Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/138

Rh the universe differs from the instinct action of an unconscious baby grasping the finger of its twin-born mate. The quality and quantity of the infinite consciousness we cannot analyze and so exhaustingly comprehend. Still this positive fact remains to us — the infinitely perfect God. This I think the highest thought which mankind has yet reached, the grandest idea in the consciousness of humanity.

How different is this from the theological conception of God whereof the ethical character is as revolting as the Trinitarian arithmetic thereof is absurd. What a difference between the infinite God and the wrathful God of the popular theology—as He appears in the New England Primer—in Michael Angelo's last Judgment—in every "Christian Scheme of Divinity!" Of the philosophic idea of man. Starting from indisputable facts it is easy to show what a noble nature there is in man, so endowed with vast capabilities. I wonder that any one can think meanly of this chief creation of God, can talk of "poor human nature;" why, in comparison with the instinctive aspiration of our nature the loftiest achievements of a Leibnitz or a Jesus seem low and little. What a history is there behind us ! Man began his career with no inheritance save what was covered with his skin; without material or spiritual property—no house, nor tool, nor garment, not a breakfast laid up for to-morrow, no science, law, literature, customs, habits, manners, or even language; out of him was material nature, in him rude human nature. See what has thence risen up in the thirty or forty thousand years of his probable existence. What a panorama of triumph lies there behind us! Surely the history of man is a continual victory, the triumph of what is spiritual over the merely animal, of conscious reflection over mere brute, instinctive, animal desire. It is the Infinite Providence which planned the campaign and guides the victorious march. Even the errors and follies of mankind—the experiments which fail—are steps forward, only not straight forward. The teacher ought to understand the historical development of mankind, that in the panorama of what has been done he