Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/170

Rh its conditions, so Analogy teaches that in this, as in the other case, there must be a supply for the wants, and some plain, regular, and not miraculous means, accessible to each man, whereby he can get a knowledge of this Support, discover this Will, and thus, by observing the proper conditions, obtain the highest spiritual welfare.

This argument for a direct connection between Man and God, is only rebutted in one of these two ways: Either, first, by denying that Man has any religious wants; or, secondly, by affirming that he is himself alone a supply to them, without need of reliance on anything independent of himself. The last is contrary to philosophy, for, theoretically speaking, by nature there is nothing in Man, but Man himself, his tendencies and powers of action and reception; in the religious element there is nothing but the religious element, as, theoretically speaking, by nature, there is in the body nothing but the body; in hunger nothing but hunger. To make Man dependent on nothing but Man; the religious element on nothing but the religious element, and therefore sufficient for itself, is quite as absurd as to make the body dependent only on the body; the appetite of hunger on nothing but hunger, sufficient to satisfy itself. Besides, our consciousness, and above all our religious consciousness, is that of dependence. The soul feels its direct dependence on God, as much as the body sees its own direct dependence on matter.

If the one statement is contrary to philosophy, the other is contrary to fact. We feel religious wants; the history of Man is a perpetual expression of these wants; an effort for satisfaction. It cannot be denied that we need something that shall bear the same relation to the religious Element which food bears to the palate, light to the eye, sound to the ear, beauty to the imagination, truth to the understanding, friendship to the heart, and duty to conscience. How shall we pass from the want to its satisfaction? Now the force of the Analogy is this—it leads us to expect such a natural satisfaction for spiritual wants as we have for the humbler wants. The very wants themselves imply the satisfaction; soon as we begin to act, there awakes, by nature, a Sentiment of God. Reason