Arabia will be reproduced in our interior sandy deserts, the love-songs of Persia in the dells and glades of Sonora, and the religious aspirations of Palestine in the similar scenery of New Mexico." I have dwelt the longer on this work, as exemplifying not only the contrariety of this theory to facts, but also the trumpery which is sometimes imposed on the public in the name of science. It also exemplifies the rash generalizations and inferences in the philosophy of history which are so easy to any man who writes history in the interest of a theory. One who writes history. from a theory has no need of facts. He develops it all from his own inner consciousness. A recent writer ascribes the gloomy Calvinism of Scotland to its bogs and fens and fogs. He forgets that Calvin himself lived in Geneva, and Augustine, who taught essentially the same system, in the north of Africa. 2. This theory is contrary to historical facts as to the civilization of the same country in different ages. Egypt, with its early science and civilization, Palestine, the mother of true religion, Greece, with its unrivaled culture, had the same cosmic influences in ancient times as now. Why were the peoples of these countries so great in ancient times, so mean and insignificant now? Why was Italy in ancient times without distinction in painting and sculpture, and yet with the same soil and climate and all cosmic influences, why did Italy take the lead in these and all æsthetic culture at the renaissance and after? Such questions may be multiplied. And here again the theory under consideration is directly contradicted by the facts of history. If cosmic influences in America have so powerfully affected the Europeans and their descendants who inherit it, why have they not produced in them the distinctive characteristics of the Aborigines? Dr. Büchner appears to be the only scientist who has observed any fact of this kind. When in this country he wrote to a periodical called the Gartenlaube, a communication which was published, saying that he had observed that American ladies in dancing have a gliding motion, like the stealthily gliding step of an Indian; proving, as he profoundly remarks, that with all their civilization they have not been able to resist the climatic and other cosmic influences under which they live. The gliding tread of the Indian may be observed by any one in Cooper's novels. And why, again, were not the differences now characteristic of the North and the South found among the Indians at the discovery of America? History of the American Civil War, Vol. I.; Causes of the War and the events preparatory to it, pp. 91, 93, 242, 255, 113, 103. 3. I believe that human history is the progressive realization of an all comprehensive plan: "Through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of man are widened with the process of the suns." But it is a plan or purpose of wisdom and love; a plan in which nature is not merely a blind concatenation of physical effects with no law except the invariable succession of mechanical facts and transformations of force, and with no power except a resistless efficiency acting without intelligence or purpose; but nature is itself a cosmos in which the truth of absolute reason is expressed and the wise and beneficent designs of reason progressively accomplished. It is a plan which comprehends also a system of rational free agents under the moral government of God; a rational system to whose higher ends nature itself is subordinate; in which law is the truth of reason recognized by rational free agents as law to the action of will; in which the progress consists in quickening, disciplining and educating rational beings to perfection and so bringing them into harmony with the supreme reason and with each other in a kingdom of God, a commonwealth of righteousness, good-will and true blessedness; and in which the great result is progressively accomplished, not merely by the action of cosmic forces on physical organizations, but by the influences of God's gracious and all-pervasive activity in the exercise of perfect wisdom and love, and through the agency of human intelligence, human aspirations and affections, and human choices and volitions, in all their free, rich and complicated activities. 169. Free-Will and Man's Implication in Nature. Though man exercises free-will, he is, nevertheless, implicated in nature. Nature acts on him from without as well as within his physical organization. It is necessary to inquire what is the action of man's free-will under the immediate influence of nature and the cosmic forces. I. Man is implicated in nature. His physical organization is a part of nature as really as a tree is. It grows from a seed, as the tree does. His body like all bodies, is subject to gravitation, and to the action of the forces of cohesion, heat, light, electricity and chemical affinity. He is also implicated in nature through his natural sensibilities. Hunger and thirst, the sensations of heat and cold, the natural instincts, propensities, desires and affections, are only indirectly under the control of his will. Through them man's implication in nature reveals itself in his consciousness. In these respects man is the crea ture of circumstances. His feelings arise as he is acted on by what is around him. II. Man is also endowed with reason and susceptible of rational motives and emotions. The latter presuppose an exercise of the higher reason and are always motives which man may follow in opposition to all impulses which come directly from his circumstances. He is not left, therefore, helpless to the force of winds and waves, but has rudder and sails and skill to manage them, by which he can compel an adverse wind to propel him on his course; or even has within himself motive power to propel him on his chosen course independent of winds or currents. This endowment constitutes man capable of free choice; and this constitutional capacity of free choice is inseparable from the man; no course of action, no acquired character, however vicious and degraded, can destroy it. It cannot be annihilated except by annihilating the man. Consequently, however ignorant, vicious and degraded a man is, he is always capable of knowing the truth which reveals to him the higher possibilities of his being, and of appreciating the rational motives to realize them. This is tacitly acknowledged in all efforts to reform the vicious. A child born in the slums of a great city is likely to grow up ignorant and vicious. It grows up not only under the adverse influence of present circumstances, but also of a vitiated constitution transmitted by heredity from vicious ancestors. Facts like this exemplify the powerful influence of outward circumstances. Yet this child in all its degradation retains the capacity of moral culture and discipline and the susceptibility to influences to good. This is not only acknowledged in all benevolent efforts to save such persons, but is verified in many instances in which they have been reformed and saved. The history of Christianity abounds in instances of the effectual and permanent reformation of wicked men. Facts of the former class which prove the power of outward circumstances, must not be used to prove man's destitution of free-will, with the suppression of facts of the latter class which prove that the most degraded have power of will to resist the influences of evil and to reform. Dr. O. W. Holmes says: "Do you want an image of the human will or the self-determining principle as compared with its prearranged and impassable restrictions? A drop of water imprisoned in a crystal; you may see such a one in any mineralogical collection. One little fluid. particle in the crystalline prism of the solid universe." The rhetoric here is better than the logic. No one claims that man by his free-will can lift himself out of the universe or prevent the action of its cosmic forces on him. It is unfair to compare the effects wrought by the will of a single man with the effects of the cosmic forces. But in the true sphere of the will and the true relation of its action to nature the will is entirely free, and whether it effects much or little upon the face of the solid earth, it effects everything in the sphere of morals. III. The freedom of man from the necessary control of outward circumstances is manifested as matter of fact in the following par ticulars: 1. Man in the exercise of free-will may resist the impulses of natural sensibility or may concur with them. He can resist his appetites. Men have had force of will to resist hunger and starve themselves to death. So it is with every appetite, desire and affection. Every one may be resisted. Under the full force of the motive, a man may choose another object and direct his energies to that. Even the desire of life is no exception. Martyrs deliberately sacrifice life to the sense of duty, and men risk it every day for various ends and from various motives. Man can determine to follow reason and do duty in direct resistance to any or all natural impulses. Man may also, at his option, concur with natural desire either with or without the approval of reason. He may obey natural desire and disobey reason; or he may obey reason and resist natural desire; or in certain cases he may follow natural desire and reason both at once. Even though in following a natural impulse the man has not been conscious of deliberating and consenting, yet this free consent must have been given. Man cannot divest himself of his reason and his susceptibility to rational emotions. If, like a beast, he thoughtlessly follows his strongest impulse, yet is he unlike the beast in this, that he knows the obligation which is on him to obey reason. Hence we properly say of such a man that he has given himself up to his appetite, that he has abandoned himself to his passion, that he has allowed himself to be hurried away by his impulses. As man is endowed both with natural sensibilities and rational, the right conduct of life consists in regulating these contrasted impulses and keeping the right course under the motive force of both. Plato compares the two to the two horses of a chariot; one nervous and frisky, the other steady and grave, which the charioteer must make to work together and persistently draw the chariot towards its destination.* 2. Under any circumstances a man may do right. We sometimes hear of coercing the will. But physical force cannot act on the will directly. The will cannot be coerced any more than an inference can be drawn by horse-power. The man may be imprisoned or bound; his muscular action may be restrained; but all the time the will remaine ⚫ Phædrus, 246. hachanged and free in its choice. Force can influence only as it becomes a motive to choice and volition. "Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage: Minds innocent and quiet take That for a hermitage. "If I have freedom in my love, Because man is free he is under obligation to obey law; and he is able under all outward circumstances to do his duty. And here I may properly cite Kant's apostrophe to duty: "Duty! thou great, sublime name! Thou dost not insinuate thyself by offering the pleasing and the popular, but thou commandest obedience. To move the will thou dost not threaten and terrify, but simply settest forth a law, which of itself finds entrance into the soul; which even though disobeyed wins approval and reverence, if not obedience; before which the passions are silent even though they work secretly against it. What origin is worthy of thee, and where is the root of thy noble pedigree, which proudly disowns all relationship with the passions, and descent from which is the indispensable condition of that worth which alone man can of himself confer on himself? It can be nothing less than that which lifts man above himself so far as he belongs to the world of sense, and unites him to an order of things that subjects to itself the entire world of sense, as well as the existence of man so far as it is empirically determined in time. It is nothing less than personality; that is, freedom from and independence of all the mechanism of nature; and this implies that man himself, considered as belonging to the world of sense, is subjected to his own personality so far as he belongs to the rational system. No wonder then that man, belonging to both worlds, must regard his own being, in its connection with this higher system, with reverence, and its laws with the highest veneration."* 3. He may reverse the influence of motives. By continued resistance of evil inclinations and following the worthier motive man may so form his own character that eventually the motive occasioned by the outward circumstances may become contrary to what it has been. One may form a character so pure that scenes of debauchery are disgusting and repulsive; another may form a character so impure that * Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft: Theil I., B. I., S. 214. |