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complete, the act is bad, and yet the intent to falsify is absent; still, the judgment of reason is, that, as it is the duty of every man to consider well the consequences as well as the motives of his actions, and likewise to be assured of the truthfulness of his utterances, he who does not practise caution in these respects is amenable to moral censure. Truth may be uttered with the intention to work an evil consequence, and in this example the sin is equal to that of lying, for the intent is equally evil in its origin, and the act in its consequences. A man may tell what is true, believing it to be false, and, no evil consequences ensuing from the act, may flatter himself that he is excused, yet the sin of lying is on his conscience; and a man may intentionally utter a falsehood from the best and most benevolent motive; as if he were to tell a flagrant assassin that the victim of whom he is in pursuit had passed around the street-corner, when he had really fled through a doorway. Here is no sinful intent and no evil consequence, and yet the utterance is a technical lie.

It will be at once perceived that the rule which reason dictates with regard to lying, is the same which applies to every question of moral turpitude; namely, that the sin is in the intent, and the evil is in the consequences of the act. Our criminal laws do not intend to measure their penalties according to the moral guilt of criminal actions; for those laws, being established only for the protection of society, have regard mainly to the evil consequences of those actions upon the rights and happiness of society and its members; and they wisely leave the punishment of moral turpitude to the adjudication of Him who sees the hearts of men and their intents; excepting from the above rule, those cases where the accused, being shown to have been guiltless of evil intention, is acquitted of crime. These rules of criminal law correspond with the dictates of reason; for reason determines that, wherever, from the nature of things and circumstances, the truth is involved in uncertainty, as in the case of determining degrees of moral guilt and its punishment, inaction is the only safe policy for finite man to pursue; but it equally dictates that wherever truth, clearly revealed, beckons her votaries, he is a moral coward who hesitates to obey her supreme behests.

From the foregoing discussion it is apparent, that reason is the one faculty which distinguishes between the apparent and the real, between truth and the deceptive

illusions that assume its semblance; which puts the coinstamp upon the materials of knowledge, and gives them all their value; and, in fine, that by so much as wisdom is superior to mere knowledge, by so much is reason superior to those knowing faculties which man possesses in common with the brute creation.

One chief object kept continually in view in this brief exposition of the Rational Theory, is the vindication of that theory from the imputation, often cast upon it, that it tends to dampen the ardour of religious fervor, to weaken the sense of moral obligation, and to unsettle belief in the received doctrines of religious faith. To the plausibility of these charges, the partial views promulgated by pretended rationalists have too often given a seeming confirmation; but whoever has perused this discussion of the subject with careful attention and in a spirit of candour, will acknowledge that it tends to show that reason is the true friend and efficient ally of religion and virtue, and that only by perversion can it be viewed as inculcating aught that is inimical to either; and, even more, that in its general scope it does not intermeddle with disputed questions of morals or of theological belief, but favours that charity which tolerates and makes allowance for differences of opinion, while it stimulates the development of all that is elevating, ennobling, and devotional, in human thought and affection.

Nothing is more common than for controvertists to attempt to gain advantages over their adversaries by applying to them odious epithets, such as "materialist,

spiritualist," or those grosser terms in which our vernacular abounds; as in former times the learned were accused of magic, witchcraft, and Satanic arts, compacts, and instigations. This kind of ordeal the votary of truth may not hope to escape, neither is it lawful for him to fabricate for himself defensive weapons against these. assaults. Truth is strongest when armed only with herself, and borrows no weapons of offence or defence; but, naked and alone goes forth to the work of conquest. Her defenders, even her most valiant heroes and martyrs, may perish, yet should they not despair at their mishaps and defeats, but remember, that though they fall, their cause shall not want ample vindication, and that truth shall certainly win and wear the immortal bays of victory.

There are numerous mathematical propositions of whose conclusions reason does not take instant cognizance; as, for example, the familiar proposition that the

square of the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangled is equal to the square of both its sides. In the discussion of this problem, the knowing and calculating faculties present the successive elements of the figures, and instantly, as each is produced, the reason perceives their relative values, and by their association in combination determines the truth of the conclusion. The same is true of theories involving the correlation of forces, whether natural or mechanical, whose laws reason can only determine by the aid of other faculties.

In all the foregoing examples, as well as in numerous others, the reason does not act until some elements of relation, either of causation, adaptation, or proportion, are presented to its view; and whenever that is done, reason instantly perceives each relation, and its law; and whenever the complement of individual relations and their laws is made up, reason perceives their mutual relation of adaptation, and determines their theory. Defects and errors in rational theories are due less to the imperfection of the rational process than to the imperfect presentment of facts by the knowing faculties. As, in logic, the major and minor must both exist, and must both be true, or the conclusion is uncertain, so all the elements of a rational theory must be present and certain, or the theory will be defective; and if any of the elements are false, the theory is erroneous. It is common to attribute errors in rational theories to the defectiveness of reason, yet nothing can be farther from the truth, for reason, being normal, is as infallible as normal eyesight. Werner, spent his whole life in a champaign country, the superposition of whose rocks was uniform and undisturbed, inferred from this uniformity his Neptunian theory, according to which all rocks have been formed by sedimentary deposition; but his pupil, Von Buch, extending his travels into volcanic regions and countries abounding in hills and mountains, was impelled to adopt the theory of upheaval by igneous agency, and his reason compelled him to abandon the errors of the Neptunian theory, and adopt the truths of the Plutonian theory. this instance, it is apparent that the defectiveness of the Neptunian system theory arose from the imperfectness of the facts from which it was inferred, while the superior truthfulness of the Plutonian theory resulted from the broader basis of facts upon which it was founded.

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Ratiocination is involved in demonstrating the truth of a postulate or proposition apagogically, or by the

mathematical process called reductio ad absurdum, by assuming the converse to be true, and demonstrating the fallacy or absurdity of its logical or mathematical conclusion. This method of reasoning is the most common of any in practical use, and is often resorted to for the purpose of determining by proof the truth of theories which, in consequence of the imperfection of human faculties, had before rested in some degree of uncertainty. In this, as in all ratiocination, the laws of relation, or ratio, form the constituent in the conclusion which is due to the action of the faculty of reason. Even as to the transcendental truth of the being and attribute of the self-existent Infinite, the revelation of the perceptive function of reason is fortified, and the understanding is confirmed in its acceptance of the truth, by apagogical assumptions of the contrary and their fallacious conclusions.

Tried by all tests, the adamantine_integrity of the sublime central truth of the divine Infinity becomes more and more obvious to human understanding, and the mind-which at first received the intuitive perception of pure reason with trembling and fearful joy, a joy qualified by a shade of doubt, deepened by a consciousness of the importance of the subject-at length is brought to rest in a perfect and unquestioning confidence, fast anchored to what it can no longer doubt will remain unmoved, though all things else should tremble to their fall. The solid rocks, through whose cleft summits uplifted to the skies volcanic fires blaze forth in awful splendor, descending, sink below the surface of the earth, and form the immovable basis on which rest and from which are produced both soil, and all the varied forms of vegetable and animal organization, with which the earth is covered; and, likewise, the sublime truth of the infinite divine, constitutes the grand fundamental basis from which all true systems of divine, moral, and social philosophy originate, and on which alone any theory concerning them can securely rest.

The unity of the Divine is a truth of which the human mind with difficulty arrives at a perfect comprehension, although reason determines it as necessary to infinitude. Man is several in faculties, as in numbers, and in contemplating the Supreme Being, thinks of him as several, and speaks understandingly of the divine power, wisdom, and goodness, as he would of those attributes in a superior man, as well as of subdivisions of these imputed attributes, such as love, hatred, benevolence, justice,

truth, &c., equal in number, and, as he imagines similar in function to the moral, intellectual, and affectional faculties of man; nor do many good men deem that they well understand the Supreme Being in his relation to his creatures, until they have satisfactorily imagined to themselves in what manner each one of all these attributes is exercised. It might be a thankless and unprofitable task to attempt to uproot these deeply-seated ideas from many devout minds, but those who desire to know all truths that may be known will find their attempts to conceive of the divine unity aided by reflecting that in every divine action, whether of creation, sustentation, or administration, power, wisdom, and goodness are equally manifested, as being employed consentaneously and in perfect harmony; and by considering how utterly impossible it is to imagine, in this view, that either of these supreme attributes, supposing them to be infinite and equal, could permit an act to be done in which each should not have an equal share; or, to state the idea in other words and more broadly, how an infinitely good being could do a bad action, or an infinitely wise being could do an unwise action, or how an infinitely powerful being could be susceptible of weakness; and hence, as these attributes are manifestly equal and infinite, and there can be no plurality of infinity-they are necessarily

one.

What, then, of evil? some will ask. The answer is plain. Good, the synonym of God, alone, is infinite; evil is finite, an effect and instrument of good. Within the embracement of infinity, evil has its birth and death, its origin and its end. Nothing, in the moral any more than in the physical universe, can exist which is not an effect of the infinite cause. If this answer fails to satisfy any one who believes that God is infinite, he will profit by the attempt to frame any other rational answer to his inquiry. We learn to become reconciled to this truth, when, by experience and observation, we come to understand and believe that they love most to whom most is forgiven, that sorrows and afflictions chasten the affections, subdue the passions and discipline the soul, giving it the supremacy over the impulses of the animal nature, and thus enabling it by freer exercise to develop its strength and enlarge its capacities for the enjoyment of celestial beatitude; and that even Death, the very king of terrors, opens the portals of immortal life.

Every truth is in harmony with every other truth ;

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