LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, Chap.^NCopyright i\o Shelf :.. lis. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND . . . BY. . . Rev. G. J. Kirn, M. A., Ph. D. M G2T CLEVELAND, OHIO. PRESS OF THOMAS & MATTILL. J900. Library of Co* i Two Copies r^ NOV 20 1900 Coayrignt untry SECOND COPY Delivered to ORDtR DIVISION 1>\ A^ \^ Copyrighted, 1900, BY REV. G. J. KIRN, M. A., Tu. D. PREFACE. Early in the author's life the question arose, whether religion may not possibly be accounted for by the individual's training, and the racial ex- perience may not have created man's religious demands, or whether Revelation did not create the demand in order to have something to satisfy. This question prompted him to research; and it served the purpose of thoroughly convincing him that the demands for religion lay deeper than any experience which man may have accumulated ; they lay in the very construction of human nature itself. If this little work succeeds in pointing out the fact that religion does not consist in a formal sub- mission to the demands of a temporal institution, but in the dynamic relation of the soul to its God, the author will consider himself richly repaid for his effort. (3) 4 PREFACE. The author does not presume that he has com- pletely covered the great subject ; but simply pro- jects this scanty outline as an index finger to point the way toward the recognition of the immutable foundation for religion and its demands. No one will suppose that this work is offered a substitute for revelation, but that it simply aims to point out why a Revelation became necessary. If this little work succeeds in its attempt, the author will point out, in another volume, how the demands made by reason are met by Revelation. Flint, July 1900. CONTENTS. Introduction PART I. THE CONCEPTION OF GOD AND HIS RE- LATION TO THE WORLD. Rational Impulses 29 The Struggle for Unity 40 Insufficiency of Materialism 51 Subjective Idealism Inadequate 68 The Absolute as Infinite 79 Intelligence of the Absolute 90 Personality of the Absolute 103 Necessary Attributes of the Absolute Person 112 The Relation of the Absolute to Nature 123 PART II. THE IDEA OF MAN AND HIS RELATION TO GOD. Man Essentially Spiritual 137 Development a Law of His Being 148 His Freedom >, 160 Nature of His Development 174 His True Dignity 185 His Immortality 194 Susceptibility of Pleasure and Pain 203 The Condition of Blessedness 211 The Way of Death 221 Conclusion 228 (5) INTRODUCTION. Man is constructed upon a certain plan. This is true of his body and is true of his soul. Man stands in relation to the world. This relation of man to the world is not one of abstract dualism, but one of organic unity. The world and the soul belong together. They together constitute the world of reality. If man did not find himself in the world, the world would have no value for him. The world is not a foreign something resisting every effort of man to comprehend it; but man stands over against it with the full assurance that it must yield all of its possession to him. While there is a world of reality that yields its possession, there must be a subject to which it is yielded. The world has the possessions to yield and the subject makes the conquest. This subject has an insatiable desire for the conquest, and a nature according to which that conquest must be made. This nature is not a result of its experience; nor is it a matter of its own choice. This plan pre- cedes both its experience and its choice. The 7 8 INTRODUCTION. agent must exist before it can act; and together with its existence goes the nature of its action. The subject knows that many things are brought to it from the outside world. These facts are em- pirical. They are contingent. As facts they exist; but as far as our knowledge is concerned they might easily have been otherwise, or not have been at all. We can think these things out of existence without doing violence to our nature. Many of us have been born upon American soiL We have seen the landscapes of no other country of the world; for not a moment during our waking life has contact, more or less conscious, with this country failed us; but we can very easily imagine a time when this beauti- ful continent was hid under the waters of the sea; or we can conceive a time when it will no longer be. The sun has been an object of experience ever since man has existed, and we believe that its beams have kissed the earth while it was being prepared to become a home for man. We can easily imagine a time when the sun will have exhausted its resources and have gone out in the blackness and darkness of night. Contingent facts are as they are; but they might have been different. The facts of our experi- ence may be as they are; but they may be changed. We may change our experience by changing the IN PRODUCTION. 9 direction of our attention. We may change our experience by changing our relation to the outside world; but we cannot change our nature. There are elements in our nature that are universal. We cannot get away from nor greatly modify them. They are not result of experience, for they precede experience and make experience possible. They are universal, for it matters not to which quarter of experience we turn, these principles govern us. If our mental life acts at all it must act according to these principles. We cannot think of an object without implying space to contain it. When we think an object, we are compelled to think of it as related to some other object; and our nature com- pels us so to relate it to the coexistent objects, that it may find a sufficient explanation for itself. The objects of an experience must thus be brought to- gether into a unity. This is not a unity of classifi- cation, but a unity of relationship, a unity funda- mental to all the diversity of experience. Our nature demands that the whole world of experience be organized into a complete system. The data for such a system, not offered empirically, are furnished by our own nature. And this agent that so lays hold upon experiential facts and organ- izes them is what we term reason. IO INTRODUCTION. Reason is not active except when it has data to act upon; but, when the data are furnished, it acts with a nature that is characteristically its own. It cannot modify its own principles without ceasing to be itself. It does not enforce these arbitrarily, but goes forth with assurance that the demands of its nature are the principles of reality. It looks for its own natuie in the objective world, and does so with the fullest assurance of finding it. The principles of reason found in the objective world are not the result of impersonal forces, but are the expression of a person like itself. The unity of reason with this personal being, expressing himself in the rational principles of nature, is what we mean by religion. It may be objected that religion is a matter of faith and not of reason. While this is true let us not overlook the fact, that faith is every where the organ of reason; and this organ is employed in science no less than it is in the sphere of religion. Reason organizes knowledge; and in its efforts it assumes facts and principles upon the strength of the demand of that organism of knowledge. The idea of space does not enter the mind through the senses; but upon the condition of an external ob- ject, reason by virtue of its own insight supplies INTRODUCTION. 1 1 the idea. In the act of perception, we have only sensation. Sensation alone is not knowledge. Sensation must be ascribed to some object as its source. It is reason that posits the thing. Reason projects its principles far beyond the data of its empirical experience, and has perfect confidence in them. Experience has never seen the center of the earth; and yet reason assumes its existence with the utmost confidence. No scientist has demon- strated the indestructability of matter, or the exist- ence of an atom. Reason assumes these and has confidence in them, because physical science would be unintelligible without these assumptions. A hypothesis is considered demonstrated when it fits in with other principles and explains all the facts for which it is assumed. Upon the preception of the facts of mental life reason assumes the existence of the soul, as the only rational explanation. So it becomes perfectl} clear that it accepts the basal principle of psychology, as well as of physics, upon the same authority. Reason accepts the idea of matter because it cannot account for certain facts of experience without it. It accepts the idea of life, because it cannot account for form in organism without it. The law of gravitation is not empiri- cally given; and yet reason demands it for the 12 INTROCUCTION. proper explanation of facts and, upon its own authority, supplies it. The idea of God as the fundamental explanation of all things must be accepted upon the authority of reason, and no matter what element is thus added, it must always be left to reason to determine its value in the organism of knowledge. To deny the authority of reason means to commit intellectual suicide. It may be said that reason alone would never have detected the facts of a revelation by virtue of its own light. That is true. Yet must it act upon the credentials of such a Revelation. It is required to pass judgment upon the comparative value of Buddhism and Christianity, upon Romanism and Protestantism. If Revelation means anything, it means that facts and truths otherwise not in relation to reason are, by means of it, put into such a rela- tion. It must bring to reason for the incorporation into the organism of knowledge that which it reveals. Furthermore, a Revelation would not be a Revel- ation, nor would it be received as such, were it not for the fact that reason had declared it a necessity. It was only because reason had found a sad want in the organism of knowledge, which it was not able INTRODUCTION. 1 3 to supply, that a Revelation became necessary. But reason reserves the right of expressing judg- ment upon the elements admitted into this system of thought; and judges their value according to its demand for them. A Revelation that meets no want would be valueless . If the demand for such a Revelation had no rational basis the Revelation itself would be purposeless. It is reason which discerns purpose. It is in organized human thought that the demand must appear. The question may arise, "Is not reason untrue in its claims ?' ' It is, of course, a mistake to sepa- rate mental functions as though the mind was itself divided. Mental life is a unity, and the life itself cannot be separated into parts; but for convenience sake, it is proper to speak of a variety of action even in a single agent. Perception meets the outside world, while reason is constructive. And in mental life, reason has absolute value. The senses err, and need a corrective. When in a moving train the whole landscape seems to move in the opposite direc- tion, the appearance to the senses must be corrected by reason. When looking at an object through defective glass, the observer sees the object dis- torted. For the senses the object is in every sense distorted, but reason puts the cause for the distor- 14 INTRODUCTION. tion in the defective glass and not in the object. It does so because the distorted object does not fit into its system of knowledge. Reason is so constructed that its individual facts must be construed in the light of universal princi- ples; and these universal principles are extended into every form of mental life. Wherever there are objects, they must occupy space. Wherever there is succession, there must be the idea of time. Wherever there is an event, it must be connected with a cause. In other words, reason is so con- structed that every fact of consciousness real or imaginary, must be related to the whole sphere of knowledge, and be organized therewith. Sensations produced, and simply produced, would have no value for mental life. A few scattered sensations upon the sensorium would never stand for anything intelligible. No amount of food thrown into the alimentary canal would sustain the body of an organism, unless it were first digested and assimi- lated. In like manner the data of sense perception must be elaborated before they become facts of mental life. It would be inconsistent with truth, if I were to make the impression that there is no elaboration connected with the simplest fact of sense perception. INTRODUCTION. 1 5 No being enters the mind. The mind is spiritual and has no spatial extension as such. The distin- guishing quality of mental life is activity. Sensa- tions are acts of this agent. These sensations are in the form of attributes. It is reason that assumes the thing to explain the attribute. We see not the sun, we are simply kissed by its rays; but we pos- tulate a thing to account for the rays. We know only action, but reason compels the assumption of an agent back of the action. Again, it is appar- ent that it is the nature of reason to assume all that is necessary for the complete organization of its experience. It is, therefore, the nature of reason in its assumptions to transcend the realm of experience. The different schools of philosophy do agree as to the fact of universal truth; yet they are greatly at variance as to their origin, and, consequently, as to their value. Empiricism says that all our knowl- edge is derived from experience. All the items of knowledge rest upon individual facts. By compar- ison and abstraction we arrive at the universal. Empiricism, however, is prevented by its own prin- ciple from having a sound logic. If there is no general principle to account for individual facts, even induction would not be possible. In our 1 6 INTRODUCTION. thoughts we depend upon the principle that ' ' What is once tiue, is always true." That is the pinciple of science. The medical student does not dissect every body that he treats; he proceeds rather upon the assumption, that having once thoroughly become familiar with a human structure, he understands them all. What would there be to the intellectual life, if it were not in the possession of universals. The empiricist in winter could not cheer himself with the thought of spring; for he has no data to compute or infer one from. The scientist, having confidence in reason and in its universal principles, trusts in the universal principle that underlies the changing seasons; and thus is enabled to infer beyond the immediate data of experience. Individual facts can be proved only by bringing them under general principles. Empiricism could never prove a fact; it must take it upon the authority of observation only; because it denies the principle by which proof is to be made. Empiricism has an insuperable snag in the form of mathematics. It presents a whole body of facts and relations, which are not ascertained by experience. The truth of these relations are not limited by the reach of experi- INTRODUCTION. 1 7 ence, but are extended into every sphere of possible knowledge. The universal principle of causation must also be recognized by the empiricist. It, even, cannot afford to give up this relation of the facts of human consciousness. If it were true that we are limited to our experience, then would we be confined to our sensations, and could not get beyond them. We know then only the states of our consciousness; and in the absence of the principle of causation, we dare not recognize for them an external determinant. The denial of this principle merges us in to Sub- jetcive Idealism; and this makes the individual mind alone responsible for its knowledge. Strict Empiricism is agnosticism. It deals with sensation and is debarred from all contact with reality. For it the only reality is its thoughts and imaginations. Empiricism, when analyzed, becomes repugnant to common-sense. Common-sense cannot look upon the world as a shadowy imagination; it is a real something. The relations we stand in to other things are not imaginary; they are dynamic. We come into forceful contact with actual forces. We are members of society. Even the empiricist must recognize the fact. And yet, how can he con- sistently do so ? He knows only his own sensations, 1 8 INTRODUCTION. how can he refer them, except by an act of infer- ence, to beings similar to himself. This society is a universal, composed of individual members like the observer himself. But no conclusion like this can be arrived at on the principle of empiricism. With the exception of a few empiricists, that are decreasing in number, philosophers recognize uni- versal principles. This must become apparent to the observer, if he claims the power of inference at all. Inference can only be possible upon the basis of propositions that are fundamental. If one proposition is a branch that grows out of another; that last branch must spring from another; and that branch must spring from the trunk, which is itself supported by the root. Destroy the root and the whole tree falls. Propositions, in order to be true, must spring from others that are fundamental, which are taken up into mental life upon the strength of their own evidence. And to reason must the final appeal go. The whole body of mathematical truths is an exam- ple of such truth that rests entirely upon direct mental insight. The whole body of Geometry rests upon such axioms. Their axiomatic nature does not depend upon the fact that they rest upon some other. They rest INTRODUCTION. 1 9 upon proof furnished by reason itself, to which these axioms reveal themselves as unsiversal and conse- quently self-evident. Either we must accept the proposition, "That the mind has an insight of its own," or let the whole structure of mathematics fall into a hopeless mass of ruin. The conclusion of the matter is, that we possess universal truths and that they are noted for their self -evidence; and they in connection with the other elements of knowledge are necessary. Empiricism can give us nothing universal. It is concerned only with individual facts. It can never account for the element of necessity in our experience. Reason is not a special faculty, it is the nature of mind itself. It is at the bottom of all mental activity. Reason contains what is absolutely essential to knowledge. Its elements are essential because they can not be removed from experience without wreck- ing the entire mental life. All the facts of this life are established into insoluble relations. The principle of personal identity makes possible the mental acts of perception, memory, imagination and comparison. Neither could it exercise these functions if it itself were not governed in its actions by the law of identity. 20 INTRODUCTION. It is in the presence of a content that reason asserts itself in a function ; and it is in its function that it is able to know its nature. It keeps at work until the highest generalizations are reached in the form of the axioms of mathematics, and the fundamental laws of thought, ''Identity" and "Sufficient Reason." All intelligence points to end and purpose; and reason generalizes this in the form of design. The three great centers of rational convergence are the "world," 'self" and "God." Reason organizes the various sensations, and the organization becomes the outside world. It organizes the various facts of the life of conscious- ness into the conception of the soul. The world and the soul appear to take the sides of an irrecon- cilable dualism; but further observation shows so many points of interaction that they together point to a further principle, in which they themselves are but differences in an identity. That unifying prin • ciple is God. The authority of reason consists in the fact that its principles are the necessary presuppositions of science. For it muse be evident that if its claims be disallowed neither the outside world nor the soul can have any being for us; and thus our whole INTRODUCTION. 21 mental life would have to be given up as sheer deception. If now the principles of reason must be accepted in order to have a mental life at all, then comes the question as to the extent of their authority, or the reach of their value in the sphere of activity which constitutes us moral and religious beings. The world is a system of relations. The ob- jective cannot be objective aside from the subjective; and the subjective cannot be subjective aside from the objective. The two sides stand in organic rela- tion. One element of a relationship is as essential for that relationship as the other, and must deter- mine that relationship by its own peculiar nature. The subject has the same claim to reality as the object; and as the object determines the activity of the subject, so, with equal right, has the subject an activity and determines the activity of the object. The objective world is a reality, and the mind must accept it as such. If the revelations of the outside world as made in consciousness are a true revela- tion of the outside world, then is the revelation of self as made in consciousness also a true revelation of its nature. We know the nature of reason by its action upon the contents of consciousness ; and the laws of its activity as thus brought to the notice 22 INTRODUCTION. of consciousness. Shall we question the activity of reason any more than we do that of oxygen ? Is not the one as actual as the other ? Does the one in its activity determine the nature of the world while the other does not ? It would be an inconsistent philosophy to hold such a view. We accept the facts of the objective world because we cannot explain them away; they are self-evident facts and must be taken upon their own authority. If the mind acts at all, and consciousness would be a deception if it did not, it must have a nature. It is clear to consciousness that the mind has a nature; and that it acts, whenever excited to activity, accord- ing to that nature. All intelligence is essentially rational, from its first activity to the highest principles of science. The principles of reason are as necessary as is objec- tive reality. The one forces itself upon our recog- nition with the same force as does the other. We thus see that the principles revealed by reason are as real as the facts revealed in sensation. Religion is concerned with the three rational ideas, God, the world and the individual soul. Reason must consider God as the sufficient reason, or ground, for the world; and every part of the world to its most bumble part reveals God. The world, there- INTRODUCTION. 23 fore, is only the medium for revealing God to human consciousness. God is a necessity of reason, incorporated into its system of reality. This very fact that reason is driven to the idea of God makes man a religious being; for it forces him to enter into relation to this being, whether the relation be right or otherwise. Reason unassisted by Revelation would not have arrived at the purest conception of these principles; neither would Revelation have had any power to force upon the world something which teason did not demand. It was this demand that caused the different ages of the world to make attempts to construct religious systems that it might be met. They failed to meet the demand; and men have refused to recognize them. A revelation had its basis in the fact that reason made its demand and was unable to meet it. Reason had to pass its verdict upon the inadequacy of all the old philosophical systems to satisfy such demands. Reason, having made the demand, must also declare its satisfaction with the provisions made to satisfy it; before it, the chief characteristic of the soul, can be assuaged. Reason has made the demand; it must also declare its satisfaction. Reason declares the moral relation of the soul to God, and this is its most categorical 24 INTRODUCTION. utterance. As it declares the relation, it also expresses its satisfaction when that relation is pro- perly established. Reason is put in unrest when its moral and religious demands are not met. It is that reason that needs to be put to rest, and that can be done only when the relations, it categorically demands, are perfectly established. This reason, which leads us to such conclusions, is one with all the faculties of the soul. The soul is not a bundle of faculties that are joined together by some common bond; but the soul is essentially one, and the various faculties are but different lines of its activity. Reason is essentially present in them all. It is present in the simplest act of sensa- tion, when it joins it to some other sensation, and assumes a common bond for the sensations in the "thing itself." It is present in the feelings and emotions. It is present in all the soul's impulses and aspirations. It expresses itself in the goal toward which the impulses and aspirations tend. For this reason the race, even when it was most bar- barous, felt the need of being religious. The soul is constructed in such a manner, that in its intellectual nature it aims for the Absolute, and in his ethical no less. Religion has always been the natural outcome of the entire mental life; anc[ INTRODUCTION. 25 no amount of effort on the part of men has ever been able to dethrone it permanently. We are now driven to the dilemma: either the fundamental assumptions of reason are correct, and are the constitutive principles of reality ; or man is constructed upon a lie, and all knowledge is an im- possibility. If reason can be trusted, then are we at home in the world of reality. If it cannot, then are we deceived and cannot correct the delusion simply because we cannot trust our faculties. Reason imposes its demands and compels their recognition. It so orders the elements of knowledge that they serve reason in the attainment of its own set ends. It brings with it its own punishment for want of fidelity to these demands, in the form of rational dissatisfaction in the presence of unrealized ideals and compunction of conscience. Scepticism questions everything and wrecks itself. The intellectual life, in order to be at all, must accept certain facts and data of consciousness. Even unbelief is idiotic unless there is a recognized foundation for it. Speculative thought made the grave mistake of demanding that all the original data of thought must be proven by logical processes. Mental life is possible only when it accepts all the facts of consciousness. None must be accepted that 26 INTRODUCTION. are not thus actually given; and none must be inter- preted otherwise than consistent with themselves. Reason starts out with the assumption that the universe is comprehensible, and that we are able to comprehend it. It therefore recasts all sensations in such a way that they are comprehensible. Sensa- tions are not always comprehensible. The apparent moving of a landscape looked at from a moving train; the apparent movement of the sun around the earth are familiar examples : but we put behind these irrational sensations such realities that they fit into a system of rational knowledge. We read the scattered and distorted sensations in the glow of the highest rational light. The soul is thus a liv- ing growing organism. Reason is its life. Objec- tive reality furnishes it its nutriment. The life car- ries with it the ideal of its growth, and this is to realize self in its perfect unity with the Absolute Ground of all reality. PART L The Conception of God and His Relation to the World, RATIONAL IMPULSES. Reason is not a formal faculty in the sense that it acts independent of any content. On the con- trary it is called into action by a content given it to act upon. The objective world is related to the mind by its power to produce sensations; and by this established relation between the self and the external world reason is determined to activity; and in the action it reveals its nature. Only in its oper- ations does it reveal its principles. Reason has a nature of its own, and this nature it impresses upon all its contents, and this nature it expects to find in a completer, even in a universal, manifestation. Reason is spontaneous and seeks to build up a living organism. It goes into the outside world for the nutriment it subsists on. This nutriment gives it something to do; but what it does is determined by its own nature. The first impulse we no- tice is cognitive. Through the avenue of sensa- tion it is put into the possession of color, form, weight, taste, etc. It organizes these scattered sen- sensations into the unity of an object. It is impelled 29 30 KJ^UGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. by its own nature to do this. It finds this object an individual object, but it will not allow it to re- main such, it must be related to other objects. It must be related to other objects that are the sufficient ground for its existence. Reason will not rest short of such an ideal. The object may be an orange. The elements have come from some source. They have not originated from nothing, for it is an axiom of science, that no matter comes into existence, nor is it destroyed. It will find, and previous to exper- ience it expects to find, that all elements present in the orange can be accounted for. They are taken from a store of atoms scattered throughout nature in different shapes, forms and compositions. Reason still insists upon going further. An adequate cause must have put these elements together. And no matter what the hypothesis may be upon which this composition is explained, whether it be the principle of chemism, or vitalism, reason will not rest short of an explanation. It is thus driven from one point to another, finding no rest and satisfaction until it arrive at a cause that is itself not an event ; a cause which contains the ground of its own existence. This cause IyOtze calls, "The Absolute Matter of Fact." Reason may name it as it will, it is irre- sistably driven to this goal. The chemist is handed RATIONAL IMPULSES. 3 1 a fragment of nature, he knows not yet by experi- ence what elements are found in that object, neither in what proportion these elements are combined. He does not stop and declare it unknowable; but believes that reason will find itself in that composi- tion, and is impelled from the beginning to seek itself in it. The geologist goes into the strata of rock; he may not detect any order in their arrangement at the first examination; and yet he goes into them with a perfect confidence that every stratum has its sufficient explanation, and relentlessly seeks until it discovers its own demands in the lifeless rocks. In every department of being there are vast domains yet unexplored by science; and in spite of the fact that these departments are as opaque as midnight, reason ventures into them with the irresistable belief, that they must become transparent to its own diligent efforts. It is not irrational to assert that belief precedes knowledge; and this belief is an irresistable stimulus to knowledge. Hegel's fudamental proposition was that "Thought is Be- ing." This means that the development of logic must be the development of being. Schopenhauer has corrected this view by saying that "Being is not only thought, but also will." Though it is not true that thought is being; yet it is a fundarnenta 32 REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. axiom of science that all being is transparent to thought. Reason carries with it the germ of its own in- finity. It is true that it is bound to its own imme- diate content, and is bound by the limits of its own attainments; yet in its impulses, and in the con- scious reach of its possibilities, it contains the ele- ments of universality. Empiricism has never yet been able to account for this fact. Empiricism can- not expect, upon its own principles, that the events of the coming day will be like the events of its past experience. This it can do only upon the assump- tion, that what is once true will always be true. This principle is indeed verified by experience; but for scientific purposes, it must be projected beyond this experience. Empirisicm cannot account for its own ideals, nor itself become a stimulus to effort. This can result only from the fact that the universal is present in reason, and, though it may not yet have grasped the infinite reach of truth, is confident by virtue of its own nature that it is the goal of its struggle. The conception that reason compels man to form is of a being, though the cause of the universe ; yet is itself caused by nothing: but is the cause of its own existence. It necessarily exists. It is not RATIONAL IMPULSES. 33 necessary in the sense of that it is the necessary consequence of some cause, or causes. It is not a necessary being because the outcome of given forces; but it is a necessity of his rational nature. The phenomenal world being given, reason demands an explanation, and is indifferent in what this explan- ation consists; only so, that it is sufficient to cover the facts. No matter how men aim to meet this fact it must be met. Man has always been and will always be metaphysical; even though he may refuse to acknowledge the fact. The moment man comes into the possession of a rational consciousness he becomes metaphysical. Whatever may be the hypothesis, or the theory with which he may account for this, this rational impulse can never be silenced. The only difference between the ordinary mind and the metaphysician is, that the former accepts an unreasoned satisfaction for reason, while the latter will accept only what is consistent with itself. Reason demands that the various principles, found to explain the various departments of nature, be themselves combined and organized in an organ- ism, whose ideal is reason itself. This is the first root in the idea of God. Man cannot know his ignor- ance, without having at the same time the idea of a more perfect knowledge. He cannot believe in 34 REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. the intelligibility of all things, without being urged to the conception of a universal reason, a reason that reveals itself in every part of the universe. This conception, though of the nature of a uni- versal, is but an imperfect representation of it; for the finite is never able to grasp fully the infinite. We are, consequently, left to reason for the concep- tion; and as the data in its possession enlarges through experience, reason enlarges its conception to meet completely the facts it is called upon to explain. It has been said, that because the Infinite cannot be grasped in finite thought, it must, for that rea- son, be unknowable. It is true that finite com- prehension only is possible to the finite mind. Only within a narrow sphere do we discern sense quali- ties. When we aim to get beyond these, we are confronted by insurmountable obstacles. We can see sights and hear sounds only within limited dis- tances. There may be a multitude of qualities in objects that we are not in the least related to in any way. The foregoing argument is completely met in what follows. We are concious of the finiteness of our organs of sense; that their power of endurance as well as their degree of service is limited; that RATIONAL IMPULSES. 35 there may be realms of contingent fact into which, on account of our finiteness, we are unable to penetrate: yet reason is conscious of its universality in the fact of its own conscious- ness, that not only all actual data, but all possible data of sense must come under its own principles. It is driven forward with the firm conviction, that, though there be a thousand worlds of phenomena, they must all fall into the principles of r eason, and be organized thereby into the world of experience. If we had a million times as many sensations as we now have, reason would still claim its authority to organize them all. The sensations that cause the reason to act do not necessarily spring from the outside world. They may also arise within us from subjective causes. We soon find out that we have not only objective impressions, but also subjective claims. The sub- ject has its instincts urging it to form certain rela- tions with these objects beyond itself. We have within us certain desires which we cannot eradicate from our nature without destroying that nature itself. We have love for kindred; we have love for knowledge ; we have ambition; we need sym- pathy. All these desires need their correlative object. There are desires and longings in us which 36 RKLIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. these objects cannot satisfy. We know ourselves as dependent creatures. We find within us feelings of veneration, and a disposition to trust. These feelings are a perennial experience of man. Are these feelings to stand as a perpetual spur to some- thing that does not exist ? Reason answers most emphatically no! It will not rest in such purpose- less being, but believes instinctively that every instinct has its correlate. While we are thus con- scious of our dependence, we look for something that is independent, something that is worthy of being a support. Man full of reverence and awe canuot rest in the worship of that which is change- able and finite. He must have something that is unchangeable and infinite. Now in brief, the natural feelings and longings of our nature impels reason to form the conception of a being that is worthy of reverence and is able to support. This is the second root in the idea of God. Man is not only cognitive and emotional, but he is also moral. He knows himself as an agent, and is compelled to pass verdict upon the value of his acts. His moral nature meets him with an impera- tive, that is not conditional but categorical. He is conscientious, not because he has learned it; but he is so constitutionally. It is his duty to do right RATIONAL IMPUI T element of sensation. It would . be impossible to conceive Jupiter except as related to space, and thinking of the unity of that body except through the law of gravitation. It would be impossible to think of an event there except as related to a cause. In fact Jupiter with all his appurtenances needs a sufficient explanation. The most diverse elements in the world revealed to us are matter and mind. They are so diverse that the qualities of the one are apparently contra- dictory to the other. Plato discerned this fact and considered it a hopeless dualism, and believed it could not be reconciled without a tertium quid, that was neither spirit nor matter, but partook of the nature of both. Descartes met the same difficulty, but likewise saw the fact that the two interacted. Neither his " Occasionalism" nor the '^reestab- lished Harmony" of Leibnitz was able to remove this difficulty. But the fact of the interaction of 44 REUGION A RATION AI, DEMAND. these two spheres of reality remains. Modern science looks with amazement upon the fact that physical actions conveyed to the finger tips are transformed into sensations, and expressed in terms of thought, and recognizes the fact that decisions of the mind are taken up by the complicated machin- ery of the nervous system and converted into force and physical motion. These are facts which stare us in the face; and they need to be accounted for. These are elements of nature and stand in the vital relationship of interaction. How can this interaction be accounted for ? We will pave the way for the answer by an illustration. The various parts of a machine inter- act and work together for a single result, because they are but parts in an embracing system, and that system is the machine. Physical science has made us familiar with the fact that the action of things depend upon their relation to other things. Oxygen will sustain life; it will support combus- tion ; and in combination with different elements it forms different compounds. Here we have a single agent differing its action according to its relation to other elements. Things can, therefore, not be con- sidered independent, but are what they are only in relation to other elements. A stone would have no THK STRUGGI^ FOR UNITY. 45 weight except in relation to the earth which attracts it. Both the stone and the earth are members in the same system of gravitation. Gravic attraction does not stand disconnected; but its influence can again be converted into heat; and heat in turn can be transformed into motion. Thus the ultimate conclusion of science is that there must be a basal unity. This interaction is not an irregular one; but these relations are so uniform that an action in one part has a commensurate effect upon the other. The blacksmith controls the shape of an iron bar by the swing of the hammer. This interaction can be accounted for only by the assumption of a unitary principle, which posits these different elements and maintains them in their mutual relations. Things are not independent of one another. They are not what they are in them- selves, but only in their interaction with each other. The mind is not mind without something to know. The subject could not be subject without an object; and an object could not be object without a subject. The relationship that suggests itself to modern .scholarship is that of ''Organic Unity." Nature makes a variety of expressions and is active in a multiplicity of manifestations; but these manifesta- 46 REUGION A RATION AI, DEMAND. tions stand in organic relation to a fundamental unity. In succeeding chapters we will endeavor to point out what the value of this basal unity is for religion. What concerns us here most particularly is that there is such a basal unity, and that nature gratifies, in this respect, our rational impulse. This unity is both transcendent and immanent. It is not transcendent in the sense that the parts are put together, and their sum is the unit. It is trans- cendent because the part depends upon the whole, and is determined by the nature of the whole. The principle is independent for it is self-existent. The part on the contrary depends upon it. This princi- ple is immanent for the individual parts are not self- sufficient, but are what they are in relation to other parts and to the whole. The whole is the sufficient reason for the part and never vice versa. They are moments in a system; and the system determines the existence and the relation of the individual parts. The facts of transcendence and immanence are best cleared up when we get the proper conception of vsubstance. Substance is not so much stuff out of which certain individual things are made. There is only one way to substance, and that is by ascer- the struggle for unity. 47 taining what it does. The fundamental require, ment of the nature of a thing is that it completely accounts for certain actions. The individuals are not cut off from a certain lump and then related to each other. They are permeated by the same causal principle. The supreme cause is self existent and independent and in this sense it is transcendent. The individual parts are not independent sources of power, but are dynamic in their relation to one another only by being themselves made so by the self sufficient dynamic principle. This truth can be illustrated by an animal organ- ism. The parts of such an organism derive their power from forces engendered by means of chemical relations established within the system. The indi- viduals are energetic only because the supreme prin- ciple energizes through them. The individual thing is known by its action. It acts as cause and is an individual as it partakes of the nature of the ulti- mate cause. The idea of stuff must be displaced from modern thought by the idea of action. Whether this principle is free or necessitated, whether it gives expression to its entire nature, or whether there are possibilities yet unrealized, do not concern us here. The unity of being may leave us in the dark as to the proper conception of the individual. The 48 RKUGION A RAYlONAt DEMAND. Infinite is not divided into individuals and after- wards united again into the universal. The indi- vidual is only a modification of the universal. The hand, the foot, the ear, and the eye are not created separately and afterwards put together. They spring from the homogeneous, and are only modifi- cations of that homogeneous. Thus the interac- tion can be accounted for only on the supposition that the individual interacting agents are only modi- fied expressions of the comprehensive Being, in whom they all live and move and have their being. We have not yet completed our conception of this first principle. We have only established its unity. But with its unity hangs together its abso- luteness. It does not divide its domain with other principles. There is no room for such. There is no rational evidence for another. It is absolute for it is underived, dependent upon no other ground. It is ultimate. Science or philosophy can never go back of it. The relation of the particular to the Infinite is clearly put by Prof. Edward Caird in the ''Evolu- tion of Religion". Vol. I. P. 109. He there states a general principle of knowledge. He says: "We always go upon certain general principles in our consciousness of particular objects, and if we THE STRUGGLE FOR UNITY. 49 could not turn the light of consciousness upon these general principles, if we could not define the uni- versal we use, we could never come to know any- thing To know is simply to carry back the particular to the universal and finally to the highest universal through tvhich everything else is known." We have now found the Infinite in the highest universal, the general principle, that em- braces every particular. We must always view the finite in connection with the Infinite; We must always think of the parts beyond the part, and of the parts be}^ond that part, until we get to the whole that has no part beyond itself, that is not limited by anything else. That is the Absolute." I will again cite Prof. Edward Caird, "Evolu- tion of Religion," P. no. "Religion is only a higher form of that tendency which in science leads us to seek the universal beyond the particular, the one beyond the many. Thus in our first natural view of the world, we are apt to take it as a collec- tion of individual things and beings, each of which is centered in itself or has only accidental relations with the rest. But science in the strict sense does not begin until we realize that these supposed inde- pendent individuals are nothing apart from their relations to other objects from which we distinguish 50 RBUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. them; that, therefore, their distinction and division from each other is relative, and that in order to see them as they are, we must regard them as parts of a whole, differences in a unity, particular manifesta- tions of a general principle, which is at once the source of their distinction and of their relation to each other." INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIALISM. The first effort made to solve the great problem of the origin of all things was materialistic. When men first began to study nature sufficiently to learn the fact of efficient causation, they supposed that all the natural forces were resident in matter. Thales, a Grecian philosopher, who lived about 585 B. C, believed that all things had their origin in matter. He did not conceive of the necessary distinction be- tween matter and spirit. Materialistic theories in some form or another were in vogue for some time, and they were supposed to explain all phenomena; but when men began to investigate phenomena bet- ter and began to weigh the theories more carefully they found them wanting. These materialistic theories have again and again been repeated under different forms. As a result of modern science, that has succeeded in tracing the law of cause and effect into so man y departments of our knowledge, materialism has revived in a more scientific form. Many phenomena that had formerly been attributed to supernatural agencies have been brought within 5i 52 RELIGION A RATION AI, DEMAND. reach of natural agents and are perfectly explicable thereby. Materialism has this in its favor that it is per- fectly simple. In this respect it answers the pur- pose of a perfect hypothesis. It also satisfies the rational demand for unity. It is its simplicity that has caused it to gain influence as a hypothesis. Science has disclosed the fact that laws do not exist aside from things but in them; and that force does not exist in voids, but in the objects themselves. It has discovered that life does not exist by itself but always in some particle of protoplasm. It has discovered that mental phenomena do take place in the complicated structure called the brain. Science has discovered that any state of a developing thing is accounted for by the state immediately preceding it. It says as yet it is impossible for the microscope to discern the motion of the brain required to make it a rational explanation of thought, but this is due to the imperfection of the instrument rather than to the imperfection of the materialistic theory. Materialism says that the heavenly bodies hold themselves in position by virtue of their gravic force, and, consequently, we need no other power or principle to account for the order of Heaven. The mysteries of chemism are explained by the atoms INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIALISM. 53 and by their affinity for one another; consequently we do not need any spiritual power to account for these phenomena. It is true that we cannot yet see that chemism accounts for the complicated phenomena of life. Irving protoplasm has not been developed in the chemical laboratory; but science has been so suc- cessfull in driving from the skies so many spirits and spectres, and has found the efficient powers for those phenomena in matter itself, to such an extent, that it feels itself warranted, upon the strength of these discoveries, to project the conclusion that material forces will yet account for phenomena which they cannot as yet explain. Matter will some day, under the manipulation of a skillful chemist, be able to evolve the mysterious phenomena of life. He is not yet able to trace the molecular movements that take place in the brain as a condition of thought. Yet from the base line of what it has done the ven- ture is made to predict that under the carefully ad- justed microscope some day these motions will be discovered that will amply account for all phenom- ena of thought. The truth of materialism consists in its monistic conception, and in the fact that it recognizes no laws or powers to be real but those of things themselves, that forces do not exist in voids 54 REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. but in things themselves. But it makes an egre- gious blunder when it excludes all spiritual elements and aims to find matter sufficient to account for all pheno tnena. There is a unity of principle demanded ; but it remains to be seen whether materialism has discovered the principle. Materialism starts out with a pronounced dual- ism, for even it must be conscious of matter. It starts out with consciousness and matter; and, after it has discovered matter, it makes it the sole princi- ple of all knowledge and being. The first great blunder materialism makes is that it holds conscious- ness inactive and that matter as given in conscious- ness is a self-sufficient entity. It is this blunder which proves destructive to the whole superstruc- ture. Our idea of matter is derived from experi- ence; but experience is impossible without a mind, a consciousness, to begin with. All action upon the senses is a result of motion, and materialism con- siders it motion ; but motion is not sensation. When one end of a log is scratched with a pin it sends a quiver through the whole log, but at the other end it is a quiver still. Passing through the log does not transform it into anything else. The log formed no idea of the pin nor of the play of molecules in itself. It requires a different substratum to convert INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIALISM. 55 motion into sensation. The vibration of the ether acts upon the retina of the eye. This motion is conveyed through the optic nerve to the visual center in the brain; and there, in the dark cavern of the skull, this motion is transformed into the sensation of light. Molecular motion in the air strikes the tympanum of the ear and wanders through the labyrinthian canals into the auditory nerve and passes on to the center of the brain, with which it is connected, and is at last converted into the sensation of sound. These motions suddenly lose their characteristics as motions and are con- verted into light and sound. Science must account for the transformation. Is there a material sub- stratum to account for this transformation ? It has not yet been found. These sensations are not sen- sations absolutely, but are sensations in conscious- ness. In other words, they are the experiences of a consciousness. We know things by the sensations they produce in us. Height and sound and resistance are our experiences; and they are the experience to account for which we assume the thing. The thing is the hypothesis by which we account for sensa- tions. It is therefore not a fact that mentality is the outcome and flower of material forces: it is rather the fact that matter is in consciousness and 56 RKlylGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. never out of it. Kant in his ' ' Critik of Pure Rea- son," says that mind and mental categories are the essential conditions of experience. Sensations are brought to the mind; they may have arisen from motion; but they are no longer expressed in terms of motion, but in terms of mentality. These are the terms of consciousness in which they appear. The idea of space is necssary for the conception of matter, for the reason that it is one of the chief characteristics of matter that it occupies space. It is, however, a fact that the idea of space is not derived through the senses, but is an intuition of the mind. The idea of space is a necessary one, for the reason it is a mental condition of perception. When you ask the materialist what he means by the qualities of matter, he will tell you that solidity is a quality of matter. You ask him what he means by solidity and he will reply that it is ability to occupy space. But space is a mental intuition. He will tell you that matter is impenetrable. You ask him what he means by the impenetrability of matter. He will answer that it is the power of a body to resist the occupancy of a portion of space while it occupies it. Again he translates a material quality into terms of mentality; for nowhere but in consciousness and from conscious efforts do we get INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIALISM. 57 the idea of power, or force. So all the qualities of matter are activities of thought. Force, law, unity, multiplicity identity, difference, cause, effect and substance are all terms of mental life and are pre- suppositions of all material science. The materialist speaks of atoms as the constitu- ent part of matter. Out of these atoms and the forces couched in them he constructs very readily the multitude of worlds. But, what is the atom ? He says that atom has weight, that means that it stands in relation to gravitation. It has chemical affinity , that means that it stands in certain relation to other atoms. These are relations and only describe what these atoms do. The materialist can describe them only in terms of causality. Again, you asks him what he means by the atom, or what it itself is, and he will tell you that he never saw one. It is only a necessary assumption, a logical necessity to explain certain actions bj\ So we must conclude that the constituent parts of matter are of mental origin again. This does not prove that mat- ter is a delusion but that it is the action of the objective world and its product in consciousness. Furthermore, our idea of matter is not made up from single sensations. These sensations are as disconnected as light and sound, as touch and taste, 58 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. and yet these qualities are united in a single idea. For only as they become united do they become objects of knowledge. Impressions are identified. Atoms acting one way are classified together. Con- stantly recurring actions of the same kind are put into the same category. But whence comes the idea of identity and difference ? It is a mental term and applied only as the mind detects relationship. And such relationships are the fundamental assumptions of the scientists. Without a discernment of these relations all experience would be an everchanging chase of phenomena; there would be no relation between the atoms themselves or between the atoms and the observer. Not only is there not science without mind, but there is no atom of matter with- out elements of mentality. To ask what matter is outside of consciousness is to ask a hopeless ques- tion, one that will never find a solution. We are familiar only with the contents of our consciousness. We deal with our ideas, our conceptions, in fact with our experiences. This is sufficient to indicate under what great misconceptions materialism carries on its vain boastings. As a conclusion to this part of the discussion I want to cite the words of Lotze, ''Outlines of Metaphysics" by Ladd P. 112. "We come back to the view now taken for granted by INSUFFICIENCY OF MATFRIRIJSM. 59 physics; namely, every volume filled up of matter consists of an infinite number of real beings, which in themselves have no extension, but which by means of their intellectual relations to one another prescribe places in space that are merely mathe- matical points; and these by means of the sum of all their reciprocal actions effectuate both extension in general and also the form, cohesion, and force of resistance that belongs to the extended whole." It thus appears that thought and intelligence enter into the very being of matter itself. Matter is not self-sufficient. It can have no existence aside from mind; it itself cannot account for thought which is the necessary condition for its existence. There are also phenomena which differ from those usually ascribed to matter. The difference is not so much quantitative as qualitative. If the differences were quantitative, an increased action of one class of phenomena might possibly cause them to pass over into another class. When we pass into the organic kingdom we come to a list of phenomena which gravic force and chemism do not, in fact can- not, account for. Materialism, however, says that science has succeeded in removing so many cobwebs from the sky and has reduced so many complex 6o RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. phenomena to some simple principle, that some day, in the laboratory of the diligent scientist, chemism will account for life. Mechanical and chemical forces assert the same quality in the most minute particles of matter as they do in the greatest mass ; and the strength of the quality can be measured by the quantity of the mass. But quantitative changes do not account for qualitative. There is a difference between organized and unorganized matter; and this difference needs to be accounted for. The chemist may produce the chemical compounds similar to protoplasm ; but he cannot make it throb with life. The chemist may think that he understands the nature of the organic cell; but it is only the lifeless cell that he analyzes. The chemical and mechanical forces in nature have not yet been made to account for the cell. Whenever we meet a new set of phe- nomena we must enlarge our conception of the first principle sufficiently to account for it. To properly account for the living cell we need an activity not manifested in the inorganic world. After all the experiments of the biologists, their result do not contradict the principle, "Life only from the liv- ing." The living cell has an art of combining ele- ments into certain active forms, which no scientist pretends to have. Here is indeed a set of phe- INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIALISM. 6 1 nomena that reason needs to account for before it can rest. Organic substances derhe their name from the fact they are organized into systems. An organism is a unitary system. Physical masses are produced by the addition of particle to particle. The addition does not change the nature, or quality, of ttie mass. A cubic foot of gas does not differ qualitatively from a cubic centimeter. A multiplication of the latter will produce the former. A stone is composed of matter added from the outside, and every particle is but a repetition of the other particles. This is not true in the case of an organism. In the volume of gas every part is as perfect as the whole ; in the stone every particle is as perfect as the mass. The gas might be divided into different quantities, and every quantity, no matter how small, still has every quality of the undivided volume. The parts of the stone have exactly the same nature as the undivided mass. It is vastly different with an organism. The organism is arranged with reference to a unity. The different parts are co-ordinated with reference to a certain end. The homogeneous mass in the cell becomes differentiated into a multiplicity of organs and functions. The cells continue to mul- tiply and to remultiply, but always with reference 62 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. to a definite plan. The cells in a germ will divide and multiply to form the leaf and stem and root. There is no reason why force, if it were not directed, should not exhaust itself in one part of the plant alone and not in a harmonious development of all the parts ; but, of course, that would not mean organization but self-destruction, for all parts of the plant are necessary. There is no reason why force, if it were not directed, should stop the multi- plication of cells when a certain size is reached. Undirected force can not account for the fact that analogous parts of the same specie are always uni- form, and that they adhere to the same plan age after age. There is no reason in force alone, and it is force into which matter ultimately resolves itself according to the materialist, why a cat should have four paws, or why the human hand should have four fingers and one thumb. It must be apparent to any careful observer that the parts are always arranged with reference to a unity. The parts can- not be severed from the whole without destroying the unity. The whole gives value to the individual part; and the parts are absolutely purposeless with- out the unity of the whole. There is another point in connection with the organism that needs to be considered. It is that INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIALISM. 63 the organism is self-sustained. It is not built up by an extraneous agent, but is built up from with- in. The original cell contains within it the plan of the whole organism. It absorbs nourishment from the outside world. It does not deposit it as the particles are deposited on the surface of the stone ; but the absorbed nourishment is transformed into the likeness of its own protoplasm. This trans- forming power is the chief characteristic of this organic chemist, who is able to convert dead matter into living tissue. When particles are added to the stone, the stone makes no stipulations as to how they should be deposited. It is otherwise with life. It does not allow matter to come in as it is, nor to be deposited in a lump, but it m«ist be deposited, after it is transformed according to the requirements of the whole organism. In the animal organism it deposits certain elements at a certain place and forms bone, certain others at another place and stretches a nerve fiber, and all this with reference to a single plan. The constructed organism is a perfect mech- anism; but the mechanic is immanent in the organ- ism itself. The organism injured and the whole organism reacts upon the injury and removes the difficulty. The whole organism was constructed by processes intelligent in every part. 64 REUGION A RATION AX DEMAND. A new set of phenomena appears when we rise into the sphere of sensation and thought. The materialist says that motion can be converted into heat, and the amount of heat produced is equivalent to the amount of mechanical energy expended in its production. Motion can be converted into electri- city and elctricity reconverted into motion. The one is an equivalent of the other. The fact, how- ever, is that motion and heat and electricity are oHy different forms of one and the same thing. They are all estimated and expressed in terms of force. The external agent acts upon the nerve ends and puts the nerves into a certain state. This action is transmitted along the nerve fiber to its own peculiar center. The external agency is force. The tension of the nerves is force. But that force is suddenly translated into something that is not force. The nervous system is a closed circuit. Energy coming in through the sensory tracts is transmitted through the motor tracts into the outer world again. No energy is lost in sensation. The force in the nerv- ous system is not diminished by the fact of con- sciousness. But while the energy passes through the nervous system it is interpreted in terms of con- sciousness. Sensation is a new set of phenomena. These terms of force are expressed in terms of men- INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIALISM. 65 tality. The qualities of matter could not account for the fact of life, and now it is staggered by an- other set of phenomena. These phenomena are not quantitatively but qualitatively diverse from those ordinarily manifested by matter. Sensations are not mere expression of force. There is no known material process by which the motion of ether is transformed into light, or the molecular motion of the air into sound. Something beside material motion must be assumed to account for these phe- nomena. Sensation is not perception. A variety of sensa- tions are united and joined into the unity of a percep- tion. I,ight and sound, touch and taste, are united in the perception of an organ. The different mo- tion giving rise to these different sensations go to different parts of the brain, as is proved by the later results of neurology. These different nerve centers are specific in their action; yet, nevertheless, the activity of the different nerve centers is combined into the unity of a single perception. The different sensations meet in the unity of consciousness. The different atoms of matter are united into the com- plex unity of an organism; the simple elements of sensation are united into the complex unity of a per- ception; and the individual objects of perception are 66 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. united into the unity of a world. This unification is the result of a spiritual process. Divisibility is not incompatible with the nature of matter. A material mass may be divided indefinitely. The mind, on the contrary, is not at home in disjointed variety ; it must have unity, and, consequently, in the diver- sity of material and physical phenomena it is in constant and hopeful search for unity. Were it not for this unitary principle, all the phenomena of nature would be in a desultory and unconnected state of flux. A log may have a sound wave run through it; but the log is unconscious of the wave and preserves not the fact. The action is lost and no record is made of it. Without a unitary principle in man, the unity and the preservation of human experience could not be accounted for. Comparison is not the product of material but of immaterial action. Action in different cells of the brain is not brought into unity by the contiguity of the cells. They can only be accounted for by a relating mind. The contents of the different cells must be comprehended by a single principle before a comparison between the two can be made. A block of marble cannot be compared with a block of wood unless some unitary being comprehends both in the same act. Thus it must be apparent that INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIALISM. 67 thought cannot be accounted for by the forces of mere matter, because matter itself is indifferent to the attributes of weight and quality and relation- ship. These qualities are present only to a single being that can bring different objects together into the unity of a single relationship. The same is true with memory. Memory is the comprehension in consciousness of a fact not now present to gather with the fact that it occurred in consciousness under different circumstances and in a different connection. It not only comprehends the two facts, but it also makes a comparison; and the present image is declared to be a facsimile of an image actually in consciousness under different rela- tions. A being able to hold both the previous experience and the mentally reproduced image of it, in one and the same act of comprehension, is neces- sary to explain this phenomena. Thus, for a variety of reasons, it becomes evident that material forces cannot account for all the phe- nomena of nature. The fact of this failure natur- ally drove philosophers into the opposite extreme to see whether they could not be explained by Subjec- tive Idealism. This question will be considered in the next chapter. SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM INADEQUATE. If materialism will not account for the phe- nomena of the world because it cannot account for itself, then perhaps subjective idealism will do it. Reason cannot rest in a dualism. It demands unity of principle. When Kant reacted upon sensationalism, he showed that mind had an activity of its own, and that it was the active mind that constructed the world of phenomena. He demonstrated that the unifying activity of consciousness, the ideals of space and time, and the categories of the under- standing are necessary conditions for the experience of a phenomenal world. It was the phenomenal world that alone could be known; for it only could be brought within the forms of mental life. The "Thing-in-itself," he said, could not be known. While he believed this "Thing-in-itself" to be a rational necessity; yet it can have no value for the mental life; because mental life can deal with phe- nomena only. This thing in itself is outside of its reach. This foreign "Thing-in-itself" was a thorn in 68 SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM INADEQUATE. 69 the eyes of Fichte. He thought, if there was such a thing, it must be knowable. If it is not able to stand in relation to the thinking subject, we have no right to give it objective reality, then it is a creation of the subject itself. While materialism emphasized one principle of the dualism Subjective Idealism emphasized the other. Now, if the indi- vidual subject with its own activity alone can account for all the phenomena of the world, it is supreme and has no need of going further in search of the first principle. Atheism would be the natural result. It will not require much effort on our part to show that ' 'Subjective Idealism" is not adequate to account for all the facts of the world of experience. The thinking self carries within it the firm convic- tion that there are other individuals, which have an equal claim upon reality with himself, and that he stands in a social relation to them. This belief is so firmly rooted that we could as easily get away from ourselves as to get away from it. If these individuals were our own creation, regardless of objective fact, we might have them as we pleased, for nothing but the subject itself determines the conception. The fact is that the individuals differ from one another and even from the subject con- 70 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. ceiving thein. This difference is often so great that there is an actual opposition between the conceiving subject and the conceived objective individuals. Something must determine the subject to conceive the object differently than its own interests would demand. It is also a fact that the individual subject believes itself capable of entering into communion with these other individuals. The subject expresses his thoughts to them; and they in turn express theirs to him. This consciousness of other indi- viduals and this fact of their communion with each other needs a rational explanation; and the onty explanation sufficient to account for it is the exist- ence of other individuals and the power of commun- ication with one another. Now there is a community of spirits ; and each spirit forms its own world; and it is through the objects of the outside world that this communion takes place. If the individual subject is the creator of his own world, it would only be a natural conse- quence that the worlds be as different as are the individuals creating them. Each world would be the self-determied state of the thinking subject; and it would be impossible to find any point of con- tact between them. In order that commuication SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM INADEQUATE. 7 1 between individuals may be possible the individual must use symbols that are known to each other. The symbols cannot be individual imaginations; but they must have objective existence for all. The world of symbols must be a common world in which all the individuals live and move and have their being. It is evident that neither materialism nor Sub- jective Idealism meet the necessary conditions for being an adequate hypothesis for the explanation of all things. The one doing jutice to the material side of natural phenomena fails to account for their mental side and even fails to account for itself. Life, thought, will and conciousness cannot be accounted for by the one; and the objective, the common, world cannot be accounted for by the other. And these are facts and convictions which cannot be denied, or explained away. Both views have elements of truth in them. Matter, its forces and laws are facts; and science and philosophy must pay them due respect. Mental activity is also a fact. The individual spirit is an actual existence. As an existence it acts and has principles, or laws, for its own activity Were we to stop here we would be merged into a hopeless dualism, matter on the one side and mind 72 REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. on the other. Bach side attempted to bring about a reconciliation by denying the other side, and failed in the attempt. Stern facts, undeniable, stared them in the face, and put their bold theories to shame. Matter we have found could not be the absolute principle ; for matter is only matter to a thinking consciousness. It is itself a result of mentality. Irresistibly we are driven to a principle that is able to comprehend both sets of phenomena and to bring them into an organic relationship. We must have a first principle that comprehends both and makes the two sets but different phases of itself. These two sets of phenomena are not independent. They do not stand by themselves alone. They interact. And this fact of their interaction has led philoso- phers to adopt the phrase, which is so suggestive, and so eminently descriptive of the relationship between them, "Organic Unity." An organism is accounted for by a single principle. That single principle builds up organs that are distinct from one another The hand is in one sense distinct from the foot, and the heart is distinct from the stomach ; and yet these distinct organs co-operate in the unity of the organism. They are necessary parts of the whole and each serves in the completeness of the unity. The whole must be in every part and the SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM INADEQUATE. 73 parts must be in the whole. Unity is deeper than a mere classification of similars. Like parts must be dissimilar in order to be distinguishable; yet they must be the expression of the same principle in order to be identical. The parts are not merely component parts; they are parts related in the unity of a single end. The root and the stem and the leaf serve but one purpose. The parts are diversi- fied but they are all related in an organic unity. The parts are not thrown together like stones in a heap; they are not joined together mechanically by some external agency; they are the varied expres- sion of the one thing. The organism exists in its parts and the parts are different manifestations of the same whole. In like manner are the two sets of phenomena but different phases of one and the same thing. The subject is subject only with referencee to the object; and the object is object only with reference to a subject. These two elements are distinguished in consciousness; and yet in the unity of consciousness they are one. This comprehension of the particu- lars in a universal is called organic. Subject and object are not brought together mechanically as a camera is brought into the presence of the object to be photographed; but it is a unity in which neither 74 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. is without the other. A mechanical relation is one established by casual contact, and is materialistic from beginning to end. A material object would require a material subject. An object to be photo- graphed would need a blank surface upon which the image could be stamped. A material object cannot interact with non-spatial, or spiritual, being This truth was discovered by Plato, and wa^ the great difficulty ivith the sensational theory. The sensa- tional theory views the objects of the external world as standing in relation to an organism, and the objects acting upon the nervous system of such an organism produce conscious states. The conscious states are known , but the objects producing them are unknown and unknowable. This theory put- ting the subject and object as material objects in indifferent contact is suicidal. It starts out with matter but is compelled to return and declare that matter in unknowable. Prof. Morris in "Kant's Critique of Pure Reason," p. 19, has well said: "The real objective truth of materialism is found not in the doctrine that calls itself materialism, but in Idealism." Matter is expressed in terms of men- tality. It is not outside of consciousness, but inside, that it is found. It is an object of thought and must be expressed in thought terms. There is SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM INADEQUATE. 75 a living forceful spiritual relation between these terms in consciousness; for the reason, that self- consciousness and objective consciousness are pre- sented as intrinsically one. This organic unity is possible only by means of a universal principle active in both and comprehending them. The relation of subject and object is not a mechanico-sensible one, in which the members meet in an indifferent manner. The relation is one of activity. Even the materialist, who emphasizes the objective reality and wants to cull out the sub- jective as of little value, resolves matter into force, and thus concedes the spiritual basis of reality. Science explains phenomena in terms of causation. A phenomena is considered explained when it can be referred to some principle accounting for its existence; and science knows no other principle to explain the facts of the world by them than the principle of causation. Causation is activity, and activity is spiritual. Matter is inert, it moves only as it is moved. This moving force must be outside of itself. That which moves matter must be self- active and cannot be characterized by inertia, one of the chief qualities of matter. Consciousness cannot be accounted for except by an activity on the part of the subject and object in an energetic relation- 76 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. ship. And this relationship points to a unitary- principle which establishes it. The object points to one set of phenomena, and the subject points to the other; but the two stand in such a relationship that one points to the other and either is what it is on account of the other ; and because they are thus intimately related they point to a principle higher than either, higher than either because the explana- tion of both, because the relationship between them is established by it. Consciousness without subject and object would be impossible. It needs a conscious subject and a conscious subject needs a conscious object; and the relationship of the two demands a fundamental sub- stratum for both, of which the two are but different phases of activity. The inner and the outer experi- ences are but the different organs of the one essen- tial being. This is the unitary being toward which reason points, and which reason demands as a satis- faction of itself. This is the conclusion of human intelligence pushed to its natural results ; and in that principle alone there is rest. Hither we must follow the directions of our reason to the Absolute and find rest, or we will abide in the disappointing embrace SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM INADEQUATE. 77 of irrationality; for it is the fool who saith in his heart there is no God. We have now arrived at the idea of the abso- lute, the unitary principle in which the two sets of experience are held in an organic unity. We have found that this First Principle cannot be material; for the material cannot account for the spiritual phenomena. We have found that all mat- ter must be expressed in terms of mentality. All matter has in it from first to last spiritual elements. And this leads us to the firm conclusion that the fundamental being is spiritual. It is therefore not subjective Idealism but the "Absolute Spirit," that reason is compelled to assume. There is an inside and an outside world; but the two are but different expressions of the One. As we look into the differ- ent departments of nature we shall see what attri- butes must be assumed as present in this absolute unity to account for the diversity of phenomena. It would be infidelity to the scientific method to neg- lect any set of phenomena or to misinterpret them. The phenomena must be taken without addition or subtraction ; and the Absolute must be adequate to explain them all. The Absolute must be conceived as having the sufficient reason for his own being in itself. It can- 78 RKIvIGION A RATIONAL DKMAND. not be matter; for matter is inert and an absolute material mass could never have developed into any- thing. It would have to remain unchanged for the reason that, it being the original datum, and being absolute, there was nothing outside of itself that could determine it to act. As the absolutely self- existent, it must be the absolutely self-active, and self- activity is always spiritual. In the succeeding chapters of the first book, we shall endeavor to show what must be the contents of our conception of the Absolute. All particulars must find their explanation in the universal; and the universal expresses its nature in the particulars. The nature of plant life is known only by the form which it constructs. The form is the revelation of the formative principle. Thus the Absolute finds way to the human intelligence through the various avenues of its revelations. In it all the differences are dissolved into an eternal unity. There is no causative principle aside from it. It, being the all in all, is responsible for the different parts of nature. They are its manifestations. It reveals itself in all but perfectly in none, for the reason that the whole can never be fully pictured in any part. The Abso- lute can never express its absoluteness in finite manifestations. THE ABSOLUTE AS INFINITE. Objections have been made to the knowability of the Absolute. It is said if the Absolute is abso- lute he must stand out of all relation to things, and consequently to the knowing subject. If it is out of relation to the knowing subject it must be un- knowable. There is nothing in the idea of the Absolute that prevents it from acting: as spirit it is pure activity, for a spirit is known only as activity. There is no reason why it should, in order to pre- serve its absoluteness, be severed from its own actions. We mean by absolute that which stands in no necessary relation to anything else. It is absolute because self-existent. It is just so when we touch upon the question of infinity. Infinite means unlimited by any other being. It has been objected that if the First Prin- ciple be infinite then it must be able to act in all directions; and the irrational would be just as necessary as its rational mode of procedure. As a spirit it acts. As an infinite spirit it has no 79 80 R3UGI0N A RATIONAL, DEMAND. restraints imposed from without; but, as an infinite spirit, it follows its own directions. A limitation in this direction would be a negation of its infinity. The popular view of God and the world has done much to throw a shadow upon the conception of His infinity. According to this view, God is a Deus ex Machina enthroned in some sphere beyond the reach of the finite. The world is an outside entity and as such it must limit God. How God and the world can exist together at the same time while mutually limiting one another is a question. Thinkers have aimed to solve it by bringing in the temporal relation and declaring it Absolute previous to creation, but since creation limited. This solu- tion is faulty because it rests upon the mistaken conception of dualism. God on the one hand and the world upon the other. Our previous discussion has led us to the conclusion that the "One" must comprehend all. The particular phenomena are only modifications of the fundamental unity. The true conception makes the tvorld the action of the absolute. The absolute is in all its actions. The agent and the action cannot be considered separate entities. The action is the only expression of the agent. Oxygen is not one thing, and affinity for hydrogen another thing; but it is oxygen only THK ABSOLUTE AS INFINITE. 8 1 because it acts as it does; and it is through its ac- tion that it is itself known. The absolute is not to be distinguished from his creation, but is one with it. The nature of its identity we shall endeavor in the remainder of this chapter to show. It is characteristic of the finite spirit that while it recognizes itself as finite it is itself related to the infinite. It is that which lies beyond the finite to which the finite points. Finite being points to uncaused being. Prof. Caird, in his "Evolution of Religion" p. 89, discusses the efforts made by Max Mueller and Herbert Spencer to prove the Infinite. Max Muel- ler takes the finite as the firm and established ele- ment of science and from that as a base line he projects his science into the beyond. He arrives at the Infinite by denying the finite. But for him the finite is limited by the Infinite. Thus he sets the Infinite over against the finite and it is thereby made itself a finite; for the finite limits the Infinite as truly as the Infinite limits the finite. Herbert Spencer made a similar mistake when he takes the Infinite as the presupposition of the finite, and arrives at the finite by the limitation of the Infinite. All particular phenomena or facts of knowledge are such simply because in them the Infinite is limited, 82 RELIGION A RATION AI, DEMAND. It is unfortunate for these writers that they look upon the Absolute as a boundless extension from which the finite is cut off, and over against which the finite is placed. Such views can never reconcile the finite with the Infinite ; for as soon as the finite is cut from the Infinite, the Infinite itself becomes finite. The mechanico-sensible view of the universe brings with it necessarily this result: the subject is placed over against the object and the object over against the subject; the one limits the other. We have pointed out in our previous discussion that the subject and object are but two elements in one con- sciousness; and consciousness is not limited by either subject or object, but comprehends both. The universal bond which holds these elements in this relation is not limited by the inner world nor by the outer world, but is present in them both. The individual consciousness grasps the world and holds it in its own conception. The world for each individual consciousness is as it holds it in the unity of its own being. The highest category of human thought is personality. Although we have not pointed out the personality of the Absolute as yet; we will assume it at present for the argument's sake, with the promise of fully justifying the assumption in a succeeding chapter. The Absolute THK ABSOLUTE AS INFINITE. 83 is the most real of all beings; for the reason that he is the most universal of all universals, the principle of all principles, the basal being itself. And be- cause he is the most real of all and the highest being known, he must be thought in the highest category known to men. This highest category is the unity of conscious- ness. Man knows the world only as the world is in him and as he comprehends it in the unity of his own consciousness. The world is our world only as we comprehend it. Two men may stand over against a certain flower and the one sees in it much more than the other. Two men, one an inventor, stand over against the invention, the one compre- hends much more perfectly the invention than does the other. Nature, at best, can only be imperfectly comprehended by a finite observer. There are parts which the finite observer can not reach. The abso- lute must be conceived otherwise. It has posited all finite existence. The plan of nature is its own conception. The material for the realization of the plan w T as not in existence but is posited by itself, according to the demand of the plan. It, as the basal reality, posits all existence and comprehends all in the unity of its own being. There is a great difference between the finite and the Infinite; the 84 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. finite is confronted with limitations. Its ideals of knowledge exceed its possession. The world which it aspires to comprehend is greater than the world it comprehends. The world it controls is not so great as the world which it aspires to control. If the world of the finite comprehended all truth and was able to govern all reality then the finite itself would become infinite. The Absolute cannot be thought as subject to these limitations. Two kinds of beings exist, personal and imper- sonal. Personal beings have an independent activ- ity, but only within a limited range. The laws of nature cannot be changed even by a personal spirit. He can only put himself under them or refuse to do so. Kven the laws of thought cannot be tampered with. A man thinks, or he may refuse to think, but when he does think, he must do so in accord- ance with certain laws. These laws are laws of his being, but are not called into being by himself. The laws of man's moral nature are beyond the reach of his construction or modification. They are what they are, not because of the choice of the in- dividual, but because of the decision of the Abso- lute, which posits the whole system and gives to each element, used in its construction, the nature required for the execution of that plan. THK ABSOLUT^ AS INFINITE. 85 Impersonal being cannot be said to ha\e any but dependent activity. They have no volition, nor have they any power to determine except as they are determined. They are what they are because determined to be such by their relations to their antecedents and their co-existences. It would not be improper to say that impersonal existences are but modes of the Infinite. The free spirit alone has a sort of independence, but the limits of the freedom together with its possibility are in the Infinite. The dualistic conception which holds matter to be a sort of self-existence, which the creator finds and which renders him stubborn opposition, must be discarded ; because, as we have seen, the dualistic conception of matter and spirit is inconsistent with the science of knowledge and with its necessary relation to the Absolute. Reason will not rest in dualism. It must find a unitary principle. It has discovered that this principle is not matter, nor is it the conscious subject, but it is found in a principle that comprehends both. So that matter is not a something external and independent which the abso- lute must shape as best it can; matter is a creation of the absolute, or in other words, a mode of his manifestation. Matter is consequently not a limit 86 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. set the absolute, but is its own activity which puts forth to the perfect realization of its plan. kaws of thought are not universals having real existence somewhere in space, but nowhere in par- ticular, laws having an extraneous potency to which the thinking subject must submit. On the contrary laws are always found in things, as Aristotle already pointed out. A law is only the abstraction from the activity of the thing. So that, in reality, only the thing and its action exists. The mind exists, and it acts according to its nature; and from its activity the laws are abstracted. The same is true with the laws of nature. They are often conceived as though they were laws which the Absolute found in existence, and to which he must conform, getting along with them as best he can. In creation, the Absolute does not allow the stubborn matter and the still more stubborn laws of nature to determine what that creation shall be. Now, from what we have learned, we know that the Absolute creates the individual things together with their mode of activity. Things are things because they act. There is no other criterion for thinghood but action. The nature of the thing is known by its action. These things interact according to their individual natures and each in- THE ABSOLUTE AS INFINITE. 87 dividual thing adapts itself to the other in the inter- action. And all that is left is the thing and its mode of action and interaction; and natural law is only an abstraction from the actions of real agents. The Absolute in creating the thing also created a nature in the thing; for nothing can be without be- ing a definite something. These things act and interact, and these actions and interactions by abstraction become the laws of nature. They are posited by the Absolute in the thing itself. It is sometimes objected that the Absolute can- not be infinite because it acts according to certain principles of reason and morality. But even these laws are not imposed b3^ a superior being; but are the result of action according to his own nature. As a being he has a nature and his nature as well as his being are the explanation of their own existence. The laws of its being are not superimposed, but de- rived by abstraction from its actions. That he chooses to act in one way rather than in another is not a limitation by any thing outside of himself; and, consequntly, does not contradict the fact of his infinity. It has been shown that interaction cannot take place between things independent of one another. The interacting elements must be members of some 88 RKUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. greater and more comprehensive whole. Particulars are referred to principles, and principles to more comprehensive principles ; and the ultimate resting place is the Absolute, which comprehends all other principles in a unity, most comprehensive. Lotze, after speaking of the possibility of change by causal action, expresses his final conclusion as follows (see ' 'Outlines of Metaphysic' ' — I^add, p. 72): "The foregoing requirement can be met only by the assumption that all individual things are substantially; that is to say, they do not merely become combined by all manner of relations, each individual having previously been present as an independent existence; but from the very begin- ning onward they are only different modifications of one individual being, which we propose to desig- nate by the title of the Infinite." Thus reason, followed to its own legitimate ends, leads us to the conclusion that the basal reality is not subject to extraneous limitation; but it is the perfect explanation of all facts and all law. Before closing this chapter let us state a corol- lary for future application. The Infinite is the author of the whole plan. Things are created by it; and they have the nature demanded by the plan of the whole. They are not only already what the THE ABSOLUTE AS INFINITE. 89 plan demands; but, as is shown in the organic world, they have the power to adapt themselves to the exigencies of the plan. So there is nothing to prevent the Absolute from carrying out the plan to its most glorious realization. This corollary will find special application when we come to the soul finding its complete satisfaction in true submission to the Absolute. THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE ABSOLUTE. When the chemist sees a particular activity be- tween some interacting atoms he changes his notion of the atoms in such a manner as to account for the particular mode of interaction. W^ have now arrived at a stage of the discussion where the question arises, ''Whether there is intelligence in the universe or whether there is none?" It is the fundamental presupposition of all science that nature is intelligible. Only if it is, is science possible. If it is not then is science an impossibil- ity, and the entire scientific impulse is a deception. The question with us at this time is not whether every form serves a purpose, or whether some other forms would not serve the purpose better than those which we now discover. It is agreed on all hands that mathematics is a subjective science. That the principles and propo- sitions there laid down are not derived from experi- ence, but from the pure intelligence. They are universal and necessary. Man can never be made to question his own intelligence. He knows that 90 the intelligence of the absolute. 91 he is not actuated by mechanical principles, but by intelligent purpose. The inventor knows that each part of the invention is not a result of mechanical force; but he recognizes himself as the framer; and he himself is governed, in the construction of each part, by the conception of the completed whole. This process he calls intellectual and not mechani- cal. A mechanical result flows necessarily from its cause. The invention may work upon intelligent principles, but only because intelligence was put into the cause. Mechanical forces work along the line of least resistance; and it is not known in ad- vance what the result will be. Every action is completely determined by its antecedent; so that it can never be other than it is. With intelligence it is vastly different. It works with means, perhaps as truly, as does the mechanism ; but in the use of those means it has the end in view: and it choses the means and employs them with reference to that end. Not only does reason work with an end in view and with reference to that end; but it insists in referring everything that bears such marks to agencies like itself. When it beholds a perfectly acting machine, though it may not know where, or by whom, the machine was created, and though it knows that all the material in that machine was 92 r:exigion a ration m, demand. taken from nature ; yet will it refer that machine to a working intelligence. The archenlogist works into the crust of the earth and finds some stones cut in a perculiar man- ner; he says that mechanical forces would never shape them in such a manner; he finds some appear- ing as though they had been cut and others as if used for cutting purposes: he carrot very well be- lieve but that they were shaped by intelligence. He infers the nature of the cause from the marks of the effect. And, from those works of their hands, he infers the degree of intelligence possessed by those primitive men. But while man looks into himself for intelligence and interprets the works of men in that light, it is also a fact that he is prompted to look into nature with the expectation of finding himself and the principles of his intelli- gence there. It has been said that we think things only as they appear in consciousness, and never as they are outside of it. This is true. How a thing would act if it acted upon no one, or how it would appear if it appeared to no one, are insoluble questions. It is one of the revelations of epistemology, that some agent acts upon consciousness, and consciousness reacts according to its own nature; and conse- THE INTKIJvIGENCK OF THK ABSOLUTE. 93 quently the intelligent subject will interpret these actions into intelligent terms. It is again true that consciousness is active in the act of conception, but it is never arbitrary. It reacts upon an external object only when forced to do so; and the nature of that object is not as it chooses to construct, but such as it is constrained to form. It is not free to think indifferently a leaf or a stone; it is not free to observe things in one form or in another: but in its ideas of objects it knows itself constrained by a reality beyond its control. It is often brought into bold conflict to the outer world; it is not free to think that conflict imaginary or otherwise; it may recognize the possibility of removing that diffi- culty: but it believes in the possibility of removing the difficulty only by modifying reality itself. The consciousness of the outside world is not a product of the free activity of consciousness; but is itself determined by the nature of an objective reality. But consoiousness goes out into reality with the perfect assurance that the demands of its conscious intelligence are perfectly met in reality. This we will endeavor to illustrate. The astronomer turns his telescope into the heavens and sees planets as they swing in their 94 REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. orbits. At first he does not notice the regularity of the swing. There was something in the backward and for- ward motion which did not appeal to intelligence. Observations were more closely made, and it was discovered that the motions are uniform; and that the planets in the entire system are in a perfect balance; and then philosophers said, "If they do swing regularly then they must conform to certain mathematical formulas. ' ' A mathematical compu- tation was made; the orbits of those planets were constructed; their movements were again observed; and the orbits of the planets were discovered to agree perfectly with the mathematical requirements. Mathematics, as we have noticed, is a purely sub- jective science; and here we discover in reality laws and motions that can be expressed in such subjec- tive formulas. The mineralogist goes into the earth and finds crystals; these crystals have certain forms; and the same mineral always assumes the same form. The crystal may have five sides; and the five sides are noticed wherever the mineral appears. If he dis- covered a stone thus cut artificially with the sides and the angles all equal, he would certainly be im- pelled to refer the crystals to an intelligent cause. the intelligence; of the absolute. 95 The subjective principles of mathematics are applied to the shaped mineral. The crystal is intelligible, its shape conforms to the formulas of intelligence. The mind finds itself and its intelligence there. But someone says, "If you make the mineral assume shapes which are intelligible and the min- eral itself assumes these shapes, then you make the mineral an intelligent thing. ' ' I am not contending that the mineral has a conscious intelligence; but that the mineral is built up by forces working under intelligent direction and working out intelligent results. The chemist goes into the laboratory and ob- serves the action of the elements of nature in their interaction with each other. He observes that oxy- gen normally unites wih hydrogen; and that one atom of the former always unites with two atoms of the latter. To select two out of a multiplicity of atoms is an intelligent act. It is not maintained that the atom is conscious of its choice; but the act itself comports perfectly with the requirements of intelligence. He observes that one atom of carbon unites with four atoms of hydrogen. It selects the four when a greater, or a less number, might have been selected. It is impossible to avoid the conclu- sion that the mineral kingdom is not a shapeless 96 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. mass but an intelligent thing, not conscious intelli- gence, let me repeat, in the thing itself, but intelli- gence in the forces that put the thing into shape. The biologist makes an effort to get into the organized part of nature; and he expects to find the principles of his own intelligence there. He watches the process of organization; and cannot but find there that it works o'it intelligent results. The single cell of a cat, which forms the physical starting point of the animal, will develop one head, one spine, two eyes, two ears, four paws, a certain number of bones ; and these parts are repeated with perfect mathematical accuracy in every reproduction of the specie. The contents of the original cell was homogeneous. There ma} 7 or there may not have been a physical determination in that cell for all parts of the developed organism. It makes no difference to this discussion where we put the deter- mination. What we are most particularly interested in is the intelligence in the outcome. We find not only the application of mathematical formulas to the external form; but the whole internal mechan- ism is constructed according to the same principles. The bones are put together in such a manner that they act as perfect levers; the muscles and sinews are perfectly adapted to the bones; and the whole THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE ABSOLUTE. 97 is arranged into a perfectly intelligible and intelli- gent system. In natural disposition and habit of life these animal organisms act better than they know. The simplest forms of life select those things that are adapted to the maintenance of the animal life; while they reject those not thus adapted. The result is an intelligent one. It may, again, be objected that it is by its instinct that it does so; and instinct is not intelligence. It makes the selection of means for the end of its maintenance. It is true the action is not one in which the intelligence of the animal is displayed. The animal acts better than it knows. The question with us is not so much how those actions are begotten as how they are to be inter- preted in the outcome. The outcome is so intelli- gent that the thoughtful observer is constrained to say with Prof. I^loydof Michigan University, "The universe itself lives; the universe itself thinks." (Phil, of History p 36.) How are these facts to be interpreted, or how are they to be accounted for ? There are onl y two ways of accounting for them. Mechanism or in- telligence. Before the fact of efficient causation was discovered, it was an easy matter to believe that some intelligent spirit had the sovereignity 98 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. over the specific department of nature; but since that discovery the case is otherwise. Kvery natural event has its own natural antecedent; and the ante- cedent explains fully the event. The whole horizon has been swept, and no ghost or spirit has been found; consequently that explanation must be given up. And natural causation being a fact, we must look for the explanation of things there. Natural causation makes every event follow from its antecedent with a mechanical necessity; and science is more and more showing nature to be mechanical through and through. The old argu- ment for teleology rested upoa the belief that great chasms were found in nature, which must be bridged by some supernatural intervention; and because it appeared as though that intervention was intelligent, the intervening being must be intelligent. But science is more and more demonstrating that there are no breaks and no chasms; and consequently this intelligent being is not necessary. Now teleology according to the old view must be given up; mechanism must take its place Many a believer in theism has lamented this direction of the scien- tific spirit, as though it would leave all the universe to a heartless mechanism. Mechanism drives things from behind along the paths of least resistence; THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE ABSOLUTE. 99 while intelligence leads the way. It is such an easy matter to believe that mechanism and teleology mutually exclude one another. If the universe is a mechanism it is driven to its results, and not led to them as demanded by intelligence. L,et us look at this argument a little more closely. Is it true that a mechanism excludes intelligence ? A locomotive is a perfect machine, and every part stands in perfect relation to every other part; and the relationship of the parts is established for a cer- tain end. Though the whole machine works upon mechanical principles and with a mechanical neces- sity, yet it is nevertheless true that the whole machine was planned by intelligence, and every part was suited to every other by an agent who had the end of the machine in view. It is true that nature does not act arbitrarily. She is as uniform as a machine ; certain actions are always the necessary outcome of certain antecedents: yet just as little as the mechanical oonstruction of a locomotive hinders it from having an intelligent origin, does the mechanical construction of nature exclude a contriving intelligence. Intelligence does not appear in the locomotive to bridge over certain defects in the mechanism; but intelligence is built into the whole mechanism. The machine is intelli- LcfC. IOO REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. gent, not because it itself thinks, but beacuse the inventor and the contriver thought and have em- bodied their thought in their invention. The work accomplished by the machine would have demanded intelligence, and a conscious intelligence upon the part of the agent, had it not already been put into the machine itself by the inventor. The fact that nature is a mechanism is no re: son why we should deny intelligence in her. If matter was the absolute principle then would matter be compelled to account for the mechanism; but we have discovered that matter is not self- sufficient. It is not a principle, it is only a phenom- enon. The Absolute is the fundamental principle. Nothing exists outside of it. There is no force but comes from it. If the order of the inorganic part of nature is intelligent, it does not diminish the fact to say that mechanism is the plan and order for its realization. If the outcome is com- pletely determined by its antecedents, then are the antecedents completely determined by their antecedents ; an d if the means have had no in- dependent choice, but were only involuntary in- struments, then the intelligence must be looked for in the forces determining them. Bach atom has a nature of its own; and no atom is responsible THE INTELLIGENCE OE THE ABSOLUTE. IOI for that nature, nor for its action when brought into contact with other atoms. The nature of the atom and its mode of interaction with others is entirely due to the Absolute; and it determines their posi- tion and their value in nature. When the mineral under certain conditions assumes an intelligent form it is not because the crystal thinks or has a con- sciousness of its own, but because the Absolute energizes in that realm in an intelligent manner. Not only the atoms, but also the laws, according to which they act, find their explanation in the Absolute. If the vegetable or animal organism takes forms which are intelligent, it is not to be supposed, for that reason, that the vegetable or the animal life have conscious thought; it is the Absolute that energizes in these forms. If nature is a mechanism intelligently ordered, it is not to be supposed that the mechanism can account for itself; for mechanism is itself a phenom- enon to be accounted for. It is itself an event, a fact and requires a sufficient explanation. If there is intelligence in the effect reason demands, for its own satisfaction, intelligence in the cause. If evolution be accepted as an explanation of the order of nature, then the antecedents must 102 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. account for the subsequent; and the outcome trust be involved or lay already capsulate, in the begin- ning. Intelligence is the only thing that can account for the fact that the universe has an orderly arrange- ment, and that the human intelligence finds itself in her. Intelligence is the only explanation that covers the facts and finds none which it cannot cover; for that reason it has a perfect right to have its claims recognized. There may be instances in nature where we seem to detect no thought, no intelligence; but science has gratified the demands of reason in so many instances, that the scientist goes into these dark realms with the perfect confi- dence that some day they too will surrender their possessions to the gratification of the rational impulse. PERSONALITY OF THE ABSOLUTE. Even in spite of the fact that there is intelligence in nature, objections have been made to the idea of the personality of the ultimate and basal reality. A crude Pantheism considers this reality to be a sort of extended stuS tvhich divides and subdivides into the endless variety of natural phenomena; and that this indefinite homogeneous mass reaches con- sciousness in the outcome of its development. We have previously noticed that such a mass is repug- nant to our idea of unity; for reason will not rest in an endless diversity it must have unity. Such a mass of matter could never originate motion neither could it account for spiritual phenomena. This basal reality must account for matter and motion as well as for all the spiritual phenomena. Schopenhauer calls it Pure Will. This Pure Will is not connected with any intelligence. This would agree well with the idea of force, which the materialists consider to be the fundamental basis of reality, but Schopenhauer is conceding the spiritual origin of nature without any special reserve. A 103 I04 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. pure will unguided by intelligence is simply a blind force ; and a blind force is not the issue of person- ality. If blind force will satisfy the demands of reason in the explanation of all phenomena then there is no need of encumbering it with any more complica- tions. But when we come to think after this man- ner then are we confronted with the question, "How can a blind undirected force energize in an intelligent manner and bring about intelligent results." A pure will must of necessity act blindly; it can have no aim and can not be pur- posive. The only direction given to such a force must come from mechanical necessity; but then mechanical necessity is unaccounted for. Science is based upon the demand of a sufficient reason ; and causation is one of its principle elements. Causa- tion, in order to be clear to reason, must have a free origin; and for that reason science agrees with Schopenhauer that all things originate in "Will." The only information we have of will is in con- nection with intelligence; and unless there is a suffi- cient reason to demand it, the two should not be dis- sociated. All force must originate in will, but, according to Schopenhauer, intelligence is not associated with it. Intelligence is the last pro- THE PERSONALITY OF THE ABSOLUTE. I05 duct of forces ; it is the highest point of their development. This intelligence appearing in man, however, looks back over the whole process and finds itself wherever the tracing of its lines is pos- sible, and upon Schopenhauer's hypothesis the question, How a force, without intelligent direction could bring about intelligent results remains un- solved. Hartman seeing the untenability of the ''Pure Will" hypothesis of Schopehauer, and yet disirous of avoiding the full concession to "Theism," gave this Absolute an unconscious intelligence. He recognizes with the scientific spirit of the age that force must have its origin in the will: and, on the other hand, he can not but notice that the world is replete with manifestations of intelligence. He cannot believe that the phenomena of nature can be explained satisfactorily without the idea of purpose, or final cause. This purpose, however, is uncon- sciously held; something like the matured plan of an organism is held by the life of that organism; and that it arrives at consciousness only in man. This whole question resolves itself into this dis- junctive, either intelligence is the necessary result of mechanical action, or it is the quality of the "Will" of Schopenhauer. If it is the former then 106 RKLIGION A RATION AI. DEMAND. the mechanism is itself intelligent and requires in- telligence in its explanation. If there were no intelligence in the cause, and yet there would appear intelligence in the result, there would be a phenomenon, an event, without a cause; and that again would be repugnant to the demands of rea- son. After this due consideration, we are forced to the only conclusion that reality has its basis in a self-directing will; and a self- directing will is a person. Personality is the simplest explanation of nature; and unless the idea comes into serious conflict with itself, or proves inconsistent, it must be held. Per- sonality demands self-knowledge and self-direction. We call men persons because they can select a cer- tain end and put forth efforts to gain that end. We measure the strength of a man's intellect by the height of his purpose, and the complication of means necessary for the attainment of that purpose. Science looks to force for the explanation of things; and force points to its own originations in ' 'Will." Force working out intelligent results must have intelligent direction. Intelligent direc- tion can only be thought in connection with a pre- conceived end, and held as the good of some action. These facts point so strongly toward personality THE PERSONALITY OF THE ABSOLUTE. I07 that we must have very cogent reasons for denying it. It is said that the Absolute cannot be a person ; because consciousness always involves a distinction of subject and object. The Absolute can be noth- ing but simply subject, if the unity is to be pre- served. The Absolute can find nothing with which he can contrast himself. A subject can knotv itself only as it stands over against an object. The Abso- lute is alone, and consequently has no object. This is the chief reason for making him unconscious. But a little careful attention given our own con- sciousness will help us out of this difficulty. It is true that objective reality acts upon the subject and produces certain states of consciousness. We posit upon the experience of such states certain objects; but the fact itself is that the subject is aware of its own states; and that these states are its objects. The separation of subject and object is not ontolo- gical, it is only epistemological. Subject and object are the same state of consciousness; the conscious subject has for its object its own state. In perfect analogy, the Absolute needs no being outside of itself in order to be able to be conscious. As intel- ligent, He, and now we may begin to use the per- sonal pronoun in referring to the Absolute, must know the purpose of the action and the action itself. 108 REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. These requirements of reason point us not only to consciousness in the Absolute, but to self- conscious » ness, which is the highest form of consciousness. It would meet no demand of reason to say that the Absolute is impersonal; for the only kind of self- directed intelligence known to us is that of person- ality. Personality is the highest category of thought; and only the most cogent reasons could compel us to think of the Absolute in any other than terms of personality. It can never be made clear to reason that the Absolute working blindly should arrive at the definite result of personality at the end of its development. Would any logician look for more in the event than is contained in the cause ? Something must needs be created or smug- gled in from some other source; and in either case there is a definite something that has an existence without a sufficient reason. It is inconceivable that personality could appear in the outcome of a process, if it were not involved in the process itself. It is the result of a peculiar distortion of our nature to conceive the Absolute otherwise than as a person- ality. We worship a personal God; not because we are overcome by feelings of wonder and amazement; but because we carry the idea of the Absolute Per- THE PERSONALITY OF THE ABSOLUTE. I09 sonality in our own nature. We do not proceed from a limited personality to the unlimited ; we pro- ceed rather from that which is in process of realiza- tion to that which is already perfectly realized. We have already remarked that it is impossible for rea- son to believe otherwise than that the ideals toward which it is impelled are fully realized somewhere, in some being. Human consciousness has an insati- able impulse to comprehend reality. As it lays hold upon different phenomena, it orders them into its own world. The world of the individual is the world of variety held together in the unity of his own consciousness. It meets objects, no matter how obstinate, with the perfect assurance that it is able to subdue them into harmony with its own world. That which it aims to be it some time ex- pects fully to realize, and cannot otherwise than believe that it is fully realized in the Absolute Per- sonality. The finite Spirit is characterized by both immanence and transcendence. The finite person is present in all parts of his world of experience. This world is comprehended in the unity of his con- sciousness. So the Absolute Person must hold in its own embrace all the objects of the world, both personal and impersonal. They have existence only in the comprehensiveness of his being. The finite I IO REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. person must recognize a transcendent world; for while he embraces fully the world of his experience he is touched on every side by the consciousness of ideals unrealized. These ideals are of infinite reach. Man cannot but believe that these ideals are realized somewhere. The perfect comprehension of all real- ity in the unity of a single consciousness is the chief characteristic of the Absolute Personality. It is the individual consciousness that gives worth to the different parts of its contents. It is only as the Absolute is present in all parts of reality that these parts have worth. In the Absolute we cannot recognize ideals unrealized. We must rather be- lieve that he is immanent in all things; and is con- sequently an infinite personality. In the experience of the human ego the devel- opment is gradual. It realizes itself as it proceeds along the lines indicated by its ideals. With it the world is never present in consciousness in its en- tirety. It is limited and can attend to but a small part of its world at the same time, the greater part of its world is out of sight for it. We cannot be- lieve, however, that the Absolute is confronted by any unrealized ideals, or that he can attend to but a part of his world, but, on the contrary, he is immanent in the whole world of his construction^ THK PERSONALITY OF THE ABSOLUTE. 1 1 1 and knows nothing of impossibilities. He is per- fectly conscious of every part of the world; and, because confronted by no other principle, is per- fectly able to realize his own plan. We have now followed the directions of our rational impulses, and have arrived at the idea of the Absolute Personality. I venture to say it is the only legitimate goal of all science and of all moral impulses, and is the only resting place for reason. Having now reached the Absolute Person, we will look about in the next two chapters to see what are some of his attributes, and what his relation to the world is. NECESSARY ATTRIBUTES OF THE ABSO- LUTE PERSON. Having arrived at the idea of the Absolute Per- sonality, we want to consider what the idea implies and what it must include in order to be true to itself. Truth is a consistent unity. No theist is afraid of truth. An eternal disadvantage clings to those who linger in error; but an eternal gain comes to them who walk in the truth. The atheist will look at one set of facts and dismiss other sets from his mind altogether; the Christian theist does not fear to face all facts, for he firmly believes that truth is its own vindication, and that truth will make free, Man's nature prompts him to seek unity in the world of phenomena. Polytheism had its origin in the fact that different classes of phe- nomena differed so radically from one another, that they seemed to be accounted for by a diversity of principles. They believed that these sets of phe- nomena differed so greatly from one another, that their respective principles must be different divini- 112 The necessary attributes. 113 ties. Science has demonstrated that though these sets seem to differ so greatly, still they are con- stantly found in interaction; and their principles are united in the Absolute. We are consequently led to the positive convic- tion that the Absolute is the "Only God." It would not be consistent logic to think of Him as a lump that can be separated into any number of parts. Such a lump would not be characterized by unit}'. The only unit known in physics is the atom. It has a number of activities, and these cannot be interfered with. Give the atom the environment suitable to its nature, and it will act. It has chem- ical affinity, and it has gravitative force. It cannot be divided, it always manifests the same qualities. We have another illustration of unity. It is unity as found in human consciousness. The ego is susceptible of a variety of actions. It thinks, it feels, it wills; and yet in all these actions it is itself an undivided unity. In its past history, as well as when it projects itself into the future, it is forced to recognize itself as the ever self -identical being. The absolute must be thought as such a unit. A composite, in which any part has the same quali- ties as the whole, will not satisfy the demand of reason in its search for unity. The world of variety 114 RBI/IGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. is not a world composed of the various parts into which the Absolute is divided; but it is the outcome of the various activities of the one Absolute. He, the Infinite, grasps and holds the whole variety of relationship in the unity of His own being; "for in him we live and move and have our being." It is said that nature is in a state of continual flux. This idea is a generalization from the study of nature. There is nothing firm and established. All things are subject to continual change. The acorn develops into a shrub, the shrub into a tree, the tree is caught by a cyclone and hurled to the ground; it is given over to the process of decay; and it is no more. The elements that once consti- tuted it have gone back to the store house from which they were taken; a whole cycle of change has been made. There is nothing stable in the whole process. If the phenomena of nature change, and do so unceasingly, then we would naturally be- lieve that the principle accounting for this change must change also. We look into our own conscious- ness, we remember the purposes of our actions are not fixed; but that they change as we develop. May not the Absolute be thus changeable ? We must not forget to notice the difference between the finite and the Infinite in this respect. THE NECESSARY ATTRIBUTES. 115 The finite expands by reaching out for truth which the finite has not yet mastered. The finite changes, because new forces are caused to interact with it. The Absolute cannot thus be conceived to change; because there is no objective reality to in- teract with Him ; seeing He comprehends the whole world of reality in Himself. The cause for action and the cause for change of action must come from within, not from without. The change must come from His own decisions. Reason cannot believe that He, who knows Himself, and is conditioned by no outside reality, should be changeable. Even nature, when carefully studied, is not as change- able as she may at first appear. While there are many changing phenomena; there are principles which do not change, but are ever the same. The law of gravitation is the same to-day that it was when this planet was first hurled into space. Chem- ical affinity is the same to-day as it was when first simple elements were united into compounds. The planets in space have not deviated from their orbit, through the passing centuries; but they swing in perfect obedience to the same direction they had when they were first discovered by the earliest astronomers. The stream of water is ever flowing; the same particles do not twice in ages pass the same Il6 RELIGION A RATION AI, DEMAND. point; but the stream is the same. Water in a certain temperature is transformed into a solid and in another is changed into a gas. The water may change from one state into another; but the law according to which it changes is unchangeable. The acorn grows into a shrub, into a tree; it dies and decays; the particles are continually changing their relation to one another, but this change takes place according to certain fixed laws. The laws of change are ever the same. Religious faith does not demand a static principle but an active one, not a dead deity, but a living cause; not one that does not act at all; but one that acts according to unchangeable directions. Chang- ing phenomena are compatible with never changing principles causing them to change; but the fact that these changes always follow in a certain direction, and according to certain principles, is evidence that the action springs from a cause, or a nature, that is constant throughout all phenomenal change. Man's intellectual and moral natures are such that they demand unchangeable principles; and those princi- ples can be found only in a Absolute who, though an active spirit, acts always according to an un- changeable nature. * * * the necessary attributes. 117 Our idea of God as a space filling substance would be inconsistent with the idea of his spirit- uality. The Absolute cannot be matter; for mat- ter is not able to stand alone. He cannot be simple force; for force needs direction in order to work out definite results; and besides this, it needs to have its origin in will. Will and intelligence, in all cases that we know, are found only in connection with spirits. Metaphysics proves that matter is not one thing and space another, and that space has a reality of its own. On the contrary, it has proven that things exist and interact and enter into such relation to each other, that the thinking subject is stimulated to space intuitions. Spirits are not pres- ent in space because they fill space; but because space is their intuition awakened by the sight of certain relations between things. The individual is not present in every part of the world of his experience by filling the space, but by being in each part of the world in his entire spiritual energy. I am present in the entire world of my knowledge and affections; and yet I do not know myself as extended. The ego is non-spatial. We cannot believe God to be a spatial being. There is unity in our world of experience because the ego holds the different phe- nomena in such a relationship. There is unity in Il8 REUGION A RATION AI, DKMAND. the universe, because science proves interaction; and metaphysics proves that there can be no inter- action except between the elements of a unitary being. It further proves that the various phenom- ena are but different states of the same being. This leads us to the attribute of omnipresence, for the Absolute must be present in all His states. Omni- presence is a further requirement of reason in as much as everything in nature needs an active cause as its explanation. As the life of the plant must be present in every part of the organism, so the life of the universe must be present in every part of the whole realm of phenomena. The human ego illus- trates the possibility. It is present in every part of its world of Knowledge and volition. Man's world is but a part of the real world. The world of the Absolute is the entire world; as man is present in every part of his limited world, so the Absolute is present in every part of the whole real world. While finite beings act upon each other by contact, or through means at a distance, space indicating the degree of closeness in the relation- ship. The relation of part to part is often mediated by other parts. With the Absolute the relation be- tween parts is set by Himself ; and He is the super- natural condition of both the things themselves and THE NECESSARY ATTRIBUTES. 119 their relations. He conditions them and conse- quently cannot be conditioned by them. The part is external to the part and limits it. The part is in the whole and the whole is present in every part. Space is only an abstraction from relationship and as relations are determined by the Absolute, these relations cannot be made to limit Him. The Christian theist is consistent with the demands of his own logic, when in the act of prayer, he is confident that he is not communing with a being that must traverse space to meet and relieve human wants, but that enters into communion with man immediately without intervention. The Christian theist has an interest in the ques- tion, whether the Absolute is limited in the mani- festation of His power. It would naturally rob him of his fervor, if he were assured that, in the pres- ence of petitions, there was indeed a listening ear, but a shortened arm. An impotent deity would not call forth the reverence which the human heart is stimulated to bring some one. The demands of the heart in this respect find their gratification in consistent logic. Our logic followed out consist- ently leads us back to the Absolute First Principle. It can have no other principles besides itself. As the Absolute is the basal fact of reality, all things I2C RELIGION A RATION AI, DEMAND. must come from Him. As Absolute He must be above all limitation. We sometimes hear it said that He is able to do the possible; as though some- thing was outside of his reach; and as though some- one, back of Him, made a distinction between the possible and the impossible, and commanded Him to act within certain limits. Such limitation would be inconsistent with our idea of the Absolute; it would make Him a finite being. The entire order of nature is His order; and disorder is the outcome of actions that do not conform to His order. He is not limited by any law outside of Himself, for there is no such law, and nothing, or no one, to establish such laws. Again we learn from metaphysics that only things and their relations exist. Laws are only abstrac- tions from the actions of things. Even the rational order is not an order to which He must submit, as though He were thereby limited. The rational order is His order; and rational laws are only abstractions from His mode of procedure; and His procedure is consistent with His own nature. We are naturally inclined to speak of a moral order; and then we, looking at Him from our own limited standpoint, imagine He must be bound by that order. Morality is not superim- posed ; it is the out working of His own nature. THE NECESSARY ATTRIBUTES. 121 Moral laws are laws, again, only by abstraction from His mode of procedure. The impossible or the irrational are not such, because determined to be such by some limiting power ; they are such because He has made them so Himself. Necessary laws, such as the laws of thought, are not made such by some extraneous power; they are such by the will of the Absolute. The true, the rational, the right are expressions of His own nature. Omnipotence does not mean that the Absolute must at any time be able to make the irrational rational, or the wrong right. His actions are but the expression of His nature. The further question, whether He is able to change His nature, is similar to the one asking, whether He created Himself, and both are without an answer. The true and the absurd, the right and the wrong, the rational and the irrational are but abstractions from His actions, and are not limitations from without. Self-limita- tions do not count against absoluteness. ^ 5fc ^ A similar process of reasoning may be employed with reference to His eternity. Just as space is not an entity outside of things, to which they must conform; so time is not an external entity to which they must adapt themselves. Time and space are 122 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. the forms of relation between things, the former of succession the latter of co-existence. Time is the form of succession and change. It has not an existence which the Absolute must conquer. It is the succession of his own creation. He is not con- ditioned by time, but conditions time Himself. The law of causation points to the fact that phenomena follow each other in an ordered chain or line. The Absolute cannot be brought into this line ; for there was no instance in the whole chain in which pre- existing conditions gave rise to the Absolute. There is not a link in the whole chain but was forged by the Absolute. He therefore comprehends the whole and can not be subject thereto. THE RELATION OF THE ABSOLUTE TO NATURE. We have thus far considered the conception of the absolute, and have noticed what elements that conception contains. We must now consider His relation to the cosmical order. This order must be construed to embrace all finite beings. The world has been considered to be a part of God, as the wave is a part of the ocean, or as the branch is part of the tree, or the part of space is a part of the infinite space. This view has been con- sidered above. Its great fallacy lies in the fact that it considers the Absolute as a substance capable of division and subdivision. This view would account for the multiplicity and variety of phenomena, but not for ther unity ; besides it is incompatible with the true nature of things on account of its material- istic basis. We have seen, time and again, that the Absolute cannot be considered a substance divisible into infinity; for that which is divisible is composite and has no true unity. The scientific explanation of things is in terms of causation; and substance is 123 124 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. only a hypothetical assumption to explain phe- nomena. The Absolute must therefore be an agent. An agent is a unit. It is not divided into parts to cor- respond to its various actions. Increased action does not increase the agent; nor is the agent less on account of his actions. The Absolute is not decreased by creating the world. Parts of Him are not set apart to form it. We can not say that it emanated from Him. The substance of the world was never the substance of God. He must be con- ceived as an agent and an agent is never lessened by his act. The act is not a part of the agent. The act performed does not change the agent. Only an agent can be active in a diversity of manner with- out thereby becoming divided himself. The world as a diversity of parts cannot be identified with the Absolute, who must be conceived as a unit Plur- ality of attributes is compatible with a unity of being ; and in this sense nature is to be viewed not as a part of God nor as an emanation from him, but as the act of an agent. The reality of the finite being and the unity of the Absolute can be reconciled only upon the the- istic view, that the finite is the creation or act of the Infinite. Quantative and spatial considerations THE RELATION OF THE ABSOLUTE. "1 25 must be dropped when the relation of finite to Infinite, or creation to God, is in question. Not giving any attention to the lesser forms of pantheism, which have no scientific value, it does nevertheless become necessary to consider that form to which science has a strong tendency to lead us. Especially does it tend to do that if it is not far reaching enough to explain its own data. The universe has been considered as a vast organism, or a great animal. The force, which must be assumed as the starting point, was perfectly homo- geneous, but has through steady differentiation and integration developed itself into a multitude of organs. This development after the analogy of an animal is not due to any volition on the part of the force itself; but it is a necessary outcome of the nature of that force. Efficient causation, says science, accounts for everything. Given the ante- cedent the consequent must follow with absolute necessity. A complete explanation of the event is found in the cause or causes. It is true that science proceeds upon this principle and has a perfect right so to do. When one asks the question, why one set of phenomena result fiom one antecedent, and another set from another, the only satisfactory ans- wer is that the two antecendents must differ. It is 126 REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. true that a difference in antecedents is the necessary explanation of a difference in consequence. Logic cannot settle the question, which would inevitably arise, how the perfectly homogeneous force could account for the difference in the effects. A mechan- ical outcome must have a mechanical determina- tion. And the mechanical determination is the point to be accounted for. Mechanism is the method of nature. Mechanism makes science pos- sible; but an explanation is necessary for the mechanism. Mechanism for its explanation must have intelligence; and intelligence is the attribute of a person. The watch is a prefect piece of mechan- ism ; but the mechanism points beyond itself. The wheels of the watch and the springs are of such a nature and size that when put together they serve the purpose of keeping time. The process by which time is indicated is mechanical, but the mechanism cannot account for itself. Neither does a mechanism account for the facts of nature. There are free causes in the world and these free causes, or free wills, are repugnant to the view that the world of phenomena is an outcome of the self- differentiation of force. In the human mind there is evidence which counteracts the assumption of a necessary developement. Thought is not a neces^ THK RELATION OF THE ABSOLUTE. 1 27 sary outcome of the interaction of the brain with the object it stands in contact with. If thought was the necessary outcome, error would be an im- possibility; but it is a fact that thought often changes and not always because the environment changes, but often in obedience to an effort of the will. The history of science indicates vast changes in the ideas entertained about things, which in them- selves have not correspondingly changed. Intelligence can be consistently held only in con- nection with freedom. Seeing that there are facts in nature which do not follow as necessary conse- quents form antecedents, we must give up the tena- bility of the theory that nature is the necessary outcome of a development of force. The only alternative view is that the world is a creative act. We have noticed that intelligence demands freedom. The homogeneous force must account for its own differentiation; seeing that there is nothing outside of it to determine it. Science assumes that facts and phenomena of nature are intelligent; and intelligence demands an intelli- gent determination No matter how many links there may be in the chain of causation, ultimately the mechanism must be referred to free causation; 128 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. and the free cause determines the differentiated mechanism. The differentiation is determined by nothing but the Absolute and thus must be the result of His own free will. He is not the shaper of the world; for that would imply co-existent matter; and that conflicts with the unity of the Absolute. He is not the shaper, but the creator of the universe. He does not only put the element together ; but He forms the elements themselves. The elements were not first made as obstinate creations and then put together into forms as best they could be. But as the mechanic shapes the parts of a machine, so that they may fit together to realize the purpose for which the machine was intended; so the Creator created the atoms, and the free spirits, with such natures and in such quantities as the plan of the whole system demands. The atoms are not princi- ples with which the Absolute must contend. He himself must account for them. An unconscious development of the homogeneous into intelligent results is seen to contradict reason when we remem- ber that the Absolute does not derive His existence from some other source, but has it in Himself. No other principle can stimulate Him to activity, for there is none such ; for by hypothesis the homo* THE RELATION OF THE ABSOLUTE. 1 29 geneous is the Absolute. The activity must spring from Himself. Such a determination is self-deter- mination, and our former argument is sustained that the homogeneous of the materialist is the Absolute Person of the theist. It is supposed by some that nature tvhen once created is able to run itself by virtue of its own power and stability. It is supposed that the ele- ments have an independent existence of their own and are indestructible. Science does teach the indestructibility of the atom, but considers it beyond its sphere to tell us why it is indestructible. The ordinary conception is that they are so many solid particles piled upon one another; and that they, by virtue of their reality as masses constitute matter. And because they are thus even God must allow them to exist and do with them only what their nature will allow. The general conception of atoms as held by scientific men will be noticed from the following citations: (The Physical Properties of Gases by Kimball P. 19.) "It is now held with some varia- tion in detail by almost all scientific men; and although when it is asserted that the ultimate parti- cles of a body such as a block of iron, ordinarily thought of as fixed and solid are in a state of the 130 RKUGION A RATION AI, DEMAND. most intense activity, making millions of vibrations in a second. So many and so different are the facts that point in this direction that it seems necessary to conclude that what is thus conceived to be the structure of material bodies must in its principle features be very near the truth." L,otze say: (Out- line of Metaphysics P. 112.) "Every volume filled up with matter consists of an infinite number of real beings, which in themselves have no extension, but which on account of their relation to one an- other prescribe places in space .... and these, by means of the sum of all their reciprocal action, effectuate extension in general." Thus it is that the ultimate nature of things is a constant activity. According to L,otze's definition of an atom, when it ceases to act it ceases to be. No finite thing is self- sufficient; it points to something beyond itself; to something that is related with it and causes it to be what it is. The finite thing cannot be a center of self generated energy; for it points to a general fountain head of such energy. Energy propagated from one finite object to another must be constantly replenished ; and the requirement of sound logic is that the energy must come from some source that has energy in itself, by virtue of its own being. The only answer to the vexed question is that the THE RELATION OF THE ABSOtUTE. I31 atom has indestructibility, not on account of any right or merit of its own; but because the Absolute constitutes it a permanent center of force. Again it is said that the universe is sustained by natural laws. It is supposed that nature and God are two distinct entities, and that what the one does the other need not do, and that they mutually limit one another. It is this conception that led men to believe that God is required in nature only where there are breaks and chasms which science cannot bridge over, and that no God is needed where nature can explain her own action. It is this view which has made science appear so inimical to religion. It is said, that before men found efficient causation in nature, every phenomenon was directly attributed to God ; but now efficient causation takes the place of God; and God is pushed back into miracles and chasms unexplained by nature. Nature thus be- comes a mechanism capable of sustaining itself by virtue of its own inherent power. We will now look into these facts to see what reason demands concerning them. We know of no law that acts independent of the thing. All laws, or all conceptions of law, are but abstractions from the actions of agents. A law is not a power in itself; it is the mode of activity of something. The 132 RKlylGION A RATION AI, DEMAND. laws of thought are not laws prescribed for the thinker by someone outside of himself; they are abstractions from the mode of procedure in concrete thought. The laws of material substances are not forces acting upon matter from without; but they are modes according to which things in themselves act. Every particle of matter is a little agent. The law of his activity is abstracted from his actions. The little agents are not independent for they act and interact in a united system. They are not self-sufficient ; but the} r point beyond them- selves for their explanations. Neither the agent nor his mode of activity can be accounted for by the agent himself. Neither is the atom an in- exhaustible fount of energy, when created, for that would make the atom itself a god. The conclusion of the whole matter is that efficient causation acting according to natural law is not fatal to the idea of God's immanence in nature. The world does move according to these laws; but law is the mode of action of some agent. That agent cannot ultimately be the atom; for the atom is not self-sufficient. The atom itself is but a discrete point in a single system. Consequently the real agent must be a unit and that unit is the Absolute. THE RELATION OF THE ABSOLUTE. 1 33 It is incorrect to say that the world process sustains itself. The world process is but the activ- ity of the Infinite Agent. The world process be- cause systematic and intelligent requires an explana- tion just as certainly as though it were disconnected and full of breaks; an orderly arrangement needs an explanation just as well as does a disorderly one. The world as mechanism is not self-sufficient; it is only a process and the mechanical process requires the Absolute for its explanation, just as truly as though it were in every respect desultory. The Absolute as person transcends nature ; but as Creator and Preserver he is immanent in every part of the whole world process. He is the never exhaustible fountain that supplies every atom with its store of energy, which, if He would refuse to fur- nish supplies, would immediately cease to exist. If there were no free moral agency in the world we could now finish this brief discussion of the rela- tion of God to nature. It would then be an un- broken mechanism. But there is free, or self-deter- mined, activity in the world and this urges us to the consideration, that the relation of God to the material world in creation and in preservation does not itself secure the purpose for which it all exists. It is, therefore, necessary to consider another rela- 134 RKUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. tion which He sustains to the world, and most especially to moral agents and that is the relation- ship of governor. It is this government that will constitute the second part of this book. PART IL The Idea of Man and His Relation to God. MAN ESSENTIALLY SPIRITUAL. The body of man will not receive special atten- tion in this treatise, except as it is related to the self. We are concerned here not with bodily con- struction, nor, even, with its activity, except as its activity is related to the self. It has been maintained by some that man is essentially material; and, as such, his thoughts and actions are mechanically determined. If this turns out, upon due examinalion, to be so, then the world has no government; then all is pure mechanism; and this part of our work is not necessary. It is true man has a physical nature ; and this physical nature is a perfect mechanism, in which every part is determined to activity by every other part. This mechanism is composed of different parts, or organs ; and every part has its own particular function to perform. The lower limbs are constructed for loco- motion, the hand for prehension, the teeth for masti- cation, the stomach for digestion, the lungs for the aeration of blood, the liver for the secretion of bile, and, so say the materialists, the brain for the secre- tion of thought. (137) 138 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. They say it is no more difficult for the brain to secrete thought than it is for the liver to secrete bile. Illustratious do sometimes captivate and cause people to believe that which in reality is not fact. It must be remembered that bile and thought are two different things. The one is quantitative and has sensible qualities, while the other has not these characterics. The one possesses every material quality while the other does not possess them. We will now briefly consider the difference, and what this difference will compel us to assume as its explanation. The difference of the two sets of phenomena was noticed by Plato, and was again clearly seen by Descartes, who recognized them as the expression of two entities, in themselves distinct, but standing in the relation of an "occasional' ' interaction. Spinoza met the problem and proceeded to its solution. He thought that thought and extension were two attri- butes of one and the same substance. He, seeing plainly that the attributes contradicted one another, thought having no extension, and extension having not the unity of thought, made them the attributes of a transcendental substance, in which possibly the attributes might not conflict. A transcendental substance with contradictory qualities is not clear MAN ESSENTIALLY SPIRITUAL. 1 39 to thought; and can, consequently, not be taken as an hypothesis. Materialism, seeing the irreconcilability of these qualities, emphasized matter and made spiritual phenomena its product. It believes that as the color of the rainbow is produced through the falling rain- drop and vanishes when the raindew mingles with the water of the earth; so thought and intelligence are produced through the brain and vanish when the brain ceases to act. Materialism says that the only antecedent to thought is brain action ; and it must consequently explain thought. When two nerve centers are for some time stimulated in con- nection or in close succession, it gives rise to the eKperience of connectedness in experience. When an excitement passes along certain tracts and does so repeatedly, a pathway is made for such excite- ment; and in consequence of this pathway, nerve energy is discharged most easily along this line; thus habit and reproduction are accounted for. There is no volition; everything is mechanically determined. Physiological psychology has indeed demon- strated that different parts of the Drain are con- nected with different mental functions. The fact that there is connection or interaction between the 140 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. brain and mental life is no sign that one element in the interaction does not exist. Because oxygen under certain circumstances and conditions unites with hydrogen to form water is no evidence that hydrogen does not exist. The oxygen without the hydrogen would remain oxygen. The oxygen has disappeared and another substance has appeared in its stead; because it has interacted with the hydrogen. If it is true that the brain is the only element in consciousness and its states are the con- tents of mental life, then certain consequents would necessarily follow upon such a hypothesis Scien- tists inform us that molecules are in a state of rapid vibration, and that the molecules of the brain are in a state of continual change. If consciousness would be the recognition of the state of the brain, it would necessarily be of this molecular motion of the brain; but experience does not corroborate the demands of the hypothesis. The state of the brain is the last thing we are conscious of. Even the expert neurol- ogist does not know the brain motions that are the direct antecedent of certain mental states. We are conscious not of brain conditions, normally, but of phenomena. In sight we are not conscious of the eye, but simply of light. The consciousness that the eye is an organ of vision is the result of experimentation. MAN ESSENTIALLY SPIRITUAL. 1 4 1 Science informs us that the material world is a world of motion; and that the result of force is motion of some kind. We will concede that motion of the ether effects the eye; and that the effect upon the eye is propagated through the optic nerve to the visual center in the brain. It is motion in the ether; it is molecular motion in the eye, in the optic nerve and in the visual center; but in con- sciousness it is sensation. It is evident that sensa- tion is a new phenomenon. It is not motion; it is so vastly different from motion that it cannot be placed in the same category. Motion of one kind can always be transformed into motion of another substratum. It cannot be rendered plain, or clear to reason, how motion in the brain can be trans- formed into sensation without having the motion pass into another substratum to account for the change. The motion in one instant appears as sensation in another. The nervous process that awakens consciousness effects a multiplicity of molecules along the nerve tract. Consciousness of the sensa- tion is not carried along the nerve tract stimulated; there is no consciousness in the stimulated molecule along the tract: but a unitary being reacts upon the motion and it is conscious of its own reaction. This 142 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. reaction is consciousness. This being reacts upon the stimulus and is conscious of its own state. Green in Proligomena To Ethics, p. 81 f. says that: "The intelligence of man is free. It is not deter- mined in its conception of the world from without ; but it reacts upon this stimulus according to its own inherent nature." Were this not a fact, it would be difficult to determine how error in judgment could arise. From very trifling data great and far reaching conclusions are drawn. The result is not determined by the antecedent; or, in other words, the result is not the outcome of the preceding forces. There is a certain freedom thus revealed in the activity of the self, which no mechanical process can explain. The further along we get in our experience the more the true nature of man's essential being becomes manifest. We have a manifold variety of sensations. We use this world with the significance already given it in the forgoing; but there they are all united into the unity of a single object; and there the various objects are classified and organized by the free activity of the mind itself. It is deter- mined to action by nothing, but itself. There are elements in our experience which empiricism cannot account for. All individual experiences are united MAN ESSENTIALLY SPIRITUAL. 143 into the unity of a single system; the unity can be accounted for only by a relating being, a being able to lay hold upon different facts and establish rela- tions between them. I will briefly illustrate from science what is meant by this relating activity. The brain is made up of different nerve centers; and each center is supposed to have its own specific activity. The visual center is the center of sight; the auditory center is the center of hearing; the olfactory center is the center of smell; the gust- atory center is the center of taste; and the motor centers governing the various motions of the body. Activity takes place in a great variety of centers and in myriads of cells in each center; and all this diversity of activity is united and organized into the unity of a single object. Into these objects ele- ments enter that do not come by way of sensation. No mind, for instance, has ever had any sensation of space and yet space is an important element in material perception. The element of space present in the intuition of all material objects is furnished by the mind itself by direct insight. The visual center receives impressions from the activity of ether, the auditory from activity of the air, the olfactory from the effluvia touching the mucus lining of the nasal passage, and the gusta- 144 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. tory from action upon the tongue; but in conscious- ness neither light, nor sound, nor smell, nor taste appear, but the object by which these impressions are made. If all the activity was directed into a single cell of the brain, the cell, if it were conscious- ness itself, could at best only be conscious of its own state; and if the activity from the various sources would meet in that cell, the outcome would be sim- ply the resultant of the various activities. The molecular activity along the optic nerve, and that coming along the line of the auditory would neces- sarily run together, and the result would be neither the one nor the other, and yet would partake of the nature of both. The color and the taste of an orange are kept perfectly distinct, and yet they are united in the unity of a single object. The unity of consciousness is a rock upon which the material- istic school of philosophy wrecks itself. Unity of consciousness is the charge that blows materialism into fragments. We have seen that the only being that we can conceive of being a unity and yet com- prehending diversity is a spirit. The consciousness of man contains universal elements and these also are not derived from external influences acting upon him. Hume has pointed out that the idea of causa- tion is not derived from experience. Kant has MAN ESSENTIALLY SPIRITUAL. 1 45 shown that the intuitious of space and time and the categories of the judgment are not derived from experience, but are the furniture of the understand- ing, or of the mind itself, and are absolutely neces- sary for the possibility of experience at all, We have pointed out in the first part of this work that matter is not matter outside of conscious- ness; every atom bears upon itself the stamp of mentality. Motion, that seems to count for so much with the materialist, has existence only in consciousness. The mind, it is true, is related to the external world ; but the external world is the world as viewed in consciousness, never outside of it. It is not said that the mind makes the material in its own act of thinking. It is rather the signi- ficance of what has been said that the mind in its reaction upon external stimulus has certain sensa- tions; and that the mind reacting according to its own nature does give the world those universal principles, which are not themselves derived from the external world by experience. This is not Sub- jective Idealism; that doctrine is not tenable. The Absolute it is, in whom we live, move and have our being ; and this Absolute energizes at innumerable discrete points, and out of this energy the mind organizes its world of experience. The Author of I46 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. nature has created consciousness and the other ele- ments of nature that they in their interaction with consciousness from the world of experience. If the lenses of our eyes were different, how differently things would appear in size. When a man is highly intoxicated he sees things which do not appear to other minds at all. It is a certain activity of the brain; and the mind assumes an object to account for the action. The nature of the intelligence is therefore not that of a copyist, who takes nature and makes a likeness of it. The mind has rather a free activity, one uncaused by anything but its own nature. It works upon and organizes the elements into forms specified and determined by its own nature. Intelligence is therefore free. It must be dissociated with the world of phenomena, which stand in the relation of the categories to one another. The mind itself contains these categories; they pre- cede ail experience. The mind precedes the objec- tive world for it is only in relation to the subject that the object becomes object. Thus distinguished from the phenomenal world, man has a nature dis- tinctively spiritual. Not that all material phe- nomena have not a spiritual basis ; but that man is not related to the phenomenal world as are phe- MAN KSSENTIAIXY SPIRITUAL. 1 47 nomena ; but he stands over against them and is their lord and master. The ideals of man's rational nature are such that they cannot be considered the result of the growth of experience; but since they possess a universal nature, they are the revelation of God to him; and in so far as they are universal, they must belong to something that transcends all diversity of particu- lars, and that can be only Spirit. We simply wish to show in this chapter that man is not a part of the phenomenal world, but is of a higher order. Phenomenal objects appear, but they appear in consciousness ; again, they are related to one another, but this relation is in consciousness. One object displaces another, but it is displaced from consciousness. Thus we see that the play of phe- nomena is in human consciousness ; and their change can never effect any more than the state of man's consciousness; the consciousness itself is of a differ- ent order. This idea is simply introduced here, it will be more fully developed in succeeding chapters. DEVELOPMENT A LAW OF HIS BEING. The movement of living forms is from the homo- geneous to a system with diversified organs. The organism, simple in its beginning, becomes more complex until it reaches its maturity. In the development of an organism there is a certain free- dom of activity. I mean by freedom a certain activity that springs from the nature of life itself. This activity is not determined by any combination of elements. Chemism fails to account for the phe- nomena of life. When life ceases to hold together the constituent elements, chemism soon dissolves them. It is the nature of life to lay hold upon mat- ter and by constructing certain forms to reveal its own nature by giving body to its own ideals. The nature of life does not change. From the time it sets free the first bioplast it has in view the matured form, and, if the circumstances prove favorable, that form will be produced. Two conditions are necessary for the realization of that end. The energizing principle must carry the plan of the matured structure in itself. Indeed, 148 DEVELOPMENT A LAW OF HIS BEING. 1 49 it is not conscious of that plan, but unconsciously it aims to work it out. This plan cannot be found in the individual atom that enters the composition; if it was, there would be as many plans as there are individual atoms. On the contrary, all biological science points to the fact that all the individual atoms work in harmony to realize a single plan. The unity of the plan precedes its realization. I want to impress this point forcibly: that the life of an organism works incessantly toward the realiza- tion of an ideal which it unconsciously holds. It is evident to biologists that the plan is not realized mechanically by efficient causation which pushes the elements from behind; but a power holding in its embrace the ideal of its matured form, makes every stroke count in the realization of that plan. The organism is not the mechanical enlargement of a preformed structure. The individual organs of the organism are produced in the process of development. This is proven by the fact that in the simpler forms of life an organ destroyed will be reproduced. In the case of certain plants, the stem cut from the root and planted will produce roots; and the roots planted will produce stem. It is everywhere characteristic of life that it aims to produce a systematic unity. I50 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. The second condition of development is that this organizing power stands in relation to the forces of nature, present in the atom. These powers it must subdue and make subservient to the unity of its own plan. Its subduing power at first is of a very sim- ple nature. It controls but a few atoms at first, but subdues and organizes into its systems more and more until a amplicated structure is constructed. Man is not only physically a result of development; but he is essentially subject to the same law. The first experiences of his mental life are as simple as the first movements of the bioplast that organizes the body. Mental life begins with simple sensation. It is the simplest reaction upon stimuli. The child at first makes few comparisons in fact, it does not aim to organize its experience. Unconsciously, however, upon the observation of similarity and dis- similarity classification does begin. Similar things are then put into similar categories and given simi- lar names. Not only does the organizing power realize its own ideal in the structure; but it points toward higher phases of that ideal. Nature's move- ments are uniform; whether life appears in the physical, mental or spiritual department of the world, its modes of manifestation are the same. Why this is so, or why man should be capable of DEVELOPMENT A LAW OF HIS BEING. I51 development at all is a hopeless question, but no more so than many other questions that we might ask: such as, why nature should be made in any part as it is. Our aim here is simply to point out the fact that man's essential nature, as well as his physical nature, is subject to the same law of devel- opment; and it will appear in the subsequent part of this discussion that this fact plays a great part in man's religion. Man's development consists in the establishment of relations. The infant taken from its mother in its early infancy does not feel greatly the loss of the mother; but after a few years of con- nection the relation between the child and its mother becomes stronger; and, in fact, possibly so strong that the child scarcely knows itself related to any- thing, or any one, but the mother. The same child goes to school and after a while a similar relation is established with the teacher. He is a young man and starting out in business he establishes relations with the commercial world. He goes into nature and then makes observations; he detects laws and is led to principles, and with these he establishes relations. Thus his system of experience grows and becomes complicated. Man essentially is intellectual, sensitive, and volitional. Man is not divided into three parts, 152 REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. these three different functions are but three sides of a unitary being. This being starts out with the firm assurance that it is akin to the universe. It may not realize this assurance to its fullest extent at once ; but it proceeds toward its realization as it continues to establish relations with the different parts of the universe. In the physical make-up of man there is a rest- less craving. His body, when its immediate wants are satiated, sits down and rests in satisfaction; but it is otherwise with his essential nature. Here every advance is an incentive to another; every degree of culture is but a stimulus to that which lies beyond. The scientist goes into nature with the conviction that, whatever he may observe, or investigate, is related to his intelligence. If he be a geologist and meets rocks that seem an opaque mass, he ventures into them firmly believing in advance that they were put there by hands, guided by intelligence, and that some day even their chaotic appearance will reveal a cosmic order. In fact in every department of science the scientist considers himself most intimately related to the nature of that order. It is the nature of the original cell in the indi- vidual organism, under favorable circumstances, to DEVELOPMENT A LAW OF HIS BEING. 1 53 divide and subdivide and by absorption of material from the outside world and co-ordination of this material to become a mature animal structure. Man in his intellectual development begins with the sim- plest relations and hastens forward through compli- cated environments until he has transformed the chaotic mass of the world into the intelligent con- struction of an ordered whole. He not only com- prehends all that he comes in immediate contact with ; but throws out the course of his comprehen- sion and aims to encircle the whole world of being. He begins with the simple, the particular, but does not rest short of the universal. Intellect is not content simply to act, it must act with a purpose. It is not the goal of its life simply to possess ele- ments of experience; they must be organized by certain laws and principles into systematic units, Fiction will not satisfy because it yearns for the real. The simple products of the imagination will not suffice, for that is individual opinion. The only resting place it finds is in the comprehension oi eternal truth, and that, in its ultimate analysis, is the mode of action of the Absolute Person. Man develops not only intellectually but morally as well. His intellectual nature manifests itself as soon as material is given it to act upon. As physi- 154 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. cal life absorbs elements and deposits them accord- ing to the laws of its own activity; so mental life orders the chaos of its own sensations into the mold of its own intrinsic nature. And in like manner as man has an intellectual nature which causes him to observe and to experi- ment with the objects of nature until he finds those laws which are the exact counterpart of the laws of his own being; so has he also a moral nature. This nature is the directrix of his being. While his intelligence aims to find the true, his moral nature prompts him to seek the right. It may at first be without any content and have no significance except a formal one; yet in its formal dictates it points to righteousness and will never consent to anything, but a body of actions ordered according to its own principles. Its legitimate sphere of action is the voluntary action of man. It is formal in the sense that it gives form and value to tbe actions of the agent. It declares them right or wrong according to its own standard It does not pretend to be pre- possessed by a store of ethical knowledge, or to have a code of moral judgments; but it does build up moral judgments out of concrete actions. It is a life, a moral life which lays hold upon the material, composed of human actions, and DEVELOPMENT A I,AW OF HIS BEING. 1 55 co-ordinate it into the organism of righteousness. It there gives to each act its own position and lays upon each its own legitimate value. The Principle of utility is the great teacher of moral judgment; but it is only the principle according to which they develop. It cannot account for the moral life any more than the physical organism, or the process of physical development, can account for natural life. The manifestations of the moral life are necessarily simple so long as the relations of the individual with the outside world are simple ; and it becomes more complex as his world of experience enlarges. The moral life forces its way into every part of the world of experience and not an element of man's free action escapes its discriminating power. Man is put into nature without his consent. But once here, he is compelled to act. His intel- lect will observe and to some degree reflect; even an idler cannot avoid it. To some extent he must develop ; but the highest development is the result of a conscious reaction upon external stimuli. The highest mental development is therefore the result of effort. Morally man irresistibly acts. He either reacts upon the stimuli with a healthy and worthy reaction, and the moral life expresses its satisfaction; or the individual allows himself to be 156 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. borne along by his environments and his moral life confronts him with the feeling of his own unworthi- ness. As his world of conscious experience grows, the reaction of his moral nature grows likewise with an increasing sense of satisfaction or dissatisfaction, according as the actions will or will not conform to the ideals of moral life. Not only is he capable of development in the establishment of relations between him and the indi- vidual facts of nature; but he also develops habits. He is able to react along the lines of his higher con- victions and develop into a worthy member of society. He not only develops in the number of relations established, but also in the ease with which he reacts. Repeated actions become forged into habits. When we come to look at the result of actions as they react upon the individual agent we shall see the importance of this kind of develop- ment. He is able to establish relations by means of his intelligence which, on account of his moral promptings, may be right; and on account of the law of action, which by frequent repetition forges a habit, may be made as permanent as the actual self. The ability to develop is an infinite one. At no time in a man's history does he arrive at the point where he is perfectly content with his condition. DEVELOPMENT A LAW OF HIS BEING. 1 57 In every cognition and in every volition he is con- fronted by ideals that are still beyond his power to realize. The problem of evil in the world has always been a difficult one. It has been one of the great bug-bears of speculative thought. How can evil, or the sense of evil, be reconciled with true good- ness in the heart of the universe ? The sense of evil arises from a feeling of dissatisfaction. This feeling arises when the present attainment does not meet the demand of the ideal. This very evil is a good in disguise. It is in the presence of ideals that man is reminded of his deficiencies. It is this sense of deficiency that spurs him to higher attainments. It is this fact that drives the scientist into the as yet unknown department of nature to make them clear to his intelligence. It is this that causes the artist to work and toil to make some creation of his art to conform to his ideal. The history of the world has been one continual effort to realize ideals present in man's essential constitu- tion. Evil is the discrepancy between a present state, or attainment, and those ideals. Kvil is also present on account of a failure on the part of the individual to realize his moral 158 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. ideals. The moral imperative is, "Do right though the heavens fall." It is possible in the presence of conflicting motives to prefer a lower to a higher end. These ends are always valued with reference to their agreement, or disagreement, with moral standards. This preference of a lower to a higher end creates a discrepancy between a moral act and a moral ideal, or the inner voice of duty, and thus arises the con- sciousness of sin. Sin is a moral evil and is not a good in disguise, but is a wrong choice made by a moral agent. We shall learn in subsequent chapters that the ideals wrought into human nature were put there by the Absolute, who is the Creator of man and the author of his nature; and that a wilful violation of the ideals is a sin against the Absolute person. Man is intellectually developable; for he carries in him ideals that embrace the universe of being; and the intellect will not rest until the whole is mastered. Man's feelings are capable of being developed. They are the index of the value which relations entered into have for the sensitive self. The strength of feelings depends upon the strength of the relation, and the kind of feelings upon its nature. DEVELOPMENT a LAW OF HIS BEING. 1 59 The habit of looking upon the side of the individual imperfections develops moroseness and melancholia. The feelings, if the right relations to environments are formed, will develop into perfect harmony with the Absolute; or if these relations are not formed, he becomes a piece of selfishness and feels himself forsaken of man and God. HIS FREEDOM. One of the most vexed questions of philosophy- is whether man is essentially free or whether he is determined. It was an easy matter to teach man's freedom in the past ages when every phenomenon in nature was assigned to some free agent; but when men began to point out that efficient causation was a fact in the world, natural causes were everywhere substituted for supernatural ones; and the idea of mechanism which means determination was intro- duced into every department of nature. So power- fully did this view lay hold upon men that it was carried into every avenue of science; and when men could not find a real cause for a certain event a hypothetical one was placed there; and it is not strange that to the inner actions of consciousness this law of determinism should be applied. It has been the aim of materialism to account for all mental phenomena, intellectual no more than voli- tional, by the activity of the brain alone. They say, we know that in sensation certain brain action precedes certain mental experiences; and, because 1 60 HIS FREEDOM. l6l we see no other cause for it, brain activity must be the sole cause for it. They notice a vast difference between physical and mental phenomena, and they call the one the inner and the other the outer side of the same experience. They say, because the inner side corresponds to the outer side and physical events are determined by physical causes, that the mental acts and habits must be likewise determined. Now, it is true that man is determined within certain limits. He is not allowed to alter, to any great extent, the laws of nature. They are fixed beyond the possibility of his interference. He must retain his residence upon the earth ; and all attempts to gratify curiosity by going elsewhere must prove futile. He is connected with a physical organism and that physical organism has a certian power and a certain degree of endurance, beyond which it is impossible to go. This indicates that the order of nature is established and that its plans will be real- ized beyond the possibility of human interference. But that man is nevertheless a free agent cannot be disputed without coming into direct antagonism to the data of consciousness. Herbert Spencer says, "Whatever persists in consciouness must be admitted as real." If the permanent data of con- sciousness are faults, man must be laboring under 1 62 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. a delusion. We have noticed, time and again, the fact that in intelligence there must be a certain free- dom, for intelligence adapts means to ends ; where mechanism rules, such language would be most absurd. It is incorrect to separate the various faculties of man as though they were that many separate beings and afterward to bring them into unity. Though we view man as functioning in the three directions of intelligence, feeling and will; yet it is true that in every function the others are present also. A man's thoughts will stir up feeling. The feeling may drop to a minimum, and yet there is feeling. He cannot choose unless he has objects given him for choice. A choice cannot be made between alternatives unless they are present at the time in consciousness, that is, intellectually appre- hended. In order to make a choice between two objects these objects themselves must have a value for the chooser; and thus the intellectually grasped object has an influence upon the feeling; or, in other words, the feelings enter into the cognition of these objects. Neither is it possible to think with- out having will enter into thought ; because thoughts need direction. Man must, in consequence of these considerations, act as a unity wherever he acts. HIS FREEDOM. 163 The soul is connected with a physical system which is mechanical in its construction. K^ery part is connected with every other; and the whole forms one organic system. The self pictures to itself cer- tain actions and chooses them, and the physical structure executes the choice. This fact has led materialism to say that will is but the subjective consciousness of a mechanical act. Just as though a falling stone were to say to itself, "I willed 1o fall;" although its fall was in every sense deter- mined by forces other than its own choice. In this discussion we must study carefully con- sciousness ; for it is there that we know the world of reality. Man as a rational creature knows him- self able to choose either of two different lines of action. He may act in conformity to his rational demands or he may act otherwise. No blame can justly be attached to an agent who is mechanically determined to act as he acts. An apple falls upon our head ; we never blame the falling apple, nor the tree that let it drop. They are both mechanically determined in bringing about the results. But it is not so with man; we instinctively express judgment upon the moral value of his act. We do not act, we cannot act, as though we knew these actions of men were determined; we rather act toward the 164 RKUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. agent as though we knew those actions were sub- jectively determined. We blame them not only for overt acts; we blame them when they refuse to make the best use of their opportunities. In all of these judgments we attach the idea of freedom to their actions. Repentance is a common experience of men; and it is a feeling of self-reproach for actions which we ought not to have done, or for the neglect of those things which we ought to have done. We reprove ourselves for our wayward life; and we reproach ourselves also for our weakness. If there is such a thing as slavery to passion, we blame ourselves for having consented to such a con- dition. We are compelled to believe that we might have done and been otherwise. Mentality cannot stand without the idea of free- dom. Intelligence is teleological. It does not take means and manipulate them in order to watch results. The builder does not take the timber and put it to- gether to see what combination can be made; he rather adapts the timber to the end he has in view. His action is intelligent because it is teleological. He has a vision of the completed architecture, and adapts the means to its accomplishment. In muscu- lar action a man is not conscious of the individual muscles that come into play in the performance of a HIS FREEDOM. 165 certain act. However, the act becomes an ideal in consciousness; and the muscular system puts forth an effort to realize the ideal. It may be a simple act, and the choice to perform it and the act itself may be synchronous; but there are many actions in which the choice so to act and the performed action are separated by a long course of development. The infant attempts to walk; the act is ideally con- ceived, but the muscular co-ordination is not yet established. The choice to perform the act domin- ates the whole being, until the act becomes a real- ity. Were it not for the free choice the act itself would never become an actual fact. A man has a desire to become a musician. There may be rea- sons stimulating him with this desire; but the reasons do not determine him to be a musician. The same reasons may be present with others and may have been present with himself at different times; but this thought of the desirability of being a musician did not determine him to be one. He, however, at a certain moment made the choice to become one; that was the beginning of his musical career. When he resolved to become a musician, he was already one in a certain sense of that term. It is not said that all the muscular co-ordinations for that end were already made. They were not, 1 66 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. circumstances were against him, and had to be over- come before that end could be reached ; but he him- self was on the right side of the end to be accom- plished. He is now self-determined. He does not say when the combination of circumstances deter- mine me to become a musician then will I become one; he, on the contrary, recognizes himself to be superior to his circumstances and has perfect con- fidence in the end determined. He is perfectly confident that he can mold his circumstances, though they may seem to antagonize the end aimed for, into conformity to that end. And though it takes a multiplicity of muscles and com- plicated muscular combinations to make him what he desires to be; yet is he confident of his ability to determine himself and them and make them con- tribute to the result. Our penal institutions rest upon the basis of the supposition that all human actions are determined by the agent himself. The act though prejudicial in the highest degree will not make the agent cul- pable if the evidence point toward a want of mali- cious intention in the act. A criminal act may have been performed under severe pressure of circum- stances; it may have been executed by a muscular act; the muscular system acted in the committal HIS FREEDOM. 167 according to its own laws : and 3^et back of all this was the self-determination that determined the mus- cular contraction and co-ordination toward a certain end set by itself. The individual does not regard himself to be a machine that acts only as it is acted upon, but rather understands himself to have directed his own course and to be responsible for his own ends. When a man takes a walk he does it not be- cause he is determined to do so, but because he decides upon it himself. When a man invents a machine he does not consider that he was driven by the combination of forces so to do, but he re- gards it as a free act of his own. Just as a man is able to control his muscles, so he is able to control his thoughts. In fact it is upon the control of his thoughts that his muscular control depends. His whole environment may stimulate thought in a certain direction; but he finding that that line of thought is not going to gain what he wants it to, sets himself against the whole trend. He does this by voluntarily thinking along other lines to which he is not determined by circumstance, but to which he is determined by his own self. In every choice there must be different alternatives. There may be present impulses to- 1 68 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. ward the gratification of present wants springing from the animal nature; there may be present rational impulses which aim for most distant pos- sessions, or rewards, and gains them at a sacrifice of the present or immediate joys. The thoughts of both ends are present with the thinker. He can- not possibly act along both lines. The rational impulse may have, often does have, a more distant and a less vivid goal than the other; and yet he may choose to think the one and choose it as his end to the exclusion of the other. The same truth is illustrated in the world of thought. The natural line of thought for the child would possibly be the contemplation of its childish trinkets and its childish games. It may under the spur of a single observation decide upon becoming a scientist; the childish trinkets are now discarded as unworthy, and only such facts observed and such instruments employed, as will enable him to gain that end. By a continued effort that which once was difficult is now easily performed. A new habit of thought has been initiated by an effort of the self. It is in this individual self-determination that religion looks for the possiblilty of human improve- ment. Men who prey upon the vile elements HIS FREEDOM. 169 of carnality never rise to any degree of being or use- fulness. Vile thoughts beget a vile character. The individual by choice entertaining wicked thoughts will soon have his whole character poisoned with its virus. Thoughts are the antichamber of actions; and no matter what may be the theory as to the limitations of the will, this much is established in every individual experience, that a man can turn his thoughts or his attention from one thing, or from one idea, to another; and whatever idea or thought he holds by voluntary thinking will trans- form his character into similarity to itself; because thoughts and ideas are strong motive powers in the course of a man's actions. By directing the trend of thought the individual controls his disposition. He may be greatly annoyed by a weakness; he wishes it were otherwise; his penitential feelings are deep: but in the moment of temptation he seems powerless. He now determines that it shall be otherwise with him. He ceases to think of the gratification that comes to him from the source of his weakness ; he thinks of the desirability of deter- mining himself as a man ; he thinks of manly quali- ties, and of the greater enjoyments that come to him from the consciousness of being a conqueror. He now realizes that that which he thought would 170 REUGION A RATION AL DEMAND. require such a great conflict is easily overcome. He does not ascribe his victory to a more fortunate combination of circumstances. He knows it is not the resultant of co-operating forces in his environ- ment, but is the result of his own self-determination. The self is found in connection with the physical forces and especially in interaction with the body, which acts upon it; yet the self is independent; it may determine itself in perfect harmony with its environments or it may set itself into boldest antag- onism thereto. We have seen that man is a free intelligence and that his intelligence is truly creative; for it is determined in its essential action by nothing, but reacts upon external stimuli according to its own nature. We have still more the conviction that the will is a power of independent reaction upon the environment. It is this fact of independent reac- tion upon environment and the power of self-deter- mination that constitutes man pre-eminently a responsible being. It is in his power to allow himself to be ensnared by the things of the phenomenal universe and meet the disappointment of finding that they have only a temporary value. Or he may choose to identify himself with those principles which are immutable; HIS FREEDOM. 171 and though his life may be one of many sacrifices and, though it may lead him in bold antagonism to his environment, he will find his life one of un- broken and changeless value; because he stands upon the immutable foundation of eternal laws. It is a matter of common consciousness that the individual himself is responsible for his character. Environment may have much to do by way of assisting, but never, except as the result of an effort, do we blame physical or social environment, but throw the whole responsibility upon the in- dividual himself. This power of self-determination enables the indi\ idual to employ the most violent opposition and make it the most forceful factor in the realization of himself. This freedom has a great bearing upon man as a religious being. Necessitarianism would make him the mechanical outcome of a system, which he would be unable in the slightest manner to modify. His volitions are but the consciousness of necessary actions, actions controlled by circumstances beyond his reach. Such a view would impugn the belief that man is religious. For man to be mechanically related to the universe, or to God, would be no more than the blade of grass or the leaf; for they are mechani- 172 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. cally determined to be what they are. Religion is not a mechanical relation of the individual to God for such a relation to Him is sustained by the most insignificant part of his workmanship. It is this entrance of the power of self-determination, the power of self -direction, against the opposing ele- ments of the phenomenal world that give man a value far outweighing in importance the most stu- pendous phenomena of nature. It is in the consciousness of a self-determination that lies the possibility of being at variance with the nature of things and consequently in opposition to Him who is the Creator of all. It opens up to man the possibility of glad self-surrender to the Author of his being, and thereby have the consciousness of affectionate and blessed allegiance to Him. Freedom does not mean uncaused action; but it means self-caused action. It means a life not solely determined by circumstances or environments, but a life determined by rational intelligence. Nothing can be credited with intelligence that is determined to act as it does. The most skillful work of man's hand would be no more credit to the workman than the orderly arrangement of the leaf is to the leaf itself. Every particle of the leaf is arranged into an order which, though indeed the result of intelli- HIS FREEDOM. 173 gence, is not the result of the intelligence of the leaf, but of the author of the mechanical system of which the leaf is a part. Of man we speak differ- ently. The works of his hands betray the same kind of intelligence; but the intelligence is referred to a different cause than is the leaf. Man himself is the cause ; and the intelligence betrayed in his work is his intelligence. This manner of speach is consistent only on the supposition of freedom in man. His self-determin- ation brings with it his responsibility. It makes him the author of his own relation to nature and to his God; and it is this fact which constitutes him religious. Because we are so near to it I will ven- ture a definition of religion. Religion is the right relation of the free moral agent to his God. Of course it is understood that the adjective right is not to be construed in the absolute sense for that would prevent any finite creature from being re- ligious. THE NATURE OF HIS DEVELOPMENT. If we ask ourselves the question, why do things develop, we would be unable to find a reply. The question is as hopeless as is the question why was nature created at all. Why was nature created at all, and why was it created as it is are questions, which must be referred to infinite w T isdom for a solution. Our chief concern is to know it as it is. The process of nature is a process of develop- ment. The living organism makes its first appear- ance in the form of a microscopic cell. Its power to dominate matter is exceedingly small; but it carries in it the impulse to subdue and to dominate by its own peculiar nature. The cell absorbs through its walls into itself the nourishment sup- plied by its environments. It thereby increases its contents until it divides; and each daughter cell re- peats the history of the mother cell. Thus the individual organism increases in size and strength until it reaches its maturity. Human development begins with physical development. The organs of sense and motion are developed by the organization 174 THE NATURE OE HIS DEVELOPMENT. 1 75 of unorganized matter absorbed for that purpose. The eye is formed long before it can see; but there lies in it capsulate the power of sight. The hands are formed, but they have not the ability to handle, though their structure indicates their purpose. The lungs are made for the aeriation of the Hood long before they can receive the oxygen of the air. The nervous system was formed for the co-ordination of the different members of the organism into a unity. The organism is not intended to act until the proper stimulus for action is given; and then it often takes quite an effort to establish a proper adaptation. The eye is receptive of the light; but it takes a certain adjustment to see things properly. The child's hand is perfectly adapted for grasping things; and yet it requires a certain amount of effort to do ii properly. The muscles must, adapt themselves fo their environment; but they only learn after considerable experimentation to over- come the law of gravitation. But we have seen that man is essentially spirit- ual and that the development of physical organs is not the chief purpose of his being, or of his develop- ment. It is to the credit of science to agree with revelation that the nature of development is first physical then spiritual. It is one of the points made 176 REUGION A RATION At DEMAND. by the theory of evolution, that after the physical organism was perfected then the course of develop- ment took a spiritual turn. Science has proven that the eye was not constructed for itself, but for the greater end of sight. The eye does not improve by seeirjg but it finlly wanes and refuses to serve at all. It is precisely so with the other members of the body. They all point to a use beyond themselves. Their chief aim is to awaken spiritual energy and when that is done they begin gradually to recede into inactivity and give themselves over to death. These facts indicate strongly that the permanent nature of progress is not physical, but spiritual. The physical is but the revelation of the spiritual, which is present in every speck of the phenomenal world. The phenomenal world is a system of signs from which man spells the meaning of eternal thought. Human development is individual, He is not carried along by the mechanism of the universe. He is rather a being determined to activity by his own essential nature and volition. He grows by adapting himself to his environments. Physical growth consists in causing the elements of nature to become organized into the living tissue of organic forms. THE NATURE OF HIS DEVELOPMENT. 1 77 Iyife must have access to those elements of its environment. Man stands in such a position, and is so related to the world, that his physical wants are met in such a way that physical development may take place. He is also related to the world that his intellectual and moral nature may find their correlates for proper growth. No part of an organism grows of itself. It is only as it stands in perfect relation to the correlated part of its environ- ment that it grows. The cell that constitutes the beginning of its being does not develop the organism from itself; it must stand in vital relation to the material world in order to guarantee a proper inflow of the necessary elements. All appetites aim to establish relations between the individual and some part of his environment. The reaction of the self upon the appetites gives the self its character. All self-assertion is essentially free and determines the nature of the self and of its growth. When a man directs his attention to physical self-preservation alone he becomes worldly minded. His whole self is then alive to the material nature. He finds his joy and delight in material prosperity and remains blind to everything else. The accumulation of wealth seems to be the chief desideratum of such a being. He grows strong by specialization, but a I78 KEXIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. strong attachment to one part of the environment often means atrophied relation to others. He has a natural impulse for pleasure and that springs from some part of his animal nature. A constant atten- tion to this end of life makes him animal. Man's essential growth is always along the lines of his activity. While giving due regard to these parts of his environment he may reach out and form rela- tions with other parts. The miser is blind to a world of beauty; the fleecy cloud, the studded meadows, heaven's canopy decked with a million stars are all beyond the reach of his vision. There is beauty of environment; but he sees it not. He has had a growth but not in this direction. He has cut down his environment to the one point of con- tact and that is wealth. Growth in love for the beautiful takes place when the individual voluntar- ily turns his attention to that part of his environ- ment. The botanist sees beauty in a flower con- cealed to the ordinary observer; because he has turned his attention to this part of his environment so long. Voluntary adaptation to the beautiful means a stimulation of taste and a conquest of its principles. As the physical world ministers to the physical wants of the individual, so the beautiful ministers to his aesthetic wants. Growth THE NATURE OF HIS DEVELOPMENT. 179 means a stimulation of want and a furnishing of supplies. The supply in the aesthetic world is infinitely greater than any taste has yet been able to appreciate. According to the strength of the adaptation is the want; and according to the want is the supply. Man's environment also contains a world of thought. ''The material world is a living thinking thing ("See Lloyd's Dynamic Idealism" p. 36.) Every atom stands in intelligent relation to some other atoms. Every grain of sand sustains a rela- tion to other grains of sand and to the earth that is transparent to thought. Every planet stands in a relation to the planetary system that mathematics, the most highly of all intellectual sciences, can describe. Intelligence is a universal characteristic of all nature. This part of man's environment is open to him. Man grows intellectually by adapting himself to truth. He must carefully observe the facts of nature and by voluntary attention he grows into accuracy of observation. A relation is thus established between the observer and the things observed. The facts of observation must be care- fully considered and mentally digested. It requires thinking to develop power and accuracy of thought. The world of thought like the world of beauty is l8o RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. inexhaustible; and when men by deep penetration have gained possession of some part of it, other parts immediately burst into view. L,ike the Amer- ican continent hid from the knowledge of men until Christopher Columbus took from its face the veil, so the unlimited world of truth is waiting to yield its limitless possessions to the diligent student. The world of truth is a world of thought; and a world of thought exists for the thinker. The progress of man indicates that there is no phase of thought to which man is not related. The principles of science, that at one time taxed the philosophers to their utmost capacity and were then considered a special bequest to the specially gifted are now the posses- sions of every schoolboy. The profoundest princi- ples are the simplest truths when mastered. This indicates the goal of man's development. In physical development the ideal of his growth is limited. When a certain amount of the physical environment has been absorbed and assimilated absorption ceases to cause expansion. With man's intellectual nature it is diametrically different. An expansion through absorption into infinity is its goal. Comprehension of truth never limits itself; but every fact and principle comprehended is both an incentive to comprehend others still beyond, and THE NATURE OF HIS DEVELOPMENT. l8l is an increased ability to comprehend it. Thus we arrive at one of the fundamental truths of this work, that man's rational nature contains the ele- ment of absoluteness in itself. This rational nature is not content with the simple mastery of a few facts, but aims to comprehend the universal world of truth. The individual does not develop himself; he simply adapts himself to the truth and the ab- sorption of truth causes him to expand. Man's environment contains also a moral and a spiritual element; and as thought is present in all physical elements, but infinitely transcends it, so the moral and spiritual elements are present in all thought and are themselves absolute; because they must be regarded as the will of the Absolute Per- son, God. Man grows into similarity to the truth by adapting himself to it, never by adapting truth to his own selfish inclination. In like manner man becomes moral and spiritual by adapting himself to moral and spiritual law, or rather to the God. The rational ideal is to comprehend absolute truth. The moral and spiritual is the assurance of absolute Tightness and the approval of the person upon whom all moral and spiritual laws depend. Submission to truth is the sure road to intellectual victory. Sub- mission to moral and spiritual principles, or rather 1 82 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. to the person himself guarantees spiritual and moral triumph. The growth of man's essential nature is like growth in the animal and vegetable kingdoms; it is a start from that which is imperceptibly small to the full realization of the contained ideal. In the animal and vegetable kingdoms the ideal is a certain stature which when reached refused to admit of any further development. In the intellectual and moral realm the ideal is infinity. The rational impulse is satisfied with nothing short of comprehending ail truth and a perfect mastery of all principles. The proper attitude, which the individual may volun- tarily take, to truth is a guarantee of attaining the ideal. The inflowing truth will expand the rational nature into a complete comprehension of itself. The moral ideal is a perfect submission to, and the affectionate approval of, the Author of the moral universe, or of God. Submission to the moral order makes love perceptible in the environment. Perception of love stimulates love in the perceiving soul; and the individual beholds himself standing in the relation of Sonship to the Absolute Person. It is the nature of growth to become like Him; to think what He thinks, to will what He wills. It is a stimulus to growth to look out upon the world THE NATURE OF HIS DEVELOPMENT. 1 83 of varied phenomena; to see wisdom displayed in all its parts ; to look out into the limitless expanse of the heavens and to number the multitude of worlds; to think of Him who comprehends the in- finite multiplicity of the world of phenomena in the unity of His own being ; to read Him in the depth of the moral law, which never makes any conces- sions to sin; and to hear the voice coming along through the avenues of science as well as from the lips of inspiration saying: "Be ye therefore perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect." In all growth the individual but takes the attitude and a power not his own does the work. The ideal of growth embraces the conquest of all truth; so that truth is useful and active in the service of man. It embraces a growth commen- surate with the growth of knowledge. It em- braces a growth in freedom until the individual has perfect victory over every wit of opposition. It embraces growth in oneness, not a loss of in- dividuality, but a growth of personality into similarity to the Absolute Person Himself. The method is absorption. The condition is adaptation. The ideal is universality. When man, spurred by his rational impulse, has comprehended the princi- ples of truth, of beauty, and of righteousness, in 1 84 RKIJGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. fact all the attributes of God; and, spurred on by his unconditional sense of thought, has taken these qualities into his own character to the extent that he conceives them; then is he on the perfect way toward the realization of himself. HIS TRUE DIGNITY. All animal life begins with cell life. It has indeed an insignificant beginning, but it has the power of laying hold upon surrounding material and of organizing it into a living organism. The first activity of life concerns itself most particularly with the perfection of the body. The early infant life is an animal life. The appetites are of an ani- mal nature. No instinct of a higher order seems present in the action of the child. The organic builder directs his attention to one organ after another until the whole organism is complete. The eye seems at first attracted by the light, and the power of vision is the result. The hand begins to make an effort at handling things, and the power of prehension is the result. Then it directs its atten- tion to the act of walking and the power of locomo- tion is the outcome. After the individual has suc- ceeded in forming these adaptations, desires of a higher order are awakened. They take a spiritual turn. Nature, in her whole story of life, points from a vegetative to a higher purpose. 185 1 86 R^UGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. In the early history of the individual the organs for observation are the most active. The desire for making observations absorbs the whole attention of the child. It does not see anything else to live for. After a time the objects observed become familiar and the desire for observation wanes, more or less, to give opportunity to another order of activity. This other kind of activity is reflection. The gleaning of facts comes first; the assimila- tion of truth comes afterwards. The maturity of a material frame is not the ulti- matum. The body with its organs is only the instrument for experimentation; but the experi- menter is distinct from the instrument. The pur- pose of the experimentation is not the purpose of the instrument, but the information of the experi- menting self. The worth of anything is determined by that which it can do. Considering man from the stand- point of physical accomlpishments he is compelled to take a subordinate position. He has not the acute vision of an eagle, nor the olfactory sense of a dog, nor the fineness of feeling of an ant. He has not the fleetness of a greyhound, nor the strength of a lion. His strength estimated in terms of phenomenal forces is insignificant. A slight HIS TRUE DIGNITY. 1 87 maladaptation to the gravitative force, a little piece of foreign matter between the parts of his own body, a little clot of blood in. the brain, a little flash of electricity, and his physical strength is gone. If man's strength is so insignificant, what is there about him that the forest should bow at his com- mand; that the rocks and the mountains should open up before him; that the lightning should swing into obedience to his orders. Wherein lies his dignity ? Wherein is his worth ? It is not by sheer brute force that he makes his accomplish- ment, but it is by the fact that he understands the forces and principles of nature, and can make them bend according to the dictate of his will. He takes advantage of the power of chemism and blasts the rocks from the quarry. He takes advantage of the fact that water under the influence of heat expands, . and he makes the steam engine carry his loads and drive his machinery. He understands the difference of hardness of different substances, and so makes one kind of material cut and shape another. He understands the difference of strength of different forces and thus is enabled to have one force over- come another. It is in this intellect of man that we begin to see traces of his dignity. The flower planted in the meadow is an entity. 1 88 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. It contains unformed matter, formed matter and a formative principle. The formative principle is able to put up the form. The completed form is an expression of beauty and perfection. But how does the flower stand in relation to the rest of nature ? It is connected with the soil by its roots and rootlets Its relation to the soil is determined by the length of its roots. It stands in relation to the air and sunlight by means of its leaves and stalk. It is put there by no choice of its own. It is mechanically determined in its relation to the soil, the air and the sunlight. It has no outlook beyond the reach of its roots, its leaves and its petals. An animal is an organism of a higher order than the plant. Its relation to its environment is not quite so mechanically determined. By means of its organs of locomotion it can change this relation. With its organs of sense it is able to reach out further for experience than the plant is able to do. Its organs of sight puts it in relation to objects, at quite a distance from the organism itself. Its sense of hearing puts it in relation to dangers, before they come in contact with the organism itself. With its sense of smell it is made aware of nourishment beyond the reach of its prehensile organs. The environment of the animal has a much greater HIS TRUE DIGNITY. 1 89 radius than has the environment of the plant. And yet the animal is limited to the range of the present activity of the organs of sense. The animal does not reflect upon its past memories; nor does it pro- ject its past experience into the future. Its intelli- gence is entirely determined by its temporary excita- tions. When the animal's physical needs are grati- fied, it thinks no further. The extent of its relations determine the dignity of the animal. When thus measured man is an organism most unique. Who can find limitations to his environment ? He penetrates the earth and understands the strata of rocks, and ascertains the history of the earth for millenniums. Though the size of the earth is great beyond the power of imagination correctly to present; yet for thought it is the merest toy. Though the earth's core is for- ever hid from the power of human vision; yet it is perfectly lucid to his rational nature. The ideas of causation, of space and of time, the laws of gravi- tation and the impenetrability of matter must hold good in the center of the earth, as well as within the reach of the organs of sense and the power of material tests. The principles of human reason carry man back to the very beginning of the phenomenal world. 190 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. No time can force limitation upon it. By watching the present movements of things and their laws of action he becomes a prophet and projects the future history of the globe. Man's enviroments are infi- nite. There is no limitation found for them. Man is related to the universe and most particularly to the thought and truth expressed in the universe. The phenomena are for him not ends of thought but avenues that lead him back to the real nature of reality, to the Infinite Person Himself. The dignity of man's intelligence does not con- sist in the fabrication of ideas, or in the concoction of imagination ; its aim is higher. Physical life does not manufacture the material for its growth. It does not manufacture; it assimilates and organ- izes. Every element taken into the organism exerts the same forces inside that it does outside. Men- tal life does not create the material upon which it subsists. It finds the truths of nature unchange- able; but by adapting itself to them, it conquers them into its service. Man's intelligence does not create, it only discovers. It is possible only imper- fectly to discover, and thus to have a distorted view of things. It is the natural aim of intelligence to understand truth as it is. To know things accur- ately is to know them as they were made to be. HIS TRUE DIGNITY. 191 The effect always reveals the nature of the cause. So the nature of things and of their laws reveal their Author. Human thought when correct only repro- duces di\ ine thought. God's intelligence is the pro- totype of human intelligence. The ideal of human reason is divine reason. And along the line of approximation to this ideal lies the dignity of man as an intelligent being. The true dignity of human intelligence does not consist in mastering the bulk of modern literature, but in mastering the truth. Man possesses self-determination, and this fact gives him a certain dignity. The storm cloud creep- ing up the western heaven is a wonderful phenom- ena. It throws its hugh form across the heavens and eclipses the brightness of the sun; its lightning flashes with fury and the thunder rolls with a deep and heavy roar; water falls upon the earth in great abundance; and the mighty wind causes the forest trees to bow before it. This is a most awe inspir- ing scene. But there is not a change in the current of air, nor an electric spark, nor a drop of water but was completely determined by adequate causes. No one thinks of having redress for destruction of pro- perty or for loss of life caused by it. Not a single I92 REUGION A RATION AL DEMAND. movement in that storm was caused by self-deter- mination. The astronomer's telescope and the measuring line bring out Jupiter as a stupendous body with an irresistable momentum. But Jupiter is under the sway of a mechanical order; there is no self-deter- mination about him. He cannot will to be anything but a planet, nor direct his course otherwise than determined by forces beyond his control. It is otherwise with man. As a rational crea- ture he has the power of self -adaptation. Man in his ability to resist certain influences and of increasing the efficiency of others is a creator; and in his creative energy lies his dignity and his worth. It is in this respect that the rocks and the mountains and the worlds are no match for him. The true dignity of the will does not lie in self- willedness. Such a disposition would be as unsatis- factory for the will as fiction would be for reason. As reason finds the true lines of its activity in the universal reason, so the will of man finds its legiti- mate sphere in submission to the universal will, or the will of God. His true dignity does not consist in the sacrifice of volition, but in its exercise along imperishable lines. God's sovereignity is absolute. HIS TRUE DIGNITY. 1 93 The inanimate world is in every respect obedient to his law and order. Animals are unerringly gov- erned by their instincts. God's will is sovereign for man. His will is unerring for it is the expres- sion of absolute reason. Man's will must be in per- fect accord with his ability to comprehend eternal truth. Man's dignity therefore, consists in his fidel- ity to his highest convictions. It is the goal of theoretical reason to see God, and the aim of practical reason to become like God. HIS IMMORTALITY. Is there value to be found in man ? Is there value to be found in anything ? The question of value and purpose are questions which irresistibly force themselves upon man. Is man one among the phenomena of nature ? Has man a relative or an absolute value ? It is man's rational conviction that somewhere an intelligent answer can be found for these ever intruding questions. We do not wish to be unterstood that we here attempt a demonstration of man's immortality; we simply recognize the fact that it has been the rational conviction of the race, and wish, in brief, to point out wherein lies the ground of such conviction. If metaphysics has been able to point out any- thing, it is this fact that the soul is not a phenom- enon like other phenomena. Phenomena are facts of the natural world accounted for by other facts. They are joined together by the universal law of cause and effect; and as the cause changes the effect changes also. Thus there is no permanency guar- anteed the individual phenomena. Metaphysics 194 HIS IMMORTALITY. 1 95 clearly points out that phenomena are facts of con- sciousness, and that they come and go in conscious- ness. It would be impossible to recognize change if there was not something permanent to measure change by. The water would not appear to flow if there were not a change of relation between it and the shore. The moving hand of a watch indicates time because it moves upon a dial that is stationary. Phenomena change with reference to one another, but most particularly with reference to conscious- ness. In consciousness the experiences of life are all gathered up into the unity of a consciousness. The individual content is not the most important thing, but the consciousness that has the content. To say that all phenomena are changeable is not to say that consciousness, which alone makes phenom- ena possible, is changeable. Facts appear in and again disappear from con- sciousness; and this is made possible only by the fact that consciousness persists throughout the change. The changeable phenomena does not prove that the consiocusness for which the change occurs does itself change. The body does not constitute the essential man. The assential man is the soul. The body belongs to the phenomenal world. It is the settled convic- 196 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. tion of science that the brain is the organ with which man comes in contact with the phenomenal world. The soul is not the result of organization; for it is the only condition under which organiza- tion could take place. Organization can take place only among the elements of consciousness. Nature does not evolve mind, for mind must precede the conception of nature. The world is a world of experience, and is possible onty for a consciousness that can have experience. The whole trend of epistemology indicates this priority of consciousness. It is a law of consciousness that it must have change in order to act. It does recognize itself to be the same while it recognizes a change in its con- tents; and in order to be stirred to activity it must have a change in it contents. A musical note con- tinually sounded would soon cease to be noticed at all. If it were affected by the same color continu- ally, it would soon cease to recognize color at all. For its highest activity a continual change of its state is necessary. While its states are continu- ally chanigng, it carries with it its past states in the form of memory and is enriched by them. The legitimate conclusion therefore is, that the chang- ing phenomenal world is not antagonistic to the continuity of consciousness, or of the self; but that HIS IMMORTALITY. 1 97 it takes phenomenal change to give the conscious self its fullest expression. Though there is a con- tinual change in the phenomenal world, a continual change in the states of consciousness, there is, nevertheless, the conviction of the permanency of the conscious self. Though the cells of the brain and the nerves are continually changing, conscious- ness recognizes its own identity, superior to all change or physical conditions. The brain is the last link of physical action influ- encing the mind, or the self. It transforms the energy of the outside world into such shapes that the self can react upon it. The actual reaction upon this stimuli is not made by the molecular motion of the brain itself. Conception, representa- tion, recollection and comparison are purely mental acts, and cannot be accounted for by any physical process. While the soul stands in relation to the body and reacts upon stimuli, it does not prove that the soul depends for its existence upon the exitence of any part, or the whole, of the body. The previous line of thought is only negative and can at best only silence attacks from the mater- ialistic assailants of immortality. Consciousness is not the outgrowth of the relations of phenomenal elements to another. Relations themselves are held I98 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. by the conscious self. Consciousness is the prin- cipal thing; all else exists for it and in it. When reason seeks an answer to the question, "What is there valuable in the cosmic order," it is irresistibly driven back to the conscious self, as the supreme fact of this order for a reply. The mineral kingdom does not find its value in itself. The earth, the air and the water appear valueless when they stand alone; but a special value attaches them as soon as the vegetable life appears ; for the vegetable life would have no being, were it not for the exist- ence of the mineral kingdom. When the elements of the mineral kingdom are woven together into the structures of organic forms, they begin to show signs of worth. Their value lies in something be- yond themselves. When we approach the vegetable kingdom with the same question, we meet with the same difficulty; and the answer must be sought in the same direction. When we ask, why do the blades of grass grow ? why do the trees shoot forth their buds ? why do the flowers bloom ? we almost feel at first as though these also were hopeless ques- tions. The grass blade whithers, and the blossoms fade, and are no more. In itself the vegetable king- dom furnishes no reply to the great questions; but when we look beyond the vegetable kingdom to that HIS IMMORTAUfY. 1 99 which it exists for, we begin to see signs o_ coming answers to these questions. But no sooner do we find a value in the animal kingdom for the vegetable, than the question arises what value is there in the animal kingdom. Why should an animal organism spring into existence, and again go out of it ? Why should an organism be created, only to be dissolved ? The whole animal kingdom breaks down under these questions. The only answer we can find is in the service rendered man. But man's physical being has itself no element of permanent value in it; for it comes into existence only again to be taken by the unsympathetic hand of dissolution. It is only when reason falls back upon consciousness, that carries in itself the elements of permanency while it feasts upon the everchanging world of phe- nomena, that it finds the truly permanent. Why the changing cycles of the seasons ? The Springtime comes; the bosom of the earth is opened ; its fertility gives forth grass and flowers. These things grow; reach their maturity; and again are made to disappear. The water evaporates from the face of the earth; it floats upon the wings of the wind; it is soon condensed and falls in the form of rain to the earth. Under its influence the earth grows moist; and under the influence of this mois- 200 RKLIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. ture it proves itself fertile in the production of grass and buds and flowers. The growth of the grass and the trees and the flowers indicate the value of the showers. The growing vegetation gives a certain permanency to the value of the rain and dew. But the grass and the flowers and the trees soon whither and decay ; the rain is evaporated and the same con- dition prevails that existed before all this was passed through. By means of these changes not a single element is added to nature. Nature has not been enriched by a single atom. Atoms have only changed their relation to one another, but they again revert to their former state. Nature's changes are valuless for herself ; but they are valu- able for a changeless observer and that observer is consciousness. Every change in the phenomenal world gives it a new state; and every state is a new possession; and every possession is a stimulus to a new growth. Every change in the phenomenal world is therefore an agency to push on essential man to the completeness of his being in the realiza- tion of his ideals. The conscious self is the last thing we can look to for an answer. Everything else has failed to satisfy reason in its reasonable demands for an answer. Here we must find it if we find it at all. And all physical science begins to HIS IMMORTALITY. 201 show that here we have the right to look for a reply. The whole phenomenal world of change would be a worthless, valueless play of forces, pur- poseless if the conscions self did not continue to exist. Science points out that it abides amid the everchanging phenomena of nature. It survives the change of a varied experience. It survives the changes in various stages of its own history, and continues an unbroken life of progress throughout all these changes. It survives the everchanging cells of the brain and, in fact, of the whole body. If it survives all these changes that we have experi- enced, why may it not survive the changes in which we have no experience as yet. It is quite certainthat the brain is composed of a collection of sensory and motor centers. Their pur- pose is to put the self in a vital relation to the out- side world. Physiological psychology points strongly in direction of a proof that after the self has a few ideas, which are formed from sensations which arose in the sensory centers from stimuli carried to them; the self is able to retain and meditate upon these ideas even after the centers themselves have been destroyed by disease, or otherwise. These revela- tions, made by a science growing in importance, point out the conclusion, that the material body is 202 RKUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. but the scaffold by the aid of which man mounts to the higher realm of being, and when the essential man has been led through the changes of the phe- nomenal world to the contemplation of truth as it is in itself, the material body becomes unnecessary and the spiritualized self continues without its assistance. The spiritualized self stands in relation to eternal truth, and finds in that truth the permanent condi- tion for its states of activity. SUSCEPTIBILITY OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. Man is a rational and volitional being, but no less is he sensible. Feeling is an essential part of his being. We are not now concerned with that sensation that gives us perception of a certain con_ tent, but that experience which furnishes him states of pleasure and pain. The soul is so constituted that the three func- tions exercise themselves together. No thought can be so pure that it has not some value for the conscious self, and, consequently, some stimulating power upon volition. It is a fairly well established hypothesis, that feelings are a token of agreement, or want of agreement, between the relations we stand in to our environments. A pleasurable feel- ing always indicates the healthy and healthful action of the system under the excitation. Feeling is beyond the immediate control of the individual. As little as he can prevent himself from seeing color when his eyes are open to the light, so little can he prevent himself from having states of 203 204 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. feeling; and yet the particular states of his feelings are, within certain limits under his control. He can turn his eye from one object to another, and thus be impressed with the color peculiar to that object. The state of feeling is in like manner deter- mined by the direction of the attention. There are different kinds of feeling according to the different causes giving them origin. There are feelings of sense; they are begotten out of sense impressions. The presence of some colors arouse pleasant feelings; while others arouse such as are most unpleasant. Certain combinations of sounds are pleasant; while others are again unpleasant. The former seems to bring the whole nervous sys- tem into healthy action; while the other seems to shock it. A sudden light, or a discord, sets the whole nervous system on edge. With taste and smell feelings are also associated. The feelings call into being certain ideals, and prompt to their realization. If an agreeable feeling arises on account of the contemplation of some com- bination of colors, man's aesthetical nature urges him to make the combination and even to improve upon them, that the agreeable feelings may thereby be increased. It is feeling that urges on to the con- ception of ideals beyond any present attainment. SUSCEPTIBILITY OF PLKASURK AND PAIN. 205 Man experiences also the feeling of self-con- sciousness. It is thus that he distinguish himself from the rest of the world, and attaches certain value to himself. Our states are discriminated from the states of every other being, in their ability to affect us do we see the value of other things. A piece of money has value because it has the power of awakening agreeable experiences. A flower has value for the same reason. A special and greater value is attached to the self, for it is the subject of those states. According to the object will be the feeling engendered by its contemplation. The state of the self determines the strength and kind of feel- ings awakened in it. A worthy self is an object most agreeable to contemplate; a worthless self is an object of misery and woe. This consciousness carries with it a true ideal of self-hood. It stimulates to that state of being which gives rise to the purest, noblest and most perma- nent feelings. This point we will consider more fully when we consider the relations of the ideals to pleasure and pain, or blessedness and woe. Feelings are connected with every function of our being. We take an interest in truth. An insati- able desire lays hold upon us to penetrate into the hidden parts of nature. This desire to know is 2o6 RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. irresistible in the man of science, who stoops over his retort to see some peculiar action of chemical agents; or who adjusting the lenses of his micro- scope that he may see the beauty and truth revealed in nature's minutia; or the street gossip going from house to house in order to find the latest develop- ments of social communication. The intelligence of man carries with it its own ideals. In fact every line of mental activity carries with it ideals, which urge on to higher attainments. This fact accounts for the progress of the world. Were there no ideals of invention ahead of those already realized, prog- ress in invention would soon cease. Were the ideals of a scientist not ahead of that which he has already realized, he would not spend his valuable time and energy in his work of experimentation. The fact that these ideals are found in our nature makes it a fact, that the contemplation of our states awaken feelings of blessedness or woe. Special mention in this connection must be made of the moral element in our physical constitution. It is not a segment of our being; for it is connected with every action of body and spirit. It shares the qualities of the rational nature also, in the fact that it has the twofold attribution of perception and feel- ing. All the faculties have their ideals, ideals of SUSCEPTIBILITY OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. 207 their proper action at any instant, and ideals toward which they tend to develop. I must repeat that all mental life has this ideal element in it ; for without it, it would be a stagnant pool swallowed up by the filth of its own inactivity. This ideal urges the whole man on to a perfection not found in himself; for it passes on beyond his attainments. It is not a perfection found in the phenomenal world; for the phenomenal world must often be changed in order to give him opportunity to realize it. The paints put upon articles of merchandise are put there in order to realize an ideal not found in nature. The piano is not a natural construction, but it is artifi- cial; it is an attempt to realize an ideal in the musi- cal realm. The ideals, though they desire to express themselves in phenomenal forms, have their home in the Absolute; and these ideals are but faint visions of Him. Practically reason holds in constant view the ideals in human action. The individual things in the cosmos are parts of a mechanism. They stand in the relation of a mechanical necessity to their environment. The ground for their being explains every part of them. With man it is otherwise. His environment is the universe, and He who reveals himself in it. His ideal is the Infinite. 2o8 RBIJGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. The laws of infinite thought are the laws of his mental life. Though these ideals may but imper- fectly represent him ; though the glimpses of vision are but through a glass darkly : the direction they are moving indicates the goal. The end toward which the ideals lead is oneness with God. In the individual action, practical reason makes a comparison of the individual act with the ideal and passes judgment upon their conformity, or non- conformity. So that, in fact, the life of the indi- vidual is looked at from the standpoint of the perfect ideal. Conscience is not a separate entity with a judgment of its own , it takes for its guiding star the ideals of the whole mental life, and, taking them as its standard, measures the value of individual acts. The intellectual ideal carries with it an impulse for the constant expansion of knowledge and thought. The aesthetic nature has an impulse which pushes it beyond present attainments in art to the material- ization of better forms. The practical reason has not only its ideal, which is conformity of the entire life with the highest conceptions of righteousness; but its action is accompanied with an unconditional ''ought." This ought is not the voice of expedi- ency, though obedience to it is in the highest sense expedient. To be faithful to the cosmic order is SUSCEPTIBILITY OF PlyKASURK AND PAIN. 209 not only advantageous to the whole order but in a special manner to the individual part. An organ in an organism meets its best service, and is of the utmost value, when it acts in conformity with the whole order. But the moral nature has an impera- tive that comes to him with more than individual authority. It is more than mere cosmic harmony. It is an obligation that is accompanied with divine authority. Its whole force is employed in leading the whole individual into a faithful pursuit of the ideals of his whole mental life. This "ought," coming with divine authority, marks his relation to God. His attitude toward this imperative is the attitude toward God. While it carries with it its ideals, and demands their pursuit with an uncondi- tional obedience, it carries with it its own reward. Herein lies the possibilty of the highest rewards and the acutest punishment known to man. The cosmic order, as we have learned to believe, is mechanical, but it is a mechanism that has its origin in free intelligence ; and that free intelligence is God. Every law and every fragment of the order are the expression of His will. The order is perceiv- ed by the reason, for the plan upon which the soul is built indicates its natural and necessary action. His moral nature carries with it the element of feel- 2IO RELIGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. ing, which makes obedience to its commands valu- able to the individual life. When it finds an action, but much more when it finds a life in accord with its ideals, and on account of the fact that it has itself by virtue of its own volition determined itself thus, it has the enjoyable feeling of self- approval, the consciousness of inner agreement with the will of God. The soul is compelled by virtue of its own nature to value this relation; and this felt value is the inner experience which makes up the worth of life. THE CONDITION OF BLESSEDNESS. Perfect adjustment on the part of the organism to its environment brings to it the guarantee of its own safety and well-being. Plant the roots of the plant into the fertile soil, and moisten them proper- ly, and give them air heavily charged with carbonic acid, and the plant will grow and the purpose of the plant, contained prophetically in the ideal of its life, will be realized. Sever the roots from the soil, and put it in an atmosphere robbed of its carbonic acid, and the plant will cease to grow. Take a fish from the water, to which a fish by nature is adapted, and the life of the fish is threatened and his feel- ings, if it is proper to speak of feeling in a fish, are sadly disturbed. The environment of the fish is an essential of his well-being; and the proper adjust- ment of the fish to this environment is the condition of this well-being. With the soul it is no less a necessity. Its environment is present to it in the form of a world of relations, in which there is opportunity for a world of actions. "Nature is an intelligent thinking thing. ' ' There is not an ele- 211 212 REUGION A RATIONAL DEMAND. ment but contains in it thought elements, and for that reason nature is the environment for the soul. But the soul is essentially reason. It is not so much interested in a mass of particular facts. Its idea of development does not consist in a complica- tion of particulars, but in the detection of those principles which join individual facts into organic unity. It finds its satisfaction in those principles. Its environments are not limited by the contents of its memory, but extend into the infinity of being itself. Man's soul life is built upon a certain plan. The lines of that plan run along the line of its impulses; and the goal of its impulses are its ideals. And those ideals are co-operative in the production of the conception of God. These ideals are avenues leading to God, they are not means for the exhaus- tion of the idea. The rational impulses are a continual spur to realize the self in accord with its most perfect ideals; and, as we have seen, these ideals are the roots of our conception of God. God consequently is the soul's perfect self; the ideal of all development, the goal of human prog- ress. When man looks at the ideal, it becomes a force in the transformation of his character; but THE CONDITION OF BI