bag has a strange power of shooting forth a head and limbs at the will of its occupant; and his first introduction in the new world is to a similar bag, looking like a bladder filled with air, from which protrudes the 'meagre lankjawed face' of his master Locke. By the instruction of his friend he learns to skate upon rays of light, and to talk after a new fashion, and, thus accomplished, performs strange journeys and hears strange converse in the world of spirits. He is put through a bit of dialectics by Socrates, and listens to an oration from Pythagoras, and talks sentiment with his long-lost Eurydice, and makes fun of Stahl, till the German philosopher shuts himself up in his bag; and is grievously bullied by Borgia in the likeness of a spider; and all the while, he and Locke carry on a queer running comment, changing strangely from grave to gay, but everywhere pervaded by a quaint tinge of humour. This bag bursts for a time, and he is absorbed in the mundane soul, and hears unspeakable things and witnesses solemn visions; but he speedily returns to his vehicle, and finally descending to a huge mountain, 'with a monstrous gaping chasm on one side, from whence issue black streams of fuliginous vapour,' discovers it to be his head, and entering with difficulty through one of the pores, sticky and miry with insensible perspiration, again takes his place in the seat of life.' 122. I must refrain, however, from following these strange flights of fancy, in order to attempt a brief summary of the system which is gradually shadowed forth in this strangely discursive performance. Tucker, as already noticed, is a disciple of Locke, of whom he always speaks with the warmest reverence. Indeed, he clings to those opinions of his master which had been exploded by Berkeley and Hume. He never, I believe, mentions Hume; but he frequently attacks Berkeley, and by falling into the usual fallacies on the subject, exhibits his want of metaphysical acuteness; for, indeed, it is exclusively as a psychologist and as a moralist that Tucker has any great speculative merit. From Hartley he has borrowed much, whilst at the same time he regards the leader of the association philosophy with a feeling as nearly approaching to dislike as can find room in his kindly bosom. Starting Tucker's Light of Nature,' i. 423. Ib. i. 493. from such principles, Tucker's theological system presents no particular novelty, except where his quaint fancy has engrafted some odd hypothesis upon the older doctrines. He is a rationalist after the pattern of Locke; and through many chapters of wearisome length he labours to accommodate the mysterious dogmas of Christianity to a rational interpretation. By the ordinary devices, he explains away the doctrines of the Trinity, the Atonement, the Fall of Man, and the Sacraments, until they may be accepted, even by a pure deist, without much effort-though in treading those perilous paths, it is probable that Tucker has unconsciously stepped into some very heretical propositions. The fundamental method of his reconciliation is significant. 123. God, according to him, is to the universe what the watchmaker is to the watch'-an illustration which Paley may have borrowed, along with much else, from his favourite author. Further, we may, if we please, hold that the material universe is one stupendous engine, which has been made from everlasting, and is never in want of winding up, or interference from the Creator.2 Tucker, however, inclines to the opinion that the Almighty artificer does occasionally interfere, though only on rare and important occasions.3 God is not profuse of his own omnipotence. He employs it rarely, upon those occasions only wherein he had rendered it necessary by leaving deficiencies in his plan of nature, purposely to admit these interpositions of his own hand, which he had predetermined from everlasting. Nor yet does he perform his extraordinary works wholly by his own power, but with the concurrence of second causes, turning and keeping them in the course wherein they will naturally bring forth the predestined event.' Tucker, in short, is jealous of the Divine interference. It is equally important that we should believe in a God, and that we should make as little use of him as possible. The higher our reverence for the watchmaker, the less the need for his interfering with the instrument. This theory, however much it might satisfy Tucker the philosopher, 4 1 Tucker, 'Things Providential,' sec. 11, ii. 83; and 'Providence,' sec. 9, i. 525. Ib. Providence,' sec. II, i. 527. 2 Ib. 'Things Providential,' ii. 85. Ib. Christian Scheme,' sec. 35, ii. 400. was felt as unsatisfactory by Tucker the moralist and the religious thinker. A large part of his discursive performance is devoted to various attempts to reconcile the abstract doctrine with a doctrine more adapted for practical use; or, in other words, to show that the God thus revealed to us by a reason is still the God whom we worship in church and obey in ordinary life. He applies his ingenuity in the spheres both of natural and revealed religion. Thus a chapter in the later part of his book is devoted to the distinction between ' esoterics and exoterics.' A man, he says, 'has one cast of mind for the closet, another to serve him when he enters into the busy world.' The philosopher is the wholesale trader, who deals only in tons and hogsheads;' there is need also of the retailer who may 'pick or sort and parcel out his wares, and mingle them in such compositions as you shall scarce know the ingredients, yet shall find them fit for your immediate consumption.' 2 The first is the function of the reason, and the second of the imagination, which is the practical guide in ordinary affairs. Philosophy' as he forcibly remarks, 'may be styled the art of marshalling the ideas in the understanding, and religion that of disciplining the imagination.' And thus it is possible, or rather necessary, to make assumptions in our daily life, which, though not inaccurate, cut short the long trains of reasoning which are required in speculation. Thus, for example, everything is providential to the philosopher, for everything comes by a longer or shorter chain of cause and effects from the action of the great first cause. But it would be considering too curiously-as Tucker cannot refrain from illustrating by some singular instances 3-if we insisted on seeing in every trifling or disgusting object the immediate working of the Divine hand. It is wise therefore to stop short, as a rule, at second causes. We should call only those things providential which bear evident marks of wisdom and goodness. When things are propounded as providential, let a man examine impartially and courageously whether he feels them operate as such upon his imagination; if he does not, they are not providential to him.' Or, to take a rather different instance, we may rightly pray for external 1 Tucker, Esoterics and Exoterics,' sec. 5, ii. 20. See e.g. 'Divine Purity,' sec. 6, ii. 28. 2 Ib. sec. 7, ii. 22. Ib. 'Things Providential,' sec. 3, ii. 73; and see ib. sec. 9, ii. So. things; for, though prayer has no influence in obtaining them, it obtains that 'ease and pleasure' which are the reasons for which we desire them. Yet, as a rule, it is best to keep the thought of Divine interference at a distance. In Tucker's own language, he recommends every man 'to remove the finger of God from him, as far as he can without letting it go beyond the reach of his comprehension; if he believes the grace in his heart owing to a supernatural interposition of the spirit, still he may place a line of second causes between the act of God and the effect he feels.' Every movement of the watch is ultimately attributable to the watchmaker; but, as a rule, we had better limit our investigation to the works. 2 124. The system is illustrated still more curiously in his pure theology. God, he tells us, may be considered in two characters, as Creator and as Governor of the universe.3 As Creator, he dwells in inaccessible light, where the eye of man is dazzled into blindness. As Governor, he is more discernible, and is clothed with milder rays of glory, the subject of our hope and confidence as well as our admiration.' It is here that we can trace his power, wisdom, omnipotence, and goodness. In order to give additional distinctness, he revives, after his own fashion, the ancient hypothesis of the mundane soul. The atoms of which the material world is composed are bathed, as it were, in a vast ocean of spiritual substance. The infinite multitude of spirits in the 'vehicular state' compose this ocean, lying in close contiguity to each other, and every perception of one is immediately propagated through all the intermediate spirits to every other. Had the modern discoveries in electricity been then familiar, Tucker would doubtless have pressed them into his service for a more vivid illustration of his theories. These spirits form collectively a universal soul, which is unspeakably happy, and feels no more at the trivial evils which may happen to any of the comparatively small number of embodied spirits than a man who had just had a great piece of good fortune would feel at the breaking of a China saucer.5 When God gave the order, this mundane soul formed the world in accordance with the Tucker, 'Divine Services,' sec. 9, ii. 433. 2 Ib. Grace,' sec. 5, ii. 179. Ib. 'Two Characters in God.' 4 Ib. sec. 5, i. 367. Mundane Soul,' sec. 23, i. 415. Theology, ch. xviii. Divine plan. The six days' formation being ended, though God rested from commanding, his agent did not rest from acting; for his reason could now direct him how to proceed in sustaining the work he had been taught to make. He still continued to turn the grand wheel of repulsion, that first mover in the wondrous machine of visible nature, all whose movements follow one another uninterruptedly for ages according to stated laws and in regular courses, without failure or disorder in any single wheel.' When the fullness of time is come, God will give the signal for the reduction of everything to chaos-to be followed by the promulgation of a new plan and the employment of the mundane soul in its execution. 125. The purpose of this curious hypothesis-Tucker is superfluously careful to tell us that it is only a hypothesis-is to relieve the difficulty of our imaginations, and to present us with a secondary God not so mysterious as the Almighty himself. Tucker revels so much in discussing the complexities of his theory, and arguing for its possibility, that he seems half to lose sight of its hypothetical character, and still more completely of its utility. For, after all, it is plain enough that we are no nearer to any solution of the difficulty than we were before. God the Creator is still the true God, and the mundane soul is merely a wheel the more in the vast machinery of the universe. For Tucker realises fully, though he sometimes loses sight of the truth in his voluminous torrent of words, that neither chance, nor free-will, nor nature, are in reality original springs of events.'2 The Creator is really also the Disposer of events. The watchmaker has predetermined every movement of the watch. The mundane soul is merely a viceroy, to whom we may refer in imagination, but who is really the agent for carrying out the designs of the supreme sovereign. 126. His ethical theory, in fact, is constructed exclusively on the watchmaking plan. God, according to Tucker's conception, has framed the machine, and then allowed it to act by itself. From the beauty of the various contrivances we may infer his wisdom and power; from their tendency to promote our happiness we may infer his benevolence and justice. But he does not remain with us as a guide, nor leave Tucker, Mundane Soul,' sec. 20, i. 414. 2 Ib. Things Providential,' sec. 2, ii. 71. |