The Map of Life. William Edward Hartpole Lecky

The Map of Life - William Edward Hartpole Lecky


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conscious of the winds that are moving it. The law of compulsory causation applies to the world of mind as truly as to the world of matter. Heredity and Circumstance make us what we are. Our actions are the inevitable result of the mental and moral constitutions with which we came into the world, operated on by external influences.

      Newman, in a well-known passage in his 'Apologia,' describes the immense effect which the sentence of Augustine, 'Securus judicat orbis terrarum,' had upon his opinions in determining him to embrace the Church of Rome. The force of this consideration in relation to the subject to which Dr. Newman refers does not appear to have great weight. It means only that at a time when the Christian Church included but a small fraction of the human race; when all questions of orthodoxy or the reverse were practically in the hands of the priesthood; when ignorance, credulity and superstition were at their height and the habits of independence and impartiality of judgment running very low; and when every kind of violent persecution was directed against those who dissented from the prevailing dogmas—certain councils of priests found it possible to attain unanimity on such questions as the two natures in Christ or the relations of the Persons in the Trinity, and to expel from the Church those who differed from their views, and that the once formidable sects which held slightly different opinions about these inscrutable relations gradually faded away. Such an unanimity on such subjects and attained by such methods does not appear to me to carry with it any overwhelming force. There are, however, a certain number of beliefs that are not susceptible of demonstrative proof, and which must always rest essentially on the universal assent of mankind. Such is the existence of the external world. Such, in my opinion, is the existence of a distinction between right and wrong, different from and higher than the distinction between pleasure and pain, and subsisting in all human nature in spite of great diversities of opinion about the acts and qualities that are comprised in either category; and such also is the kindred belief in a self-determining will. If men contend that these things are mere illusions and that their faculties are not to be trusted, it will no doubt be difficult or impossible to refute them; but a scepticism of this kind has no real influence on either conduct or feeling.

      FOOTNOTE:

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      [1] Aids to Reflection, p. 68.

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      On the other hand, the tendency of those philosophies which treat man—his opinions and his character—essentially as the result of circumstances, and which aggrandise the influence of the external world upon mankind, is in the opposite direction. All the sensational philosophies from Bacon and Locke to our own day tend to concentrate attention on the external circumstances and conditions of happiness. And the same tendency will be naturally found in the most active, industrial and progressive nations; where life is very full and busy; where its competitions are most keen; where scientific discoveries are rapidly multiplying pleasures or diminishing pains; where town life with its constant hurry and change is the most prominent. In such spheres men naturally incline to seek happiness from without rather than from within, or, in other words, to seek it much less by acting directly on the mind and character than through the indirect method of improved circumstances.

      English character on both sides of the Atlantic is an eminently objective one—a character in which thoughts, interests and emotions are most habitually thrown on that which is without. Introspection and self-analysis are not congenial to it. No one can compare English life with life even in the Continental nations which occupy the same rank in civilisation without perceiving how much less Englishmen are accustomed either to dwell upon their emotions or to give free latitude to their expression. Reticence and self-restraint are the lessons most constantly inculcated. The whole tone of society favours it. In times of great sorrow a degree of shame is attached


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