Philosophy has observed that human consciousness is most distinct on the surface of life, and grows dim and confused as it reaches toward the interior. The reason alleged is, that individuality, the subject of consciousness, is merely phenomenal; and that, where the phenomenal ceases, individual existence is merged in the universal life.

The fact is certain, the explanation questionable. I rather believe that individuality is real and radical, and that the limitation of consciousness on the inner side is due to the fact, that consciousness depends on external impressions: its condition is re-action on a world without; it is the differentiation of self from all beside, and therefore loses its distinctness in proportion as all beside is withdrawn; that is, toward the interior of our being.

There is, in all men, something deeper than themselves, —than the conscious self of their experience. It is the elder, aboriginal self, which no consciousness can grasp. Who remembers the time when first he began to say “I,” and found himself a conscious unit, distinct from all others? If we attempt to trace the history of the soul, its beginning is lost in a period of blank unconsciousness, beyond all scrutiny of memory or imagination. Blind mystery envelops our origin, as it does our end. No man quite possesses himself. The self which he seems to possess is growth from a root which bears him, not he it.

Springing from this unknown root, our being carries an unknown factor which modifies all its action. Our thinking, as well as our doing, obeys its influence. It is written, “As a man thinketh, so is he.” We may reverse the proposition, and say with equal truth, “As a man is, so he thinketh.” His thinking is the product of his being; consequently, the gauge and exponent of his being. It is his being translated into thought, his being intellectually expressed. According as he is wise or foolish, his opinions will be true or false: they will be right or wrong according as he is good or evil.

The character in religion determines the creed. Character has been defined “the educated will.” But the will—the conscious, personal will—is not the only factor in this product: there is something in it of the radical self. And something of the radical self there is in every creed which is genuine, and not mere subscription to the placita of a Church. The true creed of a man is his character confessed.

Or does any one suppose that belief is independent of character? –that a man can be one thing, and think another? We sometimes talk as if truth were a secretion of the brain, entirely unaffected by moral conditions; as if one could lay hold of spiritual truth, without spiritual insight, by mere dint of logic: or as if spiritual insight were the product of some organic arrangement, mechanical in its operation, and quite as likely to go right with a vicious character as with a righteous one; just as a watch may keep equally good time whether worn by a sinner or a saint.

This I believe to be a very false view of the action of the mind in this relation. The intellect is nothing distinct from man. It is man himself in one of his functions. As the man, so the function, so the product of that function. As he is, so he thinketh. I say nothing of positive science. I do not deny that one who is morally depraved may be a good mathematician or a good physiologist. These are regions of truth beyond the jurisdiction of religion, and independent of moral conditions; excepting always the general influence which character has on all the action of the mind. I am speaking of truth in morals and religion, when I say that the character determines the belief. Truth of spirit is essential to the right apprehension of spiritual truth. To know the truth, it is necessary to will the truth, and to be the truth.

This connection between being and seeing implies two things: 1st, A perverted nature cannot see the truth; 2d, A (morally) sound nature, seeking without bias, will see the truth.

1st, A perverted nature cannot see the truth. A man must be in harmony with it by moral and spiritual affinity, in order to apprehend it. There are facts which seem to contradict this proposition. It is notorious, that very depraved men sometimes profess a very pure theology; at least, a very Orthodox one: whereas, according to this view, they ought to be infidels and atheists. I leave out of question the hypocrisy which consciously and deliberately assumes the disguise of religion to lull suspicion or to palliate crime. Such characters are not very common in our day, and are wholly foreign from our theme. I speak of bad men who actually receive, or think they receive, the religion they profess.

But, observe, there is a wide difference between reception and conviction. Various degrees of persuasion are comprehended in the term “belief.” Most of them stop short of genuine conviction. In fact, there are few, the world over, who can be said to have positive convictions in religion, if we understand by convictions the results of personal investigation or personal intuition. The religious tenets of most men are accidents; that is, they are impressions derived from the ecclesiastical atmosphere in which the holders of them happen to live. Or they are social conventions, adopted unconsciously, as it were by contagion. Or they are traditions inherited by education. A man is said to “believe” a doctrine imbibed in this way, although he has never come into real mental contact with it, —has never subjected it to the action of his own mind, —has never looked it fairly in the face. He is said to believe what he has never questioned. The fact is precisely the reverse. A man can never truly believe what he has not at some time questioned. In this sense of unquestioning reception, a very depraved man may hold very Orthodox opinions. Nay, the more depraved he is, the more tenacious of such opinions he is likely to be; the more zealous in defence of the Orthodoxy in which he was bred; the more disposed to annex to it an outlying Orthodoxy exceeding that in which he was bred, and to clothe himself in extra folds of rigorous doctrine; actuated, it would seem, by the notion that a rigorous creed atones for a vicious life. For the Protestant world inherits from the Church of Rome the idea, that God is pleased with Orthodoxy, and that every article which a man adds to his creed, so it have the sanction of the Church, is a step toward heaven.

It is nothing uncommon for very unscrupulous people—tradesmen of doubtful integrity, intriguing politicians, unprincipled men in public life and in private—to maintain with earnestness a stringent Orthodoxy. Not from hypocrisy, not with any intent to deceive; but partly in the hope of being justified by their belief, and partly in order to atone to themselves for conscious depravity. They would balance laxity in practice with severity in doctrine, and thus maintain a moral equilibrium in their life. It is the same principle which led the gay women of the court of Louis XIV to become devotees with advancing years; putting on “the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit” as outward charms decayed, and replacing the varnished attractions of personal beauty with the still available “beauty of holiness.” It is the same principle which leads worldly men and women, in later time, to seek refuge in the bosom of Romanism and to expiate a reckless life by religious austerity. In such cases, there is no genuine conviction; no true interior knowledge, but mere profession. It may be sincere, so far as intention goes, but based on no actual personal experience of the truth. Only they have sight of spiritual verities, who arrive at them through spiritual experience. Only the true soul can know the truth.

2d, A sound nature, seeking without bias, will see the truth.

Here, again, we encounter a fact which seems to contradict the supposed connection between the intellectual and the moral in man, between character and creed. There are cases of men of pure character and blameless life, who have been infidels in religion. If it be true that the character determines the belief, it would seem that every pure and honest mind must receive, if not the doctrine of the gospel, at least the essential truths of universal religion; and that all who reject these must be morally depraved. But such is not the fact. At least, there are many and significant exceptions. Epicurus, the arch-atheist of antiquity, is said to have lived a blameless and beneficent life at the head of a company of friends who professed to seek private satisfaction as the sure and only good. Spinoza, who is usually regarded as the arch-atheist of modern time, is allowed by his bitter opponent, the unscrupulous Bayle, to have been upright, kind, and strictly moral; which, says he, “may seem strange, but, in reality, ought not to surprise us any more than that men who believe in the truth of the gospel should lead an irregular life.” Hume, the inveterate sceptic of English philosophy; is characterized by Adam Smith as generous, charitable, and urbane. Shelley, the zealot antagonist of Christian Orthodoxy, seems to have been possessed with the purest spirit of Christian love. How shall we explain such cases, in which it would appear that pure minds and sound natures had no perception of the truth?

It must be remembered, that what we know of these men, for the most part, is not their belief, but their negations. We see that they reject the established religion as a whole: we do not always see what equivalent they received in its place. But we know, from the nature of the human mind, that some equivalent they must have had; some secret convictions; some spiritual insight; something in the nature of religious faith, however imperfect and ill-defined. For man is not so constituted as to do without faith. These unbelievers have been repelled by some apparent absurdity, or some revolting impiety, in the popular creed. In warring against that, by a natural tendency of the human mind, they have been led to reject the entire system of religious belief of which it seemed to be a necessary part. Or perhaps it is the form in which the popular conception, or a false philosophy, has clothed the doctrines of religion, that they reject; and, rejecting that, they appear to reject the essential truth so embodied. Be this as it may, where the life is pure it is so through belief, and not through unbelief; through the influence of truth, and not through falsity or error. If the life of these unbelievers was true, some true perception must have sprung from it, some religious conviction must have accompanied it. Is there a reputed atheist whose heart is true and whose life is righteous? I say that man believes in God, in a spiritual centre, however his conception of divine wisdom and love may differ from the popular conception, or the theological dogma which bears that name. He believes in a moral law, and a necessary and everlasting distinction between right and wrong, however his standard of moral obligation may clash, in some particulars, with the commonly received ecclesiastical code. He believes in an Infinite Good, in eternal spiritual realities, however he may dissent from the popular view of the life to come.

Hear the confession of one who was counted an atheist in his time, and is still so regarded by most theologians: “Experience had taught me,” says Spinoza, “that all which life commonly offers is worthless and vain. I therefore determined to know if there were any genuine good which might be attained, and with which the soul, abandoning every thing else, might be content; the discovery and appropriation of which would yield a continual and supreme satisfaction. That which mankind, if we judge from their actions, regard as the highest good, is either wealth, honor, or sensual enjoyment. The pleasure derived from these is delusive, and only an infinite and everlasting good can impart pure joy to the soul. Therefore I resolved to collect myself, that I might lay hold of this supreme good.” And what was the supreme good in his apprehension? “The supreme good,” he continues, “consists in becoming partaker of a more excellent nature, and in realizing the intimate relation which connects the individual soul with the universe of things.”

And so this remarkable man, a Jew by birth, but excommunicated from the Jewish synagogue for his opinions, lived a life of strict seclusion, devoting himself to meditation and inquiry concerning the deepest mystery of things, refusing lucrative offices which were tendered to him, and maintaining his frugal existence by mechanical labor.

Thus we see that the nominal unbeliever may cherish in his heart a sublime faith which explains the moral anomaly of his life. But we deceive ourselves, if we suppose that such cases are frequent; and that even this negative purity of life (for usually it amounts to nothing more) is a common accompaniment of what is called infidelity. Such combinations are exceptions, not the rule. If we search for the saints of history, —for the moral heroes, the men and the women who stand pre-eminent in moral excellence, choice examples of heroic virtue, —we find them, not in the ranks of unbelief, but among the disciples and among the confessors of a given religion.

If speculative unbelief is sometimes associated with purity of life, practical unbelief, on the other hand, is inseparably connected with moral corruption. By practical unbelief, I mean inward aversion; alienation of the heart from spiritual truths which, however, may not be contradicted by the understanding, and which are outwardly acknowledged by formal compliance with the uses of the Church. I have spoken of depraved men who seek to atone for their vices by their Orthodoxy. There are men who are not depraved in that sense of the term; who are guilty of no misdemeanors; whose life is regular, their manners irreproachable; but whose hearts are selfish and filled with vicious affections, —envy, hatred, and lust; —there are such, I say, who formally assent to the truths of religion; who never entertained a speculative doubt; who never dreamed of questioning the creed of their communion; who deem such questioning impious, and burn with righteous indignation against all who so question, all so-called infidels; but who no more believe in that creed with a genuine appreciative faith than they believe in Brahmanism. Their theological creed is one thing; their practical belief, another and a very different thing. Ecclesiastically, they subscribe to the Athanasian Creed, or the Apostles' Creed, or the Thirty-nine Articles, or the Westminster Catechism; but, if they would confess the secret conviction of their hearts, their creed would be, “I believe in one supreme and all-sufficient good, —the good of riches, the good of honor, the good of enjoyment. These three are one good; the same in substance, equal in value and satisfaction. I believe that the chief end of man is to get gain and lay up much good for many years. I believe that religion is the necessary safeguard of life and property, and must be maintained with strict conformity and punctual observance. I believe in success. I believe in respectability. I believe that the respectable are the children of God and shall inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world; but the needy and the vagabond, the profane rabble, shall be cast into outer darkness, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

It is commonly supposed, that the understanding is competent, in and of itself, with no aid but its own inductions, and no method but its own law, to discover and establish the truths of religion. This supposition is contradicted by the history both of science and religion. The understanding possesses no such capacity; otherwise, the truths of religion would long since have ceased to be matters of debate. What the understanding is competent to decide, it does decide beyond the possibility of question. If by its own methods, in its own right, it could decide these questions, there would be no more difference of opinion concerning them than there is concerning the properties of a circle or a triangle. There are no open questions in mathematics. There is but one theory in astronomy, in mechanics, in any department of inquiry of which the understanding is an adequate judge. Accordingly, recent philosophers have excluded from their survey of human knowledge all ideas of God and spirit, —whatever transcends the facts of sense and the methods of the understanding, as without the pale of legitimate inquiry. To all the revelations of faith and feeling they oppose their so-called “positive philosophy.”

The truths of religion are not discovered by the understanding: they are not laid hold of by scientific inquiry. The understanding has no God, no spiritual high calling, no immortal destination. Whoever would know of these things must arrive at them by a different way: he must follow the dictates of faith; he must obey the law written in the heart; he must live in them and for them. To the mere understanding, the world is as intelligible and as satisfactory without a God as with one. If the only use of belief in a God were to furnish a theory of the material universe, to account for the origin of things, —by means of a “First Cause” and a supermundane, creative Power to aid the understanding in the solution of its problems, —humanity could do without this idea, which, after all, does not solve the problem of existence to the intellect, but only replaces it by a new one, and gives us, instead of an inexplicable world, a more inexplicable God. If the understanding were the only or principal source and organ of truth, mankind would have lived to this day without God in the world, and would never have felt the want of the Being whom we so name; would never have felt the inadequacy of a world without a God. But there are other faculties and functions in man, other sources of perception and conviction than the understanding, and other necessities and cravings than those which the understanding can supply. There are moral and spiritual sentiments and aspirations, —the sense of duty, of moral obligation and accountableness; the longing of the soul for an infinite good; the loyalty of the affections to an invisible Supreme; faith, devotion, hope. These demand a God and providence and grace, a spiritual world, and everlasting life.

The greatest philosopher of the last century employed the penetrating analysis of the keenest powers that ever dealt with metaphysical problems, in a critical examination of human ideas and belief, with a view to ascertain what portion of our supposed knowledge could be absolutely legitimated by scientific demonstration. He could find no logical foundation, no critical authority, for those ideas with which religion is conversant, —the sublimest convictions of the human mind, —God, infinity, eternity. And he wrote a book, in which he denied to these ideas any basis in pure reason, any scientific value. But our philosopher was too wise not to perceive, that convictions so deeply rooted, so universally diffused, so inseparable from human nature, could not be mere illusions, but must have some other basis besides tradition and popular prejudice. He saw that man needed a God, and he saw that the need implied the reality. He therefore applied his analysis next to the moral and practical part of man's nature; and he found the ideas of God and eternity to be legitimate inductions of the moral sense, truths logically resulting from the feeling of moral obligation, —the law written in the heart. That law, he concluded, must have a lawgiver; that obligation, a sanction; that consciousness, an object: there must be a God to answer these conditions, to explain the facts of the soul. And he wrote another book, affirming, as truths of practical reason, what the speculative reason had denied.

That part of man’s nature which science calls into action is not the whole man. Spiritually, intellectually even, it is a very small part of us, and however respectable, however wonderful in its capacity, is comparatively limited and transient in its application. A man may be very able and very eminent as a scientist, immensely learned, astonishingly acute; and yet be a poor creature tried by the true criterion and highest standard of humanity. He may be a mere child in spiritual attainments and spiritual insight; a stranger to all the deeper experiences of the soul; morally meagre, lank, hungry, destitute. With great activity of brain, there may be an utter want of interior life.

Far be it from me to undervalue the work of the understanding, or to speak disparagingly of the scientific mind in its own legitimate province and function, or to cast contempt on scientific pursuits. Who can help revering the power which possesses and rules this world of ours like a second terrestrial god, —that power to which Nature, in all her realms, is subject and tributary; to which the deeps below and the deeps above yield up their secrets; which makes to itself eyes, that, transcending the limits of natural vision, discover new worlds in the heavenly spaces, millions of miles removed, or detect them near by, in a globule of water or a grain of sand; —the speculative faculty which methodizes the heavens with its unerring calculus, and predicts the position of a planet in some far-removed time; —the practical faculty which utilizes the waste of Nature; which harnesses the idle vapor to the axle of a carriage, or chains it to the oars of a ship, and traverses earth and ocean by aid of this ethereal agent; which converses with distant lands in electric whispers of instantaneous communication; which disarms the surgeon’s lancet of its terrors, and transmutes the agonies of the flesh into tranquil dreams? Who can help admiring these things and triumphing in these triumphs?

Nevertheless, this power which spans the heavens and subdues the earth has no interest or part in the highest objects of human life and the noblest aspirations of the human soul. It has no experience and no vision and no surmise of the real and eternal. The devout heart is conscious of a higher calling and worthier aims than the scientific mind; and many an unlearned but faithful doer of God’s will converses with sublimer topics than “star-eyed science” has ever scanned. To science belongs the material universe, with its heights and its deeps, its earths and its suns, its stuffs and its shows. Still, the material universe is but a sprinkling of dust upon the spiritual All which encloses it; at best, a transient vision, a temporary showing of God to the finite mind. It had a beginning, it will have an end; and the science which explores it must share with it its date and its doom. But faith and duty have the spiritual and real, —absolute Being, for their sphere and portion. The knowledge which they acquire is not relative and accidental, but essential and unchangeable; for, in it, Being and Knowing are one.