From the remote East turn to the mythology of Lesser Asia, to the descendants of Javan who dwelt in the tents of Shem, and possessed the Isles. Here again, and in the usual form of an historic solution we find the same _Fact_, and as characteristic of the human _race_, stated in that earliest and most venerable _mythus_ (or symbolic parable) of Prometheus--that truly wonderful Fable, in which the characters of the rebellious Spirit and of the Divine Friend of Mankind (Θεος φιλανθρωπος) are united in the same person; and thus in the most striking manner noting the forced amalgamation of the Patriarchal tradition with the incongruous scheme of Pantheism. This and the connected tale of Io, which is but the sequel of the Prometheus, stand alone in the Greek Mythology, in which elsewhere both gods and men are mere powers and products of nature. And most noticeable it is, that soon after the promulgation and spread of the Gospel had awakened the moral sense, and had opened the eyes even of its wiser enemies to the necessity of providing some solution of this great problem of the Moral World, the beautiful Parable of Cupid and Psyche was brought forward as a _rival_ FALL OF MAN: and the fact of a moral corruption connatural with the human race was again recognized. In the assertion of ORIGINAL SIN the Greek Mythology rose and set.
But not only was the _fact_ acknowledged of a law in the nature of man resisting the law of God; (and whatever is placed in active and direct oppugnancy to the good is, _ipso facto_, positive evil;) it was likewise an acknowledged MYSTERY, and one which by the nature of the subject must ever remain such--a problem, of which any other solution, than the statement of the _Fact_ itself, was demonstrably _impossible_. That it is so, the least reflection will suffice to convince every man, who has previously satisfied himself that he is a responsible being. It follows necessarily from the postulate of a responsible Will. Refuse to grant this, and I have not a word to say. Concede this and you concede all. For this is the essential attribute of a Will, and contained in the very _idea_, that whatever determines the Will acquires this power from a previous determination of the Will itself. The Will is ultimately self-determined, or it is no longer a _Will_ under the law of perfect freedom, but a _nature_ under the mechanism of cause and effect. And if by an act, to which it had determined itself, it has subjected itself to the determination of nature (in the language of St. Paul, to the law of the flesh), it receives a nature into itself, and so far it becomes a nature: and this is a corruption of the Will and a corrupt nature. It is also a _Fall_ of Man, inasmuch as his Will is the condition of his personality; the ground and condition of the attribute which constitutes him _man_. And the ground work of _personal_ Being is a capacity of acknowledging the Moral Law (the Law of the Spirit, the Law of Freedom, the Divine Will) as that which should, of itself, suffice to determine the Will to a free obedience of the law, the law working therein by its own exceeding lawfulness.[118] This, and this alone, is _positive_ Good; good in itself, and independent of all relations. Whatever resists, and, as a positive force, opposes _this_ in the Will is therefore evil. But an evil in the Will is an evil Will; and as all moral evil (that is, all evil that is evil without reference to its contingent physical consequences) is _of_ the Will, this evil Will must have its source in the Will. And thus we might go back from act to act, from evil to evil, _ad infinitum_, without advancing a step.