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problem is the formation of individual character, or rather the procuring for its formation a vital principle and solid basis.

Long and careful study of the works of Fichte and Mr. Carlyle give us assured confidence in defining the essential starting-point and characteristic of Fichtean pantheism. It is its assertion of the divinity of man. This is of course broad and explicit in the philosophy of Fichte. It is not so clear and definite in the works of Mr. Carlyle; that great writer, although giving evidence of a powerful influence from Fichte, having experienced one still more powerful from Goethe, and having clothed his doctrines, not in the statuesque exactitude of philosophic terminology, but in the living language of men. It were, however, we think, difficult to conceive a more perfectly worked-out scheme of pantheism, in application to practical life, than that with which Mr. Carlyle has furnished us, and its essential principle ever is, the glory, the worship, the divinity of man. In our general literature, the principle we have enunciated undergoes modification, and for the most part, is by no means expressed as pantheism. We refer to that spirit of self-assertion, which lies so deep in what may be called the religion of literature; to that wide-spread tendency to regard all reform of the individual man as being an evolution of some hidden nobleness, or an appeal to a perfect internal light or law, together with what may be called the worship of genius, the habit of nourishing all hope on the manifestation of "the divine," by gifted individuals. We care not how this last remarkable characteristic of the time be defined; to us its connection with pantheism, and more or less close dependence on the teaching of that of Germany, seem plain, but it is enough that we discern in it an influence definably antagonistic to the spirit of Christianity.

The great point to be established against pantheism, and

that from which all else follows, is the separate existence of a Divine Being. We shall glance at the evidence of this in one of its principal departments-a department in which, we think, there is important work to be done-that of conscience.

There has appeared, in a recent theological work, what we must be bold to call a singularly shallow and inaccurate critieism of Butler's doctrine of conscience. It has been spoken of as depending on "probable" evidence, and certain problems which it enables us to solve are alluded to as momentous or insuperable difficulties. The former of these assertions seems to us plainly to amount to an absolute abandonment of what Butler has done, to a reduction of it to a nonentity or a guess. As Mackintosh distinctly asserts, and as might be shown by overpowering evidence, his argument is based on the "unassailable" ground of consciousness-on that evidence which is the strongest we can obtain. Even the author of the Dissertation, however, has fallen into palpable error in treating of Butler; and we must quote the following clauses from him, both to expose their inaccuracy and to indicate wherein consist that definiteness and that precision which the author to whom we first referred desiderates in Butler's masterly demonstration:-"The most palpable defect of Butler's scheme is, that it affords no answer to the question, 'What is the distinguishing quality common to all right actions?' If it were answered, 'Their criterion is, that they are approved and commanded by conscience,' the answerer would find that he was involved in a vicious circle; for conscience itself could be no otherwise defined than as the faculty which approves and commands right actions."

Let us hear Butler:- "That your conscience approves of and attests to such a course of action, is itself alone an obliga, tion. Conscience does not only offer itself to show us the way

we should walk in, but it likewise carries its own authority with it, that it is our natural guide," &c.

This is quite sufficient. The supposed circle of Mackintosh is at once broken. To the question, What is the distinguishing quality common to all right actions? our answer is explicit: The distinguishing quality is, that they are approved and commanded by conscience; and, we add, the word "right" is that by which, in common speech, the common consciousness recognizes them to be thus approved and commanded. To the question, What, then, is conscience? we answer, Not a faculty which approves and commands right actions, as if they were right before, and were enforced for some outlying reason, but one which claims a power, whether original or derived, to set apart certain actions, and stamping them with its approval, constitute them right.

In one sentence, we think, we can sum up what Butler has done in this all-important matter. His doctrine simply is, that, by the constitution of the human mind, the essential characteristic of conscience is its power supreme among the faculties to adjudicate on actions; that the man who calmly interrogates consciousness, finds its declaration explicit, to the effect that refusal to obey the dictate of conscience is a denial of his nature.

Does this imply that man, by obeying conscience, becomes infallible? On no conceivable hypothesis. It is right, in a matter of inductive reasoning, to consult the logical faculty, and not the imagination; a man who substitutes the fantastic limning of the latter, beautiful indeed in its place and time, for the substantial chain-work of the former, outrages his nature. But do we therefore say that the understanding errs not in the search for truth? or do we consider the fact that it does often and grievously fail, an argument for discarding it

from its office, and giving the place to some other faculty? Precisely so is it with conscience. The theory of its legiti mate supremacy asserts not that it does not err; but it affirms that, in all circumstances, it is the faculty to decide on duty. We hold this precisely with the same degree of tenacity with which we hold the conviction that, though reason may err, intellectual skepticism is intellectual suicide: conscience may not be infallible, but rejection of its authority is moral skepticism, that is, moral death. Butler shows the highest point on which man can stand, in order, with his unaided powers, to see God; but can we for a moment allege, that the author of the Analogy did not perceive the fact that this is but climbing to the top of a ruined tower, and that, though from its head we can see farther than from the plain below, the only hope for man is, that, gazing thence, he may see the dawning of the Sun of Righteousness?

The above is, strictly speaking, all that Butler has done. The distinct and verbal testimony he bears to the fact that conscience naturally refers to God, is in itself of great value; but it is of the nature of a testimony, not a proof; it has all the weight that the deliverance of the individual consciousness of one of the clearest and strongest thinkers that ever lived must be allowed to possess, but this is very far from equivalent to a demonstrative dictum of the universal consciousness. Morality he demonstrated: to godliness he bore witness.

The numerous expressions of agreement with Butler in his belief that conscience naturally spoke from God, can not be considered, more than his own, as constituting any such proof of the point as he offers for the supremacy of the moral faculty. Dr. Chalmers, perhaps the ablest of the writers who have thus recorded their assent, does, to an important extent, suggest the mode and indicate the materials of this proof; his

reference to the phenomena of remorse and self-complacency is a very valuable hint; and his assertion of the fact that conscience points to the being of God as "with the speed of lightning," shows at least what has to be proved; but even he makes no stated attempt to connect the truth he asserts with the consciousness of the race, and thus vindicate for it a place in that fortress whose assailing is the assailing of the possi bility of truth. Perhaps the greatest achievement now possible in ethics is to connect indissolubly with the universal consciousness the fact that the moral faculty speaks by a delegated authority.

We shall not pretend here to draw out the demonstration which we believe to be possible. We shall merely offer two considerations, without fully unfolding either. We think that the second admits of being shown to be of itself conclusive.

I. The human consciousness, as revealing itself in history, has borne witness to the fact that it is natural for man not to regard the voice of conscience as final. We here point to no particular system of belief; we care not even though the name of the religion was pantheism. We point simply to that one fact, whose exhibition seems co-extensive with history, that the human race has not worshiped itself. There has ever been manifested an irresistible conviction that the phenomena of conscience were knit by a whole system of relations to somewhat beyond and external to the breast; that their meaning and efficacy were thus essentially affected. Did remorse cause the soul to writhe in hidden anguish? The hecatomb was straightway piled, the altar smoked: some external power believed capable, in what way soever, of sending forth a gentle wind to calm and cool the troubled spirit, was appealed to. Did a feeling of mild satisfaction breathe through the breast, in the consciousness of duty performed or noble

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