Biographia Literaria
supplied the French Government in aid of their plans of invasion. And
these too for a tract of coast that, from Clevedon to Minehead, scarcely
permits the approach of a fishing-boat!
All my experience from my first entrance into life to the present hour
is in favour of the warning maxim, that the man, who opposes in toto the
political or religious zealots of his age, is safer from their obloquy
than he who differs from them but in one or two points, or perhaps only
in degree. By that transfer of the feelings of private life into the
discussion of public questions, which is the queen bee in the hive of
party fanaticism, the partisan has more sympathy with an intemperate
opposite than with a moderate friend. We now enjoy an intermission,
and long may it continue! In addition to far higher and more important
merits, our present Bible societies and other numerous associations
for national or charitable objects, may serve perhaps to carry off
the superfluous activity and fervour of stirring minds in innocent
hyperboles and the bustle of management. But the poison-tree is not
dead, though the sap may for a season have subsided to its roots. At
least let us not be lulled into such a notion of our entire security, as
not to keep watch and ward, even on our best feelings. I have seen gross
intolerance shown in support of toleration; sectarian antipathy
most obtrusively displayed in the promotion of an undistinguishing
comprehension of sects: and acts of cruelty, (I had almost said,) of
treachery, committed in furtherance of an object vitally important
to the cause of humanity; and all this by men too of naturally kind
dispositions and exemplary conduct.
The magic rod of fanaticism is preserved in the very adyta of human
nature; and needs only the re-exciting warmth of a master hand to bud
forth afresh and produce the old fruits. The horror of the Peasants’ war
in Germany, and the direful effects of the Anabaptists’ tenets,
(which differed only from those of jacobinism by the substitution of
theological for philosophical jargon,) struck all Europe for a time with
affright. Yet little more than a century was sufficient to obliterate
all effective memory of these events. The same principles with
similar though less dreadful consequences were again at work from the
imprisonment of the first Charles to the restoration of his son. The
fanatic maxim of extirpating fanaticism by persecution produced a civil
war. The war ended in the victory of the insurgents; but the temper
survived, and Milton had abundant grounds for asserting, that “Presbyter
was but OLD PRIEST writ large!” One good result, thank heaven! of this
zealotry was the re-establishment of the church. And now it might have
been hoped, that the mischievous spirit would have been bound for a
season, “and a seal set upon him, that he should deceive the nation
no more.” [33] But no! The ball of persecution was taken up with
undiminished vigour by the persecuted. The same fanatic principle that,
under the solemn oath and covenant, had turned cathedrals into stables,
destroyed the rarest trophies of art and ancestral piety, and hunted the
brightest ornaments of learning and religion into holes and corners, now
marched under episcopal banners, and, having first crowded the prisons
of England, emptied its whole vial of wrath on the miserable Covenanters
of Scotland [34]. A merciful providence at length constrained both
parties to join against a common enemy. A wise government followed;
and the established church became, and now is, not only the brightest
example, but our best and only sure bulwark, of toleration!--the
true and indispensable bank against a new inundation of persecuting
zeal--Esto perpetua!
A long interval of quiet succeeded; or rather, the exhaustion had
produced a cold fit of the ague which was symptomatized by indifference
among the many, and a tendency to infidelity or scepticism in the
educated classes. At length those feelings of disgust and hatred,
which for a brief while the multitude had attached to the crimes and
absurdities of sectarian and democratic fanaticism, were transferred to
the oppressive privileges of the noblesse, and the luxury; intrigues and
favouritism of the continental courts. The same principles, dressed
in the ostentatious garb of a fashionable philosophy, once more rose
triumphant and effected the French revolution. And have we not
within the last three or four years had reason to apprehend, that
the detestable maxims and correspondent measures of the late French
despotism had already bedimmed the public recollections of democratic
phrensy; had drawn off to other objects the electric force of the
feelings which had massed and upheld those recollections; and that a
favourable concurrence of occasions was alone wanting to awaken the
thunder and precipitate the lightning from the opposite quarter of the
political heaven?
In part from constitutional indolence, which in the very hey-day of
hope had kept my enthusiasm in check, but still more from the habits and
influences of a classical education and academic pursuits, scarcely
had a year elapsed from the commencement of my literary and political
adventures before my mind sank into a state of thorough disgust and
despondency, both with regard to the disputes and the parties disputant.
With more than poetic feeling I exclaimed:
The sensual and the dark rebel in vain,
Slaves by their own compulsion! In mad game
They break their manacles, to wear the name
Of freedom, graven on a heavier chain.
O Liberty! with profitless endeavour
Have I pursued thee many a weary hour;
But thou nor swell’st the victor’s pomp, nor ever
Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power!
Alike from all, howe’er they praise thee,
(Nor prayer nor boastful name delays thee)
From Superstition’s harpy minions
And factious Blasphemy’s obscener slaves,
Thou speedest on thy cherub pinions,
The guide of homeless winds and playmate of the waves!
I retired to a cottage in Somersetshire at the foot of Quantock, and
devoted my thoughts and studies to the foundations of religion and
morals. Here I found myself all afloat. Doubts rushed in; broke upon me
“from the fountains of the great deep,” and fell “from the windows
of heaven.” The fontal truths of natural religion and the books of
Revelation alike contributed to the flood; and it was long ere my ark
touched on an Ararat, and rested. The idea of the Supreme Being appeared
to me to be as necessarily implied in all particular modes of being as
the idea of infinite space in all the geometrical figures by which space
is limited. I was pleased with the Cartesian opinion, that the idea of
God is distinguished from all other ideas by involving its reality; but
I was not wholly satisfied. I began then to ask myself, what proof I
had of the outward existence of anything? Of this sheet of paper for
instance, as a thing in itself, separate from the phaenomenon or image
in my perception. I saw, that in the nature of things such proof is
impossible; and that of all modes of being, that are not objects of the
senses, the existence is assumed by a logical necessity arising from the
constitution of the mind itself,--by the absence of all motive to
doubt it, not from any absolute contradiction in the supposition of the
contrary. Still the existence of a Being, the ground of all existence,
was not yet the existence of a moral creator, and governour. “In the
position, that all reality is either contained in the necessary being as
an attribute, or exists through him, as its ground, it remains undecided
whether the properties of intelligence and will are to be referred to
the Supreme Being in the former or only in the latter sense; as inherent
attributes, or only as consequences that have existence in other things
through him [35]. Were the latter the truth, then notwithstanding all
the pre-eminence which must be assigned to the Eternal First from the
sufficiency, unity, and independence of his being, as the dread ground
of the universe, his nature would yet fall far short of that, which we
are bound to comprehend in the idea of GOD. For, without any knowledge
or determining resolve of its own, it would only be a blind
necessary ground of other things and other spirits; and thus would
be distinguished from the FATE of certain ancient philosophers in no
respect, but that of being more definitely and intelligibly described.”
For a very long time, indeed, I could not reconcile personality with
infinity; and my head was with Spinoza, though my whole heart remained
with Paul and John. Yet there had dawned upon me, even before I had met
with the CRITIQUE OF THE PURE REASON, a certain guiding light. If the
mere intellect could make no certain discovery of a holy and intelligent
first cause, it might yet supply a demonstration, that no legitimate
argument could be drawn from the intellect against its truth. And what
is this more than St. Paul’s assertion, that by wisdom,--(more properly
translated by the powers of reasoning)--no man ever arrived at the
knowledge of God? What more than the sublimest, and probably the oldest,
book on earth has taught us,
Silver and gold man searcheth out:
Bringeth the ore out of the earth, and darkness into light.
But where findeth he wisdom?
Where is the place of understanding?
The abyss crieth; it is not in me!
Ocean echoeth back; not in me!
Whence then cometh wisdom?
Where dwelleth understanding?
Hidden from the eyes of the living
Kept secret from the fowls of heaven!
Hell and death answer;
We have heard the rumour thereof from afar!
GOD marketh out the road to it;
GOD knoweth its abiding place!
He beholdeth the ends of the earth;
He surveyeth what is beneath the heavens!
And as he weighed out the winds, and measured the sea,
And appointed laws to the rain,
And a path to the thunder,
A path to the flashes of the lightning!
Then did he see it,
And he counted it;
He searched into the depth thereof,
And with a line did he compass it round!
But to man he said,
The fear of the Lord is wisdom for thee!
And to avoid evil,
That is thy understanding. [36]
I become convinced, that religion, as both the cornerstone and the
key-stone of morality, must have a moral origin; so far at least, that
the evidence of its doctrines could not, like the truths of abstract
science, be wholly independent of the will. It were therefore to be
expected, that its fundamental truth would be such as might be denied;
though only, by the fool, and even by the fool from the madness of the
heart alone!
The question then concerning our faith in the existence of a God, not
only as the ground of the universe by his essence, but as its maker and
judge by his wisdom and holy will, appeared to stand thus. The sciential
reason, the objects of which are purely theoretical, remains neutral, as
long as its name and semblance are not usurped by the opponents of the
doctrine. But it then becomes an effective ally by exposing the false
show of demonstration, or by evincing the equal demonstrability of the
contrary from premises equally logical [37]. The understanding meantime
suggests, the analogy of experience facilitates, the belief. Nature
excites and recalls it, as by a perpetual revelation. Our feelings
almost necessitate it; and the law of conscience peremptorily commands
it. The arguments, that at all apply to it, are in its favour; and
there is nothing against it, but its own sublimity. It could not be
intellectually more evident without becoming morally less effective;
without counteracting its own end by sacrificing the life of faith to