# Blackwood's Magazine/Volume 45/Issue 280/An Introduction to the Philosophy of Consciousness (Part 6)

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AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS.
Part VI. — Chap. I.
Philosophy has long ceased to be considered a valid and practical discipline of life. And why? Simply because she commences by assuming that man, like other natural things, is a passive creature, ready-made to her hand; and thus she catches from her object the same inertness which she attributes to him. But why does philosophy found on the assumption that man is a being who comes before her ready-shaped—hewn out of the quarries of nature—fashioned into form, and with all his lineaments made distinct, by other hands than his own? She does so in imitation of the physical sciences: and thus the inert and lifeless character of modern philosophy is ultimately attributable to her having degenerated into the status of a physical science.
But is there no method by which vigour may yet be propelled into the moribund limbs of philosophy; and by which, from being a dead system of theory, she may be renovated into a living discipline of practice? There is, if we will but reflect and understand that the course of procedure proper to the physical sciences, namely, the assumption that their, objects and the facts appertaining to these objects lie before them ready-made—is utterly inadmissible in true philosophy—is totally at variance with the scope and spirit of a science which professes to deal fairly with the phenomena of man. Let us endeavour to point out and illustrate the deep-seated contradistinction between philosophical and physical science; for the purpose, more particularly, of getting light thrown upon the moral character of our species.
When an inquirer is engaged in the scientific study of any natural object, let us say, for instance, of water and its phenomena, his contemplation of this object does not add any new phenomenon to the facts and qualities already belonging to it. These phenomena remain the same, without addition or diminution, whether he studies them or not. Water flows downwards, rushes into a vacuum under the atmospheric pressure, and evolves all its other phenomena, whether man be attending to them or not. His looking on makes no difference, as far as the nature of the water is concerned. In short, the number and character of its facts continue altogether uninfluenced by his study of them. His science merely enables him to classify them, and to bring them more clearly and steadily before him.
But when man is occupied in the study of the phenomena of his own natural being, or, in other words, is philosophizing, the case is very materially altered. Here his contemplation of these phenomena does add a new phenomenon to the list already under his inspection: it adds, namely, the new and anomalous phenomenon that he is contemplating these phenomena. To the old phenomena presented to him in his given or ready-made being—for instance, his sensations, passions, rational and other states—which he is regarding, there is added the supervision of these states; and this is itself a new phenomenon belonging to him. The very fact that man contemplates or makes a study of the facts of his being, is itself a fact which must be taken into account; for it is one of his phenomena just as much as any other fact connected with him is.—In carrying forth the physical sciences, man very properly takes no note of his contemplation of their objects; because this contemplation does not add, as we have said, any new fact to the complement of phenomena connected with these objects. Therefore, in sinking this fact, he does not suppress any fact to which they can lay claim. But in philosophizing, that is, in constructing a science of himself, man cannot suppress this fact, without obliterating one of his own phenomena; bemuse man's contemplation of his own phenomena is itself a new and separate phenomenon added to the given phenomena which he is contemplating.
Here, then, we have a most radical distinction laid down between physics and philosophy. In ourselves, as well as in nature, a certain given series of phenomena is presented to our ​observation, but in studying the objects of nature, we add no new phenomenon to the phenomena already there;—whereas, on the contrary, in studying ourselves we do add a new phenomenon to the other phenomena of our being—we add, to wit, the fact that we are thus studying ourselves. Be this new phenomenon important or unimportant, it is, at any rate, evident that in it is violated the analogy between physics and philosophy—between the study of man and the study of nature. For what can be a greater or more vital distinction between two sciences or disciplines than this; that while the one contributes nothing to the making of its own facts, but finds them all (to use a very familiar colloquism) cut and dried beneath its hand—the other creates, in part at least, its own facts—supplies, to a certain extent, and by its own free efforts, as we shall see, the very materials out of which it is constructed.
But the parallel between physics and philosophy, although radically violated by this new fact, is not totally subverted; and our popular philosophy has preferred to follow out the track where the parallel partially holds good. It is obvious that two courses of procedure are open to her choice. Either following the analogy of the natural sciences, which of themselves add no new fact to their objects, she may attend exclusively to the phenomena which she finds in man, but which she has no hand in contributing—or else, breaking loose from that analogy, she may direct her attention to the novel and unparalleled phenomenon which she, of herself, has added to her object, and which we have already described. Of these two courses philosophy has chosen to adopt the former: and what has been the result? Surely all the ready-made phenomena of man have been, by this time, sufficiently explored. Philosophers, undisturbed, have pondered over his passions—unmoved they have watched and weighed his emotions. His affections, his rational states, his sensations, and all the other ingredients and modifications of his natural framework have been rigidly scrutinised and classified by them; and, after all, what have they made of it—what sort of a picture have their researches presented to our observation? Not the picture of a man; but the representation of an automaton, that is what it cannot help being—a phantom dreaming what it cannot but dream—an engine performing what it must perform—an incarnate reverie—a weathercock shifting helplessly in the winds of sensibility—a wretched association-machine, through which ideas pass linked together by laws over which the machine has no control—any thing, in short, except that free and self-sustained centre of underived, and therefore responsible activity, which we call Man.
If such, therefore, be the false representation of man which philosophy invariably and inevitably pictures forth, whenever she makes common cause with the natural sciences, we have plainly no other course left than to turn philosophy aside from following their analogy, and to guide her footsteps upon a new line and different method of inquiry. Let us, then, turn away the attention of philosophy from the facts which she does not contribute to her object; (viz. the ready-made phenomena of man); and let us direct it upon the new fact which she does contribute thereto—and let us see whether greater truth and a more practical satisfaction will not now attend her investigations.
The great and only fact which philosophy, of herself, adds to the other phenomena of man, and which nothing but philosophy can add, is, as we have said, the fact that man does philosophize. The fact that man philosophizes is (so often as it takes place) as much a human phenomenon as the phenomenon, for instance, of passion is, and therefore cannot legitimately be overlooked by an impartial and true philosophy. At the same time, it is plain that philosophy creates and brings along with her this fact of man; in other words, does not find it in him ready-made to her hand:—because, if man did not philosophize, the fact that he philosophizes would, it is evident, have no manner of existence whatsoever. What, then, does this fact which philosophy herself contributes to philosophy and to man, contain, embody, and set forth, and what are the consequences resulting from it?
The act of philosophizing is the act of systematically contemplating our own natural or given phenomena. ​But the act of contemplating our own phenomena unsystematically, is no other than our old friend, the act of consciousness: therefore the only distinction between philosophy and consciousness is, that the former is with system, and the latter without it. Thus, in attending to the fact which philosophy brings along with her, we find that consciousness and philosophy become identified,—that philosophy is a systematic or studied consciousness, and that consciousness is an unsystematic or unstudied philosophy. But what do we here mean by the words systematic and unsystematic? These words signify only a greater and a less degree of clearness, expansion, strength, and exaltation. Philosophy possesses these in the higher degree, our ordinary consciousness in the lower degree. Thus philosophy is but a clear, and expanded, a strong, and an exalted consciousness; while, on the other hand, consciousness is an obscurer, a narrower, a weaker, and a less exalted philosophy. Consciousness is philosophy nascent; philosophy is consciousness in full bloom and blow. The difference between them is only one of degree, and not one of kind; and thus all conscious men are to a certain extent philosophers, although they may not know it.
But what comes of this? Whither do these observations tend? With what purport do we point out, thus particularly, the identity in kind between philosophy and the act of consciousness? Reader! if thou hast eyes to see, thou canst not fail to perceive (and we pray thee mark it well) that it is precisely in this identity of philosophy and consciousness that the merely theoretical character of philosophy disappears, while, at this very point, her ever-living character, as a practical disciplinarian of life, bursts forth into the strongest light. For consciousness is no dream—no theory; it is no lesson taught in the schools, and confined within their walls; it is not a system remote from the practical pursuits and interests of humanity; but it has its proper place of abode upon the working theatre of living men. It is a real, and often a bitter struggle on the part of each of us against the fatalistic forces of our nature, which are at all times seeking to enslave us. The causality of nature, both without us, and especially within us, strikes deep roots, and works with a deep intent. The whole scheme and intention of nature, as evolved in the causal nexus of creation, tend to prevent one and all of us from becoming conscious, or, in other words, from realising our own personality. First come our sensations, and these monopolise the infant man; that is to say, they so fill him that there is no room left for his personality to stand beside them; and if it does attempt to rise, they tend to overbear it, and certainly for a time they succeed. Next come the passions, a train of even more overwhelming sway, and of still more flattering aspect; and now there is even less chance than before of our ever becoming personal beings. The casual, or enslaving powers of nature, are multiplying upon us. These passions, like our sensations, monopolise the man, and cannot endure that anything should infringe their dominion. So far from helping to realise our personality, they do everything in their power to keep it aloof or in abeyance, and to lull man into oblivion of himself. So far from coming into life, our personality tends to disappear, and, like water torn and beaten into invisible mist by the force of a whirlwind, it often entirely vanishes beneath the tread of the passions. Then comes reason; and perhaps you imagine that reason elevates us to the rank of personal beings. But looking at reason in itself,—that is considering it as a straight, and not as a reflex act, what has reason done, or what can reason do for man (we speak of kind, and not of degree, for man may have a higher degree of it than animals), which she has not also done for beavers and for bees, creatures which, though rational, are yet not personal beings? Without some other power to act as supervisor of reason, this faculty would have worked in man just as it works in animals,—that is to say it would have operated within him merely as a power of adapting means to ends, without lending him any assistance towards the realization of his own personality. Indeed, being, like our other natural modifications, a state of ​monopoly of the man, it would, like them, have tended to keep down the establishment of his personal being.
Such are the chief powers that enter into league to enslave us, and to bind us down under the causal nexus, the moment we are born. By imposing their agency upon us, they prevent us from exercising our own. By filling us with them, they prevent us from becoming ourselves. They do all they can to withhold each of us from becoming "I." They throw every obstacle they can in the way of our becoming conscious beings; they strive, by every possible contrivance, to keep down our personality. They would fain have each of us to take all our activity from them, instead of becoming, each man for himself, a new centre of free and independent action.
But, strong as these powers are, and actively as they exert themselves to fulfil their tendencies with respect to man, they do not succeed for ever in rendering human personality a non-existent thing. After a time man proves too strong for them; he rises up against them, and shakes their shackles from his hands and feet. He puts forth (obscurely and unsystematically, no doubt), but still he puts forth a particular kind of act, which thwarts and sets at nought the whole causal domination of nature. Out of the working of this act is evolved man in his character of a free, personal, and moral being. This act is itself man; it is man acting, and man in act precedes, as we have seen, man in being,—that is, in true and proper being. Nature and her powers have now no constraining hold over him; he stands out of her jurisdiction. In this act he has taken himself out of her hands into his own; he has made himself his own master. In this act he has displaced his sensations, and his sensations no longer monopolise him; they have no longer the complete mastery over him. In this act he has thrust his passions from their place, and his passions have lost their supreme ascendancy. And now what is this particular kind of act? What is it but the act of consciousness—the act of becoming "I"—the act of placing ourselves in the room which sensation and passion have been made to vacate? This act may be obscure in the extreme, but still it is an act of the most practical kind, both in itself and in its results; and this is what we are here particularly desirous of having noted. For what act can be more vitally practical than the act by which we realise our existence as free personal beings? and what act can be attended by a more practical result than the act by which we look our passions in the face, and, in the very act of looking at them, look them down?
Now, if consciousness be an act of such mighty and practical efficiency in real life, what must not the practical might and authority of philosophy be? Philosophy is consciousness sublimed. If, therefore, the lower and obscurer form of this act can work such real wonders and such great results, what may we not expect from it in its highest and clearest potence? If our unsystematic and undisciplined consciousness be thus practical in its results (and practical to a most momentous extent it is), how much more vitally and effectively practical must not our systematic and tutored consciousness, namely, philosophy, be?—Consciousness when enlightened and expanded is identical with philosophy. And what is consciousness enlightened and expanded? It is, as we have already seen, an act of practical antagonism put forth against the modifications of the whole natural man: and what then is philosophy, but an act of practical antagonism put forth against the modifications of the whole natural man? But further, what is this act of antagonism, when it too, is enlightened and explained? What is it but an act of freedom—an act of resistance, by which we free ourselves from the causal bondage of nature—from all the natural laws and conditions under which we were born: and what then is philosophy but an act of the highest, the most essential, and the most practical freedom? But further, what is this act of freedom when it also is cleared up and explained? It turns out to be Human Will—for the refusal to submit to the modifications of the whole natural man must be grounded on a law opposed to the law under which these modifications develop themselves—namely, the causal law—and this opposing law is the law called human will: and what then is philosophy but pure and indomitable will? or, in other words, the most practical of all conceivable acts, inasmuch as ​will is the absolute source and fountainhead of all real activity. And, finally, let us ask again—what is this act of antagonism against the natural states of humanity?—what is this act in which we sacrifice our sensations, passions, and desires, that is, our false selves, upon the shrine of our true selves?—what is this act in which Freedom and Will are embodied to defeat all the enslaving powers of darkness that are incessantly beleaguering us?—what is it but morality of the highest, noblest, and most active kind? and, therefore, what is human philosophy, ultimately, but another name for human virtue of the most practical and exalted character?
Such are the steps by which we vindicate the title of philosophy to the rank of a real and practical discipline of humanity. To sum up: we commenced by noticing, what cannot fail to present itself to the observation of every one, the inert and unreal character of our modern philosophy—metaphysical philosophy as it is called—and we suspected, indeed we felt assured, that this character arose from our adopting, in philosophy, the method of the physical sciences. We, therefore, tore philosophy away from the analogy of physics, and in direct violation of their procedure we made her contemplate a fact which she herself created, and contributed to her object, a fact which she did not find there—the fact, namely, that an act of philosophizing was taking place. But the consideration of this fact or act brought us to perceive the identity between consciousness and philosophy, and then the perception of this identity led us at once to note the truly practical character of philosophy. For consciousness is an act of the most vitally real and practical character, (we have yet to see more fully how it makes us moral beings). It is κατ᾽ ἐξοχην the great practical act of humanity—the act by which man becomes man in the first instance, and by the incessant performance of which he preserves his moral status, and prevents himself from falling back into the causal bondage of nature, which is at all times too ready to reclaim him; and, therefore, philosophy, which is but a higher phase of consciousness, is seen to be an act of a still higher practical character. Now, the whole of this vindication of the practical character of philosophy is evidently based upon her abandonment of the physical method, upon her turning away from the given facts of man to the contemplation of a fact which is not given in his natural being, but which philosophy herself contributes to her own construction and to man, namely, the act itself of philosophizing, or, in simple language, the act of consciousness. This fact cannot possibly be given: for we have seen that all the given facts of man's being necessarily tend to suppress it; and therefore (as we have also seen) it is, and must be a free and underived, and not in any conceivable sense a ready-made fact of humanity.
Thus, then, we see that philosophy, when she gets her due—when she deals fairly by man, and when man deals fairly by her; in short, when she is rightly represented and understood, loses her merely theoretical complexion, and becomes identified with all the best practical interests of our living selves. She no longer stands aloof from humanity, but, descending into this world's arena, she takes an active part in the ongoings of busy life. Her dead symbols burst forth into living realities—the dry rustling twigs of science become clothed with all the verdure of the spring. Her inert tutorage is transformed into an actual life. Her dead lessons grow into man's active wisdom and practical virtue. Her sleeping waters become the bursting fountainhead from whence flows all the activity which sets in motion the currents of human practice and of human progression. Truly, γνωθι σεαυτον was the sublimest, the most comprehensive, and the most practical oracle of ancient wisdom. Know thyself, and, in knowing thyself, thou shalt see that this self is not thy true self; but, in the very act of knowing this, thou shalt at once displace this false self, and establish thy true self in its room.
Chapter II.
Philosophy, then, has a practical as well as a theoretical side; besides being a system of speculative truth, it is a real and effective discipline of humanity. It is the point of conciliation in which life, knowledge, and virtue meet. ​In it, fact and duty, or that which is, and that which ought to be, are blended into one identity. But the practical character of philosophy—the active part which it plays throughout human concerns has yet to be more fully and distinctly elucidated.
The great principle which we have all along been labouring to bring out—namely, that human consciousness is, in every instance, an act of antagonism against some one or other of the given modifications of our natural existence—finds its strongest confirmation when we turn to the contemplation of the moral character of man.—We have hitherto been considering consciousness chiefly in its relation to those modifications of our nature which are impressed upon us from without. We here found, that consciousness, when deeply scrutinised, is an act of opposition put forth against our sensations; that our sensations are invaded and impaired by an act of resistance which breaks up their monopolising dominion, and in the room of the sensation thus partially displaced, realizes man's personality—a new centre of activity known to each individual by the name "I," a word which, when rightly construed, stands as the exponent of our violation of the causal nexus of nature, and of our consequent emancipation therefrom. The complex antithetical phenomenon in which this opposition manifests itself, we found to be the fact of perception. We have now to consider consciousness in its relation to those modifications of our nature which assail us from within; and here it will be found, that just as all perception originates in the antagonism between consciousness and our sensations, so all morality originates in the antagonism between consciousness and the passions, desires, or inclinations of the natural man.
We shall see that, precisely as we become percipient beings, in consequence of the strife between consciousness and sensation, so do we become moral beings in consequence of the same act of consciousness exercised against our passions, and the other imperious wishes or tendencies of our nature. There is no difference in the mode of antagonism, as it operates in these two cases; only, in the one case, it is directed against what we may call our external, and, in the other, against what we may call our internal, modifications. In virtue of the displacement or sacrifice of our sensations by consciousness, each of us becomes "I,"—the ego is to a certain extent evolved—and even here, something of a nascent morality is displayed—for every counteraction of the causality of nature is more or less the development of a free and moral force. In virtue of the sacrifice of our passions by the same act, morality is more fully unfolded—this "I," that is, our personality, is more clearly and powerfully realised, is advanced to a higher potence—is exhibited in a brighter phase and more expanded condition.
Thus we shall follow out a clue which has been too often, if not ​always, lost hold of in the labyrinths of philosophy—a clue, the loss of which has made inquirers represent man as if he lived in distinct sections, and were an inorganic agglutination of several natures,—the percipient, the intellectual, and the moral—with separate principles regulating each. This clue consists in our tracing the principle of our moral agency back into the very principle in virtue of which we become percipient beings—and in showing that in both cases it is the same act which is exerted—an act, namely, of freedom or antagonism against the caused or derivative modifications of our nature. Thus, to use the language of a foreign writer, we shall at least make the attempt to cut our scientific system out of one piece, and to marshal the frittered divisions of philosophy into that organic wholeness which belongs to the great original of which they profess, and of which they ought to be the faithful copy—we mean man himself. In particular, we trust that the discovery (if such it may be called) of the principle we have just mentioned, may lead the reflective reader to perceive the inseparable connection between psychology and moral philosophy (we should rather say their essential sameness), together with the futility of all those mistaken attempts which have been often made to break down their organic unity into the two distinct departments of "intellectual" and "moral" science.
Another consideration connected with this principle is, that instead of being led by it to do what many philosophers, in order to preserve their consistency, have done—instead of being led by it to observe in morality nothing but the features of a higher self-love, and a more refined sensuality, together with the absence of free-will: we are, on the contrary, led by it to note, even in the simplest act of perception, an incipient self-sacrifice, the presence of a dawning will struggling to break forth, and the aspect of an infant morality beginning to develop itself. This consideration we can only indicate thus briefly; for we must now hurry on to our point.
We are aware of the attempts which have been made to invest our emotions with the stamp and attribute of morality: but, in addition to the testimony of our own experience, we have the highest authority for holding that none of the natural feelings or modifications of the human heart partake in any degree of a moral character. We are told by revelation, and the eye of reason recognises the truth of the averment, that love itself, that is, natural love—a feeling which certainly must bear the impress of morality if any of our emotions do so;—we are told by revelation in emphatic terms, that such love has no moral value or significance whatsoever. "If ye love them," says our Saviour, "which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?" To love those who love us is natural love: and can any words quash and confound the claim of such love to rank as a moral excellence or as a moral development more effectually than these?
"But," continues the same Divine Teacher, "I say unto you, Love your enemies;" obviously meaning, that in this kind of love, as contradistinguished from the other, a new and higher element is to be found—the element of morality—and that this kind of love is a state worthy of approbation and reward: which the other is not. Here, then, we find a discrimination laid down between two kinds of love:—love of friends and love of enemies: and the hinge upon which this discrimination turns is, that the character of morality is denied to the former of these, while it is acceded to the latter. But now comes the question: why is the one of these kinds of love said to be a moral state or act, and why is the other not admitted to be so? To answer this question we must look into the respective characters and ingredients of these two kinds of love.
Natural love, that is, our love of our friends, is a mere affair of temperament, and in entertaining it, we are just as passive as our bodies are when exposed to the warmth of a cheerful fire. It lies completely under the causal law; and precisely as any other ​natural effect is produced by its cause, it is generated and entailed upon us by the love which our friends bear towards us. It comes upon us unsought. It costs us nothing. No thanks to us for entertaining it. It is, in every sense of the word, a passion; that is to say, nothing of an active character mingles with the modification into which we have been moulded. And hence, in harbouring such love, we make no approach towards rising into the dignity of free and moral beings.
But the character and groundwork of the other species of love—of our love, namely, of our enemies, is widely different from this. Let us ask what is the exact meaning of the precept: "Love your enemies?" Does it mean, love them with a natural love—love them as you love your friends? Does it mean, make your love spring up towards those that hate you, just in the same way, and by the same natural process as it springs up towards those that love you? If it means this, then, we are bold enough to say, that it plainly and palpably inculcates an impracticability; for we are sure that no man can love his enemies with the same direct natural love as he loves his friends withal; if he ever does love them, it can only be after he has passed himself through some intermediate act which is not to be found in the natural emotion of love. Besides, in reducing this kind of love to the level of a natural feeling, it would be left as completely stripped of its character of morality as the other species is. But Christianity does not degrade this kind of love to the level of a passion, neither does it in this, or in any other case, inculcate an impracticable act or condition of humanity. What, then, is the meaning of the precept—Love your enemies? What sort of practice or discipline does this text, in the first instance at least, enforce? What but this? act against your natural hatred of them—resist the anger you naturally entertain towards them—quell and subjugate the boiling indignation of your heart. Whatever subsequent progress a man may make, under the assistance of divine grace, towards entertaining a positive love of his enemies, this negative step must unquestionably take the precedence: and most assuredly such assistance will not be vouchsafed to him, unless he first of all take the initiative by putting forth this act of resistance against that derivative modification of his heart, which, in the shape of hatred, springs up within him under the breath of injury and injustice, just as naturally as noxious reptiles are generated amid the foul air of a charnel-house.
The groundwork, then, of our love of our enemies, the feature which principally characterises it, and the condition which renders it practicable, is an act of resistance exerted against our natural hatred of them; and this it is which gives to that kind of love its moral complexion. Thus, we see that this kind of love, so far from arising out of the cherishing or entertaining of a natural passion, does, on the contrary, owe its being to the sacrifice of one of the strongest passive modifications of our nature: and we will venture to affirm, that, without this sacrificial act, the love of our enemies is neither practicable nor conceivable: and if this act does not embody the whole of such love, it at any rate forms a very important element in its composition. In virtue of the tone and active character given to it by this element, the love of our enemies may be called moral love, in contradistinction to the love of our friends, which, on account of its purely passive character, we have called natural love.
And let it not be thought that this act is one of inconsiderable moment. It is, indeed, a mighty act, in the putting forth of which man is in nowise passive. In this act, he directly thwarts, mortifies, and sacrifices, one of the strongest susceptibilities of his nature. He transacts it in the freedom of an original activity, and, most assuredly, nature lends him no helping hand towards its performance. On the contrary, she endeavours to obstruct it by every means in her power. The voice of human nature cries—"By all means, trample your enemies beneath your feet.' "No," says the Gospel of Christ, "rather tread down into the dust that hatred which impels you to crush them."
But now comes another question: What is it that, in this instance, gives a supreme and irreversible sanction to the voice of the Gospel, rendering this resistance of our natural hatred of our enemies right, and our non-resistance of that hatred wrong?
We have but to admit that freedom, or, in other words, emancipation ​from the thraldom of a foreign causality—a causality which, ever since the Fall of Man, must be admitted to unfold itself in each individual's case, in a dark tissue of unqualified evil—we have but to admit that the working out of this freedom is the great end of man, and constitutes his true self; and we have also but to admit that whatever conduces to the accomplishment of this end is right; and the question just broached easily resolves itself. For, supposing man not to be originally free, let us ask how is the end of human liberty to be attained? Is it to be attained by passively imbibing the various impressions forced upon us from without? Is it to be attained by yielding ourselves up in pliant obedience to the manifold modifications which stamp their moulds upon us from within? Unquestionably not. All these impressions and modifications constitute the very badges of our slavery. They are the very trophies of the causal conquests of nature planted by her on the ground where the true man ought to have stood, but where he fell. Now, since human freedom, the great end of man, is thus contravened by these passive conditions and susceptibilities of his nature, therefore it is that they are wrong. And, by the same rule, an act of resistance put forth against them is right, inasmuch as an act of this kind contributes, every time it is exerted, to the accomplishment of that great end.
Now, looking to our hatred of our enemies, we see that this is a natural passion which is most strongly forced upon us by the tyranny of the causal law; therefore it tends to obliterate and counteract our freedom. But our freedom constitutes our true and moral selves—it is the very essence of our proper personality: therefore, to entertain, to yield to this passion, is wrong, is moral death, is the extinction of our freedom, of our moral being, however much it may give life to the natural man. And, by the same consequence, to resist this passion, to act against it, to sacrifice it, is right, is free and moral life, however much this act may give the death-stroke to our natural feelings and desires.
But how shall we, or how do we, or how can we, act against our hatred of our enemies? We answer, simply by becoming conscious of it. By turning upon it a reflective eye (a process by no means agreeable to our natural heart), we force it to faint and fade away before our glance. In this act we turn the tables (so to speak) upon the passion, whatever it may be, that is possessing us. Instead of its possessing us, we now possess it. Instead of our being in its hands, it is now in our hands. Instead of its being our master, we have now become its; and thus is the first step of our moral advancement taken; thus is enacted the first act of that great drama in which demons are transformed into men. In this act of consciousness, founded, as we have elsewhere seen, upon will, and by which man becomes transmuted from a natural into a moral being, we perceive the prelude or dawning of that still higher regeneration which Christianity imparts, and which advances man onwards from the precincts of morality into the purer and loftier regions of religion. We will venture to affirm that this consciousness, or act of antagonism, is the ground or condition, in virtue of which that still higher dispensation is enabled to take effect upon us, and this we shall endeavour to make out in its proper place. In the meantime to return to our point:—
In the absence of consciousness, the passion—(of hatred, for instance)—reigns and ranges unalloyed, and goes forth to the fulfilment of its natural issues, unbridled and supreme. But the moment consciousness comes into play against it, the colours of the passion become less vivid, and its sway less despotic. It is to a certain extent dethroned and sacrificed even upon the first appearance of consciousness; and if this antagonist act manfully maintain its place, the sceptre of passion is at length completely wrested from her hands: and thus consciousness is a moral act—is the foundation-stone of our moral character and existence.
If the reader should be doubtful of the truth and soundness of this doctrine—namely, that consciousness (whether viewed in its own unsystematic form, or in the systematic shape which it assumes when it becomes philosophy) is an act which of itself tends to put down the passions—these great, if not sole, sources of human wickedness; perhaps he will be willing ​to embrace it when he finds it enforced by the powerful authority of Dr Chalmers.
"Let there be an attempt," says he, "on the part of the mind to study the phenomena of anger, and its attention is thereby transferred from the cause of the affection to the affection itself; and, so soon as its thoughts are withdrawn from the cause, the affection, as if deprived of its needful aliment, dies away from the field of observation. There might be heat and indignancy enough in the spirit, so long as it broods over the affront by which they have originated. But whenever it proposes, instead of looking outwardly at the injustice, to look inwardly at the consequent irritation, it instantly becomes cool."
We have marked certain of these words in italics, because in them Dr Chalmers appears to account for the disappearance of anger before the eye of consciousness in a way somewhat different from ours. He seems to say that it dies away because "deprived of its needful aliment," whereas we hold that it dies away in consequence of the antagonist act of consciousness which comes against it, displacing and sacrificing it. But, whatever our respective theories may be, and whichever of us may be in the right, we agree in the main point, namely, as to the fact that anger does vanish away in the presence of consciousness; and therefore this act acquires (whatever theory we may hold respecting it) a moral character and significance, and the exercise of it becomes an imperative duty; for what passion presides over a wider field of human evil, and of human wickedness than the passion of human wrath? and, therefore, what act can be of greater importance than the act which overthrows and puts an end to its domineering tyranny?
The process by which man becomes metamorphosed from a natural into a moral being, is precisely the same in every other case: it is invariably founded on a sacrifice or mortification of some one or other of his natural desires,—a sacrifice which is involved in his very consciousness of them whenever that consciousness is real and clear. We have seen that moral love is based on the sacrifice of natural hatred. In the same way, generosity, if it would embody any morality at all, must be founded on the mortification of avarice or some other selfish passion. Frugality, likewise, to deserve the name of a virtue, must be founded on the sacrifice of our natural passion of extravagance or ostentatious profusion. Temperance, too, if it would claim for itself a moral title, must found on the restraint imposed upon our gross and gluttonous sensualities. In short, before any condition of humanity can be admitted to rank as a moral state, it must be based on the suppression, in whole or in part, of its opposite. And, finally, courage, if it would come before us invested with a moral grandeur, must have its origin in the unremitting and watchful suppression of fear. Let us speak more particularly of Courage and Fear.
What is natural courage? It is a passion or endowment possessed in common by men and by animals. It is a mere quality of temperament. It urges men and animals into the teeth of danger. But the bravest animals and the bravest men (we mean such as are emboldened by mere natural courage) are still liable to panic. The game-cock, when he has once turned tail, cannot be induced to renew the fight: and the hearts of men, inspired by mere animal courage, have at times quailed and sunk within them, and, in the hour of need, this kind of courage has been found to be a treacherous passion.
But what is moral courage? What is it but the consciousness of Fear? Here it is that the struggle and the triumph of humanity are to be found. Natural courage faces danger, and perhaps carries itself triumphantly through it—perhaps not. But moral courage faces fear—and in the very act of facing it puts it down: and this is the kind of courage in which we would have men put their trust; for if fear be vanquished, what becomes of danger? It dwindles into the very shadow of a shade. It is a historical fact (to mention which will not be out of place here), that nothing but the intense consciousness of his own natural cowardice made the great Duke of Marlborough the irresistible hero ​that he was. This morally brave man was always greatly agitated upon going into action, and used to say, "This little body trembles at what this great soul is about to perform." About this great soul we know nothing; and therefore pass it over as a mere figure of speech. But the trembling of "this little body," that is, the cowardice of the natural man, or, in other words, his want of courage, in so far as courage is a mere affair of nerves, was a fact conspicuous to all. Equally conspicuous and undeniable was the antagonism put forth against this nervous bodily trepidation. And what was this antagonism? What but the struggle between consciousness and cowardice?—a struggle by and through which the latter was dragged into light and vanquished—and then the hero went forth into the thickest ranks of danger, strong in the consciousness of his own weakness, and as if out of very spite of the natural coward that wished to hold him back, and who rode shaking in his saddle as he drove into the hottest of the fight. Natural courage, depending upon temperament, will quail at times, and prove faithless to its trust; the strongest nerves will often shake, in the hour of danger, like an aspen in the gale; but what conceivable terrors can daunt that fortitude (though merely of a negative character), that indomitable discipline, wherewith a man, by a stern and deliberate consciousness of his own heart's frailty, meets, crushes, and subjugates, at every turn, and in its remotest hold, the entire passion of fear?
Human strength, then, has no positive character of its own; it is nothing but the clear consciousness of human weakness. Neither has human morality any positive character of its own; it is nothing but the clear consciousness of human wickedness. The whole rudiments of morality are laid before us, if we will but admit the fact (for which we have Scripture warrant), that all the given modifications of humanity are dark and evil; and that consciousness (which is not a given phenomenon, but a free act) is itself, in every instance, an acting against these states. Out of this strife morality is breathed up like a rainbow between the sun and storm. Moreover, by adopting these views, we get rid of the necessity of postulating a moral sense, and of all the other hypothetical subsidies to which an erroneous philosophy has recourse in explaining the phenomena of man. Our limits at present prevent us from illustrating this subject more fully; but in our next Number we shall show how closely our views are connected with the approved doctrine of man's natural depravity. In order to penetrate still deeper into the secrets of consciousness, we shall discuss the history of the Fall of Man, and shall show what mighty and essential parts are respectively played by the elements of good and evil in the realisation of human liberty; and we shall conclude our whole discussion by showing how consonant our speculations are with the great scheme of Christian Revelation.
* ↑ Vol. xliii., p. 791.
* ↑ Sir Jas. Mackintosh, and others, have attempted to establish a distinction between "mental" and "moral" science, founded on an alleged difference between fact and duty. They state, that it is the office of the former science to teach us what is (quid est), and that it is the office of the latter to teach us what ought to be (quid oportet). But this discrimination vanishes into nought upon the slightest reflection; it either incessantly confounds and obliterates itself, or else it renders moral science an unreal and nugatory pursuit. For, let us ask, does the quid oportet ever become the quid est? does what ought to be ever pass into what is—or in other words, is duty ever realised as fact? If it is, then the distinction is at an end. The oportet has taken upon itself the character of the est. Duty, in becoming practical, has become a fact. It no longer merely points out something which ought to be, it also embodies something which is. And thus it is transformed into the very other member of the discrimination from which it was originally contradistinguished; and thus the distinction is rendered utterly void; while "mental" and "moral" science—if we must affix these epithets to philosophy—lapse into one. On the other hand, does the quid oportet never, in any degree, become the quid est—does duty never pass into fact? Then is the science of morals a visionary, a baseless, and an aimless science—a mere querulous hankering after what can never be. In this case, there is plainly no real or substantial science, except the science of facts—the Science which teaches us the quid est. To talk now of a science of the quid oportet, would be to make use of unmeaning words.
* ↑ "You may understand," says S. T. Coleridge, "by insect, life in sections." By this he means that each insect has several centres of vitality, and not merely one; or that it has no organic unity, or at least no such decided organic unity as that which man possesses.
* ↑ Moral Philosophy, pp. 62, 63.