“We cannot think ourselves authorised to assert cosmological doctrines, selected arbitrarily by ourselves, on the ground of their exalting our sentiments of admiration and reverence for the Deity, when the weight of all the evidence which we can obtain respecting the constitution of the universe, is against them. It appears to me, that to discover one great scheme of moral and religious government, which is the spiritual centre of the universe, may well suffice for the religious sentiments of men in the present age; as in former ages, such a view of creation was sufficient to overwhelm men with feelings of awe, and gratitude, and love, and to make them confess, in the most emphatic language, that all such feelings were an inadequate response to the view of the scheme of Divine Providence which was revealed to them. The thousands of millions of inhabitants of the earth, to whom the effects of the Divine love extend, will not seem, to the greater part of religious persons, to need the addition of more, in order to fill our minds with vast and affecting contemplations, so far as we are capable of pursuing such contemplations. The possible extension of God’s spiritual kingdom upon the earth will probably appear to them a far more interesting field of devout meditation than the possible addition to it of the inhabitants of distant stars, connected, in some inscrutable manner, with the Divine Plan.”[[39]]
“In this state of our knowledge,” Dr Whewell subsequently adds, after recapitulating the whole course of the argument indicated by the lines above placed in italics, “and with such grounds of belief, to dwell upon the plurality of worlds of intellectual and moral creatures as a highly probable doctrine, must, we think, be held to be eminently rash and unphilosophical. On such a subject, where the evidences are so imperfect, and our power of estimating analogies so small, far be it from us to speak positively and dogmatically. And if any one holds the opinion, on whatever evidence, that there are other spheres of the Divine government than this earth, other spheres in which God has subjects and servants, other beings who do his will, and who, it may be, are connected with the moral and religious interests of man, we do not breathe a syllable against such a belief, but, on the contrary, regard it with a ready and respectful sympathy: it is a belief which finds an echo in pious and benevolent hearts, and is of itself an evidence of that religious and spiritual character in man, which is one of the points of our argument.... But it would be very rash, and unadvised—a proceeding unwarranted, we think, by religion, and certainly at variance with all that science teaches—to place those other extra-human spheres of Divine government in the planets and in the stars. With regard to these bodies, if we reason at all, we must reason on physical grounds; we must suppose, as to a great extent we can prove, that the law and properties of terrestrial matter and motion apply to them also. On such grounds it is as improbable that visitants from Jupiter, or from Sirius, can come to the earth, as that men can pass to those stars—as unlikely that inhabitants of those stars know and take an interest in human affairs, as that we can learn what they are doing. A belief in the Divine government of other races of spiritual creatures, besides the human race, and in Divine ministrations committed to such beings, cannot be connected with our physical and astronomical views of the nature of the stars and planets, without making a mixture altogether incongruous and incoherent—a mixture of what is material, and what is spiritual, adverse alike to sound religion and to sound philosophy.”[[40]]
Those possessing a competent acquaintance with the doctrines of theology, and ethical and metaphysical discussions, cannot, we think, read this necessarily faint and imperfect outline of what Dr Whewell has thus far advanced on the subject, without appreciating the caution and discretion with which he handles the subject which he here discusses—one of a critical character—in all its aspects and bearings. It is deeply suggestive to reflecting minds, who may be disposed to note with satisfaction how closely his doctrine, as thus far developed, quadrates with those of the Christian system. He has well reminded us, in the Dialogue, of a saying of Kant—that two things impressed him with awe: the starry heaven without him, and the Moral Principle within; and the current of his reflections tends towards that awful passage in the New Testament,—words which fell from the lips of the Saviour of mankind: “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” “For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels, and then he shall reward every man according to his works.”[[41]] These two questions (to say nothing of the significance of the expression with reference to the subject now under discussion, “the whole world”), and the reason which is proposed to those who would answer the question, as that which should govern the choice between their own soul and the whole world, justify our attaching the highest conceivable value and importance to man, as a rational, a moral, an accountable being.
In the Dialogue, an objector suggests, “But in your inclination to make man the centre of creation, and the object of all the rest of the universe, are you not forgetting the admonitions of those who warn us against this tendency of self-glorification? You will recollect how much of this warning there is in the Essay on Man:—
‘Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine?
Earth for whose use? Pride answers, ’Tis for mine.’
To imagine ourselves of so much consequence in the eyes of the Creator is natural to us, self-occupied as we are, till philosophy rebukes such conceit.” To which it is justly answered—“It is quite right to attend to such warnings. But warnings may also be useful on the other side: warnings against self-disparagement; against the belief that man is not an important object in the eyes of the Creator. I do not know what philosophy represents man as insignificant in the eyes of the Deity; and still less does religious philosophy favour the belief of man’s insignificance in the eyes of God. What great things, according to the views which religion teaches, has He done for mankind, and for each man!”[[42]]
But man’s intellectual and moral nature being of such dignity and value in the estimation of God, other circumstances connected with him tend in the same direction, says Dr Whewell, and point him out as a special and unique existence, in every way worthy of his transcendent position. He is created by a direct and special act of the Deity, and placed and continued, under circumstances of a most remarkable character, upon the locality prepared for him. We need hardly say that Dr Whewell repudiates the irreligious, idle, and unphilosophical notion that man is merely the result of material development out of a long series of animal existences. This figment Dr Whewell easily demolishes, on philosophical grounds, in common with all the great scientific men of the age; and having vindicated for man the dignity of his origin, as the result of a direct act of creation, and differing not only in his kind, but in his order, from all other creations, proceeds to consider his relations to his earthly abode. This brings us to the second stage of his Argument, to which we now proceed; premising that it necessarily involves considerations relating to the constitution of man, physically, intellectually, and morally; and especially as a being of progressive development. This stage is to be found in two chapters of the Essay, the fifth and sixth, respectively entitled, “Geology;” and “the Argument from Geology,”—both written with uncommon ability, and exhibiting proofs of the great importance attached to them by the author. Even those who may altogether dissent from his main conclusions, will appreciate the interesting and instructive, the masterly and suggestive outline which he gives of this noble twin sister of Astronomy, Geology. We are disposed to hazard a conjecture, that the governing idea developed in these chapters, was the origin of the whole speculation to which the Essay is devoted.
MRS STOWE’S SUNNY MEMORIES.[[43]]
It is, we think, to be regretted that those who intend to lay before the public their impressions of foreign travel, should so often have recourse to the form of letters purporting to be addressed to friends or relatives at home. We admit that, for purposes of fiction, the epistolary style is convenient. Testy Mathew Bramble, his tyrannical sister Tabitha, and the lovelorn Winifred Jenkins, may, by their several lucubrations, unite to form the most amusing of family chronicles; but Smollett, when he compiled Humphrey Clinker, took care that the expression of each character should be perfectly natural. So with Lever’s Dodd Family, and the immortal letters of Mrs Ramsbottom. But the case of a party deliberately penning letters, in his or her own name, not for the private gratification of a select circle, or the information of those to whom they are addressed, but directly for the press and the public, is very different. In the first place, every one knows and feels that the letters are not genuine. The most gifted of our race, in addressing a mother, a sister, or a child, do not think it necessary to indulge in fine writing, or in long elaborate descriptions, or in statistical details. They write simply—generally shortly; and a good deal of their matter would, if submitted to the eye of a stranger, appear to be unmeaning gossip, not improbably approaching to twaddle. We doubt not that, in the real letters which Mrs Stowe despatched across the Atlantic, there were many household inquiries, suggestions, and remembrances—domestic precepts and home-thoughts—kind, motherly, or friendly words, such as render letters doubly delightful to the recipients. But these formal epistles which she has now given to the world under the collective title of Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, bear falsity in their very face, and, in all human probability, the printer’s devil was the first person that perused them. They are all pitched in one key. Her despatches to the home nursery are as elaborate efforts of composition, as those which are nominally addressed to her father, or to “Dear Aunt E.”;—and, as a necessary consequence, they are frigid in the extreme. This is an artistic blunder, which cannot fail to detract very much from the interest of what Mrs Stowe had written. It was not perhaps to be expected, nor indeed desired, that she should have printed her genuine letters; but surely there was no occasion for recasting her diary or memoranda in a purely fictitious form.