Part 55

There is no writer in modern times to whom we owe so much for a true and elevated Philosophy on Human nature as to Bishop Butler, the most profound and accurate analyst of the moral faculties of man that has ever illustrated the principles of Christian ethics. He was not a man to take wholesale assertions; he subjected our moral nature to the exact and rigid test of philosophical anatomy, and one deliberate sentence of his, is worth ten thousand disquisitions from traditional theologians, who, parrot-like, repeat and repeat again the jargon, that has grown as stale from mouth to mouth, as the starling’s “let me out, let me out”—many of whom have no other reason than that they have heard it so cried out before them. Bishop Butler has examined human nature, and he has given testimony in its favour—he has vindicated its dignity, and he has by a deep philosophy, which seemed to be little comprehended by those who would debase humanity demonstrated its essential excellence. He has proved by irrefutable arguments, its natural disinterestedness, its goodness, its necessary conformity with truth and virtue. These are to be sure but its general tendencies, with many exceptions—yet, why such a line of argument should be deemed insufficient in moral philosophy, and be admitted as cogent in natural theology, it is difficult to conceive.—Take for instance—in the body the case of the eye or the ear: no one questions, that the eye is admirably adapted for seeing, and the ear for hearing; and though the one may grow dim or the other become deaf, it is never asserted that the constitution or nature of each—on the whole—is contradictory to that for which it was intended. There are, it is true, various evil manifestations in human nature; but there are others good—at least, in _seeming_. Cynical Philosophers and Calvinistic Theologians concur in making the evil substantial, and the good factitious. The answer which this profound reasoner gives to the philosophical opponents of human nature will be a sufficient reply to both. “Suppose,” he says, “a man of learning to be writing a grave book upon human nature—and to show in several parts of it, that he had an insight into the subject he was considering. Amongst other things the following one would require to be accounted for; the appearance of benevolence or good-will in men towards each other in the instances of natural relation and in others. Cautious of being deceived with outward show, he retires within himself, to see exactly what that is in the mind of man from whence this appearance proceeds; and upon deep reflection asserts the principle in the mind to be only the love of power and delight in the exercise of it. Would not everybody think here was a mistake of one word for another? That the philosopher was contemplating and accounting for some other human actions, some other behaviour of man to man? And could any one be thoroughly satisfied, that what is commonly called benevolence or good-will was really the affection meant, but only by being made to understand that this learned person had a general hypothesis, to which the appearance of good-will could no otherwise be reconciled? That what has this appearance is often nothing but ambition; that delight in superiority—often (suppose always) mixes itself with benevolence, only makes it more specious to call it ambition than hunger of the two; but in reality that passion does no more account for the whole appearances of good-will, than this appetite does. Is there not often the appearance of one man’s wishing that good to another, which he knows himself unable to procure him; and rejoicing in it, though procured by a third person? And, can love of power any way possibly come into account for this desire or delight? Is there not often the appearance of men’s distinguishing between two or more persons, preferring one before another, to do good to, in cases where the love of power cannot in the least account for the distinction or preference? For this principle can no otherwise distinguish between objects, than as it is a greater instance and exertion of power to do good to one rather than to another. Again, suppose good-will in the mind of man be nothing but delight in the exercise of power; men might indeed be restrained by distant and accidental considerations, but these restraints being removed, they would have a disposition to, and a delight in mischief as an exercise and proof of power; and this disposition and delight would arise from the same principle in the mind, as a disposition to, and a delight in charity. Thus cruelty as distinct from resentment, would be exactly the same in the mind of man as good-will; that one tends to the happiness, the other to the misery of our fellow-creatures, is, it seems, merely an accidental circumstance, which the mind has not the least regard to. These are absurdities which even men of capacity run into, when they have occasion to belie their nature; and will perversely disclaim that image of God which was originally stamped upon it: the traces of which, however faint, are plainly discernible upon the mind of man.” Many passages might be quoted from this great writer in vindication of humanity, but I shall adduce but one other: it is from the same discourse, (The first sermon on Human Nature,) as that I have already extracted—and much to the same purpose. “Mankind,” he says, “have ungoverned passions, which they will gratify at any rate, as well to the injury of others as in contradiction to known private interests, but as there is no such thing as self-hatred, so neither is there any such thing as ill-will in one man towards another, emulation or resentment being away: whereas there is plainly benevolence or good-will: there is no such thing as love of injustice, oppression, treachery, ingratitude; but only eager desire after such and such external goods, which, according to a very ancient observation, the most abandoned would choose to obtain by innocent means, if they were as easy and effectual to their end: even emulation and resentment by any who will consider what these passions really are in nature, will be found nothing to the purpose of this objection, and the principles and passions in the mind of man which are distinct both from self-love and benevolence, primarily and most directly lead to right behaviour with regard to others as well as to himself, and only secondarily and accidentally to what is evil. Thus though men to avoid the shame of one villany are often guilty of a greater, yet it is easy to see that the original tendency of shame is to prevent the doing of shameful actions; and its leading men to conceal such actions when done, is only the consequence of their being done, that is, of the passions not having answered its first end.”—(See also the acute and original Essay of Mr. Hazlitt’s, on The Principles of Human Actions, in which the leading idea of Butler’s Philosophy is rigidly examined and illustrated.)

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Pascal vindicates the dignity of Human nature in some of his most beautiful thoughts. Those who are acquainted with the theology of Pascal (and who are not?) will scarcely suspect him of leaning too partially to the brighter side of our nature. I quote a few passages from his writings, as much for the pleasure of copying them, as for the support they afford to my general argument.

“L’homme est si grand,” he observes, “que, sa grandeur parait même en ce qu’il se connaît misérable. Un arbre ne se connaît pas misérable: il est vrai que c’est être misérable que de se connaître, qu’on misérable; mais aussi c’est grand que de connaître qu’on est misérable. Ainsi toutes misères prouvent sa grandeur:—ce sont miseres de grand seigneur, miseres d’un roi dépossédé.

“Nous avons si grande idée de l’ame de l’homme que nous ne pouvons souffrir d’en être méprisé, et d’ n’être pas dans l’esteme d’une âme: et toute la félicité des hommes consiste dans cette estime.

“Si d’un côté cette fausse gloire que les hommes cherchent est une grande marque de leur misère et de leur bassesse, c’en une aussi de leur excellence; car quelque possessions qu’il ait sur la terre, de quelque santé et commodité essentielle qu’il jouisse il n’est pas satisfait, s’il n’est pas dans l’estime des hommes. Il estime si grande la raison de l’homme que quelque avantage, qu’il ait dans le monde, il se croit malheureux s’il n’est placé aussi avantegeusement dans la raison de l’homme c’est la plus belle place du monde: rien ne peut le détourner de ce désir, et c’est la qualité la plus ineffacable du cœur de l’homme: jusque-là que ceux que méprisent le plus les hommes, et qui les égalent aux bêtes veulent encore en être admirés, et contradisent á eux-mêmes par leur propre sentiment: la nature, qui est plus puisante que toute leur raison, les convainquant plus fortement de la grandeur de l’homme que la raison ne les convainc de sa baissesse.”—“L’homme n’est qu’un roseau le plus faíble de la nature; mais c’est un roseau pensant. Il ne faut pas que l’univers entier s’arme pour l’écraser. Une vapeur, une goutte d’eau suffit pour le tuer. Mais quand l’univers l’écraserait, l’homme serait encore plus noble que ce qui le tue, parce qu’il sait qu’il meurt, et l’avantage que l’univers a sur lui, l’univers n’en sait rien. Ainsi toute notre dignité consiste dans la pensée c’est de la qu’il faut nous relever, non de l’espace et de la durée.” “Il est dangereux de trop voir l’homme combien il est égal aux bêtes sans lui montrer sa grandeur. Il est encore dangereux de lui fair trop voir sa grandeur sans sa bassesse. Il est plus dangereux de lui laisser ignorer l’un et l’autre: mais est tres avantegeux de lui representer l’un et l’autre.” (Pensées de Pascal.)

I have adduced the testimony of Bishop Butler as to the soundness of our views on human nature: I shall here transcribe a few passages from a writer, in whose language a kindred philosophy becomes most eloquent and inspiring—I mean Doctor Channing.—“I repeat it,” he says, “showing the moral power of faith in the divine capacities of man, to resemble our Maker we need not quarrel with our nature or our lot. Our present state, made up as it is, of aids and trials, is worthy of God, and may be used throughout to assimilate us to him. For example: our domestic ties, the relations of neighbourhood and country, the daily interchanges of thoughts and feelings, the daily occasions of kindness, the daily claims of want and suffering, these and other circumstances of our social state, form the best sphere and school for that benevolence which is God’s brightest attribute; and we should make a sad exchange by substituting for these natural aids any self-invented artificial means of sanctity. Christianity, our great guide to God, never leads us away from the path of nature, and never wars with the unsophisticated dictates of conscience. We approach our Creator by every right exercise of the powers he gives us. Whenever we invigorate the understanding by honestly and resolutely seeking truth, and by withstanding whatever might warp the judgment; whenever we invigorate the conscience by following it in opposition to the passions; whenever we receive a blessing gratefully, bear a trial patiently, or encounter peril or scorn with moral courage; whenever we perform a disinterested deed; whenever we lift up the heart in true adoration to God; whenever we war against a habit or desire which is strengthening itself against our higher principles; whenever we think, speak or act with moral energy, and devotion to duty, be the occasion ever so humble or familiar; then the divinity is growing within us, and we are ascending towards our Author. The religion thus blends with common life. We thus draw nigh to God without forsaking men. We are thus without parting with our human nature, to clothe ourselves with the divine.” (Discourse at the ordination of the Rev. F. A. Farley.) Honour is due to all men on the ground of the worth and dignity of their nature, and of this the eloquent writer shows Christianity a proof and an illustration. “The whole of this religion is a testimony to the worth of man in the sight of God—to the importance of human nature—to the infinite purposes for which we were framed. God is there set forth as sending, to the succour of his human family, his beloved Son, the bright image and representative of his own perfections; and sending him, not simply to roll away a burden of pain and punishment, (for this, however magnified in systems of theology is not his highest work) but to create man after that divine image which he himself bears, to purify the soul from every stain, to communicate to it new power over evil, and to open before it immortality as its aim and destination—immortality by which we are to understand, not merely a perpetual, but an ever-improving and celestial being. Such are the views of Christianity. And these blessings it proffers, not to a few, not to the educated, not to the eminent, but to all human beings, to the poorest and the most fallen; and we know that through the power of its promises, it has, in not a few instances, raised the fallen to true greatness, and given them in their present virtue and peace, an earnest of the heaven which it unfolds. Such is Christianity. Men viewed in the light of this religion, are beings cared for by God, to whom he has given his Son, on whom he pours forth his spirit; and whom he has created for the highest good in the universe, the participation of his own perfections and happiness. Such is Christianity. Our scepticism in our own nature cannot quench the bright light which religion sheds on the soul and on the prospects of mankind; and just so far as we receive its truth we shall honour all men.” (Discourse on “Honour due to All Men.”)

“Theologians,” remarks a powerful writer, “say, that the very infant comes into the world under the wrath and curse of the Deity. They never learned that by observing the glory of God in the face of Christ. No such withering frown ever sat on his benignant countenance. Think of Christ’s wrath with a child! Think of Christ cursing a child! I must read in the Gospel that he did so, before I believe that God does so, and that the Calvinistic doctrine of original sin is true. In the strong horror of the human heart at the monstrous combination of such a person with such an action, I read the condemnation of that gloomiest article of a gloomy creed; and if it be a foul calumny on Christ, it must, exalted as he was, be a yet fouler calumny on God. I would sooner believe the one than the other. I would sooner imagine some Jesus of Nazareth encountering some fond father and fonder mother, in the first freshness of their parental feelings, as they pass beneath ‘the gate of the temple which was called the Beautiful;’ less beautiful in the sculptured forms of marble on which its gorgeous architecture rested than in the living human group which were there bearing the babe to the altar to dedicate it to the God of its fathers; and encountering them with that solemn malediction which would sink into their souls and corrode their lives; than I would imagine Omniscience, which witnesses each man’s birth, life, and death, to be in all earth’s scenes of parental anxiousness and fondness over helpless infancy, the all-pervading presence of an Almighty curse. Yet this is the doctrine into which thousands upon thousands of children are catechised. Why will not parents and teachers lead them, not to Calvin, but to Christ? So should they receive a blessing, even as did those children, notwithstanding that there were not wanting, even then, erring disciples to intercept their approach and forbid their coming. As his blessing was on them, so is that of his and our God. His doctrine, his conduct. ‘Their angels,’ he says, ‘do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven;’ they are the peculiar objects of the providential care which, by the number, and swiftness, and power of those supposed winged messengers, was pictorial typified; and again, ‘Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come to me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven!’”—_Christ and Christianity_, a series of Sermons, by the Rev. W. J. Fox: which for energy of thought, richness and beauty of imagery, truth of moral analysis and description, force and eloquence of language, may be placed in the very highest class of pulpit oratory, and even in that class be ranged with its rarest specimens. The taint of heresy has robbed them of their due fame, for in those days, without the proper admixture of orthodoxy, logic only beats the air, and eloquence speaks to the deaf adder that will not hear the voice of the charmer, charm he never so sweetly.

I quote with great pleasure one or two passages from Mr. Dewey, as illustrative of our common doctrine on human nature:

“The theologian says that human nature is bad and corrupt. Now taking this language in the practical and popular sense, I find no difficulty in agreeing with the theologian. And indeed, if he would confine himself—leaving vague and general declamation and technical phraseology—if he would confine himself to facts; if he would confine himself to a description of actual bad qualities and dispositions in men, I think he could not well go too far. Nay more, I am not certain that any theologian’s description, so far as it is of this nature, has gone deep enough into the frightful mass of human depravity. For it requires an acute perception that is rarely possessed, and a higher and holier conscience, perhaps than belongs to any, to discover and declare _how_ bad, and degraded, and unworthy a being _a bad man_ is. I confess that nothing would beget in me a higher respect for man, a real—not a theological and factitious—but a real and deep sense of human sinfulness and unworthiness—of the mighty wrong which man does to himself, to his religion, and his God, when he yields to the evil and accursed inclinations that find place in him. This moral indignation is not half strong enough in those who profess to talk the most about human depravity. And the objection to them is, not that they feel too much or speak too strongly, the actual wickedness, the actual and distinct sins of the wicked; but they speak too vaguely and generally of human wickedness; that they speak with too little discrimination to every man as if he were a murderer or a monster; that they speak, in fine, too argumentatively, and too much (if I may say so) with a sort of argumentative satisfaction, as if they were glad that they could make this point so strong.”

The next extract is in advocacy of human nature, eloquently pleading for it in a low and guilty condition.

“The very pirate that dyes the ocean wave with the blood of his fellow-beings; that meets his defenceless victims in some lonely sea where no cry for help can be heard, and plunges his dagger to the heart that is pleading for life, which is calling upon him by all means of kindred, of children, and of home, to spare—yes, the very pirate is such a man as you or I might have been. Orphanage and childhood; an unfriended youth; an evil companion; a resort to sinful pleasure; familiarity with vice; a scorned and blighted name; seared and crushed affections; desperate fortunes—these are the steps that might have led any one amongst us to unfurl on the high seas the bloody flag of universal defiance; to have waged war with our kind; to have put on the terrific attributes; to have done the dreadful deeds; and to have died the awful death of the ocean robber. How many affecting relationships of humanity plead with us to pity him! That head that is doomed to pay the price of blood once rested upon a mother’s bosom. The hand that did that accursed work, and shall soon be stretched cold and nerveless in the felon’s grave, was once taken and cherished by a father’s hand, and led in the ways of sportive childhood and innocent pleasure. The dreaded monster of crime has once been the object of sisterly love and all domestic endearment. Pity him, then. Pity his blighted hope and his crushed heart. It is a wholesome sensibility, it is meet for frail and sinning creatures like us to cherish. It forgoes no moral discrimination. It feels the crime, but feels it as a weak, tempted, and rescued creature should. It imitates the great Master; and looks with indignation upon the offender, and yet is grieved for him.”—_Dewey._

_Additional Remarks, &c._

“Our Lord Jesus Christ,” says Mr. Buddicom, “hath solemnly and emphatically said, ‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but that believeth not shall be damned.’” (Yes, but is this to believe what our opponents tell us, and to be baptized into the faith of Athanasius?) “Unitarians,” he continues, “assert that they fulfil the requirement, and therefore are safe from the penalty. We, on the other hand, are assured, that as it would be treason against the sovereign of these realms, to acknowledge her claim only to a part of her dominions, while her royalty over the remainder was utterly denied; so the Unitarian scheme which would give unto the Saviour the honours of a prophet and a witness, while it would unsphere him from that full-orbed glory wherein He shines through the revelation of his grace, is treason against him and against the Majesty of God, who willeth ‘that all men should honour the son, even as they honour the father.’ Thus convinced, we deem the professors of that system to be under sentence of spiritual outlawry, which if it be not reversed, will end in the terrors of the second death.”—Lect. 8. pp. 438, 439.