of necessity must ultimately rest. As equally unthinkable, the two counter, the two one-sided schemes are thus theoretically balanced. But practically, our consciousness of the moral law, which, without a moral liberty in man, would be a mendacious imperative, gives a decisive preponderance to the doctrine of freedom over the doctrine of fate. We are free in act, if we are accountable for our actions.

“Such (pwvāsta ovvstołowy) are the hints of an undeveloped philosophy, which, I am confident, is founded upon truth. To this confidence I have come, not merely through the convictions of my own consciousness, but by finding in this system a centre and conciliation for the most opposite of philosophical opinions. Above all, however, I am confirmed in my belief, by the harmony between the doctrines of this philosophy, and those of revealed truth. 'Credo equidem, nec vana fides.' The philosophy of the conditioned is indeed pre-eminently a discipline of humility; a 'learned ignorance,' directly opposed to the false 'knowledge which puffeth up.' I may, indeed, say with St. ChrysostomThe foundation of our philosophy is humility."* For it is professedly a scientific demonstration of the impossibility of that wisdom in high matters' which the Apostle prohibits us even to attempt; and it proposes, from the limitation of the human powers, from our impotence to comprehend what, however, we must admit, to show articulately why the 'secret things of God' cannot but be to man 'past finding out.' Humility thus becomes the cardinal virtue not only of revelation, but of reason. This

Homil. de Perf. Evang.

scheme proves, moreover, that no difficulty emerges in theology which had not previously emerged in philosophy; that in fact, if the divine do not transcend what it has pleased the Deity to reveal, and willfully identify the doctrine of God's word with some arrogant extreme of human speculation, philosophy will be found the most useful auxiliary of theology.

*

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*

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*

"It is here shown to be as irrational as irreligious, on the ground of human understanding, to deny, either on the one hand, the foreknowledge, predestination, and free grace of God, or, on the other, the free will of man; that we should believe both, and both in unison, though unable to comprehend either even apart. This philosophy proclaims with St. Augustin, and Augustin in his maturest writings:'If there be not free grace in God, how can He save the world; and if there be not free will in man, how can the world by God be judged?'* Or, as the same doctrine is perhaps expressed even better by St. Bernard:-'Abolish free will, and there is nothing to be saved; abolish free grace, and there is nothing wherewithal to save." "+

* Ad Valentinum, Epist. 214.

† De Gratiâ et Libero Arbitrio, c. i. See this question considered in relation to the origin of evil, ante, % 113-131.

31

CHAPTER IV.

PANTHEISM.

a. IN WHAT IT CONSISTS.

a1. Material.

§ 250. Hylozoism, as has already been incidentally noticed, holds that all matter is the seat of divine energy and is thus entitled to worship. When the entire personality of God is thus distributed, leaving no residuum behind, this doctrine becomes equivalent to material pantheism. The whole universe, psychical as well as physical, is material. Intellect is but an attribute of body. Deity itself has no spiritual personality, but comprehends and is bounded by the physical universe, itself self-existent and eternal. Nor is the view of those who hold that some portion of the divine energy remains undistributed, materially different in its consequences from that just stated. Though there be a divine spiritual residue remaining after the divinity of the universe is carved out, such residue is remanded to a condition of comatose insensibility, that of a Divinity on furlough, merely to be occasionally recognized by a complimentary adoration, and then to be passed practically by as possessed of no real power.*

* Of this class is the pantheism of worldliness, which makes the

b1. Ideal.

§ 251. In this scheme the objective does not exist, all material nature being resolved into the conception entertained of it by the intellect. Existence and thought, in this view, are identical, and the individual EGO is but an item in the ABSOLUTE GOD. There is no matter,-we are all god,-form the two fundamental, articles in ideal pantheism.

It is among the German transcendental philosophers that this species of pantheism finds its chief exponents. State the doctrine philosophically, and it narrows itself to a denial of the distinct existence of any spiritual agency except God. There is no dualism in the universe. The soul is but a phenomenon of God, as the wave is but a phenomenon of the sea. Sometimes we hear the terms "Son" and "Spirit" used, and we suppose from this a recognition of even a divine distinction of persons. This, however, is far from the case. The "Son" is the universe; the "Spirit," the property which binds the Absolute and the universe together. Cousin tells us that the Trinity consists of, "at the

world, e.g. society, supreme, recognizing, it is true, the Divine Being as existing, but as in a state of retirement, and entitled only to nominal homage. Mr. Rogers thus illustrates this in his "Table-Talk." An English duchess was, one Sunday morning, too late for church, and found the door closed. "Never mind, Georgiana,” said she to one of her daughters, as she turned away, “anyhow, we have done the civil thing." It was the "civil thing" done by the world to a superannuated God. But what an awful reverse to the picture have we when we contemplate that God, august, tremendous, present, patient, waiting the day of His power.

same time, God, Nature, and Humanity." This well deserves a rebuke which is all the more severe from the fact that it comes from Mr. Morell: "Much as we admire Cousin, while he keeps within his proper limits, and much as we are disposed to maintain the truth of his philosophy, in most of its principal features, we cannot but repudiate, with all our energy, his attempts to intrude upon the sacred province of the Christian revelation. If he will stand up as a theologian, and fight the battle upon its proper grounds, let him do so, and there are plenty to take up the gauntlet he throws down; but it is not the part, which his own philosophy would dictate, to raise a new theory of revelation to supersede all the rest, without considering the facts and the evidences which the Christian revelation can display."+

It is not within my limit to examine the several phases which this doctrine assumes with the transcendental and eclectic philosophers. With Schelling it is termed Identitätslehre, or the doctrine of Identity. Hegel mounts above this, and tells us that the "World-Spirit" (Weltgeist) has freed himself from all incumbrances, and is able to conceive himself as Absolute and all-engrossing Intelligence, (absolute Geist.) According to this system, history is the mere autobiography of God; the world is but the flesh, ever changing yet eternal, in which His divine essence is embodied; He himself, as the all-comprehending personality, embraces all spiritual as well as material existence; to Him the world is necessary, as an inalienable property of

* See Morell's Hist. Phil., p. 655.

† Ibid. p. 661.