§ III.—CHAPTER II.

FREEDOM—DIVINE PERSONALITY.

THE fact which demands our consideration in this chapter is of the utmost importance, not only in respect of the theistic meaning which still remains to be drawn from it, but as constituting, moreover, the real foundation of our whole evidence. For already, in our preliminary chapters, its reality was presupposed, and the weight of our initiative conclusion made to rest upon it. It is, therefore, eminently the theistic fact round which, as their rational nucleus, all the others gather.

The exact character of the fact is to be carefully kept in view. It is of this sort: Is man’s rational being essentially distinct from nature? Does it constitute a source of activity, in a sense altogether unique and contradistinguished from any other movements we perceive in nature? While the latter, through all its range, is a mere series of sequences, of arrangements, and re-arrangements, in the same unbroken flow, is there in man something wholly different, which cannot be resolved into any mere play of sequences, but 255constitutes a source of power? Is there, in short, a soul in man? This seems to us the last and simplest reduction of the question. According to the affirmative view of this question, mind, in its full meaning, is not only something specifically different in its manifestations from matter, but something in its root and character essentially contradistinguished from matter. In the various forms, indeed, in which it expresses itself, or becomes phenomenal, it obeys the same law of sequences which obtains among all other phenomena; but in its spring and source it wholly evades this merely natural law, and refuses to be bound by it. It is only in this apprehension of mind that we found that fact of efficiency with which we set out, and without which our argument has no rational basis whereon to rest.

This fact of a free rational activity, or soul in man, is implied in every form of spiritual philosophy, and appears to constitute the essential basis of all theology. It has, however, beyond doubt, been greatly obscured by certain views which have long held sway, both in philosophy and in theology. These views have been all the more powerful that they express so far an undoubted truth, and have been supposed to bear with a peculiar effect upon the confirmation of certain Christian doctrines. In so far as they can be held consistently with our fundamental position—and we cannot imagine any Christian necessitarian denying that position—we have, of course, no controversy with such views. It must at the same time be observed, and deserves to be carefully considered in such a discussion as the present, that whatever consistency there may be between a true doctrine of necessity, 256and that assertion of a free rational activity in man which is the basis of our argument, and however that doctrine may be authorised by great names, it is yet in no sense a Christian doctrine; and that those truths of Scripture, in whose defence it has been supposed to be triumphantly wielded, are wholly independent of any logical strength thence derived, as they had, in fact, assumed their place in the great scheme of Protestant belief long before any of those formal enunciations of the doctrine of necessity, to which so much weight has been attributed.

The best way of clearing up the bearing of such views upon our position will be by a brief re-statement and examination of it. We shall approach it from facts formerly reached. Already, in the mere presence of sentient and even organic life, we found, in some sense, a centre of action. Every such existence develops itself from within. But this development is, in such cases, bound to an immutable necessity of nature. It is throughout physically conditioned. The evolution of self is, on this lower platform of life, a mere determination of natural causes. The question before us is one which concerns the character of this self-evolution in man. Is it in him nothing more than it is in the lower animals—the mere play of nature, “the mere result of physical succession;” or is it something wholly peculiar, and, if not independent of nature, yet by no means subject to it? Do we find, in short, within us not merely a power of action, under the impulse of physical causes, but a power of action which owns no law ab extra, but is what we call free? That we have some such power of free action, not merely a 257feeling of self, which would seem to be the condition of all mental existence, but a feeling of what has been called self-determination or choice, cannot admit of dispute. Every one must allow that he has such a power of doing what he will. All language and all social practice imply so much.

But this, it is said, is little to the point: for while it is admitted that man seems to act freely—nay, that, in a certain sense, he does so act—it is nevertheless true that his action always follows the strongest motive, just as effect follows cause. Inasmuch as he cannot act without motive, the motive felt by him to be the strongest at the time, and under which he does act, is the cause of his action. His rational activity analysed is found to be everywhere encompassed by a subtle atmosphere of motives strictly and rigorously conditioning it. All the particular facts of his mental life are thus only links in a great chain of necessity, although he may not feel them to be so. The law of cause and effect obtains among them, and binds them all, no less surely than it is found to regulate and control all other facts. In these views there is an amount of truth which none now dispute, however they may object to the language in which it is sometimes expressed. It is undeniable that man’s intellectual and moral being, in all its most subtle and complex manifestations, shows the same order that we everywhere discover in nature. It was our special aim, in previous chapters, to expose, in some degree, this order. If this, therefore, be all that is anywhere meant by the doctrine of necessity, that doctrine must be held as expressive of an important truth. But something far more than this is maintained by most 258necessitarians, and seems to be logically implied in the doctrine. They mean not only to assert that man’s rational activity displays itself under the same law of cause and effect as the course of nature does, but that there is really nothing more in it than this display. Volition goes forth under motive; motive, again, is dependent on organisation, or at least on some external cause; and this is all. The whole question plainly lies in this higher region. What constitutes motive? What is the spring of the order which is universally admitted to obtain among the facts of man’s spiritual being, no less than among all other facts? Is that spring in nature, and bound to its immutable sequences? or is it deep in the central being of the man himself, and essentially separated from nature? The materialistic necessitarian holds as his cardinal principle the former of these views. He knows nothing beyond the mere series of phenomena which collectively he may call Mind. Any spiritual unit or soul beneath the multiplicity, and therein expressing itself, while yet essentially distinguished from it, has no place in his system; and quite consistently so. The theological necessitarian of course shrinks from this conclusion, but his language has not unfrequently been such as to bear it out. Carrying up with an iron hand the phenomenal law of cause and effect into the region of spiritual life, he may have seemed to gain a temporary triumph over an adversary; but he has done so too often at the risk of total peril to his faith, and to the very ground and condition of all religion.

The true advocate of liberty, on the other hand, simply maintains that in the last resource the mind or soul is 259unconditioned by any natural cause. The self-conscious reason, or ego, is incompressible by the law of phenomena. It only is, and lives in opposition to that law. The spring of the soul’s activity is ever within the soul. It displays itself, no doubt, serially, in regular obedience to the strongest motive; but the strength of the motive comes from within, from the soul’s own preference; otherwise it would be truly no motive, but would for ever remain a mere inducement or solicitation presenting itself to the mind. It is always the mind’s own act that changes a mere inducement into a motive, and leads to action. According to the well-known pithy saying of Coleridge, “it is not the motive makes the man, but the man the motive.”

The liberty thus defined, it may deserve to be remarked, is entirely different from the old imagination of a liberty of indifference. This latter represented the mind, as it were, in equilibrio, till it put forth the power of choice among the motives bearing upon it. It placed the soul, as it were, on one side, and motives on the other, and pretended to give an explanation of the mode of action between the two. The true theory of liberty makes no such pretensions; it knows nothing of the soul save as active. An abstract potentiality, which of its own sovereignty keeps itself apart from motives, or yields to them at pleasure, is in no respect recognised by it. It simply contends, that in every case of actual human conduct the motive power is from within the soul itself, and not in any respect physically conditioned. It simply says that man is free to act, but it does not pretend for a moment to explain the mode of his freedom. This it so little does 260that it acknowledges the fact of human freedom to be in its very character inexplicable.

This character of mystery—of irresolvability, under the great inductive law of cause and effect—comprises, in truth, all that can be argumentatively said against the doctrine of liberty. The fact will not come within the conditions of our logical faculty, and must therefore be repelled. But this is a thoroughly vicious mode of argument: for, by the very supposition, the fact transcends these conditions; and to reject it on this account is simply to beg the whole question. If this fact be at all, it is primary and constitutive, and therefore not to be reasoned to, but from. It stands at the head of our rational nature as its source. And as such a source—as the inherent activity whence all our mental modes are born—the fountain whence they flow—the me, of which they are the varied manifestations—it defies the application of that inductive law under which they arise, and for the very reason that it is what it is—not any one of these modes, but the root of them all—not any of the manifold sides of consciousness, but the unity in which all its sides centre. In this view it is not only not wonderful that we cannot understand freedom, but the fact is such in its very idea that it is impossible we ever can understand it, transcending as it necessarily does that logical power of which it is the condition. Thus apprehended in its primitive distinction, it leaves us no alternative but to abide by it in its necessary incomprehensibility. It is there—we are bound to recognise it. But we have no claim to comprehend it, for (as logicians) we do not contain it—it contains us. Whatever we are in our mental and practical 261character is just the expression of this mysterious personality, to which all our activity leads back, and from which it all flows.

It is as the irresistible testimony of consciousness that this fact forces acceptance. It attests its reality within us, and we cannot get quit of it under whatever ingenuity of explanation. On this ground the advocate of liberty has an advantage which is wholly indisputable; for that we feel ourselves to be free, none can truly deny. This feeling—our deepest and most ineradicable consciousness—the doctrine of necessity cannot accept as a fact; or, if it does, we have no dispute with it; only we do not see how it can consistently maintain itself if it does. For the feeling cannot represent a reality, and yet man’s spiritual, no less than his material being, be held as naturally determined. In such a case the feeling can only be an illusion, and man a bondman, wholly a creature of nature, howsoever he may seem every moment to create a circle of free activity around him. But if consciousness be thus held false, man is cast adrift on an ocean of utter uncertainty. Truth becomes for him a mere dream, if the voice within him be held incompetent to give it valid utterance.

The deliverance of consciousness is, on the contrary, held by the advocate of freedom to be at once decisive and ultimate on the point. It is not, in his view, any mere dim experience which disappears under analysis, but a truth which makes itself good under whatever logical assaults. The alternative is simply one of fact. The human consciousness either tells the truth absolutely, unheeding how it may clash with some other truth in the dim-lighted chamber of 262the logical understanding, or it must be admitted to be false. No saving clauses of ingenious explanation will avail. Man is either free really, or he is not free. There is in him a centre of action wholly peculiar, a naturally undetermined source of activity, otherwise his deepest experience belies itself, and his moral nature is a devout imagination. There is nothing but the recognition of such a free agency in man, however mysterious and unaccountable, that can preserve to him faith in himself, or the perilous dignity of responsibility among the creatures of earth. If he has not in a true sense such a power of action springing from within his own spiritual being, his consciousness deceives him, and he is and can be nothing else than a mere irresponsible link in the chain of phenomena.

As the only rational means of escape from such a conclusion, consciousness must be held in its attestation of freedom to express a reality, to declare a truth, admitting of no exception, however ingeniously represented. Man must be recognised as free in a sense quite peculiar, separating him from all other earthly creatures. While owning, in the actual course of his thought and volition, the great phenomenal law of cause and effect, there must be admitted to be in him at the same time a mysterious centre of personality—nothing else than the soul, which withdraws itself from this law, and asserts itself against it.

What, then, is the bearing of this fact on our subject? As we previously said, it is the most vital for our purpose in our whole range of inquiry; but just corresponding with its peculiar depth and importance is the difficulty of fully seizing and expressing its significance. We have already seen 263in what respect it lies at the root of our inductive evidence as the source of our idea of cause. The strange relation of affinity and yet conflict which thus emerges between the principles of personality and causality were an interesting subject of consideration, but cannot occupy us here.¹⁴²¹⁴²   See Note at the end of the chapter. We have at present simply to do with the direct import of the fact of personality in the enlargement of our theistic evidence. In tracing back our mental life, we have this fact as the last word for reason. The Me asserts itself as an inscrutable reality, beyond which we cannot go in the way of natural explanation. It refuses obstinately to be related to any higher fact, as a natural sequence. But have we not thus reached a startling conclusion? If the human ego be thus as it so clearly pronounces itself to be, a cause in the highest and indeed only true sense—viz. a naturally undetermined source of activity—is it not thereby, in its very character, its own author? If undetermined, is it not necessarily independent?

So far is this from being the case, that we here approach the very peculiarity of the theistic meaning which this prime fact yields us; for, in the very act of expressing itself, it is found to be its essential characteristic, at the same time, to express Another. It only realises itself in Another. The more we sink back into the depths of consciousness, and the more vivid force and reality with which we seize our personal being, as something unconditioned by nature, and rising above it, the more directly and immediately do we at the same time apprehend ourselves as relative and dependent. The more we become self-conscious, the more do we feel, at the same time, that the ground of 264our existence is not in ourselves, but in Another and a Higher. Our personality, in asserting itself to be distinct from nature, yet with equal force asserts itself to be derived, or, in other language, to take its rise in a Principle above nature. The human self, in a word, irresistibly suggests a divine Self; the limited cause, an absolutely original and unlimited Cause.

It is true that we thus, in the last analysis, bring into special prominence the logical incomprehensibility which meets us in the testimony of consciousness. We realise ourselves as free, and yet dependent. Nay, in our very freedom we at the same time find our dependency. The more we sink into ourselves, the more do we feel ourselves to rest on a Higher. Just as we accept the testimony of consciousness in giving us liberty—the soul’s efficiency for its own acts—so do we accept its testimony in giving a relation to this efficiency in the All-efficient. Let it be that we cannot construe to ourselves this relation intelligibly—cannot compass it in thought—this is no valid ground for rejecting either term of it. We can only do so by trampling upon consciousness, and exposing ourselves to the whole peril of scepticism. The facts must be accepted as given, however impossible it may be for us to join them logically together; and for this obvious reason, which, if it does not give satisfaction, ought yet to give resignation, that our mere capacity of thought cannot, in the nature of the case, be the measure of truth here nor anywhere. Great master in its own sphere (in the evolution and determination of all the forms of science), it must yet be content to be the minister of reality.

It is requisite to observe the full import of our conclusion. Our own personality not only gives another personality, but another which is at the same time absolute. It is, in fact, the special rational intuition of the absolute in the relative—the infinite in the finite—which carries us beyond the Self within, to a Self without and above us. How vital, in a theistic sense, this intuition is, must therefore be obvious. But it is not our aim at present to insist upon the reality of the infinite which thus dawns upon us. This reality will afterwards engage us separately. We would now rather simply fix attention on the fact of Divine personality, so vividly brought before us.

Of all the facts of Theism this may be said to be the most fundamental, as it is that in which all the others inhere, and find their life. It is a fact which already we had virtually found in the theistic conclusion which we established in our first section. For an intelligent First Cause, according to our mode of reaching and authenticating the idea, could only be a living Personality. This great truth of the Divine Personality, however, comes before us here with intuitive brightness. It reveals itself as the clear reflection—the abglanz, as the Germans expressively term it—of our own personality.¹⁴³¹⁴³   Those who are familiar with the elaborate treatise of Dr Julius Müller on the Christian Doctrine of Sin, may recognise a similarity between the process of theistic reasoning in this chapter, and that contained in the second chapter of the first book of that treatise, p. 79, vol. i. et seq. The writer gratefully acknowledges his obligations to Dr Müller here and elsewhere. It will be seen, at the same time, that his own course of argument, in the present case, is sufficiently distinctive. The Thou of our prayers rises in solemn reality against our own most hidden self-consciousness. Our 266deepest life centres in Another, in whom alone “we live, and move, and have our being.” In comparison with every other apprehension of God this apprehension of Him is immediate and decisive. We rejoice to trace Him also in nature; we gladden to greet His presence in every bursting flower, in every curious organism, in the heavens and in the earth. But while we only search in nature, we search as with veiled gaze, “if haply we might feel after Him, and find Him.” It is only in the depths of self-reflection—within its most secret chambers—that we become conscious of His immediate presence, and know that He is “not far from every one of us.”

NOTE.

There is a relation of the whole subject arising out of this chapter, which can scarcely fail to suggest itself to the speculative reader, and which may claim from us a passing notice, in case it should be supposed that we have overlooked it. The basis of our preliminary reasoning, it will be remembered, was the rational necessity that compelled us to find a cause at the head of nature. We cannot conceive a mere endless series of relative phenomena. We must have a cause or origin of the series; or, in other words, according to our whole view, an efficient Agent or Mind. Yet it is certainly true, as we have freely admitted in this chapter, that we cannot compass in thought, or conceive, in this lower sense, such an efficient agent. The argument seems to run up into a contradiction or antagonism of inconceivabilities. And if we confine ourselves to the sphere of mere thought or logical comprehension, there seems to be no escape from the contradiction. We are bandied about from one horn of the logical dilemma to another, in a hopeless state of confusion and perplexity. Let the speculative reader, who desires to see the contradiction which thus arises fully exposed, and in its bearing, too, on the subject of this chapter, consult Sir W. Hamilton’s Discussions, Appendix, p. 591 et seq.

Sir William’s mode of escape from the difficulty we cannot accept. The principle of causality he considers to be the mere issue of our intellectual impotency to conceive anything save as related in time. The principle of personality or liberty is with him equally the fruit of a similar impotency to conceive an infinite series of relations. Both, therefore, being mere impotencies of human thought, their mutual contradiction does not necessarily imply the falsehood of either.

The seeming contradiction vanishes with us in a different, and, as we think, more satisfactory way. Causality and personality have, in our view, one and the same root, which, from the first, is found in a sphere beyond logic. So far from being the mere issue of opposing negations, as Sir William Hamilton makes them, both principles take their rise in the most living reality of existence, the ego. That every effect must have a cause, means simply that everything implies as its source a living agent or mind; and this living agent or mind is simply a personality. We cannot conceive things save as the production of such a mind. Our reason demands such a mind. The inconceivability here is a complete rational inconceivability. There is no escape from it. And if it be also true that we cannot logically conceive, comprehend, or contain in thought such a mind, yet there is every difference between this and the inconceivability in the former case. This is merely negative, springing out of the necessary limitations of human thought. The former is not only negative, but issues out of a positive demand of reason on the other side. It would be more correct, in fact, to restrict the use of the term inconceivable to the former case: for although we cannot think, or construe to ourselves logically, an efficient cause or mind, such a cause is so far from being inconceivable to reason that reason expressly demands and affirms it. The reality of such a higher power of reason, which inseparably blends with faith, and is the organ of the unconditioned and insensible (see subsequent chapter), is implied in our whole course of reasoning. The truths revealed in this higher reason are not, properly speaking, inconceivable: they are only incomprehensible. The intellect cannot compass them; and this is of their very nature, because they are what they are—primary and not derivative.