THE THEOLOGICAL PERIOD.

133 stage, consists principally in transferring this spontaneous unity, more or less fortunately, into all subjects which may present themselves to his nascent attention. It is the highest proof of his philosophical maturity when he can, at length, apply the study of external nature to his own. When I laid this down as the basis of biological philosophy, I intimated the extreme rarity of such an attainment. At the outset, under the inverse process, the universe is always subordinated to Man, in speculative as well as in active respects. We shall not have attained a truly rational position till we can reconcile these two great philosophical views, at present antagonistic, but admitting of being made mutually complementary, and, in my opinion, prepared for being so, from this time forward. Such a harmony is even now barely conceivable in the brightest insight of philosophical genius, and there could have been no choice between the two courses in the earliest days of human development. The starting-point must have been that which alone was naturally possible. This was the spontaneous origin of the theological philosophy, the elementary spirit of which consists in explaining the intimate nature of phenomena, and their mode of production, and in likening them, as much as possible, to the acts of human will, through our primary tendency to regard all beings as living a life analogous to our own, and often superior, from their greater habitual energy. This procedure is so eminently exclusive, that men are unable to emancipate themselves from it, even in the most advanced stages of evolution, except by abandoning altogether these inaccessible researches, and restricting themselves to the study of the laws of phenomena, apart from their causes. Whenever, at this day, the human mind attempts to pass these inevitable limits, it involuntarily falls again into the primary errors, even in regard to the simplest phenomena, because it recurs to an aim and point of view essentially analogous, in attributing the production of phenomena to special volitions, internal, or more or less external. One case presents itself as an example, of the simplest scientific character, -that of the memorable philosophical error of the illustrious Malebranche in regard to the explanation of the mathematical laws of the elementary collision of solid bodies. If such a mind, in such an age, could explain such a theory in no other way than by an express recurrence to the continuous activity of a direct and special providence, we cannot doubt the tendency of our reason towards a radically theological philosophy whenever we attempt to penetrate, on any ground whatever, the intimate nature of phenomena.

This inevitableness of the theological philosophy is its most radical property, and the first cause of its long ascendency. We have seen before that it was necessary, as the only possible beginning of our intellectual evolution; for the facts which must form the basis

Intellectual influence of the Theological philosophy.

of a positive theory could not be collected to any purpose with

out some preliminary theory which should guide their collection. Our understanding cannot act without some doctrine, false or true, vague or precise, which may concentrate and stimulate its efforts, and afford ground for enough speculative continuity to sustain our mental activity. Our meteorological observations, as we call them, show us how useless may be vast compilations of facts, and how really unmeaning, while we are destitute of any theory whatever. Those who expect that the theory will be suggested by the facts, do not understand what is the course necessarily pursued by the human mind, which has achieved all real results by the only effectual method,—of anticipating scientific observations by some conception (hypothetical in the first instance) of the corresponding phenomena. Such a necessity has already been shown to be especially marked in the case of social speculations, not only from their complexity, but from the peculiarity that a long preparatory development of the human mind and of society constitutes the phenomena of the case, independently of all preparation of observers, and all accumulation of observations. It may be worth observing, that all the partial verifications of this fundamental proposition that we meet with in the different sciences confirm each other, on account of our tendency to unity of method and homogeneousness of doctrine, which would incline us to extend the theological philosophy from one class of speculations to another, even if we should not so treat each one of them separately.

The original and indispensable office of the theological philosophy is then to lead forth the human mind from the vicious circle in which it was confined by the two necessities of observing first, in order to form conceptions, and of forming theories first, in order to observe. The theological philosophy afforded an issue by likening all phenomena whatever to human acts; directly, in the first instance, by supposing all bodies to have a life more or less like our own, and indirectly afterwards, by means of the more durable and suggestive hypothesis which adds to the visible system of things an invisible world, peopled by superhuman agents, who occasion all phenomena by their action on matter, otherwise inert. The second stage is especially suitable to the human mind which begins to feel its difficulties and its needs; for every new phenomenon is accounted for by the supposition of a fresh volition in the ideal agent concerned, or, at most, by the easy creation of a new agent. However futile these speculations may now appear, we must remember that, in all times and everywhere, they have awakened human thought by offering to it the only material which it could at first accept. Besides that there was no choice, the infant reason can be interested by nothing but sublime solutions, • obtained without any deep and sustained conflict of thought. We, at this day, find ourselves able, after suitable training, to devote ourselves to the study of the laws of phenomena, without heed to

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their first and final causes: but still we detect ourselves occasionally yielding to the infantine curiosity which pretends to a power of knowing the origin and the end of all things. But such severity of reason as we are capable of has become attainable only since the accumulation of our knowledge has yielded us a rational hope of finally discovering the natural laws that were altogether out of reach, in the early states of the human mind; and the only alternative from total inactivity was, in those days, in the pursuit of the inaccessible subjects which are represented by the theological philosophy. The moral and social grounds of this philosophy were as necessary as the intellectual. Its moral influence was to inspire Man with confidence enough for action, by animating him with a sense of a position of supremacy. There is something astonishing in the contrast between the actual powers of Man in an infant state and the indefinite control which he aspires to exercise over external nature; just as there is in his expectation of understanding matters which are inaccessible to reason. The practical and the speculative expectation alike belong to the theological philosophy. Supposing all phenomena to be regulated by superhuman will, Man may hope to modify the universe by his desires; not by his personal resources, but by the access which he believes himself to have to the imaginary beings whose power is unlimited: whereas, if he was aware from the beginning that the universe is subject to invariable laws, the certainty that he could no more influence than understand them would so discourage him that he would remain. for ever in his original apathy, intellectual and moral. We find ourselves able to dispense with supernatural aid in our difficulties and sufferings, in proportion as we obtain a gradual control over nature by a knowledge of her laws: but the early races of men were in an opposite condition. They could obtain confidence, and therefore courage, only from above, and through the illusion of an illimitable power residing there, which could, on any occasion, afford them irresistible aid. I am not referring now to any hope of a future life. We shall see presently that it was not till a much later period that that hope exercised any important social influence and even in more recent times, we shall find that the effect of the religious spirit on the conduct of human life proceeds much more from belief in actual and special immediate aid than from the uniform perspective of a remote future existence. This seems to me the leading aspect of the remarkable state which is produced in the human brain by the important intellectual and moral phenomenon of prayer; the admirable properties of which, when it has attained its full physiological efficacy, are very manifest in the earliest stage of progress. After a long decline of the religious spirit, the notion of miracle was naturally formed, to characterize · the events which had become exceptional, and were attributed to divine intervention: but the very conception shows that the general

principle of natural laws had become familiar, and even preponderant, because the only sense of miracle was a transient suspension of natural laws. While the theological philosophy was all in all, there were no miracles, because everything was equally marvellous, as we see by the artless descriptions of ancient poetry, in which the commonest incidents are mixed up with the most monstrous prodigies, and undergo analogous explanations. Minerva intervenes to pick up the whip of a warrior in military games, as well as to protect him against a whole army: and in our own time, the devotee is as importunate in praying for his smallest personal convenience as for the largest human interests. In all ages, the priest has been more occupied with the solicitations of his flock about immediate favours of Providence than with their care for their eternal state. However this may be, we see that it is a radical property of the theological philosophy to be the sole support and stimulus of Man's moral courage, as well as the awakener and director of his intellectual activity. To this we must add, as another attraction of Man to this philosophy, that the affective influence comes in to fortify the speculative. Feeble as are the intellectual organs, relatively considered, the attractive moral perspective of an unbounded power of modifying the universe, by the aid of supernatural protectors, must have been most important in exciting mental action. In our advanced state of scientific progress, we can conceive of the perpetual pursuit of knowledge for the sake of the satisfaction of intellectual activity, joined to the tranquil pleasure which arises from the discovery of truth: yet it is doubtful whether such natural stimulus as this would always suffice without collateral instigations of glory, of ambition, or of lower and stronger passions, except in the case of a very few lofty minds; and with them, only after training in the requisite habits. And nothing of this kind can be supposed possible in the early days, when the intellect is torpid and feeble, and scarcely accessible to the strongest stimulus; nor yet afterwards, when science is so far advanced as to have attained some speculative success. In the working out of such speculation, the mental activity can be sustained by nothing short of the fictions of the theological philosophy about the supremacy of man and his unbounded empire over external nature; as we have seen in regard to astrology and alchemy. In our own time, when there are enlightened men who hold such delusions in regard to social speculations alone, we see how irrationally they expect to modify at will the whole course of political phenomena, in which they could not take any adequate scientific interest without such an expectation. What we see of the influence of this view in maintaining the old polities may give us some faint idea of its power when it pervaded every part of the intellectual system, and illusion beset the reason of Man, whichever way he turned. Such then was

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the moral operation of the theological philosophy-stimulating Man's active energy by the offer, in the midst of the troubles of his infantine state, of absolute empire over the external world, as the prize of his speculative efforts.

Social influ

ences of the

Theological philosophy.

The social evidences under this head will be fully treated in the following chapters, so that we may dismiss them now with a very short notice, important as they are; and the more easily, because this class of evidences is the most indisputable of the three. There are two views which must be considered, in relation to the high social office of the theological philosophy: first, its function in organizing society; and next, its provision for the permanent existence of a speculative class.-As to the first, we must perceive that the formation of any society, worthy to be so called, supposes a system of common opinions, such as may restrain individual eccentricity; and such an influence, if needful now, when men are connected together by such a concurrence of obligations as high civilization introduces, must be absolutely indispensable in the infancy of society, when families adhere to each other so feebly, by means of relations as precarious as they are defective. No concurrence of interests, nor even sympathy in sentiment, can give durability to the smallest society, if there be not intellectual unanimity enough to obviate or correct such discordance as must inevitably arise. It has been shown that, indolent as our intellectual faculties are in comparison with the others, reason must rule, not domestic but social, and yet more political life: for through it alone can there be any organization of that reaction of society on the individual which appoints the function of government, and absolutely requires a system of common opinions about nature and Man. Such a system, then, is a political necessity; and especially in the infancy of society. But, on the other hand, we must admit that the human mind, having thus furnished a basis for social organization, must depend for its further development on society itself, whose expansion is really inseparable from that of human intelligence. Here we see that society is in a vicious circle in a political, as well as a logical view, through the opposition of two equal necessities; and here, again, the only possible issue is afforded by the theological philosophy. It directs the first social organization, as it first forms a system of common opinions, and by forming such a system. Because we see it now in such a state of decomposition that its advocates lose sight of the unity of opinions that it once secured, and are themselves involved in intellectual discordance, we must not forget how, in those days of vigour by which it must be judged, it established an intellectual communion which constituted its most remarkable political function. The police consideration of a future life is wrongly attributed to this period of human society. It arose long after, and was of very inferior importance to the