Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 2.djvu/733

 comparison with his master but an insect beside an elephant, yet he desires to serve truth by interpreting his philosophy. He frankly emphasised its opposition to faith; and narrowly escaped being burned for his pains, though his books were not so fortunate. He said: "The thinker, who inquires into the divine mysteries, is like Proteus. In face of consequences he neither hungers nor thirsts, eats or sleeps; the Inquisition persecutes him as a heretic; the multitude mocks him as a fool.1" Doubt is native to him, and like Descartes he doubts that he may know; but, unlike Descartes, his doubt is more critical than speculative, more literary than philosophical. And if he has a doubt to express he dearly loves to express it in another name than his own, or shield himself behind some noted authority. Religions he conceives as laws instituted by lawgivers, like Christ or Mohammad, for the regulation of life. They are governed in their coming and going, in their bloom and decay, by time and space; and their horoscope can be cast just as if they were mortal beings. Christianity is proved true by its miracles, which are not impossible, though they have now ceased to happen and fictitious marvels have taken their place. Since religions are laws, they must promise to reward the righteous and threaten to punish the wicked; and as conduct rather than knowledge is their end they may use parables and myths, which, of course, need not be true. Man is like the ass which must be beaten that it may carry its burden; to teach him deep mysteries would be but to waste our breath. Nor are we to esteem him too highly or exhort him to become godlike, for how can man resemble a God whom he cannot know? As it is impossible to have natural grounds for a supernatural faith we must be content to hold it without reason, though it may be a gift of grace. If religion be moral then man must be free. And though his freedom may be incapable of rational proof yet it is a matter of conscious experience. This, indeed, may seem incompatible with Providence, which Aristotle conceived as general rather than particular, though we conceive it as a general made up of all particulars; but where philosophy is blind revelation may see, and it is better to trust it than to walk in darkness. The God who governs has created, and creation was willed in eternity, but happens in time, for Aristotle's idea of an eternal creation is sophistical. As the workman loves his handiwork so God loves all His creatures and wills their good. He has given to every being, not perhaps the absolutely best, but the best for it and for the universe, viewed in their complementary and reciprocal relations. For men supplement each other; what seems in and by itself a defect may become an excellency when seen from the standpoint of the collective whole. Man lives in humanity, humanity within nature, nature in God; and we ought to know all together before we judge any separately.

This is what would be called to-day a system of philosophical agnosticism, where man's ignorance becomes a plea, if not a reason for