It is Necessary to observe in the outset, that, even if I were to grant your proposition, "that a revelation of moral and spiritual truth is impossible,"—understanding by such "truth" what you seem to mean, the truth which "Natural Religion," as it is called, has recognized in some shape or other (for it has varied not a little),—it would leave the chief reasons for imparting an external revelation just where they were. I, at least, should never contend that the sole or even chief object of an external revelation is to impart elementary moral or spiritual truth, however possible I may deem it. On the contrary, I am fully persuaded that the great purpose for which such a revelation has been given is to communicate facts and truths many of which were quite transcendental to the human faculties; which man would never have discovered, and most of which he would never have surmised. All this your favorite Mr. Newman perceived in his earlier days clearly enough, and has recorded his sentiments held at that period in his "Phases."(p.42) If I were to grant you, therefore, your proposition, it would leave the question of an external revelation untouched; your hasty inference from it, that every book-revelation is to be rejected, is perfectly gratuitous.
But I am thoroughly persuaded that the notion of the impossibility of all external revelation of moral and spiritual truth, even of the elementary form already referred to, is a fallacy.
Whether the religious faculty in men be a simple faculty, or (as Sir James Mackintosh seemed to think might possibly be the case with conscience) a complex one, constituted by means of several different powers and principles of our nature, is a question not essential to the argument; for I frankly admit at once, with Mr. Newman and Mr. Parker, that there is such a susceptibility (simple or complex), and not a mere abortive tendency, as Harrington seems to suppose possible. Otherwise I cannot, I confess, account for the fact (so largely insisted upon by Mr. Parker) of the very general, the all but universal, adoption by man of some religion, and the power, the prodigious power, which, even when false, hideously false, it exerts over him. But then I must as frankly confess, that I can as little account for all the (not only terrible but) uniform aberrations of this susceptibility, on which Harrington has insisted, and which, I do think, prove (if ever truth was proved by induction) one of two things; either that, as he says, this susceptibility in man was originally defective and rudimentary, or that man is no longer in his normal state; in other words, that he is, as the Scriptures declare, depraved. I acknowledge I accept this last solution; and firmly believe with Pascal, that without it moral and religious philosophy must toil over the problem of humanity in vain.
If this be so, we have, of course, no difficulty in believing that there may be, in spite of the existence of the religious faculty in man, ample scope for an external revelation, to correct its aberrations and remedy its maladies.
But you will say that this fact is not to be taken for granted. I admit it; and therefore lay no further stress upon it. I go one step further; and shall endeavor, at least, to prove, that, supposing man is just as he was created, yet also supposing, what neither Mr. Parker nor Mr. Newman will deny, (and if they did, the whole history of the world would confute them,) that man's religious faculty is not uniform or determinate in its action, but is dependent on external development and culture for assuming the form it does, ample scope is still left for an external revelation. I contend that the entire condition of this susceptibility (as shown by experience) proves that, if in truth an external revelation be impossible, it is not because it has superseded the necessity for one; and that the declaration of the elder deists and modern "spiritualists" on this in the face of what all history proves man to be, is the most preposterous in the world.
Further; I contend that all the analogies from the fundamental laws of the development of man's nature,—from a consideration of the relations in which that nature stands to the external world,—from the absolute dependence of the individual on external culture, and that of the whole species on its historic development,—are all in favor of the notion both of the possibility and utility of an external revelation, and even in favor of that particular form of it which Mr. Newman and you so contemptuously call a "book" revelation.
I. I argue from all the analogies of the fundamental laws of the development of the human mind. Nor do I fear to apply the reasoning even to the cases in which it has been so confidently asserted that there can be no revelation, on the fallacious ground that a revelation "of spiritual and moral truth" presupposes in man certain principles to which it appeals. To possess certain faculties for the appreciation of spiritual and moral truth is one thing; to acquire the conscious possession of that truth is another; the former fact would not make an external revelation superfluous, or an empty name. Every thing in the process of the mind's development goes to show, that, whatever its capacities, tendencies, faculties, "potentialities," (call them what you will,) a certain external influence is necessary to awaken its dormant life; to turn a "potentiality" into an "energy "; to transform a dim inkling of a truth into an intelligent, vital, conscious recognition of it. Nor is this law confined to mind alone; all nature attests its presence. All effects are the result of properties or susceptibilities in one thing, solicited by external contact with those of others. The fire no doubt may smoulder in the dull and languid embers; it is when the external breeze sweeps over them, that they begin to sparkle and glow, and vindicate the vital element they contain. The diamond in the mine has the same internal properties in the darkness as in the light; it is not till the sun shines upon it, that it flashes on the eye its splendor. Look at a flower of any particular species; we see that, as it is developed in connection with a variety of external influences,—as it comes successively under the action of the sun, rain, dew, soil,—it expands in a particular manner, and in that only. It exhibits a certain configuration of parts, a certain form of leaf, a certain color, fragrance, and no other. We do not doubt, on the one hand, that without the "skyey influences" these things would never have been; nor, on the other; that the flower assumes this form of development, and this alone, in virtue of its internal structure and organization. But both sets of conditions must conspire in the result.
It is much the same with the mind. That it possesses certain tendencies and faculties, which, as it develops itself, will terminate in certain ideas and sentiments, is admitted; but apart from certain external conditions of development, those sentiments and ideas will, in effect, never be formed,—the mind will be in perpetual slumber. Thus, in point of fact, this controversy is connected ultimately with that ancient dispute as to the origin, sources, and genesis of human knowledge and sentiments. I shall simply take for granted that you are (as most philosophers are) an advocate of innate capacities, but not of "innate ideas"; of "innate susceptibilities," but not of "innate sentiments"; that is, I presume you do not contend that the mind possesses more than the faculties—the laws of thought and feeling—which, under conditions of development, actually give birth to thoughts and feelings. These faculties and susceptibilities are, no doubt, congenital with the mind, —or, rather, are the mind itself. But its actually manifested phenomena wait the of the external; and they will be modified accordingly. It is absolutely dependent on experience in this sense, that it is only as it is operated upon by the outward world that the dormant faculties, whatever they are, and whatever their nature, be they few or many,— intellectual, moral, or spiritual,—are first awakened. If a mind were created (it is, at least, a conceivable case) with all the avenues to the external world closed,—in fact, we sometimes see approximations to such a condition in certain unhappy individuals,—we do not doubt such a mind, by the present laws of the human constitution, could not possess any thoughts, feelings, emotions; in fact, could exhibit none of the phenomena, spiritual, intellectual, moral, or sensational, which diversify it. In proportion as we see human beings approach this condition,—in fact, we sometimes see them approach it very nearly,—we see the "potentialities" of the soul (I do not like the word, but it expresses my meaning better than any other I know) held in abeyance, and such an imperfectly awakened man does not, in some cases, manifest the degree of sensibility or intelligence manifested in many animals. If the seclusion from sense and experience be quite complete, the life of such a soul would be wrapped up in the germ, and possess no more consciousness than a vegetable.
It appears, then, that universally, however true it may be, and doubtless is, that the laws of thought and feeling enable us to derive from external influence what it alone would never give, yet that influences an indispensable condition, as we are at present constituted, of the development of any and of all our faculties.
As this seems the law of development universally, it is so of the spiritual and religious part of our nature as well as the rest; and in this very fact we have abundant scope for the possibility and utility of a revelation,—if God be pleased to give one,—even of elementary moral and spiritual truth; since, though conceding the perfect congruity between that truth and the structure of the soul, it is only as it is in some way actually presented to it from without, that it arrives at the conscious possession of it. And what, after all, but such an external source of revelation is that Volume of Nature, which, operating in perfect analogy with the aforesaid conditions of the soul's development, awakens, though imperfectly, the dormant elements of religious and spiritual life? So far from its being true in any intelligible sense that an external revelation of moral and spiritual truth is impossible, it is absolutely necessary, in some form, as a condition of its evolution; so far from its being true that such revelation is an absurdity, it is in strict analogy with the fundamental laws of our being. Whether, if this be so, the express external presentation of such truth in a book constructed by divine wisdom and expressed in human language,—this last being the most universal and most appropriate instrument by which man's dormant powers are actually awakened,—may not be a more effective method of attaining the end than any of man's devising, whether instinctive or artificial; or than the casual influences of external nature, well or ill deciphered;—all this is another question. But some such external apparatus—applied to the faculties of men—is essential, whether it be in the Volume of Nature, or in the "Bible" or in a book of Mr. Newman or Mr. Parker. All that makes the difference between you and a Hottentot (to recur to that illustration which Harrington, I really think, fairly employed) depends on external influences, and the consequent development of the spiritual and religious faculties.