If, in some points, the preceding statements and conclusions do, at all, diverge from anything that is popularly taught on the subjects to which they refer, there need be no attempt here to gauge and discuss such divergences. Because all that the inquiry that has been before us calls upon me to consider, in a work of this kind, is the higher question (which, in fact, embraces, and is decisive of, the minor ones) of what in this matter is historically true. We have been endeavouring to ascertain the right interpretation, and the real connexion of some particulars in the history of our religion, regarded as a part of general History. That the conclusions we may be brought to have an important bearing on morality and religion themselves, which are the chiefest concerns of mankind, ought to have the effect of making us only more careful, and more determined, in our search for the truth. We are all agreed that truth, together with the effects it has on men’s hearts and lives, is, or at all events ought to be, religion: not what any person, or persons, at the present time think, or at any past periods may have thought; but, as far as is attainable, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We owe no fealty to anything else. Any error in this matter, just like any mistake in the statement of an arithmetical problem, must vitiate every step that follows. If any mistakes exist in the data, either of the arithmetical, or of the religious, problem, it cannot be worked out to any useful conclusion. From the beginning it was apprehended that religion was the truth. In this sense it was that it was described as ‘the Knowledge of God.’ In no other sense can it be ‘the Inspiration of Gods Spirit.’ We, at this day, looking back over the pages of History, can see that wherever this knowledge was clouded, or something else mistaken for it, the result was bad; and, as far as it went, destructive of religion. However venerable any mistakes may be, and however useful they may appear, supposing there are such mistakes, it is our interest, as well as our duty, to rid ourselves and the world of them as speedily and as completely as possible.
I hardly need say that there is nothing in the foregoing argument, or in any of the remarks that have arisen out of its course, which militates against the ideas, that God has so ordered the course of this world as to show on which side He is; and that He has made doing right to be good in itself and good in its general and final consequences; and doing evil to be evil in itself, and evil in its general and final consequences. In fact, as much is assumed in the argument.[6]
But, however, if the discussion we have been passing through supplies a true and complete solution of the interesting question this chapter propounds, and I cannot but think that it does, then one of its consequences will be, (though, indeed, it is a consequence in which the world will not, now, take much interest) that Bishop Warburton’s much-bruited Theory of the Divine Legation of Moses—as a schoolboy I rejected it, but could not then answer it—will prove to be but an Escurial in the air. That the Mosaic Dispensation made no use of the Doctrine of a future life does not prove that it was upheld by a daily renewed miracle. With contemporary and subsequent history before us, we can see that the omission was originally made on logical and administratively wise grounds.
We ask permission for one remark more. It will be observed that the foregoing disquisition assumes to some degree that there is a logical basis for belief in a future life. It is the argument which arises in the bosom of social development. It is not precisely the same process of thought as that which appears to have first implanted the idea in the mind of the Aryan: that was, in some measure, founded on a sentiment, which arose from the bosom of nature. But, however, the old Aryan sentiment which, though a sentiment, had its logic, combined with the distinctly logical argument, founded on the recognition and eternity of justice, which there is no possibility of working out on the stage of this world, where the same act carries one man to the gallows and another to the throne, and which argument social development makes palpable and intelligible, will satisfy many minds and must have weight with every mind. That something, and even that much, can be said on the other side, is a remark of no weight. It is merely an assertion that, in this respect, the question before us does not differ from other moral and religious questions. The same observation may be made of every one of them; for this is a world, as all must see, in which belief, just like virtue itself which is the matured fruit of belief, can be the result only of a right choice, after honest deliberation, between conflicting considerations. This is of its very essence. The great argument, however, itself, and everything that depends upon it, are lost to, and obscured by, those who have persuaded themselves, and are endeavouring to persuade others, to accept precisely what Christ overthrew, and which He overthrew precisely that He might establish belief in the future life.
I have dwelt on the question of this chapter, not on account of its intrinsic interest, although that is great, but because it is a necessary part of the survey of old Egypt. The history of Egypt must include some account of the influence it had upon the world; and a great part of that influence had to pass through, and be transmitted onward by, the Hebrews. It was imperative, therefore, in a work of this kind, that some attempt should be made to obtain a true conception of the relations of Israel to Mizraim; and the most essential part of those relations is that which is intellectual, moral, and religious. This appears to be the only intelligible meaning that can be attached to the reference ‘out of Egypt have I called my son’: His capital doctrine was what had been the capital doctrine of Egypt. If, however, the reference was not intended to have any meaning in the intellectual, moral, and religious order, this passing comment is non-suited and must be withdrawn. But, whatever may be the value of the explanation I have been just attempting to give of the particular question that has been before us, the fact itself remains, standing forth on the long records of history as one of the most important they contain, that, while the belief in future rewards and punishments was the motive power of morality and religion in Egypt, among a neighbouring people, who had in some sort been a secession from Egypt, and always continued to be more or less affected by it, morality and religion were able, under most adverse circumstances, to maintain themselves for fifteen centuries without any formal or direct support from this belief.
Verily we are debtors to the Jew for the great lesson contained in this fact. Another religion—that one indeed which at the present day commands the greatest number of believers—does, as some of its own doctors tell us, leave open, to a considerable extent, this question of future rewards and punishments, contenting itself with teaching that virtue is its own sufficient reward; and that should it have any consequences in a life to come they cannot be evil: and the bearing of this evidence on the point before us is not unimportant. Those, however, who are in the habit of passing by unheeded what more than 300,000,000 of the human family have to say on such questions, will not think it immaterial what the Jews believed. And never had any people more unclouded faith in the eternity and ultimate mundane triumph of truth, of right, and of goodness than the Jews, although they seldom had any thought, and then only very dimly; that they should themselves participate in, or witness that triumph: they lived and died in the faith of it, never having been supported and strengthened by the sight of it, but only by the desire to see it: the better condition, which was to make perfect theirs, having been reserved for other times. Never, however, were any people more ready to sacrifice everything, even to life itself, in proclaiming, and endeavouring to carry out, what they believed. It was this that prompted, and made successful, the Asmonæan insurrection against Greek domination; and which afterwards impelled them to challenge single-handed the world-Empire of Rome. Contemporary history, like much that has been written subsequently, did not understand, indeed quite misunderstood, their motives, and what was stirring within them; and so failed to do them the honour they deserved for their heroic efforts to prevent the extinction of their religion and morality. We, however, can now, at the same time, both do them justice, and acknowledge our obligations to them, for having taught us that the moral sentiments have such deep root in man’s nature; and can maintain so vigorous an existence by their own inherent power, without aid from other-world hopes and fears, and against all of force or seduction with which this world can assail them. This, I submit, throws light upon much that, at the present day, and amongst ourselves, stands somewhat in need of proof and distinctness.
It shows, I think, that there are in our composite mental and bodily constitution principles, or laws, of morality, which, as they are indestructible, and capable of maintaining themselves, and of acting vigorously, under even the most adverse circumstances, must be regarded as inseparable and essential parts of our being. This fact in the natural history of morality may be illustrated by an analogous fact in the natural history of language. A man cannot but use language, and he cannot but use it in conformity with certain rules and laws. He cannot alter one law of language any more than he could invent a new language: he can even hardly add a single word, deliberately and designedly, to an existing one. And he must not only use language in conformity with its natural laws, but he must also use that particular form of it which the working of general laws has developed, necessarily, both for him, and in him. Just so is it with morality. Indeed, the parallel is so complete as to lead one to suspect that morality must to some considerable degree be dependent upon language. Man seems to invent it; and so he does in a certain sense. But, however, he cannot help inventing it; and he must invent it in conformity with certain laws. Over these he has no control: for though he must use, yet he does not invent, or originate, them. That falls within the sphere of a Higher Power. In some form or other, better or not so good, and in some measure, more or less, morality is a congenital necessity of our being, and if society be fairly and wisely dealt with (but of this when we speak of the wisdom of Egypt, and again in our summing up) there are grounds for disposing us to believe that moral, and not animal instincts, may in any people be made the lords of the ascendant.
It will be enough to say here that extremes, then, appear in some sense to have met. We believe just as distinctly as the Jew, or as the Egyptian, that the law came from God; that in it God speaks within us, and through us; and that our part is to hearken to, to bow down before, and obey the Divinity. This involves morality, religion, responsibility, conscience. They saw this through moral intuition. We see it also through history and science. The primæval intuition, and the modern demonstration, constructed out of the materials with which our hoards of experience and observation have supplied us, are in perfect accord. Intuition prior to knowledge, and accumulated knowledge reasoning out the problem, have both arrived at the same conclusion: and so we have sufficient grounds for believing that no other conclusion is possible; and that what history has demonstrated to be inseparable from the working of society, and from the being of man, will endure as long as society and as man shall endure.[7]