o which the soul's activity is developed, and to contradict
universal experience, which tells us that the great majority of mankind
are but in partial possession of this "spiritual and moral truth,"
and hold it for the most part in connection with the most prodigious
and pernicious errors.

You will perceive that I have here chosen to argue the question of
the possibility and utility of a "revelation" on your own grounds; but
recollect what I have said, that, in fact, the principal reasons for a
revelation would still remain in force, even if all you demand were
conceded. It is a point which I do not find that Mr. Newman's dictum
affects.

There may obviously be other facts and other truths as intimately
connected with man's destinies and happiness as the elementary truths
of religious and moral science; facts and truths which may be necessary
to give efficacy to mere elementary principles, and to supply motives
to the performance of moral precepts. And how ample in this respect
are man's necessities, and how large the field for a "divine revelation,"
if we content ourselves with such a meagre theology as that of Mr. Parker
and Mr. Newman, you see plainly enough in the questions asked by
Harrington! How many of Mr. Newman's and Mr. Parker's assumptions--the
moment they step beyond such "spiritual and moral truth" as is
"elementary" indeed--does Harrington declare that he finds unverified
by his own consciousness, and needing, if true, an authority to
confirm them far more weighty than theirs! As to the terms of access
to the Supreme Being,--his aspects towards man,--man's duties towards
him,--the future destinies, even the future existence, of the soul
(a point on which these writers are themselves divided),--the boasted
"progress" of the race, which they "prophesy," indeed, but without any
credentials of their mission,--you see how on all these points
Harrington maintains--and oh! how many, if the Bible be untrue, must
maintain with him--that he is in total darkness!

III. But I must proceed to show yet further, if you will have patience
with me, that, supposing a divine external revelation to be given, it
is in striking analogy, not only with the primary laws of development
of our whole intellectual and spiritual being, but with the fact--
undeniable, however unaccountable--that our subjection to external
influence does, in truth, not only mould and modify, but usually
determine, our intellectual and religious posi