The Press.
London, England, 1857-02-07 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

" with ease " meant in the days of Charles 11.
Clever, kind, and highly cultivated persons
are now not rare, and when they write cannot
fail to express themselves with some degree of
polish and good feeling.

1. The Mystery; or, Evil and God. By
John Young, LL.D. (Ellin.) London
Longmans.
2. Dialogues on Divine Providence. By a
Fellow of a College. London : J. W.
Parker and Son.
ALTHOUGH the ago in which we are living is too
practical to appreciate the subtleties and
spiritual importance of metaphysical inquiry,
from time to time works are issued from the
press recording the keen interest taken by
isolated thinkers in the old controversy upon
Necessity and Free Will. Without some defi-
nite apprehension of the importance of that con-
troversy, it is hardly possible to be a profound
theologian. Ethics and metaphysics are both
involved in its consideration; the Confessions
of St. Augustine, the Institutes of Calvin, the
profound argumentation of Jonathan Edwards,
do not more strongly testify to the importance
attributed by the theologians of every age to
conflicting theories on this question. The
character of many works in modern French
literature, also, in which dramatists and
novelists paint men cringing before an or
dinned fatalism, or whirled along by an over-
mastering impulse, which he confounds with
his own free will, proves that there is funda-
mental reality in the controversy. If as meta-
physicians we are less often called upon to
discuss the abstract logic of this old contro-
versy, as readers of general literature we must
admit that in a concrete form the moral ques-
tions depending on it are often presented to
our mind. To say anything positively new
upon the subject would be impossible, and
we have not space to discuss its conflicting
principles at length ; but there are some con-
siderations, suggested by the works at the
head of this article, which are worth noting.

It has come within our own observation
that minds purely metaphysical, and habi-
tuated to long and strictly logical ratiocina-
tion, are most inclined to the eoctrine of
necessity ; while those natures which have
most aptitude for purely ethical inquiries,
lean to free will. In high metaphysics the
affections of the heart are scarcely ever stirred ;
but it is difficult to reflect long upon moral
problems without the sympathies being
roused, and many generous illusions on the
subject of human nature take captive an ardent
mind, filled with extravagant conceptions of
the grandeur of human destiny. Our own
opinion leans to tho necessitarian side of the
controversy ; but we cannot coincide with the
views often enunciated by the impugners of
philosophical necessity. We differ toto cm/o
from those who think that the doctrine of
necessity has an inevitable tendency to cause
gloomy views of life or of religion. On the
contrary, we believe that the idea of free will
is so liable to mischievous exaggeration, that
the reaction produced by experience of the
world, and its severe dispensations, causes
persons often to think meanly of human
nature, and to despond about religion. A
sober Calvinist is more likely to meet the
events of life with serenity of soul than the
ardent Arminian, who theorisPs about tho
freedom of the human will, but who finds by
experience that the world refutes every day
the conceptions of his mind.
One of the reasons which help to involve
the controversy in such a puzzling maze is,
that the tenets affirmed or denied at either
side are not entities of the same nature. Ne-
cessity is a metaphysical, and free will is an
ethical idea : the first is objective, as involving
the outward scene on which man has to act ;
while the second is subjective, as concerning
the conduct of the individual. It was acutely
observed that " time Romanist doctrine of
" transubstantiation was an attempt to turn
" rhetoric into logic," and the same thing may
be affirmed of the supporters of free will.
There can be no ignoring of the momentous
fact that not only evil was permitted in the
scheme of Providence, but that a liability to
fall was ingrained in the nature of man.

137

" And lead us not into temptation " is the
prayer of the Christian ; and that solemn aspi-
ration involves in itself the question of neces-
sity. The import of the phrase " and lead us
" not" is suggestive of the most intricate
problems connected with the idea of Provi-
dence. If the will was so free, and under
such subjective control, as some reasonera
contend, why should there he the prayer en-
treating that we should not be led into
temptation ?
The first of the works before us is a per-
formance more learned than profound. It is
not easy to gather the author's meaning from
what he has written. lie shifts from philo-
sophical speculation to religious feeling so
rapidly that he seems to confound the sublime
anticipations of pure faith with the intellec-
tual inferences of mere reason. Ho seems
desirous to give his voice in favour of a system
of ethico-metaphysics that would produce that
moral parallelism to the true faith which,
according to Bishop Berkeley, would be
in itself another sort of Christianity. He
contends that the ideas of continuity and
constancy are not necessity, but liberty ; and
he insists that man has a conscious power of
choice. But he forgets that the necessitarian
need not deny the "autonomy of the will."
The will may be completely crushed and over
borne by a pressure of circumstances; and the
fact that the liability to disobey the will is part
of human nature cannot be disputed.
Dr. Young traverses in a cursory manner
the whole field of metaphysical speculation.
His volume reads like a catalogue of philoso-
phical names, interspersed with remarks more
or less acute, but not indicative of profundity.
The difficulties with which he has to deal are
evaded, and not solved by him. From the
complicated difficulty of an overruling Provi-
dence, foreseeing all things, yet permitting
evil, the author escapes into the region of
religious sentiment. In doing so, he only
follows the example of many of his prede-
cessors. His work is deficient in consecutive
arrangement; its matter, though apparently
stated with logical method, reads in a
" breaky " style, and at the end of the volume
we find that we have no definite results. His
attainments ►►re considerable, but when he
attempts to give us his own thoughts he be-
comes tautologous and trivial. Surely there
is much affectation and wordy rhetoric in the
concluding passage of his volume. Many
pages are penned in the following style :

Life—mighty, energetic, silent being—is the destiny of
the created moral universe; yet not absolutely dissociated
from all that may be called accidental or adventitious. In
the case of one order of intelligent beings, redeemed human
minds, this is emphatically true. Their life, in its very
source and cause, shall supply accidents hardly less pre-
cious than the substance itself with which they are asst•
elated. Theirs is life pointing back to a death—the death
of the Incarnate One. The incarnation and the cross do
all but make up part of their moral being, so deeply
are they connected with their moral history. Theirs is
life, begotten of love, incarnate, redeeming, crucified love.
It is Ufe given back from an awful perdition. It is the
life of minds reunited to God after a dark apostacy. It is
lite restored to the Parent Life, as it ought never to have
been separated. Away from all its specialities, and in
common with that of angelic natures, and with the entire
being of the created moral universe, it is life from God, in
God, as the stream contains the waters of the fountain—
" We are made partakers of a Divine nature."

It is quite possible for a metaphysician to
pass from the philosophy of the mind into the
ideas of humanity revealed by the Atonement;
but such a logical feat is not to he accom-
plished by Dr. Young.
We prefer the less pretentious performance
of a " Fellow of a College." This volume is
written in a dialogue—a form of composition,
when applied to philosophical subjects, of
which we do not approve, although it is
recommended by some illustrious examples.
The following passage has both vigour and
clearness:—

Providence and law are both words by which we express,
or endeavour to express, certain truths about the manner
in which God works. Providence implies that, in all the
dealings of God with His creatures, He acts consciously,
voluntarily, and knowingly, as an omniscient and omnipo-
tent agent. Law implies that in His works and dealings
we can trace a certain amount of uniformity and resem-
blance, which the structure of our minds leads us to be-
lieve to exist in a still greater degree than we can trace it.
In God, as a Being of perfect knowledge and perfect
power, there is no opposition between the greatest uni-
formity of action and the most particular regard for the
issue of etch action iu all its multiform consequences. lie

138

sees all things from the first, effects all that He wills in
His own way, never makes a mistake, never miscalculates
a consor►uence, never overlooks an element or a condition,
is never deceived or overpowered by independent and sub-
ordinate agents, never need suspend His steps to watch an
event or retrace His course to rectify an error. But the
wisest of men must often do this ; and so, misled by a false
analogy, we are apt to attribute to God the imperfection of
our own works. We form our calculations, and they prove
erroneous because the immutable laws around us inter•
fere with our plans in some unforeseen way ; and this
makes us sometimes speak and think as if the events
which depend on the laws which God has made were in
some way independent of Hint and out of the reach of His
power. The most profound and thoughtful among us can
never lay down universal rules of conduct with such abso-
lute accuracy that considerations of justice, equity, or ex-
pediency will not sometimes lead him to make exceptions
to his rule, and we transfer too readily this consequence of
human imperfection to the supreme and perfect Lawgiver.
The most comprehensive human mind, which sees furthest
into nature and enters most minutely into phenomena,
sees nevertheless but a very small portion of actual being.

There is much subtle analysis iu the mode in
which the " Fellow of a College " illustrates
tile varieties of reflection suggested by the
common accidents of life :

Suppose then I need not say that it is no merely ima-
ginary case) a person choked by a fish-bone, and so killed.
Life and death, we all allow, are in the hands of God. A
believer would not doubt that one who dies by an accident
of this kind dies at the time and in the manner which God
irt His providence thinks best. The fish-bone is the in-
s-rument of His will. It has fixed itself in the sufferer's
throat by no miraculous agency, but in the ordinary course
of cause and effect. But only consider for a moment the
complication of causes which placed it there. The toil of
the crew of a fishing-boat some two nights before—the con•
ditions of wind and wave which caused a fish with a bone
of this particular shape to be caught—the demand and
consequent supply which brought it to a town some hun•
dred miles from the sea—the little circumstances which
led to the purchase in the town of this individual fish—
and a hundred other points of detail, such as the light by
which the dinner was eaten, the exact degree of hardness
cr softness in the fish as dependent on the precise manner
of cooking, even the power of contractility in the eater's
throat, which may again have depended on his general
health or on the bracing or relaxing state of the atmo-
sphere. Vary but one of these conditions and the same
result would probably not have happened. And perhaps a
medical man could not be found till too late; and his ab•
sence was caused by the illness of another patient, itself
dependent on causes equally remote and obscure. Could
you blame any one who, having first accepted the truth
that death in this case happened according to the provi-
dence of God, saw His linger also in every circumstance
which had led to it, and attributed them all to His will ?

The reflection expressed here is a common
one.

The " Fellow of a College " sketches reli-
gious classes and their opposites. Ho remarks
eloquently, contrasting the strong with the
weak :

No doubt, in many of the truest and tenderest natures
the Divine purposes are first recognised in their aspect of
love. Tneir hearts open to love like flowers to the sun.
The most precious truth has the deepest hold on their
consciousness. Their sense of the loveliness of religion
and its Author tempers from the first their perception of
its awfulness. The shocks and trials of life deepen every
feeling of their own nothingness and 6od's omnipotence,
but they do not atop for a moment the habitual current of
their thoughts, in which faith and hope and love run on,
gently mingling together. But others have a very different
history from this. There is, perhaps, no swill portion of
gentleness and love in their nature ; but there is much
rude power and undirected force as well. Their very
energy misleads them. Their strength of will hurries
them along a mistaken course, or their own power of
thought plunges them deep in error. The probability is
that their real life begins with a convulsion. To them
there is war before peace, sin before holiness, error before
truth, confusion before order, darkness before light, chaos
before creation. And somehow, as we spoke of sin and
its incapacity to arrest the Divine purposes, my thoughts
wandered to these.

And ho then continues in a style which shows
that he is suited for addressing a congre-
gation :
E.: But, u you say, they are not to remain strangers to
love ?

II.: No •, but as I said also they must, for the most part,
first learn by experience what is meant by that broken and
contrite heart which God does not despise. They must
how to the law of necessary obedience. They must listen
to the voice of authority, which calls on them to stop in
their self-chosen course and proves to them the emptiness
of their fancied independence. But their work is not
ended here ; it is only just beginning. Their purposes
are frustrated, but God has His own. The negative com-
mand must become positive ; they were forbidden evil
only that they might do good. If they will but look around,
they will perceive the path of duty opening before them.
They will walk as into a new world. They will toil as
willing servants of a Master who knows their powers, and
will neither overtask nor waste them ; and that awful face,
which seemed to regard them from heaven only to vex and
terrify them, will bless them with a look of love. They
will work cheerfully, hopefully, and vigorously, and build it
may be a glorious future on the ruirts of a saddened and
perhaps &amoral past.

THE PRESS.

Although there are both talent and
learning shown in both these volumes, we
cannot say that either of them can be accepted
as a valuable contribution to the metaphysics
of Providence.

The Wreck of the Northern Belle. By, Edwin
Arnold, M.A., University College, Oxford.
Hastings : G. P. Bacon.
Tnis beautiful little poem is worthy the attention of
all lovers of poetry, as well as all admirers of genuine
courage and devotion. The wreck of the vessel
near Kingsgate, the sensations of the crew, the de-
struction of the first boat which put off to them, and
their ultimate rescuo by the gallant crew of the life-
boat, is told in verse most spirited and harmonious.
In graphic simplicity this little production is
scarcely inferior to some of our best ancient ballads ;
while the swing and plunge, if we may so speak, of
the verse, is most happily adapted to the subject of
the poem. Though very brief, it is equal to anything
which Mr. Arnold has yet written. We subjoin a
few lines :
Yet a greater space
To us had been grace,
For still as we neared the shore,
The wild white roll of the waves on the shoal
Roared round us more and more ;
Roared out, in a ring around us,
You might see them fore and aft,
On ragged ledge,
And splintered edge,
All mad to dash our craft;
While the ghastly rocks,
With their sea-weed locks
Awash in the whirling froth,
Stood up like slaves
Of the winds and waves,
Waiting to wreak their wrath.
Not yet, brave ship,
For the anchor's grip
Is fast in the ooze and shell ;
The gusts may shake
And the great surge break,
But the iron holds her well.
If a smith could tell,
As his sledgehammer fell,
That each little link should held
The craft and the crew,
And their lives' hope too,
His strokes would be strong and bold I
Ease, ease, mad sfrain !
Hold, hold, good chain!
We freshened the hawse once more;
"I'was ten of the day,
And the vessel lay
Stern on to the snow•dimmed shore.