The Making of a Man

by James W. Lee

O God! I can trust for the human soul.”

CHAPTER VII.
THE PERMANENCE OF THE COMPLETED LIFE OF MAN.

Back of the movement which began in creation and culminated in man, we posited the mind of a self-conscious, self-determining, self-active, personal God. Necessity was upon us to assume a first principle of some kind, and it seemed proper to have one large enough to account for the facts we were about to consider. The first principle Thales set up was water. In water he saw the origin of all and the end of all. But all that came out of water must, in the end, find its death in water. With nothing but a vast ocean to start with, we shall find, at the conclusion, nothing more articulate and rational than an infinite expanse of water to end with.

Herbert Spencer, “the heir of all the ages in the foremost files of time,” took as the starting point of his philosophy the unknowable. In the selection of a first principle, however, we think Thales, though the first philosopher who ever lived, had the advantage of him.

Water is a definite and positive somewhat; the unknowable is an indefinite and inarticulate vacuity. With water for a first principle, the prospect is certain destruction in a general deluge. With the unknowable for a first principle, the prospect is sure imbecility in universal ignorance. It is better to be drowned in water than to have the light of intelligence put out in everlasting night. Mr. Spencer’s unknowable was a convenient receptacle into which to dump difficulties and troublesome problems; but, as a working hypothesis, it was not sufficient even to build the universe Mr. Spencer saw. In the process of constructing his system, Mr. Spencer gave to his unknowable nearly all the attributes which theologians give to a personal God. As we have already seen, when Mr. Spencer got through with drawing from his unknowable all that he had to have to give his system the order and show of reason, it was found that the unknowable part of the unknowable had about been scattered in the light of knowledge. For this same unknowable was found to have Being, Power, Activity, Causal Energy, and Omnipresence for attributes. Nothing more can come out of a first principle than what is contained in it. Out of water, nothing but water comes, and out of the unknowable, nothing but the unknowable comes. One can posit an acorn, under certain conditions of soil and sky, and get an oak; but the germ of the oak must be in the acorn, and the nutriment of the oak must be in the conditions before any oak can come out. It is the old truism, that “out of nothing, nothing comes.” No one ever attempts to account for anything without a first principle. The test of the reality and value of a first principle will be determined solely by its capacity to account for the facts which come out of it. It is because the unknowable fails to account for the facts of nature, and for self-consciousness, self-determination, and self-activity in man, who stands as the complete consummation and realization of nature, that it is not accepted as an adequate first principle.

Matthew Arnold, in order to escape the objections which he had to taking a self-conscious, self-determining, personal God for a first principle, substituted “The Stream of Tendency, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness.” But this sentence, when analyzed, reveals the fact that Matthew Arnold’s Stream has about the same essential elements the theologian supposes to reside in God. A stream has a source, a direction, and an end. Here, then, we have cause, means, and ultimate object. It is also said that the stream makes for something; here is self-determination. It is said to make for righteousness; here is the attribute of Justice, and justice can only be predicated of a person.

Given nature, with its elements, laws, and unity, and man as the being in whom the whole of nature is summed up, with self-consciousness, self-determination, and self-activity; the only first principle sufficient to account for the facts is a self-conscious, self-determining, self-active personal God. It is only such a first principle that is large enough to account for the number, and order, and drift, and collocations of the facts; and to such a first principle the number, and order, and drift, and collocations of the facts may be traced.

If we see red and violet and blue colors appearing in the carpet on one side of the loom, we are warranted in assuming that red and violet and blue threads are entering the carpet on the other side of the loom. Nature is a marvelous loom. At first there are simple elements, then there are compounds, then there are plants, then there are animals. At last all the elements, as so many strands, with their manifold hues and variegated colors, appear in the life of man. Man is the harbor where all the freight, started on its stormy course at creation, comes to shore. Its matter takes majestic form in his body, its power lends itself as wind to his sail, as heat to his engine, as light to his street: its truth is arranged by the intellect into literature and science: its law is formulated into statutes, enactments, and constitutions: its beauty is built into oratorios and spread in radiant visions: its love is accepted and turned into tenderness, and sacrifice, and hope. Infinite personality at the beginning, self-conscious, self-determining, and self-active. Finite personality at the conclusion, self-conscious, self-determining, and self-active.