seldom been thoroughly de-

260 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vn.
scribed, unless we name the decaying Despotism
at Byzantium ; the rule of certain Popes ; and the
spectacles enacted during two French Revolutions.
WiU such times ever come over again ? It would
be rash to prophesy. Before Rome was ultimately
demoralized, the Saviour of Mankind had dashed
Himself against the world of wicked Men, and they
had cast Him out and killed Him. Suppose Re
ligion — not revealed Religion only, but Natural
Religion also — should be hated and cast out of Men :
suppose the very thought of Immortality and Retri
bution denied and vilipended, would this new putting
Truth to an open shame bring back the old tale of
Sensuality and of Sin ? Then must all incense to
God be extinguished ; then must Man cease to be
Manlike and become simply bestial. Then would
Death once more become Man's solitary refuge.
Yet there is one aspect under which Death will
always continue the Enemy of Mankind. The shade
of Death seems to cover all. We cannot see through
the thick darkness of that veil. Friend after friend
departs ; their voices die away, and we seek to clasp
their Forms in vain, — even throughout our dreams,
in vain !
Death is thus the tyranny of Nature over Human
Nature. The destruction of Death— the assertion of
a victorious Life — is the defeat of the Physical World,
and the triumph of Humanity. And all real progress
towards the final consummation of our Race can
only be effected by a gradual and growing realization
of this transcendent principle of Life.

Lect. VII.] Growth, Trial, and Triumph. 261
To examine Man's Moral Nature, with a view of
ascertaining what promise it gives of this glorious
consummation, has been one chief business of these
Lectures. In doing this, I have dealt with what may
be termed the Dynamics of Morality : a very different
subject from systematized Ethical rules. This course
has been dictated by the reason of the thing. In
the physical world,, its provinces of vegetable and
animal life inosculate through their lower forms. A
rose in her summer pride resembles neither an eagle
nor a lion. But how hard . it may be to class the
primary shapes of life, those well understand who
are acquainted with the- past history of Volvox
globator, and the Order of Desmidieas ; or who study
the modern Monera. In purely human realms of
knowledge the case is precisely the reverse. It is the
highest maxim of the Moralist, the noblest aim of
the man who strives to be moral, which immediately
underlies the upgrowth of Natural Religion. The
crxc-7ros -jrpdgeojv — the reason why we should truly
Hve a moral, that is, a human life — may aptly be
likened to the sunrise-spot where earth and heaven
seem to blend. Or we may say that it is at
once the key-stone of our arch of Duty, and the
foundation-stone of our citadel of Faith. Thus
the loftiest reach of Man's Present, inosculates
with the lowest phase of his Coming existence.
The most developed form of his 'earthly Humanity
is the chrysalid stage of his metamorphosis. The
Larva cannot at once give birth to an Imago.
This highest Maxim of Morality has been often

262 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vii.
described as our Being's Aim and End — as Happi
ness — as Human Excellence and Perfection — as the
true and proper Work of Man. It is likewise spoken
of as the basis of Ethical Method : and so it must
be, in the same sense that the finality after which
our Will strives is the basis of our action. In the
Ethical syllogism, just as in the Volitional syllogism,
this highest finality forms the major premiss, and
gives character and coherence to every practical
conclusion. The same Maxim is again spoken of as the sanc
tion of Morals — -the " Why " we must do our Duty,
and the reason inclining and assisting us to do it.
In this point of view I endeavoured to place it dis
tinctly before your mind's eye in my second Lecture.
I also attempted to show you that there are cases in
which the "Why" of action can alone determine
the "How." The particular case we took was one
in which every consideration was ranged against
Truthfulness and Heroic Virtue, save and except
the absolute antagonism between Right and Wrong,
together with the Belief by which such a conviction
is inevitably accompanied. We believe, and cannot
but believe, that the objective Truth of the Moral
Contradictory becomes imperative at all costs, be
cause its " must be " necessitates infinite con
sequences. In other words, because its empire over
us is ended neither by Death nor yet by a life of
isolation. How true this is, will be evident if you
contemplate the lot of a man cast upon a desert
island, without hope of rescue. Ought a person so

Lect. vu.] Growth, Trial, and Triumph. 263
circumstanced to ferment the fruit of the grape, and
become a drunkard ? Ought he to stoop to any kind
of pleasure purchased by self-debasement ? Ought
he not to watch over his own purity in body and
in mind? Should he not keep his heart with all
diligence, since out of it are the issues of Life?
But, suppose that Happiness were thought of as
something possibly apart from Duty, — or that Duty
were disconnected from the laws of Retribution :
could any code of conduct maintain its supremacy
in solitude ? No thought of general interest, praise,
sympathy, or other social ties, can bind the isolated
man. And must not the same relaxation of Duty
ensue whensoever our human life becomes divided
from other lives ? Each lonely spirit that dwells
apart would inhabit an un-moral sphere. The hour
of Death would, to many of us, weaken that inner
most LHe, which ought then to put on its brightest
bloom and beauty.
The same perplexity is of no uncommon occur
rence. Never, probably, has there existed any human
being who did not at some time or other ask, "Why"
must I do right ? If you examine any supposable
answer to this demand, you will see on what account
the "Why" is so immensely important. For ex
ample, is it likely that a questioner reluctant to do
right, or at best haU-unwUling to be convinced,
would feel satisfied with Utilitarian persuasives?
Might he not rejoin, "You say Right is advantage
and praise to myself — advantage also to" my race;
but I am ready to risk applause, and some future

264 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vii.
interests, for the present pleasure before me; es
pecially since its loss would entail a present pain.
As for Mankind, my contemporaries will take care of
themselves : so, too, will Posterity. Rational bene
volence may (as you think) be virtue ; but I do not
feel my present happiness promoted by it ; neither
do I see any reason for the sacrifice." * This re
joinder, if men spoke their real minds, would no
doubt be frequently heard from their mouths. Mr.
Hume pointed out the difficulty, or rather impossi-
bUity, which he felt in dealing with it.f And we
may plainly see that on his system, and all similar
systems, the failure of philosophy is complete. It
must fail before every such opposing attitude of mind,
because it possesses no power of reply.
The truth seems to be, that every noble Utilitarian
takes the desired attitude for granted. His method
deals with finding rules of duty rather than reasons
why we should do our duty. In this respect it may
be contrasted with most systems of Ethics, both proz
and post Christian. In this respect, too, appears one
of the strongest contrasts between Intuitionism so-
called, and the highest phase of Utilitarianism. In
* Compare Hume's dictum before referred to : " 'Tis not contrary
to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratch
ing of my finger." Treatise, B. IL, 2, 3 — " Of the influencing Motive
of the Will." What Hume means is, of course, that Moral Choice is
not founded on our Eeason, which he had just remarked "is, and
ought only to be the slave of the passions."
t "My philosophy affords no remedy in such a case, nor could I
do anything but lament this person's unhappy condition." The Sceptic.
(G. and G. iii., p. 222.)

Lect. vu.] Growth, Trial, and Triumph. 265
this respect, finally, the Method seems to be less a
method of Morality than of Casuistry. It is busy
with cases of doubt ; it tests rules of action under
diversities of circumstance. But it fails in giving to
a man, doubtful yet not dishonest, reasons for en
deavouring to elevate his life and character. In fact,
very many Utilitarians have considered the altera
tion of character an unpromising, if not impossible
task. Thus, Hume, who at times concedes a good
deal to the influences of education and society, lets
drop the mournful observation, that "the fabric and
constitution of our mind no more depends on our
choice than that of our body." * To the higher
Morality we have been advocating, the main business
of Life is to mould this fabric and constitution. The
whole duty of Man may be summed in self-education.
He is bound to this task by the supreme Law of his
Nature — a Law on which depends his highest de
velopment now and Hereafter — a Law which thereby
necessitates consequences inconceivable in magni
tude, and in duration immeasurable. The "Why"
here is absolute, and therefore sufficing.
Turn the matter in whichever way you will, its
practical issue always must come to this : — Is there,
or is there not, a satisfactory reason why a life of
Duty, irksome to most men, and with certain trials
for aU, should, at this cost, and perhaps at much
greater cost, be accepted and consistently pursued ?
Do Utilitarian methods of Ethics, or does any other
method short of objectively -true Morahty, state any
* The Sceptic. (G. and G. iii., p. 221.)

266 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.vii.
such conclusive reason? Mr. Fitzjames Stephen
examines this issue. " No such statement," he says,
" of what Mr. Mill calls the ultimate sanction of the
morals of Utility is possible."* Neither can any
such prevailing statement be made, unless the moral
sanction contains a distinct ground for belief in a
certainty of Retribution. Speaking of the doctrines
of the existence of God and a future state, Mr.
Stephen observes, —
"What does surprise me, is to see able men put them aside with
a smile as being unimportant, as mere metaphysical puzzles of an
insoluble kind, which we may csase to think about without producing
any particular effect upon morality."!
A few pages further on he adds, —
" We cannot judge of the effects of Atheism, from the conduct of
persons who have been .educated as believers in God and in the midst
of a nation which believes in God. If we should ever see a genera
tion of men, especially a generation of Englishmen, to whom the word
God had no meaning at all, we should get a light upon the subject
which might be lurid enough. Great force of character, restrained
and directed by a deep sense of duty, is the noblest of noble things.
Take off the restraint which a sense of duty imposes, and the strong
man is apt to become a mere tyrant and oppressor." %
Perhaps I ought to remind you that the Atheism
here spoken of need not (as Mr. MiU truly wrote)
consist in a dogmatic denial of God's existence :
the denial that there is sufficient evidence for Theism
amounts practically to much the same thing.
We are now in a position to place in antithesis
with what has been said; the fixed security of that
* Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, p. 308.
t !«'/., ;pp. 309-10.
X Ibid., p. 326.

Lect. VII.] Growth, Trial, and Triumph. 267
sanction and basis of Morality which is, (as we have
maintained,) the one fact required for the certitude
of Natural Religion. Our fairest way of doing this,
will be to show that it really does furnish human
beings with a sufficient " Why " for performing their
duty at all costs. And thereafter, that along with
the "Why" it shows the "How" of duty. It
yields (that is to say), if honestly accepted by the
conscience, a guidance in moral action. If acknow
ledged, it gives rise to principles of conduct alto
gether invaluable. No method of proof can well be
more reasonable than the one just proposed,— no
test more severe.
When we speak of the secure basis and ultimate
ground of any Truth whatsoever, we evidently describe
something more than a subjective affirmation within
our own souls. We speak of a Something, which is
not born with us to die with us, but which abides
strong in our decay, and continues, whether we are
or are not. An objective validity of this kind is
implied and posited by every First or axiomatic
Truth. The "must be" of Natural Uniformity could
not stand as a real " must " unless universally valid.
If an empiricaUy general rule, it would admit of
exceptions ; — and who could say whether the event
under examination might or might not be a chance
exception ? Hence miracles would cease to be
miracles ; gravitation and its kindred forces become
bare probabilities ; the whole superstructure of
modern science., a possible theory and 'no more.
Imagine, in like manner, the moral " ought to do"

268 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vii.
valid with anything less than a validity which over
passes change and death : what is it, 0 struggling
feUow-thinker, to thee or to me ? If we are to obey,
under adverse circumstances, a sovereign rule — to
live and die by it — the tenor of its law must contain,
(Hke the law of Induction,) a plain assertion of its
Universality. Nature would not be Nature, were she
not the embodiment of undeviating Law. Morality
would not be moral, unless immutably imperative
and objectively absolute. And in this fact aU who
acknowledge the real supremacy of Duty, in what
ever manner they may apprehend methods, or sub
ordinate maxims, must always ex anivio coincide.
Obedience, to be morally obedient, must be grounded
upon some valid insight of knowledge or faith, — or
of both in unison.
Morality, objectively supreme, constitutes the as
serted claim and essential meaning of Retribution.
This law of Justice consists neither in a gift un
worthily bestowed, nor yet in a penalty arbitrarily
inflicted. The law of Habit realized is, perhaps,
our nearest example of its Retributive operation in
this Hfe ; and gives us a very clear idea and illustra
tion of the modus operandi. Its final accomplish
ment is the normal and legitimate o^-growth of the
Moral Law, which, subjectively active during years of
change, becomes, when events grow ripe, objectively
mamfested. Could it be otherwise, the very idea of
a Moral Law would, even now, be subverted. Duty
might (that is to say) remain a Moral persuasive —
a belief which (like one of Hume's physical beliefs)

Lect. VII.] Growth, Trial, and Triumph. 269
we might keep if we liked it. But it would not be a
moral Law, — a rule to be obeyed through all losses,
toils, sufferings, sorrows, and self-abnegations. A
rule to be disobeyed, at the proper peril of each
evil doer ; not without warning in the very moment
of disobedience, that he thereby ensures his Soul-
degradation. The operative nature of such a Law
is that it exists as a moving, working, principle. If
left to its proper energies, it quickens and ennobles ;
— if tampered with, and sophisticated, it enfeebles
and kills. And this is what those writers really
mean, who describe Morality as founded in the
Nature of Things. To be Morality at all, it must
be naturally supreme over Man's practical destinies,
just as the laws of Truth are naturally supreme over
each possible development of his speculative Reason.
In both cases, the ultimate outcomes may be incon
ceivably immense ; but, in both, they must be the
normal and necessary issues of our present germ-
state. Otherwise, speculative truth could not noiv
be true, and Moral distinctions would be unpractical ;
and therefore ww-Moral.
The Moral Law is thus, in its operation, a pledge
and earnest- — in its essential nature, a transcendent
prophecy, of its own finality. As a living movement,
or germ, it foretells the beautiful flower and blessed
fruit of perfection to be borne by every righteous
soul : for every wicked one, the out-grown freezing
shadow, the poisonous life-destroying produce. And
this twofold energy of Law corresponds in its con
summation with the twofold Judgment of God, —

270 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vii.
"Who," as the Apostle tells us, "will render to
every man according to his deeds : to them who
by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory
and honour and immortality, eternal Hfe ; but unto
them that are contentious, and do not obey the
truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and
wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul
of man that doeth evil."* The correspondence
may be, in fact, infinitely more exact than any
of us can at present apprehend. A bird, after
issuing from its shell, puts on an outgrowth of
perfected plumage, and becomes winged for distant
flights. So within the soul of Man there may be
(and probably are) latent powers and senses capable
of what we should now call superhuman develop
ment.! And this may be most true of that most
* Bomans ii. 6-9.
| That such latent powers really exist is thought by many persons
to be sufficiently demonstrated by phenomena such as the two following
examples. They are certainly very striking, but not so alien from
experience as may ordinarily be supposed.
" A relative of mine," says De Quincey, "having in her childhood
fallen into a river, and being on the very verge of death .... saw
in a moment her whole life, clothed in its forgotten incidents, arrayed
before her as in a mirror, not succes lively, but simultaneously; and
she had a faculty developed as suddenly for comprehending the whole
and every part. This, from some opium experiences, I can believe ; I
have, indeed, seen the same thing asserted twice in modern books,
and accompanied by a remark which probably is true — viz., that the
dread book of account, which the Scriptures speak of, is, in fact, the
mind itself of each individual." In a note he adds : "A process of
struggle and deadly suffocation was passed through half consciously.
This process terminated by a sudden blow apparently on or in the
brain, after which there was no pain or conflict ; but in an instant
succeeded a dazzling rush of light ; immediately after which came the

Lect. VII.] Growth, Trial, and Triumph. 271
certainly Human distinction — the Moral sense of
Man. In this world, Man is the solitary creature
who knows the happiness of an approving con
science, the realities of Remorse and Moral deso
lation. That which is now most distinctly human
may become, in a higher state of our being, most
pre-eminently superhuman. Some such anticipation
is reasonable, and correspondent with the pictures
of Revelation. For the righteous shall, we are
told, be endued with a spiritual body and a like
ness visibly Divine. In whose image and likeness
the wicked shall appear, is not equally declared.
Perhaps we could not comprehend an explanation.
solemn apocalypse of the entire past life." Opium Eater, last ed.,
sub fin.
The second anecdote is recounted by Mr. Wendell Holmes, in his
little work entitled Mechanism in Thought and Morals.
"A. held a bond against B. for several hundred dollars. When it
became due, he searched for it, but could not find it. He told the
facts to B., who denied having given the bond, and intimated a
fraudulent design on the part of A., who was compelled to submit
to his loss and the charge against him. Years afterwards, A. was
bathing in Charles Biver, when he was seized with cramp, and
nearly drowned. On coming to his senses, he went to his bookcase,
took out a book, and from between its leaves took the missing bond.
In the sudden picture of his entire life, which flashed before him as
he was sinking, the act of putting the bond in the book, and the book
in the bookcase, had re-presented itself.
" The reader who likes to hear the whole of a story maybe pleased
to learn that the debt was paid with interest."
This second example does not seem to have fallen under Mr.
Holmes' personal observation ; but it so happens that I have myself
known more than one similar instance. No reader will feel much
surprise at such occurrences, who peruses the accounts of " Un
conscious Cerebration," given by Dr. Carpenter and Miss Cobbe.

272 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vii.
At all events, this silence seems conformable to the
general tenor of Scripture, which partly veils the
unimaginable horrors of Man's Second Death, whilst
it allures him to the Fountain of Life, and draws
him upwards with the bands of Love.
It seems to be by a gentle process of steadily-
developed life within us, that the "Why" of duty
is converted into the " How." At first, the supreme
axiom of Morality rises up before our consciousness
in a very abstract shape. Formal, apparently, — and
nothing more. Yet it cannot live in human souls
a single day, without subsuming under itself a
quantity of the raw material of our ordinary
existence. The like power appertains to other
Formal aphorisms. Any man who carries in his
mind the Logical principle of Contradiction will
see material incompatibilities of Thought, where
others see persuasive arguments. Just so with the
Moral Contradictory. He who intelligently accepts
it will decide that many a course of action is not
right, but wrong ; in respect of which others discover
no Wrong and no Right whatever. And his decision
will bring with it a sufficing certitude.
Thus Practical Morality depends, in every-day
life, on the firm grasp of a few sovereign principles,
generated from the axiomatic First. These are (so
to speak) the Moulds or Forms into which Ex
perience builds us up. Such a belief as that Moral
distinctions appeal to a different internal sense,
from questions of taste, of interest, or of pleasure,
is a key which unlocks many a door in Doubting

Lect. vii.] Growth, Trial, and Triumph. 273
Castle. Invaluable, also, the maxim that bodily
appetites are, in their own nature, far lower than
the benevolent affections and the inteUectual desires.
Or, again, that those impulses which tend towards
individual well-being are not to prevail over the
broader impulses which (instead of regarding Self
as the main object) stretch into a disinterested
promotion of true national or world-wide good.
The love of God (which to a believer crowns all
other duties) cannot be paralleled with this kind
of disinterestedness ; for how shall a Man profit
Him ? But it lights up within us a burning desire
to do that which we acknowledge as well-pleasing
in His eyes ; and He is the Personality in Whom
all our ideas of Goodness, Rightness, and Holiness
meet. To love Him is to transcend the standard
and criterion given us in our own lower Personali
ties ; and to endeavour after a standard and criterion
unspeakably subhme. We lose self, to gain a spirit
divinely elevating, — a Life which is the Light of
Men. Some measure of occasional doubtfulness respecting
our precise duty, — such uncertainties as crowd books
of casuistry (ductores dubitantium), — yield in reality
a very wholesome discipline. Nothing wiU safely
guide us through many dim questions, except an
earnest and single-hearted desire to do Right. The
longer we live, the clearer this fact becomes to us.
It grows upon us, along with the growth of our
Moral Insight.
The insight which thus dissipates our doubts can,
18

274 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vii.
indeed, never remain dormant, inexpansive, or
unproductive. We have akeady likened a First
Truth to a Germ within the soul of Man, possess*-
ing a definite type of growth, and a structural
Law of its own. And this is a fair similitude,
provided we always connect with it the re
membrance that soul-growth is a far more subtle
and complex process than the growth of corporeal
organisms. To some minds, the same thought may
seem clearer, if we compare the movement of our
supreme moral maxim with a Rhythm pervading
our innermost soul-sense. Most of us know by
experience how the rhythm of a poem or melody
evokes or harmonizes ideas. For example, when
Coleridge heard Wordsworth's recital of the Prelude,
he described it as
" A song divine, of high and passionate thoughts
To their own music chanted."
And when the Poet's voice had ceased, he thus
depicts his own feelings : —
" Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close
I sate, my being blended in one thought —
(Thought was it ? or aspiration ? or resolve ?)
Absorbed, yet hanging still upon the sound :
And when I rose, I found myself in prayer."
Few of us, probably, have ever listened to a piece of
really great music, without finding that a multitude
of images appeared unbidden before our mind's eye,
moved on with the moving rhythm, and took order
and harmony from its " Hnked sweetness long drawn
out." Generally, under such influences, thought

rjECT. vii.] Growth, Trial, and Triumph. 275
glides after thought more easily, and with a more
than accustomed excellence and grace. Even so is
it with the Moral Truth daily pervading the Soul
of a good man. Often, very often, latent impulses
or feelings, never before fully placed in the light
of consciousness, spring out into life and beauty,
because touched by a spiritual Harmony. The
human being feels himself more truly human, more
onward, upward-tending : stronger, wiser, better,
nobler. And this invigorating, this vivifying power,
becomes by that glad experience a conscious develop
ment of Moral insight, and at the same time its
convincing verification.
Suppose, too, that in some such moment of Moral
Progress we awake to a deeper introspective vision,
and see down into dark places of unloveliness and
disharmony, long concealed within ourselves ; nay,
possibly stiU lurking there, profoundly hidden
beneath and away from the upper wave of our
hoher, happier Hfe. The fact and truth of this
discovery is in itself the evidence of a Light which
makes darkness manifest, and reproves it. And the
reality of the moral dissonance creates an internal
longing after a more soul-subduing Harmony. It
is, we know, in self-knowledge, self-chastening, and
consequent endeavour after self-elevation, that we
find the most distinct witness of Humanity to its
own Moral nature, its future progress, and its final
destinies. Hence it plainly appears that an indispensable
condition of soul-growth is a strict and purely moral

276 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vit.
Maxim. Let Hedonism, Egoism, Expediency, take
the form of maxims shaped and leavened by the
practical spirit connoted by those words ; let the
underlying " Ought to do," with its moral force, be
omitted, and the Hedonistic, Egoistic, Utilitarian
thought be substituted in its place. Could the effect
upon the soul be the same ? Our mental rhythm
and melody being changed, must there be no corre
spondent change in what it awakens ? This is the
real danger of the systems thus named and classified.
We know that it is possible to moralize any of these
systems by subsuming its rules of conduct under
a pure Moral Maxim. In that case, the greater
good, the perfection of ourselves and of our race,
lawful joy, true happiness, are just so many tests
used on occasion, in estimating the greater or less
tightness of some possible line of action. So under
stood, subsumed, and limited, they may be quite in
place. But the danger to us lies in a possible eclipse
of the lumen siccum of Morality. Thoughts of profit
or expected happiness do not, per se (that is, by a
self-evident ethical meaning), harmonize and moralize
the Soul. And this seems to be the absolute amount
of truth contained in the dictum, that he who
pursues virtue for the sake of happiness will never
be really happy, because he can never attain virtue.
And, as I reminded you in my second Lecture,
very different thinkers, appear to meet on this
common ground. From the whole discussion, we
may draw the safe conclusion that true Ethical
progress depends upon our holding fast the ultimate

Lect. vii.] Growth, Trial, and Triumph. 277
Maxim of pure and independent Morality ; upon
its presence as a source of movement within thfc
Soul ; and on our conscious acknowledgment of its
final and absolute supremacy.
In truth, this urgent and practical point is made
equally clear by the Scriptures and by the Law of
Morality. God, we are admonished, is a jealous
God. Chemosh must not stand near His Altar;—
we cannot serve both God and Mammon. So, too,
is Moral purity exclusive. It is useless to be half
hearted. If we wish to obey the law of Righteous
ness, we must place its Ideal before our inward
vision ; we must study its lineaments, and' acquHe
an eye for its Hghts and shadows. In this way our
mind's Eye will be brightened with a faculty Divine.
But the eye which is sharp for self-interest is dimmed
for Moral insight. A complexity of Motives betrays
the sincere heart, and corrupts living Truth in its
fountain. We aH of us have felt the • undeniable
charm of singleness of purpose-: it. is simphcity, not
complexity of character; which constitutes the talis
man of influence over good and' earnest spirits. And
where this charm co-exists with a cultured manifold
ness of intellect, even half -good people are not alto
gether insensible to its sweetness ; so that the poet
was right in penning as his finest eulogy, —
"In wit a Man, simplicity a child."
This line does but echo our Lord's combination of
the Serpent and the Dove ; and of such a character
(not yet extinct in Oxford) each of us may feel ready
to say, Sit anima mea cum illo !

278 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vii.
You may see this principle of moral exclusiveness,
and its divine jealousy, in a clearer light if you
reflect that there is one phase of our baser human
nature, not so uncommon as one would wish, but
utterly incompatible with all Moral tightness. I
mean the vice of Malevolence. We observe it often
as that iTriya.ipz.Ka.Kia which Aristotle classes with
shamelessness, — an evil altogether exclusive of Good.
In its worst and most developed shape, it becomes
that voluptuous delight in cruelty which was anathe
matized by Mr. Mill. So odious, so diabolical, does
this wickedness appear, that the very fact of its exist
ence and temporary rule in the world we inhabit — (a
rule as possible in our age as it would be detestable)
— forms one of the strongest single arguments that,
unless Conscience be a lying spirit and Humanity a
disharmonious failure, there must be another Hfe
after Death, where the balance shall be redressed,
and Malevolence bound in chains for ever.
This argument — very strong, as we have said, in
itself — appears infinitely strengthened when we con
sider how vUe, before an Eye of Absolute Purity,
must appear the many incompatibilities with Good
which most of us allow to deform our own lives and
characters. Thus, whilst we dispute on the outside
questions of revealed religion, we forget how antago
nistic even to Natural Religion are many thinga
which we scarcely reprehend. They are antagonistic
and deserve condemnation, because instead of raising
our moral sensibility they lower and debase it. To
practise them, is to become worse, not better men.

Lect. vu.] Growth, Trial, and Triumph. 279
And if this test be true, we may easily conceive how
repulsive they must appear before the eye of a Being
Whose nature is perfect hohness, and Whose exhor
tation to us is, " Be ye holy, for I am holy." In His
sight, the things which Natural Religion teaches us
to shun must be altogether hateful. How utterly
irreligious, then, and alien from His truth, appear
any forms of Christianity so-called, which in effect
may reconcile a sinful life with impunity from Sin's
deserts ; — immoral habits with an assurance of
sharing the future happiness of the Good ! Tried
by the test of Natural Religion, such tenets are
adjudged to be what English Churchmen pronounced
them long ago — dangerous downfalls, fables and
deceits. To this test St. Paul appeals in a number of well-
known passages. He employs it as an argument
against the inconsistent Israelite. Surely, then, it
binds with increased stringency the conscience of
every inconsistent Christian. Those here who have
read the sermons of St. Chrysostom, will remember
how frequently and how forcibly he reasons from the
same premises. Man is cited as a witness against
himself. Out of Man's mouth is also drawn a
witness for the Spirituahty of true religion, and for
the truthfulness of the Divine Idea,— the purity and
hohness of God. Just as the Law given by Moses
is a schoolmaster on account of its teachings and its
threats, so is the Law written on our hearts a school
master by reason of its upward tendencies and
promptings. It contrasts the God Who " dweUeth

280 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vii.
not in temples made with hands " with that Godhead
which is likened " unto gold, or silver, or stone,
graven by art and man's device."* The same inward
Law has also its self-condemning judgments, its
ineffaceable fears and hopes, beliefs and aspirations.
This law of Natural Religion is, therefore, a safe
companion and guide, when we try to find some
thread leading us through the mystery of our earthly
existence to the Spiritual Temple and presence of
God. If we wish to demonstrate to ourselves how
vast the difference which such a guidance may make
to us, — how elevating, and at the same time how
chastening, such a companionship may be, — the
easiest and surest method is to turn our eyes from
things as they actually are, and try to conceive what
they might be, could our most sublime human ideas
be realized in the order and arrangement of a whole
wide world. A world strictly human, but reflecting
our noblest human Ideal. Such ideal worlds are not
unknown in the writings of the Mystic, nor yet of
the Philosopher.
The Chancellor's Essay for this year is on " Utopias
Ancient and Modern." Let us, now, try to figure
for ourselves a more distant Utopia than any across
the ocean-wave, where sleep, in golden light, the
flowery islands of the Blest. Let us, for a few
moments, task our imaginations by leaving this
earth, sea, and air behind us, and find our newly-
figured home- beyond the circuit of planets, and the
influence of our familiar Sun — beyond what Man's
* Acts xvii. 25, 29.

Lect. vu.] Growth, Trial, and Triumph. 281
unaided eye reveals— amidst cosmical spaces, where
vapoury matter is being condensed into young
Morning Stars, — habitations as yet uncelebrated by
rejoicing Sons of God.
Suppose, then, that we could stand by and witness
the evolution of a new material orb, physically con
ditioned like our own. That we might see it, not
only " as Gods, knowing good and evil " ourselves, —
but like giant-Gods in strength, and having some
influence on the process of world-formation. Sup
pose, too, that we are able to watch its changes with
sleepless and immortal eyes. The incandescent
sphere is cooling fast ; and vapours, which floated
round it, are being precipitated. They descend upon
its surface, a hot — almost a fiery — yet, now, a liquid
shower. Heat is being transformed into various
modes of motion, visible upon the surface of the
mass. Here, are mighty fissures ; there, mountain
summits. Seas and oceans are poured together.
Mists rise, and rivers run. Time passes, and beneath
the tropical atmosphere we behold long winding
vales, — " With sudden green and herbage crowned."
Below them are reedy marshes ; around, the Palm
and Tree-fern droop, and wave their foliage. A sun
rise is refracted into its thousand tints over a world
of vegetable luxuriance; and Day, with parting glow,
delays amongst the evening clouds, till a browner
shadow falls upon the woods. Stars beam in the
solemn firmament above ; and, nearer than they, is a
companion Globe, rising, setting, and always shining

282 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vii.
on its way. There is indescribable beauty in the
solitudes of Space ; there is beauty also in our fresh
bright world, its solitude and its silence too.
But how shall a sentient being, such as one of
us, be satisfied with a realm where all is voiceless,
passionless, hopeless ? We long for life, thought,
emotion, activity. And can a world of animal
existence satisfy our longing ? Look : here are
diversified Forms which feel and move. They ran,
swim, fly, — and every muscular exertion is accom
panied with a sense of power and gladness : nay,
even to live is a kind of bounding joy. Each grati
fied instinct is, to each creature, its own appropriate
delight. Watch them as they pass over fields,
through forests — in air or in water. Every move
ment seems beautiful and bright. Yet, instinctive
existence- has its changes. The pleasures of animal
life depend on irritable structures subject to wear
and tear ; and, therefore, menaced by approaching
Death. But the menace brings no forboding fears
to the unprophetic creature. Its suffering, though
sometimes sharp, has no precedent terrors — no
thought of the Probable, or the Inevitable.
Take a purely instinctive world at its highest, and
you cannot rate it higher than this : it is a mode
of existence which has its enjoyments and its draw
backs—its beauties and its blots. But the worst
blot— the ugliest drawback of all— is that it fails to
image and pursue a Life nobler and better than its
own. The life of Animality contains in itself its
own Beginning and its own End. There is in it no

Lect. vu.] Growth, Trial, and Triumph. 283
solemn preluding upon heart-strings, which vibrate
with under-tones of infinite depth ; and oft-times of
infinite sweetness.
We desire, then, a world of Moral Being. Neither
do we relax our desire, although we must acknow
ledge that, just as physical enjoyment cannot exist,
in the .animal world, without much suffering, so
Moral goodness cannot, amongst finite creatures, be
realized without many sorrows. We do not relax
our desire, because we see that a world of stocks
and stones is, in our sense, no world at all ; nor
yet is a world of animal pleasure and animal pain
any world to our truly human thought and appre
hension. Still, it may be wise for us to count the
cost. Morality, we know, cannot exist without choice.
To ask whether Choice must be free, seems nearly
the same as to ask whether Choice is really Choice.
But let our Spontaneity, (that is, our faculty of
Choice,) be affirmed, — does it necessarily entail as
a consequent our probable or possible wrong-doing ?
Behind Choice stands Motive ; and Motive is, on
each occasion, the movement and expression of Cha
racter. The question, then, arises, Can Choice be
free, if Character is fixed? Fixed, not as essential,
absolute and infinite Goodness; but by something
which acts as a determining Hmit upon and around
its finite principle of Good. To answer this question,
let ' us pay a closer attention to our nascent world
and its conditions.
The globe before us revolves in its glorious sun-

284 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vii.
light, its gentler star and moon - beams, so easily as
to simulate freedom, — yet so certainly as to guide
us to the fact that its motion is determined by
unalterable laws. It is beautiful in its natural
aspects, — those aspects which Humboldt loved to
dweU upon. It is beautiful, also, in Cuvier's sense :
a realm of animated creatures, moving and resting
at their own unfettered choice, — free to be active
or be stUl, just as their instincts dictate. But these
instincts make up the character of each — a character
limited, and determinate. The ravening creature,
void of reason, is void of Introspection. He cannot
reflect upon his own impulses to rend and rive, —
upon his own nature, regardless of all other creatures'
pain — " A nature red in tooth and claw."
He cannot think of it — " Hoc non belle. Henceforth
I wiU inflict, at least, no torments for pleasure : I
wiU take no delight in the needless agonies of my
prey." -Re-formation and >SW/-formation are, to his
fixed nature, impossible. Therefore, we say that he
is muscularly, but not morally free. He is a creature
incapable of Volition — truly and essentially un-moTal.
The case stands, we are sure, altogether othertoise
with Man. His work and happiness lies in the
possession of an unfixed character. To condemn his
own Hfe where foul and odious, as Buskin would
condemn an untruly drawn landscape, is the right
'beginning of Change. The inner landscape may be
blurred, but he may amend and reproduce it. To
see the wrong, is the first step of Progress. Self-

Lect. vu.] Growth, Trial, and Triumph. 285
abasement is the wicket-gate to a higher — a better
path. Because Man is capable of such things, we
say of him that, even when muscularity powerless,
• — when bound and helpless in limb and body, — he
retains his Faculty of Volition. He is, by conse
quence, Morally free.
For this reason let Tyrants and Spiritual Despots
tremble : they may chain and torture the animal
frame ; but the Will continues free, and therefore
powerful. It is sure to react some day : —
" He who of old would rend the oak
Dreamed not of the rebound ! "
Even so must it fare with them in their immoral
blindness. His lot will be theirs.
You may glance at Character from another point
of view. It has been said that Character is to
Motive what Mass is to its component elements.
But few sayings are more easy of misinterpretation.
The' analogy lends itself to an idea of inert or gravi
tating mass, mechanically governed whether in its
rest or its motion. But Character stands connected
with the individual motives of individual choice, like
a moral rule and Sovereignty of creative power.
And when we say moral rule, or moral sovereignty,
we use a phrase of Freedom. For Moral is opposed
to Mechanical, in the same ratio that a Man differs
from a stone. Character, if morally paramount, is,
therefore, a supreme dynamic Vitality, — a working,
living Energy.
This truth is confirmed by the fact-knowledge of

286 The Doctrine of Rd> ibution. [Lect. vu.
our own experience. So far as we can observe
steadfast, or erring men, it appears obvious that
" He who has power to walk has power to rove."
And the same lesson is taught us in the little we are
told of fallen and unfallen Angels.
By exactly the same course of thought, we dis
tinguish between Insane crime and the madness
of Criminality. And when we praise, our approval
depends on our belief in the absence of compulsion.
Common sense says that he
" Who acts by force compelled can nought deserve ;
And wisdom short of infinite may swerve."
We feel it impossible to esteem that which is not
a freely-rendered Good. Voluntary effort and self-
sacrifice increase the estimation. The God of Israel
and of David valued the free-will offerings of their
mouths. His word is, "My Son, give me thine
heart." For, " God is a Spirit : and they that
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in
truth." The same is true of our own human
feehngs. We all understand that there can be no
marriage with a slave. And would any man buy his
English bride ? or, if he did, would he dream that,
with her, he had bought her love ? We are aU aware,
too, that the chief curse of exalted greatness is to be
alone — alone without the possibility of discovering
when attachment is not a tinsel, but a sterhng
affection. When we remember these plain' facts, we
perceive how deep the moral problem lies. Among
all choices, devotions, and loves, which the world

Lect. vii.] Growth, Trial, and Triumph. 287
contains, the love of Virtue is supereminent. And
the most excellent is, we are sure, invariably the
most difficult. It is linked with the hardest con
ditions. Try, then, to conceive the least burdensome but
indispensable conditions under which a world can
become the seat of Moral struggles and Moral
triumphs. The babe that smiles only to die, is outside the
battle of life altogether. If Goodness be tried, — •
really tried, — and afterwards triumphant, the fact
plainly implies some pre- existent knowledge of what
is Other than Good — a Something opposed and
exalting itself against Goodness — an antagonist of
Right. Now, there are three obviously conceivable
modes of acquaintance with this Oppositeness. For
a good person, the nearest and most familiar is the
Sight of actual wickedness, positive, practised, loath
some. Most remote is the Fore- sight of possible
evil — such as the absolutely perfect Deity may
behold afar off. Between these two, lies an Insight
into practicable and probable evil — that proclivitas
peccandi which we all are daily obliged to compare
with the gross Actuality of sin. This contingency,
although not realized in our own lives and actions,
yields us frequent vistas into our lower natures,
where we see black shadows — forms to shudder,
lament, and weep over.
These three being obvious modes of knowing evil,
let us consider what are the easiest terms we can
make for our new world; the lowest sum of its

288 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vii.
mournful knowledge, its sorrows, and its sins. Is
it possible to improve on the lot of Man, to ex
clude the knowledge of evil altogether — and so to
shield each higher character from temptation that its
goodness shall never fail ?
The answer to such questions may be given at
once. Upon the conditions under which the world
we contemplate began and grows, these suggestions
are impossibilities. We set out by subjecting our
World to physical laws. If, then, the nexus of such
laws remains unbroken ; if there exists in any sup
posed nature capable of Morality, a capacity also for
physical pleasures and physical pains ; if that Nature
be allied to the animal world by bodily movements,
instincts and delights, — all such problems are de
termined. And the reason is plain. The Being
thus allied to animaHty is not animal altogether. He
carries within himself that which makes animalized
existence a sphere, not only inappropriate, but de
basing. Debasing, and therefore immoral.
If you will carefully consider and reconsider this
view of the position which a mixed Nature must
necessarily occupy relatively to good and evil, you
may perceive that it embraces the true elements
involved in a variety of statements made by
religious and philosophic men. For example, it
explains that widely-spread feeling in the ancient
Church, that Matter and Corporeity are the ap
propriate seats of Sin. It gives additional point to
a thousand earnest exhortations warning us to dis
trust the treason of bodily aUurement. We under-

Lect. vii.] Growth, Trial, and Triumph. 289
stand why it is we endeavour to subdue the flesh to
the Spirit in more senses than one. Why St. Paul
brought his body under. Why St. Jerome fled from
Roman dances, and dreaded them all the more be
cause his fancy reverted to those lascivious scenes.
We understand much that is meant by the religious
discipline of India. We see the beauty inherent in
that mystical explanation of the Buddhist Nirvana,
which tells us how it extinguishes — not Humanity —
but the mixed material blended with it : as when we
are admonished that the body is the greatest of all
evils, and he who has conquered passion and hatred
is said to enter into Nirvana. Throughout all these
conceptions of Man's burden and Man's freedom,
there floats, more or less distinctly, the idea that our
true life is progressive emancipation from the physi
cal feebleness infesting Human Nature — a gradual
absorption of that Something Other than Goodness
and opposed to it, — an up-raising and blending of our
Will with the Divine Will ; and that this crowning
phase of Humanity is its true illumination and its
lasting joy.
Suppose a question be now asked, which has been
asked an hundred times before : Can we conceive —
nay, assert — the possible existence of a world from
which this mixed material may be absent, and where
moral natures need no purifying discipline to attain
the Good and the True? This question must be
answered in the affirmative. But if it be asked
further, Can we say thus much of any one con
ceivably given world? we ought to reply by as
19

290 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vii.
distinct a negative. The existence of such a world
in any given sphere must needs be determined by
conditions of which we are absolutely ignorant.
It must be linked with Cosmical Laws "to us in
visible or dimly seen," — laws which, in the language
of Scripture, are reckoned among the " secret things
of the Lord our God." In our vision of world-forma
tion, it would be impossible for us to take so vast a
conception for granted. Neither could we picture to
ourselves the exaltation of moral and religious happi
ness consequent on so sublime a mode of Being ;
conceivable, yet unknown to Man's experience.
WhUst, therefore, we traverse in idea the skyey
ocean, and pass through the stellar barriers which
gird us round, we carry our human thought-power
with us — we look on Space and its floating orbs
with an unaltered human eye.
Thus seeing, as Human Beings must see, thus
thinking, as Human Beings must think, we cannot
but perceive that change around us, and change
within, are elements in our sense of gladness.
There is a happy feeling which would altogether
vanish if we lost the Spectacle of Change : —
" Who would be doomed to gaze upon
A sky without a cloud or sun ? ' '
Monotony to the eye is not more wearisome than
inward monotony — a life colourless and motionless
— Hke Mariana's at the moated grange. We all
know that, without some kind of struggle, Hope
would soon grow pale,
" And Fear and Sorrow fan the fire of Joy."

Lect. vu.] Growth, Trial, and Triumph. 291
For this reason we anticipate with eagerness that,
beyond the grave, in yon bright world which love
endears, Emotion will break upon' its calm repose.
Endeavour wUl not be unknown : our personal en
joyment and our warmest sympathies wiU be centred
on our own living stir and Progress, and on the
progress of those who environ us.
Elements of happiness similar in nature, though
variously mingled and proportioned, must meet in
the moral atmosphere of every world such as the
one we have been attempting to depict. In it, as
in our own world, those ties by which its highest
Nature is bound to physical nature, are in them
selves a sufficient evidence of Struggle crowned with
Progress. Change is written on every upward grada
tion ; and the very fact of Gradation is an assurance
— or rather a visible beginning and continuance — of
increased possibilities of happiness and lasting good.
Throughout that world, as throughout our world,
there is plainly perceptible the witness without
which God has never left Himself. And within the
one Being, who is its noblest perfection, is a Know
ledge and a Power which no animal development has
reached — a new mode of Existence different from all
other and meaner things. This gift is Reason ; and,
compared with unreasoning nature which underlies
it, caused and not causative, void of Will, Conscience,
and infinite Insights, — we pronovnce Reason to be
supra-Natural, and the Being r endowed to have
been marked out by this, his h<_ aloom, as an in
heritor of some higher, nobler Sphere.

292 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vii.
The feeling thus made indigenous to such a world
is, beyond all other feelings, Hope. A believing
Hope — vast and immeasurable — transcending space,
as thought transcends space — without Hmit of time
to its own Vitality.
Yet in aU worlds, of which the Law is Progress,
the brightest hope and the brightest happiness must
require care, culture, watchfulness. Were it other
wise, all would be law-less. But Law is to all crea
tures the assurance of a lot so far secure, that
their labour will not be without reward. It is also
one evidence of a Sovereign Will which has ordered
the rise and progress of all things, and which still
governs all. A sense of this governing influence
constitutes the natural element underlying our hu
man faith in Providence, and our reasonable use of
Prayer. The degrees of the evidence itself, and the
warmth of Men's faith kindled by it, have varied in
different epochs of this world's history. Those here
who are familiar with the opinions of B. G. Niebuhr,
will remember how he loved to note those variations,
and also their correspondences with great physical
changes in the globe itself. Throughout other worlds,
such evidence and such consequent faith may vary
exceedingly. The more clearly the former is appre
hended, and the higher and nobler the trust founded
upon it, the happier will be all sentient beings who
can feel that they are obeying the Eternal Laws,
and that their life is in conscious harmony with the
aim and finality of the whole moral universe.
On occasions of great national or personal evils, "

Lect. vu.] Growth, Trial, and Triumph. 293
even this very disjointed world has afforded examples
of the Divine triumphs of Faith. They were ex
pressed in ancient days by vivid phrases glowing
with intense emotion : — " The Lord of Hosts is
with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge." "The
Lord is on my side ; I will not fear what man doeth
unto me." And in later times, " If God be for us,
who can be against us ? " Such was St. Paul's con
solation when the Holy Ghost witnessed that in
every city bonds and affliction awaited him. It has
been the Christian martyr's talisman ever since.
Of this consolation Lord Bacon writes, " Man, when
he resteth and assureth himself upon Divine protec
tion and favour, gathereth a force and faith which
human nature in itself could not obtain." And con
cerning the want of this faith he says, " As Atheism
is in all respects hateful, so in this — that it depriveth
human nature of the means to exalt itself above
human frailty."*
As a matter of historical fact, we know, from the
testimony of Faith's enemies, that the strongest of
human masteries have been achieved, the most un
sullied human happiness has been attained, by the
Life, the Walk, and the Triumph of Faith. And
Faith is amongst those perfect possessions which
this world can neither give nor take away.
So, too, must it be with every race of Moral Beings
necessarily inferior in Nature to the Author and
Object of our Faith. We will, therefore, desire
that excellent gift of Faith for the beautiful orb we
* Essays. " Of Atheism."

294 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. vii.
contemplated ; even as we have often desired it for
those near and dear to us in this our mortal and
transitory life. It is possible that other natures,
subject, Hke ourselves, to the law of Change, may
escape much of our sorrow and more of our weakness
by not having added sin to sin : in a word, they may
be less self-degraded than we are. For, in plain
truth, the spectacle afforded by our species, in this
nineteenth century, must be acknowledged as a dis
appointment to ardent lovers of Mankind. Our loss
of Belief in our own higher Humanity appears, in
itself, a sufficient cause of true regret. "Is it not
wonderful," philanthropists ask, with Hooker, — "Is
it not wonderful that base desires should so extin
guish in men the sense of their own excellency, as
to make them willing that their souls should be like
to the souls of beasts, mortal and corruptible with
their bodies?"* Like basenesses may not, in all
worlds of Trial and Progress, have led to so vast a-
moral suicide. Yet, along with Faith, we will desire
for other creatures of God such aids as He has
given us. Wheresoever Sin is known as a Possi
bility, there neither Faith nor the incentives and
aids to Faith can at any time be moral superfluities.
By a law of our social nature, Example and Sym
pathy rank foremost among those auxiliaries which
lend us wings to fly withal. Hence we have learned
to prize beyond measure the institution of a Society
blessed in its origin, and twice-blessed in its sacred
objects. Founded upon supra-natural belief, it
* Eccl. Pol. v. 2. 1.

Lect. vu.] Growth, Trial, and Triumph. 295
claims the Soul of Man as an unbiassed witness for
its primary moral and religious truths. The very fact
of its continued existence, when all earthly things
appeared against it, is another witness, at once to the
Providence of God, and to the reality of His Law
written on the hearts of men. It carries a still
further evidence in its actual work and operation.
For it lives by the practical assertion of a righteous
ness and true holiness, transcending the ordinary
stature of Man's attainment. And such a present
transcendent actuality can only be reached by the
energy of transcendent insights.
The objects of this Society are to countervail the
regressive forces at work in a Race not yet perfected
by discipUne and self-education ; to maintain the
noblest truths of Morality and Natural Rehgion,
warmed and exalted by the fervour of a spiritual
Life ; to console the sorrowful, strengthen the per
secuted, and assist all earnest souls in their Heaven
ward pilgrimage ; to feed the flame of Divine Love
within us — that we, loving God above all things, may
obtain His promises, which exceed all that we can
desire. We may sum aU these aims and helps in two
propositions. The first, our Liberation from Sin,
that with pure hearts and minds we may draw near to
the great and good God. The second, that when our
Change comes, as come it must, we may be found in
readiness for a new and higher Life— a Life compared
with which our Larva-existence in this world is little
better than a living Death.
Such a Society is the true Church of Christ. From

296 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. VII.
year to year, and day to day, the Church rehearses
and enforces the First-truths of Natural Rehgion.
For the seal of her ethical teaching is this : " Let
every one that nameth the name of Christ depart
from iniquity." From year to year, and day to day,
she adds to Natural Religion bright and glorious
things which Nature cannot give : " what eye hath
not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the
heart of Man ; the things which God_ hath prepared
for them that love Him."
These Church-truths, and the reality of their helpful
ness, have been tested and attested by the long expe
rience of Mankind. To pass over times of great trial,
we know that, from age to age, the Love of God has
thus come home to many a Soul of Man, transforming
what might have been moral virtue into spiritual
Hohness : a state to which (as Kant and other
Moralists say) we must ceaselessly aspire, although
unable to reach it by our present limited powers of
self-enfranchisement. But no observer of men can
doubt that the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ
Jesus hath made many Christians free from the law
of sin and death. And for this cause we need not be
ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power
of God unto Salvation.
Christ's Church is, therefore, the richest of our
human armouries. And wherever sin or the perU of
sin, sorrow or the possibUities of sorrow, are, there
ought we to desire for creatures, not unlike ourselves,
some similar gift of God. In worlds such as we have
pictured, circling far away throughout illimitable

•Lect. vu.] Growth, Trial, and Triumph. 297
unimaginable Space, we know not what trials, what
temptations, may exist. Yet, in whatever form they
do exist, we ought, above all things, to pray that there
may the Angel of God's Presence be, — there, a like
ladder of ascent to purer regions, — there, the House
of God, — there, the Gate of Heaven. So shall the
natural be changed into the Spiritual, the corruptible
put on Incorruption, and the mortal put on Immor
tality. For, as we have seen, that cannot be first
which is spiritual, but that which is natural, — and
afterwards that which is spiritual. This is the real
law of Development, the Divine Finger bringing
strength out of weakness, and thereby perfecting
praise. For our world, — for all worlds subject to condi
tions resembling ours, — we know that this process
of Change is inevitable. " Flesh and blood cannot
inherit the kingdom of God ; neither doth corruption
inherit Incorruption." First comes the Moral en
deavour ; next, the sure and certain Hope ; and then,
the Finality. " The last enemy that shall be de
stroyed is Death." And, " So when this corruptible
shall have put on Incorruption, and this mortal shall
have put on Immortality, then shall be brought to
pass the saying that is written, Death is swaUowed
up in Victory."

LECTURE VIII.

ABSOLUTE TRUTH AND THE SOLEMN
HEREAFTER.

LECTURE VIII.
1 Thessalonians v. 21.
"Pkove ail things ; HOLD fast that which is good."
rrVHESE words naturally connect themselves with
-*- St. Paul's remarks on certain manifestations of
supernatural power and foresight, described in the
verses preceding my text. The Apostle's exhortation
applies, with equal force, to all beliefs transcending
nature, in all ages. Its point is, that our steadfast
ness in those things which are good should be based
on a foregoing enquiry into their reality and value.
It, therefore, seems appropriate to this Lecture, which
must stand to all that has gone before in the rela
tion of a short resume, and still shorter supplement.
No one here will, I think, doubt that the exhorta
tion to "prove all things " implies an appeal to our
Reason. And as Reason is generally viewed under
more than one aspect, and distinguished accordingly,
the appeal intended will lie to what is technically
called, not our Speculative but our Practical Reason.
This view of the Apostle's meaning appears strength
ened by his very next words, which are purely prac
tical, or, as we might say, Common-sense. They
convey that grossly neglected maxim, "Abstain from
all appearance of evil."

302 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
Respecting the consequences ensuing on an appeal
to practical Reason, no persons, except those who are
versed in the most abstract kind of metaphysics, can
form the remotest conception.. To many here, Kant's
appreciation of this appeal will, very possibly, be
either in part or altogether new : —
" By Primacy between two or more things connected by Eeason,
I understand the prerogative belonging to one, of being the first
determining principle giving unity to all the rest. ... If Practical
Reason could not affirm, or conceive as given, more than what Specu
lative Reason might itself proffer, then the Primacy would belong to
the latter. But provided that Practical Reason possess in itself native
First-principles with which certain theoretical positions are insepa
rably bound up, and that these, on the one hand, transcend all possible
insight of Speculative Reason, whilst, on the other, they do not con
tradict it; then the question stands thus: Shall not Speculative
Reason, (which knows nothing of all thus offered by Practical Reason
for its acceptance,) adopt these propositions though absolutely trans
cending its powers, and endeavour to unite them with its own concepts
as a foreign possession handed over to it ? . . . But again, if Pure
Reason can be in itself Practical, and actually is so — a fact ascertained
to us by our consciousness of the Moral Law — then it is always one
and the same Reason which, whether from a speculative or practical
point of view, affirms or denies according to such First-principles.
Then, too, it is clear that though speculatively incompetent to estab
lish such propositions, Pure Reason must needs accept them the
moment they present themselves as not contradictory to itself, and
as inseparably appertaining to its practical Interests. Accept them,
with a full remembrance that they are not additional insights of its
own, but extensions of its employment in a further and a practical
point of view. . . . Thus, when pure speculative and pure practical
Reason are combined in one cognition, the latter has the Primacy. . .
For without this subordination there would arise a conflict of Reason
against itself. Were the two realms co-ordinate, the former would
close its territories. And we could not reverse the order, and require
pure practical Reason to be subordinate to the speculative, since all
interest is ultimately practical, and even that of speculative Reason is

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 303
conditioned, and it is only in the practical employment of Reason that
it becomes all-sufficing." *
A single example may, however, be more instruc
tive than many explanations. An obvious example
is, of course, the best ; yet obvious truths, thoughts,
facts, and objects, are very frequently the least
effectively examined. Thus, while the full Moon,
rising in her splendour, attracts all earthly eyes, a
field of grass seems scarcely worth observation. But
the moon's beauty has for us only an ^Esthetic —
not a Human interest. Her lustre is reflected not
altogether, as the poet supposed, from
"Rivers or mountains in her spotty globe."
It beams from a mountainous but arid desert,
where, if there be Life, it exists in shapes to us
unknowable. Yet I must not add, inconceivable.
Sir Humphrey Davy's "Last Days of a Philo
sopher" — a book most suggestive — presents pictures
of Life attaining a higher development than our
own, under conditions which make such a life as
our earthly existence physicaUy impossible. We may
therefore imagine, but we cannot know, such diverse
modes of being.
But the beauty of a grassy meadow is its Hving
exuberance — vegetable and animal — subsisting in
shapes observable by ourselves. Every green blade,
each flowering stem — the grace of its fashion, its
delicate pendulous anthers waving in sunlight with
perishable lovehness ; each several plant, each sepa-
* Critick of Practical Pieason, B. II., 2, 3.

304 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
rate part of it — stem, lanceolate leaves, aestivation,
and floral structures — contain their families and tribes
of animal existence. Few of us have ever looked
closely at them ; fewer still have sought out their
microscopic germs and growths, sheltered within
each fold and soft green channel. Very few indeed
have thought, with the Laureate, that if the secret
of their first life and being could be told us, we
should know what God, what the world, and what
Man is. Such treasures of knowledge and of mystery
are laid up in the Trivial and the Obvious.
Looking, again, at grass, meadow, and moon, as
objects of eyesight only, let us ask one trivial ques
tion respecting them : Do we reaUy know, as matter-
of-fact knowledge, that they actually exist at all ?
In other words, can we by demonstrative argument
prove their objective reahty — their existence outside
us — prior to, and separate from, our own perceptions ?
Briefly, has Idealism ever been speculatively refuted ?
It is very likely that this question possesses interest
for some thoughtful minds among you here present.
Many will, I dare say, have at least learned where
the difficulty of the refutation Hes. It is just this.
The Evidence, on which we understandingly beHeve
the real existence of aU things and objects amongst
which we move, is internal evidence. It consists in
signs and symbols addressed to our bodily senses,
translated by them into a language unhke the original
impressions, and re-translated by the sensory which
receives them through a more recondite metamor
phosis stUl. By means of this twofold change they

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 305
reach that inner self which considers, compares, and
arranges them, so as to make a Conceptual world of
its own.
The unlikeness of an undulatory movement to
what we think of as a grass-plant, a meadow, or a
moon, appears very great. Yet this vibration is the
first factor of Sight — the first, that is, in the order of
transmission. How the wave-thrill impressed upon
sensitive substances becomes rendered into colour
and expansion, with all their attendant varieties and
modes, must form (like many another How ?) a vast
problem for the physiologist. One of the most recent
German writers on this subject is Helmholtz; and his
enquiries result in a conclusion that the first impres
sion is far removed by separate steps, difficult in them
selves — more difficult in their successive nexus — and,
therefore, very difficult and very far removed indeed
from the translated and retranslated version finaUy
presented to our Consciousness. Our human method
of interpretation, he supposes to be learned in our
childhood. In this respect, as well as in other re
spects, both moral and intellectual, " the Child is
Father of the Man."
Further elements of the IdeaUstic position would
have to be taken into account, were we putting
together a full statement of the case for Ideahsm.
But what I desire to adduce is a number of sufficient
explanations, and no more. The real point to observe
is the plain fact, that in all our predications, poetic,
prosaic, philosophic, respecting external Nature, we
are really speaking and reasoning upon a scene which
20

306 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
passes across the stage of our own Mental vision.
There we see it. By rules belonging to the Mind's
eye, we explain it to ourselves. Our proofs, verifica
tions, experiments, rectifications, and exact Natural
Science arguments, are parts of the same internal
scenery, neither more nor less. To quote Professor
Phillips — " AU om: facts, aU reaHties we know, consist
in Relations. Of things we know nothing; neither
can we know." The great soul of many an earnest
philosopher has rebeUed under thoughts Hke these.
He sees, but he hates, the narrowness of his own
circle : — " iEstuat infelix angusto limite mundi."
Yet the boundaries are impassable. We fly round
the caging wires of our sense-impressions and sense-
interpretations, but find no way of escape. They are
one and aU renderings of our own ; but what it is
they render, no amount of analysis — no kind of
demonstrative argument teaches us. Interrogate
Speculative Reason as we wUl, it can do no more
than assure us that between the several sense-data
presented to our understanding and our logical
conclusions respecting them, there exists no fatal
flaw — nor falsehood. Yet certain latent perplexities,
enigmas, antinomies, are brought to Hght in the
course of our argument, and these continue specula
tively insoluble. Every attempt to solve them ends
by making the existence of a material world less
and less conceivable. Thus Speculative Reason
employed upon sense-information leaves us shut

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 307
within our cage. The wings of our soul are beaten
against its wires in vain.*
Concerning these wires — our human limitaries —
aU sorts of antagonistic thinkers and systems are
at one : Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hamilton, Mansel,
Mill. Nobody's definition of the material outer
world has been more to the point than MUl's. He
defines Matter to be "a permanent Possibility of
Sensation." \ You may find this definition difficult.
But can any other form of words more honestly
express the fact of the philosopher's ignorance, and
perhaps of yours ?
Yet what does all this ignorance really mean ? It
would be quite a mistake to suppose that any one of
those reasoners doubted for a moment the actual
hard fact of a world of obstinate things outside us.
What they doubted, or denied, was our power of
demonstrating this same hard fact. They did not
think that the moon was a lover's dream, the meadow
a farmer's, or that the lovely grass-plants, with their
microscopic kingdoms of life, were so many charming
botanical and biological visions.
There is in this respect no difference between the
peasant and the phUosopher. But the latter is under
an imperative necessity of showing cause for his
Belief. If he fails in doing thus much, his position
* Hence the philosopher anticipates that rewarding moment —
"When we soar to worlds unknown."
Compare Sir H. Davy's intended additions to his "Last Days," in
Life by his brother.
t Examination of Hamilton, Ed. 3, p. 277 seq.

308 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
is that of a thinker who stultifies his own Thought.
As a Man living in a world of things and men, he
accepts and acts on Natural Reahsm every day of
his Hfe. Neither Mr. MUl nor any other Idealist so
caUed, ever attempted to pass through a door closed
against him. But as a philosopher, the speculative
sage may, and does sometimes, land himself in
Nihilism. He demonstrates that the Door, though
a Possibility of Sensation, is also a possible Nothing
ness. That is to say, the legitimate outcome of his
thinking (so far as. his system of Thought may be
conceived) is that it yields no reasonable ground for
believing in the real objective existence of the doors
or walls, things or men which surround him.
A philosopher who rests in impossible conclusions
ought to be looked upon as a self-confuted thinker.
His philosophy should be held a nugatory — or, if
you prefer it, a suicidal speculation. Had we leisure,
it might be interesting to ask how many philoso
phies, considered very creditable, are really in this
discredited condition. But this we cannot do.
Every philosophic thinker has felt more or less the
necessity thus laid upon him. Sir W. HamUton, for
example, refers for the ground of Natural Realism to
the veracity of God. This reference creates an appa
rent need for including Natural Theology within the
cycle of Philosophy, in order to make the philoso
pher's system complete. And many great systema-
tizers have held that this must be done— to some
extent, at least. In other words, they have thought
that an Atheistic philosophy is a contradiction in

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 309
terms, — a superstructure wanting a basis, — a Theory
hanging in mid-air, — a sort of Cloud-city, fit resort
for the Hght-minded birds, but no tower of strength
in which Humanity can find a rest.
On one very important point, Kant, Aristotle, and
Plato are in substantial agreement. Agreeing in
this, they with one accord contradict the Sceptic,
and the Empiricist, as concerns that primary as
sumption which underlies both doubt and "Positive"
thinking. There are, they affirm, certain practical
decisions of Reason which can never be gainsaid.
For a true knowledge of Reality — a certitude that
realities are real — the philosopher must enquire,
not without, but within. Were there no outside
reahties, the whole inner Life of Man would be
unreal. Philosophy would be no better than a
phantasmagoria, because we could literally know
nothing, nor have any data on which to reason.
We must decide from the beginning, either to accept
Reason, or to deny Reason. If we take the latter
course, our rejection must imply, and ought to
acknowledge, an abnegation of all Philosophy what
soever. If we accept Reason, then we may cross-
question Reason as much as we please, but we must
not forsake our Guide by denying our acceptance.
In brief, we must above all things be consistent.
Practical Reason asserts the truth of objective
reahties. Common sense, which is a sort of rude
echo from Practical Reason, leads us all to act upon
the assertion. Pure Morality enforces it. For Mo
rality cannot subsist in an imaginary world. If the

310 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
objects and consequences of our human striving are
nonentities, we are not bound to strive or suffer — we
may be very foolish so to do. Our Moral Duty has
respect to Beings. But suppose the only name
declarative of Human Nature is the style and title of
phantoms ? Again, Duty cannot play with counters ;
it is earnest in regard of the things it chooses as
reaUy good, and of the things it rejects as palpable
evils. Therefore, Duty is the direct opposite of all
Nihilistic theories — all hypotheses which caU in
question the " must be " of Reality, and reduce the
world of Man's activity to a cogitable " may be."
A short time ago I referred to Kant. Let me now
quote from Dr. Mansel * a short account of Kant's
position in respect of Duty : —
"The Moral Law, and the ideas which it carries with it, are, ac
cording to this theory, not merely facts of human consciousness,
conceived under the laws of human thought, but absolute, transcen
dental realities, implied in the conception of all Reasonable Beings as
such, and therefore independent of the law of Time, and binding, not
on man as man, but on all possible intelligent beings, created or
uncreated. The Moral Reason is thus a source of absolute and
unchangeable realities ; while the Speculative Reason is concerned
only with phenomena, or things modified by the constitution of the
human mind."
We have seen that each practical faculty of Man,
— in other words, his Reason, operative throughout
each sphere of practical knowledge, — cannot rest
without solving the problem from which we set out.
The solution must yield us a valuable extension of
knowledge, far greater than may at first sight be
apparent. Speculative Reason is surrounded on all
* Bampton Lectures, Lecture vii. sub init.

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 3 1 1
sides by her own laws. They are not only her
Palace, but her Prison. They girdle and close her
in on every side ; neither can she look beyond them.
It is, therefore, impossible for her to be sure whether
there is or is not, outside her prison-walls, a real
world of Being correspondent to the world of
Thought. The case is very different with Practical
Reason. She resides where Thought and Being
meet. Her work is in the world of Life, and the
soul and substance of Life is Reality. Underlying
each and all of her axiomatic principles there is a
deeper and broader axiom without which practical
Truth would be impossible. It is this. We are
Reahties ourselves ; and we dweH in a world of Being
as well as of Thought, — a world real, and crowded
with very hard realities ; with existences impene:
trable and indissoluble by us, which we must accept
together with the conditions they impose. And this
acceptance is forced upon us whether we Hke it or
no. It is an act of necessary submission to a suze
rainty under which we hold the tenure of our own
Existence. Such was the kind of Truth which Kant said that
Pure Speculative Reason must borrow from Pure
Practical Reason, and add to her own territory. And
the loan of this kind of Truth Kant regarded as
establishing the Primacy of Practical Reason.
As a matter of fact, the laws and work of Reason,
moving in a practical sphere, accomplish for the
laws and work of Thought more than I have said as
yet. They not only enlarge the domain of Thought,

3 1 2 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
but they break its bonds asunder. They show that
its antinomies (or self-contradictions) are unreal : in
cidental, that is, to the Forms of Speculation, but
dissoluble, and practically dissolved into Polar ele
ments of one and the same Truth-power upon each
several occasion. This is shown by the structure of
Reason itself made visible to us in its Practical
apphcation. The mind of Man becomes polar when
soever it is introspective. And we exercise intro
spection whensoever we become self-conscious, —
when we exert our Wills, scrutinize our Motives, en
deavour to re-model our Characters, — whenever we
think and construe ourselves to Ourselves, as in the
higher forms of language ; and in every example of
that seU-judgment commonly called Conscience. The
same thing is shown over again, by the employment
of those antinomies or self-contradictions of Thought,
as working constituents or factors of a higher Unity.
As, for instance, when the opposition of Subject to
Object in Ontology is shown to be polar only, — a
formal but not a real antithesis. For the reasoning
Mind of Man is both a Subject and an Object too.
Were it otherwise, it could not be self-contemplative.
It would be wanting in the one true distinction be
tween the animal and the human world. We should
be Automata, not persons, — not Beings, but Things.
And this observation leads me to remind you once
more, and once for all, that the Problem of Nihilism
has its most complete and entire solution in the
Reahsm of absolute Morahty. Were we less than
Beings, could we in any way divest ourselves of our

;-:Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 313
Personality, we should cease to be responsible. Such
might in fact appear a consummation devoutly to be
wished by many a man, who is
"Lord of himself, — that heritage of woe."
But it is simply impossible. Beal Right and real
Wrong must in that case melt away like a morning
cloud. Their sanction — the "Why" we ought to
do right, and oftentimes the " How,"- — would vanish
with them. Then the Law of Retribution must be
come a dissolving view — a Mirage — a Fata Morgana.
Life ceases to be real or earnest. Its stream is
a current foaming and frothing in darkness, — we our
selves even as shadows or bubbles on its surface.
Who, then, could say to each of us, Be strong and
of good courage, Thou Bubble ! Walk in the light
of Immortality, Thou Shadow ! For, soon, this dim
life-stream of Humanity itself must exhale as the
early dew, or plunge down into a fathomless abyss.
Thou shalt really — that is, Eternally — die. Soon
must the poet's words be true of thee, and of e~very
one such as thyself : —
" Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river ;
Like the bubble on the fountain,
Thou art gone, and for ever ! "
Contrast with these dark enigmas the clear strong
answer of Morality. Man's true Being is real amidst
a Life of enduring Realities. And he who truly
Hves shaU never really die.*
* Compare John xi. 26 with the Burial Service in our English
Book of Common Prayer.

314 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
Thus and thus only is solved what otherwise must
remain inexplicable by and for Man, concerning
the Realities among which he now lives, and the
real Future in which he shall survive even though
suns and starry systems decline and disappear.
This, now, is the one kind of appeal which has
been answered by a distinct affirmative. On this
certitude of Practical Reason hangs all our human
assurance of REALITY. It seems as obvious as it
is correct, to remark that if a whole world of real
existence is thus sufficiently assured to us, how
absolutely safe must be the truth of that axiom
which justifies our Moral Distinctions.
The consequences of this appeal are so vast as to
baffle the estimation of all except those who know
by experience where the ultimate battle-field of real
knowledge lies, and where amidst the occurrents of
that heady fight will be found the heat and burden
of the day. Such a survey can only be made after
years of acquaintance with Metaphysical enquiry,
its doubts and its difficulties. But, considering the
vital worth and importance evidently attributable
to this last resort of PhUosophy — this appeal to
Practical Reason — I am very desirous of explaining
and illustrating its nature and effects, so far as our
limit of time wUl aUow. And such an attempt may
seem the more advisable because that revival of the
Kantian method, which forms so striking a feature
of recent English philosophising, has not yet em
braced the whole wide circuit of Kant's system, and

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 315
the part least understood seems to be the very valu
able cycle of Treatises to which I have directed
your attention. The shortest and readiest way of
attaining my purpose is to place the subject before
you de novo, slightly extending my point of view,
and varying its attendant illustrations. For the
moment, therefore, let us put what has been said on
one side, and ask afresh from Speculative Science
the question which Practical Reason has already
answered. Pending a reply, we may observe how
immense must be the blank left to us, were our
question fruitless. And when we find, as we are
sure to find, that one human Truth can alone fill
up the void and dark abyss, we shall think more
magnificently, though still inadequately, concerning
this most sublime prerogative of Man. Inadequately,
I say, — because the towering dimensions of any
transcendent truth can only become apparent when
we have ourselves attained the sphere of its legiti
mate fulfilment. At present we must ask with the
Apostle, " Who is sufficient for these things ? "
With such objects in view, let us turn once more
to Speculation, and begin again by reconsidering
that same problem of common life which grass,
meadow, and moon suggested to us, and which
Idealism places before our eyes. Can we or can we
not demonstrate the fact we feel to be so thoroughly
a fact, — the outside world of other minds and other
bodies — both kinds of entity to us impenetrable 1*
* In other words, Can we decide, by argument, whether the things
we see are actualities, or ideas and images only ? If an Idealist

3 16 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.viii.
Our difficulty (as you have seen) is to get out of
ourselves ; and to show by an exercise of Thought
that if "things are not what they seem," they yet
are not absolutely unlike, — that there is in them
a real objectivity, — conceivable, searchable, — for
us, in some way, knowable. Put this question to
the philosophies of pure Speculation, and consider
their replies.
chooses to assert the latter, can we, by force of argument, refute him ?
On this curious question Dr. Tyndall writes as follows : —
" When I say I see you, and that I have not the least doubt about
it, the reply is, that what I am really conscious of is an affection
of my own retina. And if I urge that I can check my sight of you
by touching you, the retort would be that I am equally transgressing
the limits of fact ; for what I am really conscious of is, not that you
are there, but that the nerves of my hand have undergone a change.
All we hear, and see, and touch, and taste, and smell, are, it would
be urged, mere variations of our own condition — beyond which, even
to the extent of a hair's breadth, we cannot go. That anything
answering to our impressions exists outside of ourselves is not a fact,
but an inference, to which all validity would be denied by an idealist
like Berkeley, or by a sceptic like Hume. Mr. Spencer takes another
line. With him, as with the uneducated man, there is no doubt or
question as to the existence of an external world. But he differs
from the uneducated, who think that the world really is what con
sciousness represents it to be. Our states of consciousness are mere
symbols of an outside entity, which produces them and determines
the order of their succession, but the real nature of which we can
never know." Address, p. 57. By way of note to this passage
Dr. Tyndall subjoins : "Ina paper, at once popular and profound,
entitled Piecent Progress in the Theory of Vision, contained in the
volume of Lectures by Helmholtz, published by Longmans, this
symbolism of our states of consciousness is also dwelt upon. The
impressions of sense are the mere signs of external things." Of this
paper an account will be found in my Philosophy of Natural Theology,
pp. 190-203.

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 3 1 7
Hume would teU us, in his easy way, to keep the
belief if we like it. But he warns us that every
man is a spectator looking upon a scenic stage —
the theatre being his own mind.
Berkeley would seriously remind us, that in God
we live and move and have our being continually.
Apart from God, all is Ideal. We try to seize a
palpable Somewhat ; and grasp, not substance, but
shadow. In Him alone is Reality, and, seeing AU in
Him, we see what really is.
Stuart MUl was in earnest, as weU as Berkeley.
He lacked Hume's indifference on the one side, and
the faith of the Bishop on the other. We possess
his latest thoughts respecting this crux of specula
tion. They are well worthy your attentive considera
tion. They show, with distinctness, the unmistake-
able outcome of any thorough appeal to Empiricism.
His way of stating the question, you will observe,
is just this : — What is the value of our experienced
sensations, and how far can we reason from them, and
from the contingencies of future sensation, analogi
cally ? Reason (that is to say) from mental phe
nomena to material objectivities. In the last of his
Essays, Mill canvassed the problem in these words : —
"Feeling and thought are not merely different from what we call
inanimate matter, but are at the opposite pole of existence, and ana
logical inference has little or no validity from the one to the other.
Feeling and thought are much more real than anything else; they
are the only things which we directly know to be real — all things else
being merely the unknown conditions on which these, in our present
state of existence, or in some other, depend. All matter apart from
the feelings of sentient beings has but an hypothetical and unsub-

3 1 8 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
stantial existence : it is a mere assumption to account for our sensa
tions, — itself we do not perceive, we are not conscious of it, but only
of the sensations which we are said to receive from it : in reality it is a
mere name for our expectation of sensations, or for our belief that we
can have certain sensations when certain other sensations give indica
tion of them." *
Thus, then, you see Mill leaves Idealism absolute
over the whole region of Speculation,— of Truth, that
is, apprehended by the pure speculative Reason.
Nay, more, — so far as Mill is concerned, IdeaHsm is
not only the supreme truth of our phUosophy — it is
also the sole attainable truth of our Universe. + I
have put this conclusion as exactly and soberly as
I can, but I prefer putting it before you again, in the
deliberate words of Mr. MiU : —
" Mind," he says, " (or whatever name we give to what is implied
in consciousness of a continued series of feelings) is in a philosophical
point of view the only reality of which we have any evidence ; and
no analogy can be recognized, or comparison made, between it and
other realities, because there are no other known realities to compare
it with."+ You wiU, I beHeve, agree that MiU's Idealism, or,
as it has been termed, his Nihilism, is irrefragable,
provided the subject be argued on MiU's principles, —
* Three Essays, p. 202.
f If the reader will peruse the sentences before quoted from Kant,
he will see ex antithesi the great significance of Kant's distinctions,
and of the Primacy which he assigns to pure Practical Reason.
An account of Idealism, useful as a comment on the preceding
paragraphs, is given in my Philosophy of Natural Theology, before
referred to, p. 204 seq.
\ Three Essays, p. 203,

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 319
on the grounds, that is to say, of Empirical Specula
tion. In the eye of a dramatist, or his philosopher :—
"  All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players."
So, to a speculative empiricist, our Hfe of knowledge
is a theatre ; its facts a scenic representation. Any
eager youth, who has passed beyond Life's green
room, and looked behind the scenery which gave him
pleasure, understands how great was his illusion, and
is therefore disillusionised. Even thus is it with an
empirical philosopher. His first facts are transformed
phenomena : but what player, what scene-painter,
shaU tell him where begins, where ends the transfor
mation ? Suppose we admit, for argument's sake, —
and this is admitting a great deal, — that the inward
stirrings of our soul are propagated from impacts
struck by real externally-subsisting things. Who
shall say hoiv much, and what is really existent out
side ? How much is the effect of transformation,- — or
what the creation of the soul itseU ? Is the succes
sion of blows struck upon resonant metal identical
with the sweet low chime of those ringing Bells,
remembered by us from the days of our happy child
hood ? It sweUs upon the breeze, — lives within our
senses, — dies into echoes, — vanishes in far-away vibra
tions, floating through waves of air innumerable. It
is, perhaps, lost amidst an ethereal ocean, undulating
over unthought-of Space. A metaUic blow, and its
repercussion, formed the cause of each tone : but were
they very Uke that dream-drest melody of evening
bells? Not much more, probably, than the chime

320 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
itself resembles the feelings, fancies, emotions,
memories, which mingled with the sound. And
what resemblance has it, we ask, with those un
dulating thrills, prolonged indefinitely beyond our
human ken ?
As concerns this instance, the ringing bell appeals
to ear in the same way that meadow and moon ap
peal to eye. And the problem which Ideahsm raises,
in regard of this and other commerce between our
perceptive powers and the outside world, is, as we
have seen, unsolved by Empirical reasoners, — just
as it was unsolved by Sceptics. Nor does it appear
possible that any kind of pure speculation may, at
any time, hope to solve it. The only answer that
ever has been, or (as it would seem) ever can be
given, is that of our Pure Reason; pronouncing
a priori its decisive judgment, in a Practical sphere
underlying all human argument, and also immea
surably transcending it. Upon such axiomatic judg
ments, all human knowledge rests. Without them
we neither know, nor are able to know anything.
But we carried our instance of sound further than
our example drawn from eyesight. We transferred
melody to mind. The sweet BeHs awoke the echoes
of Sovereign Reason. With them blended the softer
emotions of the soul. And this sympathetic aUiance
holds true in fact. Bell-music, — a chUdish pleasure
always, sometimes a passion of youth, — is, even now,
to some of us an artistic pursuit, or a science of
mixed mathematics. With us all, it gives rise to
many a half-pleasant, half-melancholy day-dream.

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 3 2 1
There cluster round it so many thoughts ! Young
views of Life, ere yet life was understood, — prospects
of Death, while death seemed far away, — youthful
hopes and schemes, friendships, harmonies of soul.
Respecting such Pictures of this world and the next,
some of us still ask, Are they true ? Respecting those
early feelings and affections, they are part Hving —
part buried. Concerning our lost dear ones, each of
us may say, " The heart alone knoweth its own bitter
ness, and a stranger intermeddleth not with its joy."
Each, as he hears again the chime which recals his
dead springtide, need not be ashamed of feeling as
the poet felt : — •
" My eyes are dim with childish tears,
My heart is idly stirr'd,
For the same sound is in my ears
Which in those days I heard."
Our subtle interweavings of sense, feeling, thought,
suggest to us the widest of all wide questions ; and
one wThich did not escape the philosophic Words
worth. Time takes away much from each of us.
Time also leaves much behind. Does this bequest
of Time — this legacy from Youth to Age — appear a
gladness or a sorrow ?
Is there any Faculty, natural to Man, which can
attempt to answer this question, save and except his
endowment of Practical Reason,— bringing with it an
absolute Moral Law, and that consequent Truth of
Retribution, which is the final bloom and accom
plishment of the moral Hfe of Law ? For, see what
this question involves! Our waking dream, which
21

322 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
none can share, has shown us, in long perspective,
the images of the loved and lost, — forms torn from
our side, and now become shadows. Is there a world
where the good, the true, the righteous, and the
holy, shall eat the fruit of their doings,— unplucked
in this world, because Time was too short for its
ripening ? The Doctrine of Retribution affirrns this
finahty, and asserts that without it the Law is for
ever slacked, and judgment doth never go forth.
Our waking dream brought back to us, also, our own
high resolves, the noble ideals, the happy aspirations
of Youth. Is, now, what we have pursued, and
attained — or part-attained — a record written on the
moving sea-sand, to be effaced by obliterating waters?
Rather, it is like those primaeval footprints disinterred
from deep buried ocean-beaches, — bearing ineffaceable
traces of lives, and ages, passed away, — brought up
again to light and sunshine. Thus, too, affirms the
Doctrine of Retribution, speaking with the authority
of our highest human endowment : thus, too, shall it
fare with each, and aU of us. We write our lives,
our good and evil, as children write upon what seems
a shifting sandy shore. Yet we write within the
solemn sound of a vast illimitable ocean, destined to
overwhelm, yet to conserve, our memorial. By-and-
by, when the fabric of the world we inhabit is
changed, the ripple-marks of Time's tide shaU still
continue, entombed, only to reappear. Along with
them will come back the record of our doings,
whether they be good or bad.
If, then, we know this to be true, shall we not

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 323
value such knowledge above rubies? The reason
why men do not so value it, is because they are told
that such things are " unknowable," — that they can
be only conceived as possible, or probable. But my
aim and object have been to show you that if Moral
Distinctions are really true, and not mere theories
for which no man need suffer or die — no, nor even
deny himself in any special or particular manner, —
if, in other words, self-control and self-sacrifice are
moral Duties, not matters of opinion or of taste,
then the very same source from which this moral
Truth flows down, brings with it in one and the
self-same stream other truths absolutely human ;
heart-stirring because transcendent — lifting human
knowledge above the limits of mortality, and, there
fore, teaching us to make our lives such as befit
Immortals. And this is the full meaning and measure
of the Doctrine of Retribution — its breadth and
length, and depth and height. By virtue of this
transcendency, it becomes the fit porch and vestibule
of His Temple, Who is the true God and everlasting
Life. It has also been my aim and object to show you
that, putting aside this primary source of knowledge,
in which Moral Duty has its spring, there is not —
neither can be any fountain of absolute knowledge
left to Man. I do not mean absolute knowledge on
this subject, and its kindred truths of Natural Re
ligion only. What I mean is that the ivhole of our
so-caUed human knowledge is (if this be put aside)
left to us as bare custom, conjecture, hypothesis,—

324 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
whatever we choose to call the probability which we
incline to keep.
It may seem that these are very strong statements.
They are, however, not at all stronger than the state
ments of accepted and eminent authorities. You
have heard that Greek and Teuton are at one re
specting what pure Reason can affirm in the realm
of Practical Truth. In this Lecture, I have quoted
Kant as instar omnium on this point. Mr. Mill is
sufficiently distinct with regard to what Empiri
cism can not say, even upon the broadest of all
Fact-questions — the question " Is there an outside
world of men and things, really known to us ? Let
me now ask your attention to the words of a most
distinguished and generous antagonist of Mr. Mill's,
— antagonistic, that is, to MUl's social conclusions,
yet doing honour to his more philosophic principles.
I mean Mr. Fitz-James Stephen. I will cite his
judgment on three distinct problems. First, as to
the primary grounds of Philosophy. Next, as to the
validity of Natural Science. Thirdly, as to the degree
of certitude attained by human knowledge in general.
AU these estimates are made without reference to
any principle of Reason transcending Experience, —
any principle, for instance, such as the axiomatic
Truth or first source from which we have drawn our
Moral Distinctions, our Doctrine of Retribution, and
a firm faith in the final Development made possible
to Mankind.
As regards First-grounds, Mr. Stephen writes thus :—
" It is possible to suggest hypotheses which would refute what

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 325
appear to us self-evident truths— even truths which transcend thought
and logic. The proposition tacitly assumed by the use of the word
' I' may be false to a superior intelligence seeing in each of us, not
individuals, but parts of some greater whole. The multiplication
table assumes a world which will stay to be counted. ' One and one
are two ' is either a mere definition of the word two, or an assertion
that each one is, and for some time continues to be; one. The pro
position would never have occurred to a person who lived in a world
where everything was in a state of constant flux-.. It may be doubted
whether it would appear true to a being so- constituted as to regard
the universe as a single connected whole." *
Mr. Stephen calls these objections and difficulties
" little more than fancies." Yet he suggests no
answer to them. There is, in fact, but one answer
possible ; and that one he for the purposes of argu
ment puts out of court. He is- arguing with those
who do not accept any transcendent truth. He
argues on their ground, and therefore leaves both
premises and conclusion as I have read them. No
one can, I believe, do otherwise who meets empiri
cists on the level of Empiricism ; and that is precisely
the reason why I have not attempted so to meet
them. What may be Mr. Stephen's private opinion
respecting axiomatic Truths of Reason, especially
Moral First-truths, I do not happen to know. My
own conviction is, that without them every reasoning
man is launched upon a shoreless Scepticism. Here,
inevitable shipwreck awaits him. WTell, if he can
swim back, and, though forlorn, take heart again !
To change our metaphor, the suicide of Doubt is
the re-affirmation of First-truths, and above all of
primary Moral Truth.
* Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, pp. 345-6.

326 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. VIIL
Let us take Physical Science next : — ¦
" It is surely obvious," says Mr. Stephen, " that all physical
science is only a probability, and what is more, one which we have
no means whatever of measuring. The whole process of induction
and deduction rests on the tacit assumption that the course of
nature has been, is, and will continue to be, uniform. Such, no
doubt, is the impression which it makes on us. It is the very
highest probability to which we can reach. It is the basis of all
systematic thought. It has been verified with wonderful minuteness
in every conceivable way ; and yet no one has ever been able" to give
any answer at all to the question, What proof have you that the
uniformities which you call laws will not cease or alter to-morrow ?
In regard to this, our very highest probability, we are like a man
rowing one way and looking another, and steering his boat by keeping
her stern in a line with an object behind him."*
Now, Physical Science is held up to us every
month as being the very bloom and perfection of
all Empirical Methods. Its business is to remedy
the instability of Phenomena ; to convert them into
Facts ; define, register, - and place them under the
nexus of some certain Law. Rut what if the uni
formities caUed "Laws" may cease and alter to
morrow? Mr. Stephen's question is justified by
the results of our previous examination — results in
which Hume agrees with Kant,'TyndaU and Huxley
with Plato and Aristotle. No conceivable amount
of Experience can verify iwhat is, in its own nature,
and by virtue of its 'conditions, unverifiable. The
moment we say a Truth or Law is absolute, we pro
nounce it transcendent — a word which need alarm
no hearer. On this account, great natural-science
philosophers, like great metaphysicians, have ac-
* Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, p. 346.

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 327
cepted the decision of Practical Reason. And the
Practical Reason of Man long ago decided that
the course of Nature is uniform, in the sense that
each change correlates a cause of change. No
kind of Empiricism can justify such a Law. Under
empirical Law, Nature's uniformities are all simply
strong probabilities ; and Natural Science can never
be thought more than extremely probable.
We may now approach the larger question
considered by Mr. Stephen, — Does this same un
certainty attach to human knowledge generally ?
Immediately after the sentence last quoted, he
adds : —
" I do not say this to undervalue science, but to show the conditions
of human knowledge. Nothing can be more certain than a conclusion
scientifically established." *
He had said two pages before : —
" There is, indeed, no great difficulty in showing that we cannot get
beyond probability at all in any department of human knowledge. One
short proof of this is as follows : The present is a mere film melting
as we look at it. Our knowledge of the past depends on memory,
our knowledge of the future on anticipation ; and both memory and
anticipation are fallible. The firmest of all conclusions and judgments
are dependent upon facts which, for aught we know, may have been
otherwise in the past, may be otherwise in the future, and may at
this moment present a totally different appearance to other intelligent
beings from that which they present to ourselves."!
And he subjoins, a page or two after this : —
" There is probably no proposition whatever which under no
imaginable change of circumstances could ever appear false, or
at least doubtful, to any reasonable being at any time or any
place." % * Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, p. 347.
f Ibid., p. 345. % Ibid., p. 348.

328 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect.viii.
Some here might like to retort by quoting the
English dramatic poet, who tells us that one propo
sition at least is very sure : " Death is certain to all,
¦ — all must die." Or you may prefer a more solemn
authority— the great Hebrew Preacher : " There is
no man that hath power over the spirit to retain
the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of
Death."* Let me, however, beg you to remark with me that
we have one and aU of us to choose between very
opposite systems of life. And the choice is a serious,
not to say an anxious, event for us all. Mr. Stephen,
to whom I am already indebted, expresses his feehngs
by a similitude : —
" We stand on a mountain pass in the midst of whirling snow and
blinding mist, through which we get glimpses now and then of paths
which may be deceptive. If we stand still, we shall be frozen to
death. If we take the wrong road, we shall be dashed to pieces. "f
To use another simUe : — The wreck must be, so far
as we can judge, irreparable, whilst our time for
deliberation is short, and the danger of drifting
considerable. But rational dehberation and firmly
based choice is what we may well call a Philosophy.
Just as men when they argue are unconscious
logicians, and just as in the commonest affairs of
Hfe we hear deep metaphysical principles taken for
granted, and made into maxims, — precisely so does
Philosophy penetrate every part of human thinking
and Hving by virtue of their being human. But
* Ecclesiastes viii. 8.
t Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, p. 353.

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 329
Thought and Life become most consciously recog
nized as Philosophy, when we use our reasoning
powers in choosing the aims and hopes for which
we will live and die. "As long as men" (remarks
the same writer) "have any mental activity at all,
they will speculate, as they always have specu
lated, about themselves, their destiny, and their
nature. They will ask in different dialects the
questions, What ? Whence ? Whither ? " * This kind
of discussion, let it be ever so rude and bold, or
so hesitating and inconclusive, is felt at once to be
phUosophic in its essential nature. And because it
is human, philosophy must be determined by the
essential character of Humanity. Thus, when
problems of Life are viewed as affecting our nation
or our race, a knowledge of the constituent elements
of human Society influences the consideration. And
this kind of knowledge is not adequately possessed
by aU men. " To a scientific man," writes the same
authority, " Society has a totally different appearance,
— it is, as far as he is concerned, quite a different
thing, from what it is to a man whose business lies
with men."f Mr. Stephen's remark is no doubt
safe. The most useful aid, therefore, in determining
human problems is a right acquaintance with the
powers and motive principles of Human Nature.
During late years those have been supposed to
know Humanity most truly who have been most
concerned in depreciating it. Wisest of all, they
* Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, p. 340.
t Ibid., p. 341.

330 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
who depict it as little human as possible, and who
draw Man with the lineaments of a beast. Cynicism
of this kind is not the product of one mode of
thinking, one age, or one set of social conditions.
It comes upon individual persons when criticism has
taken the place of original work. The more men
busy themselves with details while they leave deep
principles shadowy, the less will they see anything
great or good in Humanity. Hence we may rightly
infer that every moral teacher ought to ground and
systematize his teaching, on pain of seeing it rejected
as being a self-condemned .Philosophy. And this
rule seems right, because ungrounded and non-har-
monized moral teaching — mere criticism or dogma
tism — will invariably lead to the cynical view of
human nature and human destinies. This same
Cynicism comes upon Peoples, when the national
life burns low, and there exists a numbing deadness
in regard of grand objects, together with a sensitive
ness to what are called "class interests" — especially
mere money interests. It comes upon Churches
which suffer from decay in the higher kinds of Faith
and Spiritual Insight. Here, again, details and
minor differences overlay and darken every deepest
Truth. In these Lectures, I have proceeded upon
a view of Humanity which is diametrically the
reverse of non-human. I have rested my utterances
on a ground which few are Hkely to pronounce
unsafe, provided they examine and understand it.
I have supposed that the powers and motory prin
ciples most distinctive of human nature in its noblest

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 331
examples are the truest characteristics of essential
Humanity ; and, therefore, the best standards after
which we ought ourselves to think and to live
individually. I feel quite safe in making this latter
assumption, because I am not discussing a fit consti
tution for Zulu- land, but the ct/cottos Siov, the mark
of our calling and vocation as enlightened Men, who
are Morally responsible. In other words, the noblest
characteristic distinctive of Humanity ought to be
the determining principle of that serious choice
which must be. made by each and all of us.
In choosing, we need not complain of the embar
rassment of riches. Life, at first, seems abounding
with resources, just as it did to the Prodigal Son in
the Parable. But a few years' experience convinces
us, as it did him, that all motives for choice resolve
themselves into an alternative. We must find our
inducements, hopes, and happiness, in this life only.
Or we must look beyond the grave. If we are able
to do the latter, our choice may seem settled at
once. For everything we enjoy in this Hfe is perish
able, and we ourselves have no continuing city here.
If we have the power of overleaping Mortality, it
will be our wisdom so to do. The real question,
therefore, is whether we human beings actually
possess any such power.
This question I have endeavoured to answer from
the head and the heart of Man. The possibility of
answering in this way, and the answer itself, bears
(as I showed in my first Lecture) an important
relation to the Evidences of Religion. The Doctrine

332 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
of Retribution asserts that Right and Wrong are as
modes of action irreconcileable during this life, and
in Reason essential contradictories. As such they
are the expressions of a Law absolute and immutable,
illimitable in its duration and development. If this
is ascertainably true from elements of Truth which
pertain to us as Men, it is plain that to be good and
to do good — in one word, to be religious — is to be
truly Human. The Preacher's words thus come
home to every one of us : " Fear God and keep His
commandments ; for this is the Whole of Man."
And the reason he adds is also a sufficing reason :
" For God shall bring every work into judgment,
with every secret thing, whether it be good, or
whether it be evil."*
That other and antagonistic system of choice,
which finds its inducements, hopes, and happiness in
this life only, is a system founded on doubt or denial.
In theory it denies — or, at least, deliberately doubts
to the very utmost extent of doubt — all possibility
of any human knowledge absolutely certain. Prac
tical Doubt concerning present realities is inad
missible, because inconsistent with the business
of Hfe. In practice, therefore, this system confines
itself to rejecting every kind of knowledge which
transcends our earthly existence ; everything which
remains to us credibly true beyond the grave.
The adherents of this system are accustomed to
think of human far-sightedness as having a similitude
to telescopic vision. With as much truth may their
* Ecclesiastes xii. 13, 14,

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 333
own system be figured as that conjurer's view which
is gained by peeping into a kaleidoscope. The differ
ence stands thus : A good Telescope possesses above
all things penetration.^ Its business is to make
distant realities observable by human eyes. It must
neither distort nor displace its objects, nor yet must
it colour them. The field of a kaleidoscope takes in
nothing farther distant than a few inches. Its objects
are shreds of artificial productions : fragments of
tinsel, for example; and broken bits of coloured
glass. Their symmetry and prettiness to the eye
are properties given by artificially arranged mirrors.
The effect charms an uninitiated observer; but all he
admires in it is optical illusion. We happen to know
this is so because we can take the kaleidoscope to
pieces. In the system of kaleidoscope-thought there is no
attempt to penetrate celestial spaces — much less to
discover Reality therein. It endeavours to bring
under refracting angles the broken tinsel of Life — its
glittering bits of coloured glass. Beyond this it pro
fesses nothing, because nothing more is conceived to
be possible. Astronomers look upon the kaleidoscope
as a child's toy, or, at best, a philosophic plaything.
But how few people are Herschels ! and how many
would refuse to accept a powerful reflecting Telescope
if offered under the condition of employing it !
In this refusal, Empiricism and Scepticism are at
one. Neither can dispense with the laws of optics.
Both use them for short-sighted conclusions. But
there is a difference in the wording of the two re-

334 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
fusals ; and, to some minds, the Sceptic may appear
less remote from Belief than the Empiricist. The
man who says distinctly, " Nothing can be known,"
often feels (as Hume did) a recoU from the nothing
ness of his own language. He feels, too, that he has
said a Something, the hollow echoes of which may
not die away for ever !
But let me pause here.
I have already trodden so many and such various
paths of controversy, that I wish to express myself
for the remainder of this Lecture as a non-contro
versialist. Let me, now, place before you the con
clusions for which I have assigned reasons, less as
questions to be argued, than as the creed of a Theist,
who sees in them not Truths of Morality only, nor
truths of Natural Religion only, but instances and
evidences of the beneficence, the wisdom, the provi
dent Love of his Father and his God.
" 0 felix hominum genus
Si vestros animos amor,
Quo ccelum regitur, regat ! " *
The great Being Who decked this world with beauti
ful apparel, has strewn many a fresh floweret by
the side of our human highway. These are given us
that, as Pilgrims, we may admire their beauty, inhale
their fragrance, and joyously travel on. We move
forwards— our roses wither. They could not long
cheer our stay, if we remained amongst them. Our
human youthhood, with its healthy hopes and bright
* Boethius. Be Consolatione, Lib. ii., Met. 8.

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn, Hereafter. 335
promise, is, after all, little better than a pretty, fading,
transitory flower-bud. In our riper years of steady
resolve and action, we work because our strength is
high, and our time is short. Yet this active Man
hood would be the saddest period of human life, could
we be persuaded that our labour was in vain — all in
vain; and that we ourselves — doomed, each after
each, to be cut down — when we die, must die for
ever. God has given us a better hope, — yet a hope not
unmixed with fear. "Whatsoever a man soweth,
the same shall he also reap." The husbandman
traces his furrow when roses droop, autumn leaves
are falHng, and wild winds sing the dirge of the
departing year. Mists and rain-clouds hide from his
eye the arch of azure heaven. But he knows of a
certain Spring-tide, with its returning sunshine and
its pulses of life ; when foliage shall burst forth, and
flowers grow up again. Then the grain, which seems
hopelessly dead, shall be quickened and put on a new
raiment : first the blade, then the ear, and after that
the fuU corn in the ear. Our human sowing has, in
like manner, its Autumn and its Spring. We sow
works and words, inward musings and acts of Will,
thoughts cherished and matured, self-conquests, gains
of sovereignty in the Spiritual sphere, — one and all
destined to survive this life. Not a deed or resolve
of Faith and Duty, imperial over sensuousness and
temptation, shall be lost. All will be treasured, fer-
tiHzed, and reproduced, fresh and fair in their own
vitality at last. Without this one warm belief, our

336 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
work would be a cold automatism ; our birth more
dim and deathlike than a sleep and a forgetting ; our
lost dear ones would be lost indeed :—
" Inspiring thought of rapture, yet to be,
The tears of love were hopeless but for thee ! "
Our whole earthly life must needs become to us a
valley of dry bones, concerning which no man could
dare to say — " Venient cito ssecula, cum jam
Socius calor ossa revisat." *
Dying men would be forced to bury their dead hopes,
and to know for a certainty that their thoughts must
perish with them.
Considering thus what might have been, but
happily is not, we see in the glad reverse some
lineaments of our Father's love. To each of us He
has given the germ of a Life that can never die.
The law of that Life is that nothing will be, nor can
be, lost. Its unconsidered fragments are like grains
of seed-corn, full of infinite after-promise. Even as
the field of the Dead is God's acre, so is the field
of living Duty His harvest-field. Wheat and tares,
—nothing wiU be plucked up, all wiU grow, aU shall
have their solemn reaping Day. It will be a gather
ing to aU, a garnering to some. And this Hope, like
every hope that visits our time of trial and discipline,
is a Hope mixed with Fear.
Would we have it otherwise ? Would we desire to
lose our Fear ? Which of us can look into his own
* Prudentius. Cathcmerinon, Hymnus X.

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 337
heart and say, I at least can dispense with that
restraint? There is a fear — a painful, soul-harrow
ing fear — which perfect love casts out. But there is
also a fear which Love deepens, and filial tenderness
blends with the gentlest tones of Duty. That fear
of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And who
amongst us has not learned from the errors of his
own devious path that this beginning is oft-times a
lesson which needs to be repeated ? Over and over
again have we seen the reality of this need verified
by the prosperous wicked : " Because they have no
changes, therefore they fear not God." In the day
of the Church's worldly prosperity, far too many of
us are apt to think a quiet life and easy death the
happiest. It was otherwise when the fight between
Faith and Fury waxed hottest: —
" Mors ipsa beatior inde est,
Quod per cruciamina leti
Via panditur ardua justis,
Et ad astra doloribus itur." *
To those times of cruel repression and believing
resistance, I have referred more than once. They
help us to realize the fact that the Doctrine of Retri
bution is a law of Moral Freedom. For, this truth,
like the blue sky, bends over aU. It sets the slave
free from his master. The smaU and great are equal
in respect of it. In its strength, prisoners heed no
more the voice of the oppressor ; timid spirits ex
change their abject fear of what Man can do unto
them for the elevating fear of God ; and the natural
* Prudentius, as before.
22

338 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
coward rises to the courage and crown of a Martyr.
For this reason, among other reasons, the annals of
persecution and martyrdom will never lose their sad
yet hopeful significance. They, too, cherish in us a
hope mixed with fear.
In those tearful days, men chose energetically.
Their choice was tried in a furnace of affliction,
heated one seven times hotter than its wont. Even
in our calm age, Christian men and women have
often cause to say, " Whom the Lord loveth He chas
teneth." He chasteneth : and, Hke the persecuted of
old, they find in this Fear of Him a salutary and
invigorating thought. The Martyr visioned, some
times, walking beside him in the flames, a Form like
the Son of God. Sorrowful people now behold more
distantly the lineaments of their Father's love. Yet
sufferers now, as then, endure aH things in the con
fident hope of receiving a kingdom which cannot be
moved, if only they have grace to serve God accept
ably with reverence and godly fear. And, therefore,
whether suffering much or little, they confess, as
Death draws near to each, " It is good for me that I
have been afflicted, that I might learn to keep Thy
statutes." From such facts of Human history we learn nearly
the same lesson as was taught us by contemplating,
in thought, the process of a world's development.
There are (we saw) good and sufficient reasons why,
upon any world like ours, a wise and beneficent
Creator would not at once bestow Perfection, Peace,
Rest. But, for the pursuit of these things, He gives

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 339
His reasonable creatures ample cause. And He
gives us cause likewise for the assured Belief that we
shaU finally attain the happiness we are steadfastly
pursuing. Only, let us still pursue ; and let us with
patience wait for it.
The devout Theist, as well as the Moral Philo
sopher, has reason to be glad that such assurance of
attainment as Natural Religion yields, is brought
home to us, not through Nature, but through Man.
Natural Theology would cease to be a Theology, if
it exalted Nature into a Divinity, or proclaimed her
as the just image of One Who is essentiaUy Divine.
If a Christian were thus to view the Natural world,
he would plainly ignore the words of St. Paul :—
" The creature was made subject to vanity, not
wUHngly, but by reason of Him who hath subjected
the same in hope : because the creature itseU also
shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into
the glorious liberty of the children of God." * Hence,
Creation's groans and travail-pains until now. Hence,
that " earnest expectation," which " waiteth for the
manifestation of the sons of God." | Whatever this
passage may, or may not mean, it is so far from
deifying Nature, that it binds upon her a chain of
servitude, to be unlocked only by the hands of the
true Images of God. Of them, that is, who have
been created anew in righteousness and true holiness.
What human beings really see in Nature at her
best, is, as I have said, a revelation of Order and
of Method, — a striving after Unification, traceable
* Romans viii. 20, 21. f Ibid., verse 19.

340 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
throughout the diversity of her multiform aspects.
We admire, too, even in her more Titanic and awful
features, the Hnes and colouring of indescribable
lovehness. Their repose and grandeur satisfy our
childhood with aesthetic pleasures, ere yet it has
been taught to recognize Nature's grim powers and
rigours, — the pains she inflicts upon us who are
servile to aU her skyey influences. The simpler a
child, the less is it afraid of even her final terrors : —
" It feels its life in every limb ;
What should it know of Death ?"
You may remember how the poet of Natural Religion
paints childhood's insight stUl more brightly, along
with its dark reverse. He describes, in a sublime
Ode, the change which, as we grow older, visibly
appears to each of us in Nature's beauty, —
" The things that I have seen I now can see no more."
And again, a Httle further on, —
1 ' Whither is fled the visionary gleam ?
Where is it now — the glory and the dream ? "
Yet the first childHke impression returns often, upon
most thoughtful men. We feel it when we look on
sights and scenes which make us sensible of our
littleness, our changefulness, or our ignorance, —
which teU us, in brief, what children we still re
main ! When, for example, we watch a sunrise
above the snowy Alps, a waterspout travelUng over
the ocean, or a sandstorm crossing the desert. Or
when we gaze up at the starry skies and into their

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 341
immeasurable blue, while the fitful moon, apt image
of our own alternations, lights up lake and forest,
valley and circling hills. Under these, and all
simUar influences, we are apt to say with the same
poet, — " 0 joy ! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That Nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive ! "
By Nature, we mean, and he means, our Nature.
He is not forgetful of the fact that the most enduring
of our gains from conversing with outward Nature
are what we ourselves have earned, and given her :
given her, to receive back invested with many a
fresh and flowery chaplet. And, therefore, he con
cludes by rendering
" Thanks to the Human Heart by which we live ! "
In truth, whenever our Manhood tries to explain the
secret of Nature's charm, we feel, at once, that her
symmetry is not sympathy. We feel that she sur
rounds us with a loveliness, fair as frostwork, — but,
like frostwork, cold and hard as iron. She is the
same to us, whether we smile or sigh. She cannot
rejoice with them that do rejoice, nor weep with them
that weep. There is no gloom upon her hills, no
frown upon her atmosphere, although the dear one
of our heart lies in death-agony before us. The
tender-hued dawn-light crept on just the same when
Tennyson's " Queen of the May " awoke in her
freshness of health and strength, — and when she

342 The Doctrine of Retribution. |Lect. viii.
was dying away from aU desire of earthly happiness,
whilst her mother and sister sorrowed at her side : —
" Oh, look ! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow ;
He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know.
And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine —
Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine."
Not only in grief, but in joy, we realize the truth
that there is in the world of things inanimate no
answering mood — no love-light — only a charm which,
though not in itself evanescent, flies from us when
we open our hearts the most longingly to its influence.
Beautiful as Nature is, we never can call her Beauty
ours. Nay, more, — could she give her All to us, it
would not satisfy human affections. Then comes
the unavoidable impression : This beauty is not
hers to give or keep. It is not, — cannot be, her own.
But we feel that it must derive its witchcraft from
a Living Source, — a Spirit in no hopeless estrange
ment from ourselves. And this Soul of Beauty and
of Love may some day yield us the companionship
our spirits have failed to find.*
One dehght of the Poem , last quoted consists in
the Poet's ghmpse behind that veil so fair to look
* Compare Wordsworth's Ode above cited, from
"And, oh ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Think not of any severing of our loves !
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might ;
I only have relinquish'd one delight
To live beneath your more habitual sway."
Down to his closing lines —
" To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 343
upon, so hard to raise. Some here may possibly
know how, far away in Africa, Livingstone strove
to recal and transcribe, with feeble hand, that ex
quisitely natural passage, which asserts the Immor
tality, not only of the Soul itself, but of its cherished
sympathies ; as well as its continued nearness to the
objects of its affection. And this, we may safely say,
is the belief in a Future existence most germane to
Man — the behef prompted by that religious senti
ment which is (as Dr. Tyndall observes) a part of our
Nature, immanent, and indestructible. We kneel
beside a dear one's death-bed. The departing voice
that bids us a faint farewell may soon be beyond the
Sun ; yet the Soul that cleaves to our Soul may still
find means to be often, often with us when we think
it far away. Is this nearness an unreasonable hope ?
To live within the Light of God is to enjoy a
Spiritual Freedom and mode of Existence, trans
cending the highest thoughts of us who see through
a glass darkly, — yet kindling our hearts that aspire
after it with longings which cannot be uttered. And
who amongst us would like seriously to affirm that
the deep warm sigh of foreboding Humanity is
unceasingly breathed after that which exists not,
and which wiU never — can never — be ?
Of Man's Heart, the Poet is our truest interpreter.
And in the reasonable Beliefs, which cluster round
Immortality, both Head and Heart meet together.
We have just seen how Poets, unlike in many ways,
are alike in their echoes of this one human feeling ;
and we might quote whole volumes to the same

344 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
effect. In former Lectures, I placed before you a
series of arguments addressed to pure Reason, and
resting on the foundation of Independent Morality.
They are irrefragable, and demonstrate my conclusion
beyond demur, provided the Moral rule, in order to
be practical, must needs be absolute in its commands.
Let this be granted necessary, and we see that it
could not, in fact, exercise such authority without
the condition that Justice shall be done at last.
Neither, indeed, ought it so to command, nor yet
to be allowed any claim in Right apart from this
certainty of Retribution. Now, we know, too well,
that in this life present, Retributive Justice is not
done. Therefore, if Practical Morahty may and does
command absolutely, there must, of necessity, exist
a future LUe of Retribution, in store for aU moral
beings. This Hne of reasoning, addressed to the Intellect
of Man, stands in both correspondency and antithesis
over against the determinations of his affective
nature. The Head is (to vary my metaphor) a
separate but faithful echo of the Heart. Between
these two paths, leading to one and the same con
clusion, lies a third, which reaches the meeting-point
of both. It carries us thither through a survey
of our distinctive Human activity, — the functional
character and tendencies of Man.
The wider this survey, the better for our purpose :
I, however, can only indicate its more palpable
features. The easiest mode of viewing them is to
contrast Man (as I have done before) with what we

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 345
know of the lower creatures. Their Hfe finds its
scope in the various pleasurable and self-guarding
instincts, connected with nutrition, reproduction, and
other allied processes and phases of existence. But
these are not the true Life of Humanity. They
are merely animal conditions, pre-required for the
exercise and growth of Man's real functions, — those
functions which make him essentially Man. By
consequence, the inferior creature attains its full
and proper development in a short time. The brief
duration of this process is commensurate with the
creature's limited powers, and its smaUness of value
to the world of animality : a value stUl less to
the human world, except as means to further ends,
beyond and apart from the fact of each creature's
individualized existence. Whether such an existence
passes through the stages of animal tranquilHty and
decay, — or is interrupted and brought to a close
suddenly, — we can never lament for it as a break
in any kind of Progress unmeasured, and by us not
measurable ; or as the loss of a light which might
lighten whole nations. But over the death of a good
Man, — stUl more of a good and great Man, — we
mourn as over an event too often irreparable to his
fellows. Again, in the various poses of mere animal
life, we see a fitness to the landscape amidst which
each is placed. But paint Man, as he has been
painted, with the whole scenery of Nature for his
background. There appears no appositeness, nothing
congenial : in a word, he stands without a Home.
As a mere question of fitness, then, and of what is

346 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
harmonious in structure and adaptation, Man would
be indescribably misplaced in this life, — if this life
were All. According to every rule of Judgment,
aesthetical or teleological, — according to every indi
cation given by function, tendency, development,—
the supposition that this life could be Man's All is
plainly absurd ; and therefore inadmissible. But to
the eye of a Theist, it appears pre-eminently so.
The disbelieving question would in that case be
properly asked once more, — " Wherefore hast Thou
made all men for nought? " Why, indeed? Nay,
for worse than nought. To be so .great, and yet so
little — to be made even as the fishes of the sea, and
the creeping things ! So noble — so seemingly Im
mortal — and yet so dwindled to a span ! Better he
that hath never seen the Sun ! Better Nihilism,
than a world of reality so defaced ! Better no eye,
outward or inward, to behold the monstrous incon
gruity !— better, absolute Nothingness !
These dark doubts allow only one answer. Equally
unanswerable by him who ignores a, Life beyond
the grave, is the objection, — Can Morality, — Moral
power, true Moral Life, — be annihilated ? If so,
there is nothing real in the Supremacy over all
other affections, principles, and activities claimed
by Moral Distinctions. Yet these distinctions are
affirmed as real, and as really supreme, by the
Human Head and Heart.
Considerations such as these admit of vast exten
sion and many illustrations. But for them, Time
fails me. I may venture, however, to remind you,

Lect. viil] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 347
how thinkers so antagonistic as Hume and Kant
unite in admiring that wise and beneficent arrange
ment by which the truths of Morality and Natural
Religion are made obvious and easily accessible to
the powers of very ordinary human beings. For
instance, the manner in which fair and honest minds
regard Moral Distinctions, is, according to Hume, of
the greatest possible value.
"Extinguish," he tells us, " all the warm feelings and preposses
sions in favour of virtue, and all disgust or aversion to vice. Render
men totally indifferent towards these distinctions .; and Morality is no
longer a practical study, nor has any tendency to regulate our lives
and actions." *
Were these states of emotion left to be acquired
by slowly arguing ourselves into them, how much
time and power must have been lost, not only to
individual men, but to each human society, and
(more injuriously stiU) to our whole Race ! The
actual arrangement is precisely the reverse: —
" In that," says Kant, "which concerns all human beings without
exception, Nature cannot be accused of any partial .distribution of her
gifts. So far as the essential aim of Human Nature is regarded, the
very highest Philosophy can attain no higher eminence than that
reached under the guidance -commonly bestowed upon the meanest
Understanding, "f
From Kant's point of view, an earnest man of
an ordinary understanding finds -two reasons for ac
cepting, in some shape or another, the Doctrine of
Retribution. First, he finds within himself convic-
* Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, Sect. I. (G. and G.
iv., 172.)
t Critick of Pure Reason. Rosenkranz, p. 640.

348 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
tions, which impress upon his emotional nature, as
well as his Conscience, the existence of that often-
longed-for, yet always awful, Futurity. Secondly, he
sees that the same kinds of conviction, in varying
extents and with variable consequences, possess the
minds of his fellow-men. But to a philosophic
thinker the same facts afford a third reason for
the same acceptance. The PhUosopher perceives
that the convictions of ordinary men, and their
general diffusion, are exactly what ought to be.
Thus his practical Reason as a philosopher, — to
say nothing of his Faith as a Theist if he be one, —
would remain unsatisfied were these facts otherwise.
The two former arguments are, we may observe,
direct ; this third argument is indirect. I notice its
indirectness, because I cannot close without men
tioning one or two further indirect results of the
Doctrine of Retribution, when believingly under
stood and accepted.
In aU that has gone before, I have placed this
Doctrine before you as a human truth, — a Something
belonging to our own higher nature, as contrasted
with inferior, sensual, and animal natures. Retri
bution has been viewed both as a Reality, truly
Rational, truly Moral ; and as a fulfilment of that
prophecy which has written itself upon our Being.
To borrow a similitude from St. Paul, that prophecy
is like a foundation-stone bearing two inscribed Seals.
On the human side, it tells us men that we may
reasonably hope for a nobler development, a more
excellent perfection, if only we are faithful to the

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 349
law written on the table of our human hearts. On
the Divine side, it tells us, as beHevers in God, that
the Law of Retribution is a Law of Infinite Love.
It exists for the advancement of Good, the debase
ment of Evil, the triumph of Purity and of Peace.
And our own consciences acknowledge that Peace is
unattainable without the attainment of Purity.
The instant this latter thought is realized, he who
strives most earnestly after Purity will be the very
first to say, as the Prophet said, " Woe is me ! for I
am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips ; "
or to cry out, with the Apostle, "Depart from me,
for I am a sinful man, 0 Lord."
And the question at once arises, Is there anything
in the Doctrine of Retribution itself, — anything in
the code of Natural Religion immediately founded
upon it, — which can soften a difficulty confessedly
superhuman : superhuman, and altogether imprac
ticable to Man ? For, who can bring a clean thing
out of an Unclean ?
The thinker who would completely answer this
whole question from the resources of his Reason,
may soon read in his own Soul the truth of the
Poet's words : —
" I falter where I firmly trod,
And, falling with my weight of cares
Upon the great world's altar-stairs
That slope thro' darkness up to God,
" I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of All,
And faintly trust the larger hope."

350 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
But the Doctrine of Retribution itself, viewed as
we have viewed it, points us firmly and freely to the
"larger Hope." Yet could there not possibly exist
some means for purifying the impure, — could there be
nothing to bestow true Heart's Ease upon the fore
boding spirit, a Hving Amaranth on frail and mortal
creatures, — then surely the Law of Retribution must
cease to be a Law of Purity and of Love. No human
soul could find, or even reasonably seek, Moral
Freedom, Perfection, Peace. The Present would
remain what it is — a struggle. The Future never
could become what we have hoped — a Repose.
The more truthful answer is this. As, in the
world of mechanical Nature, fixed and determinate,
there subsists a world of Moral Nature, aspiring,.
capable of reformation, and self - formation : as,
amidst the sphere of things insensate, or simply
instinctive — the low and the limited — there exists a
Being upon whom are inscribed certain lineaments
of the Infinite ; so that, by virtue of his existence,
the purely Natural carries within itself the Supra-
Natural : precisely in the same manner does there
dwell within Natural Rehgion the moving life-power
of supernatural Belief. The Law of Retribution,
revealed in us, anticipates a Spiritual Law bringing
Freedom from a Sphere by nature above us — a
Spiritual Law, endowed with such Divine Life as
can make us Spiritually free.
The guidance given by the Law of Retribution
conducts us to a still higher eminence of foresight.
Hence we may see distantly — but distinctly — some

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 351
characteristics of that Spiritual Law which is our
reasonable expectation. We are sure, for instance,
that Peace never can come down to Man, severed
from her companion and safeguard — Purity. For
erring creatures, this necessity implies the essential
condition of Repentance — a real change in life and
disposition. As a rule of Retributive Justice, this
same necessity enforces the establishment of a
Moral Test, supreme over all Men. " By their fruits
ye shaU know them." It prescribes, also, that every
given mode of religious Purification shall contain a
moral element. The consequence, therefore, of ap
proaching the Spiritual sphere by the path we have
tried to travel, is that every step of our pUgrimage
has exercised a chastening effect upon our Hope.
We have become disposed to accept certain kinds of
Belief ; we have become indisposed for faith in other
imaginable aids and incentives.
The Doctrine of Retribution disposes us to believe
in whatever raises Man up towards the Ideal of a
perfectly pure Moral Life, — in other words, towards
the Divine. It indisposes us to rest in a lower Ideal :
such, for example, as the Pagan Ideal — that of a
sovereign Humanity, howsoever deified. If we ap
prehend a need of some mediating Personality, be
tween beings such as we are and the Infinite, the
Mediator Natural Religion suggests, is not one of
our weak selves glorified, but a Son of Glory descend
ing to share our sorrows. Not a Man-God, but a
God- Man. Similarly, it disposes us to seek for
truth in thoughts and words which are true for us-,

352 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
yet transcend our world — for observances in a manner
of worship penetrating our spirits in order to exalt
them. It indisposes to accept, as safe utterances, the
decrees of any alleged human infallibility ; or to seek
for peace in either bodily or mental unrest: both
which are the common effects of superstitious terror.
And we dissever Superstition from real Religion,
through its inaptness to harmonize with the Moral
Law given us. By no such superstitious exercises,
but by Godliness, we hold the promise of a true Life
now, and of the Life which is to come.
These Lectures have been addressed in the first
place to the Young. I have asked you to try and
realize things far off, — high above your present life,
as the Heavens are high above the earth. Let me
invite you, in conclusion, to a less arduous task.
Imagine to yourselves a picture, not in Eternity,
but in Time. There comes a passing scene, the like
of which you have aU beheld, — a scene and period
inevitable, when you wUl feel that Death, which now
may come soon to any here, must — aye, must —
(that is the point) come very soon to each of you.
With this scene in mind — with the figure of Death
approaching in its background — contemplate the
description given by Plato of a calm, because a
Morally truthful, old age. See how it stands con
trasted with the old age of a Brute. Man's age is,
we know, a time of spiritual advancement often,
and therefore of gain : the other is, at its very best,
a time of animal tranquility and decay. Plato's
good old man endeavours to do all the Justice he

Lect. viii.] Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 353
has omitted towards his fellow-men, and to pro
pitiate, according to his lights, the powers he deems
divine. You, when old age creeps over you, will more
truly know how to love your neighbours as your
selves, — the amends you ought to make, — the cares
you ought to bestow. Your knowledge, too, wiU
regard a kind of Propitiation very different from the
blood of BuHs and of Goats. You will understand
how a Law of Sacrifice can give birth, within your
Souls, to a Law of never-ceasing, all-sanctifying,
Prayer and Praise. Think, then, that it wUl be
yours to crown your lives, even as Man ought, to
crown the world in which he lives, by Creation's
sweetest, holiest incense — the worship of Him Who
is a Spirit, in spirit and in truth.
Yet, who amongst us has never felt apprehensive
concerning Life's closing scene ? Who does not
sometimes repeat in his heart, —
" Be near me when my Light is low " ?
Whilst the great and good Richard Hooker lay in
his mortal sickness, he said, " I have lived to see tins
world is made up of perturbations, and I have been
long preparing to leave it, and gathering comfort for
the dreadful hour of making my account with God,
which I now apprehend to be near." This is the
true Christian attitude of Faith, amongst dying men.
For when we quit this world, it is not to melt into
the infinite Past, but to live in an infinite Future.
And, thus far, every Theist and every Christian
preacher are agreed. Each tells the same truth in
23 )

354 The Doctrine of Retribution. [Lect. viii.
his own form of speech. All strive to enforce the
same lesson of anticipation : —
" Courage, we say, and point you toward the Land."
The . calm land where, if you have attained purity
in this stormy and struggling life, you will, on that
everlasting shore, find Peace.
The final lesson to young men is, therefore, the
old — old exhortation, — "Remember now thy Creator,
in the days of thy youth."
Other conclusions and inferences have been stated
at the various landing-places of our progress. But
there is one which cannot be omitted in the Church
of a great University.
Whatever changes may characterize our nineteenth
century, one serious event, at least, seems certain.
To borrow the idea of a distinguished Foreigner,*
European opinion appears gradually dividing between
the sceptic and the bigot— the spirit that governs
Rome and the spirit which animated Voltaire. And
this tendency to violent extremes seems Hkely to
bring about the religious crisis of the coming age.
Now, one special aim I have kept before me, is
to show that Reason, — Practical Reason, — the
Reason which brings to Man his first principles of
Morality, neither tends towards, nor sanctions, the
one extreme or the other. None here present will
say that the Gospel permits either ; nor, again, that
either can possibly flow from reasonable political
maxims, or a regard to the good of Mankind.
* Signor Villari.

Lect. viii.j Absolute Truth and the Solemn Hereafter. 355
Yet, the conflict seems inevitable. Let every man
gird on — if not his weapons, at least his defensive
armour ; so that he may not fail in the fight ! What
I myself, and those who think with me, believe to be
the best and safest equipment, has been described
with sufficient exactness. But, to all that has been
said, suffer me to add one word of caution. Let no
thinker place his trust in that shadowy Idol of our
day — Public Opinion ! For, if the Hving Heart of a
true man has Insight, Opinion is its faithful mouth
piece ; and out of the abundance of that Heart the
tongue of Opinion speaketh. But how if the Man be
not true, and his heart be devoid of insight ? Even
so is it with the hearts and tongues, of whole Peoples.
Or, again, if we liken Public Opinion to the glass
in which a Nation beholds its face, we must needs
ask, — What is the inner principle which gives to
those features expression, character, Soul ? Take
care that the name by which you call it shall, at
least, signify a transcendent Something : a Principle
of Ltfe which must remain, although provinces and
empires change, — when the Globe we now inhabit
becomes a sUent waste, — nay, when Suns and starry
Systems decline and disappear.

THE END.

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