As every variety of beauty in earthly events, so all human temperaments, will have blissful perfection. We may think of ardent impetuous men as keeping alive the flames and spirits of things; somewhat related to the glowing forces of the central orbs of light; so will they shine in splendour. Those gentler ones, who have moved and shone in more modest array, will be as softer, not less mighty influences, which, passing from world to world, hold the stars in unity. Moses and Isaiah, with wise and strong personalities; David and Daniel, with their own distinctive genius; Peter in readiness; James and John as sons of thunder; Paul the zealous ; all the prophets, saints, martyrs, in different refined exalted splendours. These, in their grand services, ascend to the height; and expand to the width of the universe. We, the smaller ones, shall be permitted to see God in His Eternal Majesty; and to be, as in ourselves, nothing at all; and find in Him the all in all. RESEARCH XXXIV. THE POWER OF JUDGMENT IN NATURE. “What he (Bishop Butler) was most concerned with was to impress the mind of the generation in which he lived with the seriousness of life. The whole natural course of things bore its witness that God does reward good and punish evil now, and the present may legitimately be regarded as exhibiting tendencies which may hereafter attain completeness.”—E. H. PLUMPTRE, D.D. (Dean of Wells), The Spirits in Prison. WHAT we do know is, that, amidst chaos of incalculable ́ages, a spirit of order since time began has ruled everywhere, and in all things. Something in nature stamps useful things as good, and hurtful things as bad; and the bad, if it will not be amended, becomes chaotic. Science, in part, apprehends this; and somewhat inadequately explains it, as "a survival of the fittest," by unconscious operation. The fact is, by a sort of judgment, or discrimination, a process of elimination is going on by which the evil, the unnatural, is condemned. "What suit of grace hath Virtue to put on, If Vice shall wear as good, and do as well? Act fair parts with ends as laudable? Which all this mighty volume of events, Daniel, Musophilus. How is it, then, that thought and act are poisoned at their fountains in some men? that philosophic atheism beguiles, and sensuousness and brutality degrade? It may be that this happens by a sort of chemical affinity, by which particles come to particles in fixed proportions. Thought is a process wrought in the brain by some immaterial principle; and our acts are done in obedience to will, which is a manifestation of the same immaterial principle: hence thought, in self-sufficient men, who are unbelieving as to Supreme Wisdom, falls into a sort of cultured foolishness; and act, in men of gross animal impulse, becomes vicious. We hope that folly, causing to stumble, will make them take more heed; and uncleanness, carrying to destruction, will incite to cleanliness. "There is some soul of good in things evil, would men observingly distil it out," which is both healthful and to good husbandry; by it "we gather honey from the weed, and make a moral of the devil himself.” "We have locks to safeguard necessaries, And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves, For government, though high, and low, and lower, That many things, having full reference Come to one mark; as many ways meet in one town; As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea; As many lines close in the dial's centre; So may a thousand actions, once afoot, End in one purpose, and be all well borne King Henry V., act i. sc. 2. Nature has many surprises; nevertheless, "the System of Nature impresses itself on the mind as one system. It is under this impression that we speak of it as the Universe;"1 and think that all crises, bad or good, are, like all motions of the stars, "unto vaster motions bound." These smaller crises, or judgments, are always effecting a discrimination. Salt, not used, loses its savour. Even metals, in unfavourable conditions, have a sort of death, that workers in them know of. The seed, that does not live to form another, corrupts of itself. Whatever is done against Nature, Nature punishes. The man who aims not at higher things than those attained, sinks below his present level. There is more than we see in all this; it witnesses of entities that are beyond our present knowledge; of realities which are apart from all material phenomena; of whose presence matter, force, motion, space, are indications.2 Things, visible and invisible, show so greatly the intelligibleness and reasonableness of Nature, that every science rests on the fact that there is some mental order which we are able to discover and to manifest. Time is not a maniac, scattering dust; Life is not a fury, flinging flame; nor is the Might that rules a thing of terror. "He that only rules by terror Doeth grievous wrong. Deep as Hell I count his error." 3 Lord Tennyson, The Captain. Sometimes in a dead man's face, to those who watch it, a noble sacredness shows itself, not seen before, a 1 The Duke of Argyll, "The Unity of Nature," p. I. 2 Sir W. Hamilton's "Lectures," vol. i. p. 45. 3 Lange, "History of Materialism," transl., vol. iii. p. 20. token of kinship to great and good men in the past; or a slur is visible, as from some former evil one. Sometimes, somehow, not even the painter knows the reason, there appears in the picture of a man, when the colours have set, a reflection as from within, of the inner disposition, the real likeness. Things strangely come again for judgment. We eat and drink judgment in ourselves, by abuse of food; and every manifest defect in our morals is the symbol of an inward malady; and not a few cause themselves to be branded as the Devil's own. Whatsoever doth not rightly maintain itself in due place and condition, shall be driven, as an evil thing, out of light into darkness. The delicate babe, a mother's joy, may become a Judas, the world's opprobrium. Doubtless there are depths here which we ought to fathom. "The right order demands that we believe the deep things of the Christian Faith before we presume to discuss them by reason; so it appears to me a piece of negligence if, after we are confirmed in the Faith, we do not seek also to understand what we believe." That we may understand, it will be needful to think of life lower than our own. One of our great men in modern science has stated, "The relations which individual animals bear to one another are of such a structure that they ought long ago to have been considered as sufficient proof that no organized being could ever have been called into existence by other agency than by the direct intervention of a reflective mind. This argues strongly in favour of the existence, in every animal, of an immaterial spirit 1 Anselm, quoted in "Mediæval Church History," p. 202, by Archbishop Trench. |