The Eclipse of Faith Part 26

d.i.c.kkopf may even apply to Strauss's Leben Jesu, and Dr. Whately's 'Historic Doubts' similar reasoning, to prove that the first was elaborate irony, and the second a sincere expression of scepticism."

"How can that be?"

"Thus: he will prove that the age was remarkably fond of such species of ironical literature. As Strauss, in his preface, has expressly admitted (though we all know what he means) that Christianity is true, and has suggested an unimaginably absurd hypothesis as to its true import, founded on the principles of the Hegelian philosophy, the learned Dr. d.i.c.kkopf will say, that no one who so spoke of Christianity could have intended seriously to discredit it, and yet certainly could not possibly believe the absurd theory of it concocted out of German philosophy; ergo, that we must regard the whole book as a piece of prolonged irony,--a little too characteristic of German pedantry, it is true, but sincerely designed to expose that extravagance of historic criticism and Biblical exegesis which had so distinguished the author's countrymen, by which Homer had been annihilated, a great part of ancient history rendered doubtful, and the Bible turned into a riddle-book; that this hypothesis is confirmed by the s.p.a.ce which Strauss gives to the exposure of the absurdities of the Rationalists, which, in fact, occupies at least half his work. Dr. D. will even very likely prove that Strauss himself is a fict.i.tious name; Strauss, in the German, meaning an ostrich, which, according to the proverb, can digest any thing. On the other hand, as he will be able to show that Strauss's work is a piece of prolonged irony, he will very likely show that Whately's 'Historic Doubts' may be a sincere expression of opinion (which, in fact, many have even in our day wisely believed it to be), and he will argue it with a gravity worthy of one of the commentators who interpret the irony of Socrates literally; he will prove it from the air of sobriety and sincerity which pervades the pamphlet. Nay, for aught I know, he may show that there was an 'historic place' for such a piece in the undoubted myths to which the wondrous achievements of Napoleon had given rise; he will say that these had produced a natural feeling of scepticism as to the greater part of the facts, though he will think Dr. Whately has gone a little too far in doubting his very existence; there being sufficient evidence that such a man as Napoleon existed, though the world really knows little more about him than about Semitamis or Genghis Khan!"

"Well," said I, "having proved that Dr. Strauss's work is irony, and Whately's brochure a sincere expression of opinion, it would be hard for even Dr. d.i.c.kkopf to go further. But, seriously, it is no laughing matter. This is a strange power the future historian has over us."

"O, be a.s.sured," said Harrington, "he can make of us just what he pleases. Never was a question more unreasonable than that of the Irishman, who, being conjured, on some occasion, to think of posterity, said, 'I should like to know what posterity has done for us.' It will do something for us, depend upon it. A future historian will not only make us confess, with the Prayer-Book, 'that we have done the things we ought not to have done, and have left undone the things we ought to have done,' but 'that we have done the things that we have not done, and have left undone the things that we have done.'"

"I wonder," said I, "that some of Dr. Strauss's countrymen have not proved him to be an imaginary being,--a myth. It were very easy to do it on such principles."

"It has been done long since," said Harrington, "by Wolfgang Menzel."

"Thank you," said I, in conclusion, "you have clearly proved that a true history may plausibly be shown to be false."

"And therefore, my dear uncle, you will, I hope, justify my scepticism in all such matters," said he archly. I acknowledge, as Socrates says, that I felt for a moment as if I had received a sudden blow, and hardly knew what to say. "No," said I at last, "unless you can justify Dr. Strauss's theory of historical criticism, of which you yourself acknowledge you have doubts. With that any thing may be proved false; meantime it appears that the facts to which it is applied may be undoubtedly true."

____

On retiring to my chamber, I mused for some time on the facility with which man's ingenuity or inclinations can pervert any facts which he resolves shall be otherwise than they are. "Dubious as is the EVIDENCE,"

Harrington was fond of saying, "I distrust the Judas still more"; an admission, I told him, of which I should one day remind him. Tired at last of this unpleasant theme, I took up a volume of Leibnitz's Theodicee, which happened to lie on the table, and read those striking pa.s.sages towards the conclusion in which he represents Theodore (reluctant to accept the iron theory of necessity) as privileged with a peep into a number of the infinite possible worlds; from which he has the satisfaction of seeing that, bad as is the lot of s.e.xtus in the best of all possible worlds, that lot, s.e.xtus being what he is, could not possibly be any better; a queer consolation, by the way, till we know why s.e.xtus must be what he is, or why s.e.xtus must be at all.

I sank off to slumber in my chair, no doubt under the soporific effects of this metaphysical morphine. While I slept, the previous discussions of the day and the dose of Theodicee operating together suggested a very strange dream, which I shall here record. It shall be ent.i.tled

THE PARADISE OF FOOLS.

Methought I saw a grave and very venerable old man with a long white beard enter my chamber, and quietly seat himself opposite to me.

Instead of asking who he was and how he came there, nothing seemed more natural and proper. We all know how easily in dreams the mind dispenses with all ceremony; little or no introduction is required; every one is at once on a most delightful footing of familiarity with all the world; and the greatest possible incongruities appear just comme il faut.

He told me that he had come from a very curious part of the "best of all possible worlds,"--the "Paradise of Fools"; and on my looking surprised, said,--

"Are you ignorant, then, that there is a spot in the universe where a vicegerent of the Deity has at his disposal unlimited power and wisdom to enable him to comply with the somewhat whimsical conditions of the theories of those wonderful philosophers who have taken upon them to say how the universe might have been constructed without any supreme or presiding intelligence at all; or have modestly suggested, that, had they been consulted, certain notable improvements might have been effected in its fabrication or government; or, lastly, who have complained of the revelation which G.o.d has vouchsafed to man, or contended, that, if true, it might have been more unexceptionably framed, and more skilfully promulgated?"

"And what is the result?" I asked.

"The result is a part of 'the everlasting shame and contempt' which are the heritage of impiety."

"There must have been enough for the said vicegerent to do," I remarked.

"Not so much as you imagine," said he, smiling. "The conditions of their theories, so far as even omniscience can comprehend or omnipotence realize them, are indeed exactly complied with; but nevertheless, they often baffle both. Sometimes the reproof, thus implied, obliquely strikes more than its immediate objects; it alights even on some of the profoundest philosophers, who never had it in their thoughts to call in question the infinite superiority of Divine Power and Wisdom, but who have delivered themselves a little too positively about 'monads'

and 'atoms,' and ultimate const.i.tuents of the universe. They have sometimes been not a little scandalized, as well as laughed at, when some half-witted, muddle-headed followers, glad to escape their trial, pretended to have founded systems of Pantheism, or what is just the same thing, Atheism, on some of their too obscure definitions. One man declared that he could do nothing without the Monads of Leibnitz, each of which, says that philosopher, 'is a mirror representing the universe, though obscurely, and knows every thing, but confusedly,' which last clause is unexceptionable enough. Another rogue asked for the archetypes of Plato,--he had had a notion, he said, that a good deal might be made out of them without Plato's Demiurgus; another, for the const.i.tuents of the vital automata of Descartes: he had been misled to believe, that, if animals could be mechanically produced, the whole universe might have been so produced also. The Archangel a.s.sured them and others, with much politeness, that, if the philosophers in question could in any way make their meaning intelligible, Heaven would do its poor best to realize their conceptions; but that it was impossible for even omnipotence to execute commands which even omniscience could not comprehend.

"Similarly, one man requested that he might be provided with a little of Aristotle's 'Eternal Matter,' but he was told that there was no such thing in rerum natura, and that it was unfortunately too late to make it. He seemed to think himself very unjustly treated. Another demanded some of the Atoms of Epicurus, to make a slight experiment with; unexceptionably spherical, invisible, and so forth. These, he was told, he might be accommodated with; and that all he had to do was to shake them long enough, and doubtless the fortuitous jumble would come out at last a miniature world.

"Above all, there were several German philosophers, who, having founded various physical theories, more or less extensive, on the perspicuous metaphysics of their countrymen, were confident that, if they had not hit on the modes which Supreme Wisdom had adopted, their modes were yet very excellent modes; and they were absolutely clamorous that their experiments should begin. But, alas! many of them stood but little chance of being ever tried, for the very same reason which prevented the disciple of Leibnitz from obtaining his 'Monads'; their authors could not make their meaning intelligible to the delegated omniscience.

As to some of the metaphysicians, since their theories embraced nothing less than the evolution of the 'totality' of the universe, the 'infinite'

and the 'absolute' included, it was of course impossible that they could be tried. But it was thought an appropriate punishment for them to be condemned to write on till they had made their meaning intelligible.

Some have labored with incredible industry to comply with this very reasonable request, but their notions seem to grow darker and darker at every step; and one in particular has written a huge folio, in which, by universal consent of men and angels, there is not the smallest glimmer of meaning from one end to the other. Another even complains in private of the want of philosophical genius in the court of celestial criticism, and declares that in Germany they could have constructed ten theories of the universe and given twenty solutions of the 'infinite'

and the 'absolute' in the time he has been vainly endeavoring to explain his meaning to personages so deplorably deficient in metaphysical ac.u.men."

He was going on with some other details of the hapless philosophers.

"I would much rather hear from you," said I, "for it is a subject in which I take a far deeper interest, how those have sped who have objected to the Revelation with which G.o.d has favored man, on the ground that it cannot be true, else it would have been more unexceptionably framed or more wisely promulgated. I take it for granted that these have not been dest.i.tute of opportunities of trying their experiment."

"Surely not," replied my new acquaintance. "'The Paradise of Fools'

is well stocked with creatures of this description. Many of the experiments which required time to test them were commenced hundreds of years ago, and are completed. Others are still unfinished while there have been many which required only to be commenced and they were completed instantly, to the confusion of their authors."

"I should much like," said I, "to hear an account of some of these experiments."

"Willingly," answered he; "only you must bear in mind that they were all to be performed under certain limitations, without which no revelation which G.o.d can give to man would be of the slightest value."

He then informed me, that the evidence afforded must not be such as to annihilate the conditions on which man is to be made virtuous and happy, if he is to be made so at all. It must not be inconsistent with the exercise of either his reason or his faith, nor prevent the play of his moral dispositions, nor triumph by mere violence over his prejudices; it must not operate purely upon the pa.s.sions or the senses, nor overhear all possibility of offering resistance,--as would be the case, for example, if a man were placed on the edge of a precipice, and told that he would immediately be thrown over it if he transgressed the rules of temperance or chast.i.ty. The happiness, he said, which G.o.d originally designed for his intelligent and moral creatures was a voluntary happiness, springing out of the well-balanced and well-directed activity of all the principles of their nature. Any revelation, therefore, must proceed on the same basis, both as regards itself and the mode in which it is given. Arguments and motives morally sufficient, but not more than sufficient, must be addressed to the intellect and the conscience. All this is necessary to render the felicity and perfection of man stable and permanent; for without such a trial, triumphantly sustained, he would have no security that, in the presence of objects which tend to exert an overpowering influence on his senses or his feelings, he might not at some period of the unknown future be impelled to take a wrong path, and err and be miserable. This ordeal, originally designed for man and not superseded by revelation, must be continued long enough to render the principles on which he ought to act practical habits; after which he may go forth (sublime and glorious privilege!) to any part of this world, or of any world to which G.o.d may call him, master of himself and his destiny; not afraid lest temptations should warp him from a steadfastness that is founded on the decisions of an inflexible will, itself directed by enlightened intelligence and moral rect.i.tude; in a word, in possession of the appropriate and alone appropriate happiness of an intellectual and moral agent; an image of the felicity of the great Creator himself. This condition, he said, of giving a revelation, so far from being a hards.h.i.+p, is not only in harmony with the nature of things, but is itself an expression of the Divine Beneficence; which designed for man no casual, precarious safety, as the result of transient external violence to the principles of his nature, but a permanent and inviolable equilibrium of the powers within him. "Heaven itself," he concluded, "can be heaven only to those who are internally prepared for it."

"Were there many," I cried, "who were willing to make the experiment of giving a revelation more unexceptionably than it has been given, on the proposed conditions?"

"Not very many, as you may well suppose," said he; "but if objectors had been unwilling, they would have been compelled to make it."

"But upon whom were the experiments to be made?" said I; "for unless they were beings of the same intellectual and moral condition as themselves, I see not how aught could come of it."

"O, be satisfied," he replied; "the beings who are provided for these Projectors are as like the inhabitant of your world as one egg is like another. They are men themselves; communities made up of those who have lived in your world, and who have gone out of it with the same thoughts, pa.s.sions, and emotions as they had on earth; many of them having rejected or disregarded the true revelation, and others never having had that revelation to reject. Of course they are ignorant, in this intermediate state, of the tricks which these experimenters play with them, till they are concluded; but in rejecting the new revelations, many of them reject the very conditions of belief which when on earth they said would have been sufficient, while the result in those who make the experiment and in those on whom the experiment is made is to 'vindicate the ways of G.o.d to man.'"

There is a wonderful power in getting over trifling difficulties in our dreams, or I should certainly have demurred to some parts of this statement. Instead of that, I let my mind, as usual in such cases, dwell on a point which was no difficulty at all. "If," said I, "they are dead, they are probably very different beings from what they were when alive."

"And do you think," said he, with an unpleasant half-sneer, "that mere change of place makes any difference in man, or that the merely physical effects of death operate a magical change on his intellect, affections, emotions, and volitions, or can render him a more reasonable creature than he was before?"

"I did not mean exactly that," said I; "but surely it is not possible that the soul without the body can be exactly like the soul with it."

"Have not your philosophers," said he, "often founded, or pretended to found, scepticism on the argument that it is difficult to tell whether life itself may not be a series of illusions like those in dreams?

Have they not even declared, that, as in dreams all seems to be real, so in their waking moments all may be no more than a dream? nay, have not some said that it is impossible to tell which is the real and which the dreaming part of their existence?"

"There have been such," said I, "but I never knew any one convinced by their reasoning."

"Perhaps not," he answered, "but it may be of use to show you, that in that intermediate state men may, as in dreams, be capable of a series of thoughts and emotions exactly similar to what they experienced in this world; quite as vivid, and," he added with a quiet smile, "perhaps as rational."

"But they must be more coherent than those which now visit our slumbers," said I.

"It is hardly worth while to contend about the difference," he replied, with a sarcastic expression which I did not much like.

"It is sufficient to say, however, that these projectors have no reason to complain; for with whatever show of reason men think or act here, so under exactly the same laws of thought and emotion do those shadows act there."

"But I, who am now awake and perfectly sensible--"

He laughed outright. "Are you so sure," said he, "that you are awake.

How do you know it?"

"Because I am conscious of it," said I.

"And this too, I suppose, is a philosopher," he muttered to himself.

"Well," he continued aloud, "we must not discuss these matters just now; you must believe me when I say that the communities to which our experimenters go to work, on their own hypotheses, are just as capable of ingenious reasoning and impartial and candid deliberation, as you are now in your present waking moments. You wish to hear a few of these experiments?"