[#] This is why no great work of art over becomes out of date, whereas the work of a great scientist is always liable to do so, because his successors revise it in the light of ever widening knowledge.
Moreover, these activities of the mind or spirit fail to govern our lives as a whole precisely because they are contemplative and not active. We stand before the world gazing at it, setting our minds indeed to work upon it in certain ways, yet not fundamentally changing it. But we are active beings, with wills as well as contemplative minds, and our volitional action lies very largely outside the range which these activities and interests can control. And therefore it is that so little real unity is reached by means of them.
In Morality the practical instincts and impulses are for the first time included. Morality is the science or the art, or both, of living in society; of living, that is to say, as fellow members with other beings, who also have aspirations and ideals as legitimate as our own, so that our own claim to pursue our own ideals must be won by recognition of their equal claim to pursue theirs. And the man who, with full mastery of himself, if such a man exists, is following out a great purpose that is adequate to satisfy his whole nature, is a man who has achieved the conquest of Time in the completest way. It is essential to the pursuit of a purpose that we move from stage to stage, as we adapt means to our end, and yet all of it is one thing, thought and experienced as one. Indeed a test that we always instinctively apply to a biography is whether it enables us to see the different stages of a man's life as constituting one spiritual whole. That is just what we desire the biographer to set forth before us.
At the same time Morality conquers antagonism because it is the life of fellowship. It begins with the recognition that other men have as much right to live as we have, and we buy our rights precisely by conceding theirs. Its root principle is the recognition of this brotherhood or fellow-membership. And yet it, too, never reaches its goal; it fails in two ways; every man in this world, however perfectly he may achieve mastery of his own nature—and it may be doubted if any man has ever done even that by his own strength—is so conditioned by circumstances that he is never able to make his life a perfect masterpiece of art; and as regards the whole fellowship of which he is a member, and his own relation to it, he can find no absolute rules except the command to reach a state of mind which he cannot reach by his own will. There are no moral laws that are absolute except the law to love one's neighbour as oneself. All the rest have exceptions somewhere. "Thou shall not kill," was the formula of the old law. But we have altered it into, "Thou shalt do no murder." It is always wrong to murder, because murder is such killing as is wrong. But it is not always wrong to kill. And so we find no principle that can be made entirely binding and universal, except the law to love our neighbour as ourselves. But how are we to do it? Is there any man who seriously thinks that by taking thought he can make himself love somebody else?
All of these three then, and the last as emphatically as any, in spite of its comprehending a greater section of human nature, fail to reach their own achievement.
In the fourth stage, in Religion, all would find their fulfilment. For the purpose of God, if there be a God, is the principle of unity which the scientist is seeking. The nature of God, if there be a God, is that perfect beauty which would be the culmination of the life of Art. The righteousness of God, if there be a God, is the satisfaction of the moral aspiration. But we are not left so to conjecture what life would be like if we could carry our own spiritual faculties to their own highest development. We are given the express image of the person of God. "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." We shall not indeed have perfect knowledge of the sphere of religion until we have seen how the whole of history and every detail of our lives is, after all, the result and work of creative Love; but while Science and Art and Morality struggle towards their goal and only realise their need for it, God gives Himself as the satisfaction of that need. It is His gift, not our discovery; but we see that in this principle all Time is gathered up, for if the life of Christ is the manifestation of the nature of God, then it is the manifestation of the root-principle of all history.[#]
[#] I am aware that the argument here is per saltum, but space forbids its full development. I hope soon to have completed a book which will fill in the outline sketch offered in this Lecture. Meanwhile I would refer to my essay on The Divinity of Christ in Foundations, specially pp. 213-223, 242-263.
Then we see, too, how all men may be united in perfect fellowship, because all men loving God will find themselves loving those whom God so loves. This hope or conviction remains in the region of faith, not of knowledge; what of that? In the other departments also we have found no knowledge. We have only found approximation towards it. We have, as it were, converging lines which never meet; and we have also the point at which we see they would meet if produced. Is that not enough? Here we find is the principle that will give unity, as we work it out, to the whole scheme of our spiritual life. Morality says, "Love all men." How can I? Science says, "Realise the truth which explains the universe." How can I? But I can gaze upon the manifestation of God in Jesus Christ; I can meditate upon His Cross and Resurrection. I can see here and there how it may be true that this is indeed the explanation of all the sorrow, even of all the sin. For if it is true that the supreme manifestation of the love of God was historically conditioned by the supreme sin of humanity in the treason of Judas, then surely one begins to see how even out of the grossest evil the glory of God wins triumph for itself, which we too may share if we are first drawn to share the sacrifice.
As I become absorbed in that contemplation I find in the first place a new power to love all men, as I remember that He died for them just as He died for me. In the degree in which I really believe that this is the manifestation of the power of God and the governing authority of the universe, I find this thought over-ruling other thoughts and temptations to hostility or enmity. As I remember that those whom I am inclined to despise or hate are those for whom He thought it worth while to die, my contempt and my hatred are rebuked and cancelled.
And similarly, if I realise—or in the degree in which I realise—that here is set forth the power that governs all things, that this is the way in which God rules the world, and that Calvary is the mode of His omnipotence, I begin to find myself indifferent, and that increasingly, to those things which are called sorrow and pain.