The destination of man

Front matter

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

Preface

Whateyee of the recent philosophy is likely to prove serviceable b^ond the liinits of the schools, presented in the order in which it would naturally occur to an unsophisticated understanding, is intended to form the contents of this volume. The elaborate defences made only to meet the artificial objections and extravagances of the learned, have been deemed unnecessary here, and whatever serves only as a foundation for the positive sciences or for the deliberate and arbitrary education of the human race, has been omitted, as lying within the province of statesmen and the appointed teachers of the people.

The book is therefore not intended for philosophers by profession, who will find in it notHng that may not be found in other writings of the same author. It is intended to be intelligible to all readers who are able really to understand a book at all. Those who have accustomed themselves merely to the repetition of certain sets of phrases in varied order, and who mistake this operation of memory for that of the understanding, will probably find it unintelligible. It ought to exercise on the reader an attractive and animating power, raising him from the sensuous world, to that which is above sense. The author at least has not performed his task without some of this happy inspiration. Often during the labour of execution, the fire with which a design is entered upon becomes exhausted^ but immediately on the conclusion of a work the author is scarcely

» PEEFACE.

iu a position to judge of this point. How far he has succeeded in the attainment of his proposed object he cannot decide ; this must be determined by the effect produced on the readers to whom it is addressed. One remark, however, he deems it necessary to make — namely, that the " I" who speaks in the book is by no means intended for himself, but it is his earnest wish that it should represent the reader, who is entreated, not merely to apprehend historically what is here presented to him, but really and truly, during the reading of the book, to hold converse with his own ;iiind, to reason, to draw conclusions, and to develop by his;- own mental effort the train of thought laid before him.

THE DESTINATION OE MAN.

CHAPTEE I.

DOUBT.

At last, then, I may tope that I am tolerably well acquainted with the world that surrounds me. In the unanimous declaration of my senses, in unfailing experience alone have I placed my trust. What I have beheld, I have touched — what I have touched, I have analysed. I have repeated my observations again and again, I have compared the various phenomena together, and only when I could perceive their connection, when I could explain and deduce one from the other, and foresee the result, and that the result was such as to justify my calculations, have I been satisfied. Therefore am I now as well assured of the accuracy of this part of my knowledge, as of my own existence ; I walk with a firm step in this my world, and would stake welfare and Hfe itself on the infaUibiUty of my convictions.

But what then am I, and what is the aim and end of my being ? The question is superfluous. It is long siace I have been made well acquainted with these points, and it would take much time to recapitulate all that I have heard, learnt, and believed concerning them. And by what means then have I attained this knowledge which I have this confused notion of possessing ? Have I, urged on by a burning desire of knowledge, toiled on through uncertainty and doubt and contradiction? Have I, when any thing appeared credible, ex-

B 2 amined, and sifted, and compared, tiU an inward voice proclaimed, irresistibly, and without a possibility of mistake, " Thus it is, as sui-ely as thou livest ?"

No ! I can remember no such state of mind. Those instructions were bestowed on me before I desired them, the answers were given before the questions were proposed. I heard, for I could not avoid doing so, and much of what I heard remained in my memory ; but without examination, and without interest, I allowed every thing to take its place as chance directed. How then could I persuade myself that I really possessed any knowledge upon these points ? If I can only be said to know that of which I am convinced, and which I have myself wrought out, myself experienced, I cannot truly say that I know anything at all of the aim and end of my being. I know merely what others profess to know, and aU that I can really be assured of is, that I have heard them speak so and so upon these things.

Whilst then I have inquired into and examined for myself ■f^ith the most anxious care, comparatively trivial matters ; in things of the highest import I have relied wholly on the care and fidelity of others. I have attributed to others an interest in the highest affairs of hiunaiiity, an earnestness and accm'acy which I by no means discover in myself. I have regarded them as indescribably superior to me. Whatever of truth they really possess, they can have attained by no other means than by their own meditations, and why may not I, by the same means, attain the same ends ? How much have I undervalued and degraded myself !

It shall be no longer thus. From this moment I will enter on my rights, on the dignity to which I have a claim. Let aU that is foreign to my own mind be at once renounced! I wfll examine for myself. It may be that secret wishes concerning the termination of my inquiries, that a partial inclination towards certain conclusions, will awaken in my heart. I wiU forget and deny these wishes, and allow them no influence in the direction of my thoughts. I will go to work with srarupulous severity. What I find to be truth shall be welcome to me, let it sound as it may. I will know. With the same certainty with which I can calculate that this ground wUl bear me when I tread on it, that this ike will bum me if I approach too near it, will I know what I am, and what I shall be; and should this not be passible, thus much at least wiU I know, that it is not possible. Even to this result will I submit, if it should present itself to me as truth.

I hasten towards the fulfilment of my task. I seize on Nature as she hastens ever onward in her flight, detain her for an instant, and contemplate steadily the present moment, — this nature on which my thinking powers have been developed, and for which the conclusions," vahd in her domain, have been formed.

I am surrounded by objects which I am compelled to regard as wholes, subsisting for themselves, and separately from each other. I behold plants, trees and animals, I ascribe to each individual certain signs and attributes by which I distinguish it from others ; to this plant, such a form ; to another, another ; to this tree, such and such leaves ; to another, others differing from them. Every object has its appointed number of attributes, neither more nor less. To every question, whether it is this or that, is, for any one acquainted with it, a decisive yes or no possible. Every thing that is, is something, or it is not — ^has a certain colour, or has it not — is tangible, or is not, and so on. Every object possesses its properties in an appointed degree, which it neither exceeds nor faUs short of. Every thing that is, is definite, determined ; is some one thing, and is not something else.

Not that I am unable to conceive an object hovering between opposite limitations. I am certainly able to do this, for half of my thoughts consist of such. I think of a tree in general. Has this tree leaves or not, finiit or not ; and if so, in what quantities ? To what species does it belong ? How large is it ? AU these questions must remain unanswered.

for my thought is undetermined, and does not represent any particular tree, but a tree in general, and it has no real existence, for whatever really exists, has its appointed number of all its possible attributes, and each of these in its appointed measure, although I may never be able to comprehend aU the properties of any one object, or to apply to them any standard.

Natm-e, however, hastens on thi-ough her everlasting transformations, and while I am speaking of the present moment, it is gone, and aU is changed ; in the same manner, the moment before my observation, aU was otherwise, it had not always been as I found it, it had heeome so. Why then, and from what cause, had it become what it was ? Why had Nature, amidst the manifold, infinite possible varieties of being, assumed precisely these, and no others ? For this reason, that certain others had preceded them, and these in the same manner wiU determine those which shall follow ; and these again others, to infinity. Were the smallest thing at the present moment different from what it is, then necessarOj in the following moment would something else be diffCTent, and again in the succeeding one, and so on for ever. Nature in her never-ceasing changes follows steadily certain undeviating laws. I find myself in a close chain of phenomena, in which every link depends on that which has preceded it, so that if, at any given moment, I could be made acquainted with all existing conditions of the universe, I shotQd be able to declare what they had been in the preceding moment, and what they would be in that which was to follow.

In every part I find the whole, for every part only, by means of the whole, has become what it is.

What I have discovered then I find amounts to this; that to every existence another must be pre-supposed, to every condition another preceding condition. Let me pause a little here, for it may happen, that on my clear insight into this point may depend much of the success of my future inquiry.

Why, and from what cause, I had asked, are the modifications of objects precisely such as I find them to be assuming tkus, without a momeut's hesitation, and without proof, as an absolute and certain truth, that they had a cause, — that not by themselves, but by something beyond them, they had obtained existence and reality. I had foimd myself compelled to assume another existence as a necessary condition of theirs.

But why, then, did I find their existence insuflB.cient to itself, incomplete ? What betrayed to me a want in them ? This, without doubt ; that, in the first place, these qualities or attributes do not exist in and for themselves, — ^they are forms of something formed, modifications of something modified; and the conception of what, in the language of the schools, has been called a substratum, a something capable of receiving and supporting the attributes, must be always added to them. Further, that to such a substratum a certain quality is attributed, supposes a condition of repose, and cessation from change, otherwise there could be no determinate modification, but merely a passing from one state to another. A state of mere passivity is an incomplete existence ; some activity is necessary to form what may be called the basis of the sftffering. What I foimd myself compelled to suppose was by no means that in the successive changes which natm-e ■-tmdergoes, one brings forth the other — ^that the present modification annihilates itself, and, in the next moment, when it no longer exists, produces another to occupy its place. The modification produces neither itself nor anything out of itself. What I foimd myself compelled to assume was an active force, peculiar to the object, to account for the gradual origin and the changes of those modifications. And what, then, do I conceive to be the nature or essence of this power, and the •modes of its manifestation ? I know no more than this, that it is capable.under certain conditions, of producing, certainly and infaUibly, a determinative effect, and no other. The principle of activity, of arising and heeoming, is certainly in itself. As surely as it is a force, it is capable of setting itself in motion ; — the cause ofjits having developed itself in a certain

O THE DESTINATION OF MAN.

manner, Kes partly in itself, as it is a force, and partly in the cii-cmnstances under which it developes itself. Both these — ^the inward determination of a force from itself, and the external, by circumstances, must be united to produce a given change.

Every force, so far as I can conceive of one, must be determinate, but its determination is completed by the circumstances under which it is developed. A force exists in my conception only so far as I can perceive its working. An inactive /o/'ce is entirely inconceivable.

I see a flower that has sprung out of the earth, and I conclude that a formative power ejdsts in nature. Such a formative power exists for me only so far as this flower and others, and plants, and animals exist. I can describe this power merely by its eifect, and it exists for me no further than as producing flowers and plants, animals and other organic forms. I will go further, and maintain that a flower, and precisely this flower, could exist in this place, only so far as all circumstances united to make it possible ; but that by the union" of aU these circumstances for its possibility, the real existence of the flower ^ by no means explained to me, and for this I am compelled to assume a peculiar original power in Nature, and precisely a flower producing power, for another ■power of Nature, under the same circumstances, might have produced something entirely different.

When I contemplate all things as one whole, I perceive one Natm-e — one force: when I regard them as individuals, many forces, which develop themselves according to their inward laws, and pass through all the forms of which they are capable ; and all the objects in Nature are but those forces under certain limitations. Every manifestation of every individual power of Nature is determined — ^partly by itself, partly by its own preceding manifestations, and partly by the manifestations of all the other powers of Nature, with which it is connected ; but it is connected with all — for nature is one connected whole. Its manifestationsLare, therefore, strictly necessary; and it is absolutely impossible that it should be other than what it is.

In every moment of her duration, Nature is one connected whole ; in every moment must every individual part be what it is, because all others are what they are, and a single grain of sand could not be moved from its place without, however imperceptibly to us, changing something throughout all parts of the immeasurable whole. Every moment of dm-ation is determined by all past moments, and wiU determine all future moments ; and even the position of a grain of sand cannot be conceived other than it is, without supposing other changes, to an indefinite extent. Let us imagine, for instance, this grain of sand lying some few feet further inland than it actually does ; then must the storm-wind that drove it in from the sea shore have been stronger than it actually was ; — then must the preceding state of the atmosphere, by which this wind was occasioned, and its degree of strength determined, have been different from what it actually was, and the previous changes which gave rise to this particular weather — and so on. We must suppose a different temperature from that jglfich really existed, — a different constitution of the bodies which influenced this temperature : the fertDity or barrenness of countries, — the duration of the Hfe of man — depend, unquestionably, in a great degree upon temperature. How can we know, since it is not given us to penetrate the arcana of Nature, and it is therefore allowable to speak of possibilities; — how can we know, that in such a state of the weather as we have been supposing, in order to carry this grain of sand a few yards further, some ancestor of yom-s might not have perished from hunger, or cold, or heat, long before the birth of that son from whom you are descended, and thus you might never have been at all; and aU that you have ever done, and all that you ever hope to do in this world, must have been hindered, in order that a grain of sand might lie in a different place ?

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