the sun is to our planet; and the
metaphor would have been more adequate if he had been acquainted with
modern science. The sun's action is the primary cause of all the
infinitely complex play of forces which manifest themselves in the fall
of a raindrop or in the operations of a human brain. But as some bodies
may seem to resist the action of the sun's rays, so may some created
beings set themselves in opposition to the Divine Will. To a
thoroughgoing Pantheist, indeed, such an opposition must appear to be
impossible if we look deep enough, and sin, in this sense, be merely an
illusion, caused by our incapacity of taking in the whole design of the
Almighty. Edwards, however, though dimly aware of the difficulty, is not
so consistent in his Pantheism as to be much troubled with it. He admits
that, by some mysterious process, corruption has intruded itself into
the Divine universe. The all-pervading harmony is marred by a discord
due, in his phraseology, to the fall of man. Over the ultimate cause of
this discord lies a veil which can never be withdrawn to mortal
intelligence. Assuming its existence, however, virtue consists, if one
may so speak, in that quality which fits a man to be a conducting
medium, and vice in that which makes him a non-conducting medium to the
solar forces. This proposition is confounded in Edwards' mind, as in
that of most metaphysicians, with the very different proposition that
virtue consists in recognising the Divine origin of those forces. It is
characteristic, in fact, of his metaphysical school, to identify the
logical with the causal connection, and to assume that the definition of
a thing necessarily constitutes its essence. 'Virtue,' says Edwards, 'is
the union of heart to being in general, or to God, the Being of beings'
(ii. 421), and thus consists in the intellectual apprehension of Deity,
and in the emotion founded upon and necessarily involving the
apprehension. The doctrine that whatever is done so as to promote the
glory of God is virtuous, is with him identified with the doctrine that
whatever is done consciously in order to promote the glory of God is
virtuous. The major premiss of the syllogism which proves an action to
be virtuous must be actually present to the mind of the agent. This, in
utilitarian phraseology, is to confound between the criterion and the
motive. If it is, as Edwards says, the test of a virtuous action that it
should tend to 'the highest good of being in gen