FOOTNOTES:
[1] Moral Philosophy, B. I., chap. vii.
[2] Deontology, p. 191.
[3] Miss Martineau says: “I saw with the pain of disgust how much lower a thing it is to lead even the loftiest life from a regard to the will or mind of any other being than from a natural working out of our own powers” (Autobiography, Vol. II.). I must humbly confess I have not come yet to see anything of the kind. Provided that the Being to whose will we have regard is Supreme Goodness itself, it seems to me infinitely higher to strive to assimilate our will to His than to “work out our own powers.”
[4] Alone to the Alone, p. 110, third edition.
[5] E.g., the following passage, which deserves to be reprinted a hundred times, Nineteenth Century, July, 1877, p. 832: “We entirely agree with the theologians that our age is beset with a grievous danger of materialism. There is a school of teachers abroad, and they have found an echo here, who dream that victorious vivisection will ultimately win them anatomical solutions of man’s moral and spiritual mysteries. Such unholy nightmares, it is true, are not likely to beguile many minds in a country like this, where social and moral problems are still in their natural ascendant. But there is a subtler kind of materialism, of which the dangers are real. It does not, indeed, put forth the bestial sophism that the apex of philosophy is to be won by improved microscopes and new batteries. But then it has nothing to say about the spiritual life of men. It fills the air with pæans to science, but it always means physical, not moral science. It shirks the question of questions,—To what human end is this knowledge? How shall man thereby order his life as a whole? Where is he to find the object of the yearnings of his spirit?”
I am not concerned to defend the orthodox ideal of heaven against Mr. Harrison’s strictures; but I cannot help entering a protest against his sneer at the “eternity of the tabor” as “so gross, so sensual a creed.” It seems to me it errs by an excessive and unreal spirituality. It was, certainly, not a “gross” or “sensual” order of mind which deemed the act of adoration to be one wherein man could spend an eternity of ecstasy.
[6] Pages 838, 839.
[7] Autobiography, Vol. II., p. 356.
[8] Age of Science, p. 49.
[9] Autobiography, pp. 333, 438.
[10] Harriet Martineau’s last letter to Mr. Atkinson, Ambleside, May 19, 1876, Autobiography, Vol. III., p. 453.
[11] I have heard of two very great living philosophers who thought they had pretty nearly got rid of Final Causes, but who, in talking together, found it hard to avoid assuming their existence. One of them, in fact, in detailing his own observations and discoveries concerning animals and plants, used so often terms implying that there was a purpose visible in natural arrangements that his friend stopped him, and said, “Mr. ——, you are getting strangely teleological!”
[12] Or at least our right from wrong; for, on Mr. Darwin’s showing, there may, it seems, be a different right and wrong for creatures differently constituted in other worlds, whose interests, being different, will cause different “sets” of their brains toward the lines of action useful to their tribes accordingly.
[13] The following letter appeared in the Spectator:—
Sir,—Indulging in the pernicious habit of reading in bed, I last night perused with profound interest Mr. Greg’s letter in your current number, your own remarks thereupon, and also Mr. Greg’s generous defence of his old friend, Harriet Martineau, in the Nineteenth Century. As my eyes closed on the last paragraph of this article, I seemed to behold a vision, which I shall take leave to describe to you.
Dives had just eaten a particularly plentiful dinner, and was standing at the door of a pretty cottage in Ambleside. Lazarus, looking up at him, said pitifully, “I perish with hunger.” Thereupon, Dives observed, with great serenity: “Lazarus, I have had an excellent dinner. There is not a crumb left. But I am quite content, and you ought to be the same.”
Poor Lazarus, however, instead of seeming satisfied, wailed yet more sadly: “But I hunger, Dives! I hunger for the bread of life! I hunger for human love, of which I had only begun to taste, when it was snatched away. I hunger for justice, of which such scant measure has been dealt me, and to millions like me. I hunger for truth, I hunger for beauty, I hunger for righteousness, I hunger for a love holy, divine, and perfect, which alone can satisfy my soul. I hunger, Dives! I hunger, and you tell me there is not a crumb left of the rich feast of existence, and bid me be content. It is a cruel mockery.”
Then Dives answered yet more placidly: “I never dream of wishing anything were otherwise than it is. I am frankly satisfied to have done with life. I have had a noble share of it, and I desire no more. I utterly disbelieve in a future life.”
At that moment, my respected friend Mr. Greg passed by, and heard what Dives was saying; on which, to my great surprise, he made the following observation: “This is, unquestionably, the harder—may it not also be the higher?—form of pious resignation, the last achievement of the ripened mind.”
As for Lazarus, on catching Mr. Greg’s remark, he turned himself painfully on the ground, and groaned: “I never heard before of anybody being ‘piously resigned’ to the woes and wants of other people. La Rochefoucauld was right, I suppose, to say, ‘Nous avons tous assez de force pour supporter les maux d’autrui’; but, for my part, I should not precisely call Dives’ satisfaction in his ‘noble share’ of the feast, while I am doomed to perish starving, by quite so fine a name as ‘pious resignation.’ Pray, Mr. Greg, with your large humanity, take my case into consideration, before you credit Dives with anything better than stupendous egotism.”
Startled by the vehemence of poor Lazarus, I awoke.
I am, Sir, etc.