Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/180



system differs in many respects from the other; but its philosophy is at bottom the same. It denies that by natural action there can be anything in Man which was not first in the senses; whatever transcends the senses can come to him only by a Miracle. And the Miracle is attended with phenomena obvious to the senses. Το develope the natural side of the theory it sets God on the one side and man on the other. However it admits the immanence of God in Matter, and talks very little about the laws of Matter, which it thinks require revision, amendment, and even repeal, as if the nature of things changed, or God grew wiser by experiment. It does not see that if God is always the same, and immanent in Nature, the laws of Nature can neither change nor be changed. It limits the power of Man still further than the former theory. It denies that he can, of himself, discover the existence of God; or find out that it is better to love his brother than to hate him, to subject the Passions to Reason, Desire to Duty, rather than to subject Reason to Passion, Duty to Desire. Man can find out all that is