"Similarly, one man requested that he might be provided with a little of Aristotle's 'Eternal Matter,' but he was told that there was no such thing in rerum natura, and that it was unfortunately too late to make it. He seemed to think himself very unjustly treated. Another demanded some of the Atoms of Epicurus, to make a slight experiment with; unexceptionably spherical, invisible, and so forth. These, he was told, he might be accommodated with; and that all he had to do was to shake them long enough, and doubtless the fortuitous jumble would come out at last a miniature world.
"Above all, there were several German philosophers, who, having founded various physical theories, more or less extensive, on the perspicuous metaphysics of their countrymen, were confident that, if they had not hit on the modes which Supreme Wisdom had adopted, their modes were yet very excellent modes; and they were absolutely clamorous that their experiments should begin. But, alas! many of them stood but little chance of being ever tried, for the very same reason which prevented the disciple of Leibnitz from obtaining his 'Monads'; their authors could not make their meaning intelligible to the delegated omniscience. As to some of the metaphysicians, since their theories embraced nothing less than the evolution of the 'totality' of the universe, the 'infinite' and the 'absolute' included, it was of course impossible that they could be tried. But it was thought an appropriate punishment for them to be condemned to write on till they had made their meaning intelligible. Some have labored with incredible industry to comply with this very reasonable request, but their notions seem to grow darker and darker at every step; and one in particular has written a huge folio, in which, by universal consent of men and angels, there is not the smallest glimmer of meaning from one end to the other. Another even complains in private of the want of philosophical genius in the court of celestial criticism, and declares that in Germany they could have constructed ten theories of the universe and given twenty solutions of the 'infinite' and the 'absolute' in the time he has been vainly endeavoring to explain his meaning to personages so deplorably deficient in metaphysical acumen."
He was going on with some other details of the hapless philosophers.
"I would much rather hear from you," said I, "for it is a subject in which I take a far deeper interest, how those have sped who have objected to the Revelation with which God has favored man, on the ground that it cannot be true, else it would have been more unexceptionably framed or more wisely promulgated. I take it for granted that these have not been destitute of opportunities of trying their experiment."
"Surely not," replied my new acquaintance. "'The Paradise of Fools' is well stocked with creatures of this description. Many of the experiments which required time to test them were commenced hundreds of years ago, and are completed. Others are still unfinished while there have been many which required only to be commenced and they were completed instantly, to the confusion of their authors."
"I should much like," said I, "to hear an account of some of these experiments."
"Willingly," answered he; "only you must bear in mind that they were all to be performed under certain limitations, without which no revelation which God can give to man would be of the slightest value."
He then informed me, that the evidence afforded must not be such as to annihilate the conditions on which man is to be made virtuous and happy, if he is to be made so at all. It must not be inconsistent with the exercise of either his reason or his faith, nor prevent the play of his moral dispositions, nor triumph by mere violence over his prejudices; it must not operate purely upon the passions or the senses, nor overhear all possibility of offering resistance,—as would be the case, for example, if a man were placed on the edge of a precipice, and told that he would immediately be thrown over it if he transgressed the rules of temperance or chastity. The happiness, he said, which God originally designed for his intelligent and moral creatures was a voluntary happiness, springing out of the well-balanced and well-directed activity of all the principles of their nature. Any revelation, therefore, must proceed on the same basis, both as regards itself and the mode in which it is given. Arguments and motives morally sufficient, but not more than sufficient, must be addressed to the intellect and the conscience. All this is necessary to render the felicity and perfection of man stable and permanent; for without such a trial, triumphantly sustained, he would have no security that, in the presence of objects which tend to exert an overpowering influence on his senses or his feelings, he might not at some period of the unknown future be impelled to take a wrong path, and err and be miserable. This ordeal, originally designed for man and not superseded by revelation, must be continued long enough to render the principles on which he ought to act practical habits; after which he may go forth (sublime and glorious privilege!) to any part of this world, or of any world to which God may call him, master of himself and his destiny; not afraid lest temptations should warp him from a steadfastness that is founded on the decisions of an inflexible will, itself directed by enlightened intelligence and moral rectitude; in a word, in possession of the appropriate and alone appropriate happiness of an intellectual and moral agent; an image of the felicity of the great Creator himself. This condition, he said, of giving a revelation, so far from being a hardship, is not only in harmony with the nature of things, but is itself an expression of the Divine Beneficence; which designed for man no casual, precarious safety, as the result of transient external violence to the principles of his nature, but a permanent and inviolable equilibrium of the powers within him. "Heaven itself," he concluded, "can be heaven only to those who are internally prepared for it."
"Were there many," I cried, "who were willing to make the experiment of giving a revelation more unexceptionably than it has been given, on the proposed conditions?"
"Not very many, as you may well suppose," said he; "but if objectors had been unwilling, they would have been compelled to make it."