38 MEMORIAL SKETCH. 



their place and value. His attention had not yet been 

 called, either by literary criticism or by the study of the 

 conditions under which beliefs are formed, to the origin 

 and composition of the Gospel narratives. 



To impugn the miracles as facts (he wrote to his brother 

 Russell, in the letter just quoted. February 2, 1845), seems to 

 me to indicate a very incorrect view of the nature of evidence ; 

 and the desire to do so which prompts the attempt shows, I 

 think, a very perverted view of the real character of revelation 

 as well as of the import of " natural laws." 



Miracles were, in fact, the manifestation of some higher law. 

 The conception of the uniformity of the Divine action 

 in the universe had at this time so complete a sway over 

 Dr. Carpenter's mind that he surrendered to it even the 

 entire range of human thought and volition. In later 

 days he became known as the ardent opponent of that 

 interpretation of our consciousness now designated as " de- 

 " terminism." But his earlier studies had only strengthened 

 him in the strict necessarian ideas of his original education. 

 He had been trained by his father in the principles of 

 Hartley; his psychological text-book had been James Mill's 

 "Analysis of the Human Mind;" and his acquaintance 

 with John Stuart Mill, and the perusal of his treatise on 

 Logic, had not tended to weaken the general notions thus 

 impressed upon him. These notions appeared confirmed 

 by his scientific inquiries, which had hitherto dealt entirely 

 with the world of matter, and had not yet extended to the 

 processes of the mind. He was saved from the conse- 

 quences of the elder Mill's dissection of the idea of God by 

 his acceptance of a doctrine of revelation ; and, under the 

 strong belief in the presence of design in nature, his empi- 

 rical philosophy and his religion found a comfortable shelter 

 together. Accordingly, in another of the Inquirer papers 

 already quoted, he affirms (§ 97) "that all human actions 



