The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings | Page 4

is one of intense interest, and suggests reflections of the most important kind, respecting the powers and properties of the thinking principle. In particular, it leads us to a period, which we are taught to anticipate even by the inductions of intellectual science, when, the bodily frame being dissolved, the thinking and reasoning essence shall exercise its peculiar faculties in a higher state of being. There are facts in the mental phenomena which give a high degree of probability to the conjecture, that the whole transactions of life, with the motives and moral history of each individual, may then be recalled by a process of the mind itself, and placed, as at a single glance, distinctly before him. Were we to realize such a mental condition, we should not fail to contemplate the impressions so recalled, with feelings very different from those by which we are apt to be misled amid the influence of present and external things.--The tumult of life is over;--pursuits, principles, and motives, which once bore an aspect of importance, are viewed with feelings more adapted to their true value.--The moral principle recovers that authority, which, amid the contests of passion, had been obscured or lost;--each act and each emotion is seen in its relations to the great dictates of truth, and each pursuit of life in its real bearing on the great concerns of a moral being;--and the whole assumes a character of new and wondrous import, when viewed in relation to that Incomprehensible One, who is then disclosed in all his attributes as a moral governor.--Time past is contracted into a point, and that the infancy of being;--time to come is seen expanding into eternal existence.
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Such are the views which open on him who would inquire into the essence by which man is distinguished as a rational and moral being. Compared with it, what are all the phenomena of nature,--what is all the history of the world,--the rise and fall of empires,--or the fate of those who rule them. These derive their interest from local and transient relations,--but this is to exist for ever. That science, therefore, must be considered as the highest of all human pursuits, which contemplates man in his relation to eternal things. With its importance we must feel its difficulties; and, did we confine the investigation to the mere principles of natural science, we should feel these difficulties to be insurmountable. But, in this great inquiry, we have two sources of knowledge, to which nothing analogous is to be found in the history of physical science, and which will prove infallible guides, if we resign ourselves to their direction with sincere desire to discover the truth. These are,--the light of conscience,--and the light of divine revelation. In making this statement, I am aware that I tread on delicate ground,--and that some will consider an appeal to the sacred writings as a departure from the strict course of philosophical inquiry. This opinion, I am satisfied, is entirely at variance with truth,--and, in every moral investigation, if we take the inductions of sound philosophy, along with the dictates of conscience, and the light of revealed truth, we shall find them to constitute one uniform and harmonious whole, the various parts of which tend, in a remarkable manner, to establish and illustrate each other. If, indeed, in any investigation of moral science, we disregard the light which is furnished by the sacred writings, we resemble an astronomer who should rely entirely on his unaided sight, and reject those optical inventions which extend so remarkably the field of his vision, as to be to him the revelation of things not seen. Could we suppose a person thus entertaining doubts respecting the knowledge supplied by the telescope, yet proceeding in a candid manner to investigate its truth, he would perceive, in the telescopic observations themselves, principles developed which are calculated to remove his suspicions. For, in the limited knowledge which is furnished by vision alone, he finds difficulties which he cannot explain, apparent inconsistencies which he cannot reconcile, and insulated facts which he cannot refer to any known principle. But, in the more extended knowledge which the telescope yields, these difficulties disappear, facts are brought together which seemed unconnected or discordant, and the universe appears one beautiful system of order and consistency. It is the same in the experience of the moral inquirer, when he extends his views beyond the inductions of reason, and corrects his conclusions by the testimony of God. Discordant principles are brought together, doubts and difficulties disappear, and beauty, order, and harmony are seen to pervade the government of the Deity. In this manner there also arises a species of evidence for the doctrines of revelation, which is entirely independent of the external proofs of its divine origin;