The Press. — London, England, 1855-06-16 00:00:00

574 conquest and less difficult for defence than Perekop and Odessa, and preferable to a campaign in Bessarabia or the south of Rus sia; it is the best mode of attack should the ar continue, but it is not sufficient to induce us to make great sacrifices and to defer the peace of Europe. BURNETT TREATISE. SECOND PRIZE. Theism: the Witness of Reason and Nature to an All-wise and Beneficent Creator. By the Rev. John Tulloch, D.D. London: Black wood and Sons. NATURM. theology should be a progressive science. It should advance with every dis covery made in the natural world, and with every gleam of adtlitional light cast on Nature's laws. Our knowledge of the Creator should rise in exact proportion to our com prehension of his works ; and as it is not to be doubted that the universe is to a great extent the mirror of his mind, we may hope, by reverent study of it, to draw nearer to Him, and obtain clearer views of his power, wisdom, and goodness. Hence encouragement afforded to the studj of natural theology would seem very appropriate, as the science must be in a state of continued movement. Admitting merely that there is a certain constitution in nature, the progress of observation and intel ligence must tend to show what that constitu tion is. The Burnett Fund, it has,been rightly stated, affords the most munificent encouragement ever offered to the study of natural theology. Mr. Burnett was a merchant of Aberdeen, and by a deed of bequest, executed in 1785, he gave to trustees certain sums, the interest of which was to be expended at intervals of forty years, in tw• prizes, for the best treatises on the evidence " that there is a Being, all " powerful, wise, and good, by whom every " thing exists." On occasion of the last com petition the first premium was awarded to Principal Brown, of Aberdeen, and the second to the present Archbishop of Canterbury. On the present occasion, the first price of 1,8001. has been adjudged to the Rev. R. A. Thomp son, M.A , Lincolnshire; and the second, of 6001., to the author of this treatise—the judges having been Mr. Isaac Taylor, Mr. Henry Rogers, and the Rev. Baden Powell. There is one obvious objection common to all such kinds of competition, and it is, that while the prizes may operate as an encourage• went to persons little known, and who are so fortunately placed that they can afford to hazard time and toil on a slender chance of success, they do not tend to bring forward tried and acknowledged ability, which can always command a certain recompense for its labours. Competition, therefore, is rather calculated to bring forward the ability which is i►nmature or undistinguished, than to immix) the exercise of the highest attainable talent upon a given subject. The former Bur nett treatises have not attained the rank of standard works ; and though as yet we can say nothing of the treatise of Mr. Thompson, we are afraid that the present volume will not be remembered much beyond the year in which it is published. The judges have cer tainly selected a treatise which displays a considerable amount of industrious reading and compilation, and a sufficient acquaintance with the mere rind of modern discovery, with the formulae and technicalities of science ; hut for profound thought and original views we look through this book in vain. Its harsh and rugged style—not the ruggedness which, as in the case of knotted natural confirmations, denotes strength, and which in Butler, and in some of our older divines, arises from the mind struggling and sweating with the burden of great thoughts, but the ruggedness or obScurity which arises from superficial views of things,—is sufficient of itself to repel or dinary readers. Great thinkers are occasionally obscure because they cannot find language equal to their thought, but Dr. Tulloch is obscure because he cannot find thought equal to his language. It is a great mistake to attempt to base the science of natural theo logy on the word•chopping of Scottish meta physics. It is not possible in our space to thread the biases of the Doctor's teem Concisely stated, THE PRESS. his leading position is this :—Because we are, we are ; and because we are, we are auother's ; and that other must be an intelligent first cause ; and hence the " great truth of the " Divine personality comes befJre us with in " tuitive brightness." In the chapter on the " Cognitive Structure in Man" we have this luminous paragraph, which may be received as a specimen of the general style of the book : On any admissible explanation, we have in perception, according to what we have already stated, self and nut self, the ego and non•ego, in clear distinction, and yet in in- dissoluble relation. The correlation is in the perceptive act inseparable, while its factors are distinguishable. The one stands face to face with the other, and equally with the other attests itself. The reality in cognition is, there fore, ever twofoll—subjeet and object; and in this twofold reality we have. for the first time the full manifestation of mind—self-consciousness not merely gazing outward upon the objective world (as in the brute), but realising itself as distinct from and above the world. From this twofold reality we arrive at " the " theistic fact round which as their rational " nucleus all the others gather," and that fact is that " man's rational being is essentially " distinct from nature." On this fact the author dwells, through several pages, atter this fashion : What, then, is the bearing of this fact on our subject ? As we previously said, it is tile most vital for our purpose in our whole range of inquiry; but just corresponding with its peculiar depth and importance is the difficulty of fully seizing and expressing its significance. We have already seen in what respect it lies at the root of our in. ductive evidence as the source of our idea of cause. The strange relation of affinity and yet conflict which thus emerges between the principles of personality andcasualuy were an interesting subject of consideration, but cannot occupy us here. We have at present simply to do with the direct import of the fact of personality in the enlarge ment of our theistic evidence. In tracing back our mental life, we have this fact as the last word for reason. The Me asserts itself as an inscrutable reality, beyond which we cannot go in the way of natural explanation. It refuses obstinately to be related to any higher fact, as a natural sequence. But have we not thus reached a startling conclu sion ? If the human ego he thus as it so clearly pro nounces itself to be, a cause in the highest. and indeed only true sense—viz., a naturally undetermined source of activity, is it not thereby, in its very character, its own author ? If undetermined, is it not necessarily inde pendent? So tar is this from being the case, that we here approach the very peculiarity of the theistic meaning which this prime tact yields us ; fur, in the very act of expressing itself, it is found to be its essential characteristic, at the same time, to express Another. It only realises itself in Another. The more we sink back into the depths of con sciousness, and the more vivid force and reality with which we seize our personal being, as something uncondi tioned by nature, and rising above it, the more directly and immediately do we at the same time apprehend ourselves as relative and dependent. The more we become self conscious, the more do we feel, at the same time, that the ground of our existence is not in ourselves, but in Another and a Higher. Our personality, in asserting itself to be distinct from nature, yet with equal force asserts itself to be derived, or, in other language, to take its rise in a Principle above nature. The human self, in a word, irre sistibly suggests a divine Self; the limited cause, an auso- Intel) , original and unlimited Cause. It is requisite to observe the full import of our conch lion. Our own personality not only gives another per sonality, but another which is at the same time absolute. It is, in fact, the special rational intuition of the absolute in the relative—the infinite in the unite—which carries us beyond the Self within, to a Self without and above us. How vital, in a theistic sense, this intuition is, must therefore be obvious. There may be persons whose minds this kind of reasoning will a itisfy ; but the argu ment seems to us as far from true philosophy as the language in which it is conveyed is from genuine English. - • -• In the section on the " Difficulties regarding the Divine Goodness " the same spirit of dog matism is visible. "In the comprehending " evil of sin," it is said, " all the lower pheuo " mena of evil in human life find their satin " factory explanation." Why satisfactory I Then what explanation shall be given of this major evil including all minor ones? Only this : It has been oar aim simply to show, in reference to human life, how all the difficulties attending the theistic inference run up into this point, and here find their ulti mate force. And if at length, in approaching this point, we find that the light of explanation fails us, or, in other words, find that we cannot at all resolve sin in our process of theistic induction, it may at the same time appear that this arises from its very nature, which is such as compels us to cast it out of the theistic argument, and per ae libe rates that argument from its injurious burden, mysterious and irresolvable as it may for ever remain. It may be seen that, while this mystery defies all solution, it sepa rates itself by its character from ali &root relation to *hi Divine sgento SATURDAY, So, the " Difficulties regarding the Divine Wisdom and Goodness " are, in plain terms, to be obviated only by asserting that they are not to be obviated at all. Whenever Dr. Tulloch brings us to a conclusion we may be sure it will resemble the final chapter in " Rasselas,"—a conclusion in which nothing is concluded. One "difficulty" stated in the Leader news paper is quoted in this volume : If the celebrated argument of design is to hold good as evidence in favour, it must hold equally good as evidence against the wisdom and beneficence of the Creator--a startling proposition, and one we believe never made before, but one from which logic. has no escape. When you point to the perfection of organisations as evidence of wisdom, and to their manifold enjoyments as evidence of goodness, you force the reflective mind to think of the imperfections and the misery so abundantly displayed. When you take your relative good for the absolute good, you must equally accept your relative evil for the absolute evil. The difficulty is not new, and it has already been answered by Paley. The good As plainly the object of contrivance—the evil never the object of contrivance, but incident to it. A " smash" occurs on a railway ; but the object of the railway is to carry passengers safely, not to kill or maim them. A man is hung (to the disgrace of our civilisation) in presence of thousands of spectators; but the end of government is nut to execute the people, but to protect and benefit them. But God is far above all human arrangements, and why should sin and pain not have been excluded from the world of His creation? Dr. Tulloch says Now of course it is undeniable that, if God had so willed, there would have been no pain in the world. But then he adds : Supposing the organism had been made incapable of pain, how do we know that it would have retained its capa city of pleasure ? And the conclusion, as usual, with the wor thy Principal is : We put the question thus, because we really do not know, and cannot know. In succeeding pages he attempts to show, in that style of vicious and unbiblical philosophy which has found favour witu sow° shallow philosophers of our day, that evil is not really evil. It is true no doubt that, The more highly-refined and exalted the organism, and the inure exquisite its issues of pleasure, the inure exquisite also is its liability to suffering. This is but another expression of the exqui- site lines of Burns : Dearly bought, the hidden treasure Finer feelings can bestow ; Hearts that vibrate sweetest pleasure Thrill with deepest notes of woe. But it is not true, as applied to the moral and intellectual world, that, The higher and more richly susceptible the organisms, the mare carefully defended are they. The more life be comes intensified in nobler creations, the more carefully is its freight of happiness secured against spoliation. Nor is it true that pain contributes to hap piness (even Paley is in fault on this point), nor that death is a beneficent contrivance for increasing the sum of sentient bliss: — The life which has sported itself in joyful hours, or days, or years, expires in the brief pang of a moment. Here, as everywhere the measure of pain is found to be strictly economised, while the measure of life and its enjoyments is poured forth with a profuse hand. Theology, to our view, is not concerned to deny the existence of pain or evil, or the amount of suffering they occasion. The Christian says plainly, "We live in a dis " ordered world, and we admit that the priu " ciplo of evil, by whatever name it may be " called, is ever present, and ever active in it." To this great fact the history of all mankind testifies. The evil may be resolvable into good at last, but its existence is not to be denied or extenuated. Is it then inseparable from the conditions of earthly existence? Perhaps so, as those con ditions are, but not as they might be, or as revelation tells us they once were. And the great difficulty lies in attempting to prove, in the face of acknowledged evil, that God is all powerful, all•wise, and all good. If sin, having its root in some powerful principle of evil, exists in spite of His will, as revelation and reason alike declare it does, then He is not all powerful in the sense gene rally ascribed to the phrase. The chain of necessity may ascend to the heights of the highest heaven and encompass the throne is