"What is that?" said Harrington.
"He would have cut short a good deal of banter by at once turning the tables upon his ironical tormentor; acknowledging his impotence, and making him give the required definition. Come, let me take that course."
"I have no objection, my friend, if you will first, as you say, acknowledge your impotence; only I would not advise you, for in that case you would be obliged to confess that you have resolved with me that a miracle is impossible, and yet that you are not quite sure that you can tell, or rather own that you cannot, what a miracle is. Let me entreat you to essay some definition; and if you break down, I have no objection to take my chance of the honor of success or the ignominy of failure."
"The fact is," answered Fellowes, "that, like many other things, it is better understood—"
"Than described, as the novelists say, when they feel that their powers of description fail them. But this will hardly do for us; we are philosophers, you know (save the mark!) in search of truth.—A thing that is well known by every body, and is capable of being described by nobody, would be almost a miracle of itself; and I think it imports us to give some better account of the matter. I can see that my orthodox uncle there is already secretly amusing himself at the anticipation of our perplexities."
I took no notice of the remark, but went on writing.
"Well, then, if I must give you some definition," said Fellowes, "I know not if I can do better than avail myself of the usual one, that it is a suspension or violation of a law of nature. Is not that the account which Hume gives of the matter?"
"I think it is. I am afraid, however, that at the very outset we should have some difficulty in determining one of the phrases used in this very definition,—namely, how we are to understand a law of nature. I do not ask whether law implies a lawgiver; you will assert it, and I shall not gainsay it: it is at present immaterial. But do you not mean by a law of nature (I am asking the question merely to ascertain whether or not we are thinking of the same thing) just this;—the fact that similar phenomena uniformly reappear in an observed series of antecedents and consequents, which series is invariable so far as we know, and so far as others know, whose experience we can test? Is not that what you mean? You do not, I presume, suppose you know any thing of the connection which binds together causes and effects, or the manner in which the secret bond (if there be any) which unites antecedents and consequents, in any natural phenomena, is maintained?"
"I certainly make no such pretensions; all that I mean by a law of nature is just what you have mentioned. I shall be well content to adhere to your explanation," answered Fellowes.
"So that when we observe similar phenomena reproduced in the aforesaid series of antecedents and consequents, we call that a law of nature, and affirm that violation of that law would be a miracle, and impossible?"
"Certainly."
"And further, do you not agree with me that such invariable series is sufficiently certified to us by our own uniform experience,—that of all our neighbors and friends,—and, in a word, that of all whose experience we can test?"
"I agree with you."
"I am content," replied Harrington; "but at the outset it seems to me that the expression I have used requires a little expansion to meet the sophistry of our opponents. I will either explain myself now, and then leave you to judge; or I will say no more of the matter here, but pursue our discussion, and let the difficulty (if there be one) disclose itself in the course of it, and be provided for as may be in our power."
"What is it?"
"It is this;—that it cannot, with truth, be said, in relation to many phenomena, that (so far as our experience informs us) they do follow each other in an absolutely invariable order; which phenomena, nevertheless, we believe to be as much under the dominion of law as the rest; and any violation of this law, I presume, you would think as much a miracle as any other. For example, we do not find the same remedies or the same regimen will produce the same effects upon different individuals at different times; again, the varieties of the weather, in every climate, are dependent upon so many causes, that it transcends all human skill to calculate them. Yet I dare say you can easily imagine certain degrees and continuity of change in these variable phenomena which you would not hesitate to call as much miracle as if the dead were raised, or the sun stayed in mid-heaven."
"Yes, unquestionably," replied Fellowes; "if I found, for instance that a dozen men could take an ounce of arsenic or half a pound of opium with impunity, I should not hesitate to regard it as a miracle, although the precise amount sufficient to kill in any particular case might not be capable of being ascertained. In the same manner, if I found that though the amount of heat and cold in summer and winter in our climate is subject to marked variations, yet that suddenly for several consecutive years we had more frost in July than in December; that gooseberries and currants were getting ripe on Christmas day, and men were skating on the Serpentine on the 10th of August, I should certainly argue that a change tantamount to a miracle had been wrought in nature."
"You have just expressed my own feelings on that point," said Harrington; "and it was this very consideration which made me say, that, in order to render my expression perfectly clear, and to obviate misconception and misrepresentation, we must endeavor to include this very frequent case of a certain limited variation from the order of nature as consistent with the absence of miracle, and a certain degree of that variation as inconsistent with it."
"Will you just state our criterion once more, with the limitation attached; and then I shall know better whether we are certainly agreed in the criterion we ought to employ?"
"I say, then," resumed Harrington, "that our uniform experience, that of our friends and neighbors, and of all whose experience we have the opportunity of testing, as to the order of nature,—meaning by that either an order absolutely invariable, or varying only limits which are themselves absolutely invariable,—justifies us in pronouncing an event contradicting such experience to be all impossibility. If the principle is worth any thing, let us embrace it, and inflexibly apply it."
"And I, for one," replied Fellowes, "am quite satisfied with the principle and the limitations you have laid down; and am so confident of its correctness, that I do not hesitate to say that all the miraculous histories on record are to be summarily rejected."
"For example," said Harrington, "we have seen the sun rise every morning and set every evening all our lives; and every one whose experience we can test has seen the same. Every man who has come into the world has come into it but one way, and has as certainly gone out of it, and has not returned; and every one whose experience we can test affirms the same. We therefore conclude on this uniform and invariable experience, that the same sequences took place yesterday and the day before, and will take place tomorrow and the day after; and we may fearlessly apply this principle both to the past and the future. I know of no other reason for rejecting a miracle; and if I am to apply the principle at all to phenomena which have not fallen under my own observation, I must apply it without restriction."
"I am quite of your mind."
"You think, with me, that our experience,—the experience of those about us,—the experience of all whose experience we have the means of testing,—is sufficient to settle the question as to the experience of those whose experience we have not the means of testing; who lived, for example, a thousand years before we were born; or in a distant part of the world, where we have never been?"
"Certainly: why should we hesitate so to apply it?"
"I am sure I know not; and you see I am not unwilling so to apply it. Only I asked the question, because we must not forget that many say it is begging the question; for, as a 'miracle' has not been exerted on us to give us a vision of the past experience of man, or his present experience in any part of the world we never visited, our opponents affirm, that to say that the experience we trust to has been and is the universal experience of man, is a clear petitio principii."
"Surely," said Fellowes, "it may be said that the general experience of mankind has been of such a character."
"Exactly so, as a postulate from our experience, as a generalized assumption that our experience may be taken as a specimen and criterion of all experience. We assume that,—we do not prove it. It is just as in any other case of induction; we say, 'Because this is true in twenty or thirty or a hundred instances (as the case may be), which we can test, —therefore it is generally or universally true'; we do not say, because this is true in these instances, and because it is also generally or universally true, therefore it is so! No; our true premise is restricted to what alone we know from our experience and the experience of all whose experience we can test if we please. This is our real ground on which we are to justify our rejection of all miracles, and let us adhere to it. As to your general experience, you see, the advocate of miracles easily gets over that. He says, 'Why, no one pretends that miracles are as "plenty as blackberries"; otherwise they would no longer be miracles; these are comparatively rare events, of course; and, being rare, are necessarily at variance with general experience'; and, for my part, I should not know how to answer the objection."
"Well, then," said Fellowes. "let us adhere to that which is our real ground of objection, and let us consistently apply it."
"With all my heart," said Harrington; "we agree then, that our own uniform experience,—that of all our neighbors and friends,—in fact, of all whose experience we can test, is a sufficient criterion of a law of nature, and justifies us in at once rejecting as possible any alleged fact which violates it."
"Certainly."
"For example, if it were asserted that last year that the sun never rose on a certain day, or, rather, for twenty-four hours the rotation of the earth ceased, we should instantly reject the story, without examination of witnesses, or any such thing."
"No doubt of that."
"And just so in other cases. This, then, is our ground. You would not (if I may advise) lay much stress on the fact that there have been so many stories of a supernatural kind false."
"Why, I do not know whether it would not be wise to insist upon that argument. It seems to be not without weight," urged Fellowes.
"Perhaps so," replied Harrington; "but it has, you see, this inconvenience, of proving more than you want. The greater part by far of all religions have been false. But you affirm that there is one little system absolutely true. The greater part of the theories of science and philosophy, which men, from time to time, have framed, have also been false; and yet you believe that there is such a thing as true philosophy and true science. Similarly, the generality of political governments have been founded on vicious principles, yet you hope for a political millennium at last. In short, the argument would go to prove, that, as there can never have been any true miracles because there have been so many false ones, so, for similar reasons, it is mere 'vanity and vexation of spirit' to search after truth in religion, or science, or politics; and though a sceptic, like myself, might not much mind it, perhaps it would trammel such a positive philosopher as you. Nay, a pertinacious opponent might even say, that, as you believe that in all these last cases there is a substance, else there would not have been the shadows, so, with reference to miracles, the very general belief of them rather argues that there have been miracles, than that there have been none. My advice is, that we adhere to these reasons we have assigned, for they are our real reasons."
"Be it so; I hate miracles so much, that I care not by what means the doltish delusion is dissipated."
"Only that the weapons should be fair?"
"O, of course."
"To resume, then. I say, that, if we were told that last year an event of such a miraculous nature occurred as that the earth did not revolve for twenty-four hours together, we should at once reject it, without any examination of witnesses, or troubling ourselves with any thing of the kind."
"Unquestionably."
"And if it were said to have occurred twenty years ago we should take the same course."
"Certainly."
"And so if any such event were said to have occurred eighteen hundred years ago?"
"Agreed."
"And if such events were said at that day to have occurred eighteen hundred years previously, we believe, of course, the men of that time would have been equally entitled to reason in the same way about them as ourselves; and, in short, that we may fearlessly apply the same principle to the same epoch."
"Of course"
"And so for two thousand years before that; and, in fact, we must believe that every thing has always been going on in the same manner, —the sun always rising and setting, men dying and never rising and so forth."
"Exactly so, even from the beginning of the creation," said Fellowes.
"The beginning of the creation! My good fellow, I do not understand you. As we have been going back, we have seen that there is no period at which the same principle of judgment will not apply, and, following it fearlessly, I say that we are in all fairness bound to believe that there never has been a period when the present order has been different from what it is; in other words, that the progression has been an eternal one."
"I cannot admit that argument," said Fellowes.
"Then be pleased to provide me with a good answer to it, which will still leave us at liberty to say, that a miracle (that is, a variation from the order of nature as determined by our uniform experience, and by that of the whole circle of our contemporaries) is impossible, and that we may reject at once any pretension of the kind."
"But I do not admit that the creation of any thing or of all things is of the nature of a miracle."
Harrington smiled. "I am afraid," said he, "that to common sense, to fair reasoning, to any philosopher worthy of the name there would be no difference except in magnitude, between such an event as the sudden appearance of an animal (say man) for the first time in our world, or the first appearance of a tree (such a thing never having been before), and the restoration to life of a dead man. Each is, to all intents and purposes, a violation of the previous established series of antecedents and consequents, and comes strictly within the limits of our definition of a miracle; and a miracle, you know is impossible. The only difference will be, that the miracle in the one case will be greater and more astonishing than that in the other."
"But it is impossible, in the face of geologists, to contend that there have not been many such revolutions in the history of the world as these. Man himself is of comparatively recent introduction into our system."
"I cannot help what the geologists affirm. If we are to abide by our principle, we have no warrant to believe that there have been any such violations, or infractions, or revolutions of nature's laws in the world's history. If they contend for the interpolation of events in the history of the universe, which, by our criterion, are of the nature of miracles, and we are convinced that miracles are impossible, we must reject the conclusions of geologists."
"But may we not say, that the great epochs in the history of the universe are themselves but the manifestation of law?"
"In no other sense, I think, than the advocate of miracles is entitled to say that the intercalation of miracles in the world's history is also according to law,—parts, though minute parts, of a universal plan, and permitted for reasons worthy of the Creator. To both, or neither, is the same answer open. Your objection is, I think, a mere sophistical evasion of the difficulty. There is no difference whatever in the nature of the events, except that the variation from the 'established series of sequences' is infinitely greater in those portentous revolutions of the universe to which the geologist points your attention. The application of our principle (as you affirm with me) will justify us in at once pronouncing any variation from the 'established series' whether occurring yesterday, a year ago, a thousand years ago, or a million of years ago, incredible; it will, in the same manner, justify the men of any age in saying the same of all previous ages; and I, therefore, while contending for your principle with you, carry it consistently out, and affirm that the series of antecedents and consequents (as we now find it) must be regarded as eternal, because creation would do what a miracle is supposed to do, and a miracle, you know, is impossible. You are silent."
"I am not able to retract acquiescence in the principle, and I am as little inclined to concede the conclusions you would draw from it."
"As you please; only, in the latter case, provide me with an answer. If you saw now introduced on the earth for the first time a being as unlike than as man is unlike the other animals,—say with seven senses, wings on his shoulders, a pair of eyes behind his head as well as in front of it, and the tail of a peacock, by way of finishing him off handsomely,—would you not call such a phenomenon a miracle?"
"I think I should," said Fellowes, laughing.
"And if the creature died, leaving no issue, would you continue to call it so?"
"Yes."
"But if you found that he was the head of a race, as man was, and a whole nation of such monsters springing from him, then would you say that this wonderful intrusion into the sphere of our experience was no miracle, but that it was merely according to law?"
"I should."
"Verily, my dear friend, I am afraid the world will laugh at us for making such fantastical distinctions. This infraction of 'established sequences' ceases to be miraculous, if the wonder is perpetuated and sufficiently multiplied! Meantime, what becomes of the prodigy during the time in which it is uncertain whether any thing will come of it or not? You will say, I suppose, (the interpolation in the 'series' of phenomena being just what I have supposed,) that it is uncertain whether it is to be regarded as miraculous or not, till we know whether it is to be repealed or not."
"I think I must, if I adhere to the principle I am now defending."
"Very well; only in the mean time you are in the ludicrous position of facing a phenomenon of which you do not know whether you will call it a miracle or not,—the contingency, meantime, on which it is to be decided, not at all, as I contend, affecting the matter; since you allow that it is the infraction of the previously established order of sequences, as known to uniform experience, which constitutes a miracle! If so, I must maintain that the creation of man was, for the same reasons, of the essence of a miracle. You seem to think there is no objection to the admission of miracles, provided they are astounding and numerous enough; or provided they are a long time about, instead of being instantaneously wrought. I must remind you, that to the principle of our argument these things are quite immaterial. Whether the revolution by which the established order of sequences is absolutely infringed,—the face of the universe or of our globe transformed, or an entirely new race (as, for example, man) originated,—I say, whether such change be produced slowly or quickly is of no consequence in the world to our argument. It is whether or not a series of phenomena be produced as absolutely transcending the sphere of all experience, as those events we admit to be impossible, called 'miracles.' That the introduction of man upon the earth for the first time (for you will not allow his race eternal), or the origination of a sun, is not at all to be reckoned as transcending that experience, I cannot understand. Nor can I understand it a bit better by your saying that it, is in conformity with the vague something you are pleased to call a law. It is a safe phrase, however; for as neither you nor any one else can interpret it, no one can refute you. This law is a most convenient thing! It repeals, it appears to me, all other laws,—even those of logic. Perhaps would be better to say that miracles are no miracles when they are 'lawful' miracles. No! let us keep our principle intact from all such dangerous admissions as these. In that way only are we safe."
"Safe do you call it? I see not how, if we carry out this principle in the way and to the extent you propose, we can reply to the atheist or to the pantheist, who tells us that the universe is but an eternal evolution of phenomena in one infinite series, or in an eternal recurrence of finite cycles."
"And what is that to you or me? How can we help our principle (if we are to hold it at all) leading to some such conclusion? We are, I presume, anxious to know the truth. You see that Strauss, who is the most strenuous assertor of the impossibility of miracles, is also a pantheist. I know not whether you may not become one yourself."
"Never," said Fellowes, vehemently; "never, I trust, shall I yield to that 'desolating pantheism' (as worthy Mr. Newman calls it) which is now so rife."
"I think Mr. Newman's principles ought to guide you thither. You seem to hold fast by his skirts at present; but I very much doubt whether you have yet reached the termination of your career. You have, you must admit, made advances quite as extraordinary before.
"We shall see.—But I suppose you have reached the end of the objections which your wayward scepticism suggests against a conclusion which we both admit; or have you any more?"
"O, plenty; and amongst the rest, I am afraid we must admit—whether we admit or not your expedient of law—a miracle, or something indistinguishable from it, as involved in the creation and preservation of the first man,—since you will have a first man."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, that supposing the creation of man to be no miracle, because he entered by law; or that that first fact (which would otherwise be miraculous) is not such, simply because it is the first of a series of such facts,—I should like to see whether we have not even then to deal with a miracle, or a fact as absolutely unique; and which was not connected with any series of similar facts."
"I think you would find it very hard to prove it."
"Nous verrons. I am sure we shall not disagree as to the fact that man, however he came into the world, sooner or later, by ordinary or extraordinary methods, by some lawful wedlock of nature, or by some miracle which is not 'lawful,' is endowed by nature with various faculties and susceptibilities."
"Certainly," said Fellowes, laughing; "if you demand my assent to nothing more than that, I shall easily admit your premises and deny your conclusion."
"You will also admit, I think, that the process by which man comes to the use of these faculties, and powers, and so forth, is very gradual?"
"Assuredly."
"And will you not also admit that the development and command of these is something very different from the, potentialities themselves, as my uncle here would call them?—that, for example, we have the faculty of vision; but that the art of seeing involves a slow laborious process, acquired not without the concurrent exercise of other senses: and that the apparatus for walking is perfect even in an infant; but that the art of walking is, in fact, a wonderful acquisition: further, that the command given us by these faculties, as actually exercised, is immensely greater than would be conferred by each alone. In one word, you will allow that man, when he comes to the use of his faculties, is, as has been well said, a bundle of habits, or, as Burke puts it, is a creature who, to a great extent, has the making of himself."
"I am much at my ease," said Fellowes; "I shall not dispute any of these premises either."
"And will you not also admit that, as man comes into the world now, a long time is required for this development; and that during that time he is absolutely dependent on the care of those who have already in their turn required similar care?"
"Seeing that we have had fathers and mothers,—as I suppose our grandfathers and grandmothers also had,—there can be as little doubt of this as of the preceding points," said Fellowes, rather condescendingly.
"And that many of the functions which thus task their care are necessary for our existence, and for any chance of our being able to develop into men."
"I think so, of course."
"So that, if an infant were exposed on a mountain-side or forest, you would have no doubt he would perish (unless it pleased some kind-hearted wolf to suckle him) before he could come to the use of his faculties, and develop them by exercise."
"I think," said the other, "your premises perfectly innocent; I shall not contest them."
"A little further." said Harrington, "we may go together; and then, if I mistake not, you will pause before you go one step further. This, then, is the normal condition of humanity?"
"Yes."
"Do you think the first man was like us in these respects?"
"I cannot tell."
"I dare engage you cannot,—it is a very natural answer. But he either was, I suppose, or was not. That, I think, you will grant me." He assented, though rather reluctantly.
"Pray please yourself," said Harrington; "for it is quite immaterial to me which alternative you take. If man was in our condition, then, though the 'lawful miracle' by which he was brought into the world might have made him a baby of six feet high, he would have been no more than a baby still. All that was to constitute him a man,—all those habits by which alone his existence was capable of being preserved,—and without which he must have perished immediately after his creation, in which case you and I should have been spared the necessity of all this discussion on the subject, would have to be learned; and his existence during that time—and a long time it must have been, having no teachers and aids, as we have—must have been preserved by a—miracle. If he were taught by the Creator himself, then we have the miracle in that direction. If he were not brought into the world under the same conditions of development as we are, but with habits ready made,—if, indeed, that be not a contradiction, —then we have a miracle in that direction; if he had his faculties preternaturally quickened and expanded, so as to acquire instantaneously, or possess by instinct, what we acquire by a long and slow process, and not for many years,—then we have a miracle in that direction. If you do not like these suppositions, I see but one other; and that is that; being a baby,—though, as I said, a baby six feet high,—he had an angel nurse sent down expressly to attend him, and to push or wheel him about the walls of paradise in a celestial go-cart. But then I think that in this last particular we shall hardly say that we have got rid of a miracle, though it would doubtless be a miracle of a very ludicrous kind. If you can imagine any other supposition, I shall be glad to hear it."
"I acknowledge I can form no supposition on the subject."
"Only remember that, if you could, the theory would still suppose man's actual preservation and development effected under totally different conditions from those which have formed the uniform experience of all his posterity; and so far from any subterfuge of a law stepping in, it is a single expedient provided for our first parent alone."
"I do not think we are at all in a condition to consider any such case, about which we cannot know any thing," replied Fellowes.
"Neither do I; but pardon me,—the question I asked does not depend upon any such knowledge; it is a question which is wholly independent whether of our ignorance or our knowledge. Granting, as you do, that man was created, but that it was no miracle, nor any thing analogous to one (as you say), still either he was created subject to our conditions of development and preservation, or he was not; if he was not, then I fear we have in form the miracle we wish to evade; if he was, then I fear also that there are but the three imaginable modes of obviating the difficulty which I have so liberally provided; and supposing there were a thousand. I fear still that they all involve a departure from the 'uniform course of Nature.'"
"But I do not see," replied Fellowes, "that it is absolutely necessary, supposing that the first man was thrown upon the green of paradise."
"Or in a forest, or on a moor," said Harrington, "for you know nothing of paradise."
"Well, then, in a forest, or on a moor;—I say if man were cast out there, the same helpless being which all his posterity are,—unfortified, as the lower animals are, by feathers or hair, or by instincts equal to theirs,—who can affirm that it was beyond the possibilities of his nature, that he might survive this cruel experiment? crawl, perhaps, for an indefinite period on all fours, live on berries, and at last—by very slow degrees doubtless, but still at last—emerge into—-"
"The dignity of a savage," cried Harrington, "as the first step towards something better,—his Creator having beneficently created him something infinitely worse! Surely, you must be returning to a savage yourself, even to hint at such a pedigree. But I have done: till those cases of which certain philosophers have said so much have been authenticated; till you can produce an instance of a new-born babe, exposed on a mountain-side, in all the helplessness of his natal hour, and self-preserved,—nay, two of them,—for you must at least have a pair of these 'babes in the wood'; and till, moreover, it can be shown that they would have survived this experiment so as to preserve the characteristics of humanity a little better than the 'wild boy of Germany,' and were fit to be the heads of the human family,—I shall at times be strangely tempted to embrace any theory as infinitely more probable. I cannot think it was in this way that our first parents made their entree into the world. I hope not, for the credit of the Creator, as well as for the happiness of his offspring. Of the moral bearings of such a brutal theory, I say nothing; but if it can be true, all I can say is, that I am glad that you and I, my dear Fellowes, are not the immediate children but so fortunate as to be only the great-great —great-great-grandchildren of God! You have well called it a 'cruel experiment'; according to this, the first Father of all thrust forth his children into the world to be for an indefinite time worse than the beasts, who were carefully provided against miserable man's inconveniences! Certainly, I think you may alter the account of man's creation given in Genesis, to great advantage. Instead of God's saying, 'Let us create man in our image, he must be supposed to have said, 'Let us create man in the image of a BEAST: and in the image of a BEAST created he him, male and female created he them'; and very imperfect beasts they must have been, after all. This is that old savage theory which I had supposed was pretty well abandoned. If the necessity of denying miracles imposes any necessity of believing that, I fear that I shall sooner be got to believe a thousand."
"Well," said Fellowes, who seemed ashamed of this theory, but knew not how to abandon it; "I cannot believe there have been any miracles, and, what is more, I will not."
"That is perhaps the best reason you have given yet," said Harrington. "The Will is indeed your only irresistible logician. You are one degree, at all events, better off than I, for I can hardly say either that I believe, or that I do not believe, in miracles."
"And yet," continued Harrington, after a pause, "two or three other strange consequences seem to follow from that seemingly undeniable principle on which we base the conclusion that there neither has been nor can be any such thing as a miracle: in other words, a departure from the established series of sequences which, as tested by our own experience and by that of other men, we are convinced is stable. Will you see with me whether there is any fair mode of escaping from them? I should be very glad if I could do so."
"What are they?"
"Why, first, I am afraid it must be said, that we must entirely justify a man in the condition of the Eastern prince mentioned by Hume, who could not be induced to believe that there was such a thing as ice. I am afraid that he was quite in the right; and yet we know that in fact he was wrong."
"You are not, then, satisfied with Hume's own solution?"
"So far from it, that I cannot see, upon the principles on which we refuse to believe miracles, that it is even intelligible. We agree, do we not, that, from the experience we have (and, so far as we can ascertain, from every body else's) of the uniform course of events, of the established order of sequences, we are to reject any assertion of a violation of those sequences; as, for example, of a man's coming into the world in any preternatural manner, or, when he has once gone out of it, coming into it again; and that we are entitled to do this without any examination of the witnesses to any such fact, merely on the strength of the principles aforesaid?"
"I admit that we have agreed to this."
"Now was not the assertion that in a certain quarter of the world water became solid as stone, could be cut into pieces, and be put into one's pockets, contrary, in a similar manner, to all the phenomena which the said prince had witnessed, and also to the uniform experience of all about him from his earliest years?"
"It certainly was."
"He was right, then, in rejecting the fact; that is, he was right in rejecting the possibility of such an occurrence," said Harrington.
"But did we not ourselves say, with Hume, that, as we see that there is not an absolute uniformity in the phenomena of nature, but that they are varied within certain limits in different climates and countries, so it does not become us to say that a phenomenon, though somewhat variable, is a violation of the usual order of sequences?"
"We did; but we also agreed, I think, that those variations were to be within invariable limits, as tested by the whole of our experience; we did not include within those variations what is diametrically contrary (as in the present case) to all our own experience and that of every body about us. If it is to extend to such variations, what do we say but this,—that the order of nature is uniform and invariable, except where—it is the reverse? and, as it seems it sometimes is so, see what comes of the admission. A man asserts the reality of a miracle which you reject at once as simply impossible, as contrary to your experience and that of every one whose experience you can test. It will be easy for him to say, and upon Hume's evasion he will say, that it was performed, for aught you know, under conditions so totally different from those which ordinarily obtain in relation to the same order of events, that you are no adequate judge as to whether it was possible or not. He acknowledges that a miracle is a very rare occurrence; that it is performed for special ends; is strictly limited to time and place, like those phenomena the Indian prince was asked to believe; and that your experience cannot embrace it, nor is warranted in pronouncing upon it. I really fear that, if our incredulous prince is to be condemned, our principle will be ruined. I am anxious for his safe deliverance, I assure you."
"Still I cannot see that we can deny that phenomena may be manifested, in virtue of the laws of nature, totally different from those which we have ever seen or heard of."
"What! so different that the phenomena in question shall be a total departure from that order of nature of which alone we and all about us are cognizant; in fact, all but the one man, who tells us the strange thing, we being at the same time totally incapable of testing his experience?"
"Yes," said Fellowes; "I must grant it."
"I see," said Harrington, "you are bent on the destruction of our criterion. Do you not perceive that, if our experience and that of the immense majority, or of all about us, be not a sufficient criterion of the laws of nature, our argument falls to the ground? 'Your principle,' our adversaries will say, 'is a fallacious one; Nature has her laws, no doubt, which apply to miracles as to every other phenomenon; but in assuming your experience to be a sufficient criterion of these laws, you have been, not interpreting her laws, but imposing upon her your own.' If unknown powers of nature may thus reverse our experience and the experience of all those whose experience, under the given conditions, we have opportunities of testing, we ought to abstain from saying that some unknown powers may not also have wrought miracles. Let us then affirm consistently the sufficiency of our criterion; and the prince aforesaid must do the same; and it warranted him, I say, in believing that there neither was nor could be such a thing as ice."
"But this seems ridiculous," said Fellowes; "for according to this, different and opposite experiences may, in different places give different or opposite measures of the laws of nature; which nevertheless are supposed to be invariably the same, or invariably the limits certified by that experience."
"I cannot help it; upon that same experience we must believe it true that there are no miracles, and our unbelieving prince, that there could be no such thing as ice; for to him it was a miracle. If we do not reason thus, may we not be compelled to admit that our uniform experience, with its limited variations, is no rule at all, and that there are cases for which it makes no provision? and may not the advocate for miracles say that miracles are amongst them? No, let us adhere to our principle, and adhering to it, I wish to know whether the prince in question was not quite right in saying that there neither was nor could be such a thing as ice; for the assertion that there was, was contrary to all his experience and to that of every soul about him."
"I must say, that, if we look only to the principle of this uniform experience, he was right."
"But he rejected the truth."
"He certainly did."
"And he was right in rejecting the truth?"
"Certainly, upon your principle."
"Upon my principle! Do not say upon my principle, unless you mean to deny that you too embrace it; if you give up that principle, you lay yourself open at once to the retort that your position is insecure; that you have taken your experience as a sufficient criterion of the possibilities of events, when it is in fact merely a measure of such as have fallen under your own observation."
"Perhaps," said Fellowes, "I should say that the prince in question was justified at first in rejecting the fact, but that when he found other men, whose veracity he could not suspect, coming from the same regions of the world, and affirming the same phenomenon, it was his business to correct his experience, and to admit that the fact was so."
"I am surprised to hear you say so; you are again ruining our principle. Do you admit that the assertion that there was a place on earth at which water in large quantities became solid, was apparently as great a violation of all the experience of this man, as what is ordinarily called a miracle is of ours?"
"I cannot deny that it was so."
"But yet you think, that, though justified in disbelieving it at first, he would not be so when others, whose veracity and motives he had no reason to suspect, told him the same tale?"
"Yes."
"Why, then, is not this plainly to make a belief of such events depend upon testimony, and do we not give up altogether our sufficient principle of rejection of all such testimony? You are yielding, without doubt, the principle of our opponents, who affirm that there is no event so improbable that a certain combination of testimony would not be sufficient to warrant your reception of it; because, as they say, that testimony might be given under such circumstances,—so variously certified, and so above suspicion,—that it would be more improbable that the statement to which it applied (however strange) should be false, than that the testimony should not be true; in other words, that the falsehood of the testimony would be the greater miracle of the two. And they say this, because (as they assert) the uniform experience on which we found our objection to any miraculous narrative is no less applicable to the world of mind than to the world of matter; that there is not indeed an absolute uniformity of experience in the former, as neither is there in the latter; but neither in one nor in the other is there any absolute bouleversement of the principles and constitution of nature; which, they say, would be implied, if under all conceivable circumstances testimony might prove false. And yet now you seem to admit the very thing for which they contend; and in contending for it, you give up your case. Doing so, you certainly get rid of the paradoxical conclusions which my wretched scepticism sometimes suggests to me, as throwing a doubt on the integrity of our principle. I say your admission gets rid of it; but then it is with the ruin of the principle itself."
"What was that paradox?"
"It is this; that, if we adhere to our principle, we must deny that any amount of testimony is sufficient to warrant the belief of a miracle."
"That is what we do maintain."
"I thought so; but you seem to me to have hastily given it up. Let us then again maintain that our prince, in denying what was a miracle to him, was not only consistent in saying that it could not be, when first asserted to him, but also when last asserted; and died an orthodox infidel in the possibility of ice, or an orthodox believer in the eternal fluidity of water, whichever you prefer to consider it."
"Well, and what then?"
"Why, then, let us act upon our principle with equal consistency in other cases; for you say that there is no amount or complexity of evidence which would induce you to believe in a miracle."
"I do."
"Let us suppose it was asserted that a man known to have been dead and buried had risen again, and, after having been seen by many, had at last, in presence of a multitude, on a clear day, ascended to heaven through the calm sky, without artificial wings or balloon, or any such thing; that he was seen to pass out of sight of the gazing crowd, who watched and watched in vain for his return; and that he had never more been seen. Let us suppose that the witnesses who saw this constantly affirmed it; that amongst them were many known to you, whose veracity you had no reason to suspect, and who had no imaginable motive to deceive you; let us suppose further, that they persisted in affirming this, in spite of all contumely and contempt, insult and wrong, amidst threats of persecution, and persecution itself; lastly, let there be amongst them many, who before this event had been as strenuous assertors of the impossibility of a miracle as yourself. I want to know whether you would believe this story, thus authenticated, or not?"
"But it is, I think, unfair to put any such case; for there never was such an event so authenticated."
"It is quite sufficient to test our principle, that you can imagine such testimony. If that principle is sound, it is plain that it will apply to all imaginable degrees of testimony, as well as to all actual. No testimony, you say, can establish a miracle. This is true or not. If you admit that there are any degrees in this matter, you come at last to the old argument, which you abjure; namely, that whether a miraculous event has taken place or not depends on the degree of evidence with which it is substantiated, and that must be the result of a certain investigation of it in the particular alleged case. You remember the story of the ring of Gyges, which made the wearer invisible. Plato tells us how a man ought to act, and how a good man would act, if he had such a ring. Cicero tells us how absurd it would be to reply to his reasoning (as one did), by saying that there never was such a ring. It was not necessary to the force of the illustration that there should be such a ring. So neither is it necessary to my argument there should be such testimony as I have supposed, to enable us to see whether we are prepared to admit the truth of your principle that no evidence can establish a miracle. Once more, then, I ask you whether, on supposition of such testimony, you would reject the supposed fact or not?"
"Well, then, I should say, that, since no testimony can establish a miracle, I should reject it."
"Bravo, Fellowes! I do of all things like to see an unflinching regard to a principle, when once laid down."
"But would not you also reject it, upon the same principle?"
"Of course I should, if the principle be true; but ah! my friend, pardon me for acknowledging my infirmities; my miserable scepticism tosses me to and fro. I have not your strength of will; and I fear that the rejection in such a case would cost me many qualms and doubts. Such is the infirmity of our nature, and so much may be said on all sides! And I fear that I should be more likely to have these uneasy thoughts, inasmuch as I fancy I see a difficult dilemma (I but now referred to it), which would be proposed to us by some keen-sighted opponent,—I say not with justice,—who would endeavor to show that we had abandoned our principle in the very attempt to maintain it; that the bow from which we were about to launch so fatal an arrow at the enemy had broken in our hands, and left us defenceless."
"What dilemma do you refer to?" said Fellowes.
"I think such an adversary might perhaps say: 'That same uniform experience on which you justify the rejection of all miracles,—does it extend only to one part of nature, to the physical and material only, or to the mental and spiritual also?' In other words, if there were such things as miracles at all, might there be miracles in connection with mind as well as in connection with matter? What would you say?"
"What can I say, but what Hume himself says, so truly and so beautifully, in his essay on 'Necessary Connection,' and 'On Liberty and Necessity'; namely, that there is a uniformity in both the moral and physical world, and that nature does not transgress certain limits in either the one or the other'? You must remember that he says so?"
"I do," said Harrington. "Now, I am afraid our astute adversary would say that such a complication of false testimony as we have supposed would itself be a flagrant violation of the established series of sequences, on which, as applied to the physical world, we justify the rejection of all miracles; that we have got rid of a miracle by admitting a miracle; and that our uniform experience has broken down with us."
"But again I say, there never was such a case of testimony," urged Fellowes.
"I wish this could help us; but it plainly will not; because we have concluded that, if there were such testimony, we must believe it false, and therefore should admit that the miracle of its falsehood was, in that case, necessary to be believed; not to say that there has been, in the opinion of millions, testimony often given to miracles, which, if false, does imply that the laws of human nature must have been turned topsy-turvy,—and I, for my part, know not how to disprove it. If, in such cases, the testimony, the falsity of which would be a miracle, is not to be rejected, then we must admit that the miracle which it supports is true. I must leave it there." said Harrington, with an air of comic resignation; "I cannot answer for any thing except that you may reject both miracles alternatively, if that will be any comfort to you, without being able to disbelieve simultaneously. If you believe the testimony false, you must believe the alleged miracle false; but you will have then the moral miracle to believe. If you believe the testimony true, you will then believe the physical miracle true. Perhaps the best way will be to believe both alternately in rapid succession; and you will then hardly perceive the difficulty at all!"
There was here a brief pause. Harrington suddenly resumed. "These are very perplexing considerations. One thing, I confess, has often puzzled me much; and that is,—what should we do, in what state of mind should we be, if we did see a miracle?"
"Of what use is the discussion of such a particular case, when you know it is impossible that we should ever see it realized?" replied Fellowes.
"Of course it is; just as it is impossible that we should ever see levers perfectly inflexible, or cords perfectly flexible. Nevertheless, it is perfectly possible to entertain such a hypothetical case, and to reason with great conclusiveness on the consequences of such a supposition; and in the same way we can imagine that we have seen a miracle; and what then?"
"Why, if we were to see one, of course seeing is believing. We must give up our principle," said Fellowes, laughing.
"Do you think so? I think we should be very foolish then. How can we be sure that we have seen it? Can it appeal to any thing stronger than senses, and have not our senses often beguiled us?" Must we not rather abide by that general induction from the evidence to which our ordinary experience points us? In other words, ought we not to adhere to the great principle we have already laid down, that a miracle is impossible?"
"But, according to this, if we err in that principle, and God were to work a miracle for the very purpose of convincing us, it would be impossible for him to attain his purpose."
"I think it would, my friend, I confess; just for the reason that, since we believe a miracle to be impossible, we must believe it impossible for even God to work one; and therefore, if we are mistaken, and it is possible for him to work one, it is still impossible that he should convince us of it."
"I really know not how to go that length."
"Why not? You acknowledge that your senses have deceived you; you know that they have deceived others; and it is on that very ground that you dispose of very many cases of supposed miracles which you are not willing, or are not able, to resolve otherwise. If I believe, then, that a miracle is impossible, I must admit that, if I err in that, it is still impossible for God himself to convince me of it."
Fellowes looked grave, but said nothing.
"And do you know," said Harrington, "I have sometimes thought that Hume, so far from representing his argument from 'Transubstantiation' fairly, (there is an obvious fallacy on the very face of it, to which I do not now allude,) is himself precisely in the condition in which he represents the believer in miracles?"
Fellowes smiled incredulously. "First, however," said he, "what is the more notorious fallacy to which you allude?"
"It is so barefaced an assumption, that I am surprised that his acuteness did not see it; or that, if he saw it, he could have descended to make a point by appearing not to see it. It has been often pointed out, and you will recollect it the moment I name it. You know he commences with the well-known argument of Tillotson against Transubstantiation and flatters himself that he sees a similar argument in relation to miracles. Now it certainly requires but a moderate degree of sagacity to see that the very point in which Tillotson's argument tells, is that very one in which Hume's is totally unlike it. Tillotson says, that when it is pretended that the bread and wine which are submitted to his own senses have been 'transubstantiated into flesh and blood,' the alleged phenomena contradict his senses; and that as the information of his senses as much comes from God as the doctrines of Scripture (and even the miracles of Scripture appeal to nothing stronger), he must believe his senses in this case in preference to the assertions of the priest. Hume then goes on quietly to take it for granted that the miracles to which consent is asked in like manner contradict the testimony of the senses of him to whom they appeal is made; whereas, in fact, the assertor of the miracles does not pretend that he who denies them has ever seen them, or had the opportunity of seeing them. To make the argument analogous, it ought to be shown that the objector, having been a spectator of the pretended miracles, when and where they were affirmed to have been wrought, had then and there the testimony of his senses that no such events had taken place. It is mere juggling with words to say that never to have seen a like event is the same argument of an event's never having occurred, as never to have seen that event when it was alleged to have taken place under our very eyes!"
"I give up the reasoning on this point," said Fellowes, "but how,I should like to know, do you retort the argument upon him?"
"Thus; you see that we maintain that a miracle is incredible per se, because impossible; not to be believed, therefore, on any evidence."
"Certainly."
"If, then, we saw what seemed a miracle, we should distrust our senses; we should say that it was most likely that they deceived us. Hear what Voltaire says in one of his letters to D'Alembert: 'Je persiste a penser que cent mille hommes qui ont vu ressusciter un mort, pourraient bien etre cent mille hommes qui auraient la berlue.' And what he says of their bad eyes, there is no doubt he would say of his own, if he had been one of the hundred thousand."
"I think so, certainly."
"And Strauss, and Hume, and Voltaire, and you and I, and all who hold a miracle impossible, would distrust our senses, and fall back upon that testimony from the general experience of others, which alone could correct our own halting and ambiguous experience."
"Certainly."
"It appears, then, my good fellow, that the position of those who deny and those who assert miracles is exactly the reverse of Hume's statement. The man who believes 'Transubstantiation' distrusts his senses, and rather believes testimony: and even so would he who has fully made up his mind, on our sublime principle as to the impossibility of miracles, when any thing which has that appearance crosses his path; he is prepared to deny his senses and to trust to testimony,—to that general experience of others which comes to him, and can come to him, only in that shape. It is we, therefore, and not our adversaries, who are liable to be reached by this unlucky illustration."
Fellowes himself seemed much amused by finding the tables thus turned. For my part, I had difficulty in repressing a chuckle over this display of sceptical candor and subtilty.
"There is perhaps another paradox which may be as well mentioned," resumed Harrington. "It is a little trying to my scepticism, but perhaps will not be to your faith. I mean this. We are constrained to believe from our 'uniform-experience' criterion that no miracle has ever occurred, or ever will; in short, it is, as we say, impossible. Now the principle which undoubtedly leads us to the conclusion we may regard as a principle of our nature, if ever there was one; that is, we are so constituted as to infer the perpetual uniformity of certain sequences of phenomena from our observation of that uniformity."
"Assuredly."
"And as all mankind obviously act upon that same principle in most cases, and we believe that it is part of the very uniformity in question that human nature is radically the same in all ages and in all countries, I think we ought to conclude that it is not you and I only, but at all events the vast majority of mankind, who have maintained the impossibility of miracles."
"We ought to be able to conclude so," said Fellowes, "but it is very far from being the case. So far from it, that nothing can be plainer than that miraculous legends have been most greedily taken up by the vast majority of mankind, and have made a very common part of almost every form of religion."
"Men do not then, it appears, in this instance, at all regard the uniform tenor of their experience; so that it is a part of our uniform experience, that mankind disregard and disbelieve the lessons of their uniform experience. This is almost a miracle of itself; at all events, a curious paradox; but one which we must not stay to examine: though I confess it leads to one other humiliating conclusion,—a little corollary, which I think it is not unimportant to mark; and that is, that we can never expect these enlightened views of ours to spread amongst the mass of mankind."
"Nay, I cannot agree with you. I hope far other wise, and far better for the human race."
"But will the result not contradict your uniform experience, if your hopes be realized? Is not your experience sufficiently long and sufficiently varied to show that the belief of miracles and all sorts of prodigies is the normal condition of mankind, and that it is only a comparatively few who can discern that uniform experience justifies man in believing that no miracle is possible? While it teaches us that a miracle is impossible does it not also teach us that, though none is possible, it is nevertheless impossible that they should not be generally believed? Is not this taught us as plainly by our uniform experience as any thing else? See how fairly Hume admits this at the commencement of his Essay on Miracles. He says, 'I flatter myself that I have discovered an argument which, if just, will, with the wise and learned, be an everlasting check to all kinds of superstitious delusion, and consequently will be useful as long as the world endures. For so long, I presume, will the accounts of miracles and prodigies be found in all histories, sacred and profane.' Thus are we led to the conclusion, that, though miracles never can be real, they will nevertheless be always believed; and that, though the truth is with us, it never can be established in the minds of men in general. And, my dear friend, let us be thankful that it never can; for if it could, that fact would have proved the possibility of miracles by contradicting one of those very deductions from uniform experience on the validity of which their impossibility is demonstrated.
"These are some of the perplexities," continued Harrington, "which, as Theaetetus says, sometimes make 'My head dizzy,' when I revolve the subject. Meantime, surely a nobler spectacle can hardly present itself than our fairly abiding by our principle, amidst so many plausible difficulties as assail it. I know no one principle in theology or philosophy which has been so battered as that of Hume. Not only Campbell, Paley, and so many more, confidently affirm errors in it,—such as his assuming individual or general experience to be universal; his quietly attributing to individual experience a belief of facts which are believed by the vast mass of mankind on testimony, and nothing else; his representing the experience of a man who says he has seen a certain event as 'contrary' to the experience of him who says he has not seen a similar one; his implying that no amount of testimony can establish a miracle, which might compel us to believe moral miracles to get rid of physical miracles; I say not only so, but the most recent investigators of the theory of evidence cruelly abandon him. The argument of Hume and Paley, says De Morgan, in his treatise on Probabilities, (Encyclopaedia Metropolitana: Theory of Probabilities, 182.) is a 'fallacy answered by fallacies,'—meaning by this last that Paley had conceded to his opponent more than he ought to have done. With similar vexatious opposition, Mr. J. S. Mill says, that, to make any alleged fact contradictory to a law of causation, 'the allegation must be that this happened in the absence of any adequate counteracting cause. Now, in the case of an alleged miracle, the assertion is the exact opposite of this.' He says, 'that all which Hume has made out is, that no evidence can prove a miracle to any one who did not previously believe the existence of a being or beings with supernatural power; or who believed himself to have full proof that the character'(System of Logic, Vol. II. pp. 186, 187.) of such being or beings is inconsistent with such an interference; that is, the argument could have no force unless either a man believed there were no God at all, or the objector happened to be something like a God himself! And now, lastly, I have shown that the predicament of Hume, and Voltaire, and Strauss, and you and myself (if consistent), is just the reverse of that in which the argument from Transubstantiation represents it. But never mind; so much more glory is due to us for abiding by our principle. I begin almost to think that I am arriving at that transcendental 'faith' which you admire so much, and which is totally independent of logic and argument, and all 'intellectual processes whatever.'"
____
July 23. I this day read to Mr. Fellowes the paper I had promised a week or two before, and which I had entitled,
It is Necessary to observe in the outset, that, even if I were to grant your proposition, "that a revelation of moral and spiritual truth is impossible,"—understanding by such "truth" what you seem to mean, the truth which "Natural Religion," as it is called, has recognized in some shape or other (for it has varied not a little),—it would leave the chief reasons for imparting an external revelation just where they were. I, at least, should never contend that the sole or even chief object of an external revelation is to impart elementary moral or spiritual truth, however possible I may deem it. On the contrary, I am fully persuaded that the great purpose for which such a revelation has been given is to communicate facts and truths many of which were quite transcendental to the human faculties; which man would never have discovered, and most of which he would never have surmised. All this your favorite Mr. Newman perceived in his earlier days clearly enough, and has recorded his sentiments held at that period in his "Phases."(p.42) If I were to grant you, therefore, your proposition, it would leave the question of an external revelation untouched; your hasty inference from it, that every book-revelation is to be rejected, is perfectly gratuitous.
But I am thoroughly persuaded that the notion of the impossibility of all external revelation of moral and spiritual truth, even of the elementary form already referred to, is a fallacy.
Whether the religious faculty in men be a simple faculty, or (as Sir James Mackintosh seemed to think might possibly be the case with conscience) a complex one, constituted by means of several different powers and principles of our nature, is a question not essential to the argument; for I frankly admit at once, with Mr. Newman and Mr. Parker, that there is such a susceptibility (simple or complex), and not a mere abortive tendency, as Harrington seems to suppose possible. Otherwise I cannot, I confess, account for the fact (so largely insisted upon by Mr. Parker) of the very general, the all but universal, adoption by man of some religion, and the power, the prodigious power, which, even when false, hideously false, it exerts over him. But then I must as frankly confess, that I can as little account for all the (not only terrible but) uniform aberrations of this susceptibility, on which Harrington has insisted, and which, I do think, prove (if ever truth was proved by induction) one of two things; either that, as he says, this susceptibility in man was originally defective and rudimentary, or that man is no longer in his normal state; in other words, that he is, as the Scriptures declare, depraved. I acknowledge I accept this last solution; and firmly believe with Pascal, that without it moral and religious philosophy must toil over the problem of humanity in vain.
If this be so, we have, of course, no difficulty in believing that there may be, in spite of the existence of the religious faculty in man, ample scope for an external revelation, to correct its aberrations and remedy its maladies.
But you will say that this fact is not to be taken for granted. I admit it; and therefore lay no further stress upon it. I go one step further; and shall endeavor, at least, to prove, that, supposing man is just as he was created, yet also supposing, what neither Mr. Parker nor Mr. Newman will deny, (and if they did, the whole history of the world would confute them,) that man's religious faculty is not uniform or determinate in its action, but is dependent on external development and culture for assuming the form it does, ample scope is still left for an external revelation. I contend that the entire condition of this susceptibility (as shown by experience) proves that, if in truth an external revelation be impossible, it is not because it has superseded the necessity for one; and that the declaration of the elder deists and modern "spiritualists" on this in the face of what all history proves man to be, is the most preposterous in the world.
Further; I contend that all the analogies from the fundamental laws of the development of man's nature,—from a consideration of the relations in which that nature stands to the external world,—from the absolute dependence of the individual on external culture, and that of the whole species on its historic development,—are all in favor of the notion both of the possibility and utility of an external revelation, and even in favor of that particular form of it which Mr. Newman and you so contemptuously call a "book" revelation.
I. I argue from all the analogies of the fundamental laws of the development of the human mind. Nor do I fear to apply the reasoning even to the cases in which it has been so confidently asserted that there can be no revelation, on the fallacious ground that a revelation "of spiritual and moral truth" presupposes in man certain principles to which it appeals. To possess certain faculties for the appreciation of spiritual and moral truth is one thing; to acquire the conscious possession of that truth is another; the former fact would not make an external revelation superfluous, or an empty name. Every thing in the process of the mind's development goes to show, that, whatever its capacities, tendencies, faculties, "potentialities," (call them what you will,) a certain external influence is necessary to awaken its dormant life; to turn a "potentiality" into an "energy "; to transform a dim inkling of a truth into an intelligent, vital, conscious recognition of it. Nor is this law confined to mind alone; all nature attests its presence. All effects are the result of properties or susceptibilities in one thing, solicited by external contact with those of others. The fire no doubt may smoulder in the dull and languid embers; it is when the external breeze sweeps over them, that they begin to sparkle and glow, and vindicate the vital element they contain. The diamond in the mine has the same internal properties in the darkness as in the light; it is not till the sun shines upon it, that it flashes on the eye its splendor. Look at a flower of any particular species; we see that, as it is developed in connection with a variety of external influences,—as it comes successively under the action of the sun, rain, dew, soil,—it expands in a particular manner, and in that only. It exhibits a certain configuration of parts, a certain form of leaf, a certain color, fragrance, and no other. We do not doubt, on the one hand, that without the "skyey influences" these things would never have been; nor, on the other; that the flower assumes this form of development, and this alone, in virtue of its internal structure and organization. But both sets of conditions must conspire in the result.
It is much the same with the mind. That it possesses certain tendencies and faculties, which, as it develops itself, will terminate in certain ideas and sentiments, is admitted; but apart from certain external conditions of development, those sentiments and ideas will, in effect, never be formed,—the mind will be in perpetual slumber. Thus, in point of fact, this controversy is connected ultimately with that ancient dispute as to the origin, sources, and genesis of human knowledge and sentiments. I shall simply take for granted that you are (as most philosophers are) an advocate of innate capacities, but not of "innate ideas"; of "innate susceptibilities," but not of "innate sentiments"; that is, I presume you do not contend that the mind possesses more than the faculties—the laws of thought and feeling—which, under conditions of development, actually give birth to thoughts and feelings. These faculties and susceptibilities are, no doubt, congenital with the mind, —or, rather, are the mind itself. But its actually manifested phenomena wait the of the external; and they will be modified accordingly. It is absolutely dependent on experience in this sense, that it is only as it is operated upon by the outward world that the dormant faculties, whatever they are, and whatever their nature, be they few or many,— intellectual, moral, or spiritual,—are first awakened. If a mind were created (it is, at least, a conceivable case) with all the avenues to the external world closed,—in fact, we sometimes see approximations to such a condition in certain unhappy individuals,—we do not doubt such a mind, by the present laws of the human constitution, could not possess any thoughts, feelings, emotions; in fact, could exhibit none of the phenomena, spiritual, intellectual, moral, or sensational, which diversify it. In proportion as we see human beings approach this condition,—in fact, we sometimes see them approach it very nearly,—we see the "potentialities" of the soul (I do not like the word, but it expresses my meaning better than any other I know) held in abeyance, and such an imperfectly awakened man does not, in some cases, manifest the degree of sensibility or intelligence manifested in many animals. If the seclusion from sense and experience be quite complete, the life of such a soul would be wrapped up in the germ, and possess no more consciousness than a vegetable.