PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 1873, 4 January 1875, Page 2

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION.

The publication of Mr John Stuart Mill's three posthumous essays on 3S ature, the Utility of Eeligion, and Theism? has been one of the most notable events of the. month. The first edition was wholly bought up before the day announced for its issue. The interest taken in the questions he discussed is certainly among tne most remarkable feature of our time. No books have a wider circulation than those which treat of them. They are read not. only by divines and sectaries, but hy statesmen "and the. cultured leaders of society. Our secular newspapers take up the theme, and speak as though now we were called to reconstruct the foundation- or grapple with" in which lie concealed the greatest mysteries of our nature. The Manchester Guardi&n was the first .to publishran analysis of these -essays, extending over several columns, and its summary, was immediately transferred to the columns of the leading London papers before the book had appeared. Such' a roundabout procedure is contrary to all our precedents, and there appears to,have been some breach of ~connaen,ce in this premature criticism. The leading principles of the , volume have , thus been brought under discussion- before it was fairly in our hands. 1 The " Essay on Nature" was written 15 years ago, but touched and re-touched, and Was being prepared for publication when its author died. The dissertation on " Theism" was finished only in the year of Mr Mill's death. These, facts answ.er the charge of cowardice^ hastily preferred against him as shrinki»g from the onusiof these opinions-during his lifetime. But in truth, these essays show a balance of bis mind, towards Christianity, for which the reader of his ." Autobiography," and the more /"ardent students of Ids philosophy were nofc prepared. "It is no part of my duty to follow Kirn here intohis various arguments f But I may refer to one passage winch has attracted much attention, in which he approaches the central figure of Christ, and like Eousseau and other independent thinkers, renders his meed of homage to the ideal excellence of his character. The words they will long have historic interest in connexion with the name of John Stuart Mill:— ".-..': V " Whatever else, may be taken away from us by rational criticism, Christ is still left—a unique figure, not, more im-' like all his precursors than all his fol-, lowers,, even-those-who had. the direct benefit of his personal teaching, It is no use to say that Christ, as exhibited in the Gospels, is not historical, and that we know not how much of what is admirable has been superadded by the tradition of his followers. The tradition of followers suffices to insert any numberrof marvels, and may have inserted all the miracles which he is reputed to have wrought. But who among his disciples or among their proselytes was capable of inventing the sayings ascribed to Jesus, or of imagining the life and character revealed in the Gospels ? Certainly not the fishermen of Galilee ; as certainly not St. Paul, whose character and idiosyncracies were, of a totally different sort; still les* the early Christian writers, in whom nothing is more evident" than- that the good which was in them was all derived, as they always professed that it was derived, from the higher source. . . . But about the life and sayings of Jesus there is a stamp of personal originality, combined with profundity of insight, which, if we abandon the idle expectation of finding scientific precision where something very different was aimed at, must place the Prophet of Nazareth, even in the estimation of those who have no belief in inspiration, in the very first rank of the men of sublime genius of whom our species can boast. When this pre-eminent genius is combined with the qualities of probably the greatest moral" reformer and martyr to that mission that ever existed upon earth, religion cannot be said to have made a bad choice in pitching on tbis man as the ideal representative and guide of Humanity; nor even now would it be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from ;the abstract into the concrete-than to endeavour so to live that Ghrist would approve our life. When to this we add that, to the conception of the rational sceptic, it remains a possibility that Christ actually was. what he was supposed to be—not God, for he never made the smallest pretension to that character, and would probably have thought such a pretension as blasphemous as it seemed to the men who condemned him, but a man charged with a special, express, and unique commission from God to lead mankind to truth and virtue, we may well conclude that the influences of religion on the character which will remain after rational criticism has done 'its utmost against the evidences of religion .are well worth preserving, and that what'they lack in direct strength as compared with those of a firmer belief, is more than compensated by the greater,

truth and rectitude of the morality they sanction." The publication of these essays has created the livelier interest at the present from the fact of their coming like another bombshell into the midst of the controversies raised by Professor Tyndall's address at Belfast. The criticism evoked by that remarkable address seems to have startled the redoubtable professor. In a preface to the authorised edition he gives some pithy specimens of th« diffe--rent opinions^whfch he~has?fcadjfo "etr- " counter, anj, briefly repudiates tH?Siarge of atheism.: -ißut-this ireek^ at Manchester, where ha has been lecturinflf in th« ■■ Free-Trajie .Hall, 01* TCfystalline aaA " Molecular Forces," 'hq^has returned,^ the subject with' Wre "emphatic wo/ds. "We are s\iir6nnied)"'h6 md t towards the close of bis lecture," by wonders md mysteries every where. " I have, sometimes —not sometimes, but often—in the spring-time watched, the adyauc? of tfe#; sprouting leaves, and of the grass, and of the flowers, and observed the general joy of: ope»itf#i<.life; in', i^turei Qand I have asked myself, .this ques-. tion, 'Can it; be • .?that.: there is no being or thing in nature'that knows more about these thugs than I do P Do I in my ignorance represent the highest knowledge of these things existing in this imirerse?'/'.Xrfulieft/and gentlemen", 'tW man who; Piifei.ttalquestioßufairly^to Kirn-_ .sel^.ifshe be,not a shallow man, if he be a man capable of being penetrated by profound thought, will never answer the question hf professing that creed of athji^ ism which has been-so lightly attributed; to me.".'; Loud;cheers, which.were again and again renewed, followed the utterance of this: Seatiment, and the Professer went on to express his belief that many of the fears that are now entertained on these subjects really have their roots in a kind of scdpticism*. ..^"ltia riot «lwtyß thpap who are charged with scepticism that are the real sceptics--(hear,liear, and oheers> —■and I confess, it is a matter of some grieff to me to »*e able, useful and courageous men running to and fro upon the* earth wringing their h*nds over the threatened destruction of their ideals. I would exhort them to cast out scepticism, for this fear has its root in scepticism^l*—Australasian. ,=...,.;/ ' !■ ■