Bu t and If continued still in their libraries, and fashion ing elaborate theories of natural law, and then going forth to hang their theories upon the facts. But somehow the theories would never fit the facts. So philosophy was, in great part, a wild jumble of con tradictions with very little certain ty or coherency. Order Out of Chaos But Bacon set out with a dif ferent method. His maxim was that man is the interpreter, rather than the lord, of nature; and he urged that we must sit down submissively at her feet, and observe her opera tions and her processes, from our observation inferring the truths of science. The result is, that we have now certainty and system in sci ence, where before all was blank confusion. This method of submis sive study substituted for the meth od of proud theorizing has brought order out of chaos, and light out of darkness. The right method in philosophy is the right method in all depart ments of life. Bacon himself testi fied that the entrance to the tem ple of philosophy was exactly like the entrance to the temple of re ligion. Each is a strait gate, a humble portal. No man can go in at either without stooping and divesting himself of egotism and haughtiness. “ Except ye be convert ed and become as little children ye can in no case enter therein,” is as true of the one as of the other. Therefore, when you tell me, my friend, that this humble submission and dependence which the religion of Christ requires of you is un reasonable and unmanly, I shall answer that, in the opinion of the greatest philosophers of our Anglo- Saxon race, it is the highest reason and the noblest manliness. The wisest men are always the hum blest, the most willing to be led by truth, the most easy to be en treated. To yield to the demands of right is not unmanly. You abdi cate your manhood not when you submit to the claims of righteous ness, but when you refuse to do it.
which you never do anything from impulse, you have got about as low as you can go. When that voice within your heart is silenced, which thunders forth its anathemas at meanness and selfish greed, and rings out its peals of approbation in the presence of heroic self-denial, the very light that is in you will be darkness. Logic is lame; it ar rives at its conclusions tardily, it often goes by the wrong road, and it sometimes gets to the wrong place. But this prompter that speaks from your moral intuitions, this faculty that, without stopping to debate, says quickly of an action, “ It is right,” or “ It is wrong,”— this you must not doubt. And it is this faculty which says instantly, whenever we see this law of love to our neighbor obeyed, “ It is right.” This law bears the same relation to morals that the axioms bear to mathematics. I cannot prove by reasoning, though I know by reason, that two times two is four. I cannot prove by reasoning, but I know by reason, that it is right for us to love our neighbors as ourselves. All the logic in the world cannot convince me, nor you either, that it is not right. Another objector declares that the doctrines of our religion are not credible. “ I cannot accept the statements you make,” he says, “ because they are essentially mys terious. There is nothing like them within the range of my experience. It is impossible for me to verify them; you must not ask me to say that I believe anything which I cannot verify.” I know that some truths are re vealed in the Bible which cannot be explained. They are truths which relate to God, to the mode of His existence, to the methods by which He has made Himself known to men. But is it not, to begin with, rational to suppose that any rev elation of God will contain some things which will be difficult of comprehension? That the Infinite is, reason clearly tells us; what the Infinite is, reason can never fully comprehend. Infinite Being is too large for our categories; the thought
And he who submits to Christ sub mits only to truth and right; not to an arbitrary and unreasoning ruler, but to One whose law is per fect, and whose counsels are infal lible. I hear another objection which goes to the foundations of our Christianity. “ There are many sound maxims in Christian ethics,” says the critic; “ but the command to love our neighbor as ourselves is unreasonable. Reason teaches us to take care of ourselves. Self-pres ervation, not self-denial, is the first law of nature.” Do you not admire most the per sons who set that law at nought? When you see one man periling his life to rescue another, dying to save another, is there not some thing within you which cries out in heartiest applause? The heroes of all patriotic warfare—the men who give their lives for liberty and fatherland — do not they disobey that law of self-preservation? And does not your very soul shout ac clamations in their praise because they disobey it, because they count not their lives dear unto them, so that they may leave their country whole and free to posterity? Is there not a voice of your spirits which always commends self-sacri fice; which always condemns, in no measured cadence, everything which looks like selfish forgetful ness of the welfare of others? “Ah, yes,” you reply, “ but that is impulse; that is not reason. When I sit cooly down and reason about it, I reach the conclusion that each one has enough to do to attend to his own affairs, without troubling himself with the necessities of his fellows.” Logic is Lame These utterances of your spirit which you call impulses are simply moral intuitions. They are the highest forms of reason. If you fall into the habit of disregarding them, or cooly sitting down and dissecting them, you inflict a death-wound upon your moral nature. When you arrive at the condi t i on in
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THE K IN G 'S BU SIN ESS
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