Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/168

Rh other department into which we have divided the human faculties. There is something without us to correspond to each want of the Intellect. This is found in the objects of Nature; in the sublime, the useful, the beautiful, the common things we meet; in the ideas and conceptions that arise unavoidably when man, the thinking subject, comes intellectually in contact with external things, the object of thought. We turn to these things instinctively, at first,

Man is not sufficient for himself intellectually, more than physically. He cannot rely wholly on what he is. There is at first nothing in Man but Man himself; a being of multiform tendencies, and many powers lying latent—germ sheathed in germ. Without some external object to rouse the senses, excite curiosity, to stimulate the understanding, induce reflection, exercise reason, judgment, imagination,—all these faculties would sleep in their causes, unused and worthless in the soul. Obeying the instinctive tendency of the mind, which impels to thought, keeping its laws, we gain satisfaction for the intellectual desires. One after another the faculties come into action, grow up to maturity, and intellectual welfare is complete with no miracle, but by obedience to the laws of mind.

The same may be said of the affectional and moral nature of Man. There is something without us to answer the demands of the Affections and the Moral Sense, and we turn instinctively to them. Does God provide for the animal wants and no more? He is no step-father, but a bountiful parent to the intellectual, affectional, and moral elements of his child. There is a point of satisfaction out of these for each point of desire in them, and a guide to mediate between the two. This general rule may then be laid down, That for each animal, intellectual, affectional, moral want of Man, there is a supply set within his reach, and a guide to connect the two; that no miracle is needed to supply the want; but satisfaction is given soon as the guide is followed and the law kept, which instinct or the understanding reveals.