THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER. JANUARY, 1862. ART. I.-THE SWORD IN ETHICS. 1. The Non-Resistance Principle. By CHARLES K. WHIPPLE. Boston: R. F. Wallcut. 2. Non-Resistance applied to the Internal Defence of a Community. By CHARLES K. WHIPPLE. Boston: R. F. Wallcut. 3. Essays on the Principles of Morality. By JONATHAN DYMOND. London. 4. Life of Sir Henry Havelock. By REV. WILLIAM BROCK. Lon don. 4 66 THAT Nature is no non-resistant would seem to be clear at a glance. Every one of her laws is a force, and cuts its own way, with never a By your leave," nor the least offer to desist in case of objection made. Observe also that, on the large scale and in the long run, no creature is permitted to live which cannot secure life to itself. The class, the genus, the species, that lacks vigor to support and protect itself, ceases from off the earth. For mutual succors and reciprocations of aid, the broadest provision is indeed made; an immense scheme of interdependence is arranged, wherein each individual has need of many others and is needed by many; and it is more or less the virtue of all creatures, pre-eminently it is the virtue of man, to enter with spirit and heartiness into this plan of co-operation: nevertheless, taking creatures by kinds, it is the inexorable rule, that those which cannot make good a place for themselves shall have no place. Consequently, in the construction of any creature, Nature VOL. LXXII. 5TH S. VOL. X. NO. I. 1 has always in mind the thought of self-preservation, commonly of direct self-defence; and works this into its organization. And of excess in this direction there would seem to be little apprehension. What an armory of weapons, what claws, tusks, horns, fangs, venoms! One cannot say that she seems at all nice about the matter, at all afflicted with scruples; for she rather parades than hides these provisions, and bestows her defences with a savage liberality and heartiness that gentle eyes shrink from inspecting too closely. The question will naturally arise, Does not Nature desist from this portion of her plan upon arrival at man? And the question would seem to derive occasion from the obvious fact that man is furnished with no ostensible and exclusive weapon of defence. True it is that he has no special weapon; but why? Because he is to command the use of all. In this apparent deprivation there is moreover a definite purpose, one that Nature has always very dearly at heart, that, namely, of compelling man to an exercise of his understanding; she makes self-preservation a mental discipline, and will allow her best-beloved to be safe only as he is intelligent. This is but one of many instances wherein she does the same. Man is stored with wants, whose supply demands invention, forecast, skill, self-control, and, in fine, a certain supremacy of intellect and will; and he is a little impoverished in respect to ordinary animal resources, that he may find a fountain of ampler wealth in his higher faculties. One might, therefore, as properly argue against clothing from the nakedness of man's cuticle, as against his use of weapons from his want of fangs and claws. But the above question has a broader and more sufficient answer. Nature never does abandon any leading idea. She pursues invariable themes, that range from depth to height through the total extent of her creations. In the degree of specialization indeed, in the degree of refinement, delicacy, and power, with which these themes are developed, there is difference of immeasurable scope. Thus, to illustrate, music is one and the same always in that which defines it as music; but the instruments by which it may be expressed range from an oaten straw to a church organ or grand piano; while the minds of various composers may be regarded as more subtile and generative instruments, in like manner developing, with various degrees of purity and power, the ideal fact of music. Instances of Nature's adherence to leading conceptions are indeed never few to seek. The tree form has not been forgotten, nor laid aside, in building the human body. The nervous system has so nearly the form of an inverted tree, that a drawing forces the resemblance upon the dullest eye; and the sanguineous system shows the same form, though with less precision of likeness. Nay, as Lord Bacon was perhaps the first to hint, what is the human body, as a whole, but a tree with its feeding and governing part in the air, the head being the spiritual, the mouth the ingesting root, while the trunk, like that of the tree, branches into limbs, and the limbs at their extremities branch farther into fingers and toes, as those of the tree into twigs? At first sight, it does not seem pleasant to think of man as an inverted tree, some painfulness being suggested; but we soon discover that the real inversion is in the case of the tree itself, its allegiance to the mere earth being affirmed by this imbedment of its head in the soil. Its inspiration comes from the dark centres of the physical world, from the realms of opacity; only its results or tendencies look upward. Man lifts his root upwards, asserting thereby his filial relationship to the skies, that is, to the universe as a whole; while the downward-reaching limbs, bearing no flower or foliage, suggest no downward tendency, but lend themselves humbly to the spheral and all-related head. This is digression, but has its use in vindicating the instances chosen, and the law they illustrate. - It were easy to multiply these instances of unity of working, but one more must suffice; that, however, is rendered emphatic by the wide separation of its terms. In the tree and the human body, representing fairly enough the extremes of life upon our globe, we find likeness of design; but if we go back as far as to the solar system on the one hand, and forward to the human spirit on the other, an equal likeness will appear. For the centripetal and centrifugal forces, in virtue of whose co-working worlds revolve, hold a position in man's nature not less primal and commanding than in the solar system. The great central religious attraction binds man ineffably to the ineffable One-in-all, and in the lower form of social sentiment holds him fast and forever to the heart of his kind; and there is no atheist nor worldling, no solitary nor cynic, who is insensible to it the sentiment of unity works, and works with mastery, in all, though with interpretations more or less noble. But, on the other hand, there is a tendency in every man to put forth and assert his peculiar life, to go out, as it were, upon straight lines of individual demonstration; and this, as all must see, corresponds precisely to the centrifugal tendency of planets. Nature holds to her themes; and accordingly, having once found the idea of self-defence in her hands, we may be sure that it is never cast aside. With higher organizations there are higher expressions of every leading thought; and therefore, on arriving at man, we discover that the provisions for defence partake of the general elevation, and are, for the most part, much removed from a beastly simplicity of biting and scratching. For physical defence, man is weaponed in part by the immediate powers and cunning of the hand, but far more by that command of natural forces which the finer cunning of understanding confers upon him. For subtler encounters he is more subtly armed. In every eye is a dagger, here bold, aggressive, piratical, there gently withdrawn, and softly sheathed, but still there, and with a point. Some voices are not simply defensive, but offensive, a perpetual assault and battery but in every voice should be a possible cut; and if we miss this metallic force and edge, it sounds doughy and insipidly soft. Every one has heard voices with a whole park of artillery in them, though they might not be loud, nor in any degree robbed of human sweetness. Thus is man weaponed thoroughly, body for the defence of body, and mind, through its more subtile and expressive agents, for the defence of mind. Since, however, he possesses a higher order of weapons, why should he not trust to these alone for protection? The answer is easy. In all defences you necessarily use a weapon not only fit for you, as a man, to employ, but appropriate also to the foe or danger that threatens you. In every action a certain respect is paid to the uses had in view. He is insane who |
1 Comentario Las opiniones no están verificadas, pero Google revisa que no haya contenido falso y lo quita si lo identifica Escribir un comentario |