Aids to Reflection; and, The Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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was customary with religious men in former times, to make a rule of taking every morning some text, or aphorism,[27] for their occasional meditation during the day, and thus to fill up the intervals of their attention to business. I do not point it out for imitation, as knowing too well, how apt these self-imposed rules are to degenerate into superstition or hollowness; otherwise I would have recommended the following as the first exercise.
[27] In accordance with a preceding remark, on the use of etymology in disciplining the youthful mind to thoughtful habits, and as consistent with the title of this work, 'Aids to Reflection,' I shall offer no apology for the following and similar notes:
Aphorism, determinate position, from the Greek, ap, from; and horizein, to bound or limit; whence our horizon.—In order to get the full sense of a word, we should first present to our minds the visual image that forms its primary meaning. Draw lines of different colours round the different counties of England, and then cut out each separately, as in the common play-maps that children take to pieces and put together—so that each district can be contemplated apart from the rest, as a whole in itself. This twofold act of circumscribing, and detaching, when it is exerted by the mind on subjects of reflection and reason, is to aphorize, and the result an aphorism.
APHORISM XXVI.
It is a dull and obtuse mind, that must divide in order to distinguish; but it is a still worse, that distinguishes in order to divide. In the former, we may contemplate the source of superstition and idolatry;[28] in the latter, of schism, heresy,[29] and a seditious and sectarian spirit.[30]
[28] Το Νοητον διηρηκασιν εις πολλων Θεων Ιδιοτητας.—Damasc. de Myst. Egypt; that is, They divided the intelligible into many and several individualities.
[29] From αἱρεσις. Though well aware of its formal and apparent derivation from haireo, I am inclined to refer both words to airo, as the primitive term, containing the primary visual image, and therefore should explain hæresis, as a wilful raising into public notice, an uplifting (for display) of any particular opinion differing from the established belief of the church at large, and making it a ground of schism, that is, division.
[30] I mean these words in their large and philosophic sense in relation to the spirit, or originating temper and tendency, and not to any one mode under which, or to any one class, in or by which it may be displayed. A seditious spirit may (it is possible, though not probable) exist in the council-chamber of a palace as strongly as in a mob in Palace-Yard; and a sectarian spirit in a cathedral, no less than in a conventicle.
APHORISM XXVII.
Exclusive of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism.
APHORISM XXVIII.
On the prudential influence which the fear or foresight of the consequences of his actions, in respect of his own loss or gain, may exert on a newly-converted Believer.
Precautionary remark.—I meddle not with the dispute respecting conversion, whether, and in what sense, necessary in all Christians. It is sufficient for my purpose, that a very large number of men, even in Christian countries, need to be converted, and that not a few, I trust, have been. The tenet becomes fanatical and dangerous, only when rare and extraordinary exceptions are made to be the general rule;—when what was vouchsafed to the apostle of the Gentiles by especial grace, and for an especial purpose, namely, a conversion[31] begun and completed in the same moment, is demanded or expected of all men, as a necessary sign and pledge of their election. Late observations have shown, that under many circumstances the magnetic needle, even after the disturbing influence has been removed, will keep wavering, and require many days before it points aright, and remains steady to the pole. So is it ordinarily with the soul, after it has begun to free itself from the disturbing forces of the flesh and the world, and to convert[32] itself towards God.
[31] Whereas Christ's other disciples had a breeding under him, St. Paul was born an apostle; not carved out, as the rest, by degrees and in course of time, but a fusile apostle, an apostle poured out and cast in a mould. As Adam was a perfect man in an instant, so was St. Paul a perfect Christian. The same spirit was the lightning that melted, and the mould that received and shaped him.—Donne's Sermons—quoted from memory.
[32] From the Latin, convertere—that is, by an act of the will to turn towards the true pole, at the same time (for this is the force of the prepositive con) that the understanding is convinced and made aware of its existence and direction.
APHORISM XXIX.
Awakened by the cock-crow, (a sermon, a calamity, a sick bed, or a providential escape) the Christian pilgrim sets out in the morning twilight, while yet the truth (the νομος τελειος ὁ της ἑλευθεριας) is below the horizon. Certain necessary consequences of his past life and his present undertaking will be seen by the refraction of its light: more will be apprehended and conjectured. The phantasms, that had predominated during the hours of darkness, are still busy. Though they no longer present themselves as distinct forms, they yet remain as formative motions in the pilgrim's soul, unconscious of its own activity and overmastered by its own workmanship. Things take the signature of thought. The shapes of the recent dream become a mould for the objects in the distance; and these again give an outwardness and a sensation of reality to the shapings of the dream. The bodings inspired by the long habit of selfishness, and self-seeking cunning, though they are now commencing the process of their purification into that fear which is the beginning of wisdom, and which, as such, is ordained to be our guide and safeguard, till the sun of love, the perfect law of liberty, is fully arisen—these bodings will set the fancy at work, and haply, for a time, transform the mists of dim and imperfect knowledge into determinate superstitions. But in either case, whether seen clearly or dimly, whether beholden or only imagined, the consequences, contemplated in their bearings on the individual's inherent[33] desire of happiness and dread of pain, become motives: and (unless all distinction in the words be done away with, and either prudence or virtue be reduced to a superfluous synonyme, a redundancy in all the languages of the civilized world), these motives, and the acts and forbearances directly proceeding from them, fall under the head of prudence, as belonging to one or other of its four very distinct species.
I. It may be a prudence, that stands in opposition to a higher moral life, and tends to preclude it, and to prevent the soul from ever arriving at the hatred of sin for its own exceeding sinfulness (Rom. vii. 13): and this is an evil prudence.
II. Or it may be a neutral prudence, not incompatible with spiritual growth: and to this we may, with especial propriety, apply the words of our Lord, "What is not against us is for us." It is therefore an innocent, and (being such)