Theological Essays and Other Papers Volume I Part 6

This _Lemma_ being stated as a point of appeal in what follows, we proceed to

SECTION V.

ON HUME'S ARGUMENT, AS AFFECTED BY THE PURPOSE.

This topic is so impressive, and indeed awful, in its relation to Christianity, that we shall not violate its majesty by doing more than simply stating the case. All the known or imagined miracles that ever were recorded as flowing from any Pagan origin, were miracles--1, of ostentation; 2, of ambition and rivalship; 3, expressions of power; or, 4, were blind accidents. Not even in pretence were any of them more than that. First and last came the Christian miracles, on behalf of a _moral_ purpose. The purpose was to change man's idea of his own nature; and to change his idea of G.o.d's nature. Many other purposes might be stated; but all were moral. Now to any other wielder of supernatural power, real or imaginary, it never had occurred by way of pretence even, that in working miracles he had a moral object. And here, indeed, comes in the argument of Christ with tremendous effect--that, whilst all other miracles might be liable to the suspicion of having been effected by alliance with darker agencies, his only (as sublime moral agencies for working the only revolution that ever was worked in man's nature) could not be liable to such a suspicion; since, if an evil spirit would lend himself to the propagation of good in its most transcendent form, in that case the kingdom of darkness would be 'divided against itself.'

Here, then, is an _a posteriori_ reason, derived from the whole subsequent life and death of the miracle-worker, for diminishing the value of _x_ according to the _Lemma_.

SECTION VI.

ON THE ARGUMENT OF HUME AS AFFECTED BY MATTERS OF FACT.

It is a very important axiom of the schoolmen in this case--that, _a posse ad esse non valet consequentia_, you can draw no inference from the possibility of a thing to its reality, but that, in the reverse order, _ab esse ad posse_, the inference is inevitable: if it is, or if it ever has been--then of necessity it can be. Hume himself would have admitted, that the proof of any one miracle, beyond all possibility of doubt, at once lowered the--_x_ of his argument (_i.e._ the value of the resistance to our faith) so as to affect the whole force of that argument, as applying to all other miracles whatever having a rational and an adequate purpose. Now it happens that we have two cases of miracles which can be urged in this view: one _a posteriori_, derived from our historical experience, and the other _a priori_. We will take them separately.

1. The _a priori_ miracle we call such--not (as the unphilosophic may suppose) because it occurred previously to our own period, or from any consideration of time whatever, but in the logical meaning, as having been derived from our reason in opposition to our experience. This order of miracle it is manifest that Hume overlooked altogether, because he says expressly that we have nothing to appeal to in this dispute except our human experience.

But it happens that we have; and precisely where the possibilities of experience desert us. We know nothing through experience (whether physical or historical) of what preceded or accompanied the first introduction of man upon this earth. But in the absence of all experience, our reason informs us--that he must have been introduced by a supernatural agency. Thus far we are sure. For the sole alternative is one which would be equally mysterious, and besides, contradictory to the marks of change--of transition--and of perishableness in our planet itself,--viz. the hypothesis of an eternal unoriginated race: and that is more confounding to the human intellect than any miracle whatever: so that, even tried merely as one probability against another, the miracle would have the advantage. The miracle supposes a supersensual and transcendent cause. The opposite hypothesis supposes effects without any cause.

In short, upon any hypothesis, we are driven to suppose--and compelled to suppose--a miraculous state as introductory to the earliest state of nature. The planet, indeed, might form itself by mechanical laws of motion, repulsion, attraction, and central forces. But man could not. Life could not. Organization, even animal organization, might perhaps be explained out of mechanical causes. But life could not. Life is itself a great miracle. Suppose the nostrils formed by mechanic agency; still the breath of life could not enter them without a supernatural force. And _a fortiori_, man, with his intellectual and moral capacities, could not arise upon this planet without a higher agency than any lodged in that nature which is the object of our present experience. This kind of miracle, as deduced by our reason, and not witnessed experimentally, or drawn from any past records, we call an _a priori miracle.

2. But there is another kind of miracle, which Hume ought not to have overlooked, but which he has, however, overlooked: he himself observes, very justly, that PROPHECY is a distinct species of the miraculous; and, no doubt, he neglected the Scriptural Prophecies, as supposing them all of doubtful interpretation, or believing with Porphyry, that such as are not doubtful, must have been posterior to the event which they point to. It happens, however, that there are some prophecies which cannot be evaded or 'refused,' some to which neither objection will apply. One, we will here cite, by way of example:--The prophecy of Isaiah, describing the desolation of Babylon, was delivered about seven centuries before Christ. A century or so _after_ Christ, comes Porphyry, and insinuates, that all the prophecies alike might be comparatively recent forgeries!

Well, for a moment suppose it: but, at least, they existed in the days of Porphyry. Now, it happens, that more than two centuries after Porphyry, we have good evidence, as to Babylon, that it had not yet reached the stage of utter desolation predicted by Isaiah.

Four centuries after Christ, we learn from a Father of the Christian Church, who had good personal information as to its condition, that it was then become a solitude, but a solitude in good preservation as a royal park. The vast city had disppeared, and the murmur of myriads: but as yet there were no signs whatever of ruin or desolation. Not until our own nineteenth century was the picture of Isaiah seen in full realization--then lay the lion basking at noonday--then crawled the serpents from their holes; and at night the whole region echoed with the wild cries peculiar to arid wildernesses. The transformations, therefore, of Babylon, have been going on slowly through a vast number of centuries until the perfect accomplishment of Isaiah's picture. Perhaps they have travelled through a course of much more than two thousand years: and from the glimpses we gain of Babylon at intervals, we know for certain that Isaiah had been dead for many centuries before his vision could have even _begun_ to realize itself. But then, says an objector, the final ruins of great empires and cities may be safely a.s.sumed on general grounds of observation. Hardly, however, if they happen to be seated in a region so fertile as Mesopotamia, and on a great river like the Euphrates. But allow this possibility--allow the natural disappearance of Babylon in a long course of centuries.

In other cases the disappearance is gradual, and at length perfect.

No traces can now be found of Carthage; none of Memphis; or, if you suppose something peculiar to Mesopotamia, no traces can be found of Nineveh, or on the other side of that region: none of other great cities--Roman, Parthian, Persian, Median, in that same region or adjacent regions. Babylon only is circ.u.mstantially described by Jewish prophecy as long surviving itself in a state of visible and audible desolation: and to Babylon only such a description applies.

Other prophecies might be cited with the same result. But this is enough. And here is an _a posteriori_ miracle.

Now, observe: these two orders of miracle, by their very nature, absolutely evade the argument of Hume. The incommunicability disappears altogether. The value of--_x_ absolutely vanishes and becomes = 0. The human reason being immutable, suggests to every age, renews and regenerates for ever, the necessary inference of a miraculous state antecedent to the natural state. And, for the miracles of prophecy, these require no evidence and depend upon none: they carry their own evidence along with them; they utter their own testimonies, and they are continually reinforcing them; for, probably, every successive period of time reproduces fresh cases of prophecy completed. But even one, like that of Babylon, realizes the case of Beta (Sect. II.) in its most perfect form.

History, which attests it, is the voice of every generation, checked and countersigned in effect by all the men who compose it.

SECTION VII.

OF THE ARGUMENT AS AFFECTED BY THE PARTICULAR WORKER OF THE MIRACLES.

This is the last 'moment,' to use the language of Mechanics, which we shall notice in this discussion. And here there is a remarkable _pet.i.tio principii_ in Hume's management of his argument.

He says, roundly, that it makes no difference at all if G.o.d were connected with the question as the author of the supposed miracles.

And why? Because, says he, we know G.o.d only by experience--meaning as involved in nature--and, therefore, that in so far as miracles transcend our experience of nature, they transcend by implication our experience of G.o.d. But the very question under discussion is--whether G.o.d did, or did not, manifest himself to human experience in the miracles of the New Testament. But at all events, the idea of G.o.d in itself already includes the notion of a _power_ to work miracles, whether that power were over exercised or not; and as Sir Isaac Newton thought that s.p.a.ce might be the sensorium of G.o.d, so may we (and with much more philosophical propriety) affirm that the miraculous and the transcendent is the very nature of G.o.d.

G.o.d being a.s.sumed, it is as easy to believe in a miracle issuing from him as in any operation according to the laws of nature (which, after all, is possibly in many points only the nature of our planet): it is as easy, because either mode of action is indifferent to him. Doubtless this argument, when addressed to an Atheist, loses its force; because he refuses to a.s.sume a G.o.d. But then, on the other hand, it must be remembered that Hume's argument itself does not stand on the footing of Atheism. He supposes it binding on a Theist. Now a Theist, in starting from the idea of G.o.d, grants, of necessity, the plenary power of miracles as greater and more awful than man could even comprehend. All he wants is a sufficient motive for such transcendent agencies; but this is supplied in excess (as regards what we have called the _const.i.tuent_ miracles of Christianity) by the case of a religion that was to revolutionize the moral nature of man. The moral nature--the kingdom of the will--is esentially opposed to the kingdom of nature even by the confession of irreligious philosophers; and, therefore, being itself a supersensual field, it seems more reasonably adapted to agencies supernatural than such as are natural.

GENERAL RECAPITULATION.

In Hume's argument,--_x_, which expresses the resistance to credibility in a miracle, is valued as of necessity equal to the veiy maximum or ideal of human testimony; which, under the very best circ.u.mstances, might be equal to +_x,_ in no case more, and in all known cases less. We, on the other hand, have endeavored to show--

1. That, because Hume contemplates only the case of a single witness, it will happen that the case _Beta_ [of Sect. II.]

where a mult.i.tude of witnesses exist, may greatly exceed +_x;_ and with a sufficient mult.i.tude must exceed _x_.

2. That in the case of internal miracles--operations of divine agency within the mind and conscience of the individual--Hume's argument is necessarily set aside: the evidence, the +_x_, is perfect for the individual, and the miraculous agency is meant for him only.

3. That, in the case of one primary miracle, viz. the first organization of man on this planet, the evidence greatly transcends _x:_ because here it is an evidence not derived from experience at all, but from the reflecting reason: and the miracle has the same advantage over facts of experience, that a mathematical truth has over the truths which rest on induction. It is the difference between _must be_ and _is_--between the inevitable and the merely actual.

4. That, in the case of another order of miracles, viz. prophecies, Hume's argument is again overruled; because the +_x_ in this case, the affirmative evidence, is not derived froms human testimony.

Some prophecies are obscure; they may be fulfilled possibly without men's being aware of the fulfilment. But others, as that about the fate of Babylon--about the fate of the Arabs (the children of Ishmael)--about the fate of the Jews--are not of a nature to be misunderstood; and the evidence which attends them is not alien, but is intrinsic, and developed by themselves in successive stages from age to age.

5. That, because the primary miracle in No. 3, argues at least a _power_ competent to the working of a miracle, for any after miracle we have only to seek a sufficient _motive_. Now, the objects of the Christian revelation were equal at the least to those of the original creation. In fact, Christianity may be considered as a second creation; and the justifying cause for the _const.i.tuent_ miracles of Christianity is even to us as apparent as any which could have operated at the primary creation. The _epigenesis_ was, at least, as grand an occasion as the _genesis_. Indeed, it is evident, for example, that Christianity itself could not have existed without the const.i.tuent miracle of the Resurrection; because without that there would have been no conquest over death.

And here, as in No. 3, +_x_ is derived--not from any experience, and therefore cannot be controlled by that sort of hostile experience which Hume's argument relies on; but is derived from the reason which transcends all experience.

CASUISTRY.

[1839.]

PART I.

It is remarkable, in the sense of being noticeable and interesting, but not in the sense of being surprising, that Casuistry has fallen into disrepute throughout all Protestant lands. This disrepute is a result partly due to the upright morality which usually follows in the train of the Protestant faith. So far it is honorable, and an evidence of superior illumination. But, in the excess to which it has been pushed, we may trace also a blind and somewhat bigoted reaction of the horror inspired by the abuses of the Popish Confessional. Unfortunately for the interests of scientific ethics, the first cultivators of casuistry had been those who kept in view the professional service of auricular confession. Their purpose was--to a.s.sist the reverend confessor in appraising the quality of doubtful actions, in order that he might properly adjust his scale of counsel, of warning, of reproof, and of penance. Some, therefore, in pure simplicity and conscientious discharge of the duty they had a.s.sumed, but others, from lubricity of morals or the irritations of curiosity, pushed their investigations into unhallowed paths of speculation. They held aloft a torch for exploring guilty recesses-of human life, which it is far better for us all to leave in their original darkness. Crimes that were often all but imaginary, extravagances of erring pa.s.sion that would never have been known as possibilities to the young and the innocent, were thus published in their most odious details. At first, it is true, the decent draperies of a dead language were suspended before these abominations: but sooner or later some knave was found, on mercenary motives, to tear away this partial veil; and thus the vernacular literature of most nations in Southern Europe, was gradually polluted with revelations that had been originally made in the avowed service of religion. Indeed, there was one aspect of such books which proved even more extensively disgusting. Speculations pointed to monstrous offences, bore upon their very face and frontispiece the intimation that they related to cases rare and anomalous. But sometimes casuistry pressed into the most hallowed recesses of common domestic life.

The delicacy of youthful wives, for example, was often not less grievously shocked than the manliness of husbands, by refinements of monkish subtlety applied to cases never meant for religious cognisance--but far better left to the decision of good feeling, of nature, and of pure household morality. Even this revolting use of casuistry, however, did less to injure its name and pretensions than a persuasion, pretty generally diffused, that the main purpose and drift of this science was a sort of hair-splitting process, by which doubts might be applied to the plainest duties of life, or questions raised on the extent of their obligations, for the single benefit of those who sought to evade them. A casuist was viewed, in short, as a kind of lawyer or special pleader in morals, such as those who, in London, are known as Old Bailey pract.i.tioners, called in to manage desperate cases--to suggest all available advantages--to raise doubts or distinctions where simple morality saw no room for either--and generally to teach the art, in nautical phrase, of sailing as near the wind as possible, without fear of absolutely foundering.

Meantime it is certain that casuistry, when soberly applied, is not only a beneficial as well as a very interesting study; but that, by whatever t.i.tle, it is absolutely indispensable to the _practical_ treatment of morals. We may reject the name; the thing we cannot reject. And accordingly the custom has been, in all English treatises on ethics, to introduce a good deal of casuistry under the idea of special ill.u.s.tration, but without any reference to casuistry as a formal branch of research. Indeed, as society grows complex, the uses of casuistry become more urgent. Even Cicero could not pursue his theme through such barren generalizations as entirely to evade all notice of special cases: and Paley has given the chief interest to his very loose investigations of morality, by scattering a selection of such cases over the whole field of his discussion.

The necessity of casuistry might, in fact, be deduced from the very origin, and genesis of the word. First came the general law or rule of action. This was like the major proposition of a syllogism.

But next came a special instance or _case_, so stated as to indicate whether it did or did not fall under the general rule.

This, again, was exactly the minor proposition in a syllogism. For example, in logic we say, as the major proposition in a syllogism, _Man is mortal_. This is the rule. And then 'subsuming' (such is the technical phrase--_subsuming_) Socrates under the rule by a minor proposition--viz. Socrates is a man--we are able mediately to connect him with the predicate of that rule, viz, _ergo_, Socrates is mortal.[Footnote: The ludicrous blunder of Reid (as first published by Lord Kames in his _Sketches_), and of countless others, through the last seventy or eighty years, in their critiques on the logic of Aristotle, has been to imagine that such ill.u.s.trations of syllogism as these were meant for specimens of what syllogism could perform. What an elaborate machinery, it was said, for bringing out the merest self-evident truisms! But just as reasonably it might have been objected, when a mathematician ill.u.s.trated the process of addition by saying 3+4=7, Behold what pompous nothings! These Aristotelian ill.u.s.trations were _purposely_ drawn from cases not open to dispute, and simply as exemplifications of the meaning: they were intentionally self-evident.] Precisely upon this model arose casuistry. A general rule, or major proposition, was laid down--suppose that he who killed any human being, except under the palliations X, Y, Z, was a murderer. Then in a minor proposition, the special case of the suicide was considered. It was affirmed, or it was denied, that his case fell under some one of the palliations a.s.signed. And then, finally, accordingly to the negative or affirmative shape of this minor proposition, it was argued, in the conclusion, that the suicide was or was not, a murderer. Out of these _cases_, i.e. oblique deflexions from the universal rule (which is also the grammarian's sense of the word _case_) arose _casuistry_.

After morality has done its very utmost in clearing up the grounds upon which it rests its decisions--after it has multiplied its rules to any possible point of circ.u.mstantiality--there will always continue to arise cases without end, in the shifting combinations of human action, about which a question will remain whether they do or do not fall under any of these rules. And the best way for seeing this truth ill.u.s.trated on a broad scale, the shortest way and the most decisive is--to point our attention to one striking fact, viz. that all law, as it exists in every civilized land, is nothing but casuistry. Simply because new cases are for ever arising to raise new doubts whether they do or do not fall under the rule of law, therefore it is that law is so inexhaustible. The law terminates a dispute for the present by a decision of a court, (which const.i.tutes our '_common law_,') or by an express act of the legislature, (which const.i.tutes our '_statute law_.') For a month or two matters flow on smoothly. But then comes a new case, not contemplated or not verbally provided for in the previous rule. It is varied by some feature of difference. The feature, it is suspected, makes no _essential_ difference: substantially it may be the old case. Ay--but that is the very point to be decided. And so arises a fresh suit at law, and a fresh decision.

For example, after many a decision and many a statute, (all arising out of cases supervening upon cases,) suppose that great subdivision of jurisprudence called the Bankrupt Laws to have been gradually matured. It has been settled, suppose, that he who exercises a trade, and no other whatsoever, shall be ent.i.tled to the benefit of the bankrupt laws. So far is fixed: and people vainly imagine that at length a station of rest is reached, and that in this direction at least, the onward march of law is barred. Not at all.

Suddenly a schoolmaster becomes insolvent, and attempts to avail himself of privileges as a technical bankrupt. But then arises a resistance on the part of those who are interested in resisting: and the question is raised--Whether the calling of a schoolmaster can be legally considered a trade? This also is settled: it is solemnly determined that a schoolmaster is a tradesman. But next arises a case, in which, from peculiar variation of the circ.u.mstances, it is doubtful whether the teacher can technically be considered a schoolmaster. Suppose that case settled: a schoolmaster, sub-distinguished as an X Y schoolmaster, is adjudged to come within the meaning of the law. But scarcely is this sub-variety disposed of, than up rises some decomplex case, which is a sub-variety of this sub-variety: and so on for ever.

Hence, therefore, we may see the shortsightedness of Paley in quoting with approbation, and as if it implied a reproach, that the Mussulman religious code contains 'not less than seventy-five thousand traditional precepts.' True: but if this statement shows an excess of circ.u.mstantiality in the moral systems of Mussulmans, that result expresses a fact which Paley overlooks--viz. that their moral code is in reality their legal code. It is by aggregation of _cases_, by the everlasting depullulation of fresh sprouts and shoots from old boughs, that this enormous acc.u.mulation takes place; and, therefore, the apparent anomaly is exactly paralleled in our unmanageable superstructure of law, and in the French supplements to their code, which have already far overbuilt the code itself. If names were disregarded, we and the Mahometans are in the very same circ.u.mstances.

Casuistry, therefore, is the science of cases, or of those special varieties which are forever changing the face of actions as contemplated in general rules. The tendency of such variations is, in all states of complex civilization, to absolute infinity.[Footnote: We have noticed our own vast pile of law, and that of the French.

But neither of us has yet reached the alarming amount of the Roman law, under which the very powers of social movement threatened to break down. Courts could not decide, advocates could not counsel, so interminable was becoming the task of investigation. This led to the great digest of Justinian. But, had Roman society advanced in wealth, extent, and social development, instead of retrograding, the same result would have returned in a worse shape. The same result now menaces England, and will soon menace her much more.]

It is our present purpose to state a few of such cases, in order to fix attention upon the interest and the importance which surround them. No modern book of ethics can be worth notice, unless in so far as it selects and argues the more prominent of such cases, as they offer themselves in the economy of daily life. For we repeat--that the name, the word casuistry, may be evaded, but the thing cannot; nor _is_ it evaded in our daily conversations.

I. _The Case of the Jaffa Ma.s.sacre,_--No case in the whole compa.s.s of casuistry has been so much argued to and fro--none has been argued with so little profit; for, in fact, the main elements of the moral decision have been left out of view. Let us state the circ.u.mstances:--On the 11th of February, 1799, Napoleon, then and for seven months before in military possession of Egypt, began his march towards Syria. His object was to break the force of any Turkish invasion, by taking it in fractions. It had become notorious to every person in Egypt, that the Porte rejected the French pretence of having come for the purpose of quelling Mameluke rebellion--the absurdity of which, apart from its ludicrous Quixotism, was evident in the most practical way, viz. by the fact, that the whole revenues of Egypt were more than swallowed up by the pay and maintenance of the French army. What could the Mamelukes have done worse? Hence it had become certain that the Turks would send an expedition to Egypt; and Napoleon viewing the garrisons in Syria as the advanced guard of such an expedition, saw the best chance for general victory in meeting these troops beforehand, and destroying them in detail.

About nineteen days brought him within view of the Syrian fields.

On the last day of February he slept at the Arimathea of the Gospel.

In a day or two after his army was before Jaffa, (the Joppa of the Crusaders,)--a weak place, but of some military interest,[Footnote: It is singular that some peculiar interest has always settled upon Jaffa, no matter who was the military leader of the time, or what the object of the struggle. From Julius Caesar, Joppa enjoyed some special privileges and immunities--about a century after, in the latter years of Nero, a most tragical catastrophe happened at Joppa to the Syrian pirates, by which the very same number perished as in the Napoleon ma.s.sacre, viz. something about 4000. In the 200 years of the Crusades, Joppa revived again into military verdure.

The fact is, that the sh.o.r.e of Syria is pre-eminently deficient in natural harbors, or facilities for harbors--those which exist have been formed by art and severe contest with the opposition of nature. Hence their extreme paucity, and hence their disproportionate importance in every possible war.] from the accident of being the very first fortified town to those entering Palestine from the side of Egypt. On the 4th of March this place was invested; on the 6th, barely forty-eight hours after, it was taken by storm. This fact is in itself important; because it puts an end to the pretence so often brought forward, that the French army had been irritated by a long resistance. Yet, supposing the fact to have been so, how often in the history of war must every reader have met with cases where honorable terms were granted to an enemy merely on account of his obstinate resistance? But then here, it is said, the resistance was wilfully pushed to the arbitration of a storm. Even that might be otherwise stated; but, suppose it true, a storm in military law confers some rights upon the a.s.sailants which else they would not have had--rights, however, which cease with the day of storming.