302 PRESENT-DAY RATIONALISM 



was new in the mouth of a legislator. . . . Philosophers 

 had always made it their study to bring their minds into 

 a healthy condition . . . but we do not find Him in agree- 

 ment with philosophers, . . . They placed it in reason 

 . . . He in enthusiasm." ^ 



The ancient Greek philosopher who succeeded by aid 

 of his reason to control his passions from committing 

 acts which according to his ideas of morality were un- 

 advisable was called " virtuous ". But " Christ went 

 further and pronounced the desire in the heart, when the 

 gratification of it would be culpable, to be sin ". Such a 

 man as subdues his tJioughts and not merely suppresses 

 the outward act is called in Christian language " holy ". 



Seeley contrasts the two thus : " The one, so far as 

 he is virtuous, is incapable of crime ; the other, so far as 

 he is virtuous, is incapable of temptation ". Again — " A 

 virtuous man is one who controls and coerces the anarchic 

 passions within him, so as to conform his actions to law ; 

 a holy man is one in whom a passionate enthusiasm 

 absorbs and annuls the anarchic passions altogether, so 

 that no internal struggle takes place ; and the lawful 

 action is that which presents itself first and seems the 

 one most natural and most easy to be done." '^ 



What then was the " enthusiasm " which carries all 

 before it? The law-making power or root of morality 

 in human nature, trained and developed into the Christian 

 spirit, was if^airr) ; " the love not of all men nor yet 

 of every man, but oi the 7nan in every man". ..." It is 

 natural to man to love his kind, and Christ commands 

 us only to give nature play." " What the law of love 

 and the golden rule did for mankind was to place for the 

 first time the love of man as man distinctly in the list of 



iPp. 136, 137. 2 P. 141. 



