it? The question has been well asked, “Why may there not be a whole sphere of existence, embracing the relations and the communion between God and man, with which natural science has no concern, and in which its dictation is as impertinent as the dictation of theology in physics ? Why may not spiritual experience, and an approach to the divine in character, be a necessary means of insight into the things of the spiritual world, as scientific instruments and scientific skill are necessary means of insight into the things of the material world ?"*

And, after all, what does man know of the universe ? How little does he know of his own little world, its history, its origin, in component parts? What does he know of matter, of oxygen, of galvanism, of life? And what does he know of Jupiter, of Saturn, of Mars, of Sirius, of the moon, of the sun, of the inhabitants that dwell there, and of their history ? How few are the words necessary to be employed in telling all that he knows of those worlds ? And what does he know of the millions of worlds in that nebula to which our own solar system belongs, or of the countless millions that constitute the other “islands” that float in the immensity of space?

(2.) The next thought in relation to the point now before us pertains to the subject of intuition to the question whether, though his range be limited in regard to subjects in which he is required to use instruments and calculation, man may not be endowed with a higher power, that shall bring directly within the sphere of his vision the great spiritual truths which it is necessary for him to understand.

This inquiry would open the whole subject of transcendentalism, and would embrace a range of thought which could not be entered on now. The only point material to the inquiries in this course of Lectures would be, whether there is such a power in man that the great truths of Christianity, as disclosed in the Bible, could have been the result of such an endowment, and could be traced to such a source.

It could hardly be necessary to argue this question here, since the mere statement of the matter may seem to be all that is necessary on the subject, and will, to most minds, settle the question. It is obvious that a claim of this kind must be a claim, in some sense, to an equality with God, since it implies a power that properly belongs to God, of looking into the whole nature of things, and since it implies a power also equal to that which must be supposed to pertain to God, if there be a God, of determining what is needful for man to know on the highest subjects, of determining what God would communicate if he made a revelation, and of declaring what God would be, and should be, and, therefore, of what he is. Obviously no one could do this who was not himself divine.

Still, as the claim is set up, and as men, on the ground of this, not only presume to judge of a revelation when one is proposed, and to determine whether it is worthy of credit alike in its general character and in the details, and as they claim the power, on the same grounds, to determine that a revelation is not necessary to man, and that, therefore, all pretensions to“book-revelation” are to be rejected at once, it may not be improper to make a few remarks on the subject.

(a) There can be no doubt that, to a certain extent, there is this power in man of looking directly at truth,

B

a

a

or, to make the assertion larger, that it is of the nature of mind, as such, to do this—the mind of God, and of all minds made in his image. We can not conceive of God without this power; we can not doubt that he could endow created mind with this power as well as with any other power, making it thus in his own image, or so that it would represent or express himself; and we can not limit him in regard to the extent to which he could endow mind in this as well as in

any

other respect, except that it can not equal his own infinity. There must be a limit, or all beings thus made would be gods, and instead of one God, the universe would be full of gods.

But that God has this power of looking at once into truth, of understanding its nature, of separating it from error, without the slow process of reasoning, there can be no doubt.

(6) That man has this power, to a certain extent, is apparent from our own consciousness. The belief in mathematical axioms or first principles is founded on this. We look at the truth at once without any

medium or intermediate idea. We could not be assisted in this by any intermediate idea. We could not be made to doubt the truth by any objections that could be urged. That the whole is greater than a part, that the whole is equal to the sum of all the parts, that if equals are added to equals the sum will be equal, are points which do not and can not depend on reasoning, nor could we reason at all if there were not such points on which all men agree.

(c) But it is obvious that the range of this must be very different in different minds; nor, as has been already intimated, is it possible where, short of infinity, the limit might be made. To the mass of men the number of such truths is not large. To some minds truths, which to others could be learned only as the result of labored reasoning, are a mere matter of intuition. To most minds, for example, in studying Euclid, after a very few statements of that kind which are laid down as maxims or axioms which all men will assent to, erery successive proposition is believed only as the result of clear demonstration in some labored process of reasoning; to Newton all these propositions were as axioms not demanding any proof, and read as axioms are; to Pascal they led on one another by a power of their own, which he represented, when a boy, on the floor by lines and bars of his own construction.

(a) As pertaining to religion, as in other matters, this subject presents itself in two forms: the one is that of originating truth, or declaring what truth is; the other is that, more common, of judging of truth when it is presented to the mind; of determining whether it is truth, and of rejecting it if it does not commend itself to the mind as true.* The latter is Rationalism, the former is the claim of Deism; both are comprised in the term Transcendentalism. Much of this is found in Plato, more of it in Kant; much in all Transcendentalists and Rationalists; more by most men in judging in regard to the evidences of a revealed religion than they are aware of; much is properly exercised in examining the claims of any religion, true or false. There are

certain convictions engraven on the human mind in regard to truth to which I shall have occasion to advert in another part of this course,* which must be met by a pretended revelation, or it can not be received. There is much in man that contributes to the reception of a system of truth in a revelation when it is proposed, and that gives it a power over-the soul which nothing can destroy. It is in a large degree owing to this that a true religion makes its way in the world, and in a large degree also it is owing to this that the world is kept from being imposed on by the pretensions of a false religion.

(e) When we ask, however, whether this is sufficient —whether this is all that man needs, we are met by such answers as the following: (1.) There is no agreement among those who rely on this as to what is the true system.

From Plato downward to Kant and Comte, men have speculated on this point, and in regard to what is claimed under this system—the“ true," the "absolute," the "infinite”—as to what God is, what man is, or what is the moral system of the universe, it is impossible to refer to any system on which men have speculated at all, in respect to which there is a greater variety of opinion, or in which more that is incomprehensible has been proposed to the faith of mankind. It would be very easy for any one to make extracts from Hegel and from Kant so far above common apprehenhension, so mystical, so difficult of interpretation, so destitute of apparent meaning, as to turn the whole matter into ridicule if it should be held seriously that this was to be the faith and the guide of mankind at large. Besides, who is to decide which is the true system? Or who, holding one system on this theory, has