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Leader (1850-1860), 24th August 1850, Edition Country of 1, Page 14, tfftltPtt {fFyTTlTttrT I VV-pvu VL/uuutU*

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      Social Reform. Epistolje Obscurorttm: Vi...

      so different , as to indicate for it a spontaneous and instinctive nature . To the existence of a Divine Being it points by the force of what appears to be a revelation to man through his instincts . We conceive the existence of something beyond what we see , hear , or feel around us ; something besides it , different from it , but not alien to it ; greater , but not including the universe ; having some power over it . Taking this instinct in its most general and simple form , it is a vague sense of an entity compared to which all that we can

      recognize with our senses is partial , subject , and transitory . The idea inspires a sense of awe but trust ; we connect it with the instincts of piety and conscience . At first , we can scarcely approach to more definite ideas without derogating from the vastness and sublimity of that vague idea . In our earliest efforts to getat some conception more specific , while we impute to that entity existence , we cannot dissociate the idea of distinctness from that of organic life or tangibility . We ascribe to it powers , and confound those powers with natural agencies . We

      impuf e to it the most exalted attributes , ' and cannot enlarge our conception of attributes beyond human virtues—the correlatives of human finitude and weakness . We apply to it the operations of our reason , and that , following our senses only part away—for the senses have a greater scope than the reason—we fall back upon the material idea of Pantheism . On the first effort to move beyond the rudimentary impulse , we can scarcely stir a step without derogating from the vastness , nor without taking in some kind of assumption .

      But I want to escape from this fettering thraldom of assumption , which , like a tangled briar , arrests the struggling steps of thought , and throws it down . I look around me to see what I can see and hear in the broad expanse of nature ; I seek if there is an answer to the impulse within me , but I look passively for what I see and hear without impatience to construe it , or to give it a humanized

      shape . I find that the impulse in me is answered , in varying dialects , by the same impulse in all mankind . I find it uncontradicted , excejjt by assumptions . I find it , indeed , laden and smothered by the mass of dogmatic fictions of which "Religion" is built in so many forms ; but the primary impulse is still the same . Even the " philosopher , " who denies Religion , speaks with bated breath against the instinct that he feels . I see that as mankind

      becomes more and more wise , those fictions lose their force ; they become fewer , simpler , and in some degree less oppugnantto the simple impulse . The idol worship of the savage , whose God is a stock with no intelligence but bad passions , expands into the pantheism of modern science . Men note the " harmony of the sciences , " or rather the harmony of those natural powers which come within the ken of the sciences ; and they find that every natural power tends to produce beauty and goodness . The uniformity of effect suggests unity of cause , and , looking at the universe that expands into unity before their view , they jump to the conviction that that is God—that the God is " the

      All . " My slower mind will not move so fast . I still hear the voice of the instinctive revelation , which tells me that there is a great region of the unknown , greater than the known , but not dissevered from it , since I imagine its existence . I note that our instincts are true in their simplest dictates . This is a very important fact , and it deserves special examination .

      Of some instincts we know the history in its origin and its full plant . We see the instinct of tlie child which makes it suck ; and , although it is impossible to conceive anything less " intelligent " or distinct than the vague want of the babe , we see that , it is true . The instinct of sex is an untaught truth , of which the history is but partially known to many creatures that obey the impulse : is not the instinct to provide for a progeny which tlic ichneumon fly never saes a true revelation to it , though never confirmed to its " knowledge" ?

      Could that cfeature think , it would know that it obeyed an impulse , though it could not be arguinculiitively " convinced : " it would know its duty , without understanding it . Human kind cannot resist the impulse to care for the welfare of future generations whieh it will never sec . In . ill these mutters there is : \ n instinctive knowledge which is truo , and whieh outruns doctrinal knowledge . I cannot , then , refuse to believe in instinct uncontrarturted . I am conscious that some thingR appear to come quite within the scope of my senses—as one sound —a drop of dew , or any thintrs which arc small and

      simple . Of such things , at all events , I know some attributes . I comprehend the music of a voice , I understand the wholesomeness and pleasant flavour of a fruit . But all things I know imperfectly , and the degree of my knowledge has not much relation to nearness or remoteness . I can see a sun of other firmaments which is so distant that it would take countless ages to travel to it ; but I cannot see how it is that the food which I eat becomes blood and flesh within me . I find that there have been

      things passing within and around me wholly unknown : every new discovery makes me believe that there are still more things unknown : the atoms of solid bodies seem to move upon their fixed places , in tf Brown ' s Dance ; " creatures live where all seemed void ; the power of life has some mysterious sympathy with the lightning of the storm ; organization keeps its appointed symmetry in me and my fellows , through incessant changes , and we know not how , feel not the process . We , know parts only of things nearest . We are not separated from nature—the air permeates our whole frame ; our thoughts pass from one to the other . I am

      like a drop in the ocean , which is interpenetrated by the nature of all around it—ignorant of what is in me , or what I am in—to myself an unknown drop in the ocean of space ; so that the unknown is around me , in me , through me ; I am myself part of the unknown . The universe goes through and through me , and 1 am not separate from it . My instincts tell me of the known , and of the unknown , mingled . Where I know their history , I know that they are true . I find everywhere existence , beauty , goodness ; I recognize an influence common to all , to the unknown by what I know of it . My instinct tells me that there is a great influence

      ruling over the known and the unknown : men have called it God , and imagine for it every sort of attribute ; I cannot follow out its vastness , nor imagine for it its shape extending within the region of the unknown , nor comprehend its integrity . I am conscious of it ; I worship it in the beauty and goodness that exist—so my instinct tells me—by its influence . That is the essential part of universal belief . I am conscious of its influence over all I know —over all I know in part ; I am conscious , —because it is in its nature , as it is disclosed to me , not partial , but all-pervading , —that it extends beyond what I know , and beyond the parts of what I know even unto what I do not know ; and I cannot gainsay the belief of my instinct that it extends over all existence . But I am not bound to know it all — presumption halts rebuked at the very thought that the limited and the transitory can comprehend the limitless and the eternal . "We know not , " says Shelley , II We know not where we go or what sweet dreams May pilot us through caverns strange and fair Of tar and pathless passion , while the stream Of life our bark doth on its whirlpools bear , Spreading swift winys as sails to the dim air ; Noi- should we seek to know , . « o the devotion Of love and gentle thoughts be heard still there , Louder and louder , from the utmost ocean Of universal life attuning its commotion . " But so far as I am I feel it existing over all , and conscience tells me that all things—which I can know or can know in part—that they , by existing , or by growing , or by acting , answer to that influence and serve it . Me ' n lose their clear sense in fruitless enquiries to define " free will " and " necessity , "fruitless , because they cannot comprehend the scope of things which exceed their own finitude ; but instinct tells us that some particle of will lives in us , and that it can consciously serve that influence which produces good . Evil and evil doing

      pass away , and good remains . You can find nothing stable but what is good ; evil is self-destructive : so that even whether we will or not , we serve that sacred influence ; but if we will , we can do so directly . The fruit ; of our willing action may be small , but so are all the ultimate particles of the vast entire , each particle filling its place . I believe , then , that all parts of the universe subserve the great influence that reigns over the whole ; and that man knows that he does so . That seems to be the essential part of the universal Faith .

      I sec that when the senses are awakened to the knowledge of what is—to the knowledge of Truth or that which is—of Goodness or what is considered in its influence each part on the other—and Beauty , or the perfection of what is as recognized by human perception—that when the senses are awakened to that knowledge , they become more powerful in their intelligence , and the will becomes more beneficent ; so that the happiness of him who is awakened is greater , and chiefly because he knows and can augment the happiness of those who exist around him .

      I believe that such knowledge is so potent in its force over him that fully feels it as to compel him to serve the universal influence . It would be a " duty "—if duty were not a rude and ignoran t name for a sacred necessity and a means of happi . ness . Not so to serve is to forego the inspiration of the divine will , to be a creature of a lower kind arid thus to have less life than befals men awakened ! It is his conscious mission that his acts shall harl

      monize with the working of the influence that creates good and beauty for ever , as we believe , by an ever continued act of creation ; it is man ' s mission to make his willed life harmonize with that universal influence , regardless of the dogmas that blind the untaught or the mistaught , and make them pervert its working—immortal beyond their conception . In this seems to consist the essential spirit of Religion .

      I think that if we study the facts presented by history and the actual state of society we shall recognize the force of this divine influence far beyond its conscious operation . We may see it , for example , in that devotion to art for the sake of the goodness which is in art , that irresistible impulse of all true artists , insomuch that the true artist is forced to follow the religion of his art , as it is sometimes called , against all the dictates of passing opinion or self-interest . We see it in the benevolence of men where it extends beyond personal affection and overrides the alienations of sect or

      country . We see it probably in the devotion of the highest intellects to science , not only for practical and utilitarian objects , but for the nobler purpose of enlarging the faculties of mankind . In this broad view of religion we reconcile one disheartening doubt . Looking at the whole of the human race , as it has existed throughout all times and countries , we see each section vaunting its own knowledge of God , and denying that knowledge to all the rest ; each thus arrogant in its claims ; as though the All Powerful could not

      assert himself before the many . But each is refuted by the faith of all the rest . In the spiritual view , these many sects become but so many human conceptions of the One ; each conception but an effort indulged by each family of men to construct a definite idea of the Infinite . To the Christian I would suggest one example which he will receive with reverence . I have heard it remarked that when the greatest of spiritual reformers , Jesus of Nazareth , was placed in any position of doubt by the questions of his followers , he returned an

      evasive answer . But another interpretation of his method is more correct and just : he invariably returned such an answer as should not shock the sense of the questioner , and so subvert his moral sense , but should suggest a nobler and diviner spirit ; he invariably spoke in abatement of dogma and for the enlargement of faith ; he invariably preached that if there were many sects , there was one God . The sermon on the Mount is a precept for all churches—its spirit is religious unity . Thornton Hunt .

      518 Mttc Iltol ^ Tx* Saturday,

      518 MttC ILtOL ^ tX * Saturday ,

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      Thcro Is No Lenrmrl Man But Will Confess...

      Thcro is no lenrmrl man but will confess he hath much nrotited bv reading controversies , his senses awakened imd htsjud ^ rn ent sharpened . If , then , it be profitable for him to read , why should it not , at least , be tolerable for his adversary to write . —Milton .

      Land And Social Reforms. Bolton, Near Sk...

      LAND AND SOCIAL REFORMS . Bolton , near Skipton , August 15 , 18 ' 0 . Sin , —I observe in the Leader for August 10 th a remark which induces me to write you this letter . After giving some extracts from an account which I furnished ( by desire of an assistant poor-law commissioner ) of a small experiment in farming in my little field , you say vou trust I shall see its con-

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 24, 1850, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_24081850/page/14/