Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

i

the true philosopher, who ascertains the relation of himself to that system of which he is a unit, and the analogy of this sysfem to the universe. But the mere thinker never weighs anchor, never leaves his own coast; it is he who feels as well as thinks, that touches at all ports, and holds intercourse with other spi rits. Intellectual power gives me possession of the truth, it may be Emotional sensibility associates me with the true. Sympathy without mind, is the oxygen without the flame; mind without sympathy, is light without an atmosphere to refract and convey it. If I have love as well as capacity, then I feel as a brother, while I think as a man; but if no heart beats under my bosom, I be come my own circumference and centre both; and though I do not stagnate, I make no advance my motion is incessant, but it is circular, unprogressive, useless. for an glad footbla Now, what we remark in Hume is, that he was out of sym pathy with all his fellows, and had wedded himself to a spirit of selfishness and seclusion. Wrapping himself up in a cloak of impenetrable vanity, he must needs go into the wilderness and dwell where no man dwelt. Sequestered within a hermitage of his own abstractions, he will sit apart from all, in presumptuous isolation.The star climbs to its orb alone, and borrows not one ray of brightness, one pulse of gravitation, from others moving within the same zodiac. If men would burn incense around his pedestal, the gracious idol would drop a look, perchance a smilė, band for a moment we might conceive that there was humanity beneath his marble. But is the fragrance denied? Then does he fold his pride around him, and withdraw. Nay, spirits of a holier sphere than earth must not intrude upon his chosen privacy. And even the Highest Spirit of all must retire, with his proffered haids, from this absorbed and daring thinker.s on but, dem ne

J

I

f Hume's soul, we cannot help saying, then, was but half a soul; and in the fatuity of pride he defrauded himself of strength, to Blay hold of celebrity Had he cherished a human heart, promptTing to what was amiable, and governing the irregularities of wil-fulness, though it might not have rescued him from all his heresies, it would have abated his extravagance of paradox, and added vastly to the reach of his intellect. As it is, he is but a thinker, not a man. Yea, and he reasons more than he thinks, The analyses rather than discovers. His intuitions are few, because his sympathy is in abeyance wombs bus Issil et nous HI Andoas, in Hume, there was no sympathy with man, which indeed is vigorous love, so was there no sympathy with the mind gof God, which after all, is equivalent to faith. Humne inquired, and reasoned, and concluded, without reverence, without submissión. Truth is God himself and every step in the acquisition of

truth brings us nearer God; so that the boldest inquirer ought to be devout; the most successful, the humblest; a thinker should be a worshipper. He is passing up through the outer court, and every space he advances, flings the splendour of the Shekinah more strongly u pon his vision. Surely, therefore, if he left his shoes upon the threshold, he ought to veil his eyes, as he puts aside the curtains of that holy place where the truth resides. But Hume would not stoop to worship, though he were not afraid to gaze. Truth was no more to him than money was; he measured the value of both, by the importance they bestowed. With what coolness did he search into the arcana of that soul on which God stamped his image once, and amid the ruins of which the coins of a former reign are often yet to be met with, attesting by whom its foundations were laid! Nor did he tremble, even when he approached God himself, and tried to scale the bulwarks of his throne!

That as a thinker, aspiring and resolute, Hume is an edifying example, we acknowledge. And even he ought not to have lived in vain for us, calling, as he does, upon all to make the most diligent use of their resources and endowments. Whence his inspiration was drawn, or whither his efforts pointed, we ask not at present. On this we fix attention-the attention of all studious minds, he thought, and because he thought, even Hume may rise up to condemn us, if we turn not our powers to use, with all his invincible strenuousness.

At the same time, let Hume's example teach us, that a bare thinker, like a vessel's bare mast, is as futile as unsightly, and that without sympathy and reverence, without the faith and love which Hume so unfeignedly disallowed, we neither have possession of our intellect ourselves, nor may lay it out for the advantage of others, and least of all, can render it unto God with the usury he claims.

1

Especially would we call upon the generous youth of our academies, and gymnasia, and colleges, to recognise and eschew Hume's fatal error, as alike sinful and incapacitating. It is a blessed token, that in these days of expeditious money-making, and superficial acquirement, there are still not a few inclined to the researches of thought, and endued with the faculty. Great is the responsibility of such, and we desire that they should become alive to it. The man who thinks should stand in awe! His is a vast power, his an infinite pursuit. To the clear-eyed occupants of a happier home, whose knowledge is intuition, with whom truth is living bliss, our deductions must appear irksome and imperfect. We reason they think; we guess they know! Nevertheless, he who, on earth even, puts forth the energy of a

thoughtful mind-indulges in the wholesome speculations of an inquiring spirit, will touch springs that may vibrate over all space must give rise to impulses which will not be exhausted in the ages of time. The issues of a single thought, how much more the issues of a thinker, are inaccessibly stupendous!

Let the ardent thinker, then, think on, as Hume did, and pour streams of thought into eternity. Yet, unlike Hume, let him be calm, affectionate, reverential, believing, else he thinks only to err; he errs and misleads, and perishes not alone. Like Elisha, Hume merely looked up to the clouds that he saw rolling before the gate of heaven, and his eye went no farther; he spurned a higher flight. Like Elisha's master, Howe and Bacon ascended in a chariot borne on flames, within the veil, and stood where angels stand in full sympathy with God, even as with man. Even so, let every one who would think, know the grandeur of his vocation, and seek the spirit that will qualify him. He must not make thinking either a trade, or a pastime, but view it with the nobler minds, as a generous and hallowed function. He must dismiss all that is jealous or malignant, and allow his human heart to beat in unison with all hearts, even when he soars the most vigorously. He must realize his position as in the midst of all things infinite and mysterious, and feel that he is no more than an emmet measuring the firmament. He must look into the depths of his soul within, so inscrutable; he must survey the handiwork of earth and heaven, so exquisite; he must call to mind the sea of existence in which he floats, so measureless; and then confess, that God is the Unapproachable-the drapery of whose works, no more than the essence of His nature, can man "find out by searching."

We would neither check nor prohibit deep and comprehensive speculation. The wing of Berkley did not raise him presumptuously aloft, nor did the eye of Butler penetrate irreverently; and why may we not have thinkers still, such as these yea, mightier and more devout? Only let him who thinks, think always as amid the light of Him who is light, and "with whom is no darkness at all." As he pursues truth, let him remember that it is the face of God he seeks, and he will tremble to bring the passions of earthliness and unbelief amid the effulgence of the flame-eyed One. Jehovah forbids no one to inquire deeply into his ways, for the perfection of the creature is the knowledge of the Creator. But let boasting and self-reliance be put away, with all unkindness. The inquirer must be anointed from on high, and be as willing to abide ignorant, as anxious to be taught. He must ask for help in all his manifold processes, as grappling with an enterprise his own arm cannot achieve. Yet must he

T

give praise in his thankfulness, because he is only a little lower than the angels, and can see what they see! If he be checked in his ardour, let him not be impatient; if he is perplexed in his investigations, let him not desist; if his hope be frustrated for a season, let him renew his labours, lured by no earthly reward, but strong only in the hope, that all the discipline he has under gone will render him more meets for the beatific vision, when he shall be with Him who is the fountain of life, and in his light shall see light. bits nosivih enoizilor to otete a doue ni ylboast Nomized ant od uoqu sorgs uso emoitosa owt on det <ib 9/679, 8oz dhuwdriół big jumalaim 9dt 97ods dtbeordried s bos dog to Jebem odt al stinta bas yewolesį „b109 ART! VII. Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education, in August and December 1846, &c London J. W. Parker: 211847.99 601 28 boba79 Tou 29froodt 97ed as bozaini ed tor olduloani bas

[ocr errors]

Ought government to provide for the education of the people? Unless we are thorough voluntaries, we must answer, Yes. In consistency with our former principles ere the link was broken between us and the state, we dare not answer otherwise. "And un2 less we have left our principles as well as our stipends behind us in the Establishment, we must still give the same cordial and unfaltering response. Piquo uid to ofthit to toj smo zd Jemstede - What kind of education ought government to provide? Doubtless the best possible: a full, unstinted education, taking in the widest range to which that term can be applied. If government is to furnish an article for its subjects, that article ought to be the best that can be had. Education in the hands of gov ernment, just as in the hands of a father or a guardian, ought to be the completest that can be provided by the means under command. It ought to take in the whole compass of man's being to embrace all his faculties, intellectual, moral, and religious, omitting no part of his manifold nature that demands cultivation

Such is the maximum of education; with less than which no go vernment should be content. Such ought to be its standard and its aim. No government has hitherto fully accomplished this. But still such is the true theory: and of this no statesman ought ever to lose sight. rocui ti abai titi mosaz zuoiçilər tostroqui me

But may a government ever rest short of this and be guiltless? May it take something less than the maximum, when it cannot reach that maximum? May it ever take the minimum when hedg ed in and hindered in its efforts and desires to secure something higher? When the question is between the minimum edu cation and none at all, may it prefer the former? When so fetter ed that it cannot give all that it would wish, may it give all that it can?

[ocr errors]

1 These are grave questions. They claim our most earnest thought. They demand a careful and well-weighed solution, for the issues dependent on them are a people's welfare, a nation's very being it ad god id ti zob son ml ↑

[ocr errors]

Nor are they questions of nice and curious casuistry which gratify the man of theory, but never cross the path of the man of action. On the contrary, they are forced upon us. We must consider them; nay, we must solve them. For is not the nation confessedly in such a state of religious division and dismemberment, that no two sections can agree upon the true maximum? Rise a hairbreadth above the minimum, and forthwith you evoke discord, jealousy, and strife. In the midst of such conflicts, where every step seems to kindle a fresh flame, and where difficulties apparently/beset the statesman, such questions as the above cannot be dismissed as bare theories, nor evaded as too perplexing and insoluble.

SolWe do not mean to say that such difficulties ought to alter or lower our ideas of a perfect education or a complete educational system. No outward circumstances ought to affect our standard of education. That must be preserved in all its original integrity; circumstances may modify its development or compel us to be content with less than we desire: but they ought not to lead to the abatement, by one jot or tittle, of the complete model which we had formed. Here we are afraid some of our voluntary friends haye sadly stumbled and gone astray. These formidable obstacles have led them to alter their educational theories. One large class, carrying its principles to an extreme, which utterly denies to government the paternal right of preventing crime, but merely concedes the despotic right of punishing it,refuses to concede the right of the state to educate the people, or to assist in their eduz cation in any shape whatever. This is voluntaryism run mad, voluntaryism filled with such horror at the magistrate's interference with religion, that it cannot tolerate his interference with what is not religion! Another class allows the state to educate the nation in secular things, but resists its right to propound or carry out a religious, system of instruction in any shape. With this class the question is not as it is with us. May the state give an imperfect religious system if it finds it impossible to work out a perfect one? It is, Is not a government system perfect without religion? nay, does not one bright part of its perfection consist in its excluding religion totally?rý ji vali. Sapmizan zad) dhew These are the two errors into which some of our friends have allowed themselves to run, scared by the obstacles which seemed to block up their path. They have not faced the difficulty. They have either overleaped or evaded it a sum temno di tudt bo

« ZurückWeiter »