from the thraldom of a foreign causality—a causality which, ever since the Fall of Man, must be admitted to unfold itself in each individual's case, in a dark tissue of unqualified evil—we have but to admit that the working out of this freedom is the great end of man, and constitutes his true self; and we have also but to admit that whatever conduces to the accomplishment of this end is right; and the question just broached easily resolves itself. For, supposing man not to be originally free, let us ask how is the end of human liberty to be attained? Is it to be attained by passively imbibing the various impressions forced upon us from without? Is it to be attained by yielding ourselves up in pliant obedience to the manifold modifications which stamp their moulds upon us from within? Unquestionably not. All these impressions and modifications constitute the very badges of our slavery. They are the very trophies of the causal conquests of nature planted by her on the ground where the true man ought to have stood, but where he fell. Now, since human freedom, the great end of man, is thus contravened by these passive conditions and susceptibilities of his nature, therefore it is that they are wrong. And, by the same rule, an act of resistance put forth against them is right, inasmuch as an act of this kind contributes, every time it is exerted, to the accomplishment of that great end.
Now, looking to our hatred of our enemies, we see that this is a natural passion which is most strongly forced upon us by the tyranny of the causal law; therefore it tends to obliterate and counteract our freedom. But our freedom constitutes our true and moral selves—it is the very essence of our proper personality: therefore, to entertain, to yield to this passion, is wrong, is moral death, is the extinction of our freedom, of our moral being, however much it may give life to the natural man. And, by the same consequence, to resist this passion, to act against it, to sacrifice it, is right, is free and moral life, however much this act may give the death-stroke to our natural feelings and desires.
But how shall we, or how do we, or how can we, act against our hatred of our enemies? We answer, simply by becoming conscious of it. By turning upon it a reflective eye (a process by no means agreeable to our natural heart), we force it to faint and fade away before our glance. In this act we turn the tables (so to speak) upon the passion, whatever it may be, that is possessing us. Instead of its possessing us, we now possess it. Instead of our being in its hands, it is now in our hands. Instead of its being our master, we have now become its; and thus is the first step of our moral advancement taken; thus is enacted the first act of that great drama in which demons are transformed into men. In this act of consciousness, founded, as we have elsewhere seen, upon will, and by which man becomes transmuted from a natural into a moral being, we perceive the prelude or dawning of that still higher regeneration which Christianity imparts, and which advances man onwards from the precincts of morality into the purer and loftier regions of religion. We will venture to affirm that this consciousness, or act of antagonism, is the ground or condition, in virtue of which that still higher dispensation is enabled to take effect upon us, and this we shall endeavour to make out in its proper place. In the meantime to return to our point:—
In the absence of consciousness, the passion—(of hatred, for instance)—reigns and ranges unalloyed, and goes forth to the fulfilment of its natural issues, unbridled and supreme. But the moment consciousness comes into play against it, the colours of the passion become less vivid, and its sway less despotic. It is to a certain extent dethroned and sacrificed even upon the first appearance of consciousness; and if this antagonist act manfully maintain its place, the sceptre of passion is at length completely wrested from her hands: and thus consciousness is a moral act—is the foundation-stone of our moral character and existence.
If the reader should be doubtful of the truth and soundness of this doctrine—namely, that consciousness (whether viewed in its own unsystematic form, or in the systematic shape which it assumes when it becomes philosophy) is an act which of itself tends to put down the passions—these great, if not sole, sources of human wickedness; perhaps he will be willing
