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THE GREAT SYNTHESIS, OR THE FOUNDATION ON WHICH ALL THINGS REST.

CHAPTER I.

The first of Genesis is the only cosmogony that survives, though its true significance is apt to be missed in an age like this. While one set of earnest men are occupied in the futile task of endeavoring to prove that its author had the science of the nineteenth century in his brain, and another set are gathering the cheap glory of proving that he had not, both alike are losing the one really vital truth, a truth of transcendent importance just now, which any unprejudiced mind might gather from simply giving itself up to the grandeur of the inspiration. That truth is, the writer's cosmogony and his religion were one in his thought. This makes his cosmogony a poem, a hymn of creation in praise of the Creator. This gives unity to the whole conception. Leave out the unneeded series of days, and read on: God is brooding over the face of the chaotic earth; God says, "Let there be light"; God summons sun, moon,

and stars, that come at his call; God divides land and sea; God bids the earth bring forth tree and grass; God peoples the water with fish, and air with fowl; God creates the four-footed beasts that walk the earth. And God blessed them, and saw everything that he had made; and behold! it was very good! And, lastly, God made man in his own image. Male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and gave them dominion over the earth, and all things therein.

Reason and religion, then, with this man were one. His reason saw clearly the graded ascent of the ladder of life, the true order of creation, from less life to more. First, the lifeless earth, then division into land and sea, then the grass and the trees, then the lower life of the beasts, and then the higher, and, lastly, the grand series culminates in man. But his religion keeps step for step with his reason. A song of praise bursts forth at each separate creation. All is very good; and when, at last, man appears, when the divine reason for the world is seen at last with crystal clearness, then the man's religion kneels to listen to the divine blessing on the world.

Our

Now, each age must and will have its cosmogony. If it is a sleepy age, it will borrow one. If it is an active age, it will make one. Ours is fashioning its own, with a zeal unequalled by any other age. Still, it is plain that, at present, modern cosmogony and religion are by no means one. cosmogony does not sing itself. It does not go to a hymn tune. It does not yet sound like a psalm of praise by any means. Our cosmogonists, then, as a general thing, do not understand our men of religion, and vice versa. I do not believe that the gulf between them is by any means as deep as some think; and, in the midst of their mutual misunderstanding, I find much to encourage me. Nevertheless, it is plain that there is a good deal to be done before both can work together in the great quest,― the search after an allpervading unity. Take a fine example: Tyndall is one of our boldest yet most genial cosmogonists. In his "Apology for the Belfast Address," he begins his criticism of Mar

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tineau by quoting, with genuine admiration, Martineau's saying that the students under his charge "have been trained under the assumptions: 1st, that the universe is the life-dwelling of an eternal mind; 2d, that the world of our abode is the scene of a moral government, incipient, but not complete; 3d, that the upper zones of human affection, above the clouds of self and passion, take us into the sphere of a divine communion." Mr. Tyndall is only surprised that Martineau does not see that all these assumptions are merely emotional. Like similar words of his own, which he quotes, they "refer to an inward hue or temperature rather than to an external object of thought.... When I attempt to give the Power I see manifested in the universe an objective form, personal or otherwise, it slips away from me. ... The objective frames which my neighbors try to make it fit simply distort and desecrate it." But where does Mr. Tyndall see this Power manifested? Inside of his own subjective emotions? No: he himself tells us he sees the Power, whose mystery overshadows him, manifested in the universe. Here is the gist of the whole matter. The mystery is not subjective, but objective. His subjective emotions go forth to an object which gives rise in him to the emotion of awe. The producing cause of awe is not inside him, but outside of him. Mr. Tyndall appears to have very unwise neighbors, who make very inadequate objective frames into which the mystery will not fit. Mr. Tyndall, like many other noble souls, finds himself baffled in all attempts to give the Power "an objective form." But in this feeling he has the sympathy of all true thinkers. But his own words prove that he feels that the Power he dares not name is manifested in the universe, and is not simply a series of subjective emotions in himself. The emotions are produced by the Power, not the Power by the emotions. Now, this is is precisely what Martineau claims, and precisely why he objects to that utilitarian theory which affirms that honor, purity, etc., have no corresponding source in a Power manifested in the universe, but are purely subjective in the human. race. Mr. Martineau's theory is that these emotions have,

as their primal source, the supreme Power of the universe. Purity in man, to him, points to the All-pure as its source, justice in man, to the All-just.

After quoting again from Martineau about "the proper organs for divine apprehension," Tyndall proceeds as follows:

That Mr. Martineau should have lived so long, thought so much, and failed to recognize the entirely subjective character of this creed, is highly instructive. . . . In fact, it is when Mr. Martineau is most purely emotional that he scorns the emotions, and it is when he is most purely subjective that he rejects subjectivity. He pays a just and liberal tribute to the character of John Stuart Mill. But, in the light of Mill's philosophy, benevolence, honor, purity, "having shrunk into mere unaccredited subjective susceptibilities, have lost all support from omniscient approval, and all presumable accordance with the reality of things."

It is "highly instructive " that Mr. Tyndall should have deliberately quoted this last sentence from Martineau, and still wholly failed to understand Martineau's stand-point. Mr. Tyndall has "lived long, and thought much" on nature and her laws; and we all of us owe him a debt of gratitude we cannot easily pay, except by gratitude. But Mr. Tyndall's thought about nature is purely subjective. Now, how much value would Mr. Tyndall set upon his thought, if it did not correspond in some degree, at least, to the objective facts and laws of nature? What value, if, quite possibly, there were no objective nature to think about? Would he not be the first to scorn these "mere unaccredited subjective susceptibilities"? Well, it is for that very reason that, when Martineau "is most purely emotional, he scorns the emotions," if those subjective emotions have no infinite and adorable object. He "covets truth"; and if in truth there is no objective eternal goodness, truth, and love, the sooner the lying "subjective emotions" that struggle toward such an object are throttled in him, and in all men, the better.

If Mr. Tyndall could grasp this, he would then understand the noble outburst of high eloquence, in which Martineau "twits" (!) scientific materialism, ending with, "Let the new future preach its own gospel, and devise, if it can, the means of making the tidings glad."

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