The constitution of man : considered in relation to external objects / by George Combe.
- George Combe
- Date:
- 1844
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The constitution of man : considered in relation to external objects / by George Combe. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
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![tue would suggest the thought of both a lawgiver and a I rewarder; the thought of crime, of an avenger; the thought of sorrow, of a consoler ; the thought of an in- scrutable mystery, of an intelligence that understands it; the thought of that ever-moving activity which pre- vails in the system of the universe, of a supreme agent; the thought of the human family, of a great father ; the thought of all being not necessary and self-existent, of a creator; the thought of life, of a preserver; and the thought of death, of an uncontrollable disposer. By what dexterity, therefore, of irreligious caution, did you avoid precisely every track where the idea of him would have met you, or elude that idea if it came I And what must sound reason pronounce of a mind which, in the train of millions of thoughts, has wandered to all things nnder the sun, to all the permanent objects or vanish- I ing appearances in the creation, but never fixed its thought on the Supreme Reality ; never approached, tike Moses, ' to see this great sight ?' If it were a thing which we might be allowed to ima- ; gine, that the Divine Being were to manifest himself in some striking manner to the senses, as by some re- splendent appearance at the midnight hour, or by re- ' kindling on an elevated mountain the long extinguished fires of Sinai, and uttering voices from those fires ; would he not compel from you an attention which you now refuse ] Yes, you will say, he would then seize the mind with irresistible force, and religion would be- come its most absolute sentiment; but he only presents himself to faith. Well, and is it a worthy reason for disregarding him, that you only believe him to be pre- sent and infinitely glorious I Is it the office of faith to , veil or annihilate its object ? Cannot vou reflect, that I the grandest representation of a spiritual and divine j Being to the senses would bear not only no proportion to his glory, but no relation to his nature ; and could be adapted only to an inferior dispensation of religion, and to a people who, with the exception of a most ex- tremely small number of men, had been totally untaught to carry their thoughts beyond the objects of sense 1 Are you not aware, that such a representation would considerably tend to restrict you in your contemplation to a defined image, and therefore a most inadequate life, as will inspire exultation in the retrospect of this introductory period, in which the mind began to con- verse with the God of eternity 1 On the other hand, it would be interesting to record, or to hear, the history of a character which has received its form, and reached its maturity, under the strongest operations of religion. We do not know that there is a more beneficent or a more direct mode of the divine agency in any part of the creation than that which 'apprehends' a man, as apostolic language expresses it, amidst the unthinking crowd, and leads him into seri- ous reflection, into elevated devotion, into progressive virtue, and finally into a nobler life after death. When he has long been commanded by this influence, he will be happv to look back to its first operations,whether they were mingled in early life almost insensibly with his feelings, or came on him with mighty force at some particular time, and in connexion with some assignable and memorable circumstance, which was apparently the instrumental cause. He will trace all the progress of this his better life, with grateful acknowledgment to the sacred power which has advanced him to a deci- siveness of religious habit that seems to stamp eternity on his character. In the greater majority of things, habit is a greater plague than ever afflicted Egypt; in religious character, it is a grand felicity. The devout man exults in the indications of his being fixed and irretrievable. He feels this confirmed habit as the grasp of the hand of God. which will never let him go. From this advanced state he looks with firmness and joy on futurity, and says, I carry the eternal mark upon me that I belong to God ; I am free of the universe ; and I am ready to go to any world to which he shall please to transmit me, certain that every where, in height or depth, he will acknowledge me for ever. and subordiate idea of the divi While the idea admitted by faith, though less immediately striking, is capable of an illimitable expansion, bv the addition of all that progressive thought can accumulate, under the continual certainty that all is still infinitely short of the reality ] On the review of a character thus grown, in the ex- clusion of the religious influences, to the mature and perhaps ultimate state, the sentiment of pious benevo-' lence would be, I regard you as an object of great com- passion : unless there can be no felicity in friendship with the Almighty, unless there be no glorv in being assimilated to his excellence, unless there be no eter- nal rewards for his devoted servants, unless there be no danger in meeting him, at length, after a life estranged equally from his love and his fear. I de- plore, at every period and crisis in the review of your life, that religion was not there. If religion had been there, your youthful animation would neither have been dissipated in the frivolity which, in the morning of the short day of life, fairly and formally sets aside all se- rious business for that day, nor would have sprung for- ward into the emulation of vice, or the bravery of pro- faneness. If religion had been there, that one despica- ble companion, and that other malignant one, would not have seduced you into their societv, or would not have retained you to share their degradation And if religion had accompanied the subsequent progress of your life, it would have elevated you to rank, at this hour, with those saints who will soon be added to ' the spirits of the just.' Instead of which, what are you now, and what are your expectations from that world, where piety alone can hope to find such a sequel of LETTER VII. > Self-knowledge being supposed the principal Object in wri- ting the Memoir, the train of exterior Fortunes and Ac- tions will claim but a subordinate Notice in it—If it were intended for the amusen,ent of the Public, the Writer would do well to fill it rather with Incident and Action — Yet the mere mental History of some Men would be. interesting to reflecting Readers—of a Man. for exam- ple, of a speculative Disposition, who has passed through many Changes of Opinion—Influences that warj) Opin- ion—Effects of Time and Experience on the Notions and Feelings cherished in Early Life—Ferlings of a sensible old Man on viewing a Picture of his own Mind drawn by himself when he was young—Failure of excel- lent Design's: Disappointment of sanguine Hopes—De- gree of Explicitness required in the Record—Conscieiice —Impudence and canting false Pretences of many Wri- ters of ;i Confessions—Rosseau. The preceding letters have attempted to exhibit only general views of the influences bv which a reflective man may perceive the moral condition of his mind to have been determined. In descending into more particular illustrations, thera would have been no end of enumerating the local cir- cumstances, the relationships of life, the professions, and employments, and the accidental events, which may have affected the character. A person who feels anv interest in reviewing what has formed thus far His education for futurity, mav carry his own examination into the most distinct particularity.—A few miscellane- ous observations will conclude the essay. You will have observed that I have said compara- tively little of that which forms the exterior, and in general account the mam substance, of the history of a man's life—the train of his fortunes and actions. If an adventurer or a soldier writes memoirs of himself for the information or amusement of the public, he mav do well to keep his narrative alive by a constant crowd- ed course of facts ; for the greater part of his readers](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21029131_0084.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
