THE REVEREND IL L. MANSEL'S BAMPTON LECTURES. * THE chief practical

object of the Bampton Lectures for the present year by the "Reader in Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy at Areghalen College," is to refute the philosophical attacks of the modern Rationalists upon Christianity ; and to do so by their own (metaphysical) weapons. The "limits of religious thought" of the title, Mr. Mansel describes as " a general term to include all that can be distinctly apprehended as existing in any man's own consciousness, or can be communicated to others by means of lan- guage." In more popular phrase "the limits of human thought" may be described as intended to settle the boundary beyond which the mind of man cannot pass in its judgment of natural and re- vealed religion. After a variety of arguments, sometimes theolo- gical but generally metaphysical, the author lands in these conclusions. The human mind cannot form a metaphysical " judgment " concerning God, because it is utterly impossible, metaphysically speaking, for man to rise to a conception of any of His attributes separately, much less in combination. As reve- lation in like manner is not presented to us in its entirety, we have not the data to form a judgment of it, even if the mind were capable of comprehending it, which in our present position it clearly is not. In other words, and to speak shortly, both God and • The Limits of Religious Thought examined in Eight Lectures preached before the university of Oxford in the Year M.DCCC.LVIll. On the Foundation of the late Reverend John Bampton, M.A., Canon of Salisbury. By Henry Longueville Hansel, B.D., Reader in Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy at Magdalen Celine; Tutor and late Fellow of St. John's College. Published by Murray and J. H. J.

Paster.

revelation transcend the power of man : the first altogether ; rep, lotion—except so far as historical or external evidence,conjoined with a sense of the revealed religion's adequate adaptation to the necessities and nature of man, and its superiority to all revelations, demand the acquiescence of human reason pretended In this conclusion a peculiarity is visible which may betraced throughout the work. That when Mr. Mensal is dealing with philosophers he reasons like a metaphysician, but when he comes to the truths of revelation, he often slides into another charaeter and affirms with the positiveness of a dogmatic divine. We are not sure too but that in very strictness there is sometimes the same logical failure as he charges upon his antagonists in their attempt to realize ideas of God ; for instance, if we cannot comprehend our own nature we cannot, at least by argument, find. out what is adapted to it. This adaptation is matter of feeling rather than of reasoning, of intuitive conviction rather than logical conclusion. And herein perhaps is contained a great religions truth, mini,* a truth to which many religious minds are evidently inclining " that religious belief is independent of and above logic, or at least that the belief which mere logic produces is of a very lifeless kind. Reason, it has been affirmed, would not suggest the idea of a God ; though it may confirm an innate idea. Perhaps' however, the true statement is that the idea of God arises in the mind of man before he learns to reason formally ; and with a certain class of minds reasoning may often puzzle rather than confirm. Modern religious philosophy, if such a term may be used, apparently be- &s to see that genuine religious feeling is the great thing need- ful in religious faith. This idea is not strange to Mr. Mansel or overlooked by him, though touched but incidentally. It is in our opinion, a great distinctive feature in the school of Maurice, Kingsley, and some other religious teachers. But we never met the idea itself so piously and yet so thoroughly developed as in the following passage of the Studies of Christianity, a recent work by James Martineau, a writer probably well known to many of our readers for the combination of rare philosophical ability with

devout religious feeling.

" It is not, we apprehend, by our logical, but by our moral faculty, tint we have our knowledge of God ; and he who most confides in the instructor will learn the sacred lesson best. That one whom we may call the Holiest rules the universe, is no discovery made by the intellect in its excursions, but a revelation found by the conscience on retiring into itself; and though we may reason in defence of this great truth, and these reasonings when constructed may look convincing enough, they are not, we conceive, the source but rather the effect of our belief,—not the forethought which ac- tually precedes and introduces the Faith, but the afterthought by which Faith seeks to make a friend and an intimate of the understanding. Does any one hesitate to admit this and think that our conceptions of the Divine character are inferences regularly drawn from observation,—not indeed ob- servation on the mere physical arrangements, but on the moral phenomena of our world,—from the traces of a regard to character in the administra- tion of human life ? We will not at present dispute the conclusion; but, observing that the premises which furnish it are certain moral experiences, we remark that the very power of receiving and appreciating these, of knowing what they are worth, belongs not to our scientific faculty, but to our sense of justice and of right. On a being destitute of this they would make no impression ; and in precise proportion to the intensity of this feel- ing will be the vividness and force of their persuasion. And is it not plain in fact, that it is far from being the clear and acute intellect, but rather the pure and transparent heart, that best discerns God ? How many strong and sagacious judgments, of coolest -capacity for the just estimate of argument, never attain to any deep conviction of a perfect Deity ! Nay, how much does scepticism on this great matter seem to be proportioned, not to the ob- tuseness, but rather to the subtlety and searchuignesa of the mere under- standing ! But when was it ever known that the singularly pure and sim- ple heart, the earnest and aspiring conscience, the lofty and disinterested soul, had no faith in the ' First fair and the First good' ? Philosophy at its ease, apart from the real responsibilities and strong battle of life, loses its diviner sympathies, and lapses into the scrupulosity of doubt, and from the centre of comfort weeps over the miseries of earth, and the questionable benevolence of heaven ; while the practically tried and struggling, with moral force growing beneath the pressure of crushing toil, look up with a refreshing trust, and with worn and bleeding feet pant happily along to the abodes of everlasting love."

It is doubtless owing to this inferior function of logic in regard to religion that Mr. Mansel's Bampton. Lectures are more success- ful in what they destroy than what they establish. And the work of destruction sometimes seems a work of supererogation. The mind would admit the conclusion on the statement of the pro- position without argument. For instance, that man cannot reach

by intellect the " great First Cause "—that the finite can- not comprehend the infinite, or the bounded the boundless or "Ab- solute,' seem self-evident propositions. The difference between a " regulative truth," that is, a moral law which is to rule our ac- tions, and a " speculative dlith," about which we inquire, is also obvious. Still, though such points as these are self-evident as propositions, it may be well to have the examination of Rationalist applications of philosophy—for we suspect it does not in evep- instance amount to confutation, pointed out secundum artem. The succession of particular arguments or their metaphysical nature and scope are not well adapted for the pages of a popular journal; A specimen of the manner may be given, and here is an extreme

one on the impossibility of metaphysics on its own showing, finding

out God by searching. finite all " These three conceptions, the Cause, the Absolute, the In . equally indispensable, do they not imply contradiction to each other I '2111T viewed in conjunction, as attributes of one and the same being ?e A Cause cannot, as such, be absolute : the Absolute cannot, as such, be a cause. The cause, as such, exists only in relation to its effect : the cause is a. Tu of the effect; the effect is an effect of the cause. On the other hand, ,el conception of the Absolute implies a possible existence out of all relation' We attempt to escape from this apparent contradiction, by introducing the idea of succession in time. The Absolute exists first by itself, and a? wards becomes a Cause. But here we are checked by the third concept?, that of the Infinite, How can the Infinite become that which it was a'

first If Causation is a possible mode of existence, that which

exioft*Intr w"ith---out causing is not limits. • that which becomes a cause has poued beyond its former limi . Creltion at any particular moment of being ;„ us inconceivable, the philosopher is reduced to the alternative tilnof pm theism, which pro. nounces the effect to be mere appearance, and merges all real existence in the cause. The validity of this Lternative will be examined presently. h geanvrhile, to return for a moment to the supposition of a true cause- - tion, supposing the Absolute to become a cause, it will follow that it °por- by means of free will and consciousness. For a necessary cause cannot be n'oeived as absolute and infinite. If necessitated by something beyond itself, it is thereby limited by a superior power; and if necessitated by it- 0, it has in its own nature a necessary relation to its effect. The act of ea don must therefore be voluntary; and volition is only possible in a opiscusaMas being. But consciousness again is only conceivable as a relation. mere must be a conscious subject, and an object of which he is conscious. Tbesabject is a subject to the object ; the object is an object to the subject ; and neither can exist by itself as the absolute." A fallacy is probably lurking here, which will be found in other places where the utter inadequacy of the metaphysical idea of "Gad is treated of, namely a confusion of the whole with its parts. The author overlooks the fact that though the human mind cannot conceive what God is, it can form a judgment on what He is not; but on the full recognition of this truth a good deal may turn. An inferior intelligence can sometimes judge of a part, though it knows not the whole, and cannot conceive it. No man can understand numbers in their entire theoretical extent ; but almost any one can tell that odd is not even, or that two and three will not make four. This truth Mr. Mansel would admit in terms, and indeed at a future stage it forms a topic of practical discussion; but we think it is not sufficiently allowed for, either in the parts relating to God in the abstract, or as He appears re- vealed. Another fallacy, it strikes us, appears wherever it is possible, which fallacy however is common to all the followers of Butler and indeed is found in the Analogy itself. In strict logic there is often no analogy between nature (as treated by the analogist) and revelation. Natural phenomena may be unresolvable, but we know the facts not only by "sight," but by experience and sensa- tion; whereas we only learn the analogous facts of revelation by testimony.

In a critical sense the book is learned, able, and liberal-minded. The studies of the author begin with the Greek philosophers, running over the sehoolmen and celebrated speculative writers of the seventeenth and the earlier part of the eighteenth centuries. His more elaborate consideration is given to the great German writers of the last generation, as Kant, as well as to the Rationalists of our own day, German, French, American, and English. The results of these studies only appear in the sermons, and that indirectly ; but an appendix of notes as extensive as the text itself gives ample illustration of their nature. In dealing professionally with a science, its technical terms must of course be used ; but Mr. Mansell perhaps pushes them a shade too far, his sentences now and then reading like parodies on metaphysics ; and considerable tension of mind is often requisite to follow his arguments. Such things, however, are necessary or minutiae ; Mr. Mansel is en- titled to the merit in design of having applied metaphysical me- thods to theological objects so as to meet the philosophers in their own arena, and he applies them with skill, breadth, and acumen. He also displays great liberality, not only as regards persons but questions; he does not try to escape from difficulties on the plea of their profanity, but meets any objection, however daring, in full front, and on philosophical grounds, although, as already observed, when he passes to revealed religion, he is prone to assume the truth as based on faith rather than on argument. From the strong ground of pulpit eloquence—the actual opinions and dangerous influences of the age, and of human nature as mo- dified by those opinions and influences, he is of necessity shut out.

In Passages of dogmatic statement he exhibits a power often reaching to eloquence, as in the hortative closing passage on the maxim " know thyself," and, indeed, generally throughout the eighth lecture. Something almost rising to imagination is found even in the metaphysical parts ; when pausing to sum up the ar- gument, the preacher embodies the qualities of the Rationalist, or as in the following passage, on the God of the Rationalistic phi- losopher.

" The origin of such theories is of course to be traced to that morbid horror of what they are pleased to call Anthropomorphism, which poisons the speculations of so many modern philosophers, when they attempt to be wise above what is written, and seek for a metaphysical exposition of God's nature and attributes. They may not, forsooth, think of the unchangeable God es if He were their fellow man, influenced by human motives, and moved !Inman supplications. They want a truer, a duster idea of the Deity as ce is, than that under which He has been pleased to reveal Himself; and on their reason to furnish it. Fools, to dream that man can escape nar,mu2felf, that human reason can draw aught but a human portrait of exalted and do but substitute a marred and mutilated humanity for one ;.1SiteU and entire : they add nothing to their conception of God as He is, love, only take away a part of their conception of man. Sympathy, and love, and fatherly kindness, and forgiving mercy, have evaporated in the crucible of their philosophy and what is the capett, in that remain' a, but only the sterner 888feaptureay oainbuwmanitylsexhibited in repulsive nakedness ? inThaeriGmodutawbhittlis. tens to prayer, we are told, appears in the likeness of hu-

man is the God who does not listen, but the

0,3nlikenceeptistioonf hofumanY. Beoistilit ? Do we ascribe to Him a fixed purpose? our changed ? ouracgnMerPolle is human.. manning un- Do we. speak of Him as co conception of continuance is human. Do we conceive Him a' kawin and determining? mod g etermunng? what are knowledge and determination but mod wing of human consciousness ? and what know we of consciousness itself, but as the contrast between successive mental states ? But our rational hilosopher slops short in the middle of his reasoning. He strips off from humanity just so much suits Maketh a god' ;—less pious 8u1 his his than and the residue thereof he

P in idolatry than the carver of the graven

image, in that he does not fall down unto it and pray unto it, but is content to stand afar off and reason concerning it. And why does ho retain any con- ception of God at all, but that he retains some portions of an imperfect hu- manity? Man is still the residue that is left ; deprived, indeed, of all that is amiable in humanity, but, in the darker features which remain, still man. Man in his purposes ; man in his inflexibility ; man in that relation to time from which no philosophy, whatever its pretensions, can wholly free itself; pursuing with indomitable resolution a preconceived design ; deaf to the yearning instincts which compel his creatures to call upon him. Yet this, forsooth, is a philosophical conception of the Deity, more worthy of an enlightened reason than the human imagery of the psalmist : The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears are open unto their prayers.' " Surely, downright idolatry is better than this rational worship of a fragment of humanity. Better is the superstition which sees the image of God in the wonderful whole which God has fashioned, than the philosophy which would carve for itself a Deity out of the remnant which man has mutilated. Better to realize the satire of the Eleatio philosopher, to make God in the likeness of man, even as the ox or the horse might conceive gods in the form of oxen or horses, than to adore some half-hewn Hermes, the head of a man joined to a misshapen block. Better to fall down before that marvellous compound of human consciousness whose elements God has joined together, and no man can put asunder, than to strip reason of those cognate elements which together furnish all that we can conceive or imagine of conscious or personal existence, and to deify the emptiest of all abstrac- tions, a something or a nothing, with just enough of its human original left to form a theme for the disputations of philosophy, but not enough to fur- nish a single ground of appeal to the human feehngs of love, of reverence, and of fear. Unmixed idolatry is more religious than this. Undisguised Atheism is more logical."

Rationalistic philosophy is not the only form of speculative reasoning applied to revealed religion which is treated by Mr. Mansel. He considers the dogmatic theologian, who receives Revelation implicitly so far as it goes, but conceiving it to have stopped short, undertakes to supply its deficiencies by reducing Christianity with his own additions into a theory. This proceed- ing the preacher repudiates, as equally erroneous if not so dan- gerous as the Rationalistic mode, being in fact the same species of effort to pass "the limits of religious thought." The subject, however, is not treated at a similar length or fulness, nor does it possess, at least in the Lectures, the same interest.