Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1868-09-15
For the Spectator.
The Permanent Ideas of Humanity.

To any rejecting mind, it becomes at once
apparent that amid all the vicissitudes of the
life Of nations, amid all the advances in civiliza-
ton there are certain dominant ideas, which,
so to speak, possess humanity, but of which
mankind In the aggregate have not that clear
perception, by which they may be expressed in
words or propositions and subjected to that en-
llghtened scrutiny which philosophy brings to
bear upon truths of spiritual nature.
Hence we have in view palpable distinction,
when we say that civiliaed people may be
possessed Of ideas, without in the proper sense
of the word possessing those IDEAS or having a
full perception of Their origin, their relations to
the moral system of the world, their authority,
their harmony with the true nature and
proper destiny Of man, or their homogeneity
with absolute truth. There is pour dinss dire,
an Inspiration in humanity, which prompts an
abiding faith ln the substantial truth Of certain
ideas, and which, if freed even in great meas
ure, from the partial domination of our carnal
natures, would almost rise to an immediate
cognition, in the spendor Of noontide light, of
spiritual truths, which in their magnifcence,
beauty and divine harmony, frail mortality in
its trammcled philosophy has never yet
dreamed Of These ideas ol inspirations are as
land marks which, though they arise necessarily
from man nature and his relations to the non
ego or objective world, do not destroy the es,
sence Of HUMAN freedom, but limit it simply in
degree and sphere Of action. DO you ask for
proof that such ideas exist we might refer
you at once to an introspection of your own
consciousness, and ask if you found not certain
fundamental ideas Of justice, Of moral good. Of
moral freedom, of responsibility, Of cause, of
immortality perhaps and others, which to at
tempt to contradict you feel to be In contraven-
ton of an intuitive act binding your faith as
with chain Of adamant OF such ideas and
their derivatives, and whatever Others may
perchance belong to the same category, history
Is but the development, is but the manifesto
ton in action of the power of moral truths to
shape the destlnles OF our race, under the gulse
and instrumentality Of physical power. But
just as In the individual, there is continual
contest between the spiritual and oarnal ma
lures, on account of which, perfection can ney
er be attained, so the great ideas which possess
humanity, which are susceptible of only ap-
proxlmate realization, are in continual conflict
with the combined powers OF evil, arising from
the condition OF man In his fallen estate in
reference, both to the heart and the intellect
and the laws of a predetermined Imitation
DO you ask whence these ideas arise in the hu
man mind we answer, In the decisions OF the
reason as an Inspiration, whereby the spirit of
man holds converse with the noumenal or su.
persensual world, not the discursive reason, but
the practical, moral reason, Of the illustrious
philosopher OF Koenigsberg, freed from its
simply subjective and personal form, revealed
only in phenomena, but of authority In the
philosophy of life and which binds US to rela-
tions OF reality and to eternal yerities; and in
the language Of another regulates the conduct
of man with such lofty bearing and such ir-
resistible authority that it is impossible for any
rational being to denV its dictates 81
Nor can the theoretlc Or pure reason, which
passes by logical sequence from premise to con-
clusion, either deny the validity or impair our
confidence In the revelations of the moral
reason, of spiritual truths which have their
forms in the very constitution Of our moral ma
ture truths Of an Inspiration breathed into
the spiritual life of man perhaps by divine
afflatus when he was made in the likeness of
his creator, iptallihle and absolute as the de-
monstrated truths OF pure geometry, CO. exten~
sive with the relations which give them birth,
whether temporal or eternal, and premises
which the dialectic reason in using cannot un-
dermine without causing the whole fabric of
its philosophy to totter and fall. Here lies tAe
unexplored or undeveloped basis of all true
philosophy whether as a'theoretic system or a
living principle Of action here lies perhaps
the divine harmony of mans moral nature with
living truth as the foundation and generic
principle of living faith The philosophy
which rejects the inspirations or fundamental
decisions of the practical reason, as of no au-
thorty, and which seeks in the objective world
of sense for the efficient causes OF all spiritual
phenomena CT ia any manner accounts for
their existence by viewing external relations
arising either in the moral OF physical world
not merely as occasions Of their origin, but as
efficient causes, binds the human soul to a
great ear of Juggernaut, the material universe,
or psntheistic idealsna, in the vortex OF
which all human freedom and responsibility
viii be swallowed up. 1t is to reject the chief
corner stone of all true philosophy, to attempt
to build upon foundations laid in the nature of
man, by battering them down with logic
which in the necessity of things builds upon
them; not petitio prsnclpll, but a selfdes-
tructive s.egssas2 princapll:
There must moreover be divine harmony be-
tween spiritual reigioa and spiritual phi
losophy, tor truth is consistent In all its do
mains, but we cannot connect a sensational
philosophy or any philosophy which binds the
spiritual nature of man in indissoluble connec
ton with any series of events bound together
by the law Of cause and effect, with moral free
dom and responsibility, without negauon Of
these facts and without challenging the ulti
mate decisions of reason, which practically as