Butler's Argument from Analogy. 313 perience of a further different state beyond the limits of this life. If we had, we might freely admit that analogy renders it probable that that state may be as unlike to our actual state, as our actual state is to our state in the womb or in infancy. But that there is the further different state must first, for the argument from analogy to take effect, be proved from experience.-Last Essays. ance. BUTLER'S APPEAL TO OUR IGNORANCE. And BUTLER appeals, and no man ever appealed more impressively than he, to the sense we must have of our ignor Difficulties alleged against the truth of religion, he says, 'are so apparently and wholly founded in our ignorance, that it is wonderful they should be insisted upon by any but such as are weak enough to think they are acquainted with the whole system of things.' he speaks of that infinitely absurd supposition that we know the whole of the case.' But does not the common account of God by theologians, does not Butler's own assertion of the all-foreseeing, quasi-human designer, with a will and a character, go upon the supposition that we know, at any rate, a very great deal, and more than we actually do know, of the case? And are not the difficulties alleged created by that supposition? And is not the appeal to our ignorance in fact an appeal to us, having taken a great deal for granted, to take something more for granted :—namely, that what we at first took for granted has a satisfactory solution somewhere beyond the reach of our knowledge?—Last Essays. RESULT OF THE ANALOGY? THE Wonderful thing about the 'Analogy' is the poor insignificant result, even in Butler's own judgment,-the puny total outcome,-of all this accumulated evidence from analogy, metaphysics, and Bible-history. It is, after all, only 'evidence which keeps the mind in doubt, perhaps in perplexity.' The utmost it is calculated to beget is, a serious doubting apprehension that it may be true.' However, 'in the daily course of life,' says Butler, 'our nature and condition necessarily require us to act upon evidence much lower than what is commonly called probable.' In a matter, then, of such immense practical importance as religion, where the bad consequences of a mistake may be so incalculable, we ought, he says, unhesitatingly to act upon imperfect evidence. 'It ought, in all reason, considering its infinite importance, to have nearly the same influence upon practice, as if it were thoroughly believed!' And such is, really, the upshot of the 'Analogy.' Such is, when all is done, the 'happy alliance' achieved by it 'between faith and philosophy.' But we do not, in the daily course of life, act upon evidence which we ourselves conceive to be much lower than what is commonly called probable. If I am going Result of the Analogy.' 315 to take a walk out of Edinburgh, and thought of choosing the Portobello road, and a travelling menagerie is taking the same road, it is certainly possible that a tiger may escape from the menagerie and devour me if I take that road; but the evidence that he will is certainly, also, much lower than what is commonly called probable. Well, I do not, on that low degree of evidence, avoid the Portobello road and take another. But the duty of acting on such a sort of evidence is really made by Butler the motive for a man's following the road of religion, the way of peace. How utterly unlike is this motive to the motive always supposed in the book itself of our religion, in the Bible! After reading the 'Analogy,' one goes instinctively to bathe one's spirit in the Bible again, to be refreshed by its boundless certitude and exhilaration. 'The Eternal is the strength of my life!' 'the foundation of God standeth sure! '—that is the constant tone of religion in the Bible. 'If I tell you the truth, why do ye not believe me?—the evident truth, that whoever comes to me has life; and evident, because whoever does come, gets it!' That is the evidence to constrain our practice which is offered by Christianity.-Last Essays. THE ANALOGY' TO-DAY. LET us, then, confess it to ourselves plainly. The 'Analogy,' the great work on which such immense praise has been lavished, is, for all real intents and purposes now, a failure; it does not serve. It seemed once to have a spell and a power; but the Zeit-Geist breathes upon it, and we rub our eyes, and it has the spell and the power no longer. It has the effect upon me, as I contemplate it, of a stately and severe fortress, with thick and high walls, built of old to control the kingdom of evil ;but the gates are open, and the guards gone.-Last Essays. GREATNESS OF BUtler. AND yet, in spite of his gloom, in spite of the failure of his 'Analogy' to serve our needs, Butler remains a personage of real grandeur for us. This pathetic figure, with its earnestness, its strenuous rectitude, its firm faith both in religion and in reason, does in some measure help us, does point the way for us. Butler's profound sense, that inattention to religion implies 'a dissolute immoral temper of mind,' engraves itself upon his readers' thoughts also, and comes to govern them. His conviction, that religion and Christianity do somehow 'in themselves entirely fall in with our natural sense of things,' that they are true, and that their truth, moreover, is somehow to be established and justified on plain grounds of reason,— this wholesome and invaluable conviction, also, gains upon us as we read him. The ordinary religionists of Butler's day might well be startled, as they were, by this bishop with the strange, novel, and unhallowed notion, full of Greatness of Butler. 317 With dangerous consequence, of 'referring mankind to a law of nature or virtue, written on their hearts.' The pamphleteer, who accused Butler of dying a Papist, declares plainly that he for his part has no better opinion of the certainty, clearness, uniformity, universality, &c., of this law, than he has of the importance of external religion.' But Butler did believe in the certainty of this law. It was the real foundation of things for him. awful reverence, he saluted, and he set himself to study and to follow, this 'course of life marked out for man by nature, whatever that nature be.' And he was for perfect fairness of mind in considering the evidence for this law, or for anything else. 'It is fit things be stated and considered as they really are.' 'Things are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be; why, then, should we desire to be deceived?' And he believed in reason. 'I express myself with caution, lest I should be mistaken to vilify reason, which is indeed the only faculty we have wherewith to judge concerning anything, even religion itself.' Such was Butler's fidelity to that sacred light to which religion makes too many people false,―reason.—Last Essays. BISHOP WILSON'S MAXIMS, BISHOP WILSON'S 'Maxims of Piety and Christianity' deserve to be circulated as a religious book, not only by comparison with the cartloads of rubbish circulated at |