Books: To Infidelity and Back
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Henry F. Lutz >> To Infidelity and Back
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I discovered sufficient truth in this claim to open my eyes to the
fact that I had been deceived and had followed the fallible part of
my conscience, which is a creature of education, as though it were
infallible and the voice of God.
It will be noticed that eternal life depends on the infallible
element of conscience, while stupendous, yet only mundane, interests
depend upon its fallible element. This is a mystery that perplexes a
great many people. Is ignorance an excuse? Does it not matter what
you believe, just so you are honest? The highest and best thing
anybody can ever do, is to follow his conscience, or the voice of his
highest moral and spiritual nature. This the teaching of Scripture
from Genesis to Revelation. To teach that God would damn a soul for
doing this is destructive of all moral distinctions, and is as
abominable as the old doctrine that God elects certain people and
damns others irrespective of their thoughts and conduct. Ignorance is
an excuse if it is _innocent ignorance_. What about those who are
willfully ignorant? or those who have a seared conscience? They are
not following their conscience at all. Conscience insists that we
make every possible effort to get the truth. By a seared conscience
we mean a person who does not follow his conscience at all, and he
knows it.
We know that ignorant innocence is an excuse in the sight of God, but
we do not know who is innocently ignorant. The former fact is
revealed to us in the Bible, but the latter is known only to God.
Therefore in these matters we should "judge nothing before the time,
until the Lord come, who will bring to light the hidden things of
darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the heart; and then shall
each man have his praise from God" (I Cor. 4:5).
Nothing has ever been revealed more clearly in the Bible than that
innocent ignorance is an excuse in the sight of God. The cities of
refuge and the entire ceremonial law were based upon this fact.
Christ said, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do"
(Luke 23:34). James says, "To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth
it not, to him it is sin" (Jas. 4:17). In Acts 17:30 we read, "The
times of ignorance therefore God overlooked." In the second chapter
of Romans Paul makes it clear that each person shall be judged by the
light that comes to him, whether in or out of the law or of the
gospel. Heathen people, who never heard the gospel, will not be
condemned for rejecting the gospel, but for rejecting the light that
came to them through their conscience and through other sources. "For
this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men
loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil"
(John 3:19). But we will be condemned if we do not do all in our
power to bring the gospel to the heathen.
We need not worry about the pious, conscientious peoples scattered
among the sectarian churches; but we need to worry lest we do not do
all in our power to make it impossible for them to remain pious and
conscientious while upholding sectarianism. It is our duty to help
them to understand the Word; and if, after they understand it, they
refuse to obey it, they are under condemnation. But we cannot and
dare not decide whether they understand it or not. It is ours to
preach the Word, and it will judge them in that Great Day.
The ground or mainspring of conscience is love--love of the well-
being or welfare of all sentient beings, or of all beings capable of
enjoying happiness. Our conscience goads us to do what love demands
as our duty. He who, through want of discrimination, ignores the love
element in conscience, becomes a cruel misanthrope, and is misguided
by a perverted conscience. May the Lord help us to clear up our minds
on this subject of conscience so that this divine light may lead us
onward and upward towards perfection in holiness; and that this eye
of the moral nature may not be deprived of love and knowledge and
thus flounder around like a blind giant spreading misery and
suffering everywhere.
The Feelings or Emotions.
Psychology divides the mind into intellect, sensibilities and will.
This is doubtless a valuable classification in a general way. But the
classification is very general and indefinite. Indeed, school
psychology has confined itself almost entirely to a consideration of
the _general operations_ of the mind and has given us very little
light on the classification of the mental faculties. The limited
attempts at classification have varied considerably according to the
subjective make-up of the author, as the classifications were based
on introspection.
While the deductive, axiomatic or intuitive, scholastic or
introspective methods of inquiry prevailed in the intellectual world,
systems of philosophy, psychology and theology were built up
according to the peculiar subjective nature of their author, and held
the field until some other strong mind projected its views of the
subject and thus rivaled or supplanted the other systems. It was the
modern inductive or empirical method of investigation, introduced by
Bacon, Locke, Mill and others, that has put knowledge on a real
scientific basis and has led to the marvelous scientific and material
progress of recent times. I believe the time is not far distant when
the old medieval, introspective psychology of the schools will be
displaced by a more scientific system. All that is of value in the
old system will be retained, but the most valuable psychological
knowledge will come from the new system. That this need is generally
recognized by those who have given the matter most attention, is
evidenced by the words of that prince of modern psychologists,
Professor James, when he says, "At present psychology is in the
condition of physics before Galileo and the laws of motion or of
chemistry before Lavoisier." I believe that phrenology has blazed the
way for this new psychology. It was violently attacked by the old-
school psychologists because it taught that the brain is the
instrument of the mind, that the mind has a plurality of faculties
and that various brain functions can be localized. Every one
conversant with the present literature on physiology and psychology
will see that phrenologists have conquered, and that their basic
principles are now accepted by all. It is now simply a matter of the
application of these principles by further investigation. The
psychologists have made some progress in brain localization through
various mechanical and more or less abnormal methods of
investigation. When they come to a more sensible and natural method
of inquiry by observing the concomitance between various brain
developments and various mental traits, I feel sure that they will
have to admit that the phrenologists are essentially right in their
brain localizations, just as they have already admitted that they are
right in their basic principles.
That the tide is already turning is manifest from the following
quotations.
Alfred Russell Wallace, one of the greatest of scientists, in his
book, "The Wonderful Century," says: "I begin with the subject of
phrenology, a science of whose substantial truth and vast importance
I have no more doubt than I have of the value and importance of any
of the great intellectual advances already recorded.
"In the coming century, phrenology will assuredly attain general
acceptance. It will prove itself to be the true science of mind. Its
practical use in education, in self-discipline, in the reformatory
treatment of criminals, and in the remedial treatment of the insane,
will give it one of the highest places in the hierarchy of sciences;
and its persistent neglect and obloquy during the last sixty years,
will be referred to as an example of the almost incredible narrowness
and prejudice which prevailed among men of science at the very time
they were making such splendid advances in other fields of thought
and action."
Benard Hollander, M.D., F.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., in his late book on
"Functions of the Brain," says: "What Gall knew at the close of the
eighteenth century is only just dawning upon the scientists of the
present day. The history of Gall and his doctrine is given in these
pages, and will be quite a revelation to the reader. No subject has
ever been so thoroughly misrepresented, even by learned men of
acknowledged authority." In his "Scientific Phrenology," Dr.
Hollander says: "In this volume I have laid stress on the strictly
phrenological method of observing special parts of the brain,
distinct lobes and convolutions, and comparing their size to
development of the rest of the brain--which, if applied in
conjunction with the study of the mental characteristics of our
fellow-beings, would enable us to make observations by the million.
This method, which was considered unscientific, and hence shunned,
for a long time, has found favor with scientists, since the author's
first papers on scientific phrenology were published in 1886, and was
for the first time advocated publicly last year by Dr. Cunningham,
professor of anatomy in Dublin University, in his presidential
address to the Anthropological Section of the British Association at
their meeting in Glasgow. Dr. Cunningham was upheld by Sir Wm.
Turner, professor of anatomy at Edinburgh University and president of
the General Medical Council, who, like Sir Sam. Wilks, the expresident
of the College of Physicians, and the late Sir James Paget,
besides others with whom I have not come in contact, have always kept
an open mind on this subject. In Germany, Dr. Landois, professor of
physiology at Griefswalt, has been long urging a reinvestigation of
Gall's doctrines; Dr. R. Sommer, professor of clinical psychiatry at
Griessen, recommends it, not dogmatically, but as a working
hypothesis; and the Swiss professor of physiology, Dr. Von Bunge, in
his text-book just published, acts as pioneer in devoting two
chapters to a rehabilitation of Gall; Dr. Mobius, of Leipsic, has
published several books on the same subject, and, quite lately, the
renowned professor of psychiatry in the University of Vienna, Dr. R.
Von Krafft-Ebing, has joined in the defense of this great discovery."
Beecher said that if he were in the pulpit without his knowledge of
phrenology, he would feel like a mariner at sea without a compass;
and he declared: "All my life long I have been in the habit of using
phrenology as that which solves the practical phenomena of life. I
regard it far more useful, practical and sensible than any other
system of mental philosophy which has yet been evolved."
Horace Mann said: "I declare myself a hundred times more indebted to
phrenology than to all the metaphysical works that I ever read. . . .
I look upon phrenology as the guide to philosophy and the handmaid of
Christianity. Whoever disseminates true phrenology is a public
benefactor."
Joseph Cook declared: "Choosing a foreman or clerk, guiding the
education of children, settling my judgment of men in public or
private life, estimating a wife or husband, and their fitness for
each other, or endeavoring to understand myself and to select the
right occupation, there is no advice of which I so often feel the
need as that of a thoroughly able, scientific, experienced and
Christian phrenologist."
Oliver Wendell Holmes changed his views on phrenology in his maturer
years and said: "We owe phrenology a great debt. It has melted the
world's conscience in its crucible and cast it in a new mould, with
features less like those of Moloch and more like those of humanity."
Andrew Carnegie said: "Not to know phrenology is sure to keep you
standing on the 'Bridge of Sighs' all your life."
I think the superiority of the phrenological classification of the
mental powers to that of other systems of psychology will be apparent
from the following:
Phrenological Analysis of Mental Faculties.
I. Domestic Propensities (Family Affections).
1. Amativeness--Love between the sexes.
2. Conjugality--Matrimony, love of one.
3. Parental Love--Regard for offspring, pets, etc.
4. Friendship, sociability.
5. Inhabitiveness--Love of home.
6. Continuity--One thing at a time.
II. Selfish Propensities (Lookout for "No. 1").
1. Vitativeness--Love of life.
2. Combativeness--Resistance, defense.
3. Destructiveness--Executiveness, force.
4. Alimentiveness--Appetite, hunger.
5. Acquisitiveness--Accumulation.
6. Secretiveness--Policy, management.
7. Bibativeness--Fondness for liquids.
III. Selfish Sentiments (Promote Self-interests).
1. Cautiousness--Prudence, provision.
2. Approbativeness--Ambition, display.
3. Self-esteem--Self-respect, dignity.
4. Firmness--Decision, perseverance.
IV. Moral Sentiments (Religion and Morality).
1. Conscientiousness--Justice, equity.
2. Hope--Expectation, enterprise.
3. Spirituality--Intuition, faith, credulity.
4. Veneration--Devotion, respect.
5. Benevolence--Kindness, goodness.
V. Semi-intellectual Sentiments (Self-perfecting Group).
1. Constructiveness--Mechanical ingenuity.
2. Ideality--Refinement, taste, purity.
3. Sublimity--Love of grandeur, infinitude.
4. Imitation--Copying, patterning.
5. Mirthfulness--Jocoseness, wit, fun.
6. Human Nature--Perception of motives.
7. Agreeableness--Pleasantness, suavity.
VI. Intellectual Faculties.
1. Perceptive Faculties (Perceive physical qualities).
(1) Individuality--Observation, desire to see.
(2) Form--Recollection of shape.
(3) Size--Measuring by the eye.
(4) Weight--Balancing, climbing.
(5) Color--Judgment of colors.
(6) Order--Method, system, arrangement.
(7) Calculation--Mental arithmetic.
(8) Locality--Recollection of places.
2. Semi-perceptive or Literary Faculties.
(1) Eventuality--Memory of facts.
(2) Time--Cognizance of duration.
(3) Tune--Sense of harmony and melody.
(4) Language--Expression of ideas.
3. Reasoning or Reflective Faculties.
(1) Causality--Applying causes to effects.
(2) Comparison--Inductive reasoning.
NOTE.--These definitions are taken from "The Self-instructor," Fowler
& Wells Co., New York, the leading phrenological publishing-house.
I have received more help for my practical work in the ministry from
phrenology than from any other half-dozen studies, except the Bible.
Even if its physical basis could not be substantiated, its analysis
of the mental faculties is far better and more helpful than that of
any other system of psychology. While it places the intellectual,
moral and spiritual faculties at the top as supreme, it is just as
vitally interested in the care of the body, education, discipline,
self-culture, choice of occupation, matrimonial adaptation, heredity
and all the practical affairs of life. How could a person be more
healthy, happy and successful than by normally and harmoniously
developing all his faculties as phrenology points them out to him?
Phrenology teaches that the mind has certain elementary, selective
instincts, or propensities and sentiments, that attract to them the
mental food germane to their function just as the various cells of
the body select from the blood the elements required. I say that
these instincts have selective power, but they are subject to
perversion, and dependent upon the guidance of judgment and
knowledge, just as conscience does. Take, for example, the appetite
for different kinds of food, the faculty of music, judgment of color,
beauty, etc.; and you will see at once that they have selective
power, but that this power can become perverted, and thus lead to
great difference of opinion. Notice that while these faculties are
not infallible guides, and need the earnest help of other faculties
to be the most useful to us, no one can deny that they point toward
truth on these subjects, and are our proper and only guides along
these lines.
Some of the faculties of the mind inspire the specialized affections;
as, love for wife, children, home, friends, etc., which are at the
very foundation of our Christian civilization. These special
affections have their proper claims upon us, and in so far as they
are neglected we become unhappy; but when they exert more than their
proper influence, they warp our judgment and more or less unbalance
our character. How many people are blinded to truth because of
selfish love for their children, or their home, or their party, or
their church.
There are some things that the feelings cannot do. For example, they
cannot give us information about facts outside of the mind. The
faculty of love cannot reveal to a young man the existence of a young
lady; but when he gets acquainted with her through what he sees and
hears, he can feel that he loves her; and after learning that she is
willing to become his, he can and will feel happy because of the
fact. The world is full of folly, division and fanaticism because
people look to their feelings or impressions for things that they
cannot furnish. Thus people have claimed immediate knowledge of God,
of pardon, of the will of God, of their perfection and security,
etc., through their feelings. It is true that God created all nations
"that they should seek God, if haply they might feel [Professor Green
says the Greek word here means 'to feel or grope for or after, as
persons in the dark'] after him and find him" (Acts 17:27). When we
see the condition of the heathen nations to whom the revelation of
the Bible has not come, we must admit that they are indeed "groping
or feeling in the dark after God," as their superstitions and
idolatries abundantly testify.
Of course people feel good whenever they follow their conscience, or
best conviction of duty; but the feeling of conscience cannot tell
them of the gospel of Christ, and of the pardon it makes possible to
them. Just as people who trust their "reason," or their "think so's,"
as the voice of God, naturally reject the Bible as a revelation from
God, so those that trust their "feel so's" will naturally have no use
for the Bible in conversion, sanctification or as an evidence of
pardon. It is easy to become so self-confident about our feelings, or
impressions, as to believe them to be axiomatic truths or direct
revelations from God. This has been one of the most fruitful sources
of strife and divisions in religion, and the handicap that for
centuries held the world in medieval darkness. The false prophets of
the Old Testament were very religious men. That is, they had strong
hereditary religious faculties. But these strong religious feelings,
perverted, led them to trusting the imaginations and impressions of
their hearts as the will of God instead of following his will as
revealed in the Bible (Jer. 23:16, 17, 28, 30-32).
Conscience is a safe guide; but it is not an infallible guide, and it
is our duty to perfect it day by day by seeking more truth and
obeying it. Our instincts or feelings are safe guides within certain
limitations; but they are not perfect guides, and it is our duty to
strengthen, guide and restrain them with the knowledge and help that
other faculties can supply.
The Intellect.
Let us now see what light we can get concerning the intellect. What
are its functions and limitations? Is it safe as a guide? According
to the phrenological classification, the intellectual faculties are
divided into three classes; viz.: the perceptive, literary and
reasoning faculties. The perceptive faculties bring us into
relationship with the external world, and through them we learn about
the color, size, form, weight, etc., of material objects. If the
phrenologists are right, then neither those who claim that the mind
is like a blank sheet and knows nothing but what it gets from
without, nor those who ascribe almost everything to innate, intuitive
ideas, are wholly correct. As usual, the truth lies midway between
the two extremes. The mind has innate, intuitive powers of
perception, selection and discrimination without which material
objects, events and thoughts could make no more impression upon us
than upon a fence-rail. But these innate powers are subject to
improvement by heredity and culture and their dictates must be
carefully watched and corrected by other faculties, as they are
fallible and most of them subject to perversion and delusion. As the
conscience and sentiments although not infallible, are our only
guides in their sphere; so our perceptive faculties are good and
safe, but not perfect, guides. These perceptive faculties, in a
measure, help and correct each other's impressions; and through
optical illusions, expectant attention, dreams, etc., we learn that
their dictates must be carefully watched and verified. The latest
voice of science is that all the sensation produced by physical
stimulants can also be produced by the imagination; so that people
can feel cold, heat, pain, etc., when there is no physical cause for
them. These things should not make us skeptical about our perceptive
powers, but rather cautiously critical.
If we turn to the reasoning faculties we find that they have been the
cause of most contention and misunderstanding. On the one hand have
been the extreme intuitionalists, or deductive theorizers, who for
centuries limited philosophical thought almost entirely to fruitless,
abstract, deductive reasoning based upon premises that had no real
foundation in facts. As John Stuart Mill pointed out, the mind may
become so accustomed to conceiving of a thing as true that it seems
like an axiomatic truth, although facts discovered later may show
that it was an error. Thus the time was before modern discoveries,
when people could not conceive of persons living under the earth
walking with their heads down, or of objects attracted towards each
other without some material object to connect them and thus draw them
together.
Other extremists have looked upon the mind as a blank sheet, or have
become so skeptical of its intuitive impressions that they mistrust
its guidance almost entirely, especially in religious matters;
although, strange to say, they inconsistently seem to trust it all
the more in material things.
It cannot be denied that our "think so's," "feel so's," impressions,
prejudices and inherited or preconceived ideas may seem as infallible
to us as any so-called axiomatic or intuitive truths. This delusion
of the mind has led to multitudes of errors and has held people in
bondage to ignorance and superstition in all centuries and in all
countries. It has ever been the greatest hindrance to progress.
Closely allied to this and reinforcing it is the inertia of the mind,
through which it naturally continues to run in the grooves in which
it has been running. After awhile the grooves or ruts become so deep
and smooth that it seems next to impossible to turn out of them
without breaking something or upsetting the mental team. We see on
every hand how hard it is to get away from the ideas we have
inherited or in which we have lived a long time. When truth, like a
vine-dresser, has attempted to trim off these unnecessary and
injurious accretions, it has always raised the hue and cry that the
foundations of truth were being destroyed.
When Mansel, in his Bampton lectures of 1858, showed that the finite
intellect is inadequate and helpless in trying to grasp the truth
where _infinity_ of any kind is involved, the cry was raised that he
robbed reason of its glory and authority, tore away the very
foundation of religion and of all truth, and opened the way to all
kinds of skepticism. But the very purpose of that marvelous piece of
reasoning was to lead people to the truth as revealed in the Bible
and to keep them from setting it aside or robbing it of its power
because it transcends their finite intellects. Good but misled
people, in all ages, have set aside or limited God's Word by their
"think so's" or "feel so's," which were mistakingly taken as an
infallible test of truth. Just as man by feeling knew not God (Acts
17:27), so man by wisdom knew not God; and it pleased God by the
foolishness of a revealed gospel to save such as accept it by faith
(I Cor. 1:21). President Schurman voices the highest conclusion of
philosophy when he says that the farthest reason can go is to assert
that _God is necessary as a working theory_. To this we can add
conceptions of God revealed in our moral nature (Rom. 1:19, 20). But
what a lifeless skeleton this is compared to the revelation of God in
Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Bacon, Locke, Mill and others have joined in the battle to destroy a
false trust in subjective impressions without subjecting them to a
fearless test of observed facts as revealed in experience,
observation and testimony. This is not intellectual skepticism that
destroys all the authority of reason and leaves us to imbecility.
Just as the conscience, sentiments and perceptive faculties are our
safe, proper and necessary guides, although not infallible, so our
logical reason is our safe and necessary guide to truth, although
helpless to grasp and understand infinite truths and likely to
deceive us unless we carefully test its impressions or conceptions by
experience and facts. Reason is the eye of the intellect as
conscience is of the moral nature. But as the eye is helpless as a
guide without light, and the conscience without love, so reason is
helpless and worthless as a guide without facts. There is no conflict
between theory and practise if the theory takes into consideration
all the facts. For example, if from the fact that a horse can trot a
mile in three minutes on the race-track, one should conclude that he
can trot from one city to another five miles away in fifteen minutes,
the theory would be false, because it did not take into consideration
the condition of the road and the fact that a horse cannot keep up
the same speed for a long distance. Whatever impressions or
conceptions of the mind may be self-evident or axiomatic truths, it
is certain that our highest conception of truth must be taken as our
only and necessary guide; but, knowing the variable part of our
judgment, and knowing how very likely we are to be mistaken in our
"think so's" and "feel so's," we should ever be on the alert to
verify or rectify our convictions by the help of experience and
facts. The question as to how much of our intellectual power is
intuitive and innate, or how much is acquired and dependent upon
truth learned by induction, is not so important after all. For the
powers of the mind which enable it to learn truths through induction
from facts observed and experienced come from God just as much as the
powers that enable us to see truth intuitively.
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