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| style="text-align:left; width:25%;" | September 16, 1882.] | |||
| style="text-align:center; width:50%;" | LIGHT. | |||
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{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued|Thoughts on Necessity and Freedom of Will.|14-30}} | {{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued|Thoughts on Necessity and Freedom of Will.|14-30}} | ||
... | {{Style P-No indent|and as with every other faculty, by exercising he strengthens them in his progress.}} | ||
Progress is the great law of moral life; it is the reason and object of man’s being. It is the law of universal existence: creation is a continual progress. From the moment of beings appearing on the face of the earth life has progressed in development—from species to species; organs have been perfected; powers have been extended. Science, although still hypothetical as to the process of the formation of beings, is certain as to the progressive evolution of life. | |||
This evolution is disenthralled freedom. In organisms progressively more and more perfected, physical life escapes more and more from the trammels of inert matter, refines, extends, and potentialises its means of action and locomotion. The blind, mechanical, necessitated instincts of the first beings become progressively reflecting, calculating, voluntary. It is still the urging impulse of wants which directs the animal; but, in the choice of means, in the combination of efforts, there is a progressive advance in intelligence and will; the being is free to crawl or to skip, to make attack or await it. Physical freedom and expansion of instincts are proportionate to organisms, as, afterwards, in man’s life, moral freedom and expansion of conscience become proportionate to his progressively developing faculties. | |||
Economy of means and unity of movement characterise in every realm and order of nature the simple yet potent processes of life. The law which rules in organic evolutions rules also in moral development; and this law is progressive disenthralment of freedom, operating more and more complete construction of the being in spontaneity, will, and consciousness. | |||
The word freedom has two significations: (1) a property of Being, and (2) a state of Being. Man, species or individual, has, at the commencement of life, no more freedom than he has intelligence and reason. Freedom, like the other faculties of his being, is dormant within him. It becomes progressively disenthralled in accordance with the awakening and expansion of perception, reflection, affection and intellect; in all of which education aids. As mind and conditions of life differ, so freedom differs in degree. This brings us face to face with the problem of justice. | |||
It is comprehensible that the responsibility of the being is proportionate to the amount of freedom presiding over his acts, and that where the light of conscience is wanting there is no culpability. By admitting the plea of extenuating circumstances into criminal procedures human justice, unlike the theology which damns all the guilty without distinction, recognises shades of responsibility. | |||
Whence the disproportion in faculties, in aptitudes, in strength? Why have some intelligence, good affection, free disposal of themselves, and means of social enjoyment, while others have gross appetites, low selfishness, and means of satisfying merely the animal wants? | |||
Infinite variety, it is contended, is necessary for the manifestation of all the powers of being, for the realisation of all its possible types, for furnishing scope for the soul’s discipline and the play of moral harmonies with their concords and discords; but in the general evolution of existence are individuals to be considered as nought? Sown hap-hazard, like seed-corn, which may germinate or fail, produce abortive shoots or healthy plants with full ears—is this really, as is averred, according to “God’s good pleasure?” Is it “God’s good pleasure” to scatter broadcast favours and severities without regard to justice, reason, or mercy? to give some genius, to others imbecility, to some refined perception, delicate sentiment, high thought, to others low passion, sordid calculation, and the gross excitements of an animal? Can all this be decreed by divine law? Let us rather believe that nature provides infinite means for man collectively, that it is not necessary for individuals to be sacrificed to the species, that the requirements for the manifestations of moral life could be met without injustice to individuals. If, contemplating the inequalities and iniquities in life about us, some think that there is no over-ruling principle of justice, may it not be because our view is limited in time as it is in space, that, as we perceive neither the past nor the future, we are not able to appreciate facts, the causes and issues of which are beyond our ken? | |||
Defects, diversities, and disproportions in faculties and conditions in present lots, do they not suggest to our reason a future destiny? Do they not point to the assurance that life is continuous into a different state in which injustice is not? In the depths of the past is the secret of present grievous inequalities, and in the depths of the future reparation will doubtless be found. | |||
<center>* * * *</center> | |||
Moral freedom, we have said, disenthrals itself in proportion to the growth of the intellectual faculties. From what does it disenthral itself? What are the trammels through which it has to struggle? | |||
The philosophies, the religions, the orthodox moralities by which, with their codes and dogmas, human societies have been swayed from the earliest down to modern times, have taken no account of the difference of intensity in the impelling forces of human action. Theologians and legislators have regarded freedom of will as a settled condition of all humanity, and have assigned to all a complete responsibility. Thus they have caused to be hatched, by re-action, those other doctrines, no less false, which, taking account only of the bonds upon freedom by the sway of instinct, have proclaimed an absolute necessity, and denied all responsibility. | |||
The doctrine of progress meets the claims of both of these, so opposed to each other; it takes account of those blind forces, and metes out responsibility according to elevation of conscience and power of will. | |||
Man is rooted in the lower world which is governed by necessity; above this he has to rise to enter into the real human life—the moral life. The struggle, in rising, which takes place in the inmost of the being, between the two hostile forces—necessity and freedom—is the greatest struggle of life. | |||
Antecedent to man, necessity is the sole side of existence. All beings arise from it and blindly obey it. To rule them it establishes processes; by attraction they are led to the fulfilment of their destinies—the conservation, propagation, and progression of species. In these processes the being seeks only its own satisfaction. Necessity proceeds by selfishness: look at the animal, the child, the gross man in whom instinct is paramount; selfishness, absolute, pitiless, is their law. | |||
{{ | What, say you, childhood pitiless? Yes! like the animal, the elementary man, the man of the infantine races. When pity comes moral life begins. The soul then begins to shake off the husk of self. How many ages are needed, how many generations have to succeed each other, for the total subjugation of the merely selfish impulses of primitive nature, and for freeing man to live harmoniously with his fellows, and in accord with the dictates of justice, conscience, and reason! | ||
Man cannot disenthral himself wholly from the bonds of the lower life until he has a higher ideal than selfish covetousness, until he listens for the moral harmonies which are the true and enlarging medium for his soul. | |||
<center>* * * *</center> | |||
Thus the conscious personality, the human soul, a simple virtuality at the beginning, still moved by the attractions of animality, disengages itself more and more from the rule of the lower passions in proportion to the development of its faculties and enlargement of its horizons. By the side of selfish natural wants, other desires, sentiments, and feelings awaken. Perceiving that he is weak alone against the blind forces in operation about him—that Nature, in not giving him the arms, covering, and instinct of other beings, requires that he should consort with others—he falls in to live with them a life of combined effort. Then arise those social relations which determine moral life with its notions of duty, right, pity, sympathy, justice. The husk of self is expanded, and the being enters into the life of others. | |||
<center>* * * *</center> | |||
Violence, fraud, iniquity give rise to compassion, devotedness, and noble indignation. The excesses of evil give birth to the idea of good. Among those themselves who are swayed by brute passion, humanity reveals itself by that interior trouble which follows all violation of moral law. The destiny of man is supreme good, and towards this destiny he is urged even by the evil which he commits. | |||
All are called, all are chosen. The law of progress impels us forward. We are good in a certain measure, masters of our time and of our road; we can resist, we can flee, take bye-paths, or lie down by the road-side; but we have that within us which admonishes us if we do not keep on in the road to our destiny. | |||
Up to what point are we responsible to divine law? That is decided by our conscience. It is that which determines the degree of freedom to which we have attained. The child is heedless of the voice of his mother calling him; he follows his impulses, his instincts, his caprices; he resists the providence which would guide his first steps. For him also responsibility is proportionate to the reason which begins to enlighten his young soul; the mother lets him err and suffer, knowing that the best teaching is that which he receives directly, and that he will progress the more surely, confidently, and happily through his own discoveries and his self-instructed will. | |||
What a mother does for her child universal providence does for the species. Our freedom moves in a circle traced by sovereign law; but this circle is large enough to leave full play to the movements of conscience, and to allow us the legitimate pride and happiness of owing our progress towards good and our moral elevation in life to our own will and efforts. | |||
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| source title = Light | | source title = Light | ||
| source details = v. 2, No. 89, September 16, 1882 | | source details = v. 2, No. 89, September 16, 1882 | ||
| publication date = 1882-09-16 | | publication date = 1882-09-16 | ||
| original date = | | original date = | ||
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... | {{Style S-Small capitals|Mr. E. W. Wallis,}} the well-known trance lecturer, is prepared to receive subscriptions for “{{Style S-Small capitals|Light}}” at his place of business, 82, Radford-road, Nottingham, where he has recently entered upon the sale of stationery, fancy goods, &c. Mr. Wallis still continues his lecturing engagements in all parts of the country, and his services in that direction are highly appreciated at all places that he visits. | ||
{{HPB-SB-footer-footnotes}} | {{HPB-SB-footer-footnotes}} | ||
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Light v.02 n.89 1882-09-16.pdf|page=3|Light, v. 2, No. 89, September 16, 1882, p. 411 | |||
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