the grand spectacle offered to the eyes of speculative man, in which the Phenomena of Nature are the Scenes, and the Theory of them the Plot, he has taken the course by which knowledge really has made its advances. But those who have partially done this, have often, like Hegel, assumed that they had divined the whole course and end of the story, and have thus criticised the scenes and the characters in a spirit quite at variance with that by which any real insight into the import of the representation can be obtained.

If it be asked which position we can assign, in this dramatic illustration, to those who hold that all our knowledge is derived from facts only, and who reject the supposition of ideas; we may say that they look on with a belief that the drama has no plot, and that these scenes are improvised without connexion or purpose.

16. I will only offer one more illustration of the relative position of these successive philosophies. Kant compares the change which he introduced into philosophy to the change which Copernicus introduced into astronomical theory. When Copernicus found that nothing could be made of the phenomena of the heavens so long as everything was made to turn round the spectator, he tried whether the matter might not be better explained if he made the spectator turn, and left the stars at rest. So Kant conceives that our experience is regulated by our own faculties, as the phenomena of the heavens are regulated by our own motions. But accepting and carrying out this illustration, we may say that Kant, in explaining the phenomena of the heavens by means of the motions of the earth, has almost forgotten that the planets have their own proper motions, and has given us a system which hardly explains anything besides broadest appearances, such as the annual and daily motions of the sun; and that Fichte appears as if he wished to deduce all the motions of the planets, as well as of the sun, from the conditions of the spectator;-while Schelling goes to the origin of the system, like Descartes, and is not content to show how the bodies move, without also

proving that from some assumed original condition, all the movements and relations of the system must necessarily be what they are. It may be that a theory which explains how the planets, with their orbits and accompaniments, have come into being, may offer itself to bold speculators, like those who have framed and produced the nebular hypothesis. But I need not remind my readers either how precarious such a hypothesis is; or, that if it be capable of being considered probable, its proofs must gradually dawn upon us, step by step, age after age and that a system of doctrine which assumes such a scheme as a certain and fundamental truth, and deduces the whole of astronomy from it, must needs be arbitrary, and liable to the gravest error at every step. Such a precarious and premature philosophy, at best, is that of Schelling and Hegel; especially as applied to those sciences in which, by the past progress of all sure knowledge, we are taught what the real cause and progress of knowledge is while at the same time we may allow that all these forms of philosophy, since they do recognize the condition and motion of the spectator, as a necessary element in the explanation of the phenomena, are a large advance upon the Ptolemaic scheme-the view of those who appeal to phenomena alone as the source of our knowledge, and say that the sun, the moon, and the planets move as we see them move, and that all further theory is imaginary and fantastical.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS AS IT EXISTS IN THE MORAL WORLD.

I.

WE have hitherto spoken of the Fundamental

Antithesis as the ground of our speculations. concerning the material world, at least mainly. We have indeed been led by the physical sciences, and especially by Biology, to the borders of Psychology. We have had to consider not only the mechanical effects of muscular contraction, but the sensations which the nerves receive and convey:— -the way in which sensations become perceptions; the way in which perceptions determine actions. In this manner we have been led to the subject of volition or will', and this brings us to a new field of speculation, the moral nature of man; and this moral nature is a matter not only of speculative but of practical interest. On this subject I shall make only a few brief remarks.

2. Even in the most purely speculative view, the moral aspect of man's nature differs from the aspect of the material universe, in this respect, that in the moral world, external events are governed in some measure by the human will. When we speculate concerning the laws of material nature, we suppose that the phenomena of nature follow a course and order which we may perhaps, in some measure, discover and understand, but which we cannot change or control. But when we consider man as an agent, we suppose him able to determine some at least of the events of the external world; and thus, able to determine the actions of other men, and to lay down

1 Phil. of Biol. c. v.

laws for them. He cannot alter the properties of fire and metals, stones and fluids, air and light; but he can use fire and steel so as to compel other men's actions; stone-walls and ocean-shores so as to control other men's motions; gold and gems so as to have a hold on other men's desires; articulate sounds and intelligible symbols so as to direct other men's thoughts and move their will. There is an external world of Facts; and in this, the Facts are such as he makes them by his Acts.

3. But besides this, there is also, standing over against this external world of Facts, an internal world of Ideas. The Moral Acts without are the results of Moral Ideas within. Men have an Idea of Justice, for instance, according to which they are led to external acts, as to use force, to make a promise, to perform a contract, as individuals; or to make war and peace, to enact laws and to execute them, as a nation.

4. Some such internal moral Idea necessarily exists, along with all properly human actions. Man feels not only pain and anger, but indignation and the sentiment of wrong, which feelings imply a moral idea of right and wrong. Again, what he thinks of as wrong, he tries to prevent; what he deems right, he attempts to realize. The Idea gives a character to the Act; the Act embodies the Idea. In the moral world as in the natural world, the Antithesis is universal and inseparable. It is an Antithesis of inseparable elements. In human action, there is ever involved the Idea of what is right, and the external Act in which this idea is in some measure embodied.

5. But the moral Ideas, such as that of Justice, of Rightness, and the like, are always embodied incompletely in the world of external action. Although men's actions are to a great extent governed by the Ideas of Justice, Rightness and the like; (for it must be recollected that we include in their actions, laws, and the enforcement of laws;) yet there is a large portion of human actions which is not governed by such ideas (actions which result from mere desire, and violations of law). There is a perpetual Antithesis of

Ideas and Facts, which is the fundamental basis of moral as of natural philosophy. In the former as in the latter subject, besides what is ideal, there is an Actual which the ideal does not include. This Actual is the region in which the results of mere desire, of caprice, of apparent accident, are found. It is the region of history, as opposed to justice; it is the region of what is, as distinct from what ought to be.

6. Now what I especially wish here to remark, is this; that the progress of man as a moral being consists in a constant extension of the Idea into the region of Facts. This progress consists in making human actions conform more and more to the moral Ideas of Justice, Rightness, and the like; including in human actions, as we have said, Laws, the enforcement of Laws, and other collective acts of bodies of men. The History of Man as Man consists in this extension of moral Ideas into the region of Facts. It is not that the actual history of what men do has always consisted in such an extension of moral Ideas; for there has ever been, in the actual doings of men, a large portion of facts which had no moral character; acts of desire, deeds of violence, transgressions of acknowledged law, and the like. But such events are not a part of the genuine progress of humanity. They do not belong to the history of man as man, but to the history of man as brute. On the other hand, there are events which belong to the history of man as man, events which belong to the genuine progress of humanity; such as the establishment of just laws; their enforcement; their improvement by introducing into them a fuller measure of moral Ideas. By such means there is a constant progress of man as a moral being. By this realization of moral Ideas there is a constant progress of Humanity.

7. I have made this reflection, because it appears to me to bring into view an analogy between the Progress of Science and the Progress of Man, or of Humanity, in the sense in which I have used the term. In both these lines of Progress, Facts are more and more identified with Ideas. In both, there is a funda