shape in which we Christians entertain it; because otherwise his words of reprehension are unmeaning. But our belief as to the future life is intimately and indissolubly bound up with our belief as to the present; with our belief as to what is the true measure and standard of human action in this world. And I would urge that no part of our doctrine can be rightly apprehended, unless it be viewed in its connection with all the rest. This is a fact which (I think) infidels often drop out of sight, and for that reason fail of meeting Christianity on its really relevant and critical issues. Of course I consider Catholicity to be exclusively the one authoritative exhibition of revealed Christianity. I will set forth therefore the doctrine to which I would call attention, in that particular form in which Catholic teachers enounce it; though I am very far indeed from intending to deny, that there are multitudes of non-Catholic Christians who hold it also. What then, according to Catholics, is the true measure and standard of human action? This is in effect the very first question propounded in our English elementary Catechism. 'Why did God make you?' The prescribed answer is, 'To know Him, serve Him, and love Him in this world, and to be happy with Him for ever in the next.' And St. Ignatius's Spiritual Exercisesa work of the very highest authority among us having laid down the very same foundation,' presently adds, that we should not wish on our part for health rather than for sickness, wealth rather than poverty, honor rather than ignominy; desiring and choosing those things alone, which are more expedient to us for the end for which we were created.' Now what will be the course of a Christian's life in proportion as he is profoundly imbued with such a principle as this, and vigorously aims at putting it into practice? The number of believers, who apply themselves to this task with reasonable consistency, is no doubt comparatively small. But in proportion as any given person does so, he will in the first place be deeply penetrated with a sense of his moral weakness; and (were it for that reason alone) his life will more and more be a life of prayer. Then he will necessarily give his mind with great earnestness and frequency to

the consideration, what it is which at this or that period God desires at his hands. On the whole (not to dwell with unnecessary detail on this part of my subject) he will be ever opening his heart to Almighty God; turning to Him for light and strength under emergencies, for comfort under affliction; pondering on His adorable attributes; animated towards Him by intense love and tenderness. Nor need I add how singularly-how beyond words-this personal love of God is promoted and facilitated by the fact, that a Divine Person has assumed human nature, and that God's human acts and words are so largely offered to the loving contemplation of redeemed souls.

In proportion then as a Christian is faithful to his creed, the thought of God becomes the chief joy of his life. 'The thought of God,' says F. Newman, and nothing short of it, is the happiness of man; for though there is much besides to serve as subject of knowledge, or motive for action, or instument of excitement, yet the affections require a something more vast and more enduring than anything created. He alone is sufficient for the heart who made it. The contemplation of Him, and nothing but it, is able fully to open and relieve the mind, to unlock, occupy, and fix our affections. We may indeed love things created with great intenseness; but such affection, when disjoined from the love of the Creator, is like a stream running in a narrow channel, impetuous, vehement, turbid. The heart runs out, as it were, only at one door; it is not an expanding of the whole man. Created natures cannot open to us, or elicit, the ten thousand mental senses which belong to us, and through which we really love. None but the presence of our Maker can enter us; for to none besides can the whole heart in all its thoughts and feelings be unlocked and subjected. It is this feeling of simple and absolute confidence and communion, which soothes and satisfies those to whom it is vouchsafed. We know that even our nearest friends enter into us but partially, and hold intercourse with us only at times; whereas the consciousness of a perfect and enduring presence, and it alone, keeps the heart open. Withdraw the object on which it rests, and it will re

lapse again into a state of confinement and constraint; and in proportion as it is limited, either to certain seasons or to certain affections, the heart is straitened and distressed.'

Now Christians hold, that God's faithful servants will enjoy hereafter unspeakable bliss, through the most intimate imaginable contact with Him whom they have here so tenderly loved. They will see face to face Him, whose beauty is dimly and faintly adumbrated by the most exquisitely transporting beauty which can be found on earth; Him whose adorable perfections they have in this life imperfectly contemplated, and for the fuller apprehension of which they have so earnestly longed here below. I by no means intend to imply, that the hope of this blessedness is the sole or even the chief inducement which leads saintly men to be diligent in serving God. Their immediate reason for doing so is their keen sense of His claim on their allegiance; and, again, the misery which they would experience, through their love of Him, at being guilty of any failure in that allegiance. Still the prospect of that future bliss, which I have so imperfectly sketched, is doubtless found by them at times of invaluable service, in stimulating them to greater effort, and in cheering them under trial and desolation.

Such is the view taken by Christians of life in heaven; and surely any candid infidel will at once admit, that it is profoundly harmonious and consistent with their view of what should be man's life on earth. To say that their anticipation of the future, as it exists in them, is gross, sensual, indolent, and selfish, is so manifestly beyond the mark, that I am sure Mr. Harrison will, on reflection, retract his affirmation. Apart, however, from this particular comment, my criticism of Mr. Harrison would be this. He was bound, I maintain, to consider the Christian theory of life as a whole; and not to dissociate that part of it which concerns eternity, from that part of it which concerns time.

And now as to the merits of this Christian theory. For my own part I am, of course, profoundly convinced that, as on the one hand it is guaranteed by Revelation, so on the other hand it is that which alone harmonises with the dicta

of reason and the facts of experience, so far as it comes into contact with these. · Yet I admit that various very plausible objections may be adduced against its truth. Objectors may allege very plausibly, that by the mass of men it cannot be carried into practice; that it disparages most unduly the importance of things secular; that it is fatal to what they account genuine patriotism; that it has always been, and will always be, injurious to the progress of science; above all, that it puts men (as one may express it) on an entirely wrong scent, and leads them to neglect many pursuits which, as being sources of true enjoyment, would largely enhance the pleasurableness of life. All this, and much more, may be urged, I think, by antitheists with very great superficial plausibility; and the Christian controversialist is bound on occasion steadily to confront it. But there is one accusation which has been brought against this Christian theory of life-and that the one mainly (as would seem) felt by Mr. Harrison-which to me seems so obviously destitute of foundation, that I find difficulty in understanding how any infidel can have persuaded himself of its truth: I mean the accusation that this theory is a selfish one. There is no need of here attempting a philosophical discussion on the respective claims of what are now called 'egoism' and 'altruism: a discussion in itself (no doubt) one of much interest and much importance, and one moreover in which I should be quite prepared (were it necessary) to engage. Here, however, I will appeal, not to philosophy but to history. In the records of the past we find a certain series of men, who stand out from the mass of their brethren, as having pre-eminently concentrated their energy on the love and service of God, and pre-eminently looked away from earthly hopes to the prospect of their future reward. I refer to the Saints of the Church. And it is a plain matter of fact, which no one will attempt to deny, that these very men stand out no less conspicuously from the rest, in their self-sacrificing and (as we ordinary men regard it) astounding labors, in behalf of what they believe to be the highest interests of mankind.

Before I conclude I must not omit a brief comment on one other point, be

cause it is the only one on which I cannot concur with Lord Blachford's masterly paper. I cannot agree with him, that the doctrine of human immortality fails of being supported by 'conclusive reasoning.' I do not, of course, mean that the dogma of the Beatific Vision is discoverable apart from Revelation; but I do account it a truth cognisable with certitude by reason, that the human soul is naturally immortal, and that retribution of one kind or another will be awarded us hereafter, according to what our conduct has been in this our state of probation. Here, however, I must explain myself. When theists make this statement, sometimes they are thought to allege that human immortality is sufficiently proved by phenomena; and sometimes they are thought to allege that it is almost intuitively evident. For myself, however, I make neither of these allegations. I hold that the truth in question is conclusively established by help of certain premisses; and that these premisses themselves can previously be known with absolute certitude, on grounds of reason or experience.

They are such as these: (1) There exists that Personal Being, infinite in all perfections, whom we call God. (2) He has implanted in His rational creatures the sense of right and wrong; the knowledge that a deliberate perpetration of certain acts intrinsically merits penal retribution. (3) Correlatively, He has conferred freedom on the human will; or, in other words, has made acts of the human will exceptions to that law of uniform sequence, which otherwise prevails throughout the phenomenal world.* (4) By the habit of prayer to God we can obtain augmented strength for moral action, in a degree which would have been quite incredible antecedently to experience. (5) Various portions of our divinely given nature clearly point to an eternal destiny. (6) The conscious self or ego is entirely heterogeneous to the material world: entirely heterogeneous, therefore, to that palpable body of ours, which is dissolved at the period of death.

I do not think any one will account it extravagant to hold, that the doctrine of human immortality is legitimately de

* I shall not, of course, be understood to deny the existence and frequency of miracles. NEW SERIES.-VOL. XXVI., No. 6

ducible from a combination of these and similar truths. The antitheist will of course deny that they are truths. Mr. Greg, who has himself 'arrived at no conviction' on the subject of immortality, yet says that considerations of the same kind as those which I have enumerated 'must be decisive' in favor of immortality 'to all to whose spirits communion with their Father is the most absolute of verities.'* Nor have I any rea

son to think that even Mr. Huxley and Mr. Harrison, if they could concede my premisses, would demur to my conclusion.

Mr. FREDERIC HARRISON.

[I have now, not so much to close a symposium, or general discussion, as to reply to the convergent fire of nine separate papers, extending over more than fifty pages. Neither time, nor space, nor the indulgence of the reader, would enable me to do justice to the weight of this array of criticism, which reaches me in fragments whilst I am otherwise occupied abroad. I will ask those critics, whom I have not been able to notice, to believe that I have duly considered the powerful appeals they have addressed to me. And I will ask those who are interested in this question, to refer to the original papers in which my views were stated. And I will only add, by way of reply, the following remarks which were, for the most part, written and printed, whilst I had nothing before me but the first three papers in this discussion. They contain what I have to say on the theological, the metaphysical, and the materialist aspect of this question. For the rest, I could only repeat what I have already said in the two original essays.]

Whether the preceding discussion has given much new strength to the doctrine of man's immaterial Soul and Future existence I will not pretend to decide. But I cannot feel that it has shaken the reality of man's posthumous influence, my chief and immediate theme. It seemed to me that 'the time had come, when, seeing how vague and hesitating were the prevalent beliefs on this subject, it was most important to remember that, from a purely earthly point of view,

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See his letter in the Spectator of August

man had a spiritual nature, and could look forward after death to something that marked him off from the beasts that perish. I cannot see that what I urged has been in substance displaced; though much criticism (and some of it of a verbal kind) has been directed at the language which I used of others. My object was to try if this life could not be made richer; not to destroy the dreams of another. But has the old doctrine of a future life been in any way strengthened? Mr. Hutton, it is true, has a personal wish' for a perpetuity of volition. Lord Blachford 'believes because he is told.' And Professor Huxley knows of no evidence that 'such a soul and a future life exist;' and he seems not to believe in them at all.

Philosophical discussion must languish a, little, if, when we ask for the philosophical grounds for a certain belief, we find one philosopher believing because he has a 'personal wish' for it, and another believing because he is told.' Mr. Hutton says that, as far as he knows, 'the thoughts, affections, and volitions are not likely to perish with his body.' Professor Huxley seems to think it just as likely that they should. Arguments are called for to enable us to decide between these two authorities. And the only argument we have hitherto got is Mr. Hutton's personal wish,' and Lord Blachford's ita scriptum est. I confess myself unable to continue an argument which runs into believing because I am told.' It is for this reason that the lazzarone at Naples believes in the blood of St. Januarius.

My original propositions may be stated thus.

I. Philosophy as a whole (I do not say specially biological science) has established a functional relation to exist between every fact of thinking, willing, or feeling, on the one side, and some molecular change in the body on the other side.

2. This relation is simply one of correspondence between moral and physical facts, not one of assimilation. The moral fact does not become a physical fact, is not adequately explained by it, and must be mainly studied as a moral fact, by methods applicable to moralsnot as a physical fact, by methods applicable to physics.

3. The moral facts of human life, the laws of man's mental, moral, and affective nature, must consequently be studied, as they have always been studied, by direct observation of these facts; yet the correspondences, specially discovered by biological science between man's mind and his body, must always be kept in view. They are an indispensable, inseparable, but subordinate part of moral philosophy.

4. We do not diminish the supreme place of the spiritual facts in life and in philosophy by admitting these spiritual facts to have a relation with molecular and organic facts in the human organism-provided that we never forget how small and dependent is the part which the study of the molecular and organic phenomena must play in moral and social science.

5. Those whose minds have been trained in the modern philosophy of law cannot understand what is meant by sensation, thought, and energy, existing without any basis of molecular change; and to talk to them of sensation, thought, and energy, continuing in the absence of any molecules whatever, is precisely such a contradiction in terms as to suppose that civilisation will continue in the absence of any men whatever.

6. Yet man is so constituted as a social being, that the energies which he puts out in life mould the minds, characters, and habits of his fellow-men; so that each man's life is, in effect, indefinitely prolonged in human society. This is a phenomenon quite peculiar to man and to human society, and of course depends on there being men in active association with each other. Physics and biology can teach us nothing about it; and physicists and biologists may very easily forget its importance. It can be learnt only by long and refined observations in moral and mental philosophy as a whole, and in the history of civilisation as a whole.

7. Lastly, as a corollary, it may be useful to retain the words Soul and Future Life for their associations; provided we make it clear that we mean by Soul the combined faculties of the living organism, and by future life the subjective effect of each man's objective life on the actual lives of his fellow-men.

I. Now I find in Mr. Hutton's paper

hardly any attempt to disprove the first six of these propositions. He is employed for the most part in asserting that his hypothesis of a future state is a more agreeable one than mine, and in earnest complaints that I should call his view of a future state a selfish or personal hope. As to the first, I will only remark that it is scarcely a question whether his notion of immortality is beautiful or not, but whether it is true. If there is no rational ground for expecting such immortality to be a solid fact, it is to little purpose to show us what a sublime idea it would be if there were anything in it. As to the second, I will only say that I do not call his notion of a future existence a selfish or personal hope. In the last paragraph of my second paper I speak with respect of the opinion of those who look forward to a future of moral development instead of to an idle eternity of psalm-singing. My language as to the selfishness of the vulgar ideas of salvation was directed to those who insist that unless they are to feel a continuance of pleasure they do not care for any continuance of their influence at all. The vulgar are apt to say that what they desire is the sense of personal satisfaction, and if they cannot have this they care for nothing else. This, I maintain, is a selfish and debasing idea. It is the common notion of the popular religion, and its tendency to concentrate the mind on a merely personal salvation does exert an evil effect on practical conduct. I once heard a Scotch preacher, dilating on the narrowness of the gate, &c., exclaim, dear brethren, who would care to be saved in a crowd?'

I do not say this of the life of grander activity in which Mr. Hutton believes, and which Lord Blachford so eloquently describes. This is no doubt a fine ideal, and I will not say other than an elevating hope. But on what does it rest? Why this ideal rather than any other? Each of us may imagine, as I said at the outset, his own Elysian fields, or his own mystic rose. But is this philosophy? Is it even religion? Besides, there is this other objection to it. It is not Christianity, but Neo-Christianity. It is a fantasia with variations on the orthodox creed. There is not a word of the kind in the Bible. Lord Blachford says he believes in it, 'because he is

told.' But it so happens that he is not told this, at any rate in the creeds and formularies of orthodox faith. If this view of future life is to rest entirely on revelation, it is a very singular thing that the Bible is silent on the matter. Whatever kind of future ecstasy may be suggested in some texts, certain it is that such a glorified energy as Lord Blachford paints in glowing colors is nowhere described in the Bible. There is a constant practice nowadays, when the popular religion is criticised, that earnest defenders of it come forward exclaiming : 'Oh! that is only the vulgar notion of our religion. My idea of the doctrine is so and so,' something which the speaker has invented without countenance from official authority. For my part I hold Christianity to be what is taught in average churches and chapels to the millions of professing Christians. And I say it is a very serious fact when philosophical defenders of religion begin by repudiating that which is taught in average pulpits.

Perhaps a little more attention to my actual words might have rendered unnecessary the complaints in all these papers as to my language about the hopes. which men cherish for the future. In the first place I freely admit that the hopes of a grander energy in heaven are not open to the charge of vulgar selfishness. I said that they are unintelligible, not that they are unworthy. They are unintelligible to those who are continually alive to the fact I have placed as my first proposition-that every moral phenomenon is in functional relation with some physical phenomenon. To those who deny or ignore this truth, there is doubtless no incoherence in all the ideals so eloquently described in the papers of Mr. Hutton and Lord Blachford. But once get this conception as the substratum of your entire mental and moral philosophy, and it is as incoherent to talk to us of your immaterial development as it would be to talk of obtaining redness without any red thing.

I will try to explain fully why this idea of a glorified activity implies a contradiction in terms to those who are imbued with the sense of correspondence between physical and moral facts. When we conceive any process of thinking, we call up before us a complex train of con