From the earth thou springest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
It has been well observed, that this tendency of the mind to personify isolated qualities or impulses, was essentially the mythological tendency[647] which had created the religion and expressed itself in the poetry of the Greeks, and possibly contributed to foster Shelley's sympathies with heathen religion. His mind was peculiarly Greek, simple not complex, imaginative rather than fanciful, abstract not concrete, intellectual not emotional; wanting the many-sidedness of modern taste, partaking of the unity of science rather than the multiformity of nature, like sculpture rather than painting. This mental peculiarity contributed to scepticism by inclining his mind to the pantheistic philosophy, which can never be held save by those whose minds can give being to an abstraction, and is revolting to those who are deeply touched with the Hebrew consciousness of personality and of duty. His philosophy was at [pg 206] first a form of naturalism, which identified God with nature, and made body and spirit co-essential. In this stage he oscillated between the belief of half personified self-moved atoms, or a general pervading spirit of nature. From this stage he passed into a new one, by contact with the philosophy of Hume; and, while admitting the diversity of matter and spirit, yet denied the substantial reality of both. In this state of mind he studied the philosophy of Plato, which was originally designed for doubters somewhat analogous to him; and he readily imbibed the theory that the passing phenomena are types of eternal archetypes, embodiments of eternal realities. But it was Plato's view of the universe that he accepted, not his view of man; his metaphysics, not his ethics. In none of these three theories is the rule of the universe ascribed to a character, but in each to animated abstractions. They are a pantheistic or mythological view of things.[648] Nor was the effect of this philosophy merely theoretical, for the distorted view of the physical and moral cosmos led him to believe that both should be regulated by the same conditions; that men should have the unconstrained liberty which he thought he saw in material things. Like Rousseau, ascribing moral evil to the artificial laws of society, Shelley proposed to substitute a new order of things, in which man should be emancipated from kings and priests. This philosophy also increased his hatred against the moral order of the world, and especially against Christianity; and led him to regard it as the offshoot of superstition and the impediment to progress. Yet even here, while echoing the irreverent doctrines of the French revolution, he bore an unconscious witness to the majesty of the Christian virtues, in that he could find no nobler type with which to invest his ideal race of men.
We have dwelt long on Shelley, as a most instructive example for observing the various influences, personal and social, intellectual and moral, philosophical and political, combining to form unbelief. His thoughts are the last echo of the unbelief of the last century. The great movement of Germany has completely changed the scepticism of the present. The instances that we have found of unbelief in England were indications of a tendency rather than a movement. They were however of sufficient importance to call forth the voices of the church in reply or in protest.
It has been remarked, that in the former half of the eighteenth century the attack was chiefly directed against the internal doctrines and narratives of revelation, on the assumption that they clashed with the judgment of common sense, or of the moral faculty. And therefore the writers on the evidences, adapting their defence to the attack, employed themselves chiefly in establishing the internal evidences, the moral need of a revelation generally, and the suitability of the Christian in particular, before producing the divine testimony which authenticates it. But about the middle of this century the historic spirit arose, and the point of attack shifted to an assault on the historic value of the literature which contains the revelation. The question thenceforth became a literary one, whether there was documentary proof that a revelation had been given. The defence accordingly ceased to be philosophical, and became historical.[649]
Opinions have changed with regard to the value of evidences in general, and the historic form of them in particular. When Boyle[650] at the end of the seventeenth century, and Bampton and Hulse in the latter [pg 208] half of the eighteenth, established their respective lectures, they looked forward to the probability of the occurrence of new forms of doubt, and to the importance of reasoning as the weapon for meeting them. In more recent times evidences have been undervalued, through the two opposite tendencies of the present age, the churchly and corporate tendency on the one hand, which rests on church authority, and the individualising tendency on the other, which rests on intuitive consciousness.[651] Evidences essentially belong to a theory, which places the test of truth objectively in a revealed book, and subjectively in the reason, as the organ for discovering morality and interpreting the book.[652] While evidences in general have been undervalued for these reasons, the historic branch of them has been regarded as obsolete, because having reference only to an age which doubts the documents and charges the authors with being deceivers or deceived, and unavailing, like an old fortification, against a new mode of assault. This latter statement is in substance correct. It lessens the value of this argument as a practical weapon against the doubts which now assail us, but does not detract from the literary value of the works in the special branch to which they apply. If the progress of knowledge be the exciting cause of free thought, a similar alteration in the evidences would be expected to occur from causes similar to those which produce an alteration in the attack, independently of the change which occurs from the necessity of adjusting the one to the other.
Abstract questions like this concerning the value of evidences find their solution independently of the human will. The human mind cannot be chained. New knowledge will suggest new doubts; and if so, [pg 209] spirit must be combated by spirit. Defences of Christianity, attempts to readjust it to new discoveries, must therefore continue to the end of time. In reference to the minor question of the value of the historic evidences, it is important to remember that these grand works are not simply refutative; they are indirectly instructive and didactic. Just as miracles are a part of Christianity, as well as evidences for its truth, so apologetic is a lesson in Christianity, as well as a reply to doubt.[653] It happens also that the most modern doubt of Germany has assumed the historic line, has become critical instead of philosophical; and, though the criticism is primarily of a different kind, it ultimately becomes capable of refutation by the very line of argument used in the eighteenth century.[654] We cherish therefore with devout reverence the memory of those writers who employed the power of the pen to defend the religion that they loved. They joined their intellectual labours to the spiritual earnestness which was the other weapon for opposing unbelief. Providence blessed their work. They sowed the seed of the intellectual and spiritual harvest which this century is reaping. “And herein is that saying true, One soweth and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal; that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.”[655]