It suffices for our present purpose, to reply to this objection, that it is more than the objector is competent to affirm; for it is more than he can prove. He does not know, that the eternal will cannot embody in matter inferior, derivative, personalities, nor can he so much as bring a fair presumption in favor of his denial. In the fulness of our ignorance concerning these high matters, and of the beginning of things, we cannot presume to set bounds to the original spirit. We may not comprehend, indeed, the way in which he acts in creation, but this does not justify us in saying, he cannot create. For neither can we definitely image to our minds the way in which he does anything; since all this is outside of our experience. From the necessity and the very nature of the case, we know beforehand that we cannot do this. "Such knowledge is too wonderful for us. It is high; we cannot attain unto it." But here we know that there are finite personalities. We have proved that these finite personalities could not have originated in any material forces; and therefore that there must have been an original spiritual force; or, in other words, a person. To say, now, that we are unable to describe the genesis of derivative souls, from this original spirit, is of no account. We are quite as incompetent to detail the exodus of suns and planets from an original hyle. But, d. The original power, if partly spiritual, is dominantly so. The original power is a unity. We seem to have shown that, in certain respects, it is also a duality. The question arises, therefore, in that combining of the two, whereby the duality is yet an eternal and absolute unity, which is the superior, and which the inferior? which succumbs? which rules? The answer must be: It is the material which succumbs to the spiritual. For, (1) It is a part of the essential nature of spiritual powers, to use those which are material. If we appeal to our own observation and experience, we everywhere meet with this fact. In all human beings, it is manifestly the proper office of the soul to rule the body; and in proportion to the actual spiritual force which exists in any man, in that proportion is the physical part of his being kept in subjection and made to be subservient to the purposes of the soul. More than this, it is of the spirit's essential nature, to rule material forces. For it is its nature to know them, to understand their laws, and, finally, in volition, to take advantage of those laws (or modes and conditions of being and of action) for the accomplishment of purposes. It is impossible to conceive of spirit in active contact with matter, without thinking of it as both recognizing and exercising its own superior dignity and right to rule. Its actual dominion, at any time, must correspond with its actual power, then. (2) It is just as much the nature of matter, too, to be used by spirit. Material forces are such, that they are, of necessity, susceptible of being controlled by the energies of personal existences. Consciousness declares the spirit's superiority, and perpetual experience proves the susceptibility of matter to the controlling action of the soul. (3) We cannot conceive of the two as coexisting in unity, except in this relation. It is manifestly impossible that this unity should exist, except by the subordination of the one to the other. But it is equally impossible to conceive of spirit yielding itself up in absolute submission to material force. For so, it would come under the law of matter, which is necessity; and it would be matter, not spirit. It is the essential nature of spirit to know, and to plan, and to seek to accomplish ends. Its nature is action for an end self-determined. This nature it cannot lay by, without ceasing to be itself. There is no subjection for it but in annihilation. But if spirit cannot be subordinated to matter, and if matter is not subordinated to spirit, then must there be perpetual war between these two kinds of forces. Our "philosophy" has not attained the unity which it seeks, unless it acknowledge a subordination here, and in denying it, affirms two absolute, original powers, each independent and self existent, yet dependent each upon the other, and waging an irreconcilable conflict from everlasting and forever! But, e. This subordination must have been entire and absolute. For, if in any respect the unity were marred, then were there still two powers, and we have our unity yet to seek. That is to say, after having gone back to a power, which by supposition and the necessity itself of our argument, is original, we find in the investigation of it, that this, the only possible original, is itself derivative. For, any existence which is coördinate with another, cannot be viewed as selfexistent and absolute, but only as dependent and secondary. Hence we see, that it is strictly a necessity of the case that the material forces should have been, from the first, absolutely at the disposal of the spiritual; or, in other words, the eternal person must have been absolutely supreme. The one original, absolute, infinite, immutable, ever active power is supremely a personal power. More than that, In the beginning there are, as has been shown, no material things, but only a something, able and certain to originate, alike, atoms, masses, organizations, and persons; and this "something" is the sole original being. We have hitherto spoken as though there were, or might be, two parts in this original unity; the first a material force, and the second and ruling part, a spiritual power, or person, and have just shown that, as there cannot be two absolutes, the material must be viewed as absolutely subjected to the personal, which is to be viewed as absolutely supreme. But if so, then the ground of all material force is identical with the spiritual power itself; for there is but one "ground," since but one "absolute." But if the person be the one ground of all things, physical as well as spiritual, then is HE the "one original," the "first power." Furthermore, since, in the beginning there were no material things, therefore, by the "material power" of which we spoke, we can mean nothing but a power having the faculty of producing matter, i. e. of creating a substance, and substances, which shall be under the strict law of cause, or necessity. Our argument enjoins no more upon us, than that we find this faculty somewhere; and this once really found, all the conditions of that part of our problem then, are satisfied, and the material universe is adequately accounted for. The phrase "material power," as we have hitherto used it, applies perfectly well to a faculty of natural or physical force, resident in the eternal person, and having its first impulse and its continuity, in the voluntary energy of his will. Indeed, when it has once been conceded, that the person is absolutely supreme, there is no other consistent sense, in which the phrase can be used. For, it can only be understood as the name of something utterly and absolutely at the disposal of the person, as completely so as any of his own energies, that is, as in reality itself but an energy or faculty of his being. The only "material power," therefore, which can have any original existence, is that eternal energy of the original spirit, whereby he is able, of his own free will, to constitute things whose law is necessity; and fundamentally, in the absolute beginning, the one only reality is a PERSON.1 1 This "Person," proved thus to be identical with the "original Power," is possessed of all those attributes hitherto shown to belong to that Power. The great original Spirit is independent, self-existent, absolute, of infinite power and presence, immutable, eternally active. He reigns from everlasting in sole supremacy, and all else that exists is either of him or by him. The energy of his will is an absolute energy, not simply tending towards its objects, but attaining them; not merely determining, but establishing them; moving ever with perfect creative force, and constituting whatsoever it wills. We must also confess the scope of his knowledge to be boundless as his power; and he beholds all that can be, could have been, has been, is, or shall be. But, moreover, mere will and intellect do not round out into completeness the sphere of spiritual being. There is another energy, as our minds necessarily conceive, resident within these, and without which they are not; and this is love. The love is as absolute as the power or the wisdom. But of this hereafter. Suffice it to say, now, that in finding the Eternal Person, we have come into the view of our soul's Lord and King. Ranging the vague immensity and eternity in search of the centre and the throne, we have come upon it, at last, and find it; not empty, the seat of vacant laws, nor yet the desolate penetralium of vast and brute force, but the home of the Infinite Glory not unfamiliar—and the sanctuary of the presence of Him, whom we are privileged to name OUR FATHER! who is of like substance with ourselves, but not identical, of whose infinite and perfect image the sinless human soul is a similitude. Thus great truths, glorious realities begin to loom up from beneath the edge of our horizon, and we feel impelled to hasten forward that we may do them reverence; but this is not yet permissible. A falsehood stands in our array, and we have not called it false! We can leave no traitor behind us; we must turn back. In the process of our reasoning we reached a point whence we seemed to behold a one eternal Element, the original of all existence, and which, regarded as a purely natural power, is the materialist's God. We tacitly permitted him to call this a "unity," and an "original;" but proceeded, immediately, to prove that he was mistaken in calling it a merely natural, instead of a spiritual, power. We accepted his own ground, and then showed that the ground was other than he supposed it to be. We have now to acknowledge an error, and to affirm that there was no ground at all, that is, I. We deny that the one original Element of the materialist is, in any proper philosophical sense, ONE, and that it can possibly be thought of, or at least thought out, as ORIGINAL. Let us see. We have, to begin with, the universe of earth and heaven. We find it made up of an immense variety of objects, solid, fluid, aerial; and containing powers most subtile and wonderful; agencies of light, heat, magnetism; principles of vitality and sensation; with the personal energies of mind, heart, and will. The philosopher enters, in the first place, upon a scrutiny of ponderable elements. He finds that a very great variety of them may be reduced to very few simples. The imponderable agents puzzle him somewhat; but he concludes, without serious difficulty, that sufficient skill would be able to resolve them, either into activities of other elements, or, perhaps, into the very primitive substance itself, from which all other things are made. As for mind and soul, he seems to himself easily to trace it back, through receding forms of animal existence, to its rudimentary state in the zoophytes, whose vague sensibility bears, he fancies, the closest resemblance to the chemical affinity which rules among the elemental atoms. It is, therefore, sufficiently plain to him, that human science has already proved the universe to be compounded of a comparatively small number of primal substances. But, small as this number is, it is yet too large; for the reason will not rest satisfied when told that the universe has creators; and if his chemistry should succeed in reducing all these to two, -- |