Page:The optimism of Butler's 'Analogy'.djvu/17

Rh Wisdom Literature. And as we note how instinctively the ancient phrases and terms reappear in his writing, we can be sure they were justified in doing so. But he, also, himself, by direct references to the influences under which he acted, implicated himself in a like alliance. For it was Origen, as everybody knows, who suggested to him the lines on which the Analogy runs. And the very sound of his name, as an ally, should have made it impossible for us to allow the Bishop to disguise himself as a sceptical pessimist, parading the depressing defects to which our reason has to submit. Origen's mind was architectonic. He built for knowledge a noble pleasure-house. He was optimistic to a fault. His range was immense. His power and wealth of imagination swept over the whole field of knowledge with unflagging energy. In him, all experience was drawn together under the mastery of a single Divine Purpose, into organic integrity, under the assimilating control of the Spirit, according to the methods of vital growth. He laboured to expand the scope of our speculation over the widest horizons, so as to embrace life in its richest fertilities, in its inexhaustible fullness. And he trusted to attain this magnificent consummation by confident use of the inspired and imaginative reason, which could, by mystical synthesis, transform and transcend the limitations of a narrow logic. And this is Butler's master. This is the source of his inspiration. It is under the influence of the famous phrase which the great Alexandrian supplied to him that the two worlds of Nature and Grace, of Experience and Spirit, of Reason and Revelation, are seen to be of one piece, of one type, of one purpose, illuminated by correspondences, interpreted by reiteration of a common theme, knit together into coherent sequence by kindred analogies, and delicate refrains, and responsive corroborations, and intimate resemblances, and recurring parallels.

Let us listen to his own weighty exposition of this prevailing theme. Cumbrous it is, and heavy-footed; the language strains under its load; its structure builds