To-day I received, with great delight, a long letter from you * * *
* * * I am very glad that you are not offended at L——’s jest, and that you do not, like Herr von Frömmel,[116] consider him an impious wretch. You must see, in the first place, that he aims his wit only at the servile credulity of those men who convert the Unutterable, the Being of all Beings,—who is ever present to us in a deep and dim consciousness, but whom we can never comprehend,—into a strange compound of tyrant, pedagogue, and attendant spirit: who think themselves constantly guided by him in leading-strings, and regard all they see and hear, or whatever happens to them, as an interposition of God, and regarding their own littleness alone. If, for instance, they fall into the water, or if they win a prize in the lottery, they see the finger of God incontestably in that incident; if they escape any danger, they pour out the most vehement thanks to God, as if some strange power had sent the danger, and God, like a careful and prompt guardian, had flown to their succour and deliverance. They might reflect, that whence the deliverance comes, thence comes also the danger; whence the pleasure, the pain; whence life, death. The whole is one scheme of existence, bestowed and governed not according to momentary caprice, but to immutable laws. Such petty views as those he satirizes, bring down the idea of Omnipotence to our own mutability and frailty. Our thanks, be they even speechless, are due to Eternal Love, for all that is; and perhaps no prayer offered by man can be more worthy of the Deity, than that mute and rapturous feeling of gratitude. But it is childish to be ever ascribing to the intervention of Omnipotence common-place and external individual occurrences; such as lucky and unlucky accidents, riches, poverty, death, and the like, which are subjected to the laws of nature; or (according to the measure of our powers) to our own control. Such an intervention on the behalf of our beloved selves, would be no less strange and ill-adapted, with a view to our instruction and improvement, than experience proves it to be useless.
His satire is also directed against Christians—who are no Christians—and are neither so-called Atheists (almost always a senseless denomination), nor yet genuine sincere fanatics; but that odious race of modern pietists, who are either feeble creatures with irritable nerves, or hypocrites of the most impious sort, and further removed from the elevated purity of Christ than the Dalai Lama. These are the true Pharisees and dealers in the temple, whom Christ would cast out were he now on earth. These are they who, were he now to appear, under a new and obscure name, would be the first to cry out, ‘Crucify him!’[117]
In the main I confess I agree with L——; though, with regard to the subject of the ‘Reflections,’ every opinion can be but hypothetical, and in truth, what relates to another state of existence must, of necessity, be totally different from all that we have the capacity of understanding in this. Had we been able to know it, or had it been designed that we should do so, the Author of our nature would have rendered it as clear, as obvious to us, as it is that we feel, or think, or exist. What is needful, is revealed to us inwardly; and this has been declared from all time, in words more or less plain and significant, by the great spirits whom He has sent on earth.
That the human race is not destined to stand still like a machine devoid of will, or to revolve in one perpetual circle,—but, on the contrary, continually to advance, till it has ended its cycle of existence, and attained the highest perfection of which it is capable, I never for an instant doubt. But my hypothesis is this;—that our earth, like a vessel loosened from her moorings, is left, under the protection and coercion of the immutable laws of nature, to the management of her own crew. We ourselves, thenceforth, are the framers of our own destiny, (insofar as it depends on human operation, and not on those immutable laws,) and of our own history, whether great or small, by our own moral strength or weakness.
It is not, in my opinion, necessary to suppose the extraordinary and special interposition of any power who causes a hard winter in Russia for the special overthrow of Napoleon;—Napoleon rather is overthrown by the vicious principle which guides him; and which, in the long run, must inevitably wreck him upon some such external and immediate cause or other. The physical incident happens, with reference to him, only accidentally; with reference to itself, doubtless, in that necessary series of laws to which it is subject, although these laws are unknown to us.
On the same grounds, Providence will generally favour the virtuous, the industrious, the frugal, the prudent, and grant many or most of their desires; while the foolish and the wicked, who set themselves in opposition and hostility to the world, are not ordinarily so successful or so happy. If a man lets his hand lie in the ice, it is probable that Providence will ordain it to be frozen; or if he holds it in the fire, to be burnt. Those who go to sea, Providence will sometimes permit to be drowned; those, on the other hand, who never quit dry ground, Providence will hardly suffer to perish in the sea.
It is therefore justly said, “Help yourself, and Heaven will help you.” The truth is, that God has helped us from the beginning: the work of the master is completed; and, as far as it was intended to be so, perfect: it requires, therefore, no further extraordinary aids and corrections from above; its further development and improvement in this world is placed in our own hands. We may be good or bad, wise or foolish, not always perhaps in the degree which we, as individuals, might choose, were our wills perfectly free, but so far as the state of the human race immediately preceding us has formed us to decide.
Virtue and vice, wisdom and folly, are indeed words which receive their meaning solely from human society, and apart from that would have no signification. The ideas of the good and the wicked are excited solely by the effect of our actions upon others; for a man who never saw a fellow-man can act neither well nor ill,—nay, can scarcely feel or think, well or ill: he possesses, indeed, all the requisite capacities which form the groundwork of his higher moral and intellectual nature; but it is only by means of creatures of a like nature, that these capacities can be brought into activity; as fire can only exist, or become sensible, when combustible materials are present. The ideas of prudent and imprudent arise indeed earlier, and with reference to the individual alone; for a single man in conflict with inanimate nature may either injure himself foolishly, or employ the materials given him with prudence and skill; and may have a full perception of these qualities or modes of action in himself. To be good, therefore, in every point of view, means nothing but to love other men, and to submit to the laws and rules imposed by society: to be wicked, to rebel against those laws, to disregard the weal of others, and in our conduct to have only our own momentary gratification in view. To be prudent, on the other hand, is only to have the power of perceiving and securing our own advantage by the best and aptest means: to be imprudent, to neglect these means, or to form a false estimate concerning them.
It is evident also that good and prudent—wicked and imprudent—are in the highest sense nearly synonymous: for a man who is good, will, in the common order of events, please his fellow-men, consequently will be beloved by them, and consequently will be found to be prudent,—that is, to have secured his own greatest happiness and advantage: while the bad man, engaged in an interminable conflict, must at length have the worst, and consequently suffer loss and injury.