THE

PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY.

BY THE

REV. CANON BIRKS, M.A.,

PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN

RESPONSIBILITY.

S Man responsible at all for his conduct? On what

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fact or principle in his nature does this responsibility rest? Why must he make answer for himself, and to whom? Is there any ground in the reason of things to confirm the sayings of Scripture: "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment;" "So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God"? These are the questions now before us. They call for a grave examination, and, if possible, a clear reply; for they plainly involve an issue of immense importance to ourselves and to all mankind.

There is in these days, you are aware, a so-called philosophy, which denies that man is a responsible being. He is, in its view, a certain amount of developed protoplasm, or of transformed solar force, which has some strange dreams it mistakes for realities, and thus fancies itself to be an individual being, a respon

It

sible agent. But these delusions, with the parcels of matter to which they adhere, were all once potentially in some wide ocean of cosmic vapour. From the forces then at work in that wonderful matrix, a sufficient intelligence, it is thought, could have predicted, among other changes, these day-dreams of the human portion of the earth's Fauna, " with as much certainty as one can say what will happen to the vapour of the breath on a winter's day." If so, all conscience of right and wrong must be a delusion, judgment to come a mere fable, and immortality a dream. In the name of natural science, the common foundations of morality and religion are assailed. is needful, then, to examine them once more. The negative philosophy professes to trace three steps in the history of every science, the childish or theological, the youthful or metaphysical, and the positive or perfect stage, in which religion and metaphysics have been completely cast aside. A counter law may be laid down, far nearer to the truth, which distinguishes a low starting point, and three successive stages in the ascent to perfect wisdom. The starting point is simple ignorance, or natural and moral nescience. The first stage is that of Natural Science and Moral Nescience. The second is that of Natural and Moral Science, but Spiritual Nescience. The last and highest is that of Natural, Moral, and Spiritual Science, when the awakened conscience finds rest and peace in a still higher truth, revealed to it from above. It then begins to see

all nature, and all the complex varieties of human life, in the light that streams down from His presence, all whose ways are judgment, and whose name is Love!

First, then, we live in a world of perpetual change. Every child of man has his lot cast amidst a sea of countless phenomena, varying every moment. In this first stage of thought he sees them, and watches them with curious, wondering eyes, but looks no farther. Every thing merely happens. Countless changes are happening daily. But why they happen, whence they come, and whither they go, he makes no inquiry. The kaleidoscope has been shaken, and another image succeeds the one which fades away. Chance reigns without, and this is merely another name for ignorance within. All is appearance only, and nature is nothing more than a restless phantasmagoria of worthless dreams.

Now Positive Science, as defined by its own promulgator, really answers to this first and infant stage of thought, where ignorance reigns and science is unborn. Theology has been shut out, and with it the Great First Cause, on whom all science depends. Metaphysics are shut out also, and with these all second causes, and those metaphysical ideas, Being, Force, and Substance. Phenomena are to be simply registered, and their laws ascertained. But those laws are laws of force, laws for things and persons, material and spiritual substances. Exclude all force, and we have countless phenomena, perpetually changing, but no