Beginning life

Preface To New Edition

In this new edition of "Beginning Life," I have re-written entirely the part dealing with the genuineness of the Gospels in the light of the most recent criticism on the subject, and especially the confident statements as to the later origin of all the four Gospels made by the author of " Supernatural Religion." With no pretensions to deal in such a volume with the details of this author's argument, I think I have pointed out sufficiently how little the course of his argument affects the originality of the substantial evidence for the supernatural origin of Christianity. Here, as throughout, I have sought to state the case with perfect candour and impartiality — in short, to take the reader into my confidence, and (as I hope) to give him some real assistance in coming to a right conclusion. Dievi PREFACE.

tation in such matters can do no good on one side or the other. Every one who wishes to have an intelligent opinion must look at the facts so far for himself, and form his own judgment. I have simply tried to help the young reader in doing this.

February^ 1876.

Contents

FAGB I

Part I.— Religion. »

I. IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION, .

IL OBJECT OF RELIGION, HL THE SUPERNATURAL, IV. REVELATION, .

V. THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. .

VL THE INDIRECT WITNESS, ,

VII. THE DIRECT WITNESS, VIIL THE INTERNAL WITNESS, IX. WHAT TO BELIEVE, »

X. WHAT TO AIM AT,

9 15

30 41

138 160 viii CONTENTS.

Part Ii.— Business

FACT n. HOW TO DO IT, • • . • . 104

Part Iii.— Study L How To Read, , . . . . 213

CI. BOOKS—WHAT TO READ, . . .233

Part Iv.— Recreation. L How To Enjoy, . . . . . ^73

VL WHAT TO ENJOV, . , , . 29O

CONCLUSION, 313

Work away I For the Master's eye is on us.

Never off us, stil' upon us, . Night and day !

Work away !

Keep the busy fingers plying; Keep the ceaseless shuttles flying; See that never thread lie wrong; Let not clash or clatter round us, Sound of whirring wheels, confound U8; Steady hand I let woof be strong And firm, ihat has to last so long I

Work away!

Bring your axes, woodmen true ; Smite the forest till the blue Of Heaven's sunny eye looks through Every wide and tangled glade ; Jungle swamp and thicket shade

Give to-day I O'er the torrents fling your bridges, Pioneers ! Upon the ridges Widen, smooth the rocky stair— They that follow, far Dehind, Coming after us, will find Surer, easier, footing there ; Heart to heart, and hand with hand. From the dawn to dusk of day.

Work away !

Scouts upon the mountain's peak— Ye that see the Promised Land, Hearten us I for ye can speak Of the country ye have scann'd,

Far away I

Work away !

For the Father's eye is on us, Never off us, still upon us.

Night and day !

Work and pray!

Pray! and Work will be completer; Work ! and Prayer will be the sweeter; Love ! and Prayer and Work the fleeter Will ascend upon their way 1

Live in Future as in Present ; Work for both while yet the day Is our own ! for Lord and Peasant, Long and bright as summer's day, Cometh, yet more sure, more pleasant, Cometh soon our Holiday; Work away 1

Introduction

)HERE is a charm in opening manhood which has commended itself to the imagination in every age. The undefined hopes and promises of the future — the dawning strength of intellect — the vigorous flow of passion — the very exchange of home ties and protected joys for free and manly pleasures, give to this period an interest and excitement unfelt, perhaps, at any other. It is the beginning of life in the sense of independent and self-supporting action. Hitherto life has been to boys, as to girls, a derivative and dependent existence — a sucker from the parent growth — a home discipline of authority and guidance and communicated impulse. But henceforth it is a transplanted growth of its own — a new and free power of activity, in which the mainspring is no longer authority or law from without, but principle or opinion from within. The shoot, which has been nourished under the shelter of the parent stem, and bent according to its inclination, is transferred to the open world, where of its own impulse and character it must take root, and grow into strength, or sink into weakness and vice.

There is a natural pleasure in such a change. The sense of freedom is always joyful, at least at first. The mere consciousness of awakening powers and prospective work touches with elation the youthful breast.

But to every right -hearted youth this time must be also one of severe trial. Anxiety must greatly dash its pleasure. There must be regrets behind, and uncertainties before. The thought of home must excite a pang even in the first moments of freedom. Its glad shelter — its kindly guidance — its very restraints, how dear and tender must they seem in parting ! How brightly must they shine' in the retrospect as the youth turns from them to the hardened and unfamiliar face of the world ! With what a sweet, sadly-cheering pathos must they linger in the memory! And then what chance and hazard is there in his newly -gotten freedom 1

What instincts of warning in its very novelty and dim inexperience ! What possibilities of failure as well as of success in the unknown future as it stretches "before him !

Serious thoughts like these more frequently underlie the careless neglect of youth than is supposed. They do not shew themselves, or seldom do ; but they work deeply and quietly. Even in the boy who seems all absorbed in amusements or tasks there is frequently a secret life of intensely serious consciousness which keeps questioning with itself as to the meaning of what is going on around him and what may be before him— ;-which projects itself into the future, and rehearses the responsibilities and ambitions of his career.

Certainly there is a grave importance as well as a pleasant charm in the beginning of life. There is awe as well as excitement in it, when rightly viewed. The possibilities that lie in it of noble or ignoble work — of happy self-sacrifice or ruinous self-indulgence — the capacities in the right use of which it may rise to heights of beautiful virtue, in the abuse of which it may sink to depths of debasing vice — make the crisis one of fear as well as of hope, of sadness as well as of joy. It is wistful as well as pleasing to think of the young passing year by year into the world, and engaging with its duties, its interests, and temptations. Of the throng that struggle at the gates of entrance, how many reach their anticipated goal ? Carry the mind forward a few years, and some have climbed the hills of difficulty and gained the eminence on which they wished to stand — some, although they may not have done this, have yet kept their truth unhurt, their integrity unspoiled ; but others have turned back, or have perished by the way, or fallen in weakness of will, no more to rise again.

As we place ourselves with the young at the opening gates of life, and think of the end from the beginning, it is a deep concern more than anything else that fills us. Words of earnest argument and warning counsel rather than of congratulation rise to our lips. The seriousness outweighs the pleasantness of the prospect. The following pages have sprung out of this feeling. They deal with religion, and especially with the difficulties of Christian faith at present ; they venture to touch upon professional business and its responsibilities ; they offer some counsels as to study and books. The interests and occupation of the writer have naturally led him to deal with the first of these topics at most length. Faith is the foundation of life ; religion of duty ; and it is impossible to discuss either without respect to the peculiar atmosphere of doubt in which we live, and in which many of the young live even more consciously than their elders. Yet there is nothing of elaborateness — of learning — or the pretence of learning, in these discussions. They are designed as the free talk of a friend rather than the disquisitions of a theologian. The author has long thought over some of the topics, and he should be glad if his thoughts were useful to any who may be busy^with the same inquiries. Plain and unelaborate as they are, they are not likely to interest any but those who have some spirit of inquiry. If to such they should prove at all " Aids to faith/' their highest purpose would be served.

I. Importance Of Religion

J HE most important subject to a young man, or to any man, is religion. What is my position in the world ? Whence have I come, and whither am I going ? What is the meaning of life and of death ? What is above and before nie? These are questions from the burden of which no one escapes. The most idle, the most selfish, the most self-confident do not evade them. Those who care least for religion, in any ordina.**y sense, are found inventing their own solution of them. All experience proves that men cannot shut out the thought of the Unseen and the Supreme, although they may banish from their minds the faith of their lo BEGINNING LIFE.

childhood, and despise what they deem the superstition of their neighbours. The void thus created fills up with new materials of faith, often far less interesting and unspeakably less worthy than those which they superseded. Our age has been rife in examples of this ; and men have wondered — if, indeed, any aberration of human intellect can well excite wonder — at the spectacle of those who have professed that they could not conceive of any notion of a Supreme Being without emotions of ridicule, exhibiting a faith in the supernatural, in comparison with which the superstitions of a past age are probable and dignified. So strangely does violated human nature take its revenges, and bring in at the door what has been unhappily expelled at the window.

The thought of the supernatural abides with man, do what he will. It visits the most callous ; it interests the most sceptical. For a time — even for a long time — it may lie asleep in the breast, either amidst the sordid despairs, or the proud, rich, and young enjoyments of life ; but it wakens up in curious inquiry, or dreadful anxiety. In any case, it is a thought of which no man can be reasonably independent. In so far as he retains his reasonable being, and preserves the consciousness of moral susceptibilities and relations, in so far will this thought of a higher world — of a Life enclosing and influencing his

IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION, ii

present life — ^be a powerful and practical thought with him.

It becomes clearly, therefore, a subject of urgent importance to every man how he thinks of a higher world. What is it to him t What are its objects, — their relation to him, and his relation to them } Suppose the case of a young man entering upon life, with the sense of duty beginning to form in him, or at least working itself clear and firm in his mind, how directly must all his views of the near and the present be affected by his thought of the Supreme and the future t It may not be that he has any distinct consciousness of moulding his views of the one by the other. But not the less surely will the "life that now is" to him be moulded by the character of the life that he believes to be above him and before him. The lower will take its colour from the higher — the " near '' from the " heavenly horizon." There will be a light or a darkness shed around his present path in proportion as his faith opens a steady or a hesitating — a comprehensive or a partial — ^gaze into the future and unseen.

It may seem, on a mere superficial view, that this is an overstatement. The young grow up and go into the world, and take their places there often with little feeling of another world, and how they stand in relation to it. Their characters are formed as it might seem by chance, and the tastes and opinions of the accidental society into which they are thrown. And no doubt such influences are very potent They are the enveloping atmosphere of character, silently feeding and rounding the outlines of its growth. But withal, its true springs are deeper — " Out of the heart are the issues of life." The soul within is the germ of the unfolding man, no less than the seed is that of the plant, fashioned and fed as it may be by the outer air. And the essential form of character will be found in every case to depend upon the nature of the inner life from which it springs. Whether this be dull and torpid, or quick and powerful, will very soon shew itself in the outward fashion of the man.

The mere surface of many lives may look equally fair, but there will be found to be a great difference, according as some hold to a higher life, and draw their most central and enduring qualities thence ; and as others are found to have no higher attachment — no living spring of Divine righteousness and strength. What is deepest in every man, and most influential, however little at times it may seem so, is, after all, his relation to God and the Unseen. The genuine root of character is here, as trial soon proves. How a man believes concerning God and the higher world — how his soul is — will shew itself in his whole life. From this inner source, its

IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION, 13

essential and determining qualities will run. On this foundation its structure rests.

The religious belief of young men, therefore, IS a subject of the most vital moment for themselves, and for all. Whatever tends to affect it is pregnant with incalculable consequences. To weaken or lose it, is to impair the very life of society. To deepen and expand it is to add strength to character and durability to virtue. The present must be held to be a time of trial, SiO far as the faith of the young and the faith of all are concerned. Questions touching the worth and the authority of Christianity are widely mooted and openly canvassed. There may be something to alarm — there is certainly much to excite serious thought in this prevailing bias of religious discussion. Of one thing we may be sure, that it is neither possible to avert this course of discussion, nor desirable to do so. It must have free course. The thought of many hearts must be spoken out — otherwise it will eat within, and the last state will be worse than the first. It may be perilous to have the faith of our youth tried as by fire ; but it would be still more perilous to discountenance or stifle free inquiry. Christianity has nothing to fear from the freest discussion. Its own motto is, *' Prove all things — hold fast that which is good."

It seems a very hopeless thing, now-a-days.

to try to hold any minds by the mere bonds of authority. The intellectual air all around is too astir for this. There is no system of mental seclusion can well shut out the young from opinions the most opposite to those to which they have been accustomed. The old safeguards, which were wont to enclose the religious life as with a sacred charm, no longer do so. Even those who rest within the shade of authority, do so, in many cases, from choice rather than from habit. They know not what else to do. They have gone in quest of truth, and have not found it ; and so they have been glad to throw themselves into arms which profess an infallible shelter, and seek repose there. This is not remedy for doubt, but despair of reason. And no good can come in this way.

The young can only be led in the way of truth, not by stifling, but by enlightening and strengthening all reasonable impulses within them. Religion must approve itself to them as thoroughly reasonable — in a right sense — as well as authoritative. It must be the highest truth in the light of judgment, and history, and conscience.

II. Object Of Religion

J HE fundamental point in religious inquiry must be the character of the Supreme Existence. That there is a Supreme Existence or Power operating in the world can scarcely be said to be denied by any. The Pantheist does not deny the reality of such a Power. The Positivist does not dispute it. Both fall back upon something higher, something general, in which lower and particular existences take their rise. The Atheist or the absolute sceptic of existence superior to his own is not to be found, or, at least, need not be argued with ; for it is not possible to find any common ground of argument with him. and all controversy must suppose some common ground from which to start The pure atheistic position is so utterly irrational as to be beyond the pale of discussion. Everywhere in the range of modern speculation and modern science, it is conceded, or, rather, it may be said to be implied as a rational datum, without which neither philosophy nor science would be intelligible, that there is a universal principle pervading existence, and in some sense controlling it.

What principle } and in what sense superior and controlling ? It is here that all the controv^ersy lies, and has long lain ; and in our time especially, the inquirer is met here at once with seductive theories, which, while they serve to exercise his rational instinct, and seem to fall in with the advancing results of scientific investigation, are in their very nature destitute of all religious and moral value.

The Pantheist tells him that the universal principle is nothing else than the spirit of nature, or the collective life, animating all its parts, and ever taking new shapes of order and beauty in its endless mutations. The Positivist speaks to him of the laws of nature, or the great scheme in which these laws unite, regulating and governing all things. By both the universal principle is held to be a principle within nature. Whether it be regarded as a Pantheistic spiritlife, or a material law or force — the conclusion is the same, that it is only nature itself in some modification or another which is the ultimate spring of existence, and the great arranger of it. There is no room left in either view for an Existence transcending nature, and acting independently of it.

It may seem that this is a very old delusion ; and so it is. There is no creed of human origin older than that which deifies nature. There is no speculation more ancient than Pantheism. Yet there is none also younger — none more powerful over many minds at the present day.

Is nature a self-subsistent, ever-unfolding process, containing all its energies within itself? and are life and intelligence mere developments from its fertile bosom ? Or is mind the primary directing power of which nature is but the expression and symbol ? Is there a life higher than any mere nature-life— a rational and moral Will, transcending and guiding all the processes of nature, — in nothing governed by, in everything governing them } This is the issue, more pertinently and urgently than ever, in the present crisis of speculative and religious inquiry.

How deeply this question goes into the whole subject of religion and morality must be obvious to any reflection. If once the doubt insinuates itself, and begins to hold the mind as to whether

B there is a higher Will than our own instructing and guiding us, to which we are responsible, and whose law should be our rule, it is plain that the very spring of divine obedience must be slackened, if not destroyed. Men cannot habitually hold themselves free from a sense of duty and yet be dutiful — cannot deliberately cherish views at variance with all feeling of reverence for a higher Power and yet be pious. When the mind comes to dwell familiarly on the idea of nature rather than of God, on that of development rather than of responsibility, on that of harmony rather than of authority, there gradually follows a marked change in the point of view from which life, and all its relations and interests, are regarded. There springs up an insensible and subtle selfishness, all the more powerful that it proceeds not from the grosser impulses; but from a diffused reflective feeling that nothing as it were can be helped, that 'Hhe great soul of the world is just ;" and that every man accordingly is to take the good provided for him, and make the most of it for his own happiness, unmindful of the happiness or the misery of others.

There is plenty of this selfishness, no doubt, in the world under every variety of opinion, plenty of it, alas! in the very heart of the Christian Church ; but a system of thought which contemplates the world as its own end, and life, at the very best, as a mere process of culture, which, by rejecting a higher Will, deliberately rejects a moral ideal, tends directly to encourage and educate such a comprehensive spirit of self-indulgence as the only guide of conduct. " Our appetites, being as much a portion of ourselves as any other quality we possess, ought to be indulged, otherwise the whole individual is not developed." This becomes the obvious canon of a philosophy which looks no higher than nature. It consecrates passion, and hallows the pleasures of the world as sources of experience and cul* ture.

Such views may easily prove seductive to young minds. There is a novelty and apparent grandeur and comprehensiveness about them that steal the imagination as well as minister to the senses. Especially is this apt to prove the case where the fair claims of nature may have been made to yield to the arbitrary exercise of religious authority. When the bow has been bent too far in one direction, it will recoil in the other. Religion is sometimes enforced to the neglect and even the defiance of nature. Nature takes its revenge when it wakens up, and finds itself strong in the consciousness of neglected rights. Authority sometimes holds the reins upon conscience too tightly and pretentiously. And conscience takes its play when it is able to look its master in the face and finds how ill supported are its assertions, and how imaginary many of its terrors.

The question before us is one of fair argument and deduction, from the facts of nature and the characteristics of human hfe and history. If the theory which regards nature in some form or another as the Highest, fits into the facts of the world, and adequately accounts for them — if it be satisfactory to the demands of reason and conscience, and furnish an adequate solution of the great realities of history — then it would certainly make out a strong case. But if it break down in every one of these particulars — if it fail to meet the demands of reason, or conscience, or history — then it has no pretence on which to claim our assent. It is convicted of falsehood, and sent away.

The special difficulty of the question consists in fairly grappling with our adversary. How are we to meet him } And what weapons of controversy will he accept t The two sides keep pitched against one another, like opposite camps of thought, without directly meeting. They do not come forth into some chosen field and fight cut their differences. The spiritualist appeals to internal experience — to the testimony of '' consciousness," as it is called ; but the Positivist rejects this appeal, and calls for statistics as the only trustworthy ground regarding human nature.

The one says, " I feel and know in my inmost experience that I am not merely a part of nature — ^that there is that in me which asserts its superiority to nature, and its independence of the natural law of cause and effect ;" the other treats the internal feeling as merely a delusive play of consciousness, without any logical value, and says, '* Take all men in the aggregate, and their conduct is found regulated by invariable law. Over a certain area of population the same moral facts will be found to repeat themselves ; a certain proportion will be found who commit suicide, who are guilty of theft, and who poison their neighbours. All this proves the mere natural necessity that governs human affairs.'^

The tables of the statistician are undeniable. Beyond doubt there is a fixed ratio in moral facts. There is nothing arbitrary nor unregulated in human conduct. The phenomena of intellectual and moral life, in all their subtle and complex combinations, obey the same order that is everywhere discovered in external nature.

But this is nothing to the point. For the question is not as to the character of these phenomena, but as to the source of them. There is no intelligent Theist will claim that human conduct be exempted from the law of serial development. But he refuses to admit what the Positivist seems to think a necessary inference from this — that this character of order in human affairs arises from the same immutable necessity as it does in nature. In the latter, the whole process is physically conditioned. The links in the chain of succession may be all exposed. But in the evolution of mental phenomena this is admitted to be impossible.^^ The inductive logician allows as much as this. The Theist goes further, and maintains that, in the last resort, there is an internal power or self which cannot be brought within the law of natural sequence — nay, which, in its essence, defies this law, and places itself over against it.

According to this view, man is under law; but he is also more than" any mere natural law. The laws which regulate phenomena apply to his conduct, but they do not exhaust his being. He has a spirit and life of his own which transcend nature-conditions, and are not contained by them. Above the system of these conditions there is a higher system of being, and man, in his innermost life, belongs to this higher system. It is his peculiar glory that he does so — that, amid ceaseless movements of matter, before w^hich he is apparently so weak, he is conscious of an existence higher than all matter, and which would survive its wildest crash. He knows himself, and that is what nature does not do. There is no play of conscious life in its mighty mutations. But man is characteristically a con- * Mill's Logic, iL 422.

scious being. According to the frequentlyquoted saying of Pascal — " Man is but a reed, the feeblest thing in nature ; but he is a reed that thinks, {im roseau pensant?) It needs not that the universe arm itself to crush him. Ar exhalation, a drop of water, suffices to destroy him. But were the universe to crush him, man is yet nobler than the universe, for he knows that he dies ; and the universe, even in prevailing against him, knows not its power."

" Man is yet nobler than the universe." He is characteristically a self-conscious, thinking soul, higher than all nature, and which no subtle development of mere natural conditions can ever explain. This is the eternal basis of Christian Theism, and of all religion that is not a mere consecration of earthly energies and passions. This is the only spring of a genuine morality that can survey man as under some higher law of voluntary obedience, and not a mere law of harmony and growth.

And if our appeal to internal experience is not accepted, let us carry our appeal into the open world of history. If consciousness may cheat us, surely the voice of collective humanity cannot deceive us. The Positivist at least cannot refuse an appeal to the course of civilisation.

Now, of two theories of human progress, the one of which regards history as a mere development of natural laws, and the other of which, while admitting the operation of such laws, yet recognises everywhere a higher Divine agency expressed in them — we affirm, confidently, that the latter theory is not only more consistent with the dignity of humanity, but is the only one capable of explaining its development. Once recognise the spiritual character of man, the power of free will and moral action in him, allying him to a higher system of things ; and history becomes a grand and intelligible drama with a clear meaning. Notwithstanding all its retrogressions and perplexities, the higher is still seen overcoming the lower, and the tide of improvement swelling forward, not merely under natural changes, but an advancing force of moral intelligence.

That this force is the special spring of human progress is everywhere apparent. At every great turn of man's course, it has been a new moral life — some breathing of a higher spirit — and not any mere combinations of material, nor even of intellectual agencies, which has saved civilisation from what seemed impending dissolution, and driven its wheels forward with a fresh impetus. Taking man in any point of view, it is the^ reality of this higher life, however caricatured and debased, that more than anything else strikes us. All speculation implies it — all religion witnesses to it. It is the light shining amid all the natural grossness of his career, and guiding it onward amid all its entanglements. All the noblest deeds of heroism spring from it. All the highest expressions of thought radiate it. To the Positivist these are puzzles to be accounted for on his theory. To the Theist they are only the glancing expressions of his own faith in a Divine origin of humanity — the brightening evidence of a higher spirit in it claiming affinity with a higher system of things — a Divine order below which man has fallen, but towards which he still tends. Can any one, after all, seriously believe that human history is a mere play of natural forces, and man the half-conscious player — the creature not of a higher intelligent guidance, but rather of dumb nature-conditions and the brain-power which they generate 1 When the conclusion is thus nakedly put, it contains within itself its own refutation. • It would indeed be a contradiction of all progress, and a lie to all civilisation, to affirm that this was the climax of both — the discovery in which they were destined to culminate. No ; all consciousness and all history prove — if it is possible to prove anything — thaftoan is a spiritual being, with convictions, and hopes, and aspirations above the world, which no natural good merely can satisfy, and which are in truth the motion of the Divinity within him. He is nature, and yet spirit. " He is man, and yet more than man," as Pascal has it. There is a divine element of conscious reason in him which asserts its superiority over the whole sphere of nature.