Page:The optimism of Butler's 'Analogy'.djvu/16

12 The same mind discloses itself; the same presence greets us; the same face looks out at us. This is the great principle of Analogy, by which (in the words of Bishop Halifax) 'he first inquires what the constitution of Nature, as made known to us in the way of experiment, actually is. And, from this, now seen and acknowledged, he endeavours to form a judgement of the larger constitution which religion discovers to us.' The emphasis so unhappily laid by the argument on the correspondence between objections and perplexities in the one case and in the other, obscures, by its dismal repugnance, our apprehension of the larger imaginative and constructive conception, on which the apologetic 'tu quoque' really rests. The correspondence in the character of the difficulties becomes for Butler an additional corroboration of his positive speculation. And it is this positive speculation which gives him his position as a thinker; not the merely incidental value, whatever it may be, of the minor controversial retort. For the force of the retort depends entirely on the primal conception of the intimate and essential correspondence that gives continuity to the two spheres of experience—a continuity which is recognized on its own account, and for its own impressive significance, quite apart from the accidental and additional confirmation of it which may, possibly, be derived from the discovery that, not only in its stable and elemental appeals to our intelligent confidence, but also even in its temporary obscurities, the same law of resemblance can be detected. No doubt, it is something to recognize that, even in these disagreeable misadventures, 'all things are double one against another.' But that is but a little or partial incident by the side of the splendid affirmation of universal coherence. 'Surely, it is of importance to learn,' says Bishop Halifax, 'that the natural and moral world are intimately connected, and are parts of one stupendous whole or system.'

The impression, then, made by Butler upon those who understood him best was that of a constructive and organic thinker. They felt the parallel between him and the