The Press. — London, England, 1855-09-15 00:00:00

SEPT. 15, 1855. method, and with quite as much certainty, as we arrive at a knowledge of external things. The essay, however, is not of the character of those masterpieces which seize on some one leading idea, and firmly impress it on the mind by different forms of argument and illus tration. It is often exceedingly loose and diffuse in structure, and, though the maze of the author maybe perfectly distinct in his own mind (on this point, however, we have doubts), he certainly has not the art to render it comprehensible to a reader of ordi nary capacity. An examination into the nature of self, it is said, is the more necessary, as a man cannot, without recognising some original principle of movement or will in the life of himself, recog nise a Superior Will in the life of the world. This argument is adopted to meet the objec tions of some sceptical writers. But it appears to us very detrimental to the essay of Mr. Thompson that it is throughout of a controversial nature, and that we are obliged to munch his natural theology sandwich fashion, the arguments of sceptical thinkers lying between the author's slices of reasoning, and imparting a bitter, obnoxious flavour to the whole. We venture to lay it down as a principle fo; all essayists, that if they wish their works to be read tkey should avoid con troversy, and be content with the distinct expression of their own thoughts. The greater part of this work is made up of reference to the metaphysical systems of writers, which, if deserving of notice at all, would each require a separate treatise. Having laid it down as a principle that an examination into human consciousness must precede any attempt to establish the existence of Deity, Mr. Thompson proceeds to review briefly the metaphysical systems of Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Reid, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and others, his conclusion from the history of mo dern German metaphysics being that " nihilism —" no world, no self, no God—is the only possi " ble philosophy, unless a safe and sure pas " sage be found from thought to being, from " subjective to objective, from phenomena to " reality, from the internal mind to the exter " nal world." To find this " safe and sure passage " he institutes an inquiry into the elementary principles of our knowledge, and explains the faculties of the mind. His view of its origi nal constitution is ingenious : It would seem to resemble, not so much the manufac• tured paper, as the pulp of which it is to consist; this, however, not lying in a shapeless mass, but spread out in a wonderful machine, which proceeds at once to roll the sheet and to impress upon it indelible characters. To complete the comparison, we may imagine the pulp and the machine to possess, each of them, certain chemical properties, or, through the agency of a Wise Designer, to be imprinted with certain chemical substances which have an affinity for one another.—i. The question is then naturally suggested, Who prepared this pulp? The question may be evaded by total scepticism; and hence (i. 80) the author is led to an examination of different systems of existence and different systems of unbelief. Persons who desire to penetrate the subtlest depths of metaphysical scepticism will find a copious account of " speculative theories of existence" in the chapters ranging from 81 to 203 of vol. i. Mr. Thompson next passes to the direct evidences of natural theism. We could not, he argues, have received such an absolute assurance of the being of God as would have obviated all doubt on the subject without impairing the freedom of the mind. He writes : An original conviction of this truth [the being of Godl which should be absolutely beyond question, can scarcely be conceived as within the bounds of possibility. Suppose the demand of extreme scepticism to have been fulfilled. Suppose the great truth had been written upon the sky, or impressed by an irresistible instinct of nature upon the minds of all ; suppose an overpowering influence from God himself had compelled us to the acknowledgment that lie exists, yet we should not have been quite debarred from questioning the origin of this influence ; and, if we had, the inability to ask questions would not have pre chided the possibility of error. The atheist himself would scarcely desire an innate compulsory belief which stifled his darling faculty of scepticism. He would not choose to resign the privilege of asking why he must believe. And yet the question why, in such a case, must extend within the depths of being. He could not know why, without seeing whence and how the assurance arises in his mind ; and to search the origin of an innate assurance is little less than to know why and how he exists at all.—i. 208,209. THE PRESS. Mr. Thompson considers (i. 209) that the being of God is not susceptible of mathe matical proof, and he enters into a long argument on the " objective and subjective ' to show why such proof cannot be had. Our knowledge of God, he asserts, must be estab lished " on the unavoidable cognition of our " own being" (1. 231). Some sentences on the soul's knowledge of itself will indicate the style of the author's reasoning, and show also the difficulty which any person must have in following him:— It [the soull has no immediate apperception of itself as an objective being, but is under the natural necessity of refering the phenomena of thought, will, affection, to a real cause, and is thus led to know itself as a real being. . . Thus, through the casual principle of the reason, the subjective consciousness furnishes decisive proof of some objective existence. The same primary experience, which delivers to the mind the phenomena of self-consciousness, teaches it to refer them to an existing soul, and to acknow ledge its existence to he something which is manifested by thought, but does not consist in thought; something, on the contrary, which is prior to thought and the cause of it..—i. 240, 2.41. Some persons may take this to be profound reflection. We have our own opinion on the matter. There is no folly equal to that of accumulating words to confirm the verbal difficulties which seem invented for no other purpose than to obscure thought. Mr. Thompson gives a prominent place to free will in his definition of the soul's attri butes. He thinks there are " reasons of the " strongest kind for believing that man is " really free and able to originate from him " self" 268). In the limited conditions of the soul's knowledge, as regards time, space, and causality, the author finds an argument favorable to the incomprehensibility of the Divine Nature. The following paragraphs are convincing, though not new. After stating the objection, What do we mean by a Being supe rior to relations of time? the author replies : Without doubt the conception can have but anegative value. We may say that He is a Being who does not endure, but is; but this can mean no more than that His existence is such that it cannot possibly fall under the conditions of human experience. We mean that a Being exists, the manner of whose existence cannot be included within the limits of human knowledge. To deny the possibility of such a Being is to make our faculties the measure of all possibility. Thus the principles of reason. on whiclr man is dependent for his most elementary knowledges of him self and of an external world, demonstrate the existence of an incomprehensible Being. But what do we gain, the atheist will demand, by this notion of an Incomprehensible? We gain this; that be sides finding a basis for the other arguments of theism, we avoid the absurdity which lies on the opposite side of the question. And this is our only possible escape. In the indefinite extension of time every thing is comprehensible. Duration is a perfectly intelligible notion ; we can conceive it to be extended without limit, and can see it to be impos sible that it can ever complete an eternity. The question of the origin of nature is one which we cannot possibly evade. It forces itself upon the reason, and presently involves it in a dilemma. But it is not, as is commonly thought, a dilemma of opposite incompre hensibles, but between an incomprehensible and an absurdity ; between a conclusion above reason and one contrary to it. We cannot but shrink from the absurdity, the incomprehensibility is no more than was to be ex pected.—i. 281, 282. In the " proofs" adduced of the Divine exist ence drawn from the life of the soul there are many instructive and striking passages. The eighth chapter (1.343-390), on "The Revelation of God in the Aspirations of the Soul," strikes us as one of the best in the work. It is dis tinguished by impressive thought and a high order of ratiocinative eloquence. The second volume is devoted to the mani festation of the Divine character in nature and in revelation, and is, on the whole, more prac tical in its tone than the first volume, though the German metaphysical element still largely pervades it. The author tells us that, in con formity with an opinion of the judges of the treatise that " the physical part of the argu " ment had been too much overlooked," he has made considerable additions to that por tion of his essay which bears on physical evidences. But it is still so meagre, and so little in accordance with the general scope of the work, that we doubt the prudence of the additions. In one remarkable passage of the first volume, indeed, the author expressly assigns a reason why the argument from design or final causes cannot be satis factory : Vain would be all the efforts of human thought if, to pass from nature up to nature's God, it were necessary to pass through all the phenomena, and all the (chains of 887 causes, both discovered and concealed; to trace the design and providence of the Creator through all the proce saes of creation, and so, by displaying its wonderful unities, at length, after a long and patient journey, to arrive at the point of dependence. There would then be force in the objection of atheism :—" In the presence of so many mys teries and marvels, which art or science cannot unravel, which philosophy cannot explain, it seems to me an im mense endowment, when a man can say with confidence— I look through nature and beyond nature up to nature's God. The presumption of the thing repels me." "We are very far from the time," says Humboldt, " even sup posing it possible that it should ever arrive, when a reason able hope could be conceived of reducing all that is per ceived by the senses to the unity of a sing e principle." The case were indeed hopeless, if this were the only course to reach the foundation of natural theology. Geology and astronomy discover the extent, in time and apace, of the field to be traversed ; and man might well sit down in hopeless despondence before the impossible task.—i. 209, 270. The few proofs selected from the physical world (ii. 4-82) are chiefly drawn from astro nomy, that boundless field of nature which Paley thought was not the best fitted for bringing home to the mind of man conviction of the fatherly presence of Deity, though well suited for showing the immensity of His power. In treating of the Divine attributes considerable space is devoted to a considers• ti'u of the much-vexed question of the source of evil, which Mr. Thompson is disposed to think is inseparable from that freedom and originative power which he claims for the will. The fourth and last book of the essay (ii. 155 to end) is devoted to the scriptural revela tion of the Divine character, with answers to the objections of modern deism. From this brief sketch of the general pur port of Mr. Thompson's essay, it will be seen that the metaphysical element greatly pre ponderates in it. If, as the author implies, the argument from design has partially failed, we do not sea how the argument from our moral constitution is to expect a better fate. There are at least as many contradictions in the nature of man as in the physical world— the mind is not less difficult to comprehend than the body—and if the question is irresis tibly suggested to the intellect of who created its faculties, the same question must be asked regarding the senses which minister to and form the intellect and the corporeal functions which fulfil its will. In much relying on any argument drawn from out mental constitution in support of natural theology there is always this danger, that failure in any one link of the chain may • destroy the whole structure. There are many sound philosophers who will be disposed to dispute some of Mr. Thompson's most im portant positions; and if those positions can be successfully resisted, or even if they fail to command general assent, his whole argument rests on a base of sand. At best it is evident that the influence of his thought must neces sarily be confined to those lew persons who have a taste for metaphysical disputation, and leisure to study its refinements. More unsatis factory aliment for the intellect of ordinaly men cannot be imagined than the elaborate criticism we find here on the metaphysical systems which for the last two centuries have kept mental philosophy in a state of perpetual fluctuation. Mr. Thompson's own ideas are certainly not clear on some fundamental points of philoso phy. We cannot make out from him whether he believes the mind to be endowed with innate ideas or not. He rejects the axiom on which the system of Locke is founded, that " Nihil est in intellectu, quod non fuerit " in sensu "—even with the qualification of Leibnitz, " except the intellect itself" —yet that principle has been recognised by most sound philosophers ; and he lays much greater stress on original ideas of con science and duty than metaphysicians are commonly inclined to accord to them. The defect of Locke, as we have previously observed in this Journal, was that he did not dilate with sufficient force and distinctness on the original constitution of the mind, as a great capacity or power. He was right in sup posing it to be set in motion by the senses, and in its being informed by them solely, but he does appear occasionally to confound the information received by the mind through the medium of the senses, and the activity thence imparted to its faculties with the mind itself. As Mr. Thompson says, the image of a tabula