off as fast as we can. Come, Copus, get up, you lazy hound-we must be off." "Off or not off, sir, I doesn't budge a foot. I stays with my young missus." "Very well, only let us out of the house." While preparations were making for a rapid retreat, one of the brigands went up to Jane Somers and whispered, my carriage is waiting on the bridge. Lady Teysham and the other ladies at my shooting-box expect us every moment; so be under no alarm." 66 Jane bowed her head and yielded to her destiny, and since that time has been as happy a specimen of the married life as is often to be met with, Ben-na-Groich, on finding out the hoax, was too much afraid of the ridicule of his friends to make it public; and to this hour, Aunt Alice tells the most wondrous tales of the lawlessness of the Highlands, and the blood-thirstiness and revenge characteristic of a Scottish Chieftain. "Only to think of people cherishing a resentment for nearly a thousand years, and only satisfying it at last by marriage or murder. Oh, Mrs Hobbins, never believe what people says when they talk to you about the foodle system-the starvation system would be a much better name for it, for the whole country is made of nothing but heath, and the gentlemen's clothes is no covering from the cold; and besides all that, they are indelicate to a degree!" AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. PART VII. THE CONCLUSION. CHAP. I. THE argument, in the foregoing part of our discussion (in which we showed that morality is grounded in au antagonism carried on between our nature and our consciousness), is obviously founded on the assumption that man is born in weakness and depravity. We need hardly, now-adays, insist on the natural sinfulness of the human heart, which we are told by our own, and by all recorded experience, as well as by a higher authority than that of man, is desperately wicked, and runneth to evil continually. Deplorable as this fact is, deplorably also and profusely has it been lamented. We are not now, therefore, going to swell this deluge of lamentations. Instead of doing so, let us rather endeavour to review dispassionately the fact of our naturally depraved condition, in order to ascertain, if possible, the precise bearing which it has on the developement and destiny of our species, and at the same time to carry ourselves still deeper into the philosophy of human consciousness. To do good and sin not, is the great end of man; and, accordingly, we find him at his first creation stored with every provision for well-doing. But that this is his great end can only be admitted with the qualification that it is to do good freely; for every being which is forced to perform its allotted task is a mere tool or machine, whether the work it performs be a work of good or a work of evil. If, therefore, man does good by the compulsion of others, or under the constraining force of his own natural biases, he is but an automaton, and deserves no more credit for his actings than a machine of this kind does; just as he is also an automaton if he be driven into courses of evil by outward forces which he cannot resist, or by the uncontrollable springs of his own natural frame-work. But man will be admitted, by all right thinkers, to be not a mere automaton. But then, according to the same thinkers, man is a created being; and, therefore, the question comes to be, how can a created being be other than an automaton? Creation implies predetermination, and predetermination implies that all the springs and biases of the created being tend one way (the way predetermined), and that it has no power of its own to turn them into any other than this one channel, what. ever it may be. How, then, is it possible for such a being to do either good or evil freely, or to act otherwise than it was born and predetermined to act? In other words, the great problem to be worked out is, How is man to come to accomplish voluntarily the great end (of doing good-of well-doing) which he originally accomplished under compulsion, or in obedience to the springs of his natural constitution? We undertake to show that the living demonstration of this great problem is to be found in the actual history of our race; that the whole circuit of humanity, from the creation of the world until the day when man's final account shall be closed, revolves for no other purpose than to bring human nature to do freely the very same work which it originally performed without freedom;-and that this problem could not possibly have been worked out by any other steps than those actually taken to resolve it. This shall be made apparent, by our showing, that in the actual developement of the consciousness of our species, two distinct practical stages or articulations are to be noted: the first being an act of antagonism put forth by man against his paradisiacal or perfect nature, bringing along with it the Fall-(this is consciousness in its antagonism against good); the second being an act of antagonism put forth by man against his present or fallen nature, issuing in the Redemption of the world through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and the restoration of man to the primitive condition of perfection which he had abjured-(this is consciousness in its antagonism against evil). The practical solution of the problem of Human Liberty, will be seen to be given, in the developement of these two grand epochs of conscious ness. In the first place, then, let us contemplate man in his paradisiacal state. Here we find him created perfect by an all-perfect God, and living in the garden of Eden, surrounded by every thing that can minister to his comfort and delight. Truly the lines are fallen to him in pleasant places; and, following his natural biases, his whole being runs along these lines in channels of pure happiness and unalloyed good— good nameless, indeed, and inconceiv able, because as yet uncontrasted with evil, but therefore, on that very account, all the more perfect and complete. He lies absorbed and entranced in his own happiness and perfection; and no consciousness, be it observed, interferes to break up their blessed monopoly of him. He lives, indeed, under the strictest command that this jarring act be kept aloof. He has no personality: the personality of the paradisiacal man is in the bosom of his Creator. Now, however enviable this state of things may have been, it is obvious that, so long as it continued, no conceivable advance could be made towards the realization of human liberty. Without a personality-without a self, to which his conduct might be referred, it is plain that man could not possess any real or intelligible freedom. All his doings must, in this case, fall to be refunded back out of him into the great Being who created him, and out of whom they really proceeded: and thus man must be left a mere machine, inspired and actuated throughout by the divine energies. But, upon the slightest reflection, it is equally obvious that man could not possibly realize his own personality without being guilty of an evil act an act not referable unto God, a Being out of whom no evil thing can comean act in which the injunctions of the Creator must be disobeyed and set at nought :-He could not, we say, realize his own personality without sinning; because his personality is realized through the act of consciousness; and the act of consciousness is, as we have all along seen, an act of antagonism put forth against whatsoever state or modification of humanity it comes in contact with. Man's paradisiacal condition, therefore, being one of supreme goodness and perfection, could not but be deteriorated by the presence of consciousness. Consciousness, if it is to come into play here, must be an act of antagonism against this state of perfect holiness—an act displacing it, and breaking up its monopoly, in order to make room for the independent and rebellious "I." In other words, it must be an act curtail ing and subverting good, and there fore, of necessity, an evil act. Let us say, then, that this act was really performed that man thereby realized his own personality: and what do we record in such a statement but the fact of man's "first disobedience" and his Fall? The realization of the first man's personality being thus identical with his fall, and his fall being brought about by a free act,-an act not out of, but against, God; let us now ask how man stands in relation to the great problem, the working out of which we are superintending-Human Liberty. Has the Fall brought along with it the complete realization of his freedom? By no means. He has certainly realized his own personality by becoming conscious of good. He has thus opposed himself to good, and performed an act which he was not forced or predetermined by his Maker to perform. He has thus taken one step towards the attainment of Liberty: one step, and that is all. The paradisiacal man has evolved one epoch in the developement of human consciousness; and has thus carried us on one stage in the practical solution of the problem we are speaking of. Being born good and perfect, he has developed the antagonism of consciousness against goodness and perfection; and thus he has emancipated the human race from the causality of goodness and perfection. But this antagonism against good, though it freed the human race from the causality of holiness, laid it at the same time under the subjection of a new and far bitterer causality-the causality of sin. For the consciousness of good, or, in other words, an act of antagonism against good, is itself but another name for sin or evil: and thus evil is evolved out of the very act in which man becomes conscious of good. And this is the causality under which we, the children of Adam, find ourselves placed. As he was born the child of goodness and of God, so are we, through his act, born children of sin and of the devil. Therefore the evolution of the second epoch in the practical developement of consciousness devolves upon us—the fallen children of Humanity. Just as the paradisiacal man advanced us one stage towards liberty, by developing in a free act the antagonism of consciousness against the good under which he was born; so is it incumbent upon us to complete the process by developing the practical antagonism of consciousness against the evil of our natural condition. As Adam, in the first epoch of conscious. ness, worked himself out of good into evil by a free act, so have we, who live in the second epoch of consciousness, to work ourselves back out of evil into good by another act of the same kind; repeating precisely the same process which he went through, only repeating it in an inverted order. He, being born under the causality of good, transferred himself over by a free act (the antagonism of consciousness against good) to the causality of evil, and thus proved that he was not forced to the performance of good. We, on the other hand, who are born under the causality of evil, have to transfer ourselves back by another free act (the antagonism of consciousness against evil), into the old causality of good; and thus prove that we are not forced to the commission of evil. Adam broke up the first causality-the causality of good; and emancipated our humanity therefrom, in making it thus violate the natural laws and conditions of its birth. But in doing so he laid it under a second and dire causality-the causality of sin; and this is the causality under which we are born. Whenever, therefore, we too have trampled on the laws and conditions of our natural selves; have striven, by an act of resistance against evil, to return into the bosom of good, to replace ourselves under the old causality of holiness, to take up such a position that the influences of Christianity may be enabled to tell upon our hearts; in short, have violated our causality just as Adam violated his; then may the problem of human liberty be said to be practically resolved, for there are no conceivable kinds of causality except those of evil and of good-and both of these shall have then been broken through in the historical developement of our species. And here, let it be observed, that although, in putting forth this act of resistance against evil, we return under the old causality of good, and thus make ourselves obedient to its influences, yet the relation in which we stand towards that causality is very different from the relation in which against our natural selfishness, lies at the first man stood towards it. He Would we now look back into the history of our kind, in order to gather instances of that real operation of consciousness which we have been speaking of? Then what was the whole of the enlightened jurisprudence, and all the high philosophy of antiquity, but so many indications of consciousness in its practical antagonism against human depravity? What is justice, that source and concentration of all law? Is it a natural growth or endowment of humanity? Has it, in its first origin, a positive character of its own? No; there is no such thing as natural or born justice among men. Justice is nothing but the consciousness of our own natural injustice, this consciousness being, in its very essence, an act of resistance against the same. Do the promptings of nature teach us to give every man his due? No, the promptings of nature teach us to keep to ourselves all that we can lay our hands upon; therefore it is only by acting against the promptings of nature that we can deal justly towards our fellow-men. But we cannot act against these promptings without being conscious of them, neither can we be conscious of them without acting against them to a greater or a less extent; and thus consciousness, or an act of antagonism put forth If we look, too, to the highest sects of ancient philosophy, what do we behold but the developement of consciousness in its antagonism against evil, and an earnest striving after something better than any thing that is born within us? What was the whole theoretical and practical stoicism of antiquity? Was it apathy, in the modern sense of that word, that this high philoshopy inculcated? Great philosophers have told us that it was so. But oh! doctrine lamentably inverted, traduced, and misunderstood! The " apathy" of ancient stoicism was no apathy in our sense of the word-it was no inertness-no sluggish insensibilityno avoidance of passion-and no folding of the hands to sleep. But it was the direct reverse of all this. It was, and it inculcated, an eternal war to be waged by the sleepless consciousness of every man against the indestructible demon-passions of his own heart. The awala of stoicism was an energetic acting against passion; and, if our word apathy means this, let us make use of it in characterising that philosophy. But we apprehend that our word apathy signifies an indifference, a passiveness, a listless torpidity of character, which either avoids the presence of the passions, or feels it not; in short, an unconsciousness of passion, a state diametrically opposed to the apathy of stoicism, which consists in the most vital consciousness of the passions, and their consequent subjugation thereby. It has been thought, too, that stoicism aimed at the annihilation of the passions; but it is much truer to say, that it took the strife between them and consciousness, as the focus of its philosophy; it found true manhood concentrated in this strife, and it merely placed true manhood where it found it-for it saw clearly that the only real moral life of humanity is breathed up out of that seething and tempestuous struggle. The passions are sure to be ever with us. Do what we will, "They pitch their tents before us as we move, Our hourly neighbours ;" Therefore, the only question comes to be-are we to yield to them, or are we to give them battle and resist them? And Stoicism is of opinion that we should give them battle. Her voice is all for war; because, in yielding to them, our consciousness, or the act which constitutes our peculiar attribute, and brings along with it our proper and personal existence, is obliterated or curtailed. The Epicureans sailed upon another tack. The Stoics sought to reproduce good, by first overthrowing evil; the only method, certainly, by which such a reproduction is practicable. They sought to build the Virtues upon the suppression of the Vices, the only foundation which experience tells us is not liable to be swept away. But their opponents in philosophy went more directly to work. They aimed at the same end, the reproduction of good, without, however, adopting the same means of securing it that is to say, without ever troubling themselves about evil at all. They sought to give birth to Love without having, first, laid strong bonds upon Hatred. They strove to establish Justice on her throne, without having, first, deposed and overthrown Injustice. They sought to call forth Charity and Generosity without having, first of all, beaten down the hydra-heads of Selfishness. In short, they endeavoured to bring forward, in a direct manner, all the amiable qualities (as they were supposed to be) of the human heart, without having gone through the intermediate process of displacing and vanquishing their opposites through the act of consciousness. And the consequence was just what might have been expected. These amiable children of nature, so long as all things went as they wished, were angels; but, in the hour of trial, they became the worst of fiends. Long as the sun shone, their love basked beautiful beneath it, and wore smiles of eternal constancy; but when the storm arose, then Hatred, which had been overlooked by Consciousness, arose also, and the place of Love knew it no more. Justice worked well so long as every one got what he himself wanted. But no sooner were the desires of any man thwarted, than Injustice, which Consciousness had laid no restraint upon, stretched out her hand and snatched the gratification of them; while Justice (to employ Lord Ba con's metaphor) went back into the wilderness, and put forth nothing but the blood-red blossoms of Revenge. Generosity and Charity, so long as they were uncrossed and put to no real sacrifice, played their parts to perfection; but so soon as any unpleasant occasion for their exercise arose, then the selfish passions, of which Consciousness had taken no note, broke loose, and Charity and Generosity were swept away by an avalanche of demons. Such has invariably been the fate of all those epicurean attempts to bring forward and cultivate Good as a natural growth of the human heart, instead of first of all endeavouring to realize it as the mere extirpation of evil; and hence we see the necessity of adopting the latter method of procedure. Every attempt to establish or lay hold of good by leaving evil out of our account, by avoiding it, by remaining unconscious of it, by not bringing it home to ourselves, must necessarily be a failure; and, sooner or later, a day of fearful retribution is sure to come-for the passions are real madmen, and consciousness is their only keeper; but man's born amiabilities are but painted masks, which (if consciousness has never occupied its post) are liable to be torn away from the face of his natural corruption, in any dark hour in which the passions may choose to break up from the dungeons of the heart. The true philosopher is well aware, that the gates of paradise are closed against him for ever upon earth. He does not, therefore, expend himself in a vain endeavour to force them, or to cultivate into a false Eden the fictitious flowers of his own deceitful heart; but he seeks to compensate for this loss, and to restore to himself in Lord Bacon calls revenge a species of wild justice. |