ized into the prospect of a coming judgment all-comprehending and final. Pre-existing means of manifestation were not only brought forward, they were employed for higher purposes than before; and even the fundamental truths of the new economy were themselves constantly placed in new lights and received additional verifications. The mercy which had been promised had been also and often experienced. In the highest sense men had been saved.

CHAPTER V.

THE ACTIVITY WHICH THE LAW OF DEVELOPMENT PRESUPPOSES, AND WHICH THE FAMILY PUTS IN MOTION.

Law of activity.

In the preceding chapter we have exemplified the fact of man's development during the antediluvian period; in the present, we propose to specify some of those principles of man's nature which that development appealed to or pre-supposed. In other words, the law of activity justifies the expectation that man "will be found to manifest all that he is calculated to exhibit of the Divine nature, by developing or working out his own nature."* Even a material creation, if devoid of regulated activity, could be no manifestation of an everliving and ever-acting God. Still more may activity be expected in that order of creatures whose distinction it is, that not only to them but by them the manifestation will be made. Such activity may be looked for in them, if only to help them to understand, by sympathy, the same property in the Divine nature. Accordingly, man has certain possibilities of active excellence stored up in him, by the voluntary employment of which he becomes an image, to himself and to others, of the Divine activity in creation and providence. These possibilities the family constitution tends to develop and to make actual.

* For the grounds of this law, see Pre-Adamite Earth, p. 61.

Pre-supposes Di

Man's individual activity pre-supposes a
He came to

vine instructions. World of objective conditions.*
find every part of his nature the center of innumerable
appeals. But in addition to this pre-constituted harmony
between man and nature, the very first movements of the
first Patriarch pre-supposed the possession of a certain
amount of material knowledge. "That man could not
have made himself is appealed to as a proof of the agency
of a Divine Creator; and that mankind could not in the
first instance have civilized themselves, is a proof, exactly
of the same kind, and of equal strength, of the agency of
a Divine. Instructor." Men are apt to imagine that the
advantages resulting from a course of conduct when it is
completed were the motives which led to it; and therefore
erroneously infer that every step of their civilization is the
legitimate result of a previously-digested plan. But of all
the truths developed by history, there are none more cer-
tain than these: first, that, with all man's freedom as an in-
dividual, yet in the great process of social civilization,
"effects are generally produced before the causes are per-
ceived; and that, with all man's talents for projects, his
work is often accomplished before the plan is devised." §
And, secondly, that not only has no savage family ever
been known to emerge from barbarism by its own unaided
exertion, but that the tendency of every tribe in such a
condition is to grow worse instead of better. The means
of amelioration must come to it from without-from a peo-
ple already civilized. Had the first man then been created

* Man Primeval, chap. vi.

† Ibid, pp. 177, 178. Archbishop Whateley's Political Economy. Lect. v.

§ Dr. A. Ferguson's Essay on Civil Society, section 1.

| Dr. W. C. Taylor's Natural History of Society, vol. i. chap. xiv.

and left in perfect ignorance, in perfect ignorance he would have remained; or, rather, in that ignorance he would have speedily perished. Even if he could have imagined what is meant by civilization, the prospect of the complicated means necessary to attain it, and of his own utter helplessness in devising them, could have produced but one effect— that of annihilating hopelessness. But the very conception itself-even the consciousness of the want of improvement -pre-supposes an amount of acquired knowledge; for entire barbarism is unconscious of the want, and even resists the first attempts to impart it.

In harmony with these views, we have found the first father of the species Divinely put in possession, at the beginning, of a certain stock of civilizing knowledge. The great Parent himself gave man's activity the first impulse, and the right direction; indicating to him the fields in which his offspring might most profitably employ their energies. Doubtless, the knowledge imparted was of a kind not to supersede but to quicken the exercise of his It was a pound likely to "gain ten pounds

own powers.

more."

Family activity

But in vain would man have possessed voluntary. this knowledge as the means of self-development, unless the constitution of the family had been of a nature to leave his activity voluntary. Every one acquainted with human nature knows that the activity compelled by a force from without tends to cease the moment that force is removed; and this, notwithstanding many considerations of self-interest, may combine with that force to induce the continuance of the activity. Hence, it is always the wisdom of those in authority to encourage effort, to fan emulation, and to make activity voluntary. Here, in

the first family, no external force existed even to compel it. Love was the mainspring of every movement; in love every effort was intended to find its ample reward.

Derives its vol

Jove.

And

The family constitution secures the activity untariness from of its members by deriving this voluntariness from the powerful motives of gratitude and love. Love carries the mind beyond itself; and is the sense of its emotional relation to another as its proper object. That affection, which is the first great stimulus of the young of both sexes, is no sooner gratified in the attainment of its object than it turns its attention to the pleasant task of enhancing the happiness of that object. The new pursuit may often apparently involve the comparative disregard of the object beloved; but it is only because enlightened affection thinks of the future as well as of the present, and is prepared to sacrifice the pleasure of the passing moment, as the husbandman appears to cast away the precious seed, only that he may afterward reap a plentiful harvest. most wisely and benevolently is it ordered, that the affection should operate with the greater force for encountering difficulties; that its ardor increases in proportion as it benefits and renders its object happy; and that the longer it continues, the mutual exercises of generosity which are brought to light, and the joint trials of fortitude which are involved, all tend to bring over the best passions of the mind upon its side. Now, from the moment the social constitution was founded, in the union of our first parents, this mighty spring of activity began to uncoil and expand, requiring an ever-enlarging sphere for its operation. Who can imagine them, as at first, alone in the world, without picturing their efforts for each other's happiness? How would a sense of their mutual dependence endear