LETTER XXXV.

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

_Marsden._

My dear Friend,

You are expecting a letter, and it shall be delayed no longer. To return to the subject of my last: my brother confessed, as I told you, that his great difficulties lay in questions _without_ the range of Bible testimony, considered either as a system of moral virtue, or a history of mankind.

“I know enough,” added he, “to give it the palm of excellence over the several claims of Confucius, Menu, Zoroaster, and Mohammed. The nobleness of its _principle_, in making the love of God stand forward grandly as the only test of true religion, is sufficient to raise it beyond the finest compositions of human skill, which rest their foundations in convenience or necessity. I am likewise aware that much of what is to be admired in the best specimens of ancient wisdom, is directly imitated from the laws of Moses. I know that this lawgiver has been the means of preserving the people committed to his charge, and that too amidst the most tremendous reverses and astonishing vicissitudes of fortune for almost four thousand years by the same laws; while the boasted Grecian philosophy of the Lycurgus’, the Solons, the Platos, though indebted to him, has passed away in empty air. I know also, that the infidel hue and cry that Moses borrowed his plans of jurisprudence and morality from the Egyptians, has been transmitted through the crowd as mere sound divested of sense, and is easily arrested by the least degree of acquaintance with that mythology from which unbelievers pretend to derive the _Hebraical Institutes_. Could I be _assured_ that I am to live hereafter, the Bible should unquestionably be the light and staff of my journey towards that unseen world which _you_ are so certain of beholding, and in the existence of which there is nothing revolting to my understanding, except the difficulty of _knowing myself_ in a disembodied state. What is to convince me of my identity?”

To this question I ventured to reply, “The argument of identity has been much misunderstood by a large portion of mankind, including almost all the sceptics whose writings I am acquainted with, and who confound this idea with that of _consciousness_. Now, Butler, whose book you see before you, has admirably and clearly drawn the true distinction, and shewn that _consciousness takes cognizance_ of identity, but is not the thing itself. You may sleep for a million of years as for a single night, without destroying your identity. Were it not so, each interruption from forgetfulness, however short, or from whatever cause, whether a natural slumber, lapse of memory, epileptic fit, swoon, or contusion of the brain, would be as fatal to the continuity of _self_, as the longest term of oblivion.

“How then do I arrive at the idea of identity? I say by _intuitive_ knowledge, so totally independent of the circumstances with which it is combined in the body, that these may undergo every variety of change without impairing its force. Suppose that you were taken at your birth, like Hunter, and brought up amongst the North American Indians; that you believed a tatooed chief of a particular village to be your father, and a certain squaw to be your mother. At one-and-twenty, you are brought to Europe, and discover, by a remarkable chain of circumstances, that you are _not_ a North American Indian, but a child of British parents. You are _not_ what you believed yourself to be; yet _this_ has nothing to do with your identity--you are still _yourself_.

“Suppose again, that by successive cannon shots, you have been deprived of your limbs; your arms and legs have been shot away, and, as nearly as is compatible with continued existence, you are reduced to a mere trunk. No diminution takes place in the consciousness of your personal identity, any more than results from the gradual substitution of new particles which, it is calculated, replace those which composed the whole of the former body, once in every seven years. _Memory of the past_ is not necessary to our belief that _we are ourselves_. Whole years may be blotted from our recollection, and still we have some invisible, intuitive assurance that we have continuity of being, and have not gone through any metempsychosis, which destroys it; but this knowledge is limited by certain boundaries, beyond which we have absolutely nothing to guide us, except the evidence of _other people_. Ask yourself solemnly, and searchingly, what is your ground for believing that, ere you saw the light, you lived during nine months in another state as different from your present condition of existence, as the present union of body and spirit can possibly be from a future mode of being in which the soul, freed from human restraint, shall expatiate with as much more liberty than it can now exert, as it enjoys at present, when compared with the former period of its imprisonment.

“Is there one human creature who could be so certain that you are absolutely the person for whom we take you, as not by _possibility_ to be deceived? Even your _mother_, after her heart had yearned to the first faint cry of her own baby, may have been deceived. Suppose that her own had died, and that you were presented to her. _How_ do you know _what_ or _where_ you were before sensible objects began to make impression on your faculties? You have no more actual _connection_ with your former being, even during the first six or eight months,--I might go on to say the first year of childhood--when you slept in your nurse’s arms, than you have with that oak that overshadows your window, if you estimate that connection by your power of tracing its links without any hiatus in the chain.

“You were pleased the other day with that admirable essay, which you were reading, entitled “Historical doubts respecting the existence of Napoleon Buonaparte,” in which the argument is so perfectly established that, if we give reins to scepticism, we have no _demonstrative_ proof, at this moment, that the wonderful Buonaparte who swayed the world by the magic of an almost preternatural influence for a few years, and is now _forgotten_, put himself under the protection of Captain Maitland, and visited Spithead on board the Bellerophon. What wonder that you should know no more than that your boat put off from the shore, on which you saw a dense crowd of assembled spectators, that you neared the stern of a great vessel, saw a little man with a star on his breast and a cocked hat upon his head, were told and _believed_ that it was the royal prisoner, the usurper of France, the wizard Corsican at whom you gazed from your wherry, when you have no _demonstration_ that you are General Douglas, no _irrefragable_ proof that you belong to that line of Scottish heroes from whom you believe yourself to be sprung, and may not be, on the contrary, a foundling transplanted from the parish of St. Giles’ into your splendid cradle, where first you received the fond caresses of your reputed parents.

“See then how much we are _obliged_ to take for granted; and is there any greater difficulty in believing that consciousness of identity, which we never doubted, may form a part of our essence hereafter, than that it is inseparable from our existence here, however the continuity of remembrance may be interrupted? All _analogy_ is with me, and I now find this idea, which once was a stumbling block, easy and familiar.

“Then, as to the soul’s existence after being separated from the body. Let us only consider how unreasonably we argue, when we confound the mental and corporeal functions, simply because we see them combined. Analogy here also is against such reasoning. A spark of electricity or galvanism is only rendered _apparent_ to the eye by certain circumstances. As long as these subtle fluids pass quietly through conductors, they are wholly invisible, and pervade the earth and atmosphere entirely unseen: yet we doubt not the existence of electricity and magnetism, because they float invisibly in æther. We never doubt the existence of the sun’s light, though the substitution of a wooden block for a transparent window of glass shall totally obstruct his rays. These are mere analogies; but they are in our favour. We see the operations of the spirit through the means of our bodily organs, as we perceive the light of the sun through glass, which is so constituted as to transmit its beams to our senses; but we have no more right to confound the vehicle, or medium, with the matter of light, or the power of thought, conveyed in the one case than in the other. Will you call me fanciful if I say that I consider all intellectual energy, all that we denominate _soul_, as emanating from divinity; and I find no more difficulty _now_ in imagining a certain portion of this divine principle arrested and concentrated in the organic structure which we call man, than I find in collecting the sun’s rays in a burning glass or a prism.

“Mingling with the dross incident to a temporary junction with the base particles of matter, the spirit partakes of the feculence of the channel through which it permeates (if you will permit me to use the language of metaphor), just as the rays of the sun are broken, refracted, or reflected by the cloudy atmosphere, or shattered glass, through which they pass. Remove the medium, and the emancipated essence regains its source; with this difference, that while the light, which is only material, the magnetism and electricity, which are unconscious forces, recover all their purity with their liberated expansion, the soul of man, on which the boon of immortality is conferred,--the soul which shall not be extinguished like that splendid orb that illumines our nether sphere shall receive its final billet, and be admitted into one or the other of two classes of spiritualized existence, _according_ to the use which has been made during its sojournment in the body, of _free will_, bestowed upon the human species at its creation.”

Here my brother heaved a sigh, which seemed to issue from the very centre of his heart: “Aye, Caroline,” said he, “there’s the rub; there is the inscrutable mystery, the impenetrable veil;” “Which,” answered I, “no mortal intellect--no human eye will ever pierce.”--“Then how _believe_ what I despair of comprehending?” “If,” replied I, “we turn a subject according to two opposite theories, and after the clearest investigation which we are enabled to bestow upon each, find that both involve an equal measure of incompatibility with our reason and experience, we arrive at least naturally at a state of neutrality which would leave us unbiased and ready to lean to one side or the other, as _new_ motives might be suggested to incline the understanding through force of evidence or probability, towards the adoption of one scheme in preference to the other, its _own_ powers being confessedly unequal to unravel the difficulties of either. Let us view the wonderful question of free-will in this light: that the Almighty could _decree_ man to be free, we have no reason to deny. Omnipotence can achieve _all_ things; and even were we inclined to declare, that not being satisfied that free-will exists, we will not give credit to the Great Framer of the universe for more than we see, still we are _pinned_ on the other side; for if we only admit what we see, we cannot by the same rule consistently negative that which we do _not_ see. _Ignorance_ is not entitled to predicate for or against. We can only with propriety say, that what is hidden, is hidden. _But_ my _experience_ tells me that I _am_ free; and that when not coerced from without, when not restrained by extrinsic force, I follow the dictates of my _will_, I find that no temptation assails me with such violence as to make it _impossible_ that I should not have resisted its approaches: and find that the common sense of all mankind is with me, since every human law is founded on the distinction between voluntary and compulsory action. Every species of control, moral or physical, is taken into account; every aberration which disturbs the balance of the mental faculties is allowed to operate favourably in excusing the delinquent who is brought to judgment; and nothing but _free_, _determined_ wickedness is punished by the laws of man. Whatever injury has been sustained by society, _crime_ is not imputed to the person who has been an unwilling instrument of wrong. So far there is no contrariety in the decisions; no variety amongst the opinions of men. What says the Bible, which we have already agreed should be the lamp of our feet, _provided_ that we submit to be guided where our own light is not sufficient? It tells us, that God placing us here in a merely probationary state, and designing us for an ulterior destiny, made us free _in order_ to our being accountable. Now that we should be accountable _without_ being free is a solecism which no human sagacity could comprehend, not merely because it is too high for us to reach, _but_ because it absolutely contradicts that reason through the means of which we come at the ideas of truth and falsehood. The Bible says, that “good and evil are placed before us,” and that we are responsible at the bar of a future Tribunal for the choice which we make between them. Here is an exact accordance between revelation and the natural conclusions of reason. Again, if we consider what is most suitable to our ideas of grandeur and power in the Deity, we hesitate not in saying, that to form a _free_ creature is a much more magnificent exhibition of Divinity than is manifested in the creation of puppets that _must_ obey the original impulse imparted to them. How much grander is the idea of an Almighty Ruler who, giving the _greatest latitude_ of action within its individual sphere, to each separate congeries of nerves and muscles, which He has ordained to be the seat of a human soul, can so order the _ends_ of His astonishing plan, that not a _tittle_ of His word shall be frustrated; not a particle of the great scheme subverted; than any notion which we can substitute of a Creator who had tied down and limited the work of His hands in the moment of casting the first specimen of its existence, so as to secure a monotonous and necessary result from the mechanical revolution of certain wheels, or the mindless operation of certain fixed springs, not one of which could by possibility vary in its round, or be altered in the _quantum_ of its elasticity. Thus far reason and experience move harmoniously together, and authority confirms their joint conclusion. We _feel_ that we are free; reason tells us that we _ought_ to be free; and Scripture, which professes to be the revealed Word of God, informs us that we _are_ free. The mass of probability appears, then, entirely on this side: let us now consider the other.

“If man be a mere machine, irresistibly governed according to fixed laws, from which he cannot swerve, and performing every action through the influence of an impelling power, which he is unable to resist; it is plain, first, that he cannot be an accountable creature, for accountableness can only be understood when there is liberty to do, or abstain from doing; and, secondly, this scheme involves an absolute contradiction between our experience and the fact, supposing us to be creatures of necessity, by which, if we be really overruled, and placed in _duresse_ from which we have no power to emancipate ourselves; we are, then, put into the extraordinary predicament of _being_ one thing, while we are so constituted as to _believe_ ourselves to be another. That is to say, in fine, that we are _conscious_ of freedom, though in reality we are bound; and are thus practically and irresistibly acting all our lives upon a fraud, a delusion, which compels us to give up the testimony of our senses, at the same time that we declare their evidence to furnish the most unquestionable source of knowledge that we possess, and to afford the principal rule upon which our whole conduct is regulated, either in public or private life.

“There is a sublime simplicity in the works of Providence, in comparison with which the strange incongruity which I have been describing would present a case so completely anomalous as to disturb the harmony of creation, and leave us a bewildered race, without helm or compass to guide our course. But a contradiction still more monstrous and difficult to reconcile would result from such an order of things as we are now supposing. The necessity which we are considering must either be independent of, or immediately proceeding from, God. If the former, it supersedes the Deity, or, identified with Him, is itself the sovereign ruler of the universe. If the latter, all the evil deeds of man are performed by the _express order_ of that Being who threatens with eternal punishment those of his creatures who will not obey His commandment to be “holy even as He is holy.” The preposterous absurdities involved in this view are levelled at once by the belief that man at his birth is _decreed_ to be a free agent, all whose actions are in his own power; who will never be tempted above what he is enabled to bear; and who, if he sincerely _desire_ after righteousness, will never fail in attaining it.

“How far the _ultimate ends_ of all that we see may be _fixed_ by the fiat of Divine ordinances, is not our business to inquire into, any more than what future worlds the Creator may please to form when our planetary system shall have passed away. Our own actions are our immediate concern: thousands of _events_ may hinge upon every one of them, with which we do not _design_ the remotest connection; while the ends which we _intend_ to bring about are never achieved. Yet, in secular matters, no man ever believes his free will to have been restrained. If he make a bad bargain, or act upon a false calculation, he may regret his want of prudence, or lament a deficiency of information; but it never occurs to the most sceptical amongst those with whom I have ever met, to fancy, for a single moment, that he _might_ not have done differently, inquired farther, or been less precipitate.

“Whence this _division_? Why are temporal affairs regulated by the law of responsibility while spiritual conduct only is to be considered under the inflexible control of a _necessary_ compulsion? The reason is plain: the creed of the fatalist is only adopted to screen him from the examination which he dreads, and serve as an opiate to his conscience. The fatalism of the ancient heathen world was more rational and consistent than that of modern infidelity, inasmuch as it was applied to earthly concerns, and frequently led to contentment under misfortune and privation. Perhaps you are ready to say how much less puzzling you would find the doctrine of free-will than that of necessity were it not for one stumbling block. How can fore-knowledge be reconciled with freedom? Were human analogies to satisfy our inquiry, there would be no difficulty to encounter in this question. In _this_ world, the prophetic wisdom which, like that of Edmund Burke, looks deeply into the volume of futurity, and predicts events to come, is rarely, if ever concerned in the practical occurrence of them; but on the contrary, is generally in diametrical opposition, as he was to the horrors of that revolution which he so clearly foresaw. So far analogy _separates_ fore-knowledge from necessity. Imagine _once_ that man is created _free_ by the Almighty’s decree, and the difficulty vanishes. If _free_, man is empowered to act for himself; and though _beyond_ a certain limit he may not be able to _see_ or to _do_, he has liberty _within_ a given circuit, and that liberty once conferred, there is nothing more incomprehensible in the fore-knowledge of God, than in that of an earthly parent, who having _endowed_ his children with a certain measure of power, limited by his discretion, and recallable at his will, _foresees_, without _choosing_ to control its exercise. That species of active interference sometimes employed to bring about the designs of self-interest by people who plan devices, and then are busied in executing them; is not what we mean by fore-knowledge _humanly_ speaking. What we speak of as such, is founded on information from without, and derived from our own judgment in drawing conclusions relative to future events from certain data presented to our understandings. I repeat, therefore, that so far from being accustomed to couple this species of wisdom with the facts which it predicts, there is, generally speaking, not the most remote connection between the prognostic and its fulfilment. Now, as all our ideas respecting the divine attributes, when we depend on reason alone for believing in them, are but an extension of those which we see in each other, we are not instructed by any analogy to _expect_ that the prescience of the Almighty brings about the downfall of a nation as its _necessary consequence_, any more than that Burke’s foresight of the effects which would follow on the spread of infidelity and disloyalty should be instrumental in compassing the overthrow of monarchy in France. Nor _should_ we reason so anomalously, were it not that in considering God as the _creator_ of all those beings whose conduct he foresees, looking in short, upon the divine fore-knowledge as _infallible_, and not subject to the _contingencies_ which accompany even the highest degree of human sagacity, we attach a _characteristic_ to the prescience of the Deity which does not belong to that of man; and therefore while reason and analogy are professedly our guides, we desert their standard, and set up a new light for ourselves which is as remote from revealed as from natural religion, and leaves us inextricably _bogged_ in a morass from which we shall in vain attempt to disentangle ourselves. If the Almighty _made us free_, we can imagine how he may fore-know our actions without controlling them; though he formed all created things, because in the very idea of _freedom_, such independence is _essential_; any compulsion would destroy liberty, and involve a contradiction in terms; but here is the final limit to which human understanding can attain.

“_How_ this wonderful union of divine power, and the creature’s free agency is effected, belongs to higher matters than we can reach. We only know, as I said before, that we know _nothing, if we are not free_. The arguments of a necessitarian may seem irrefragable, and convince you that you are impelled to every action; but in the moment that you close his book you _feel_ that you can open or shut it at pleasure, and call up, or dismiss at will, those motives from your mind, which shall be the _proximate_ and immediate causes of your so doing.

“In like manner Berkeley has perhaps convinced you in the abstract that you cannot vouch for the existence of matter, and that ideas or shadows are all that you can answer for; but do you really and substantially believe less in the existence of a bullet which blows out the brains of a fellow creature, or that of the sword which pierces his body, because Berkeley assures you that they are only _ideas_, and you are not able _metaphysically_ to contradict him?

“You have, my beloved brother, honoured me so far as to consult my understanding upon these great, these awful subjects, and nothing could tempt me to accept the office of guide, conscious as I am of my own weakness, were I not firmly persuaded, that while mortal affairs require human strength to unravel their intricacies, and overcome their obstructions, humility is the only pilot to heaven.

“I was once led astray in the mazes of a bewildering philosophy which grew darker and more uncertain the farther I presumed to penetrate its recesses. I found torches, indeed, blazing at the portals, and proud of a little daring, I entered on the labyrinth, vain-gloriously resolved to reject all clue, and clear a passage for myself; but the damps of ignorance and doubt soon extinguished the glaring lights that illuminated the entrance. I found myself ere long involved in the thickest obscurity, and when the abyss threatened to engulph the groping wanderer, was grateful for that aid which in the pride of my own strength, I had indignantly rejected. Assisted by revelation, I retraced my erring steps; and am now contented with such measure of knowledge as God vouchsafes to his creatures, as well as resolved never more to tempt the paths which lead but to confusion worse confounded.

“Where difficulties present themselves, I thankfully incline to that side which is the least obscure; and, as a belief in necessity, besides the natural contrariety of its existence with the evidence of our senses, which proclaim us free agents, would involve an absolute and unqualified rejection of the Christian scheme, I find no hesitation in abandoning it to the winds.

“Natural religion presents God to our contemplation in the wonderful unapproachable character of sovereignty, wisdom, and power. The _Christian_ sees him brought home to our hearts, and domesticated with our gratitude, our tenderness, and admiration. In Jesus Christ we behold the Emanuel, the _God_ with us; redeeming in his love, sustaining by his spirit, astonishing by his mercy. If I turn from the only door, the only way, the only shepherd that is provided for me, and look to myself for a staff of support through the valley of death, what do I find? Alas! infirmity so pitiable, sin so inseparable from every purpose and every performance, that I am ready to give my suffrage to the truth of Hooker’s eloquent, but melancholy avowal, that ‘the very best action of the most virtuous human being, _requires to be forgiven_.’”

You have now, my dear friend, an outline of the plan upon which we set out with our search after Truth: and from the moment in which the conversation that I have reported took place, my brother has passed some hours of every day in reading and talking on these solemn subjects.

Butler’s Analogy with Wilson’s excellent Letters of Explanation; Gregory’s Letters and Chalmers’ Evidences, have particularly delighted him. We have read _Tremaine_ together, and some parts of the reasoning contained in the third volume of that valuable little work have most powerfully impressed his mind, while others have failed of satisfying him. My principal objections to Tremaine are, that the author contents himself with allowing us to _suppose_ that the hero becomes a Christian. Secondly, Dr. Evelyn, though a very worthy, and a very sensible man, appears more like a good humoured country gentleman, than a clergyman, the professional piety of whom might have been added to his counsel without detracting from its force. It is a pity also that so strong a stimulant as love should be allowed by _possibility_ to mingle in the motives to conversion, and by so doing, sully the integrity of change. With these defects, however, and some inequalities in the argument, Tremaine is a charming work, and breathes nothing from beginning to end, which is not calculated, in some way or other, to render people wiser and better who read it; a character which it would be a great happiness were to be able with truth to attribute in this age of novels to many of the most celebrated amongst them.

Having said so much of my invalid’s _mind_, I must mournfully add of his _bodily_ frame, that it gradually declines, yet so imperceptibly, that it requires such minute observation as strong affection can alone awaken, to perceive the progress of decay. My dear children, and our friend Mr. Otway, unite in kindest remembrances to you. Speak of us all to our poor neighbours with affectionate recollection, and tell them that I long to re-visit my little valley, and am only supported through the pain of absence from home, and the fatigue of more society, than for many years I have been accustomed to, by the pleasant assurance that I am not _uselessly_ employed. The remarks of my young people, in a land of strangers, furnish me too with a perpetual source of gratification, they are so true to nature and good sense, as well as feeling. We continue to hear constantly from Arthur, who is happy in the company of Mr. Charles Falkland, a young man whose friendship I anticipate for my Frederick with great pleasure. We hear also of Lord and Lady Crayton, of whom I wish I could add that our accounts are agreeable. Lord C. is, I fear, ill calculated to make my poor niece happy; and they both exhibit, but too faithfully, a specimen of fashionable marriage. I tremble, as I look forward, and bless God when I gaze with thankfulness on my children, that they have been preserved from the vortex of folly, which draws thousands daily into its dangerous and seductive abyss. Can all the riches of the East, added to all “the boast of heraldry, and pomp of power,” supply the place of domestic love, or compensate for the absence of moral virtue? I sometimes feel like an old picture that, after having been hung up during a century, has suddenly received the gift of animation, and descended from its frame to mingle in the social group. The _world_, even as seen at this distance from our metropolis, appears almost as new to me as to my girls; and, I am sorry to confess, how little find in it to gratify my mental taste. Perhaps retirement may have soured my disposition, but if this be not the case, society is not _improved_ in this kingdom. We are encircled by people of princely fortune; and luxury, in all its fertility of invention, reigns throughout this rich and beautiful country. But, oh! how much I miss the England of my early recollections! Mr. Otway and I often mourn over the progress of what is falsely called refinement, which has made the lower classes forget the simple sobriety, the active industry, the nice cleanliness of former times, and has rendered the higher orders a disgusting engraftment of foreign manners, customs, and language, upon a British stock. My dear home! My pure mountain breezes and rational fire-side, I sigh to behold you once more! Adieu, my valued friend. I hope to hear from you before we leave Marsden, and am,

Sincerely yours,

CAROLINE DOUGLAS.