“From the works of men I looked into their lives; and I found that there was a vast difference (though I am not aware that it has before been remarked) between those who cultivated a talent, and those who cultivated the mind: I found that the mere men of genius were often erring or criminal in their lives; but that vice or crime in the disciples of philosophy was strikingly unfrequent and rare. The extremest culture of reason had not, it is true, been yet carried far enough to preserve the labourer from follies of opinion, but a moderate culture had been sufficient to deter him from the vices of life. And only to the sons of Wisdom, as of old to the sages of the East, seemed given the unerring star, which, through the travail of Earth and the clouds of Heaven, led them at the last to their God!”
“When I gleaned this fact from biography, I paused, and said, ‘Then must there be something excellent in Wisdom, if it can even in its most imperfect disciples be thus beneficial to morality.’ Pursuing this sentiment, I redoubled my researches, and, behold, the object of my quest was won! I had before sought a satisfactory answer to the question, ‘What is Virtue?’ from men of a thousand tenets, and my heart had rejected all I had received. ‘Virtue,’ said some, and my soul bowed reverently to the dictate, ‘Virtue is Religion.’ I heard and humbled myself before the Divine Book. Let me trust that I did not humble myself in vain! But the dictate satisfied less than it awed; for either it limited Virtue to the mere belief, or by extending it to the practice, of Religion, it extended also the inquiry to the method in which the practice should be applied. But with the first interpretation of the dictate who could rest contented?—for while, in the perfect enforcement of the tenets of our faith, all virtue may be found, so in the passive and the mere belief in its divinity, we find only an engine as applicable to evil as to good: the torch which should illumine the altar has also lighted the stake, and the zeal of the persecutor has been no less sincere than the heroism of the martyr. Rejecting, therefore, this interpretation, I accepted the other: I felt in my heart, and I rejoiced as I felt it, that in the practice of Religion the body of all virtue could be found. But, in that conviction, had I at once an answer to my inquiries? Could the mere desire of good be sufficient to attain it; and was the attempt at virtue synonymous with success? On the contrary, have not those most desirous of obeying the precepts of God often sinned the most against their spirit, and has not zeal been frequently the most ardent when crime was the most rife? [There can be no doubt that they who exterminated the Albigenses, established the Inquisition, lighted the fires at Smithfield, were actuated, not by a desire to do evil, but (monstrous as it may seem) to do good; not to counteract, but to enforce what they believed the wishes of the Almighty; so that a good intention, without the enlightenment to direct it to a fitting object, may be as pernicious to human happiness as one the most fiendish. We are told of a whole people who used to murder their guests, not from ferocity or interest, but from the pure and praiseworthy motive of obtaining the good qualities, which they believed, by the murder of the deceased, devolved upon them!] But what, if neither sincerity nor zeal was sufficient to constitute goodness; what if in the breasts of the best-intentioned crime had been fostered the more dangerously because the more disguised,—what ensued? That the religion which they professed, they believed, they adored, they had also misunderstood; and that the precepts to be drawn from the Holy Book they had darkened by their ignorance or perverted by their passions! Here then, at once, my enigma was solved; here then, at once, I was led to the goal of my inquiry! Ignorance and the perversion of passion are but the same thing, though under different names; for only by our ignorance are our passions perverted. Therefore, what followed?—that, if by ignorance the greatest of God’s gifts had been turned to evil, Knowledge alone was the light by which even the pages of Religion should be read. It followed that the Providence that knew that the nature it had created should be constantly in exercise, and that only through labour comes improvement, had wisely ordained that we should toil even for the blessing of its holiest and clearest laws. It had given us in Religion, as in this magnificent world, treasures and harvests which might be called forth in incalculable abundance; but had decreed that through our exertions only should they be called forth a palace more gorgeous than the palaces of enchantment was before us, but its chambers were a labyrinth which required a clew.”
“What was that clew? Was it to be sought for in the corners of earth, or was it not beneficially centred in ourselves? Was it not the exercise of a power easy for us to use, if we would dare to do so? Was it not the simple exertion of the discernment granted to us for all else? Was it not the exercise of our reason? ‘Reason!’ cried the Zealot, ‘pernicious and hateful instrument, it is fraught with peril to yourself and to others: do not think for a moment of employing an engine so fallacious and so dangerous.’ But I listened not to the Zealot: could the steady and bright torch which, even where the Star of Bethlehem had withheld its diviner light, had guided some patient and unwearied steps to the very throne of Virtue, become but a deceitful meteor to him who kindled it for the aid of Religion, and in an eternal cause? Could it be perilous to task our reason, even to the utmost, in the investigation of the true utility and hidden wisdom of the works of God, when God himself had ordained that only through some exertion of our reason should we know either from Nature or Revelation that He himself existed? ‘But,’ cried the Zealot again, ‘but mere mortal wisdom teaches men presumption, and presumption doubt.’ ‘Pardon me,’ I answered; ‘it is not Wisdom, but Ignorance, which teaches men presumption: Genius may be sometimes arrogant, but nothing is so diffident as Knowledge.’ ‘But,’ resumed the Zealot, ‘those accustomed to subtle inquiries may dwell only on the minutiae of faith,—inexplicable, because useless to explain, and argue from those minutiae against the grand and universal truth.’ Pardon me again: it is the petty not the enlarged mind which prefers casuistry to conviction; it is the confined and short sight of Ignorance which, unable to comprehend the great bearings of truth, pries only into its narrow and obscure corners, occupying itself in scrutinizing the atoms of a part, while the eagle eye of Wisdom contemplates, in its widest scale, the luminous majesty of the whole. Survey our faults, our errors, our vices,—fearful and fertile field! Trace them to their causes: all those causes resolve themselves into one,—Ignorance! For as we have already seen that from this source flow the abuses of Religion, so also from this source flow the abuses of all other blessings,—of talents, of riches, of power; for we abuse things, either because we know not their real use, or because, with an equal blindness, we imagine the abuse more adapted to our happiness. But as ignorance, then, is the sole spring of evil, so, as the antidote to ignorance is knowledge, it necessarily follows that, were we consummate in knowledge, we should be perfect in good. He, therefore, who retards the progress of intellect countenances crime,—nay, to a State, is the greatest of criminals; while he who circulates that mental light more precious than the visual is the holiest improver and the surest benefactor of his race. Nor let us believe, with the dupes, of a shallow policy, that there exists upon the earth one prejudice that can be called salutary or one error beneficial to perpetrate. As the petty fish which is fabled to possess the property of arresting the progress of the largest vessel to which it clings, even so may a single prejudice, unnoticed or despised, more than the adverse blast or the dead calm, delay the bark of Knowledge in the vast seas of Time.”
“It is true that the sanguineness of philanthropists may have carried them too far; it is true (for the experiment has not yet been made) that God may have denied to us, in this state, the consummation of knowledge, and the consequent perfection in good; but because we cannot be perfect are we to resolve we will be evil? One step in knowledge is one step from sin: one step from sin is one step nearer to Heaven: Oh! never let us be deluded by those who, for political motives, would adulterate the divinity of religious truths; never let us believe that our Father in Heaven rewards most the one talent unemployed, or that prejudice and indolence and folly find the most favour in His sight! The very heathen has bequeathed to us a nobler estimate of His nature; and the same sentence which so sublimely declares ‘TRUTH IS THE BODY OF GOD’ declares also ‘AND LIGHT IS HIS SHADOW.’” [Plato.]
“Persuaded, then, that knowledge contained the key to virtue, it was to knowledge that I applied. The first grand lesson which it taught me was the solution of a phrase most hackneyed, least understood; namely, ‘common-sense.’ [Koinonoaemosunae, sensus communis.] It is in the Portico of the Greek sage that that phrase has received its legitimate explanation; it is there we are taught that ‘common-sense’ signifies ‘the sense of the common interest.’ Yes! it is the most beautiful truth in morals that we have no such thing as a distinct or divided interest from our race. In their welfare is ours; and, by choosing the broadest paths to effect their happiness, we choose the surest and the shortest to our own. As I read and pondered over these truths, I was sensible that a great change was working a fresh world out of the former materials of my mind. My passions, which before I had checked into uselessness, or exerted to destruction, now started forth in a nobler shape, and prepared for a new direction: instead of urging me to individual aggrandizement, they panted for universal good, and coveted the reward of Ambition only for the triumphs of Benevolence.”
“This is one stage of virtue; I cannot resist the belief that there is a higher: it is when we begin to love virtue, not for its objects, but itself. For there are in knowledge these two excellences: first, that it offers to every man, the most selfish and the most exalted, his peculiar inducement to good. It says to the former, ‘Serve mankind, and you serve yourself;’ to the latter, ‘In choosing the best means to secure your own happiness, you will have the sublime inducement of promoting the happiness of mankind.’”
“The second excellence of Knowledge is that even the selfish man, when he has once begun to love Virtue from little motives, loses the motives as he increases the love; and at last worships the deity, where before he only coveted the gold upon its altar.”
“And thus I learned to love Virtue solely for its own beauty. I said with one who, among much dross, has many particles of ore, ‘If it be not estimable in itself, I can see nothing estimable in following it for the sake of a bargain.’ [Lord Shaftesbury.]
“I looked round the world, and saw often Virtue in rags and Vice in purple: the former conduces to happiness, it is true, but the happiness lies within and not in externals. I contemned the deceitful folly with which writers have termed it poetical justice to make the good ultimately prosperous in wealth, honour, fortunate love, or successful desires. Nothing false, even in poetry, can be just; and that pretended moral is, of all, the falsest. Virtue is not more exempt than Vice from the ills of fate, but it contains within itself always an energy to resist them, and sometimes an anodyne to soothe,—to repay your quotation from Tibullus,—
‘Crura sonant ferro, sed canit inter opus!’”
[“The chains clank on its limbs, but it sings amidst its tasks.”]