THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
V
THE CHALLENGE
OF THE UNIVERSE
THE CHALLENGE
OF THE UNIVERSE
A POPULAR RESTATEMENT OF THE
ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN
BY THE
REV. CHARLES J. SHEBBEARE
M.A. Ch.Ch. OXFORD ; SELECT PREACHER IN THE UNIVER-
SITY OF OXFORD; RECTOR OF SWERFORD
AUTHOR OF "RELIGION IN AN AGE OF DOUBT"
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
LONDON: 68 HAYMARKET, S.W.
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1918
3D
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PREFACE xv
CHAPTER I : THE PROBLEM OF EVIL 1
" If there were a God, no evil would be found in the world.
But evil is found in the world. Therefore there is no God."
This argument has seemed to some minds to gain new
cogency from the events of the war. But is it really un-
answerable ? Perhaps not — if we reflect that the conquest
of evil, through patience, courage, and other efforts of a
rational will, is among the highest of rational acts ; and
thus that a Universe in which there was no evil to be con-
quered could not conceivably attain perfection.
CHAPTER II : THE FREE MAN'S WORSHIP 12
If we once see that the existence of evil is not an obviously
unanswerable objection to religious faith, then it is worth
our while to inquire candidly whether " Naturalism " or
Christianity best meets the intellectual challenge which the
Universe presents to us. Mr. Bertrand Russell has written
a noble description of a religion of freedom based upon
Naturalism and an " unyielding despair." We must face
the questions which Ms essay raises. Does the constitution
of the Universe take any account of man as such, and of
his moral and spiritual interests ? Or is human life but the
accidental outcome of purely mechanical forces ? Is there,
outside man and human efforts, any Power — personal or
impersonal, conscious or unconscious — which " makes for
righteousness " and spiritual progress ?
CHAPTER III: THE PLAIN MAN'S ARGU-
MENT 21
The favourite popular argument, in defence of religious
hope, is that which is known as the " Argument from Design,"
or sometimes as the " Teleological Proof." This argument
points to the orderliness of Nature. There are in Nature
many qualities which, if we found them in the work of
man, we should regard as results of intelligence : the same
sort of qualities as distinguish the work of an adult from
that of a child, the work of a sane man from that of a lunatic,
the work of an artist from that of a mere craftsman.
Nature exhibits uniformity even where there is no direct
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mechanical contact to explain this. Each sheep is physically
separate from the other members of the flock : yet all are
going through similar processes of nutrition. In every ear
of corn matter is being collected and arranged in a similar
complex structure. This uniformity cannot be taken as
a matter of course, of which the explanation is obvious.
Nor can it be a mere accident. Thus — it is argued — the world
looks so like a plan or design that it must surely be one.
But if the world is the result of design, does not this imply
that it is the work of a Designer ?
CHAPTER IV : THE ARGUMENT EXAMINED 26
This popular argument seeks, in effect, to show that the
world is governed (1) by general principles, and therefore
(2) by a Conscious Mind in which those principles dwell.
It is, however, an error to assume that government by
principles necessarily implies government by a Mind. The
example of Geometry would be enough by itself to disprove
this assumption. Let us first ask, then — not " Is the world
governed by a God ? " nor " Is it governed by principles
of wisdom ? " — but " Is it governed by general principles at
all ? " The value of the popular argument lies in the fact
that it points to certain phenomena which become highly
significant if they are considered together : viz. (1) the
pervading regularity of Nature; (2) the appearance of co-
operation among the parts of plants and animals ; (3) the
delicate and complex schemes of form and colour which
physical processes produce ; and (4) certain facts which
suggest that the Universe is a single system, a rationally
ordered Whole. There are many cases in Nature where
a large number of bodies or particles behave according to
one single formula or rule of action. It is a common evasion
to say that formulas, rules, laws, principles dwell in our
minds only, and except in the case of human agency exercise
no influence upon the outside world. Yet we all assume in
our predictions — e.g. of eclipses, of the fall of a stone left
without support, of the regular return of night and morning,
winter and spring — that we are dealing in each case with a
principle of regularity to which, in the future as in the past,
events in the outside world must conform. Can we then
deny that we regard the principles as really governing the
phenomena ? But granted that Nature is governed by
principles, are the principles that govern Nature purely
mechanical in character ? Are the colour-schemes of the
landscape beautiful by mere accident ? Are they the mere
by-product of mechanical uniformity ? Or is Nature in
some sense governed by specifically aesthetic principles ?
It is not unreasonable to ask questions of this sort, nor to
maintain that to the unphilosophic mind — if to no other —
the readiest explanation of the artistic appearance of the
Universe is that the Universe is in truth the work of a
divine architect.
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CHAPTER V : A CHAPTER OF HISTORY 44
Before we attempt to restate this argument in the light
of the criticisms directed against it in modern times, it is
well to recall how it has been formulated by distinguished
thinkers in the past, e.g. Socrates, Aristotle, Cicero, St.
Thomas Aquinas.
CHAPTER VI: MORAL KNOWLEDGE 58
It is also well to recall the argument which Kant and others
have sought to substitute for it, viz. the " Moral Proof "
of God's Existence. This latter argument can be so stated
as (1 ) to furnish in itself a direct refutation of " Naturalism " ;
(2) to form an important element in that very restatement of
the Argument from Design of which we are in search.
Naturalism denies that the laws of the Universe take
account of the spiritual interests of man, We find, however,
that there are laws relating directly to our most important
spiritual interest of all, our knowledge of Right and Wrong.
We find, first, that there are fundamental moral principles
which we can all be made to see and accept if only they are
put before us with sufficient clearness. Further, we find that
the Moral Ideal is a connected Whole, and that our minds
are so constituted that, if they are familiarized with certain
of the leading principles of morality, they pass on from these
by a natural sense of affinity to other elements in the Moral
Ideal as occasion brings them to light. We trust the man
of good feeling to act rightly in quite novel circumstances.
The " Law " on which we rely is that familiarity with right
moral principles breeds general sympathy with the true
Moral Ideal. This is the law on which we base our educa-
tional methods : and this law cannot be successfully ex-
plained away by any naturalistic hypothesis. These hypo-
theses, if carried out consistently, have to treat our moral
convictions as illusion, and we all know in our hearts that
they are not illusion.
Again, an ideal for human conduct presupposes some ideal
for the Universe at large. It is a law that the mind of man
is so constituted as to recognize, in its main outlines, the
true ideal for the Universe when this ideal is clearly set
before us. To this truth the literature of all ages bears
witness. The union of virtue and happiness in a setting
of physical uniformity and aesthetic beauty, has called forth
the praises of poets from the days of the Jewish Psalmists to
our own.
CHAPTER VII : THE ARGUMENT RESTATED 70
The fundamental thought which the popular argument
embodies may now be reformulated as follows :
(I) The basis both of our everyday predictions of natural
events, and of those made by systematic science, is to be
found in the belief that the world is in some sense a rational
Whole governed by a rational system of laws, i.e. in the
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belief that reality conforms to a rational standard or ideal.
No sane man believes in a world which conflicts with the
ideal which he himself seriously accepts. It is for this reason
that we positively reject (though we can have no direct
proof that they are untrue) the myths of Paganism and all
similar absurdities. For what other grounds of rejection
can we have ? It is easy to refute the error that our rejection
of the myths and our prediction of eclipses, etc., is due to
the unaided influence of past experience. (See Mr. Russell's
parable of the chicken, Problems of Philosophy, p. 98.)
But (II) we have seen already that one of the laws of Nature
is that men's minds tend towards a reasonable conception
of what the Universe ought to be. (See chapter vi.)
If this is so, then we may ask (III) whether we could
possibly call a system of laws rational, which prescribed,
on the one hand, that men should tend towards a true con-
ception of what the Universe ought to be, and yet prescribed,
on the other hand ; that this conception should be quite left
out of account in the actual ordering of the Universe itself?
If a conscious Creator produced such a world — deliberately
implanting in men high aspirations and yet dooming these
aspirations to ultimate disappointment — we should conceive
such a Creator, not as God, but as a mischievous fiend. Such
a plan would exhibit the height of irrational perverseness.
But if such a plan is irrational when consciously framed and
carried out, this is because it is irrational in itself. If then
we are right in attributing to the Universe a general rationality
(in the sense in which rationality is an object of admiration)
and in basing our predictions upon this belief (as we shall find
that we do), then the world cannot be the perversely ordered
scheme we have just imagined. The conclusion suggested
is that the System of Laws which governs the Universe
and which, among other things, implants a rational ideal
as (in spite of much incidental difference of opinion) a fixed
element in the human mind, also orders the Universe at
large in accordance therewith. Thus the admission that
there is in the human mind a tendency to form correct
judgments about good and evil may be regarded — as
unbelievers have themselves often regarded it — as the
" thin end " of the Theistic or Optimistic " wedge."
CHAPTER VIII : THE WORLD AS WORK OF
ART 82
But is this notion of a world so ordered as to fulfil rational
ends, and to embody a rational ideal, consistent with the
pursuit of Physical Science ? Can the notion of physical
" law " and moral and aesthetic " ends " be united in a
single system ? The answer is (1) that a world whose nature
is to embody an ideal must in many respects resemble a work
of art, (2) that the greatest works of art exhibit prominently
the element of regularity, (3) that, if the Universe resembles
these works of art in this respect, its regularity can be
made the object of special study, its elements can be
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tabulated, its uniformities recorded even by those who are
quite blind to the higher ends which it is achieving. Some
of the best results in Nature have been attained through
the struggle for existence : but this does not prove that
their attainment was left to chance. Even the believer
who regards Nature as we know it as but a subordinate
part of God's creation — playing its part within a comprehen-
sive teleological system or " Kingdom of Ends " — may
yet quite consistently make Nature and its uniformities
the object of his inquiries.
On the other hand, while the success of Natural Science
is no argument against a teleological theory of the Universe,
the discovery of one single teleological law is a complete
refutation of " Naturalism."
CHAPTER IX: ORGANIC LIFE 93
Can we, then, find any unquestionable teleological laws —
i.e. laws which prescribe the realization in Nature of such
" ends " as beauty, fife, knowledge, or are all the laws of
Nature purely mechanical ? We have already recognized
one non-mechanical law in chapter vi. But does this
stand alone or are there others ? Is there, e.g., in the
particles of which a plant or animal is composed any ten-
dency towards organic co-operation as such ? Is it a law, in
regard to these particles, that in certain given conditions
just those relative movements take place which conduce to
the life and health of the whole ? It should be noticed
(1) that actual co-ordination where there is no co-ordinating
principle is accident pure and simple. If the parts of which
plants and animals are formed have no tendency towards
organic co-operation as such — just as a civilian crowd may
have no tendency towards military co-operation — organic co-
operation if it occurs will be either due to accident or to
some external influence. It is no more likely that we should
meet with a long succession of lucky accidents in botany
than in warfare. Thus, in the case of the plant, we seem
driven to choose between the conception of an external
Creator or Artificer, on the one hand, or, on the other hand,
of the influence of an unconscious inward * principle of life,
co-ordinating the various processes of which the history of
the plant consists. We may notice (2) that according to
Darwin : " Science as yet throws no light on the essence
or origin of life " (Origin of Species, chapter xv ; cf. chapter
viii). Darwin, therefore, does not profess to have explained,
or explained away, the difference between inorganic existence
and organic life.
* If some one objects, " You have not exhausted all the possibilities :
Why not (A) an external unconscious, or (B) an internal conscious,
principle ? " The answer must be, " Not B, because the parts of
the plant do not themselves think. Not A, because, in relation to
the view maintained in this essay, the description of laws as external
influences would be unmeaning." The common talk about divine
" transcendence " and " immanence " has covered much loose thinking.
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CHAPTER X: BEAUTY OF LINE AND
COLOUR 111
Again, is there in Nature any tendency towards beauty —
towards the formation of harmonious schemes of colour ?
Or are such schemes when they occur the result of pure
chance ? A good colour-scheme might conceivably be
produced by pure chance, e.g. by pigments placed at random
on an artist's palette ; just as a tune may be played by
chance by an unskilled person striking at random on the keys.
But such accidents are rare : and it is obvious that natural
beauty is too constant a phenomenon to be a parallel case
to these. Nor can Natural Beauty be successfully explained
on Darwinian principles. Thus we must accept it as a law
of Nature that mutually harmonious colours are placed
together as such ; even if we are unable to decide whether
the aesthetic principles which thus govern Nature work
by the agency of a conscious Mind, or govern the facts of
Nature in somewhat the same sort of unconscious way as
the facts of geometry are governed by the principles enunciated
by Euclid.
CHAPTER XI: SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE 137
In the realm of "spiritual experience," again, there are
certain uniformities which are just as much entitled to be
called " laws of Nature " as are the uniformities of Chemistry
and Physics. Consider the laws of moral and intellectual
influence. No less definite than the laws of the response
of Western Europe to the influence of Greek literature and
art, are the laws of the response of the mind and conscience
of man to the influence of Jesus. Yet obviously such laws
cannot be stated in terms of mere mechanism. It is in the
realm of spiritual experience (in the specific sense) that
we meet with some of the chief facts which have led men
to regard God as conscious and " personal " : to develop
their Optimism in the form of Theism.
CHAPTER XII: THE CLAIMS OF AGNOS-
TICISM 149
" But why has this teleological argument, which, in one
form or another, has been before the world for ages, so
often failed to produce conviction ? " Partly because of
certain inveterate prejudices and confusions of thought.
(I) There are those who speak as if Natural Science denied
everything which it does not affirm, and claimed therefore
by itself to give us a complete theory of the Universe.
(II) There are those who make the opposite mistake, and
speak as if Natural Science confined itself strictly within
the limits of experience, and must therefore be held more
trustworthy than Philosophy or Religion. But Natural
Science, in truth, passes the limits both of experience and of
demonstration, whenever it predicts future events or infers
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occurrences which took place before man appeared on the
earth. Apart from a tacit assumption that the Universe
as a whole agrees with an ideal which we can accept as
rational, we have no ground for making any single prediction,
or even for rejecting the wildest absurdities of mythology
or superstition. What ideal then can we accept as rational ?
The man who can confidently give one clear answer to this
question has a settled faith, whether it be Naturalistic or
Christian. Naturalism has no right to claim superiority
here as more " scientific." We must let the rival ideals
enter the discussion on equal terms. (Ill) There is much
confusion of thought as to the meaning of the word " acci-
dent." If we ask whether the beauty, order, and rational
appearance of the world are due to accident, we are told
that since Nature has no free will, therefore of course beauty
is no accident, since all that happens happens by necessity.
But this does not follow. Take the case of the rock *
resembling a human countenance. The form of the rock is
due to natural forces. It took this form by necessity. But
the resemblance is none the less accidental, and is the kind
of accident not likely to be repeated. Is the agreement
between Nature and aesthetic principles an accident of this
same kind ? The assertion that all natural events are
necessary is an irrelevant answer, and merely enables us to
evade the question.
CHAPTER XIII: SPECIAL DIFFICULTIES 171
Apart, however, from these prejudices, religion has obstacles
to encounter from its own inherent difficulties. First, there
is the difficulty of imagining a future life. Can we conceive
it in a form at once attractive and complete ? Yet this
difficulty, perhaps, if we face it honestly, will not be found
to be insuperable : especially if we are contented to give up
the attempt to form a full detailed picture of our future
state, and to confine ourselves to general terms. Miss
Schreiner's eloquent criticism of the Christian hope of
heaven (see Story of an African Farm) becomes less alarming
the more closely it is examined.
CHAPTER XIV : GOD 184
Again there are difficulties connected with belief in God.
" The God," it is said," who should bring about a European
War because men have forgotten Him, is a God caring for
nothing but the satisfaction of His own vanity." But this
objection is based upon a misunderstanding of religious
language. To forget God means — in the mouth of the
religious man — to forget righteousness. God is not conceived
by religion as a mere " person " with whom we have
purely external relations. In falling under God's wrath
we fall also under our own. Men trust God's accusing voice
* At the Trou de Han, near llochefort. is a stone known as the
head of Socrates.
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because it is the voice of their own better self — the true
language of their own hearts. To estimate such objections
rightly, we must first understand the religious mind. If
we conceive of the ultimate law of the Universe — the ultimate
necessity by which men and all tilings are what they are —
as something fundamentally good, and also as consciovis
of itself in such a sense that we may enter into communion
with it and make it the object of our love and worship,
then we have the personal God which religion sets before us.
It is not in this form that the conception of God gives rise
to the objections most commonly brought against it.
CHAPTER XV: CONCLUSION 196
We can best draw this whole argument into a single view
if we decide — after first clearing our minds about the meaning
of the word " accident " — to ask and answer certain definite
questions. (1) Is it an accident that Nature is uniform ?
If this is a mere accident, have we any right to use Uni-
formity as a principle of prediction ? If it is not an accident,
have we not here a case in which Nature is governed by a
general principle? (2) Is it an accident that Nature is
beautiful ? Is the beauty of the landscape a parallel case
to the example mentioned above — the chance-formed
colour-scheme on the palette of the painter ? Is it merely
a lucky accident that Nature never violates the laws of
aesthetic harmony as these are often violated by the human
artist or craftsman ? Can the significance of these aesthetic
facts be explained away on Darwinian or any similar
principles ? If not, must we not admit that aesthetic
principles have a real influence upon Nature ? (3) Can
Natural Selection, or any other theory, explain away that
" tendency towards correctness " which we find in human
thought ? (4) Are not beauty in visible Nature, and cor-
rectness of thought in the mind of man, among the facts we
should most naturally give as examples of that general
appearance of rationality which the Universe exhibits ?
Again, is it not because of our belief in the rationality of
the world throughout its whole extent — its agreement at
all points with a standard we can recognize as rational —
that we reject the myths of Paganism ? Can we then allege
that the observed agreement between the world as we see
it, and that standard of rationality which exists in our
minds, is a mere accident ? If it were but an accident,
what ground should we have for confidence that this appear-
ance of rationality will continue ? Why should not the
wildest and most grotesque absurdities occur at any moment ?
If, on the other hand, the rational appearance of the world
is no accident, does not this imply the dominance throughout
the Universe of the standard which right reason sets up ?
If these considerations lead us to believe in the govern-
ment of the world by principles of wisdom, and hence
dispose us to some form of theistic belief it is clear that
we shall not be satisfied with belief in a God of limited
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powers. If the rational appearance of the world is due to
the will of a personal God, whose will nevertheless is not
necessarily law for the Whole Universe, the rational appear-
ance of the world would be but a mere accident after all.
The devout man's insistence on the omnipotence of God is
but the religious form of the philosophic conviction that
the rational appearance of the world is no accident, but
follows from the fundamental necessities of the Universe.
On this basis a religious belief and practice can be founded
which shall be as fully a religion of freedom as the Naturalistic
Creed expounded by Mr. Russell.
EPILOGUE: A PONS ASINORUM IN
PHILOSOPHY 208
To the philosophic reader the foregoing chapters — -in spite
of the absence of technical language — will appear as an
attack upon the philosophic heresy of Conceptual ism. The
refutation of Conceptualism leads in the end to the Platonic
doctrine which makes Ideas the ultimate basis of the Universe.
This Platonic doctrine is consistent with a non-theistic Opti-
mism (for those to whom a non-theistic Optimism does not
seem to be in itself a contradiction in terms) : but it is not
inconsistent with the Christian belief in a God Whom we
can love and worship.
NOTE I : ON KANT 224
NOTE II : ON THE POSSIBILITY OF A COL- 228
LISION WHICH SHOULD THREATEN
DISASTER TO THE WHOLE SOLAR
SYSTEM
INDEX 241
Xlll
??
PEEFACE
Among the remains of early Christian literature
there is nothing that possesses greater charm
than the Octavius of Minucius Felix. The
three intimate friends whose conversation the
book relates are divided in religious opinion.
Octavius and Minucius himself are Christians :
Csecilius is a Pagan. As they stroll along the
beach in the neighbourhood of Ostia on a fine
autumn day, a chance incident gives rise to a
discussion of the truth or falsehood of the Chris-
tian religion.
The purpose of the present volume can hardly
be described better than by reference to this
early Christian work. The fifteen chapters which
here follow are an attempt to open the way for
similar frank and friendly discussions of the
same great question at the present time. In
any age the Octavius would serve as a model
of outspoken and yet courteous debate. It is a
truly remarkable fact that such a book should be
written in the age of persecutions. Looked at
in this light, the personal details and general
setting of the dialogue — the walk of the three
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friends along the shore, the description in elegant
Latin of the sand which sinks softly beneath their
feet, of the rising and falling of the breakers, of
the children making " ducks and drakes " by
throwing pebbles into the sea — these and many
similar touches are none of them irrelevant. All
serve to heighten our sense of the peacefulness of
the scene, and of the intimate and friendly rela-
tions among the persons of the dialogue. How
far the Octavius records an actual conversa-
tion it may not be easy to decide ; though, for
all we can see to the contrary, it may well have
been founded on fact. But this is not the impor-
tant question. The significant matter is that
such a dialogue should at such a period, when
memories of persecution were so recent, have
seemed to a Christian writer to possess sufficient
probability to serve even for literary purposes.
How r often has the modern Christian been
present at a similar discussion ? If, with so few
obstacles between us — compared with what must
have existed in the days of the martyrs — the
modern Christian and the modern unbeliever are
less disposed than Minucius and his friends to
discuss their deepest convictions, is this fact
altogether to the credit of our age ? And, if it is
not, ought we not each of us, believer and un-
believer alike, to inquire how far and in what
respects the blame rests upon ourselves ? The
believer may pay his opponents the compliment
of admitting that in one respect — namely, the
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PREFACE
production of popular literature — he has much to
learn from them. The Rationalist Press Associa-
tion has issued books and leaflets which set an
example of lucidity, of candour, of intelligibility
to a wide public, which all writers of the opposite
camp might well be proud to follow.
But if it is significant that in the Age of Martyrs
Christian and Pagan could be conceived as en-
gaging in free and friendly discussion, it is no less
interesting to find that the Christian apologist of
that period should turn in the last resort to the
Argument from Design. Besides defending
Christianity against charges now obsolete, Octa-
vius formulates a theory of evil, and subordinates
it to a view of the Universe based upon this
famous argument, so intimately associated in
our minds with the Christian rationalism of the
Eighteenth Century. The Christian writer who
to-day makes use, even in a modified form, of any
of the traditional " proofs of God's existence " is
suspected in many circles of being at heart a
Deist or, at least, a Unitarian. No one — it is
thought — will trouble himself with these natural-
istic and rationalistic arguments who has any
more religious grounds of conviction ; who rests
upon a sense of living communion with the Holy
Ghost, or feels that he shares through the Church
and its Sacraments the life of the risen Christ.
This suspicion rests upon a wholly groundless
prejudice. The Argument from Design seeks to
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PREFACE
exhibit the Universe as an orderly whole in all
its diverse aspects ; and the real strength of the
argument lies, not in showing that this order is
the result of design, but in showing that it is not
the result of accident. The world's order, as we
shall see, includes not only mechanical uniformity
— though this is one of its most important aspects
— but also involves laws relating to aesthetic
beauty in Nature, to intellectual correctness in
the mind of man, and this a correctness which
includes moral knowledge and what in a specific
sense we call " spiritual experience." These
laws point to a general conception of the Universe
as a rational whole, such that all, even of its most
evil elements, are ultimately subordinate to the
purposes of Good. Such an ultimate Optimism
may be held conceivably in a non-theistic form.
We may regard the world as being, in Platonic
language, the embodiment of the " Idea of the
Good," rather than the work of a good God.
Yet, though a non-theistic Optimism is quite
conceivable, belief in God is the doctrine to which
Optimism most naturally leads.
Thus the rationalistic arguments need not lack
religious value except for those whose personal
experience has been spiritually poor. Nor can
we afford to despise such arguments at any stage
of spiritual enlightenment. If our personal ex-
periences have been equal to the richest ever
claimed for the greatest Christian saints ; if we
have been filled with singular gifts of the Holy
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PREFACE
Ghost, the clear insight of an Athanasius, the
burning love and zeal of a St. Francis ; if we
have had visions and revelations like St. Paul ;
if we have witnessed physical miracles or even
worked them ; still we cannot take these ex-
periences as the grounds of a theology — of a
general theory of God and the Universe — except
on the basis of just such a belief in the rationality
of the world as the old-fashioned arguments seek
to establish. The religious man values physical
miracles, and special spiritual experiences, because
they throw light on the general character of the
Universe. Unless we believed already that the
Universe is " all of a piece," a single system such
that the character of one part interprets that of
another, then neither physical miracles nor inward
experience would have the significance which
religion attributes to them. Even the common
arguments which are based on the authority of
the Bible or the Church, all presuppose just such
a belief in God as it is the aim of the Argument
from Design to produce in our minds.
Thus the general type of reasoning to which
the Argument from Design is one attempt to give
formal expression, is common ground for Chris-
tians of all schools. The writer of the following
pages is a member of the Church of England.
Yet every argument here used might be employed
by a Methodist, a Congregationalist, or a Presby-
terian, whether they belonged to the right or left
wings in their respective Churches : and though
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PREFACE
neither the criticism of the Argument from De-
sign, nor the attempted restatement of its essence,
proceed quite according to customary methods,
still it is probable that, even if the book had been
written within the Roman communion itself, it
would have required (outside the Preface and the
Epilogue) only a few slight alterations to enable
it to receive the Nil Obstat and Imprimatur of the
authorized judges. The argument in its best
known form is sorely in need of revision. But
the thought which lies behind it we may be
justly proud to claim as part of our common
Christian inheritance.
We must be careful, however, not to interpret
this claim as implying that we have here the
essence of " our common Christianity." Nothing
is more utterly misleading than to seek our
common Christian heritage in the mere residuum
of doctrine which is left when we have subtracted
everything about which Christians differ. The
essential unity of the Christian faith is seen, not
so much in doctrinal statements as in a common
attitude of will, a common standard of values.
It shows itself above all in a common conception
of the sinfulness of sin, a common assurance of
pardon to the penitent, a common devotion to
Christ, the common Lord.*
And if it is the possession of a common standard
* Enthusiastic devotion to Christ shows itself in the develop-
XX
PREFACE
of values that is the real distinctive mark by
which the Christian may be known, this fact must
in the end decide the character of Christian
apology. The Argument from Design, or at
least some argument closely resembling it, is
necessary in order to convert our religious expe-
riences into the material for a theory of the
Universe. In many circles, however, at the
present day there is a tendency to question
whether a theory of the Universe is any necessary
part of our religious equipment. " We find,"
it is said, " in ourselves and in our neighbours,
certain lofty and religious ideals whose truth we
recognize. By these we can live : by these we
can live a life of mutual co-operation ; and [if
we recognize them as the gift of a personal God,
we can regard Him as the object of our common
devotion without demanding that He shall be
the Absolute, or the Infinite, or the Ruler of the
whole Universe : still less that He and the
ment of what, to those who do not share them, will always seem
to be " extreme " views of His work or person : e.g. (a) in Evan-
gelical circles, the substitutionary doctrine of the Atonement ;
(b) in Catholic circles, the conception of His risen body as the
Source of our life, the food on which we feed in the Eucharist,
the firstfruits of the Resurrection, the first incorruptible body,
and therefore the starting-point from which Incorruption sets
out that it may at length subdue Corruption to itself, when
the creation which has long groaned in pain shall be delivered
into the glorious liberty of the children of God ; (c) in some
Liberal circles, the assertion that the knowledge of the true
God is so exclusively mediated through Christ, that we must
not admit, even of the Jew, that he worships the same God
as we.
xxi
PREFACE
Universe should be held to be ultimately identical.
We can uphold our ideals even though the Uni-
verse at large affords them no support. We can
co-operate with God's aspirations even though
we can have no certainty of absolute success ;
even though the ' doors of the future ' are so far
4 open,' that a good or evil issue to the struggle
are alike possible."
The view which such language implies is not
wholly false. We must first of all recognize good
for what it is ; we must first distinguish God and
His will from the many elements in the Universe
against which His will stands in opposition ;
before any worthy type of religion is possible to
us. It is more important to know what is good
than to know whether good will be ultimately
victorious. Therefore the writers who are seek-
ing to commend to us religious ideals and religious
standards of value, and to make these the objects
of our effort, quite apart from any conviction
that these principles are embodied in the Universe
at large, are doing good and heroic work. Thej^
are writing for us that which must always be the
first and most important chapter in the defence
of religion. But though to commend religious
standards of value is the highest work of the
apologist, there is still a place, and a necessary
place, for the type of argument with which the
following chapters deal. Religion will not be
able to dispense for ever with a religious
theory of the Universe : nor to rest content
xxii
PREFACE
for ever even with the sincerest worship of a
" finite God."
I wish to thank very heartily, for help of many
various kinds, not only those friends to whom I
have expressed gratitude on a similar occasion
before ; but also several friends of a younger
generation than theirs, with whom during the
past few years I have discussed some of the prob-
lems which are dealt with below. I may name
especially Mr. Miles Malleson, Mr. Leonard Hodg-
son (Vice-Principal of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford),
and my wife. I hope and believe that every page
in the present volume will be readily intelligible
to any reader of ordinary education. But if
this is so, it is due, in great measure, to what I
have learnt in discussion with my friends.
The following pages are addressed to the
teachers of Theology no less than to the learners
and inquirers. If any teacher of religion is dis-
satisfied with my statement of the fundamental
grounds of religious belief, it is incumbent on
him as a teacher to formulate a different one. If
he feels the inadequacy of the old argument, and
yet objects to my revised version of it, he must
furnish a new revision, or else construct some
argument that will stand criticism better. It is
not reasonable to put off the inquirer, who asks us
to give a definite reason for our faith, by alleging
that the various lines of Christian evidence have
xxiii
PREFACE
" infinite ramifications " ; that they form " an
immense cumulative argument whose independent
members converge from every department of
human experience upon a central point." These
words are quoted from a writer whom there is
every ground to respect. There are contexts,
perhaps, in which such words may be used with
innocent meaning. But used, as they are too
often used, to excuse us from answering the
simple and definite attacks of unbelievers with
equal definiteness and simplicity, they can do
nothing but mischief. We must remember that
twenty bad arguments do not make a good one.
Note. — In warm gratitude to a friend not
mentioned above, I should like to call the special
attention of the reader — and still more of the
reviewer — to the discussion in Note II at the end
of the Epilogue.
xxiv
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
If we ask what will be the effect upon the Chris-
tian Religion of the present strife of Christian
nations, the question is not easy to answer.
The story is told of a British officer who,
having occasion as Censor to read the letters of
his men, remarked that this experience had much
increased his belief in the value of religious faith.
He had found that it is to religion that men turn
in the extremes of sorrow and anxiety. In
judging of letters of this description, some
allowance must, no doubt, be made for expressions
of religious faith which are purely conventional.
Yet the story will bring no surprise to those who
in their own lives have learned the power of
Christianity by obeying the principles of its
Founder. They will be sure that whatever stirs
the soul to its depths will also, in the main
and in the end, assist the progress of Christ's
religion.
But obviously this is only one side of the
question. To many the War has appeared chiefly
as a severe trial of faith. Husbands, lovers, sons,
fathers, brothers have perished, although com-
mended in unceasing prayer to God's protection.
A 1
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
Why were these earnest prayers of so little avail
to save the lives of those for whom they were
offered ? Why does the God who is said to
number the hairs of our heads, look on in
silence while His children are mowed down in
battalions ?
The War has, in fact, raised in an acute form
the Problem of Evil. This problem is not new.
It would be good if the modern reader were more
familiar than he is with the treatment of the
subject by ancient writers both in Christian and
in pre-Christian times. Those who know these
writers best will be the last to say that the debate
has been useless. Definite objections have been
met : definite advance has been made. But the
truth remains that we are confronted in every
age, not only with examples of sorrow and
pain, but with the still more disconcerting fact
of sin ; and the magnitude of the present War
makes it impossible for the thoughtful mind to
forget either sin or suffering, and the immense
amount of both which is present in human
life.
For Religion, however, the primary difficulty
arises, not from the quantity of evil which exists
or from the special forms in which it appears, but
from the simple fact that there is in the world
any evil at all. Why should a good God permit
it ? "If God has no wish to suppress evil, then,"
it is argued, " He is not good : if He wishes to
2
PROBLEM OF EVIL
suppress it, but fails, then, like the rest of us, He
finds that circumstances are too strong for Him.
In a word, since evil exists, God is either not
good, or not almighty." *
Can we then cut the knot by simply abandoning
the omnipotence of God ? Though the belief
in a God with limited powers — unable to carry
out His will to the full — has been formulated
by writers of great ability and distinction, its
failure to satisfy the normal religious mind is
well known. We shall see below that in the
end it must prove equally unsatisfactory to the
thinker. It meets our intellectual needs as
little as it meets the demands of the religious
spirit.")*
Thus, at first sight, the problem of evil may
well appear, from the standpoint of religious
belief, to be quite insoluble. " If there were a
God, no evil would be found in the world. But
evil is found in the world. Therefore there is no
God. "J Such is the statement by St. Thomas
Aquinas of the argument of his opponent. To
many the argument will seem so unanswerable
that they will not be at the trouble to wait for the
reply. Moreover there are hundreds who feel
* See this argument as stated by St. Thomas Aquinas, quoted
in note below.
f See chapter xv, pp. 204-206.
J Summa TheoL, Pars prima, Qu. II, Art. III. Si Deus esset
nullum malum inveniretur. Invenitur autem malum in mundo.
Ergo Deus non est. The words stand in a special context.
But no injustice is done to the author in applying them more
generally.
3
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
the force of the difficulty for every one who puts
it into words.
There is one reflection, however, which sets
these matters in a new light. Those who argue
that " since evil exists, God is either not good or
not omnipotent " are assuming that a perfectly
good God would remove all evil from His world if He
found Himself able to do so. They are assuming
that a Universe which contains evil must necessarily
be less good than a Universe which is without it.
So long as we attend to the mere words, this
assumption may seem to be true and even self-
evident. If we pass beyond the words to what
they signify, we shall see reason to change our
opinion.
A Universe which contains no evil would con-
tain no pain and no danger ; for pain and danger
are both of them in themselves evil things. But
if there were no pain, there could be no such
thing as patience : and if there were no danger
there could be no such thing as courage. In
general, if there were no evil to be conquered,
there could be no such thing as moral and
spiritual victory. And yet it is just in the con-
quest of evil by the will of man, that the noblest
aspect of human life is seen. Thus, in rooting up
from the world the tares of pain and suffering,
we should be rooting up with them the wheat of
our highest moral virtues.
The assertion that it is good that evil should
4
PROBLEM OF EVIL
exist wears at first sight the appearance of a
paradox. But the more we pursue this train of
reflection the less paradoxical will it appear. If
the reader will ask himself honestly whether he
would really prefer, to this Universe of mingled
good and evil in which we live, a Universe in
which there should be no pain and no patience,
no danger and no courage, no conquest of evil
because there was no evil to be conquered, his
answer can hardly be doubtful. None but the
most frivolous of mankind could think it good
that we should know only the life of the happy
butterfly, flitting gracefully from one pleasure to
another. Few would think it good that our
existence should consist wholly of pleasure mixed
with godlike contemplation, a lofty conversance
with spiritual and intellectual interests divorced
from that bracing of character which is the pro-
duct of sorrow and of pain. The saints of the
Apocalypse* remember for ever in heaven the
sins and the sufferings of earth. To the unbe-
liever the visions of John the Divine may seem to
be the idle fancies of an enthusiast. Even the
believer may regard them as figurative in an
extreme sense, and wholly incapable of exact
realization. But to believer and unbeliever alike,
it must surely be clear that the Apocalyptic
picture of a life which perpetuates the moment of
victory — which rejoices for ever in the marvel of
conquest, cleansing, and redemption, and there-
* Revelation v, 9 ; cf. vii, 14.
5
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
fore keeps in undying freshness* the memory
of the conflict through which the victory was
won — bears witness to a high nobility of con-
ception. " These are they who have come
through great tribulation, and have washed
their robes." When we remember that with
this picture there is joined the conception
of a God Who is Himself a partner in the
sufferings of mankind — afflicted in all the
afflictions of His people, bearing their griefs
and carrying their sorrows, uniting Himself
with their intercessions with groanings which
cannot be uttered| — it will be seen that a belief
in the goodness and nobility of suffering is
interwoven with the very texture of Christianity.
Moreover, the modern mind, for the most part, is
very ready to recognize that the hope of a King-
dom of God, entered into through much tribula-
tion of which at every stage God Himself is a
partaker, embodies a higher ideal than the
Aristotelian conception of a God active with the
endless activity of thought, a thought which
ever contemplates itself. Such a God, far from
humbling Himself to behold the things that are
in heaven and earth, thinks continually and
unchangingly of that only which is " most
divine and precious." To the modern reader,
such language suggests the notion of a God
exalted above the love of men and eternally
* Compare the phrase, " the Church triumphant."
f Isaiah lxiii, 7 ; Matthew viii, 17 ; Romans viii, 26.
6
PROBLEM OF EVIL
absorbed in the contemplation of His own
perfections.*
The assertion of the ultimate goodness of the
more painful and violent of our experiences is
indeed singularly congenial to the mind of the
present day. The modern feeling on this subject
is well expressed in the words in which Goethe's
Faust speaks of his desire not so much for joy
as for comprehensive experience f ; and tells his
eagerness for the " painful delight " { of the heart
which closes itself to no feeling whether sweet or
bitter, § but rather feels impelled to share ||
The fortunes, good or evil, of the Earth,
To battle with the Tempest's breath
Or plunge where shipwreck grinds his teeth.
* If the modern reader conceives the God of Aristotle as, like
Narcissus, vainly contemplating Himself in a mirror, he does an
injustice to the philosopher. It better represents the doctrine
if we say, not that God is always thinking of Himself, but rather
that He is engaged always (as we are sometimes) in the purest
exercise of thought when thought is its own object. In a sense
we must all admit that, since God can contemplate nothing greater,
He must contemplate Himself : and with this admission Christian
theology has not been afraid to reckon. The heart, then, of our
modern objection to the Aristotelian God is not so much that
He contemplates what is noblest, as that He shuts His eyes to
the material world and to many aspects of life which we think
worthy of His attention.
f See the speech beginning Du horest ja, von Freud'' ist nicht
die Rede. % Dem schmerzlichsten Genuss.
§ mein Busen . . .
Soil keinem Schmerzen, kunftig sich verschliessen.
|| See Dr. Anster's paraphrase. The lines in the original are
as follows :
Ich fiihle Muth mich in die Welt zu wagen,
Der Erde Weh, der Erde Gliick zu tragen,
Mit Sturmen mich herumzuschlagen
Und in des Schiffbruchs Knirschen nicht zu zagen.
7
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
How frequently since Goethe's time similar senti-
ments have been expressed by writers both in
England and on the Continent is well known to all
students of literature.
Thus when it is argued that an almighty God
ought to have been able to bring about good
without the intervention of evil, the answer is
fairly obvious. It is, of course, no sufficient
justification for evil that evil sometimes leads to
good. To justify the permission of evil, we must
show how the highest of good things is unattain-
able without it. There are those, however, by
whom even this plea is disallowed. They contend
that since God must be regarded as the Maker,
not of the world only, but of the very nature of
possibility itself, He ought to have produced
something better than this clumsy contrivance
by which good is purchased only at the price of
evil. It is sufficient to reply by recalling the
example already given. To suggest that patience
might have existed in a world which contained no
pain is to use words without meaning. Patience
is one of those good things which in its very
essence is dependent upon evil. When we once
realize that the conquest of evil by the effort of
a rational will is the highest function which a
rational being can perform, we shall then see that
no world which was devoid of evil could con-
ceivably attain perfection.
There are, no doubt, grave difficulties which
8
PROBLEM OF EVIL
still remain. The problem of sin is harder even
than the problem of pain, though the two may be
dealt with in a similar manner. Apart, say,
from the sufferings of Job, the patience of Job
could have had no existence. But similarly the
sin of the Penitent Thief is the necessary pre-
liminary to his repentance, and a true repent-
ance may well be judged to be a nobler spiritual
state even than the most heroic patience. In a
well-known hymn of the Church, the sin of Adam
is spoken of as a " happy fault " since it brought
to mankind the priceless blessing of redemption.*
On behalf of such a theory of evil many passages
may be quoted from the writings of St. Paul. Yet
there are many defenders of Christianity who
view all such reasonings with suspicion. They
fear that men will find in them an excuse, if not
a justification, for continuance in sin.|
In spite, however, of this and other remaining
difficulties, the example of the relation between
pain and patience has to some extent cleared the
ground. As we have seen, it is not the amount,
or the kind, of evil which exists which constitutes
the chief problem ; but the fact that any evil
should exist at all. This is the fact which the
opponent of Christianity can make the subject
of his most effective rhetoric. This is the point
at which his case may appear to be put most
* For the history of this hymn, sung in the Latin office of
Easter Eve, see Mr. Webb's Problems in the Relation of God
and Man, p. 259.
f See below, chapter xiv, pp. 193-194 and note.
9
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
succinctly and most unanswerably. If then this
main difficulty can be met, we may have hope of
dealing successfully with the others.
Thus one effect upon religion of our present
troubles is that they call us to face an old problem
with new resolution, and to face it in the only way
in which it can be effectively treated — namely, in
direct relation to the wider problem of the world
at large. Our theory of evil must depend upon
our general conception of the Universe. The
Universe offers us a confused spectacle of evil and
of good. It is obvious that no shallow theory is
sufficient. A shallow Optimism is confronted
with the facts of evil : a shallow Pessimism with
the facts of good. A theory which ignores either
is self- condemned. And thus the Universe pre-
sents a challenge to the human mind ; it
challenges us to find a theory adequate to its
divers aspects.
The search for such a theory is no unpractical
enterprise. For many years to come our children
will be drinking of the bitter cup which the events
of this generation have mingled for them. For
many years every country of Europe will have
to deal with urgent practical questions.* Yet
experience has shown that it is the mark of
rational humanity to " look before and after.
■>•>
* This will be true even if the recovery after the war is sur-
prisingly rapid.
10
PROBLEM OF EVIL
Men have never succeeded for long in separating
the questions of the day from the deeper ques-
tions which lie behind them. To all who recog-
nize this truth — whether they adopt towards
Christianity an attitude of acceptance, of doubt,
or of total denial — it will be evident that we shall
take up with better courage the challenge of our
times if we have first dared to take up with bold-
ness the challenge of the Universe.
11
CHAPTER II
THE FREE MAN'S WORSHIP
To meet this challenge duly we have need both of
industry and of candour.
Mr. Wells in one of his recent novels gives some
excellent advice to religious teachers. The re-
ligion, he says, which is taught by some instruc-
tors of the young, may be described as " Muffled
Christianity." The Christianity of the School-
master is muffled, he thinks, both in its moral
and its intellectual aspects. The pupil is never
led to suspect that Christianity makes any such
demand upon his allegiance as to require him to
take an unpopular side or to sacrifice his own
career for the common good : nor, secondly, is
he ever allowed to hear Christian beliefs dealt
with in an impartial manner. He never hears
any honest argument against them, and therefore
— so Mr. Wells argues — can never have heard any
genuine argument in their favour.
Against this charge the Schoolmasters may be
able to make a good defence. Or they may
plead extenuating circumstances. But whatever
may be the value of Mr. Wells's criticisms of the
teaching profession, his advice to the defenders
of Christianity is well worthy of consideration.
12
FREE MAN'S WORSHIP
When he advises us, in effect, to make clear that
Christianity calls men to a distinctive type of
life and service, exacting in its demands, and
sometimes revolutionary in its consequences, he
is clearly right. Such Christian service is the
best of Christian evidence. The simple saints
who, whether their intellectual gifts are high or
lowly, see what are the true issues of life — who
walk in penitence, humility, love, usefulness, and
self-denial, and thus exhibit in some degree the
sweet reasonableness of their Master — these are
of more value than many arguments.
Yet argument, none the less, has a value of its
own ; and Mr. Wells surely is right again when
he advises freedom of discussion. There are few
texts of Scripture more unblushingly disobeyed
than the command of St. Peter that we should be
ready always to give an answer to those who ask
a reason of the hope that is in us. The power of
successful argument is not a common faculty.
Few of us, therefore, will willingly engage in
argument with our juniors. As life advances, we
get to suspect that argument is not only socially
tedious, but for the most part unproductive of
conviction. Wc know also that men may have
excellent reasons for their beliefs, and yet no
power to express them in words.
Nevertheless reflection shows the wisdom of
St. Peter's advice. Man, after all, is funda-
mentally rational. In the long run we all distrust
a belief for which no reason can be given. In
13
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
intellectual matters absolute honesty is the first
and great commandment. There is in the world
much honest doubt on religious subjects ; and
honest doubt, however crudely or even offen-
sively expressed, deserves an honest answer.
The truth is that a reasoned treatment of re-
ligious beliefs is most neglected just where it is
most required. On specific issues — on the doc-
trines which divide Roman Catholics from
Protestants, or Churchmen from Dissenters —
excellently clear books are written. But these
books are of no value to the many who are
doubting whether any part of religion is true ;
whether the hopes of the Christian have any
foundation whatever.
Let us turn our attention then, first and fore-
most, to the great fundamental questions. Does
the constitution of the Universe take any account
of man as such, and of his moral and spiritual
interests ? Or is human life but the accidental
outcome of purely mechanical laws ? It is on
the answer to this question that the truth or
falsehood of all religious hope depends.
On this subject we meet with two sharply
contrasted views. On the one hand we have the
doctrine of Special Providence ; the belief in a
loving Father Who takes heed of our smallest
concerns, and orders all things with a view to the
highest interests of mankind. This view has its
14
FREE MAN'S WORSHIP
classical statement in the New Testament. Of
the man who conceives the Universe as con-
structed for the private benefit of himself, his
friends, and his relations, the modern world is
characteristically intolerant. It is important
therefore to notice that from the New Testament
all such narrow-mindedness is absent. The New
Testament writers are men conversant with
great interests, with those eternal problems of
good and evil which are the deepest concern of
mankind at large. It is indeed no more true that
the believer in Providence is necessarily a person
of narrow mind than that the upholder of the
opposing view is necessarily a man of low
spiritual vitality.
This opposite view is expressed with peculiar
force in an early essay by Mr. Bertrand Russell
entitled The Free Man's Worship. The world
which physical science presents for our belief
seems to Mr. Russell to be a world without pur-
pose.* " Blind to good and evil, omnipotent
matter rolls on its relentless way " *j* ; and so " the
individual soul must struggle alone, with what of
courage it can command, against the whole
weight of a Universe which cares nothing for its
hopes and fears." J
" That man," he says, " is the product of
causes which had no prevision of the end they
were achieving ; that his origin, his growth, his
* Philosophical Essays, p. 60. f Ibid., p. 70. % Ibid., p. 68.
15
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but
the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms :
that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought
and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond
the grave ; that all the labours of the ages, all
the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday
brightness of human genius are destined to ex-
tinction in the vast death of the Solar System,
and that the whole temple of man's achievement
must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a
Universe in ruins — all these things, if not quite
beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no
philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.
Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only
on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can
the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built." *
In such a world the problem for man is how to
preserve untarnished the higher aspirations of
his soul. Though " man with his knowledge of
good and evil " be " but a helpless atom in a
world which has no such knowledge," man need
not therefore worship force. We may " preserve
our respect for truth, for beauty, for the ideal of
perfection which life does not permit us to
attain : though none of these things meet with
the approval of the unconscious Universe." f
Nor need our attitude be one of mere defiance.
" Christian resignation," as Mr. Russell perceives,
" is wiser than Promethean rebellion. "{ And,
* Philosophical Essays, p. 60-61.
t Ibid., pp. 63-64.
% Ibid., pp. 64-65.
16
FREE MAN'S WORSHIP
further, " in the spectacle of Death, in the en-
durance of intolerable pain, in the irrevocableness
of a vanished past, there is a sacredness, an over-
powering awe, a feeling of the vastness, the depth,
the inexhaustible mystery of existence, in which,
as by some strange marriage of pain, the sufferer
is bound to the world by bonds of sorrow. In
these moments of insight we lose all eagerness of
temporary desire, all struggling and striving for
petty ends." * And so, in Mr. Russell's view, it
comes about that " to abandon the struggle for
private happiness, to burn with passion for
eternal things, this is the free man's worship." f
Thus it is that Mr. Russell would have us bear
the cross without hoping for the crown. Such
an attitude of Christian resignation, as, divorced
from the support of Christian consolation and
hope, it has been exhibited by more than one
unbeliever in our time, is one of the noblest
spectacles which life has to offer.
Yet it cannot be denied that Mr. Russell's
theory of the Universe — the theory which is
now commonly called " Naturalism " — presents us
with a view of life gloomy in the last degree. It
affirms that the laws of Nature are absolutely
indifferent to man and his interests : it forbids
us to extend our hopes beyond the grave : it leaves
us, as Mr. Russell himself confesses, to an " un-
yielding despair." In the search for truth we
* Philosophical Essays, p. 67. f Ibid., p. 69.
B 17
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
must not allow our conclusions to be dictated by
our wishes. The " Will to believe " must never
be admitted as an argument. But, so long as we
do not allow our wishes to bias our thinking, we
may frankly admit that it would grieve us to find
Mr. Russell's conclusions correct, and would
please us to find that they could be triumphantly
refuted. The desire to lift the cloud of depression
into which an acceptance of Naturalism would
plunge us, is a perfectly legitimate motive for
candid and searching inquiry.
Can we find, then, any valid argument by which
Mr. Russell's confident assertions can be dis-
proved ? If this is done, can we advance further,
and find reasons to justify a general Optimism ?
Can we find reasonable support for the Christian
belief that, in spite of evil or by means of it, the
spiritual interests of mankind will show them-
selves completely victorious in the end ?
We must not hastily assume that Naturalism
and Christian Optimism are alternatives. It is
an interesting fact that for many minds the
choice does lie between these two. They feel
that if they reject the one they must immediately
accept the other. The reader on careful self-
examination may perhaps find that this is the
case with himself; and the significance of this
fact may appear below. Meanwhile, however,
we may confine ourselves to the simple question
whether Naturalism is true or false : whether the
Universe is, or is not, so constituted, that its
18
FREE MAN'S WORSHIP
laws have reference to the spiritual interests of
mankind.*
This question, it should be noticed, is not
identical with the question whether the world is
governed by a Personal God. The conception of
God as a Person has played in all ages a great
part in religion. The faith that behind the
mysteries of Nature lies a mind and heart similar
to the mind and heart of man, belongs to religion
in some of its humblest, but also in some of its
noblest, developments ; and those who have
poured scorn upon this belief have evinced little
understanding of the profound human instinct
which it expresses. Yet it is a mere fact of
experience and history that other views of God
have had, and have still, a great influence on
human thought. The evidence of this fact which
is most familiar to the general reader is the
well-known phrase of Matthew Arnold, who con-
ceives God, not as a self-conscious Person, but
as the " Power not ourselves which makes for
righteousness."
As against Mr. Russell, Matthew Arnold and
the orthodox believer are on the same side. For
Mr. Russell the " power not ourselves which
makes for righteousmess " is as much a figment
as the divine Governor of the world. For Mr.
* Mr. Russell speaks of a fortuitous concourse of atoms.
Many who accept his Naturalism would reject this phrase. Are
we to praise Mr. Russell for having the courage of his opinions,
or to blame him for giving away his case ? On this question the
future chapters will throw light.
19
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
Russell there is not even any " power not our-
selves which makes for beauty." In admiring
Nature, he thinks, the " insight of creative
idealism " is finding the " reflection of a beauty
which its own thoughts first made." In other
words, he conceives us as " reading in " to the
Universe what apart from us it would not contain.
For the present moment, then, let us keep in
mind one single question. Let us inquire
whether, outside man and human efforts, there is
any Power — personal or impersonal, conscious or
unconscious — which makes for righteousness and
spiritual advance ; and let us examine in relation
to this question the well-known arguments which
in all generations have supported the religious
faith of mankind.
20
CHAPTER III
THE PLAIN MAN'S ARGUMENT
Of the various arguments devised in past times
to prove the existence of God — and incidentally
to refute a Naturalism like Mr. Russell's — the
clearest and simplest is the familiar " Argument
from Design."
This argument points to certain facts of Nature
which look like evidences of design or arrange-
ment ; and draws the conclusion that the world
is so like_ a plan that it must really be one ; that
is, that it resembles a work of intelligence in
too many respects for this resemblance to be
accidental.
At the present moment the Argument from
Design is out of favour : partly because it is
supposed to have been demolished by Darwin ;
partly because it seems to ignore the sufferings,
the inequalities, the injustices of life, to which
the modern mind is so peculiarly sensitive. If a
wise God designed those elements in the world
which are pleasant and profitable, what explana-
tion are we to give of the evil and the pain ?
In some quarters, however, this argument still
holds its own : nor is its influence confined to
ignorant men unacquainted with Darwin, nor to
21
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
simple souls who know nothing of the ills of life.
Yet it has never in modern times been the special
argument of the philosophic thinker. In contrast
with other arguments preferred by the learned,
the Argument from Design has been called* the
" argument of the plain man." Employed mostly
by men versed in the hard facts of life rather than
in philosophic systems, it is often seen in its most
impressive shape when stated in the most in-
formal manner.
Take, for example, the well-known question of
Napoleon and the comment made upon it by
Carlyle, " During Napoleon's voyage to Egypt "
— says Carlyle on the authority of Bourrienne —
" his savons were one evening busily occupied
arguing that there could be no God. They had
proved it, to their satisfaction, by all manner
of logic. Napoleon, looking up into the stars,
answers, ' Very ingenious, messieurs ; but who
made all that ? ' The atheistic logic runs off
him like Water ; the great fact stares him in the
face : ' Who made all that ? ' "
In all such popular arguments we have to dis-
tinguish what is said from what is meant. If we
ask, " Who made the world ? " the unbeliever may
readily answer, " Why should it have been made
by any one ? How can you prove that nothing
* See Mr. Webb's Problems in the Relation of God and Man,
p. 159.
22
PLAIN MAN'S ARGUMENT
can exist which is not the work of a conscious
being ? " But such an answer implies a mis-
understanding of the issue. The force of Napo-
leon's argument depends, not upon the fact that
there exists a world of some kind, but simply and
solely upon its character.* Had he found himself
confronted with a world of Chaos, instead of a
world of Order, his question would never have
been asked.
The mind of the man of action contemplating
the works of Nature is impressed always by the
" orderliness " which they exhibit. In some
languages, as is well known, a word signifying
the " Order " — Cosmos, Mundus, Monde — is the
very name by which the world is called. The
word " Order," it must be admitted, is often
somewhat vaguely employed — sometimes to
signify a wise and well-considered arrangement,
sometimes to signify mere arrangement as such
without deciding whether it is good or evil. But
to the plain man Order in either sense suggests
intelligence. Even the uniformities and simi-
larities which are recorded by Physical Science
seem to him to call for some explanation such as a
purely physical theory cannot offer. Napoleon's
question indicates that he sees in the world the
same sort of qualities which we should regard as
the results of intelligence if we found them in the
work of man ; the qualities which distinguish the
* In this respect the Argument from Design is in contrast to
the " Cosmological Proof."
23
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
work of an adult from the work of a child, the
work of a sane man from that of a lunatic,
the work of an artist from that of a mere
craftsman.
In human work — in a Gothic Cathedral and
equally in a steam-engine — the idea of the Whole
comes first and the parts are subsecpLjent. It is
with "reference to "TheTdea^oTtne Whole that the
parts are formed or selected. In the machine
the parts come together as means to a common
end. In a work of art every feature is an end in
itself, and exists for the sake of its own beauty.
But the various features are still parts of a Whole
and co-operate to produce the general " effect '
under the influence of a governing conception.
Even in simple cases, as when plants or stortesfare
arranged in rows or circles, we recognize that an
idea has come first. The position of each indivi-
dual plant has been governed by a single principle
which takes account of them all. Indeed the
" government of separate objects by a single
principle " is, in these cases, the very essence of
what " order " or " arrangement " means.
Is the world, then, similar to human work in
this respect ? There is much to suggest that it
is. I look around, and am aware that every
blade of grass is going through a similar process
of growth : that all the sheep on the hill-side are
going through similar processes of nutrition :
that in every ear of corn matter is being collected
24
PLAIN MAN'S ARGUMENT
and arranged in a similar complex structure. Yet
these are not cases of direct mechanical contact ;
they are not like the case where a number of
levers move in a similar manner because all are
worked by a single crank. Each individual
sheep is physically separate from the others.
Whence then this unity of behaviour ? Has not
the student of Physical Science been too much
disposed to take th e Uniformity of Nature f or
granted, asTFbecause it is familiar it was there-
fore understood and explained, and need cause
no further question ? Has he not sometimes
spoken as if by Natural Selection we could explain
the uniform behaviour of organic bodies, while
in truth he is compelled, like other people, to pre-
suppose this uniform behaviour as the starting-
point of his explanations ? The Uniformity of
Nature is a sufficientl y rema rkable fact. _JTo^ the
plain man disposed towards religion uniformity
is itself a religious argument. Whenever we see
in articles of manufacture the same unity of
character or behaviour as we find in natural
objects, we know what to conclude ; they have
all been formed according to one rule or pattern ;
one principle has governed all the cases : and
this implies the work of a governing or designing
mind. And so, he argues, it is with the world ;
Nature goes by rules, and rules, he thinks, can only
act through the agency of a mind which can grasp
them. " The world," said a thoughtful artisan, " is
a System, and every System has its Master."
25
CHAPTER IV
THE ARGUMENT EXAMINED
The plain man's argument, then, has two stages :
first, he concludes that the world is governed by
principles ; secondly, that it is governed by a
Conscious Mind.
These two stages should be kept distinct. At
its second stage — as must be frankly admitted —
the argument tries to move too fast. We have no
right to jump to the conclusion that " government
by a principle " is the same thing as " government
by a mind." There are clear cases where these
are not identical. The measurements of all the
triangles in the world — in all their variety of
shapes and sizes — are governed by the single
principle that the three interior angles of each are
equal to two right angles.* Yet it would not
* There are many people, unacquainted with Geometry though
otherwise well educated, to whom the measurement of angles
conveys no meaning. Yet if we agree to call a right angle an
angle of 90 degrees it is easy to see what is meant by an angle of
45 degrees, or of 30, 15, 135, etc. ; and hence to understand the
26
ARGUMENT EXAMINED
occur to any one who understood the Euclidean
proof to speak of the triangles as subjected to
this principle by divine decree, or to interpret the
law in terms of conscious Will or Purpose.*
Thus it is not the aim of the present volume to
defend the popular argument as it stands ; but
rather to show that the fundamental thought
which it enshrines can be restated in a less
questionable form. The chief criticisms directed
against the Argument from Design are due to
Kant t and to Darwin. We must seek to rewrite
it, bearing these criticisms in mind. Yet a brief
discussion of the argument in its popular form is
an excellent introduction to the whole subject,
meaning of the statement that the three interior angles of any
triangle are together equal to two right angles, i.e. that the
three numbers representing the three angles will, if added to-
gether, always come to 180, e.g.
'
45 \
For the proof of the statement we must look elsewhere (Euclid, I,
:V1). liut what is said here should be enough to make plain,
even to the most ungeometrical person, the drift of the argument
in the text.
* See below, Epilogue, p. 219.
f There will be no explicit reference in this book to Kant's
criticism. But the attempt has been made consistently to state
the argument in a form to which these criticisms shall not apply.
See Note at end of Epilogue.
27
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
and will serve to familiarize us with ideas which
are not too prominent in the thoughts of this
generation.
Even if the Argument from Design fails to
prove what it sets out to prove, still it proves
something. It points to certain groups of facts
which become significant if they are considered
together.
It points, first, to the regularity of Nature, to
the fact that everywhere Nature conforms, itself
tommies. It points, secondly, to the appearance
of co-operation among the various parts of Nature,
especially among the organs of organic bodies.
Thirdly, it inquires whether it can be a mere
accident that the physical processes of Nature
are so admirable in their aesthetic effects, in the
schemes of line and colour which they produce.
Fourthly, it points to the fact that similar laws
hold good in all parts of the known universe, and
points to certain other facts likewise which sug-
gest unity of system. The appeal of Carlyle is
to the " great fact " which stares us in the face.
That the world has a " M aker " is not an observed
fact, r^TTf^an~mference. But the regularity, the
mutual co-operation, the aesthetic harmony of
Nature in its various parts, and in some sense also
its unity, are facts which all schools of thought
will admit. The question is how far recent dis-
covery and recent thought — and especially the
doctrines of Darwin — have robbed these facts of
28
^>3L
ARGUMENT EXAMINED
significance for religion. Men, as we saw, have
found, or have fancied, that the world possesses
those qualities which belong to the best kind of
human work, the work of the grown man, the
sane man, the competent artist. Before we
reject the old argument as worthless, we must ask
whether the world does possess these qualities or
not ; and, if we find that it does, we must then
inquire whether our own theory of the world,
whatever it be, takes this aspect of Nature suffi-
ciently into account.
I. Take, one by one, the facts mentioned
above. Take, first of all, regularity. Nature
unquestionably conforms itself to rules. Is it
also governed by them ?
We saw that the question "Is a Naturalism
like that of Mr. Russell true or false ? " is not
identical with the question whether there is or is
not a Personal God. For the present moment,
then — instead of asking " Is the world governed
by a Person ? " or even " Are the principles which
govern the world wise ones ? " — we will confine
ourselves to the question which justly comes first,
" Is the world* governed by principles at all ? '
There are those who totally deny it ; who
assert that the Laws of Nature, and all other
general principles too, exist in the human mind
only. These thinkers regard the outside world
* That certain geometrical facts are so governed we have seen
already. Is this true also of the world at large ?
29
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
as a collection of isolated individual things —
bodies, molecules, atoms, or smaller units* —
separate one from another in their own nature,
while the bond which binds them together in our
minds is a purely mental fact, an afterthought by
which the mind compendiously sums up its ex-
periences and observations.
On this theory Nature consists of blind iso-
lated particles moved by blind brute forces, nor
is there anything which bears even the most
remote resemblance to a " spiritual principle in
Nature." In the words of Democritus of old,
nothing is " real " but " atoms " and " void " ;
and though we must not assume that his modern
followers are at one in all respects either with him
or with one another, we have still to reckon with
the opinion (strongly and even obstinately held)
that in Nature apart from man all is separateness
and isolation ; that the bond which binds the
units together is mental, the creation of the
human mind.
It is, however, a pure mistake to suppose that
this kind of " atomistic " doctrine gains any
genuine support from modern discovery. It is
true that recent additions to our knowledge have
greatly changed the outlook. The constancy and
immutability of Natural Law revealed itself to
primitive mankind in the regular changes of the
seasons, the constant properties of fire and water,
* There is, of course, no intention here to deny the value of
these conceptions for the purposes of Physics.
30
ARGUMENT EXAMINED
the daily rising of the heavenly bodies, the moon
" appointed for certain seasons." the sun which
" knoweth his going down." For us the regular
seasons are explained by astronomic motions :
these in their turn by the mutual attraction of
innumerable particles of matter ; this again,
perhaps, by the action of still minuter parti-
cles. Yet, after all, the element of regularity
has merely shifted its ground. The regularity of
the larger bodies presupposes the regularity of
the smaller. The smaller particles may follow
laws which are less complex even than New-
ton's formula of gravitation* ; but, whether the
ultimate laws be complex or simple, we always
come back in the end to a number of separate
particles behaving according to one single rule of
action. From this conception we cannot escape.
Moreover, our prediction, whether it be the
astronomer's prediction of eclipses, or the ordi-
* The jet of water, reaching the ground after it is propelled
from a horizontal spout, describes a parabola. It is easy to
argue that in Nature itself we have merely the downward pull
and the outward thrust. Yet here on any showing we have a vast
number of distinct particles all subject to a real necessity quite
independent of our minds. This necessity is also a general
necessity. We predict the fall of the water with confidence,
because we believe that all the particles must conform to a single
rule of behaviour. Thus — even if the principle of the parabola
and (as some will argue) the principle expressed in the Newtonian
formula, belong to our minds only — we get back sooner or later
to a general principle to which separate facts must conform ; by
which, in other words, they are " governed." Our prediction of
natural events assumes, what in the case of Geometry we can
prove, that a certain group of facts must conform themselves to
a single principle.
31
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
nary man's expectation of the alternations of
seed-time and harvest, day and night, assumes
that this regularity " must " continue ; and
therefore that those ultimate movements of
minute particles * upon which all this visible
regularity depends will inevitably continue to
proceed according to the same rules as heretofore.
It assumes, too, that this regularity will affect,
not only those particles whose effects come within
our ken, but all similar particles in all parts of the
Universe. If, then, in the case of each Law of
Nature we assume — as we do — that we are deal-
ing with a principle of regularity to which the
movements of matter " must " conform, why
should we hesitate to say that the movements are
" governed ' by the principle — if not through
the agency of a Conscious Mind, then in somewhat
the same sort of unconscious way in which the
measurements of triangles are governed by the
laws denned by Euclid ?
II. We come, secondly, to the co-operation of
one natural object with others, especially the
mutual co-operation of organs in plants and
animals. Nature, as we have just seen, is sub-
* It is a common mistake to speak as if we arrived at our
knowledge of the regularity of visible processes through our
knowledge of the invisible regularities which Physics has to assume
as their foundation. The truth is that we assume future regu-
larity in these invisible movements of minute particles, only
because we have already assumed it in the case of those with
which we are more familiar.
32
ARGUMENT EXAMINED
ject to general laws. Are there any special
laws which regulate co-operation ? The parts
of Nature do, as a fact, work together. Are
there laws which order these helpful relations ;
or is this co-operation but the chance result of
laws purely mechanical — laws which do not
prescribe co-operation as such ?
In pre-Darwinian days the organic body was
treated as an evidence for religion. In the
formation of such bodies there is much that
looks like selection on definite principles for a
definite purpose. The eye is a highly complex
structure : an assemblage of different substances
of which each appears to be necessary for the
function which the eye performs, since even slight
injury impairs its power.* It is not every kind
of matter which will form an eye. A selection,
then, it would seem, must consciously or un-
consciously take place whenever an eye is formed.
Yet this selection is actually accomplished with
success in the myriad eyes of men and animals.
The question is whether the whole apparent
marvellousness of these facts, which has seemed
to lend them a significance for religion, is ex-
plained away by the Darwinian theory.
The appearance of selection and co-operation
has led the religious mind to two divergent con-
clusions. The commonest view, no doubt, has
been that animals and plants are made by God
* The defects of structure mentioned by Helmholtz do not
remove this impression of general success in adaptation.
C 33
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
as watches are made by a watchmaker * ; with
the difference, tacitly if not explicitly recognized,
that the watchmaker merely puts together
pre-existing material. But, side by side with
this conception of a Divine Architect working
from without, stands the rival theory of an
unconscious but quasi-purposive principle within
the organ itself. There have been times when,
in the words of Haeckel, " physiology has
substituted for the conscious Divine Architect
an unconscious creative ' vital force ' — a mys-
terious, purposive, natural force, which differed
from the familiar forces of Physics and Chemistry,
and only took these in part during life into its
service." f We are not concerned just now to ask
whether the principles which govern Nature are
best conceived as conscious or unconscious. Our
present question is more general. Is there any
special principle which regulates the co-operation
of part with part, or is this co-operation when it
occurs the mere by-product of " the familiar laws
of Physics and Chemistry " ?
The doctrine of a special principle regulating
the co-operation of our organs is commonly
dubbed " Vitalism " : and Vitalism has been a
singularly unfortunate doctrine, unfortunate in
* A popular hymn says that God " paints the wayside flower
and lights the evening star." It is probable that many whole-
hearted believers in the Christian religion would strongly resent
the imputation that they took these words quite literally. They
believe, they would say, in an " immanent " rather than a
" transcendent " God. f Riddle of the Universe, chap. xiv.
34
ARGUMENT EXAMINED
its defenders,* unfortunate in the examples
quoted in its support. | This subject, however,
though it has become a matter of considerable
popular interest — especially in relation to the
question whether a living organism might con-
ceivably be produced by artificial means in the
laboratory of the chemist — is too intricate to be
conveniently dealt with in the present chapter.
It will fall better into its place below. At the
point we have now reached one single remark will
be sufficient.
It should be remembered that Darwinism, as
Darwin himself understood it, does nothing to
account for the development of living organisms
from inorganic matter. The theory of Natural
Selection J presupposes the distinction between
living organisms and inorganic matter, and it
assumes as a starting-point the living organism as
already in existence. If, then, Darwin presupposes
the living organism he cannot justly be said to
explain it.§
III. With regard to our third group of facts,
those relating to beauty in Nature, the common
* After running one career of error in the past, Vitalism, under
the guidance of M. Bergson, seems to be preparing another career
of error for the future.
f For some remarks on the well-known case of formic acid, see
Religion in an Age of Doubt, p. 7.
X See chap, ix, p. 97, etc.
§ See Origin of Species, chap, viii, opening paragraph : " I have
nothing to do," etc. Cf. chap, xv : " It is no valid objection,"
etc., in paragraph beginning " It can hardly be supposed that a
false theory," etc.
35
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
argument is that Natural Beauty is a persistent
and very remarkable fact which calls for an
explanation such as Physical Science by itself
cannot give ; and therefore leads us on, either to
the belief in a divine creative Artist, or at least
to some theory in which the blind atoms and
forces of Naturalism are not the last word in
explanation.
Now, whatever we may think of this argument,
there is no ground for saying that it has been
made obsolete by Darwin. In certain cases, no
doubt, Darwinism has valuable explanations to
offer. The bright colours of male birds can be
explained by sexual selection — by the preferences
shown generation after generation by the female
for the brightly coloured partner. The bright
colours of flowers can be explained by their power
to attract the fertilizing insects. But these and
all similar explanations cover a very narrow field.
If there is an y one who still thinks that he can
give a gene ral explanation oT~a3sth ejac^facts by
evolut ionary arguments of this simple sort,* we
may invite his attention to the colour-schemes of
inanimate Nature — to the Alpine snows, to the
clouds at sunset or at dawn, to the wide prospects
of rock and sand, of stream and sea. Here we
have colour- schemes as delicate as in the colour-
ings of flowers or birds ; yet here there is no
question of heredity, and therefore no place
* For a different form of evolutionary explanation of beauty,
see below, p. 37.
36
ARGUMENT EXAMINED
for this particular kind of evolutionary explana-
tion.
Again, throughout Nature we have not merely
beauty, but harmony; and here Darwin has no
advantage whatever over the explanations which
were open to Physical Science in pre-Darwinian
days. To the eye of the painter the landscape
is an assemblage of coloured points. We may
explain by Chemistry the colour of each point
taken separately. But neither Chemistry, nor
Physics, nor Biology, nor all these sciences
together, do anything to explain the delicate
harmony of the whole. Why, again and again,
do just those colours occur together which form a
harmonious scheme ? This is a question which
Physical Science as such cannot answer. If it
were true, as a Philistine might think, that any
colours would look well together, if only there are
enough of them and they are sufficiently bright
and varied, then the harmoniousness of natural
colour might seem to call for no special ex-
planation. But, as every one with an eye
for colour knows well, the laws of harmony
in colour are at least as strict as the laws of
harmony in music. The plain man, then, is
right in thinking that some special explanation
is wanted.
A more ingenious form of evolutionary theory
seeks to explain, not the beauty of Nature itself,
but human taste. It is suggested that we like
the colour-schemes of Nature because these have
37
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
been familiar to us and to our ancestors for gen-
erations : or, again, that our aesthetic tastes are
somehow to be accounted for by their utility in
the struggle for existence. These theories, as we
shall see below,* break down utterly when they
are confronted with the facts.
So, again, do all theories which deny the
reality of Natural Beauty, and treat it as some
illusion or creation of our own. There are those —
of whom Mr. Russell is one — who speak of beauty
as the product of our creative imagination. But
are they quite in earnest ? Do they consistently
think that all those elements in the world which
excite our admiration are read into Nature by us
— that there is nothing worthy of aesthetic ad-
miration in the world as it stands ? The claim
when so stated will be at once rejected. The crea-
tive imagination is powerful no doubt ; but the
sugg'estion that it alone produces beauty, and
that Nature itself contributes nothing, is clearly
absurd. If this were so, why should one thing be
pronounced more beautiful than another ? If
Mr. Russell, thirsting for beauty, is confined
to his bedroom just as he is starting for Italy
and the Alps, it will hardly console him to
propose that he should stimulate his creative
fancy by a contemplation of old files of the
Times and an extensive view of bricks and
mortar.
The fact is that Nature, as actually presented
* Chap. x.
38
ARGUMENT EXAMINED
to our senses, conforms itself to aesthetic prin-
ciples — to the principles of delicacy, congruity,
and harmony. It is for this very reason that the
artist takes Nature for his model. If, then, we
once perceive that the colour-schemes of Nature
conform to these principles, we are driven to
suppose either that the principles have in some
way an influence upon Nature, or else that the
conformity of natural scenes to these principles
is a mere accident — just as much a pure coinci-
dence as if a picture were formed by pigments
smeared in the dark upon an artist's palette, or a
tune played by men blowing at random into
organ-pipes lying in confusion in a builder's shed.
When we think of the vast number of coloured
points involved, we shall see that in the case of
the landscape a coincidence of this kind is
inconceivable.
The beauty of the landscape is due on any
theory to physical particles and the manner in
which they are disposed. Is there, then, any
necessity that just those particles should exist,
and just those very dispositions of them should
always take place, which are fitted to produce a
harmonious effect ? If there is no such necessity,
then it is a piece of pure good luck that the world
possesses the beauty which, as a matter of fact,
is found on every side. But Nature is beautiful
so constantly that we seem forced to believe that
it is in some sense under a necessity to be beauti-
ful. If this is true, then it follows that Nature
39
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
is in some sense governed by aesthetic as well as
by purely physical principles.
IV. Our fourth heading involves but little
difficulty. That there are facts which suggest
that the world is a systematic Whole is shown by
the almost universal influence which this con-
ception possesses. Atheist, Agnostic, and Chris-
tian alike assume that the world as a whole is
based on some intelligible scheme, the character
of which can be grasped, at least in outline, by
the mind of man. Nothing could be further from
the truth than to suppose that we know only the
facts nearest to us in Space and Time, and have no
conception of the Universe outside these limits.
In fact, if the world were dark to us outside
certain narrow limits, it would be hardly less
dark to us within them. For if we knew nothing
of the world outside, how could we know that it
might not at any moment upset, suddenly and
totally, all those computations upon which our
daily actions depend ? If immense masses of
matter, of unknown powers, might, for all we
knew, be rushing upon us at an unknown degree
of rapidity, none of our predictions would be
worth a moment's purchase.* Bodies w r hich
now are too far off to be perceptible by the most
delicate instruments might within a few seconds'
time alter the whole physical state of the Solar
System. Thus it is only by possessing some
* Cf. chap, xv, p. 202, and see Note II at end of Epilogue, p. 228.
40
ARGUMENT EXAMINED
conception of the world as a whole that we can
have any confident knowledge of the nature of
its parts.
We see, then, the general tendency of the
Argument from Design. It points to the orderly
and systematic character of Nature, and espe-
cially to those respects in which Nature bears
resemblance to a work of art. We have no right
to assume that such regularity as we find in
Nature is a matter of course ; and if its regularity
is not a matter of course, still less so is its har
mony, its beauty, its general artistic appearanc
^WTTen, therefore, the supporters of Naturalism
argue that the orderliness which makes such an
impression upon the religious mind is after all
but the result of that fixity of law which is the
postulate of Physical Science, an effective answer
lies ready to hand. " P^ven if you are entitled
to take uniformity for granted, as something
which needs no further explanation, still mere
uniformity as such does nothing to explain
beauty. A world might be marvellously uniform
and yet not at all beautiful. Granted the exis-
tence of just those material particles which the
world actually contains, and granted that they
contain just those forces and properties which do
actually belong to them, then certainly it is
absolutely necessary that we should have as a
result just that Universe with which we are
41
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
acquainted. But it is mere stupidity * which
thinks that the beauty of the world is thus
accounted for. An important question remains
unanswered. Is there any special reason why
just those particles, forces, and properties exist
which produce a harmony of colour, not once or
twice, not here or there, but in all the diverse
landscapes which Nature exhibits ? "
The believer's argument is not simply that
" Naturalism is false because it cannot explain
beauty." To such an argument there would be
an easy retort : " Neither can you yourself give
an explanation which is complete." The sound
argument is that Naturalism, in denying that
there is in Nature any tendency towards beauty
and aesthetic harmony as such, is hereby treating
the beauty of Nature as a mere accident ; and
this, we rightly feel, is utterly incredible.
If, on the other hand, there is in Nature a real
tendency towards beauty, we have advanced at
least one step towards the religious man's view
of the world. The world is no longer utterly cold
and purposeless. The laws and tendencies of
matter are no longer wholly hostile or indifferent.
That tendency towards beauty to which our
argument points, is a very different thing from
the conscious purpose of a personal God. Yet
the plain man who identifies the two is not without
* That this is not too strong a word may be shown by con-
sidering any parallel case. Take the case, supposed below (chap.
v, p. 55), of the rock which resembles the face of a well-known
statesman.
42
ARGUMENT EXAMINED
excuse. The fact that the world is like a work
of art does not prove that there is a conscious
Creator, but it does suggest it. This resemblance
is no chance resemblance, as when the glowing
embers of the fire resemble faces, or the clouds
resemble a camel or a whale ; it is a matter of
settled principle and constant law. To the un-
philosophic mind, therefore — if to no other — the
readiest explanation of the artistic character of
the world is that it is in truth the plan of a Divine
Architect.
43
CHAPTER V
A CHAPTER OF HISTORY
The Argument from Design, then, even in its
least systematic shape, seems worthy of some
respect. This opinion will perhaps be confirmed
if, before leaving the pre-Darwinian period, we
glance at two or three of the more formal and
literary statements of the same argument.
For our first example we may go to Aristotle.
In a well-known passage of the Metaphysics*
he describes how men first became dissatisfied
with Thales and the purely physical school. To
this dissatisfaction, he thinks, thev were " forced
by the truth itself." The earlier philosophers
had sought for the explanation of the world in
material causes : earth, air, fire, or water. But
it was noticed that many things which exist or
come into being are " well and beautifully
formed." Of this goodness and beauty it is not
reasonable to look for the cause in earth, or fire,
or any similar substance : nor is it likely that
even the earlier philosophers themselves would
have thought that it was. Nor, again, can we
* Rook I, p. 984b.
44
CHAPTER OF HISTORY
reasonably attribute so great a matter as the
goodness and beauty of the world to mere chance.
When, therefore, some one said that Mind was
present in the world, as it is in living beings, and
was the cause of the order,* and all the arrange-
ment which we observe in Nature, he appeared
like a sane man amid the wild talk of the earlier
thinkers.
The arguments here are in effect two. First,
we cannot regard the beauty and goodness of the
world as due to chance. Secondly, we can find no
adequate explanation of it in purely physical
causes as such. The mere qualities which belong
to earth as earth, or to fire as fire, afford no ex-
planation of the goodness and beauty which be-
long to many of the things around us. Yet some
special explanation seems to be called for, unless
we are contented, as we are not, to attribute them
to chance — to say that they come " of them-
selves." The suggestion that the beauty and
goodness of Nature are due to " Mind as in
animals " does at least recognize that there is
something to be explained and makes a serious
attempt to explain it.
A similar, but more extended, piece of reasoning
is to be found in the Memorabilia of Xcnophon.f
A discussion is recorded in which Socrates — in
* See Index in the Teubner edition, noo-pos <ai ra^is.
t Book I.
45
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
converse with a friend who " neither sacrificed
to the gods nor prayed,* nor used divination,
but laughed to scorn those who did so " — asks
whether it is more wonderful to make dead images
(as do the artists whom his friend admires) or to
make living animals. " To make living animals,"
is the reply, " would be much the more wonderful,
if it is true that they are indeed the work of in-
telligence and not due to chance." " Suppose,"
says Socrates, " we distinguish from one another
the things which have no obvious use or purpose,
and the things which are manifestly beneficial,
which would you think to be due to chance, and
which to intelligence ? " "It is reasonable,"
answers his friend, " to attribute to intelligence
the things which serve a useful purpose." So-
crates then proceeds to enumerate, in a manner
fairly familiar in all ages, the various appearances
of benevolent design which seem to him to indi-
cate that intelligence rather than chance has
presided over the production and development
of man and the animals. " You believe," he
says, " that you yourself possess some intelligence.
But do you think that no intelligence exists else-
where ? You know that you have within your
body but a small part of the dry matter of the
world, and but a small part of the liquid matter
of the world, and so with other elements ; while
there is much of each of these things outside you.
* Following the conjecture — which, though elegant, is very
dOUbtful OVTQ fV^UfMfVOV.
46
CHAPTER OF HISTORY
Do you think then — in regard to mind alone —
that you have by some lucky chance snatched it
together from nowhere, while Nature with its
vastness and its innumerable contents is brought
into order by some kind of thoughtlessness ? '
When his friend replies that he is led to this view
because he does not see the masters of the world,
as he does see the makers of the statues and the
poems, Socrates rejoins that by this reasoning we
might conclude that human acts themselves are
due to chance and not to intelligence, since we can
no more see our own souls than we can see the
Gods. He then proceeds to a lofty and religious
treatment of the whole subject. If the eye of
man can take in a wide range of visible objects,
why may not the eye of God see all things at a
single moment ? If the mind of man can give simul-
taneous consideration to the concerns of Greece, of
Sicily, and of Egypt, may not the wisdom of God be
sufficient to embrace all things at once within its
care ? Such teaching, thinks Xenophon — anxious
always to defend his Master against the charge
of impiety — cannot but have a good moral effect,
since if men believe that divine eyes are always
upon them, they Avill be led to abstain from wicked-
ness as much in their moments of solitude as when
they are in the presence of human witnesses.
Even more interesting than this Socratic dia-
logue is the discussion on the same subject which
47
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
Cicero, in his De Natura Deorum, describes him-
self as hearing at the house of his friend Caius
Cotta. The discussion consists of a defence of
the Epicurean doctrine by the senator Velleius,
and of the Stoic view by Lucilius Balbus : while
Cotta himself, as an Academic, replies to both his
guests in a vein of scepticism. Cicero is a mere
auditor, but his sympathies are on the side of
belief, and he welcomes the Stoic defence of it.
It is the speech of the Stoic which bears most
directly upon our present subject. Balbus, at a
certain point in his discourse, after commenting
in much the same manner as Socrates does upon
the admirable adaptation of the parts of Nature to
various purposes of use and beauty, asks again the
old question * : Are the usefulness and beauty of
Nature due to chance ? " Do the parts of Nature,"
he inquires, "come together fortuitously, or is
their arrangement such as could never have taken
place except under the government of intelligence
and divine forethought." " If the productions of
Nature," he argues, " are better than those of
art, while yet it is only by means of reason that
art can work, we cannot regard Nature as itself
irrational. When we see a statue or a picture,
we know that the skill of the artist has been
employed. When we watch the course of a
distant vessel, we do not doubt that it is guided
by skill and reason. When we see a clock —
whether it be a sundial marked out with lines f
* Book II, §§ 87, 88, etc. f Reading discriptum.
48
CHAPTER OF HISTORY
or a water-clock — we know that it tells the time
by art and not by chance. How, then, can we
consistently regard as devoid of wisdom and
reason that world within which all these types of
skill, the artists who exhibit them, and everything
else besides, are together embraced ? If some one
took to Scythia or to Britain that mechanical
sphere, recently constructed by our friend Posi-
donius, which by each revolution imitates the
movement accomplished in a day and night by
the sun, the moon, and the five planets, who in
those barbarous regions would doubt that this
sphere was a work of reason ? Yet our philo-
sophers doubt whether the world, from which all
things arise and take their being, is itself the
result of chance or of some blind necessity,* or
on the contrary is the product of reason and divine
intelligence." " The man," he continues later,
" who can believe that the adornment and beauty
of the world has arisen from the fortuitous con-
course of separate bodies, borne along by force
and gravity, ought (so far as I can see) to think it
possible that if innumerable alphabets of letters
— each letter cut out in gold or some other
material — were to be somewhere thrown together,
we might produce a continuous copy of the Annals
of Ennius by just tossing out these letters on to
* It is interesting to compare with this phrase the following
sentence of Hegel. Speaking of Nature as mere Nature, abstracted
from what it is in its deeper significance, he says : " Die Natur
zeigt in ihrem Daseyn keine Freiheit, sondern Nothwendigkeit
und Zufalligkeit."— Encijcl., 1st ed., § 193, p. 127.
D 49
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
the floor ; whereas I do not suppose that good
luck could accomplish so much even in a single
verse. If a concourse of atoms can form a world,
why should not a porch, a temple, a house, a city
— much less laborious achievements — be formed
in the same manner ? ' "I approve," proceeds
Lucilius, " the argument of Aristotle. ' Let us
suppose,' says that philosopher, ' a race of men
who had always lived underground, in excellent
and brightly lighted houses, embellished with
statues and pictures, and furnished with all such
objects as are possessed in abundance by the
wealthy. Let us suppose that these men had
never come up to the surface of the earth, but had
heard by rumour and report of the existence and
power of the Gods. Let us suppose that at last
the jaws of the earth were one day thrown open,
and the prisoners were able to leave their hidden
dwellings and to visit the parts which we inhabit ;
to see all at once the earth, the sea, the sky ; to
perceive the vast expanse of the clouds and the
might of the winds ; to behold the sun, and to
learn his size, his beauty, and also his influence —
since it is he who by pouring his light abroad
over the whole heaven is the giver of the day —
and then, when night had darkened the land, to
see the whole sky picked out and adorned with
stars, to note the changes of the light of the
growing or waning moon, to mark the rising and
setting of all these heavenly bodies, and their
courses fixed and immutable to all eternity.
50
CHAPTER OF HISTORY
Surely, when all this spectacle broke upon their
sight, they would think that the Gods did indeed
exist, and that it was to them that all these great
works are to be attributed.' ' On this Aristo-
telian argument Lucilius makes an apt comment.
" Familiarity," he thinks, " breeds intellectual
quiescence." We do not ask the reasons of the
things we see daily. It is for this reason that we
evade the impression which Nature, if we came
to her with fresh and open minds, would infallibly
make upon us.
For a fourth and last example of the manner in
which philosophers of repute have dealt with the
popular argument, we may turn to St. Thomas
Aquinas. St. Thomas distinguishes five methods
of proving the existence of God ; and the fifth
is, in all essentials, though with considerable
differences of form, the same argument as we have
already heard from Socrates and from Lucilius
Balbus the Stoic.
The Argument from Design is known in the
technical language of philosophy as the " teleo-
logical proof." Teleology is the study of purposes
or ends or final causes in Nature. We are fami-
liar, even in common speech, with the distinction
between those things which are " means to an
end," and those which are " ends in themselves '
— that is, are of value for their own sake. The
" final cause ' of a thing is called in ordinary
51
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
language its " use " or " value " or " purpose."
If happiness were " our being's end and aim,"
then happiness would be the " final cause " of the
human race.
Now St. Thomas, differing from many modern
thinkers, holds that the final cause is unmean-
ing apart from personal agency — that the " end "
is not a cause " except so far as it moves the
agent."* It is thus that he appears to misunder-
stand f the half-mythological doctrine of Era-
pedocles who regarded strife and friendship as
governing principles in Nature, and taught that
it is through friendship that the parts of animals
are gathered together. This, to St. Thomas, seems
tantamount to alleging that the parts of animals
come together by chance. Yet if we take the
advice of Aristotle and " follow out the meaning
of Empedocles, rather than his inadequate ex-
pression of it," J it seems clear that, if mutually
suitable parts come together in virtue of their
" natural affinity " — and this, surely, is what
the phrase " friendship " must be intended to
suggest — then their union is not accidental. On
such a theory it would be regarded as a law
that those things which possess mutual suitable-
ness tend somehow to be brought together. St.
Thomas may complain that this seems to him to
be a wild and obscure speculation (though in
light of some of the facts of natural beauty we
* Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate, Art. II, Qu. V.
f Ibid., Art. II, Qu. V. J Met., 985a.
52
CHAPTER OF HISTORY
may hold that Empedocles was perhaps feeling
after a truth), but in any case it is not right to
confuse this conception with that of fortuitous
concourse.
The word " end," then — in the sense in which
St. Thomas uses it — is really, though he may not
admit it, a wider term than " purpose." The
latter necessarily implies conscious agency, the
former does not. And it is round the two words
" end " and " accident " that this whole argu-
ment, in all its forms, does really turn. That in
Nature certain things occur — such as beauty of
colour — which our reason is bound to recognize
as "ends in themselves " : that Nature (to put
the same thing in other words) conforms itself to
certain rational " ideals " ; that all this produc-
tion of good and admirable results is no mere
accident ; this, and just this, is what the teleo-
logical argument is concerned to show, whether
we meet with it in its popular or in its more
philosophic versions.
St. Thomas makes a clear statement of this
argument in the following words : " We see,"
he says, " that some things which lack knowledge
— namely, natural bodies — work in reference to an
end. This is clear from the fact that always or
for the most part (semper aid frequenlius) they
work in the selfsame manner so as to bring about
that which is best. Whence it is plain that they
reach their end, not by chance, but as a result
of intention. Those things, however, which are
53
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
without knowledge do not tend towards an end,
except so far as they are directed by some one
who knows and understands ; for example, the
arrow by the bowman. Thus there is an intelli-
gent c somewhat,' by which all natural objects
are ordered in relation to an end (ordinantur
ad ftnem) ; and this ' somewhat ' we call
God." *
Again, in reply to certain philosophers who
deny that the world is governed, he remarks that
" we see in natural objects a constant selection
of the better course, either universally or in the
majority of cases. But this would not happen
unless by some forethought natural things were
directed towards good as an end (ad, finem boni) ;
and such direction is just what we mean by
' government.' Thus the fixed order of Nature
does itself manifestly prove the government of
the world, just as if one entered a well-ordered
house one should infer from the very ordering of
the house the rationality of him who ordered it."t
Dealing with the same question in another
treatise, he maintains that "it is impossible that
it is by chance that the bodies of animals are so
formed that the life of the animal is preserved ;
for those things which happen by chance occur
only in the minority of cases ; whereas these
suitabilities and utilities in Nature happen either
universally or in the majority of cases ; wherefore
* Summa Theol., Pars prima, Qu. II, Art. III.
t Ibid., Qu. CM, Art. I, conclusio.
54
CHAPTER OF HISTORY
it is impossible that they should happen by
chance."*
Such, then, are some of the examples of the use
of the familiar argument as they may be drawn
from the literature of nearly two thousand years.
A comparison of these various statements one
with another shows them to possess at least two
important points of resemblance.
In the first place, they all insist that the order,
and especially the beauty of the world, is no
accident.
" But why," the supporters of Naturalism may
reply, " do you address this argument to us ?
We of all people in the world recognize most
clearly that there is no such thing as chance,
since everything that happens happens by neces-
sary law."
This reply, however, though very frequently
heard, is based on a very simple confusion.
Necessity and accident are far from being
mutually exclusive. If a rock, under the stress
of wind and weather, reproduces the profile of Mr.
Gladstone, though its shape is thus the result of
absolute physical necessity, its resemblance to
the eminent statesman is an accident. But if we
see that natural beauty is not a sheer accident of
this sort, then we must admit that somehow
(however mysterious the machinery may be by
* Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate, Art. II, Qu. V.
55
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
which the result is brought about) the laws of
harmony in colour have a real influence upon the
selection of the colours in Nature, and thus that
Nature is really governed by a principle aesthetic
in its character.
The second point of resemblance in these four
statements is that all imply an argument which
is put most succinctly in the three words of
St. Thomas Aquinas, Non contigisset nisi : "It
would not have happened unless."
There are certain cases in which we all assume
that unless there is some special reason why a
certain assemblage of circumstances should occur,
this is in itself a strong reason why it should not.
Here lies the strength of circumstantial evidence.
"If," says the Judge, " you think it a mere co-
incidence that the prisoner was in the exact
neighbourhood where the crime was committed
at or about the time of its commission — that the
sum of money found in his possession is exactly
equal to that of which the murdered man was
robbed, that the footsteps on the ground corre-
spond with the very unusual measurements of the
prisoner's boot," and so forth through a large
number of concurrent circumstances — " you will
then doubtless bring in a verdict of ' Not guilty ' ;
if, on the other hand, you think the number of
coincidences involved in the theory of his inno-
cence too great to be credible, you will find him
guilty of wilful murder." If the question were
56
CHAPTER OF HISTORY
asked, " Why should not these various occurrences
have happened quite apart from the prisoner's
commission of a crime ? " we should at once reply
that, in case of his innocence, though any of these
things might quite well have happened separately,
it is in the highest degree unlikely that they
should all have happened together.
The ultimate grounds — mathematical or philo-
sophical — on which this reasoning rests, have been
the subject of much embittered controversy. The
important matter is that we are all agreed as to
the soundness of the reasoning itself. It is true
that we do not all draw the line at the same
place. Some of us are prepared to attribute to
the " long arm of coincidence ' greater powers
than would be allowed to it by others. But no
sane man is willing to believe in the accumulation
of coincidences without limit. Even if a man's
life is at stake, we pronounce confidently, Non
contigisset nisi.
57
CHAPTER VI
MORAL KNOWLEDGE
So much, then, for the Argument from Design in
its pre-Kantian and pre-Darwinian form. It is
not certain that the great critics of the argument,
Kant and Darwin themselves, would have been
altogether hostile to the attempt so to reformulate
it that it should henceforth be invulnerable to
their criticisms.
But before we come to this question of re-
statement, there is another argument which
demands our notice. For the Argument from
Design Kant sought to substitute the " Moral
Proof " of the existence of God* ; and in so doing
he was only stating in a specialized form an argu-
ment which has carried weight with mankind in
every generation.
There are three reasons why this " Moral Argu-
ment " should be the object of our attention. In
the first place, the Moral Argument can be so
stated as to furnish in itself a direct refutation of
Naturalism. Secondly, it can be so stated as to
form an important element in that very restate-
ment of the Argument from Design of which we
are in search. Thirdly, it is, when reduced to its
* See Critique of Judgment, § 87, etc.
58
MORAL KNOWLEDGE
simplest terms, the strongest of all supports to
the religious man's conception of the world, the
clearest answer to " Materialism." When the
religious man seeks to justify his beliefs in set
terms, he most commonly turns to some form of
the Argument from Design. But it is the Moral
Argument which has most effect upon his personal
faith. The deeper a man's personal interest in
morality, the more acute his moral sensitiveness,
the less satisfied is he commonly found to be with
a Naturalistic theory. Again the spectacle of
other men's fidelity to principle is at all times the
most effective witness to a lofty conception of
duty. It is thus that the blood of the martyrs is
the seed of the Church. Nor is it in Christianity
alone that this proverb is verified. It is as true
of Galileo, and the Martyrs and Confessors of
Physical Science, as of the Martyrs of Religion.
Morality — fidelity to principle — seems in fact
to be a kind of miracle. Why do I feel bound to
act against all my personal interests and inclina-
tions ? — to act as a man of honour though it be
to my own hindrance ? I may in my conduct
disregard this obligation of honour, but in my
heart I am compelled to own it. And even if
my strictness of principle is as inconvenient to my
neighbours as it is to myself, they too cannot fail
to respect it. The honesty of Rutilius the publi-
can brings upon him the implacable hostility of
his colleagues. Their conduct, we say, reveals
human nature in a contemptible aspect. Yet in
59
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
so saying we assume that they knew in their
hearts that Rutilius was right. It is only this
assumption which justifies our contempt for
their behaviour.
Such facts suggest a form of the Moral Ar-
gument immediately relevant to our subject.
Naturalism denies that the laws of the Universe
take any account of the spiritual interests of man.
We shall find, however, that there are laws relat-
ing directly to our most important spiritual
interest of all, our knowledge of Right and
Wrong.
We shall find, first, that there are fundamental
moral principles which we can all be made to
accept if only they are put before us with suffi-
cient clearness. Further, we shall find that the
Moral Ideal is a connected Whole. We trust the
man of good feeling to act rightly in quite novel
circumstances. We cannot always deduce the
true rule of conduct from previously admitted
principles. Yet our minds are so constituted
that, if familiarized with certain of the leading
principles of morality, they pass on from these by
a natural sense of affinity to the acceptance of
other elements in the Moral Ideal as occasion
brings these to light. The law* is that fami-
* For this use of the word " law," see chap, ix, pp. 93-95,
chap, vii, p. 71. The law mentioned in the text may be called
" psychological." It states an observed and verified uniformity.
To confine the word " law " to Physics is a purely arbitrary
proceeding.
60
MORAL KNOWLEDGE
liarity with right principles breeds general sym-
pathy with the Moral Ideal.
It is no disproof of this law that men do not
always think alike. The varieties of moral
opinion have amused the spectator of mankind
from the days of Herodotus downwards. Men
no more think alike on matters of conduct
than on questions of aesthetic taste. Yet
both in aesthetic and in moral experience there
are certain uniformities which we can count
upon.
Out of a thousand pupils in a Conservatorium
we are confident that the great majority will
learn, not only to know by ear when an instru-
ment is in tune, but also to see broadly the
difference between good music and bad. In the
majority of cases both ear and taste respond
correctly to training. Unless this were true,
musical education would be a sheer impos-
ture.
The case of morals is similar. Just as surely
as you can train a pupil to perceive for himself
that consecutive fifths are in most contexts a
bad musical progression, so you can train him to
perceive that treachery is base especially when
accompanied by ingratitude. A savage may
boast of a treacherous act and glory in its
ingenuity. But almost every one, if we use
the right methods, can be made to feel that
treachery not merely undermines public confi-
dence, but is base in itself. The man incapable
61
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
of being so taught is abnormal — an exception
to a law.
And so in less extreme cases. All cruelty, even
the cruelty of neglect, stirs our indignation, and
few can think this indignation misplaced. Few
are quite impervious to the argument that they
would not like such treatment themselves. The
mere fact that this simple argument is so widely
understood, shows a general capacity to per-
ceive, when it is pointed out, that we owe some
duty to others. This is a far-reaching principle.
But experience shows that under certain con-
ditions every one can be brought to see it,
and shows also pretty plainly what the conditions
are.
At times we need a moral shock to bring the
latent principles to the surface. In an Australian
camp a young Englishman was challenged to ride
a buck- jumping horse, and then urged under
taunts of cowardice to ride him in spurs. While
he was providing himself with these, one of his
hosts loosened the girths. Another, after he had
mounted, struck the horse with a stockwhip. As
the horse plunged forward, the saddle shifted and
the rider was killed. Immediately the man who
had loosened the girths was felled to the ground
by his companion. The companion had looked
on without protest at the cowardly deed itself ;
he discovered its heinousness in his horror at its
consequences.
Such moral shocks, however, are not always
62
MORAL KNOWLEDGE
needed. There are certain principles which men
will inevitably accept if their attention is once
thoroughly roused to them. If sound moral
principles are intelligently presented to the young
they will, for the most part, see for themselves
that they are true. This law is the basis of our
whole educational system.
The law is applicable to others besides children.
Many quite excellent men are blind to the duty
of suffering as Galileo did, in the cause of scientific
truth. Yet when once the nature of scientific
truth is understood — when a man has reached
that stage of education at which the spectacle of
the age-long struggle between science and super-
stition is revealed to him — the duty of speaking
the truth on these matters becomes clear to him
at the same time. Galileo is admired by the very
men who are most likely to dispute the argument
of this chapter. Their position is a paradox.
They acknowledge the absolute duty of declaring
that there is no such thing as absolute duty.
Take, again, the virtue of chastity. What to us
would be gross indecency may to a savage be a
religious ordinance ; and, of course, if what the
savage thinks and feels in the performance of
such rites is different from what we should think
and feel if we could bring ourselves to the same
actions, then even the strictest moralist must see
that it is absurd to judge him by the same external
standard. But this does not touch the question
at issue. The question is whether the normal
63
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
man can be made to see that bestial indecency is
wrong within the context of civilized life.
To this whole argument there are certain
familiar objections. " Is morality after all," it
will be asked, " such a miracle as you allege ? Is
it not merely the outcome of the necessities of
social life ? If we are to live in communities,
we must put ourselves under certain restraints."
It is true, of course, that we all perform many
duties mainly in order to enjoy the protection and
amenities of social life. But if the whole of our
conduct was based upon prudential considera-
tions, it would possess none of the marks of
morality. Every one would make a false Income
Tax return whenever he knew that he could
escape detection ; nor would any one expect him
to refrain from this and similar advantages. A
purely prudential morality would not afford the
mutual confidence upon which society rests. You
could trust no man further than you saw him.
At the present moment, however, the pru-
dential theory is seldom stated in this crude form.
It is now more often maintained that society
from an unconscious instinct of self-preservation
instils moral notions into its members ; that it
teaches us from our earliest years to condemn
the traitor because we all perceive by instinct
that treachery is dangerous.
Or, again, we are told to look for the origin of
64
MORAL KNOWLEDGE
morality in Natural Selection. " There is no
law " — it is said — " that men should have correct
notions as such, either on morality or on any
other subject. The law is that in our mental
states, as in our bodily frame, we should on the
whole resemble our ancestors.* Those feelings
and convictions which are found useful to the
race will be preserved, since the stocks which
transmit them continue to thrive, while other
stocks are destroyed in the battle of life. Thus
our moral convictions have been preserved, not
because they were true, but because they were
useful."
To all such sceptical theories there is one com-
pendious answer. They imply, what we know to
be untrue, that all our moral convictions are mere
illusion. If I say that the only reason why I
think treachery wrong is because this conviction
was necessary for the safety of the community,
or for the continuance of the human species, this
is tantamount to saying that treachery is not
really wrong in itself ; and that, if I had been
evolved in a different manner, I might quite well
have thought otherwise. If I am tempted to a
treacherous act, these evolutionary explanations
* The difficulty of explaining human knowledge by Natural
Selection is very great. Take, for example, our knowledge that
2+2 = 4. Is it seriously suggested that the human mind
might begin by holding any one of the conceivable wrong opinions
on this subject, e.g. that 2 + 2 = 5 or 50 or 500, and that then
all views except the right one are weeded out by their incon-
venience in practice ?
E 65
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
are all on the side of the temptation. If there is
no absolute right or wrong, why should I let in-
herited scruples stand in the way of my interests
and inclinations ? Why should I care for the
future of my race, if my own gain or pleasure is,
as a fact, more attractive to my feelings ? The
evolutionary explanation shows how our moral
convictions might have come into being without
being true. The important matter is that we
know that they are true, and that their truth can
be made evident to the normal mind.
A second objection turns upon the power of
bad example. " You argue that all men can be
taught to accept the principles of morality.
True. But they can be taught to accept the
principles of immorality likewise. Fagin can
teach his pupils that adroit thieving is the road
to human greatness."
We cannot deny that the influence of bad
teaching is great. Yet bad teaching when com-
pared with good stands in some respects at a
disadvantage. It does not produce the same
strength of assured certainty. In fact, it is not
in its convincingness at all, but in its agreement
with our inclinations, that its power lies. Fal-
staff defends his thieving on the ground that it is
no sin for a man to labour in his vocation. But
he knows in his heart that this excuse is not
good ; that he is, " if a man should speak truly,
little better than one of the wicked." Excuses,
66
MORAL KNOWLEDGE
in fact, are an acknowledgment of the principle.
If we did not know that dishonesty was wrong,
why should we seek to excuse it ?
There are cases where wrong opinions are
sincerely held. But in these cases it is seldom
found that correct moral principles have been
clearly grasped and deliberately rejected. What
has happened is that relevant principles have been
ignored. A military man of old time thought it a
dishonour to decline a challenge. He was partly
right. To play the coward — to fear wounds
more than disgrace — this is as wrong as he held
it to be. The objections to duelling, which have
made it extinct in the most civilized societies,
were not present to his mind. He is an example
rather of blindness than of error.
A.nd so with all the other hackneyed examples
— the Thug who regards murder as a virtue, the
Autolycus of Homer who prides himself on his
power to deceive. The Thug — we may suppose
— recognizes rightly that the courage and address
needed to dispatch an enemy are good qualities.
Autolycus perceives that " wisdom is better than
strength." They are blind to the other aspects
of their deeds. The power of education to dispel
this blindness is proved by the fact that for
examples of this moral obtuseness we must look
to primitive or barbarous societies.
The case for Naturalism, as against this " argu-
ment from morality," may be stated, perhaps,
67
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
in other ways besides those already mentioned.
But these objections need not further detain us ;
for the whole controversy turns upon two issues.
Unless our moral beliefs are either mere illusions,
or else, being true, are true by a lucky accident
only, it follows that Naturalism is false ; since
Naturalism denies that there are any laws of
Nature which prescribe, as such, correctness of
moral knowledge. The facts we have seen enable
us to rebut this denial ; and, further, to assert
that the Moral Ideal, in itself a connected whole,
acts also as a single principle in our minds, and
tends in some measure to shape our thoughts and
feelings in accordance with its demands. The
connexion between one virtue and another is
felt where it cannot be demonstrated. If my
friends say of me that I am a brave and honest
man, but spoil myself by my overweening vanity,
this criticism implies a connected ideal of human
character. The universal conviction that such
faults do really impair the value of our virtues
implies, if we think it out, both the unity of the
Moral Ideal and also its correctness.
One further remark remains. It is seldom
expressly recognized, yet it will probably not be
disputed, that an ideal for human conduct pre-
supposes some ideal for the Universe. The laws
of conduct are, at least in part, derived from a
conception of what the world at large ought to be
68
MORAL KNOWLEDGE
and to contain. The conviction that cruelty is
wrong depends upon the belief that the happiness
of men and animals is a desirable ingredient in
the world. Our condemnation of cowardice and
vanity implies that a world containing brave and
modest men is better than a world from which
courage and modesty are absent. No one can
withhold admiration from a world which produces,
in however scant a measure, this union of virtue
and happiness in a setting of physical uniformity
and aesthetic beauty. The capacity to admire
these qualities in the world, when they are pointed
out, is witnessed to by the literature of all ages.
It implies the very law with which we are here
concerned — namely, that the mind of man is so
constituted as to recognize in its main outline
the true ideal of the Universe when that ideal is
clearly set before us.
It was a habit of the great Sidney Smith never
to admit the truth of a proposition till he knew
for what purpose the admission was demanded.
When the reader discovers in the next chapter for
what purpose the statements in the preceding
paragraph have been made, he will be free to
revoke any assent he may have given to them, if
he will and if he can.
69
CHAPTER VII
THE ARGUMENT RESTATED
We may now proceed to that restatement of the
Argument from Design — or rather of the funda-
mental thought which this argument embodies —
to which the previous chapters are intended as an
introduction.
This restatement may be formulated briefly in
three propositions which it will be necessary
subsequently to defend. To these three pro-
positions — summarized in still smaller compass
below * — the reader's attention is specially invited.
They contain the very kernel of the position
which this book is written to maintain.
We may start from common ground. It is
clear, in the first place, that we all regard the
world as in some sense a rational whole, governed
by a rational system of laws. This belief we shall
find to be the basis alike of Physical Science and
of common popular knowledge of the world ; the
basis also of some of those principles, such as the
Uniformity of Nature, which are sometimes
supposed to be of independent origin.f Further,
if Ave will notice what kind of facts they are which
* Page 73 of this chapter. f Chap, xv, pp. 200-203.
70
ARGUMENT RESTATED
we give as examples of the world's rational
character — and also the kind of beliefs which we
reject as inconsistent with this character — we
shall see that this " rationality " of which we
are thinking implies conformity to some such
standard as may fairly be described as a rational
" ideal." We are asserting the rationality of the
world in a sense in which rationality is an object
of admiration.
But, secondly, there is at least one law of
Nature* which deals with something other than
mere bodily or mental uniformity ; at least one
law which is directly concerned with our spiritual
interests. This law has been stated in the pre-
ceding chapter. It is to the effect that the mind
of man accepts as true the various fundamental
principles of the Moral Ideal, if these are put
before him with sufficient clearness. There is
great uniformity in the use of the words " traitor,"
" drunkard," " swindler," and " coxcomb " as
terms of reproach. Again, the tendency to
accept this ideal of human conduct implies, as we
have seen, a tendency to accept the corresponding
ideal for the Universe at large. On this subject
there is a very general agreement. Fearlessness,
fixedness of purpose, bodily strength, in man —
in nature, the songs of the birds, the colours of
flowers, bright skies, and spreading waters — all
these things we do and must admire. Our con-
ception of the true ideal of the Universe is, so far
* See chap, ix, pp. 93-95 ; also chap, vi, p. GO.
71
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
as its main outlines are concerned, as obviously
subject to law as any other phenomenon of our
mental or bodily life.
Thirdly, then, let us ask an unfamiliar but
important question. Should we dream of calling
the world a reasonable whole, if the system of
laws which governed it prescribed, on the one
hand, a universal tendency in rational beings
towards a knowledge of true ideals, and yet, on
the other hand, prescribed that no account
should be taken of these ideals in the ordering of
the totality of the Universe ? It is certain that
if a Conscious Creator ordered such a world —
deliberately planning that rational beings should
have a tendency to know what was good, and yet
that their aspirations should be doomed to ulti-
mate disappointment — we should conceive such a
Creator not as a God, but as a mischievous and
malicious fiend. We should regard his plan as
evincing the very height of irrational perverseness.
But if such a system of laws, consciously planned,
seems to us so supremely unreasonable, then we
cannot call this same system reasonable, even if
we dismiss from our minds the thought of a
Creator altogether. We cannot reasonably say
that, while of course only a fiend could design
such a world, still if it came thus of itself without
a designer, it is an exhibition of the highest
rationality. If, then, we are right in attributing
to the world a general rationality, in the sense
in which rationality is a fit object of admiration ;
72
ARGUMENT RESTATED
if we are right in basing all our scientific predic-
tions on this belief, as we shall find that we do * ;
then the world is not the perversely ordered
scheme which we have just imagined. No one,
as a matter of fact, does believe in such a world-
scheme as this. The educated man, for the most
part, believes either in some form of religious
or philosophic Optimism, or else in a consistent
Naturalism which recognizes no laws which take
account of any of our spiritual interests as such ;
or perhaps he hesitates between these rival
opinions, each of which presents us with the
picture of a harmonious, homogeneous, intern-
ally self-consistent Universe. In such a mongrel
world-scheme as we have imagined above no one
does, or could, seriously believe.
We may now summarize these three points
more shortly. First, we all believe that the
world is a rational whole, governed by a rational
system of laws. But, secondly, we have seen
already that one of the laws of Nature is that
men's minds tend to a true conception of what
the Universe ought to be. Thirdly, we ask
whether we should dream of calling a system of
laws rational if they prescribed that all men
should tend to a knowledge of these right ideals,
and yet these ideals should not be taken into
account in the ordering of the Universe. The
* See present chapter, pp. 76, 77, 80, 81 ; also chap, xv, pp.
200-203.
73
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
conclusion suggested is that the System of Laws,
which implants these ideals as a fixed element in
the human mind, also orders in accordance with
them the Universe at large.
There is one sentence in this statement which
is certain to arouse criticism : the assertion that
the basis of Natural Science is the belief that
reality conforms to a rational standard or ideal.
Yet it is really clear that our ideals have a greater
influence on our theories of the Universe than we
generally acknowledge. Men seldom or never
believe in a world which conflicts with the ideals
which they themselves seriously accept, though
they will readily believe in a world which con-
flicts with the ideals of other people. Have we
ever met a man who believes in a Universe which
is to him solely an object of ridicule and con-
tempt ? Schopenhauer may profess himself a
pessimist ; yet he believes that from this present
evil world a way of escape is provided, and he
certainly describes this deliverance with con-
siderable enthusiasm. Mr. Russell, though he
uses the language of despair, is a clear example
of the thinker who believes in a Universe which he
admires. His favourite art is Tragedy. But the
beauty of Tragedy, he thinks, " does but make
visible a quality which is present everywhere
in life." Roth Mr. Russell and Schopenhauer,
though they can conceive a pleasanter Universe
74
ARGUMENT RESTATED
than the Universe they believe in, do not seriously
feel they can conceive a better one.
Why is it, again, that the modern man rejects
without discussion the various mythologies of
Paganism ? Even the strangest incidents which
they relate cannot for the most part be disproved
by evidence. The non-occurrence of these inci-
dents is not an " observed fact." We have not
observed that Aphrodite was not wounded by
Diomede. Yet we never treat the truth or
falsehood of these stories as a matter for suspense
of judgment. We do not keep an open mind.
We do not wait for evidence. We deny them out
of hand. If we believed them, they would make
the whole world appear to be flagrantly in contra-
diction with anything that right reason can
admire or approve. We recognize that there are
in the world many individual things, persons,
and incidents, which separately and individually
are grotesque in the extreme ; but we cannot
believe in a Universe which is grotesque as a
whole. Indeed, the fixed habit of rejecting
from the world everything that is confessedly
contrary to the ideals of reason, is the very
habit which distinguishes the sane man from the
madman.
What, again, should we say if it were suggested
that, after our long experience of order, the Uni-
verse might suddenly relapse into Chaos ? Here
again we have no direct evidence. The future
continuance of order is assuredly no observed
75
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
fact.* Yet we should reject this suggestion of a
general relapse into Chaos with the same decision
as we reject the fables of Pagan mythology, and
on similar grounds. We should not think it
worth while to argue the case. A Universe of
order relapsing suddenly into Chaos is rejected
off-hand because of its intrinsic grotesqueness.
Thus, whatever school of thought we may
belong to, we do as a fact set up in our minds an
ideal of a reasonable and orderly world, and, for
the most part, our conception of the actual Uni-
verse is in close accordance with this ideal.
Whatever is in flagrant conflict with this ideal,
as, for example, the Pagan myths, we reject as
impossible and untrue.
" Yes," it will be answered, " it is true enough
that our conception of the real world is in this
sense in accordance with our ideal ; but it is not
because of its agreement with our ideal that we
think this conception true. We have a more
solid reason. The ultimate ground for all our
* The hypothesis of the composite nature of bodies formerly-
regarded as indivisible atoms — so that we are now reasoning
about bodies with one-thousandth part the mass of the atom of
hydrogen — makes it more obviously impossible to produce ocular
or other empirical evidence of the ultimate nature of each material
particle. If we do not know the nature of the ultimate cohesive force
which binds together the smaller bodies of which a particle is composed,
how can we say that this cohesive force may not in time wear out
— may not undergo just such a " wearing out " as would lead to
Chaos ? The grounds on which we rule out Chaos as a possible
hypothesis are clearly not empirical. The smallest particles we
have yet thought of may themselves be composite.
76
ARGUMENT RESTATED
physical beliefs is the principle of the Uniformity
of Nature, a principle which arises in the mind as
the natural result of the perpetual repetition of
similar sequences in the experience of individuals
through successive generations."
Now it happens that Mr. Russell — so often an
object of criticism in the preceding pages — here
comes to our help. He has given the answer to
this deceptive argument. " The frequent repe-
tition," he says, " of some uniform succession has
been the cause of our expecting the same succes-
sion on the next occasion. Domestic animals
expect food when they see the person who usually
feeds them." Rut " the man who has fed the
chicken every day throughout its life at last
wrings its neck instead." Thus " when our
instincts cause us to believe that the sun will rise
to-morrow," we might conceivably be "in no
better position than the chicken " who, relying
on an uncritical expectation of uniformity, meets
an unexpected death.
Of course, as Mr. Russell and every one else
knows quite well, our expectation of future uni-
formity is rational and well grounded. Rut
what is its basis ? Not direct observation ; for
this cannot show us the future. Not the instinc-
tive tendency which past repetition breeds both
in man and animals ; for this instinct, as we have
just seen, may be utterly misleading. These
negative answers are easy, though also important.
Rut Mr. Russell assists us further. He helps
77
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE!
.A
us to a positive answer too. In a brilliant
passage in the essay already quoted,* Mephisto-
pheles is represented as telling Faust the history
of Creation. God, says the tempter, wearying of
the praises of the angels, thinks that He would
find greater amusement in receiving praises which
He had not deserved. So He creates Man, and
orders Nature as we know it, and the course of
human history, till this new whim is satisfied. At
length " when He saw that Man had become
perfect in renunciation and worship, He sent
another sun through the sky, which crashed into
Man's sun, and all returned again to nebula.
" Yes,' He murmured, ' it was a good play : I
will have it performed again.' "
The reader will readily guess the purpose for
which this little myth is invented. But let us
suppose that some person, of excessive simplicity
of mind, taking Mr. Russell's myth as a serious
theory, professed himself convinced that the
complexities of human life do really arise from
the desire of a jaded Creator for novelty and
diversion. No one, we may be sure, would laugh
more consumedly than Mr. Russell.
But how is it that we are so certain as we are,
that what Mephistopheles suggests cannot really
have happened ? The myth is not refuted by
experience ; for it presupposes just that course
of Nature and of human history with which ex-
perience actually acquaints us. All the observed
* Tfie Free Man's Worship.
78
ARGUMENT RESTATED
facts on which the conclusions of Physical Science
are based would, if the myth were true, have been
just as they have been in reality. We reject Mr.
Russell's ingenious invention in the same peremp-
tory manner as we reject the fictions of the
heathen poets, and on similar grounds. Our
ground is that we can accept no belief which
would give to the world as a whole an appearance
of absurdity and grotesqueness. No other general
principle but this, or its equivalent, will suffice
to justify all the cases of peremptory rejection
mentioned above. Let the reader try if he can
frame any other general principle which will be
adequate for this purpose. Yet, even if the
failure of his attempt does not convince him that
the task is impossible, this is no great matter so
long as he admits — as he must admit— that no
event can happen which would turn the world
into a mere nightmare of grotesque absurdity.*
This peremptory rejection of a vast number of
the beliefs which have been held in past ages,
while yet no direct evidence of their falseness can
be produced, may appear to us as a mysterious
and even arbitrary proceeding. But it will
appear so no longer if we reflect how absolutely
certain we are in our own case both of the correct-
ness of these various judgments and of the
general ground on which they all rest. The men
who invented the mythologies, and believed
them, were men whose standards of approval
* Cf. chap, xii, p. 206, note.
79
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
and admiration were different from ours. The
world as Paganism represented it did not seem to
them contemptible, and therefore neither did it
seem incredible. But as standards change, so
beliefs as to what is possible change with them.
We may now return to the question with which
this chapter opened. Can we believe in a world
governed by a system of laws which prescribe on
the one hand a general tendency in rational
beings towards a knowledge of what is good, and
prescribe on the other that considerations of good
and evil shall be disregarded in the general order-
ing of the Universe ? That there is no serious
likelihood of our accepting such a view of the
world we are all probably quite strongly con-
vinced. But may we not go further ? May we
not say that the acceptance of such a view would
be absolutely contrary to all the principles upon
which our beliefs and habits are based ? If the
Universe had this fundamental absurdity at its
core — if it were just one great unconscious prac-
tical jest— then we must be prepared for the
happening of anything whatsoever, however absurd
or irrational : for a sudden plunge from Order
into Chaos ; for the occurrence of incidents which
we have believed to be confined to fable. In such
a world we should be deprived of the right to use
our last conclusive argument, our final protection
against superstition — namely, our conviction that
80
ARGUMENT RESTATED
flagrant absurdities are impossible. In a world in
which unreason sat enthroned at the centre why-
should not trees dance, or stones speak, or the
mountains salute us by wagging their heads ? *
The effect of this argument is to call attention
to the decisive importance of the question raised
in the preceding chapter. The admission that
there are laws of Nature prescribing correctness
of moral thinking in the human mind has often
been regarded by the supporters of Naturalism
as the thin end of the optimistic wedge. The
aim of the present argument is to show that they
are right in this surmise.
It is obvious that by such reasoning we can
establish Optimism in a general form only. The
particular religious or philosophic creed which
results from it will depend on what we believe
that the true ideal of the Universe would con-
tain.! The conceptions of mankind on this
subject have been many and various. Yet
among civilized persons of normal education the
differences are much less important than the
agreements ; and these differences themselves
are not beyond the reach of argument. If, then,
the conclusions of this chapter are accepted, they
cannot fail to have a great effect upon our general
conception of the Universe.
* See chap, xv, pp. 201-202 f Cf. chap. xii.
81
CHAPTER VIII
THE WORLD AS WORK OF ART
The writer who propounds a chain of reasoning
must rely upon the co-operation of his reader.
Even when its separate propositions are admitted,
a special mental effort is required to bring them
into connexion.
There is a certain class of reader, however, for
whom this remark is, in the present context,
quite needless. " I understand the argument
perfectly," so such a reader may say, " I under-
stand its separate propositions : I see the alleged
connexion ; and I do not propose to find any
special fault with its logic. But nevertheless it
leaves me unmoved. To speak frankly, it is a
piece of pure scholasticism. Modern thought,
with characteristic modesty, is afraid of a priori
reasoning. It does not believe that any certainty
can be reached by such methods. It will not
put its trust in any beliefs except those which are
directly suggested in experience, and can be
directly verified thereby. It has no taste for
excursions into the vast unknown. Moreover
the conclusions of the preceding chapter seem to
be ultimately irreconcilable with the most settled
convictions of the modern man. It is all very
82
WORLD AS WORK OF ART
well to speak of Darwin with respect, and render
lip-homage to his discoveries. But the whole
chapter, none the less, is essentially incompatible
with evolutionary methods of thought. If the
doctrine of Natural Selection is true, then some
of the most important matters in the world — the
origin and development of man, his bodily frame,
his mental constitution — have been in effect left
to chance, to the issue of a doubtful conflict.
This fact seems incompatible with belief in God,
or any form of optimistic faith. Again, you will
hardly dare to say that Natural Selection has
shaped man's body only, and has had no effect
on his mind. But if you admit that his moral
and intellectual life has been partly the product
of evolution, can you then introduce another and
wholly independent factor — this supposed ten-
dency to moral and intellectual correctness as
such ? Where is the line to be drawn between
these principles ? Which of our habits of mind
are to be traced to Natural Selection, and which
to this innate tendency to rationality and cor-
rectness ? When once we have admitted the
influence of Natural Selection anywhere, we are
surely forced by logical necessity to admit it
everywhere. Or — to approach the matter from
the opposite side — if we once allow teleology * in
any shape, why attempt any physical explanation
at all ? If we suppose that a conscious Creator
designed the world for the fulfilment of His own
* See chap, v, p. 51.
83
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
purposes, or if we prefer to conceive of ideals as
working in some mysterious way for their own
realization, in either case we may well ask what
need there is, or what room there is, for Physical
Science. If we are going to explain natural
events by the ends they fulfil, why explain them
also by the causes from which they originate ?
In a word, can the physical laws, which are
admitted by all, and the teleological laws for
which you are contending, be united together in a
single consistent system ? Should we not choose
definitely between Physical Science and Religion
rather than seek to ' make the ^best of both
worlds ' by combining the two ? "
These questions demand an answer. Faith in
Physical Science is a common possession of all
educated men. In the preceding chapter we have
seen reasons for a teleological conception of the
Universe — that is, for conceiving the world as a
" Kingdom of Ends,"* or, to express the same
thought in more modern language, as the " Em-
bodiment of an Ideal." Can physical law and
teleology, then, be united in a single system ?
Of the above questions this is the most funda-
mental.
If we are to judge the teleological conception
of the world fairly, we must think ourselves into
* See chap, v, pp. 52-54.
84
WORLD AS WORK OF ART
the position of those who hold it. A world whose
nature is to embody an Ideal must in many
respects resemble a work of art. Now it is a
characteristic of the nobler works of art that they
exhibit prominently the element of regularity.
It is not from Bach, or from Beethoven, or from
their like, that we get wild rhapsodies, irregular
in measure, chaotic in form, beginning in one key,
ending in another. Beethoven, even when his
music is quasi una fantasia, is never wildly fan-
tastic. Well-marked themes recur on a regular
plan. His forms may be new ; they may be
invented for the occasion ; but they can as
readily be reduced to rules, they are in all essen-
tials as thoroughly formal, as when he follows the
accustomed models.* The greatest artists are
those who know that rules, though bad masters,
are good servants. If, then, we conceive the
world as embodying any ideal which the modern
man can recognize as rational, this ideal will
certainly express itself by uniformities and repe-
titions. Thus, just as a musical composition can
be scientifically studied and brought under rules
of counterpoint, harmony, and form — a study
which can be carried out by those who have no
perception of its distinctively artistic character —
so the world can be made the object of scientific
investigation, its elements can be tabulated, its
uniformities recorded, even by those who are
entirely blind to its nobler qualities. This is a
* See especially Op. 27, No. 1.
85
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
simple remark which hardly lies open to dispute.
Yet it contains the answer to the most serious of
the objections mentioned above.
The British sailor — it has been said * — regards
Divine Providence as a form of " celestial naval
discipline tempered by sentimentality." If so,
he recognizes, however inadequately, the two
elements which must be present in any system
which could win our full admiration. It is cer-
tainly rare to find any Christian believer who
conceives Providence in a purely sentimental
fashion : who conceives that, if the world were
the embodiment of the highest conceivable ideal,
the laws of Nature must aim at nothing but
human happiness. The religious man of the
present day recognizes explicitly that happiness,
though good, is not the sole good. He feels that
physical regularity is an end in itself. The
generation which has scaled the mountain for
pure pleasure of victory, takes a conscious delight
in the resistance of matter, in gravity as a force
to be overcome, as men in all ages have taken a
less self-conscious delight in cleaving the tree or
breaking the clod. We have learnt to rejoice that
good is attained through the clash of opposing
forces : to admire for its own sake the gradual
unfolding which belongs to all growth — first the
blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear
— to recognize with joy that the world is like a
drama, in which every denouement — every untying
* Naval Occasions, p. 205, 6th impression, No. 22.
86
WORLD AS WORK OF ART
of knots—demands that there shall be knots to
be untied.
After these two remarks we shall solve the
more easily the special perplexities set out above.
Some of the best results in Nature have been
achieved by means of the struggle for existence.
But this does not imply that the attainment of
these results was left to chance. We have seen
that it is really incredible that it is mere lucky
chance which produces the colour-schemes of the
landscape. Yet each point of colour has its
separate history ; and many of the pigments by
which the total effect is produced can be shown
to be the outcome of the struggle between oppos-
ing forces.* The interaction of these opposing
forces is in no way inconsistent with the belief
that behind them is a law by which the har-
moniousness of the whole landscape is necessi-
tated. And so it may be with the world at large.
Thus, secondly, there is nothing to keep back
* A genuine struggle may be foreordained as regards its
conclusion. Indeed on almost every hypothesis a large number,
if not all, of the conflicts, whether in human history or in Nature,
are such that if we had known all the conditions we could have
predicted the issue. A modern Theism will wish to insist on the
reality of the struggle. Even in works of art, where the whole
is obviously under the control of a single will, the element of
struggle is present. When, for example, discords occur which
lead the ear to expect a resolution which does not come — when
to the disappointment of this expectation is due the very poig-
nancy of the artistic effect — there is a real conflict, a real tension
between opposing interests.
87
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
those who believe the world to be the embodiment
of an ideal from a systematic study of Natural
Science. Many such believers have been con-
spicuously successful in this pursuit. But — what
is more important — their position is intellectually
sound. Even the believer who regards Nature
as we know it as but a " part of God's ways " —
as created by a personal God, but rather a subor-
dinate part of His creation than the whole — may
with perfect consistency study its laws ; just as
we may study the laws of a watch and predict
with some accuracy its future behaviour, even
though it is but a small system within a larger
one, and even though it may from time to time
be interfered with from without. So long as the
watchmaker leaves the watch to work on the
whole in its own way, and interferes with it
rarely, and then only with good reason, we can
with a fair degree of certainty draw conclusions
from our knowledge of its internal mechanism.
The fact is that even some of the crudest con-
ceptions of Divine Providence are compatible
with physical study.
Again, we are asked how we can reconcile the
influence of evolution on our mental life with any
inherent tendency in the mind towards correct
thinking. Here, too, the difficulty is not so great
as has been imagined. We have, as we have
already seen, no justification for systematic
thinking, except on the supposition that the mind
has a general tendency towards truth ; that is,
88
WORLD AS WORK OF ART
that the result of the effort we call thought leads
to correct results more often than not. On any
other theory, thinking is a dangerous or useless
occupation. But in truth, the evolutionary ex-
planation of our mental processes is a theory
which cannot be successfully worked out in
detail. How is Natural Selection to teach us
elementary mathematics ? Is it seriously sug-
gested that there is in the mind no tendency to
arithmetical correctness at all — that when first in
the history of our race the question presented
itself as to what was the product of two and two,
it was a pure matter of haphazard what the mind
should be disposed to answer : that the first men
to raise the question might have answered that
twice two was " five," or that it was " fifty," or
that it was " five hundred " ; and that the answer
that it was " four " has become habitual merely
because the inconvenience which followed from
the other estimates destroyed in the end the
stocks which made them. This suggestion,
absurd as it is, is the only consistent application
of the theory of Natural Selection to the explana-
tion of human knowledge. What more in the
way of reductio ad absurdum could we require ?
That there is in the mind at the least some ten-
dency to avoid the more egregious blunders must
be admitted by every one who gives a moment's
reflection to the subject ; and this by itself is
enough to establish the principle that there is a
certain tendency towards correctness in human
89
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
thinking. Whatever difficulty may arise in draw-
ing the line between the sphere where this
tendency has influence and the province of
Natural Selection,* we cannot deny that this
tendency exists. This would be true even if it
only operated to guard us against the most
glaring errors.
Again, why should an argument be rejected
because it resembles those of the Schoolmen ?
Congeniality with the temper of a particular age
is no test of truth ; nor is a lack of this quality a
proof of error. Though references to the " anti-
logical spirit of our age " are frequently introduced
into controversy, there are few who will seriously
defend the scepticism which thej^ imply. Such
scepticism is as dangerous to Natural Science as
to Religion. Chains of a priori reasoning may
not be to our taste ; but this is no excuse for
refusing the conclusion when we have once
admitted the premises.
The general position of the question, then, is
this. That system of laws, physical and psycho-
logical, which the Natural Sciences investigate,
and the world which is subject thereto, is regarded
by Naturalism as the whole Universe. To Reli-
gion, on the other hand, " this present world "
seems to be but part of a wider Whole : related
* Natural Selection may be called in to explain many of our
instincts, of which some lead to truth and some to error. The
full treatment of the question raised in the text would best be
approached by considering the relation of instinct to reason.
90
WORLD AS WORK OF ART
to the Universe at large, somewhat as a Com-
munity within the State is related to the whole
Body Politic, or as a play within a play is related
to the drama of which it forms part. The fact
that we can tabulate the uniformities of Nature
without any reference to this more comprehensive
Kingdom of Ends * which Religion offers for our
belief, is no proof that this more comprehensive
Kingdom is unreal. We may tabulate the con-
trapuntal rules which govern an episode in a
musical composition without the slightest con-
ception of their purposive relation to the whole
work ; and yet the more far-seeing critic may
perceive that it is only in relation to the ideal
which the whole work embodies that the episode
and its details can be fully interpreted. Simi-
larly the success of a Natural Science which
eschews teleology is no proof that Nature does
not play its part within a comprehensive teleo-
logical system. If Nature is subject to laws we
can tabulate them. For this purpose it makes no
difference, one way or the other, whether those
laws are ultimately due, or not, to an aesthetic
ideal which they help to embody, or a Divine
Will which they help to realize.
On the other hand, while natural uniformity is
no argument against a teleological theory of the
Universe, the discovery of one single teleological
law is a complete refutation of Naturalism. The
system of Nature, as Naturalism conceives it,
* See p. 84 of this chapter ; also chap, v, pp. 51, 5li.
91
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
is homogeneous, and therefore harmonious in
character. But this harmony is broken, and the
attractiveness of the whole system destroyed, if
we admit even one law prescribing an end. On
this subject both parties to the dispute will be
in agreement ; since to deny all teleology is the
main aim of the Naturalistic theory.
92
CHAPTER IX
ORGANIC LIFE
We see the world, then, as subject to a system
of laws of which the greater part appear to be
concerned with physical and psychological
uniformities only.
But if this is true of most of the laws of Nature,
it is not true of all. It is a law — as we have seen
— that thinking leads, on the whole, not merely
to psychological uniformity, not merely to similar
conclusions in different minds, but to truth.
Again, there is a prima facie case* for affirming
two other laws which Naturalism rejects : first,
a law that the parts of organic bodies shall co-
operate to produce and maintain life ; secondly,
that material bodies shall co-operate to produce
beauty of line and colour. We are not asking
here whether life and beauty are due to the design
of a Creator. It is enough for the present if we
can show" that reason must recognize life and
beauty as ends in themselves ; and that it is a
law that the particles of Nature co-operate as
means by which these ends are brought about.
But first a word on the term " law " itself. We
are told sometimes that a law is nothing but a
* See chap, iv ; cf. pp. Gl, (;.">.
93
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
statement of observed facts : that science knows
nothing of any " necessity " in physical matters :
that the progress of observation has often shown
the assumption of universality and necessity
to be an error. Men thought it a fixed law
that a bell struck by a clapper must sound.
There is no such absolute necessity. In a vacuum
the bell will be silent.
The patience, the caution, the devotion to
facts, exhibited by the physical student, are
virtues worthy of the highest praise. But when
he states that his laws are never anything but a
statement of observed — that is, of past — facts, he is
forgetting the predictions which he himself bases
upon them. Build a bridge upon sound mechani-
cal principles, and, except in circumstances against
which we do not intend to guarantee it, it will
certainly stand firm. Keep a healthy plant in
the right environment and it must grow. Science
here is as confident of the future which has not
come within our observation as of the past which
has. Thus a law which is a basis for prediction
is something more than a statement of past facts.
No doubt the laws of Nature have often been
wrongly stated. If we find that sometimes the
bell when struck will not sound — if we find that
under certain conditions oxygen and hydrogen
behave in an unaccustomed manner — we must
revise our formula. But this revision does not
imply that there are in Nature no necessary se-
quences, but rather that there are such sequences
94
ORGANIC LIFE
though we have not fully grasped their character.
If there were in Nature no necessary connexion
between one fact and another — if there were
merely single facts, but no general laws — then
the only reasonable course would be to abandon
prediction altogether.*
We may return now to the special laws — if such
there be — which regulate organic life and natural
* On the subject of " law " in Nature, two opposite errors
proceed from two opposite schools of thought. There are those
who still argue that law in Nature implies a legislator. One
main aim of the present essay is to induce the defenders of Christi-
anity to abandon this piece of sophistry. In all such matters we
should gain immeasurably by a policy of candour : and we lose,
as we deserve to lose, by every kind of intellectual dishonesty.
But if it is an error to think that law implies a legislator, it
is no less an error to suppose that the laws of Nature as we
actually employ them in our thinking are mere statements of
observed fact. If any one chooses to call a mere statement of
fact a law he is at liberty to do so, though this liberty will rarely
be exercised. He must be careful, however, not to use this law,
which states mere fact and not necessity, as a basis of prediction.
He must also distinguish between " law " when used to express
the necessity itself as it exists in Nature, and " law " as used to
express something in our own minds, our own conception or
formulation of this necessity. There are, in the phrase of Pro-
fessor Huxley, " unascertained laws " of Nature — laws not yet
known. These if not mere figments must obviously have an
existence outside our minds : for they are not yet present within
them.
" What is outside our mind," it may be replied, " is not a
general necessity, but a number of individual forces.''' But we
cannot reasonably argue — as we all do argue — from one individual
force to another, except on the tacit assumption that these are
bound together by some general necessity : that the forces acting
on two given occasions must resemble one another. The Con-
ceptualist really misunderstands the presuppositions of the
mental processes he is daily employing. Cf. Epilogue, below.
95
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
beauty. Let us begin with organic life. The
fact of the co-operation of the parts of bodies in
the maintenance of life is plain ; and at first
sight it might seem as if the law were as clear as
the fact. In the parts of a growing plant — we
might say — there is a tendency to behave in such
a way as to promote the continuance of vital
processes. Since the plant has no free will, this
tendency implies a necessary law. The tendency
towards healthy life may be overpowered by cir-
cumstances ; by the presence, say, of poisonous
matter in the environment. But if the tendency
exists at all, this implies the law that when the
requisite conditions are fulfilled the healthy
development of the plant must follow. If there
were no necessary laws of plant life, there would
be no such thing as scientific gardening.
To this argument, however, there is a familiar
answer. " The plant has no tendency," it is said,
" to health or life as such : it tends merely to
behave as its ancestors behaved before it. The
plant is subject, therefore, to the law of uni-
formity ; but not to any special law concerned
with the maintenance of life. If its fixed habits,
and the variations introduced in the course of
succeeding generations, happen to benefit the
plant and its descendants in the particular situa-
tion in which they are placed, the race will
continue ; if not, it will perish. Thus all that
appearance of selection and purposive action which
has so charmed the mind of the simple believer,
96
ORGANIC LIFE
is in truth the result of chance and habit, the
outcome of a blind struggle for existence."
Ever since the publication of Darwin's Origin
of Species — one of the greatest events in the
history of human progress — such language is
familiar to us all. Nothing is more distinctive of
Darwin's own method than the patient accumula-
tion of detail by which he showed how much the
operation of Natural Selection may accomplish.
Yet, after all, the general principle is more impor-
tant even than the details ; and in this respect,
however much Darwin's conclusions may be
modified here and there by minor criticisms, his
work must always stand as a permanent achieve-
ment of human thought.
Moreover, for our present purpose, we are
concerned mainly, not with special biological
problems, but with the general view of the world
to which the work of Darwin has given rise.
Darwinism has become a sort of popular philo-
sophy ; a philosophy, since it has to do, not with
special physical questions, but with a theory of
the Universe at large ; yet popular rather than
scientific, because in expounding it the students
of physical science have sometimes left behind
the caution and patience which they exhibit in
their own sphere. Yet, whatever mistakes may
have been made, the influence of such Darwinism
on the popular mind has been deservedly great.
The theory of Natural Selection has opened
even to the unscientific man possibilities of which
G 97
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
he had not hitherto dreamed. It has shown us
how, if time enough is allowed for the process,
the most complex adaptations of the organs of
plants or animals to their circumstances may take
place where there is no conscious design ; and
also where there is not even an unconscious ten-
dency towards adaptation regarded as an end in
itself. The general rule of inheritance is that the
offspring closely resembles the parent. But this
resemblance is compatible, as we know, with the
occurrence of small variations in each generation.
An accumulation of such small changes all made
in the same direction — all tending, say, towards
the increase of the size of a particular organ, or
towards its better adaptation to a particular
purpose — may, in company with other simul-
taneous changes produce at the end of a long line
of descendants a plant or animal much unlike the
original ancestor. The cauliflower, the broccoli,
and other garden plants have been developed
from the wild cabbage. The bulldog, the New-
foundland dog, and the toy -terrier have all a
common ancestry. In these cases we see the
result of skilful selection by the human breeder.
But changes quite as remarkable as those which
the breeder deliberately seeks may be accom-
plished unconsciously by Nature. For example
— to take a hypothetical case which happens to be
conveniently simple — the father of many sons
may have some sons taller and some sons shorter
than himself ; but, on the whole, the sons of tall
98
ORGANIC LIFE
parents tend to grow taller than the sons of short
ones. If, then, the struggle for existence should
be keen, should continue for many generations,
and should take place in circumstances in which
height gives an advantage, the shorter men will
gradually die off ; and in the whole race, fathered
by the taller survivors, the average height will
tend continually to increase. Since the qualities
which are thus developed and maintained are
just those qualities which happen to give success
in the particular chance circumstances in which an
individual or a race is cast, a collateral line of
descendants of the same ancestor may be be-
coming shorter in one land while their cousins are
becoming taller in another. A third line, sub-
jected to no severe competition, may have
changed backwards and forwards, and the descen-
dant at the end of centuries may be of the same
height as his ancestor at the beginning ; while
a fourth and fifth line may have become extinct
altogether, because they tended the one to height
where low stature was an advantage, the other
to shortness when it would have served them
better to be tall.
If such is, in a general way, the history of the
variations by which plants and animals have
become suited to their dwelling-places, we can
find in these proceedings much evidence of per-
sistence and good luck, but little either of intelli-
gence, or of the influence of a guiding principle
of any sort, whether conscious or not. Nature
99
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
produces with copious generosity a great variety
of types, and those which are favoured by fortune
survive the others. Nature makes a great number
of bad shots, and it would be strange if she did
not sometimes hit the target. Her procedure,
indeed, may be justly accused of being blindly
conservative, since in many cases she preserves
not only the organs which have a useful part to
play, but preserves with no less care others which
are useless, and sometimes, like the appendix in
man, a cause of mischief and danger.
It is clear that the Darwinian theory, even if it
had remained a mere theory — a mere brilliant
suggestion as to what was logically possible —
would have made havoc of many of the religious
arguments of old time. Yet, revolutionary
though it has been in its effects, it is still not
sufficient to justify every opinion which has at-
tempted to take shelter under its name. We have
seen how Natural Selection may bring about a
gradual ascent towards higher and higher organiza-
tion, better and better adaptation to environment.
The conception of " evolution " — of " gradual
ascent " in general — has been developed in forms
which find little support in Natural Selection as
Darwin himself conceived it.
Professor Karl Pearson, for example, has sug-
gested that Natural Selection* may operate in the
* Karl Pearson, Grammar of Science, pp. 422-425.
100
ORGANIC LIFE
inorganic world ; though he is careful to point
out that such Selection would not be the same
thing as the Natural Selection of Darwin. He
speaks of a " perfectly gradual and continuous
change from inorganic to organic substance."
" To those," he says, " who have accustomed
themselves to look upon organic substance as
essentially differing from inorganic only by com-
plexity of chemical and physical structure, the
notions of organic and inorganic environment, of
the elimination of the unfit, and the destruction
of less stable compounds — in short, the notions
of biological and physical selection — shade in-
sensibly one into the other." Further, he holds
as an " unwavering belief " that Natural History
is " at the basis of the history of mankind."
" History," he argues, " can never become
science " until its " facts are seen to fall into
sequences which can be briefly resumed in scien-
tific formulae. These formulas can hardly be
other than those which so effectually describe the
relations of organic to organic and of organic
to inorganic phenomena in the earlier phases of
their development."
On the basis of such a conception it is possible
to state a theory which has a good deal of super-
ficial attractiveness ; and in the formation of
such theories the genuine man of science, such as
Professor Pearson, is soon outstripped by the
overhasty eagerness of the popular imagination.
If we take as a starting-point particles of matter,
101
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
governed by no general principles, but driven
solely by individual forces, we may then try to
show a gradual ascent at easy stages from inor-
ganic existence to highly organic life : " from a
primitive bacillus to the graceful palm-wood, from
a primitive micrococcus to the brain of Newton."*
" The separate particles," we shall say, " gather
into chemical compounds. The chemical com-
pounds join together to form organic bodies. The
earliest of these are of the simplest character ;
cells which propagate themselves by fission.
But this simple form of reproduction is gradually
replaced by something more complex. Again, at
a certain stage, among other chance variations,
there appears in some organic body the new
property of sentiency, just as other new pro-
perties have appeared before. This property —
on the principle of Natural Selection — is preserved
because of its utility to its possessors. And so
again, when as a special form of sentiency there
appears intelligence, this is preserved likewise."
The effect of such a theory as this is to suggest
that Nature is governed by blind forces and not
by general principles. Yet the theory does not
really succeed in banishing general principles even
from the inorganic world. It is a law | that the
* E. du Bois-Reymond, quoted Riddle of the Universe, chap. xiii.
f " We shall do well to remember," says Sir Henry Roscoe,
" that the Law of Combination in Multiple Proportions, being
founded on experimental facts, stands as a fixed bulwark of the
science, which must ever remain true ; whereas the Atomic
102
ORGANIC LIFE
atoms of Hydrogen combining with those of
Oxygen in a certain definite proportion produce
water. We reason on the assumption that under
the conditions with which we are ordinarily
concerned * all specimens of Oxygen and Hydro-
gen must inevitably proceed in accordance with
this principle. If so, then to deny that the prin-
ciple " governs " the phenomena is merely to
reject a word when we have already accepted its
meaning. But this principle is as unlike as
possible to a blind force. It is general and not
individual, since all examples of Oxygen, Hydro-
gen, and Water obey it. Moreover, the law which
governs the smallest particle of Oxygen or
Hydrogen involves a reference to something
beyond the particle itself. In a consciously
ordered design the parts have a mutual reference
one to another. In the sphere of physics we have
seen nothing as yet to suggest conscious purpose ;
nothing to suggest that it is " in order that '
they may combine with Oxygen that the particles
of Hydrogen exist. But so far as a consciously
ordered plan is marked by the mutual references
Theory, by which we now explain this great law, may possibly
in time give place to one more perfectly suited to the explanation
of new facts."
* If the presence of a trace of water, or if a change of tempera-
ture, induces the combination of substances which under otherwise
similar conditions are practically inert towards one another (see
V. H. Veley, Transactions of Chemical Society, 1893), this or
any similar discovery merely entails upon us the duty of stating
our law with the necessary conditions and qualifications. The
case is exactly parallel to that of the bell in the vacuum mentioned
at the beginning of this chapter.
103
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
of part to part, Nature, in this one respect at
least, resembles it. For whether we think of the
atom as influenced by a tendency within itself,
or by a power outside it, in either case the pro-
perties of the atom of one gas are such that they
cannot even be stated without a reference to
another. The most important properties of these
gases are essentially relative. Any given atom
of Oxygen — if we are to adopt the usual language
— is such that in combination with two atoms of
Hydrogen it produces water. Thus, even in con-
sidering the properties of a single inorganic particle,
we find ourselves dealing, not with blind brute
forces,* but with a general law of some complexity
— a law which involves a reference to something
else than the particle immediately concerned, f
There are those, however, who would admit
* " We do not know," says Professor Karl Pearson, " why the
particles dance in the presence of one another." But we do know
that they move in one another's presence in a definite manner,
and that all this movement is in accordance with definite for-
mulae. However far we push our inquiries, we always find, as
an ultimate fact, bodies which, though in a sense they are separate
and independent, are yet connected with one another by general
laws, i.e. by similar behaviour. Our confidence in the necessity
of these laws — which are the bases of our physical predictions — is
not consistent with the belief that, if we knew all, we should
get behind general principles and find ourselves reduced to a
number of separate and individual forces, the force which drives
each particle at each moment being ultimately and essentially
separate. Although, as Professor Pearson rightly says, we cannot
reach ultimate explanations, we do arrive at general principles ;
we do not end with separate and particular facts.
f In some cases physical laws involve complexity of an elaborate
104
ORGANIC LIFE
that Nature is governed by general laws, but
would deny that there are any specific principles,
such as Vitalism asserts, governing the behaviour
of the living organism. May not life be produced
by the co-operation of principles which in them-
selves are purely mechanical ?
Professor Pearson, in the book already quoted,
has described with great lucidity three common
views on this subject. If we assume that there
was a period when life as we know it could
not exist on the earth, in consequence of certain
conditions of fluidity and temperature, we may
conceive life as introduced by special creation ;
or we may conceive it as based upon an organic
corpuscle, which in suitable environment is im-
mortal — on this theory we must suppose that in
the earlier period of the earth's history there
kind — a remarkable union of generality with diversity — and
involve also a reference to human sensations. If we take any
regularly vibrating body and so treat it as to double the speed
of the vibrations, we raise the original note by an octave. This
is true whatever the original note may be. But the peculiar
character of this musical interval is a fact of consciousness. Only
the musical ear can detect it, and except to the musical ear it is
unmeaning. Yet apart from this fact of consciousness the law
discovered by the physical science of acoustics has no meaning.
In every single case where a movement in nerve or brain pro-
duces sensation, and this according to a fixed law, the principle
which connects the sensation with the movement is something
obviously different from any blind force. The very essence of
the principle is to establish generally a connexion between a
generic type of movement and a generic type of consciousness.
Such a principle cannot be stated apart from general ideas. But
further, it is in itself nothing apart from such ideas. See Epilogue.
A tendency towards the fulfilment of a general idea can neither
be, nor be defined, apart from the idea which is to be fulfilled.
105
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
existed forms of life capable of withstanding an
environment which no existing form of life can
endure — or, thirdly, we may conceive life as
generated from a special union of inorganic
corpuscles.
The Professor prefers the third of these views,
and states the reason for his preference with much
force. " The failure," he says, " to produce the
spontaneous generation of life in a laboratory has
thrown some discredit on the hypothesis " : but
— as he very justly remarks — " we ought to
wonder that any one should have hoped for an ex-
perimental demonstration of such a hypothesis
rather than be surprised at its absence."
The question, however, which Professor Pearson
is chiefly concerned to ask is whether the laws of
organic life can be deduced from the physical
laws of motion which belong to inorganic matter.
Can we describe life and its processes in terms of
mechanism ? Can we deduce from mechanical
laws the characteristic behaviour of organic
bodies ? *
Now, granted that living bodies are formed of
the same materials as inorganic compounds, and
granted that life is a function composed of chemi-
cal and physical processes, it is clear that, if mere
description is all that we want, life might be quite
fully described in terms of physics and chemistry.
If we know all the movements of matter which
take place in a plant, we know its whole history ;
* Grammar of Science, p. 407, etc.
106
ORGANIC LIFE
just as we might know the whole history of an
army during a battle by knowing all the move-
ments of the separate individuals of which the
army was composed. Yet if we had no concep-
tion of the military scheme which these move-
ments carried out, our knowledge, though accurate,
would be unintelligent. Behind the movements
of the individual soldiers lies a general principle
present in the mind of their commander by which
these movements are co-ordinated. Is there
then any similar principle of co-ordination-
conscious or unconscious — in the case of a plant ?
any tendency to realize its own specific type of
life, to " take the physical forces into its service '
for this end ? This is the question which chiefly
concerns us in the present context.
That co-ordination of movements — co-opera-
tion towards a common purpose — may take place
where there is no active principle of co-ordination
of any sort, conscious or unconscious, is quite
clear. Certain battles in history have been known
as soldiers' battles. In these cases for the most
part the military conditions have been simple
and uniform. Yet it is quite conceivable that a
case might arise, at any rate in military opera-
tions on a small scale, where an experienced
observer might know that the soldiers were a
mere savage horde, governed by pure ferocity,
without the design or even the instinct of co-
operation, and yet might perceive that by chance
their movements were exactly those which were
107
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
best fitted to carry out a subtle scheme of co-
operative attack, that by mere chance they were
arranging the fight just as a skilful general would
have ordered it. But such happy accidents,
though possible, are rare. Co-ordination, where
there is no co-ordinating principle, is accident
pure and simple. Is the co-operation of the
organs of plants a mere accident of this kind ?
If we watched a long series of military operations
all tending to one definite military end, it would
not occur to us that these operations could be
sufficiently explained by the disconnected im-
pulses of the individual combatants. Is it not
equally unreasonable to suppose that the complex
co-operations of organic life are fully accounted
for by the physical tendencies, and chemical
affinities, of inorganic particles ? If these par-
ticles have no tendency towards organic co-
operation as such — just as a civilian crowd (of
which each individual is intent on his own pur-
poses) has no tendency towards military co-
operation — organic co-operation, if it occurs, will
be due either to accident or to some external
influence. It is no more likely that we should
meet with a long succession of lucky accidents in
botany than in warfare. Thus, in the case of the
plant, we seem driven to choose between the
conception of an external Creator or Artificer on
the one hand, and on the other of the influence of
an unconscious inward principle of life, co-ordinat-
ing the various processes of which the history of
108
ORGANIC LIFE
the plant consists. If these processes were co-
ordinated without the influence of any central
co-ordinating principle whatever, this would be as
odd a coincidence as the accidental execution of a
complex military movement by a horde of un-
trained savages.
The argument of this chapter will become
plainer if we think of one or two familiar facts.
Heredity, for example, is no case of blind inertia :
it is not a mere continuance of things as they
were ; it is rather a reproduction. Under certain
conditions there occurs, not an exact repetition
of the body and mind of the parent, but another
embodiment of the same type. Apart from the
idea of this type, the most general law of heredity
cannot be stated ; for the law is simply that,
under favourable conditions, another specimen of
the type will be produced. Similarly when Dar-
win relies upon the principle of the reappearance
in the offspring of some peculiarity at a period
corresponding to that in which it appeared in the
parent, he is relying upon a rule which involves
in its very meaning the notion of life and growth.*
Suppose, then, that the Chemist had success-
fully achieved the production of a living body.
There is another requisite to success besides the
Chemist's skill. He must rely on the tendency of
the various elements he has brought together to
* Origin of Species, chaps, i, iv.
109
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
co-operate in a particular way when once they are
duly placed side by side ; and this particular kind
of co-operation is just what we mean by life.*
* Call the elements which the Chemist puts together, to make
his living creature, A, B, C, D, etc. He presupposes that the
tendency of A, when united with the rest, is towards the pro-
duction of life of a specific character.
110
CHAPTER X
BEAUTY OF LINE AND COLOUR
The question which is our subject throughout
this volume may be stated in a single sentence.
Are the laws which govern Nature concerned with
its mechanical aspect only ; or do they deal with
" goodness," " beauty," " life," " knowledge "—
that is, with what we sometimes call the " higher "
aspects of Nature ?
We have just seen that there is in certain con-
glomerations of atoms a tendency towards that
kind of co-operative behaviour which we call life.
But if there exists in Nature a tendency towards
the production and maintenance of life, is there
not also a tendency towards the production and
maintenance of beauty ? To produce a good
colour-scheme is not easy, as every one knows
who has tried to do it. Yet Nature surmounts
this difficulty daily. The colour-schemes of
Nature are not all of equal beauty. But even
the worst are good, and stand in strong contrast,
as objects of study and imitation, with some of
the products of human manufacture and art.
Each year the Royal Academy, in spite of the
exercise of much selective skill, exhibits many
schemes of colour which are worse than any
111
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
which a critical observer can find in Nature in
a lifetime.
Again, not only is natural beauty ;felt to possess
a distinctive character, similar to the character
which distinguishes one style of art from another ;
but further, there is one characteristic which it
shares with the very noblest schools of music,
painting, architecture, and poetry, and with these
only. Nature, like the best works of art — like
the work of iEschylus, of Shakespeare, of Titian,
of Bach — satisfies, not the keenest of our tastes,
but the most enduring. The contemplation of
Nature, therefore, whether in her brighter or
more sombre aspects, brings to the soul a sense of
refreshment and rest which the majority of works
of art are unable to afford us. The Greeks de-
scribed the baser types of art by a word which
literally translated means " burdensome." The
burdensomeness of bad art brings out in clear
relief the restfulness which is the mark of the
greater masters and of Nature. This character-
istic of natural scenery must be plain to every one
who gives his mind to the subject, unless he is
unusually deficient in artistic capacity or ex-
perience.
There are those whose suspicions are readily
aroused by anything that savours of that cant of
art which displeased Sterne more than the cant of
religion. Yet even they must admit that Nature
produces many beautiful scenes and beautiful
objects — vegetation graceful in line as well as
112
BEAUTY
rich in colour, rocks at once delicate in grain and
majestic in rugged strength, expanses of green
plain and heaving wave, the music of the waters
and the woods — and that these things of beauty
are too numerous and too frequent to be the work
of pure chance.
What, then, is. the answer of Naturalism to
this obvious argument ? It is an answer capable
of effective statement. " Our sense of natural
beauty," it is declared, " is in essence an illusion.
There is no absolute standard of beauty. We
have no right, therefore, to speak of things in
Nature as really beautiful. Beauty is not a
quality of things themselves. It exists only in
the mind that perceives them. We call those
things beautiful which we perceive with pleasure.
The human organs have adapted themselves in
the course of ages to the objects which surround
them. Our eyes, whether by Natural Selection
or by the effect of hereditary habit, have become
adapted to perceiving with pleasure the green
hues of the trees and grass. And so we find
nothing uncongenial which has become familiar
to our race. Hence, the charm and the satisfac-
tion which we find in all natural scenes and
objects."
There are many facts which may seem at first
sight to support this utilitarian theory. As, on
the one hand, the green which we call beautiful
gives the eye rest, so, on the other hand, it has
H 113
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
been noticed that milliners feel pain in the eye,
and an unusual sense of fatigue, when they are
engaged for a long time in stitching together
ribbons of discordant colour.
Yet it is easy to collect facts on the other side.
Few things in Nature give the eyes more fatigue
and pain than a near view of snow in bright sun-
shine. Yet it never occurs to us to doubt that
sunlit snow is beautiful. There are many who get
a keen aesthetic enjoyment from listening to the
discharge of artillery ; although the explosion
has often produced deafness. Indeed, the theory
that the sights and sounds which we call beautiful
are simply those which produce health in the
organs of perception, and an accompanying sen-
sation of pleasure, is contradicted by facts at
every turn. Beauty, pleasure, and health are
far from coinciding in the manner which the
theory presupposes.
Again, if we wish to see how hard it is to build
up a general theory of aesthetics on an evolu-
tionary basis, we have only to turn to the case of
music. Here we find uniformities which Natural
Selection, and the effect of inherited habit, are
equally powerless to explain. There are many of
our tastes, no doubt, upon which Natural Selec-
tion may have great effect. An animal whose
body is suited to a warm environment is benefited
if this warm environment is also congenial to his
inclinations. Such inclinations conduce to his
health and strength, and therefore increase his
114
BEAUTY
chance of long life and plentiful offspring. If he
has unwholesome tastes, if he prefers a hotter or
colder atmosphere to that in which he thrives
best, these tastes will hamper him in the struggle
for existence. But Natural Selection preserves
those tastes only which are profitable in a utili-
tarian sense. From the utilitarian point of view
many of our strongest musical tastes are entirely
useless.
The fact which here confronts us is a certain
uniformity of aesthetic capacity. There are cer-
tain melodies — Mozart's " Dalla sua Pace," the
Toreador Song in Carmen — which give pleasure
to every one who has any ear for music at all.
There are other cases where our tastes are equally
uniform if only we have first gone through a pre-
liminary training. The forty-eight Preludes and
Fugues of Bach, or the later Pianoforte Sonatas of
Beethoven, are not attractive to every one at first
hearing ; but they seldom fail to reveal their
charm to those who study them. Moreover, the
charm of all these works is individual and dis-
tinctive. We like "Dalla sua Pace," not for the
points which it has in common with other music,
but chiefly for that very arrangement of sounds
which is peculiar to itself. And the fact that
when these melodies were given to the world they
were received with a general chorus of praise,
prove that there lay ready in the human mind a
latent capacity to find pleasure in them.
But how could these uniform tastes, or capa-
115
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
cities for taste, be produced by Natural Selection ?
" A grain in the balance," says Darwin,* " may
determine which individual shall live and which
shall die — which variety or species shall increase
in number, and which shall decrease or become
extinct." But, in the days before Mozart lived,
the latent capacity to enjoy his melodies can
never have attained to the weight even of a grain
in the balance. It can never have been a factor
making for success in the struggle for existence.
We must look, then, to some other principle than
Natural Selection to explain w r hat is an undoubted
fact, this element of uniformity in musical taste.
Again, since that which we specially admire in
these musical compositions is that element in
them which is distinctive and new, it is clear that
our admiration cannot be explained on any
theory of hereditary habituation.
But the evolutionary explanation, perhaps,
may be more successful in explaining our enjoy-
ment of the lines and colours of the landscape.
The reader is probably familiar with the im-
pressive argument on this subject in the Origin
of Species.^ Darwin held what he called the
utilitarian doctrine of beauty in Nature. On the
other hand, he condemned the doctrine that
" many structures had been created for the sake
* Origin of Species, chap. xv.
■f Chap, vi, under the heading" " Utilitarian Doctrine, how far
True ? "
116
BEAUTY
of beauty " — maintained by some of his con-
temporaries — as " utterly fatal to his theory."
" With respect to the belief," he says, " that
organic beings have been created beautiful for the
delight of man, I may first remark that the sense
of beauty obviously depends on the nature of the
mind, irrespective of any real quality in the
admired object ; and that the idea of what is
beautiful is not innate or unalterable. We see
this, for instance, in the men of different races
admiring an entirely different standard of beauty
in their women. If beautiful objects had been
created solely for man's gratification, it ought to
be shown that before man appeared there was
less beauty on the face of the earth than since he
came on the stage. Were the beautiful volute
and cone shells of the Eocene epoch, and the
gracefully sculptured ammonites of the Secondary
Period, created that man might ages afterwards
admire them in his cabinet ? Few objects are
more beautiful than the minute siliceous cases of
the diatomacese ; were these created that they
might be examined and admired under the higher
powers of the microscope ? The beauty in this
latter case, and in many others, is apparently
wholly due to symmetry of growth. Flowers
rank amongst the most beautiful productions of
Nature ; but they have been rendered conspicuous
in contrast with the green leaves, and in conse-
quence at the same time beautiful, so that they
may be easily observed by insects. I have come
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CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
to this conclusion from finding it an invariable
rule that when a flower is fertilized bv the wind
it never has a gaily coloured corolla. Several
plants habitually produce two kinds of flowers ;
one kind open and coloured so as to attract
insects ; the other closed, not coloured, destitute
of nectar, and never visited by insects. Hence
we may conclude that, if insects had not been
developed on the face of the earth, our plants
would not have been decked with beautiful
flowers, but would have produced only such poor
flowers as we see on our fir, oak, nut, and ash
trees, on grasses, spinach, docks, and nettles,
which are all fertilized through the agency of the
wind. A similar line of argument holds good
with fruits ; that a ripe strawberry or cherry is as
pleasing to the eye as to the palate — -that the
gaily coloured fruit of the spindle-wood tree and
the scarlet berries of the holly are beautiful ob-
jects — will be admitted by every one. But this
beauty serves merely as a guide to birds and
beasts, in order that the fruit may be devoured
and the manured seeds disseminated. I infer
that this is the case from having as yet found no
exception to the rule that seeds are always thus
disseminated when embedded within a fruit of any
kind (that is, within a fleshy or pulpy envelope),
if it be coloured of any brilliant tint, or rendered
conspicuous by being white or black.
" On the other hand, I willingly admit that
a great number of male animals, as all our
118
BEAUTY
most gorgeous birds, some fishes, reptiles, and
mammals, and a host of magnificently coloured
butterflies, have been rendered beautiful for
beauty's sake ; but this has been effected through
sexual selection — that is, by the more beautiful
males having been continually preferred by the
females — and not for the delight of man. So it is
with the music of birds. We may infer from all
this that a nearly similar taste for beautiful
colours and for musical sounds runs through a
large part of the animal kingdom. When the
female is as beautifully coloured as the male,
which is not rarely the case with birds and butter-
flies, the cause apparently lies in the colours
acquired through sexual selection having been
transmitted to both sexes, instead of to the
males alone. How the sense of beauty in its
simplest form — that is, the reception of a peculiar
kind of pleasure from certain colours, forms, and
sounds — was first developed in the mind of man
and of the lower animals, is a very obscure sub-
ject. The same sort of difficulty is presented if
we inquire how it is that certain flavours and
odours give pleasure, and others displeasure.
Habit in all these cases appears to have come to a
certain extent into play ; but there must be some
fundamental cause in the constitution of the
nervous system in each species."
Thus he concludes * that " we can to a certain
extent understand how it is that there is so much
* Chap, xv, " Recapitulation."
119
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
beauty throughout Nature ; for this may be
largely attributed to the agency of selection.
That beauty, according to our sense of it, is not
universal, must be admitted by every one who
will look at some venomous snakes, at some fishes,
and at certain hideous bats with a distorted
resemblance to the human face. Sexual selection
has given the most brilliant colours, elegant
patterns, and other ornaments to the males, and
sometimes to both sexes, of many birds, butter-
flies, and other animals. With birds it has often
rendered the voice of the male musical to the
female as well as to our ears. Flowers and fruit
have been rendered conspicuous by brilliant
colours in contrast with the green foliage, in order
that the flowers may be easily seen, visited, and
fertilized by insects, and the seeds disseminated by
birds. How it comes that certain colours, sounds,
and forms should give pleasure to man and the
lower animals — that is, how the sense of beauty in
its simplest form was first acquired — we do not
know any more than how certain odours and
flavours were first rendered agreeable."
These passages, though it is right to quote
them in full, are not in every part relevant to our
present question. To say that beauty exists for
its own sake is not the same thing as to say that
it exists solely for the delight of man. These two
statements are not identical, but opposite.* But
* To hold that the things of beauty exist solely for our delight
120
BEAUTY
even if we ignore this confusion, it would still be
most unreasonable to argue that if beautiful
objects had been created solely for man's delight,
there would have been less beauty on the earth
before man appeared than afterwards. What
could be more inartistic than a world which thus
related its beauty to the spectator ? Such a
jerry-built Universe would deserve comparison
with the monument which roused the just wrath
of Mr. Ruskin, the portrait carved with minute
care on the side which lies outwards, but left
deliberately untouched, face and all, on the side
near the wall. If we conceive of a good God
is to find their value in something external to themselves — the
very opposite of the assertion that each such object is its own
end. There are no doubt many men who will at once translate
this latter assertion into religious language. They will conceive
the beautiful object, which is not seen by man, as existing for
the enjoyment of God. When Darwin says that this supposed
delight of the Creator is " beyond the scope of scientific dis-
cussion," this is really a question-begging phrase. Suppose that
we find things of beauty which do not gratify man nor animals
— e.g. the shells of the Eocene period. Suppose that their beauty
is too constant and too elaborate to be purely accidental. Then
there is nothing intrinsically unreasonable — at least for those who
do not understand the notion of beauty as an end in itself — in
framing the hypothesis of a Creator Who makes them for His own
delight. If there are sufficient facts to call for a hypothesis, it
is not always a valid objection that the hypothesis cannot be
experimentally verified. A more important point is that the
notion of an intrinsic beauty can be made perfectly intelligible.
There is a sublimity in Mr. Russell's conception of the world as
a tragedy in which " blind matter moves on its relentless way,"
and at length overwhelms us all " beneath the debris of a universe
in ruins." If we feel the sublimity of this conception at all, we
shall feel that the tragedy will be sublime to its very end, although
ex hypothesi the end will have no spectator.
121
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
whose intention it was to endow mankind with
the scientific faculty by which men should at
length know the past history of their planet, we
shall conceive Him as desiring that the history
thus unrolled before them should be a worthy
object of contemplation ; just as, if we conceive
Him as an artist, we shall think of Him as delight-
ing in His work.
But such questions are here irrelevant. We are
not now concerned with speculations as to the
persons, human or divine, for whose sake the
beauty of the world was designed. We are con-
cerned solely with the question whether it is a
part of the world's order that Nature shall con-
form to aesthetic principles as such ; or whether,
on the other hand, the alleged beauty of natural
objects is an accidental or illusive appearance. It
is sometimes said that, when we call things
beautiful, we mean no more than that they please
us. But obviously this is not our meaning.
Even in common speech we all allow that, if our
taste is bad, we may be pleased with what is
not really beautiful. The real question, then,
is, first, whether the distinction between good
and bad taste is a sound one ; secondly, whether,
when Nature seems to conform itself to right
aesthetic principles, this is a mere accident.
It is to these issues that the arguments quoted
from Darwin are in the main directed. He men-
tions the different standards by which different
races judge the beauty of their women ; and
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BEAUTY
implies that if there were real beauty, and a fixed
standard of truth on that subject, these differences
would not exist. Such differences of liking,
however, do not even prove any real difference of
view. I may be more sensitive to the charm of
Rubens than to that of Fra Angelico ; and
another man may have the opposite preference.
Yet we may agree that both are great painters,
and may even agree entirely as to the distinctive
merits of each. Similarly true beauty in a Negress
is not to be looked for in her approximation to the
type of the beautiful European, but in a charac-
teristic beauty of her own which only the minority
of Europeans can justly appreciate. There is no
contradiction in praising one woman for a fair
skin, and admitting at the same time that some
darker types have a very genuine loveliness.
But even where our tastes come into direct
collision, this conflict does not prove that there is
no right and wrong in the matter. Our taste may
be plainly false. If a man avowed that he pre-
ferred Martin Tupper to Shakespeare, he would
deserve high praise for his candour ; but few
would defend his judgment.
Again, Darwin alleges that beauty in many cases
is " wholly due to symmetry of growth." Here
his argument is that, since symmetry is useful in
the struggle for existence, the beauty which we
admire is but the accidental result of an efficiency
which, in itself, has purely utilitarian value. But
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CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
beauty is something more than symmetry. It is
not in every case that symmetry is beautiful. The
symmetry of a steam-engine is more perfect than
that of a flower. If beauty were ever wholly due
to symmetry alone, the production of beautiful
designs would require no equipment beyond the
possession of a pencil and a pair of compasses.
It is essentially the same argument which under-
lies Darwin's reference to the colours of fruit and
flowers. " When a flower is fertilized," not by
insects, but " by the wind, it never has a gaily
coloured corolla." To many minds this fact has
seemed to prove that all beauty in Nature exists
for a purely utilitarian purpose. But further
reflection will show how halting these Darwinian
explanations of beauty really are. Natural Selec-
tion may no doubt preserve brilliant and con-
spicuous colours ; but the brilliancy and con-
spicuousness is only one part of the fact to be
explained. Not all brilliant colours are beauti-
ful : nor are all arrangements of brilliant colours
harmonious. Yet in Nature the brilliant colours
of flowers are not merely in contrast, but in har-
monious contrast, with their background of leaves.
Again, we find a similarly harmonious relation
between the parts of some of those humbler plants
which are fertilized by the agency of the wind,*
and therefore on Darwin's own admission lie
* A good example is the purple stalk and green leaf of the
common stinging-nettle.
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BEAUTY
outside the range of this particular method of
explanation. Again, the colouring of birds and
butterflies is not merely bright and gaudy. It
is the delicacy, and not the mere brilliancy, of the
colour-schemes which birds and butterflies exhibit
which gives them their aesthetic value. We may
infer with Darwin, so far as the simpler elements
of aesthetic taste are concerned, that " a nearly
similar taste for beautiful colours and musical
sounds runs through a large part of the animal
kingdom " : but it is hardly reasonable to assume
that a nicety of taste which is rare even now in the
most highly civilized races of mankind is common
among female birds. Yet only on this extreme
assumption can we account by sexual selection
for the delicate harmony, as distinct from the
mere individual gorgeousness, of the colours in
the plumage of their males.
Perhaps, however, the most significant of all
the Darwinian passages quoted above, is the asser-
tion that " beauty according to our sense of it is
not universal," an assertion fortified by a reference
to certain animals of peculiar hideousness. This
remark contains a whole theory in a nutshell. If
we assume with Darwin that the beauty of an
object means merely its capacity to produce
pleasant sensations through the agency of our
nervous system, it will not seem surprising even
on the ordinary laws of chances that a certain
number of natural objects should possess this
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CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
power. We shall then argue further that in many
of the most remarkable cases the attractiveness
of these objects is fully explained by Natural or
Sexual Selection. If man and the insects are
derived from the same original stock,* there is
good reason why both should possess the same
capacity to receive pleasure from colours, and
good reason also why the very colours which the
flowers adopt because they attract insects to
visit them, should produce pleasant stimulation
in our senses likewise. And since, while some
things in Nature, such as roses, are extremely
pleasing, while other things, such as bats and
venomous snakes, are extremely hideous, and the
rest occupy an intermediate station between great
ugliness and great beauty, this — it may be said —
is exactly the state of affairs which the laws of
probability would lead us to expect.
It is likely that every one who is ordinarily
sensitive to natural beauty will be dissatisfied
with this theory of its accidental origin so soon
as he deliberately confronts it with some of the
schemes of colour in certain flowering plants.
Others will as readily feel that Darwin has not
fully perceived the aesthetic value of the objects
which he condemns as hideous. The tragedy of
Macbeth would be the poorer for the omission
of the three witches and the hideous instruments
of their unlawful traffic. The Divina Commedia
* Origin of Species, chap, xv, par. beginning " Analogy would
lead me."
126
BEAUTY
would lose much by the omission of the terrible
passage describing the tortures of Mahomet.* So
the world would be impoverished as a work of
art, not enriched, if it were robbed of all those
things which in themselves are ugly and offensive.
There is more beauty in the world as seen by
Shakespeare, where the ugly and the beautiful
are combined, than in the pictures in which Fra
Angelico with all the vividness of genius paints
the beauty of life alone, and altogether omits
what is ugly. Few will deny that the former is
really a worthier object of admiration.
But a stronger argument against the utilitarian
theory of beauty is the universal agreement of
Nature with certain aesthetic laws. Granted that
the objects of highest beauty are balanced, as
Darwin suggests, by other objects of extreme
ugliness, we still have to account for what has been
already mentioned above : for our impression of
the general beauty of Nature as a whole ; for the
fact that its colour-schemes at the worst never
fall below a certain level of beauty f ; that there
are certain laws of colour-harmony which they
never violate J ; that Nature is felt to possess an
aesthetic unity of character similar to that which
binds together the work of a single school or
* Inferno, canto xxviii, 25.
f Contrast with Nature certain cheap coloured prints.
% Though the laws of harmony in music have the advantage
in being able to be put into words, the painter will not admit
for a moment that his judgment is any more uncertain than that
of the musician.
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CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
individual master; and, lastly, that the contem-
plation of Nature both in its calm and in its
agitation produces a sense of restfulness such as
is produced in human work by the works of the
greatest masters only.
These are truths which, though they are not much
present to the common consciousness of mankind,
can be made clear to almost every modern man of
good education, if we choose the right examples.
Show him the worst sketch from Nature that you
can find ; show him trees and cattle represented
through the medium of gaudily coloured wool-
work ; and he will understand why you say that
these pictures are out of harmony with the spirit
of Nature. Show him, if you will, works good
of their own kind, which interpret Nature too
luxuriously or too severely. If the doubter is
still unconvinced, show him where the landscape
is interrupted by factory chimneys and slate-
roofed cottages. Every one must feel that the
factory chimney often introduces into the land-
scape a grossly inharmonious element ; and that
Nature itself never violates the laws of colour-
harmony in so gross a manner. It is just its
obedience to certain aesthetic laws which gives
Nature its distinctive character. These laws are
plain enough to our emotional consciousness
even if we cannot state them in words.
It is this widespread conformity of Nature
to aesthetic principle which is the insuperable
difficulty for evolutionary theories : as we shall
128
BEAUTY
see if we briefly review the course of the
discussion.
Darwinism seeks to explain the beauty of
Nature without admitting that it is a law that
Nature shall conform itself to aesthetic principles.
Darwin himself shows that many beautiful
objects have a utilitarian value. Symmetry is
useful as well as beautiful ; so are the colours of
flowers and male animals. But we have seen
that there are many facts which these explana-
tions cannot touch. There is much in Nature
that is beautiful but not symmetrical. Some-
times, indeed, it is just in its departure from
strict symmetry that the beauty of an object lies.
Again, there are parts of Nature where heredity
never comes into play ; especially that wide field
which lies outside both of the animal and the
vegetable kingdoms.
Here, then, Darwinism must adopt another
form. It turns its attention from natural objects
to human taste. It seeks to explain how, by
means either of Natural Selection or of Hereditary
Habituation, our taste becomes adapted to what
Nature offers.
But Natural Selection is manifestly insufficient
for this purpose.* An eye which could not look
* It is worth while to point out that the problem is to explain
our taste — why we like and dislike certain sensations. If pain
is annexed to certain deleterious physical processes, this fact
may conserve the species by leading the individual to avoid
those processes, e.g. a species is the more likely to thrive if an
I 129
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
at surrounding objects without disgust and pain
would be an obvious disadvantage to its possessor.
An eagerness to look at colours which harm the
visual organs would, of course, be physically
deleterious. But the mere lack of capacity to
find pleasure in the delicate colour-schemes of
the landscape is a different matter. What harm
could this purely negative quality do to any one
in the struggle for existence ? There is no reason
why Natural Selection should destroy in us even
every taste which rebels against natural colour
or form. There is still less reason why it should
produce those positive tastes, in harmony with
Nature, which we actually possess.
Take a plain little plant like the narrow-leaved
plantain. If we look into it minutely we shall find
that it is far from being devoid of gracefulness.
Stalk and head, especially at the time of flower-
ing, present a humble yet harmonious scheme of
colours. Yet, outside the ranks of the botanists
and the painters, probably not one man in a
thousand has ever noticed this colour-scheme at
all. If, then, we or our ancestors had been quite
unpleasant sensation is annexed to the act of running thorns
into one's flesh. But here Natural Selection is merely called in
to explain why a particular sensation is annexed to a particular
physical process. It does not so readily explain why we dislike
that sensation. Call the physical fact — the nervous or cerebral
process — A : call the accompanying sensation B : call our dislike
for the sensation C. Are we trying by Natural Selection to
explain the connexion between A and B, or the connexion
between B and C ? The latter stage alone could throw light
on our taste for certain colours, sounds, smells, and flavours.
130
BEAUTY
incapable of perceiving the gracefulness of this
little plant, or even if we had positively disliked
it, there is not the slightest likelihood that this
distaste would, at any stage of our evolution,
have done us any harm. We need never see this
inconspicuous chord of colour unless we specially
look for it.
But even if, by some odd chance, a taste for the
colours of the plantain had possessed (or had been
associated with some quality which possessed)*
a utilitarian value, is it likely that the same acci-
dent would have happened again and again with
the many thousands of different colour-schemes,
none of them wholly inharmonious, which Nature
offers ? The chances are millions to one against
it. And, further, even if we accepted this extreme
improbability, we should not have explained
the facts. Men not merely enjoy these colour-
schemes : they perceive in them the specific
quality of internal harmony : they see that in
spite of their variety they all possess a common
aesthetic character, and also certain qualities
which they share with the noblest works of human
art only.f If we had merely enjoyed these
schemes, this would have served every conceiv-
able purpose of Natural Selection. It is really
absurd to argue that we should have been killed
or weakened in the struggle if we had failed to
feel a common sensation of delight attaching
* See Religion in an Age of Doubt, p. 151, note,
f See above, chap, iv, also p. 112.
131
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
itself to all natural scenes,* or had failed to
possess these uniform capacities for intellectual
insight into beauty which exist as capacities in
most men, but for the majority remain unde-
veloped.
What, then, of the inherited effect of habit ?
It is not necessary to discuss here the doctrine of
Weismann which denies that characteristics ac-
quired by the parents in the course of their lives
are transmitted to their offspring. It is enough to
say, in the present context, that a theory of the in-
herited effect of habit if used to explain our aesthetic
tastes implies that the various colour-schemes
of Nature, though numerous, are at all periods of
history substantially the same, and that our race
has thus become so well accustomed to them all
that we find them all at least tolerable, and some
of them delightful. But, as quite a small change
of shape or colouring maj^ make a great aesthetic
difference, we must not assume too readily that
every colour-scheme has appeared very frequently
in the past. Again, hereditary familiarity with
particular sensations does not always make them
even negatively agreeable. The smell of manure
and similar odours have been present to mankind
* Our sense of unity of style implies a certain common feeling
which all examples of the style excite in us. See Proceedings
of the Aristotelian Society, vol. ii, No. 2, Part II, p. 68 (Williams
and Norgate, 1893). That there is in this sensation itself an
element of generality is an important fact, but hardly bears on
the present argument.
132
BEAUTY
in every generation at all times of the year,
whereas the scents of spring belong to that one
season only. Again, our attitude towards even
the less interesting colour-schemes of Nature is
not one of mere toleration. Lastly, although all
our ancestors have been accustomed to the per-
ception of individual colours, and perhaps also
conscious of the transition from one patch of
colour to another, there is nothing to suggest that
in all generations they were in the habit of per-
ceiving colour-schemes as such. As the dress of
many women proves, to a large part of mankind
a colour-scheme, as distinct from the separate
colours that compose it, is not an object of con-
sciousness. And how could habituation produce
a sense that the scenes of Nature possess unity of
character ? It was remarked by the late Mr.
William James that if a race of dogs had lived for
generations in the Vatican Galleries, they would
still never have become art-critics. Mere habitua-
tion cannot produce taste apart from an internal
artistic capacity.
The strongest argument remains. The theory
on behalf of which these various evolutionary
explanations are brought forward, is essentially
a theory of illusion. Even if we insist that we
know what our aesthetic judgments mean — that
by the beautiful we do not mean what pleases,
but what is worthy to please — the evolutionist
133
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
returns to the charge and affirms that in that case
our meaning is not valid, since there can be no
such thing as real beauty.
Now a theory which is to convict us of lifelong
illusion must itself be exceptionally conclusive.
If it could be shown that all the forms we admire
are forms which cause preponderantly pleasant
sensations : that if we had not admired them we
must manifestly have sustained injury : that all
our actual tastes are precisely those which would
naturally have resulted from long familiarity
with the surroundings in which our race has been
placed : we might well say that these were highly
suspicious coincidences, and therefore the theory
of illusion must not be lightly rejected. But, as
we have seen, no one of these assertions can be
made good.
And even if they could be made good to the
utmost, they would not really be enough to con-
vince us that all our aesthetic judgments are false.
The answer to such sceptical suggestions lies for
each of us in the progress of his artistic educa-
tion. Ask each man the question with reference
to the subjects he understands. Ask the scholar
whether
O fortunatam natam me consule Romara
is as good poetry as
Per varios casus per tot discrimina rerum
Tendimus in Latium
Ask the architect whether the outside of the
National Gallery is as good art as the inside of the
134
BEAUTY
Choir at Westminster. Ask the judge of dress
whether the fashions of Paris in the Second
Empire surpass in gracefulness the costumes of
all other periods. Ask almost any one whether
the Venus de Milo reaches a higher level of beauty
than is attained by those pictures of prize bulls
which sometimes adorn the houses of their
owners. The person questioned will not be at all
perturbed by evolutionary arguments. He will
give his own judgment with perfect confidence.
To those, surely, who study Nature, their con-
viction of its prevalent beauty must be as clear
as are any of the artistic judgments which have
just been mentioned.
It is, of course, entirely right that aesthetic
phenomena should be studied in their physio-
logical aspect. It would be absurd to deny the
physical basis of mental functions. It would be
equally unreasonable to deny that artistic judg-
ments and enjoyments are often associated with
what Mr. Grant Allen called " pleasant visceral
sensation." The error begins when we confuse
what is distinct — when we see no difference
between a pleasant thrill, a grateful nervous
tremor, on the one hand, and a judgment con-
cerning the Sublime and Beautiful on the other.
Note. Some one may perhaps suggest (in
view of the evolutionary explanations of our
taste and our knowledge) that "good taste' or
" a good head for mathematics " msiy conceivably
135
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
be a useful asset in the struggle for existence.
This suggestion is quite irrelevant to the present
discussion. Good taste, or a good mathematical
head, is exactly equivalent to that " tendency to
correct thinking ' (aesthetic or mathematical as
the case may be) which Naturalism on its own
principles must deny. The case for Naturalism
requires that Natural Selection should account
for each separate mental fact, not for a general
tendency to correctness as such.
136
CHAPTER XI
SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
We seem, then, to have found that the Universe
is no mere machine. Its character is revealed in
the laws which govern it ; and those laws which
govern taste in man and beauty in the world
cannot be expressed in purely mechanical terms.
But if the non-mechanical character of the
Universe is revealed in aesthetic experience, it is
revealed still more decisively in religion. Re-
ligious experience is intimately connected with
that knowledge of right and wrong which has
been discussed above. There are those who re-
gard Religion as a mere department of Morality.
But even if they are right, even if it is a depart-
ment, it is still a special department, of morality ;
since many who are familiar with morality in
general are quite out of their depth in dealing
with religion. It is in religious experience, per-
haps, that we shall find the full significance of
those laws of Nature which we have been con-
sidering.
In this special department, then, can we formu-
late any definite laws ? Some of the simplest
laws of religious experience have been well ex-
pressed by Mr. Matthew Arnold in his reflections
137
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
on the religion of Israel, that " wrestler with
God " who has known " the contention and strain
it costs to stand upright."* Put shortly, Mr.
Arnold's law may be summed up in the words
that " to righteousness belongs happiness."! He
recognizes the " very great part in righteousness "
which belongs to the " not-ourselves."{ "We
did not make ourselves and our nature. We did
not provide that happiness should follow conduct,
as it undeniably does ; that the sense of succeed-
ing, going right, hitting the mark, in conduct,
should give satisfaction and a very high satis-
faction, just as really as the sense of doing well
in his work gives pleasure to a poet or painter,
or accomplishing what he tries gives pleasure to a
man who is learning to ride or to shoot." Israel
had indeed known the humiliation of failure, had
known what it was for a man to acknowledge
transgression and to have his sin ever before him.
But his course was not all failure : he knew also
the happiness of spiritual achievement. As a
Prince he had had power with God and had pre-
vailed. Neither this sense of contact with God
as the " Power not ourselves which makes for
righteousness," nor the sense of joyful co-opera-
tion with this Power which the sincere pursuit of
righteousness produces, can be explained away
as a by-product of Natural Selection. Those who
have followed the discussions of morality and the
* Literature and Dogma, i, 3.
f Ibid., i. 4. J Ibid., i, 3.
138
SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
aesthetic sense in the preceding chapters will not
need to have the case stated afresh in relation to
religious experience. Those who are still uncon-
vinced may be invited to reflect on the phenomena
with which Matthew Arnold deals. We find our-
selves wrestling, in truth, with something that
is not ourselves or of our own making : a law
which we cannot destroy or silence : a power
also in our inner life by which this law is
reinforced.*
We may take Matthew Arnold for our guide
again when we turn to the distinctive experiences
of Christianity. He well understood how, in
Christianity, it is " no grand performance of a
man's own that brings him to joy and peace, but
an attachment, the influence of one full of grace
and truth ! " In the language of Scripture the
law of Christ's influence is expressed in the state-
ment that " as the branch cannot bear fruit
except it abide in the Vine," so neither can the
Christian disciple " except he abide in Christ."
If we accept this statement as true, then — to use
the language of modern prose — we shall expect
that so far as we bring ourselves and keep our-
selves within the sphere of Christ's influence, we
* Cf. Literature and Dogma, i, 5 : " In hearing and reading
the words Israel has uttered for us, carers for conduct will find a
glow and a force they could find nowhere else. If you care about
conduct, your heart will burn within you, or at least you will
gain conviction of the truth and felicity of this language as you
read it."
139
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
shall find therein a source of continued strength
and inspiration ; the power to do what apart
from this inspiration is impossible ; the power,
say, of the Quaker to keep his temper unruffled
under unspeakable provocation ; the courage of
St. Francis to do for the lepers those services the
very thought of which had, in his unconverted
days, filled him with extreme disgust ; and all
other such Christian acts as are in themselves
most sweet and gracious, and yet to the flesh
most difficult. On the same hypothesis, we
shall expect to find that if we separate our-
selves from Him, if we break the contact, we
shall lose the power so to overcome the flesh
and to triumph over natural instincts and in-
clinations.
Now if such claims are true, they ought to be
easily verified : if false, they ought to be easily
disproved. For obvious reasons they are not in
all aspects particularly well fitted for public dis-
cussion ; they turn too much upon intimate and
private matters. But, so far as we ourselves and
our closest friends are concerned, the claim lies
open for verification or disproof. Moreover, the
general effect upon the world of Christ's life and
teaching, through the community which He
founded, and through the lives of His disciples,
can be discussed without any violation of deli-
cacy, both in reference to the past and to the
present. It would be much to the good if
140
SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
every one would inquire into this subject for
himself.
There are, however, one or two objections to
such a method of inquiry which it is worth while
to encounter in advance. " What, after all," it
may be said, " is this supposed law but an identi-
cal proposition ? Are you not arguing in a circle ?
You affirm that contact with Jesus brings a
peculiar strength and grace. But what do you
mean by contact with Jesus except living accord-
ing to His commandments ; and what, again, is
the peculiar grace of Christianity except a life
according to the Christian standard ? Thus, in
effect, your law amounts to nothing but this,
that if a man lives the Christian life he lives the
Christian life."
A careful observation of Christian practices
will afford us an adequate reply. The types of
Christian piety are many and various ; but all
agree in adopting systematic methods of subject-
ing the mind to the influence of Christ's teaching.
All agree in the frequent and ordered reading of
the Gospels with the express intention of taking
the Central Figure in the story as a model of con-
duct and an inspiration for life. These practices
are often pursued mechanically, and sometimes
even insincerely. Yet, on the whole, the sys-
tematic " seeking " leads to a genuine " finding " ;
and men's lives are brought into some small
measure — often into a great and astonishing
measure — of conformitv to their model. Jesus,
141
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
according to Matthew Arnold's analysis, brought
into the world a temper of self-examination, of
self-renouncement, of " sweet reasonableness "
and mildness. Take the first of these, the spirit
of self-criticism. Those groups of persons who
consciously subject themselves to the influence of
Christ do really succeed in setting a good example
here.* The political orator seldom takes as his
theme the unfaithfulness of his party to its own
professed principles. The faithlessness of the
Church to the principles of Christ is the con-
stant theme of the Christian preacher. If, then,
Christians assert that as a result of following
Christ they are conscious of a certain access of
strength in the inner life, this is a claim worthy of
examination. It is no merely identical proposi-
tion to say that those who persistently keep
Christ in their thoughts do hereby make progress
in Christian virtue.
" But what," it will be said, " is all this but one
example of the well-known principle of the in-
fluence of a great mind ? " We are no doubt
right in thinking of the " influence of Jesus on
mankind " under the general category of " in-
fluence." But the important matters are : first,
that influence is just one of those facts which
cannot be explained on purely mechanical prin-
* The duty of self-criticism is not, as other duties are, habitually
pressed upon Christianity from outside. The world is only too
ready to regard it as the duty of the Church to exhibit a faithful
but unintelligent conservatism.
142
SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
ciples ; secondly, that the influence of Christ has
a distinctive character of its own.
Consider, first, spiritual influence in its widest
sense. Take the influence of Greek literature,
or more generally of what we call the " spirit "
of Greek literature and art, in moulding the style
and thought of subsequent generations. Looking
back upon it now, we can see that the work of
the Greek poets and sculptors, of the Greek orators
and philosophers, exhibited one and the same
" spirit." In other words, their work conformed
to certain principles of taste and realized a
certain aesthetic ideal. It is in virtue of our per-
ception of these principles and this ideal that we
perceive the unity of character which, in spite of
individual differences, pervades Greek work as a
whole. It is in virtue of this same insight that
we are able to recognize how far the influence of
Greek art and literature has extended beyond its
own borders.
In such a combination of unity with difference
there is doubtless something mysterious. These
examples are quite unlike the simpler cases, in
which a single principle is consciously applied to
varying subject-matter : as when subjects of all
sorts are dealt with under the single form of the
hexameter verse, a form which any mind can
fully grasp and define and communicate to
others. The spirit of the Greek style cannot be
digested, or taught, in the form of set rules. No
rules could be drawn up such that if we obeyed
143
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
them we must thereby produce works of art true
to the Greek spirit. This spirit is not a principle
formulated in a single mind, but a principle
stirring obscurely in the minds of many, expressing
itself differently in different contexts, yet per-
ceived to be one single impulse by the sympathetic
critic who reviews its work. We find that, if we
familiarize our minds with what Greek principles
of taste have enjoined in one context, we shall
perceive by instinct what they enjoin in another.
This instinct is stronger in some men than in
others. But this fact only makes it plainer that
we are dealing here, not with the arbitrary will of
individual men, but with a law of Nature. There
is some " power not ourselves ' which, when we
read the literature of Greece, reproduces in us
some of the tastes and feelings of its authors, and
may actually develop their principles in new and
untried contexts. It was said of Keats that he
was a Greek himself. By mere acquaintance
with the Greek Mythology at second hand he was
able to amplify it with a bold originality which
was yet faithful to its source. We may distin-
guish at many points between the spirit of the
Greek poets and that of their disciple. Yet the
effect of the Greek influence upon his poetry is
unquestionable.
No less definite than the laws of the response
of Western civilization to the influence of Greece
are the laws of the response of the human mind
and conscience to the influence of Jesus. Come
144
SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
under the influence of Greek literature and art,
and you will find that you gain, not merely an
increasing admiration for the best Greek work,
but also the habit of applying the Greek standard
of taste in contexts of which the Greeks themselves
knew nothing. Come under the influence of
Jesus Christ, and you will find an increasing ten-
dency to apply a standard which you cannot fail
to recognize as Christian, even to problems about
which He in His own teaching has given no
explicit guidance. It is obvious, in the light of
what we have seen above, that such laws cannot
be stated in terms of mere mechanism. The
statement must contain such utterly non-me-
chanical conceptions as the " Spirit of Greek
Civilization," the " Christian Ideal."
Again, submission to Christ's influence in par-
ticular puts us in a position to judge of its value
for, and its application to, the whole human race.
It is not every one who has the faculty to under-
stand Greek art. But it is a loss for us all if we
lack that spirit of ultimate self-criticism which
produces the distinctive Christian virtues of con-
trition and repentance.* Many noble lives have
been lived apart from Christ, especially in pre-
Christian times. The typical Christian, like St.
Paul, is consciously struggling with a law which
* See Montefiore's The Synoptic Gospels, Introduction, pp.
cvii-cviii. It is significant that in the passage from Wernle,
which the author quotes with so much approval, repentance and
contrition are not even mentioned. The spirit in which the
author deals with Christianity is, of course, worthy of all praise.
K 145
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
brings perpetual self-condemnation. The con-
trast between such lives and the unruffled calm,
the effortless goodness, of certain good Pagans,
both ancient and modern, may seem at first sight
all in favour of the latter. Christianity is itself
forward to recognize that it is of " such " — of
dispositions like these, resembling the natural
innocence of children — that the Kingdom of
Heaven is partly built up. It is enough, however,
for our present purpose, if we can make good the
necessity of Christ's influence for those who are
adult, not only in years, but in mind ; for the
awakened modern man replete with the knowledge
both of good and evil. For those who gain the
conviction that the Christian standard is absolute
— who find that there is indeed in our souls a
power which makes for righteousness, and that
the upward pressure which this power exerts in
favour of the Christian standard is continuous and
increasing — for them the religious doctrine of the
Holy Ghost will at least not seem to err on the
side of exaggeration. They find themselves in
contact with a power which, even if they do not
know it to be personal, they perceive to be per-
petually active, and so far to satisfy their spiritual
needs that they can without hesitation yield them-
selves wholly to its guidance.
It is partly through experiences like these that
belief in the personality of God is reached. To
146
SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
this belief — it may be thought — there have been,
in relation to its importance, only scant allusions
above. The argument as developed in the fore-
going chapters seeks to arrive at Theism through
Optimism. We may be justly confident that the
great majority of those who on reasoned grounds
adopt an optimistic conception of the Universe
will hold this faith in a theistic form ; that they
will feel that a world whose central spring is un-
conscious of its own working is not ultimately
satisfactory to reason. Yet it is not always by
these indirect ways that men come to belief in a
Personal God. The religious man is ever aware
that he stands in the presence of a law of right
and wrong which he cannot disobey without
incurring the condemnation of his own conscience.
The thought of such a law is for many minds
inseparable from that of a righteous Judge Who
reads our thoughts and before Whom all our
secret desires lie open. To a large number of
our race this conception of a God Who reads
the heart seems so natural and obvious that,
when it is once put before them, they accept
it without hesitation. As our relations with
the wills of our fellow-men produce in us from
our earliest years the unquestioning conviction
that the movements of the human bodies around
us are directed by conscious spirits like our
own, so — it might be argued — our contact with
that law which is revealed to us in conscience
produces in the normal mind a like direct
147
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
conviction of the existence and personality of
God.
The question how the indirect knowledge of
God which comes by reasoning is related to the
direct knowledge which may be thought to arise
through religious experience, lies perhaps a little
out of the straight course of the present dis-
cussion. Yet it is not altogether irrelevant.
Suppose that by arguments like those of the
preceding chapters we have arrived at such an
Optimism as in normal minds will inevitably lead
on to Theism. However well grounded such a
faith may be, its meaning must surely become
clearer to the man for whom Theism has a more
distinctively religious character ; for whom the
lesson of the moral struggle expresses itself daily
in the Scriptural phrase, " Thou God seest me";
for whom the witness of the accusing law remains
no mere impersonal Imperative, but seems to
make itself heard as the Voice of One Who is
about our path and about our bed and spies out
all our ways. Such experience, for those who
know it, is at the least explanatory of convictions
which have been otherwise attained.
148
CHAPTER XII
THE CLAIMS OF AGNOSTICISM
The reader who has followed the argument thus
far may here wish to give voice to an objection.
" I am not altogether unwilling," he may say,
" to admit that this argument, though stated in
an unusual and somewhat abstract form, is on
the whole a fair representation of the essential
meaning of the plain man's defence of religion.
But here we have a curious fact. This same
argument, in one form or another, has been before
the world for centuries. If it is in essence sound,
why are so many of the best and most honest
minds unconvinced by it ? What is the cause
of the widespread scepticism that we find around
us?"
To the latter question we can give perhaps no
single answer. The causes of religious doubt are
different in different minds. Yet, if we are
thinking of intellectual obstacles only, and seek-
ing for the greatest of these, we shall find it,
surely, in the achievements, the truly glorious
achievements, of Physical Science.*
But this answer leads on to a further question.
* It may be objected that this answer applies rather to the
Victorian era than to our own : that Darwin and Wallace,
149
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
Why are Natural Science and religious faith
believed to be mutually hostile ? This belief
must have some weighty cause ; and we shall see
presently what it is. Meanwhile, however, it is
worth while to show that many of the common
opinions on this subject are clearly and demon-
strably erroneous. We shall understand better
the real cause why the claims of physical science
to a monopoly of systematic knowledge are so
readily allowed if we examine these errors one by
one.
First, there are those who speak as if Natural
Science denied everything which it does not
affirm ; who, in fact, treat Natural Science and
Naturalism as if they were simply identical. This
is a very evident blunder. We have only to
define the two positions to see that they are dis-
tinct. Physical Science assumes merely that if
we watch the phenomena of Nature intelligently
we can find the rules by which they proceed.
Naturalism adds that only that which direct
observation of Nature can verify should be ac-
cepted as true. Physical Science, indeed — far
from demanding Naturalism as its basis — is per-
Mill, Spencer, and Huxley are no longer the oracles of our
advanced thinkers. It is only right that these changes of
intellectual fashion should be respectfully and sympathetically
observed. Yet, after all, we must not take them too seriously.
It is never the strongest heads who are most affected by
them.
150
AGNOSTICISM
fectly compatible with Supernaturalism of the
very crudest sort. So long as the inquirer is an
accurate observer of facts, and is quick to formu-
late the rules which his observations establish, he
may attribute these rules to the arbitrary will of
God, or even of a syndicate of heathen deities,
without losing his usefulness as a man of science.
Naturalism has been, perhaps, the favourite creed
of the physical observer in all ages ; but that it
is not the only creed consistent with high physical
attainments would be proved, if we had need of
such proof, by the mere mention of the name of
Newton.
Imagine, then, the havoc which a ruthless
debater might make with those moving and im-
pressive sentences of Mr. Russell's which have
been already quoted.* " Mr. Russell alleges,"
he might reply, " that the world which Science
presents for our belief is a world without purpose,
since — among other evidences of this want of
purpose — man is i the product of causes which
had no prevision of the end they were achieving.'
That man is the product of many unintelligent
causes — of the particles of which his body is com-
posed, of the chemical forces that move them, and
so forth — we shall all agree ; but this is not what
Mr. Russell means. He means that our existence
in the world is not due to the action of intelligence
at any point. If we weigh Mr. Russell's words
with care, we shall find that they are merely an
* See chap, ii, pp. 15-16.
151
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
eloquent elaboration of the simple statement
that there is no God and no future life. But
why does Mr. Russell tell us that it is ' Science '
which presents these two propositions for our
belief ? By ' Science ' he plainly means ' Natural
Science' — Science pursued by the method of
experiment and observation. What department,
then, of Natural Science proves that there is no
God ? In what department of Natural Science
is this subject even dealt with ? In Chemistry,
or Physics, or Biology, or Psychology ? Perhaps
we shall be referred to the modern science of
Anthropology. Anthropology shows the growth
of religious ideas from very humble beginnings
in our savage ancestors ; just as it shows the
gradual development of other ideas, political,
moral, or physical, likewise. But it does not
always disprove a belief to show its history. It
is a curious piece of arbitrary behaviour to assume
that, if we can show the origin of the belief, say,
in uniform causation, we are proving it true,
whereas to show the origin of the belief in God
is to prove it false. Again, which of the many
subdivisions of Natural Science sets itself to prove
to us — in language which it must be admitted is
hardly redolent of the physical textbook— that
' no heroism, no fire, no intensity of thought and
feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond
the grave ' ? Observation, it is true, never shows
us a disembodied spirit* — a conscious mind acting
* Even this will not be admitted by all members of the Society
152
AGNOSTICISM
independently of a material body. But the fact
that body and mind are always observed together
does not prove them essentially inseparable. Em-
pirical psychology is hardly concerned with the
essential nature of the soul as distinct from its
changing experiences. Certainly psychology has
not so clearly defined the soul's nature as to prove
that conscious personality must necessarily be
extinguished ' under the debris of a universe in
ruins.' Again, Physical Science does not even
disprove the impossibility of restored bodily
existence. Before now it has happened that a
physical investigator, who was at the same time
an orthodox believer, has held that far away a
world of matter already exists under laws different
from those which we investigate : or at least
that a time is to come when the present system of
Nature will be swept away in favour of a new
heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth
righteousness. Such beliefs have not checked
his physical investigations. The man who re-
gards i this present world ' as part of a wider
system will calculate his eclipses with a proviso :
4 So will it be unless the end of the world comes
first.' The believer and the unbeliever alike can
employ the methods of physical observation ;
and the question at issue between them does not
belong to Physical Science as such to decide. Do
for Psychical Research. Whether the eminent men of science
who have engaged in these researches will have thereby enhanced
their reputation is still an open question.
153
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
the physical laws as we know them hold good
through all space and through all time ? Whether
we say Yes or No, or that we cannot tell, we
have already passed beyond Natural Science
to Philosophy. It is Metaphysics, not Physics,
which deals with the infinite and the eternal ;
with what in an absolute sense is everywhere and
for ever. And this Mr. Russell, except in his
lyrical moods, knows well. When therefore he
tells us that Science presents for*our belief a God-
less and purposeless world, he knows, or will
know if he reflects, that he is not correctly
describing the subject-matter of Physical Science,
but merely indulging in a brilliant flourish of
sentimental rhetoric." *
This criticism, as we shall see directly, would
not really be quite fair to Mr. Russell. Yet it is
hard to see what defence he could make against
it on his own principles. Still harder is it to see
what answer he could make, say, to Lotze when
he warns us f — in words which might almost have
been written with Mr. Russell in view — against
' crediting as a prophetic announcement with
regard to the future " those " ingenious calcula-
tions which draw conclusions as to the final state
of the world from our experimental knowledge of
* These words are not written in forgetfulness of the admirable
work Mr. Russell has done. Mr. Russell has, perhaps, never
written with more splendid eloquence than in the essay now
before us : but he has sometimes written with more philosophic
caution.
t Metaphysic, Bosanquet's translation, vol. ii, p. 160.
154
AGNOSTICISM
the economy of heat." It is no doubt important
to consider " to what end the processes which we
now see in operation would lead, supposing them
to continue unchecked and to follow the same
laws." But Mr. Russell's pessimistic conclusion
follows only " if we assume that the given condi-
tions are the only ones to be taken into account,"
and not otherwise. This assumption, as Lotze
points out, is perfectly arbitrary. A physicist
may demonstrate convincingly what would hap-
pen if a certain hypothesis were fulfilled. But
obviously the success of his demonstration does
not prove that the hypothesis will be actually
realized. " Two things," our imaginary debater
might continue, " need to be proved in order to
make Mr. Russell's conclusion. First, he must
show what would happen on the hypothesis that
the physical conditions operative at present are
the only conditions to be taken into account ;
secondly, he must show that that hypothesis will
be realized in fact. The complete success of the
physicist in dealing with the former point dis-
guises his total failure with the latter. So far as
Mr. Russell is concerned, the latter question is not
dealt with at all. That is where the real issue
lies between him and the Christian believer ; and
he quietly assumes what he does not attempt to
prove."
Thus Naturalism may be true or false ; but
it is not simply identical with Science. Physical
Science — we may say — has founded the business ;
155
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
the " goodwill of the business " is silently trans-
ferred to the credit of a Naturalistic philosophy.
Against this transference we may justly make our
protest.
We meet, secondly, with an exactly opposite
mistake. While some, as we have just seen, look
to Natural Science for a complete theory of the
Universe, others speak as if it confined itself
strictly within the limits of experience. " Our
knowledge of Nature," they argue, " rests on
experience alone, while Religion is concerned with
what goes beyond experience altogether." ' We
shall be wise," they conclude, "to confine our-
selves to beliefs which can be verified, and so to
accept Natural Science and reject Religion."
But while the former conception of Natural
Science is too wide, the latter is too narrow.
Natural Science, no less than Religion, takes us
far outside the limits of experience, and tells us
of what eye has not seen nor ear heard. Natural
Science no less than Religion rests on an act of
faith. Our knowledge of Nature extends both
into the future and into the distant past, where
direct experience cannot take us. We can calculate
the eclipses of the coming years, and we know some-
thing of the processes by which the earth became
the home of the human race. If the ignorant sceptic
tells us that next year's eclipses are not yet come,
and that when the earth was without human in-
156
AGNOSTICISM
habitants we were not there to see, his assertion is
right, but his sceptical conclusion is wrong. The
eclipses of the future, and certain events of the far
past, may be quite within our knowledge, though
quite outside our experience. Further, as the future
and the distant past lie outside the limits of expe-
rience, so, too, they lie outside the limits of strict
demonstration. There is a type of demonstration,
employed in pure mathematics, which admits of
no possible doubt ; but this — as is well known —
cannot be employed to prove the occurrence of
past or future events. Thus, in trusting the
conclusions of Natural Science, we are believing
in something which we have not seen and cannot
in the strictest sense demonstrate.
" But it is no great act of faith," it may be
replied, " when you see a stone rapidly falling
towards the ground, to infer that a moment ago
it was high up in the air, and that in a short time
it will touch the earth ; or, if you see water cooling
in a vat, to conclude that an hour ago it was
hotter than it is now. Yet it is only by relying
on simple inferences of this kind, and following
them out step by step, that Ave build up the
stupendous fabric of our physical knowledge."
True. The implied comparison is a just one. If
we take a wide enough survey, we may seem to see
vast physical changes taking place before our eyes ;
and the movements of the moon as clear and
certain as the path of the falling stone. But it is
just in this confidence that such methods of
157
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
inference may be safely followed step by step into
remote regions of space or time, that the act of
faith consists. The future path of the falling
stone is made plain to us by an easy — we may call
it an instinctive — act of imagination. We need
faith, however, when we soar into remote regions
where sight and imagination alike fail us. How
do we know that the gravitative pull, on which
the moon's motion depends, will continue for
all time ? It is due — so some have held * — to
a "strain in the medium in which all matter
is immersed." But even on this theory this
medium is unknown to us except in its effects.
How then can we know that it may not at any
moment break up, or wear out, or float away ?
Why, at some future time, should not part of our
world be immersed in this medium, and part
immersed in it no longer ? The effect of the
change would be subversive of all our expecta-
tions. It might cause the wildest sequence of
physical events. But who can show by express
demonstration that the change is not possible ?
Who can prove that it is not imminent ? On
such a hypothesis, it is true — as we saw in the
case of a similar hypothesis suggested above "f
— no one of our common expectations would be
worth a moment's purchase. Such a change would
involve a relapse from Order into Chaos. We
* See Sir Oliver Lodge, Elementary Mechanics, published 1888,
p. 15, note. Cf. Epilogue, Note II, at end of this volume.
f Chap, iv, p. 40.
158
AGNOSTICISM
therefore rejeet it, and rightly ; but such belief
in the prevalence of Order, in regions which are
beyond the limits both of our experience and our
demonstration, is unquestionably an act of faith.
We have not seen it ; we have not proved it :
yet we do not doubt it.
The fact is that the attractiveness of the
orderly picture of the world which Natural
Science presents to us, and the agreement of all
our friends to accept it, disguises from us the
boldness of the step we are taking, in advancing
so far beyond the limits of our direct experience.
We treat as a matter of course what is really a
stupendous venture. The physical sceptic might
well ask us whv we assume that Nature as a whole
must be orderly and not chaotic. " Order " is an
ideal of the human mind. " Uniformity," too, is
one of our conceptions. Why should we assume
that the actual Universe must agree with our
conceptions and ideals ? If we answer that
unless the world is in some measure uniform
throughout, we could not make scientific pre-
dictions, he may reply that the trustworthiness
of these predictions is the very thing upon which
he is throwing doubt.* So far as mere argument
is concerned, the position of the sceptic is strong.
Our one unanswerable retort to him is that he,
as he shows bv his conduct, believes in Natural
Science and its predictions just as we do. He
* Cf. Mr. Russell's remarks about the chicken, quoted above,
p. 77.
159
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
knows that he lives in an orderly Universe. It
is this knowledge which marks him as a sane and
rational man. It is his duty, then, as it is ours,
to analyse the principles on which this venture of
faith is based.*
" But the venture of faith made by science,"
it will be said, " is totally different from the
gratuitous inventions of Religion. The doctrines
of Religion are invented sometimes because they
are in accordance with our hopes ; sometimes
they are the reflections of our fears. But in any
case there can be no evidence of their truth. So
far as pure purposes of knowledge are concerned,
* It may be objected that the theory advocated above is itself
an ultimate scepticism, since it makes all our scientific and other
knowledge rest on an unproved principle. But a principle may
be certain and well founded in reason and yet may be neither a
self-evident axiom nor capable of the kind of demonstration
which belongs to mathematics. The rationality of the world is
as certain as anything in mathematics, though not certain in the
same manner. If we say to the purveyor of sceptical arguments,
" You cannot believe in the absurdities of pagan mythology :
you cannot believe in absolute rubbish " ; he will hardly answer,
" Oh, yes, I can." Absurdities are logically possible, but not
really possible : logically conceivable, but not actually con-
ceivable. See p. 237.
Again, if it be objected that the principle that " absurdities do
not happen " is insecure — since to many minds everything un-
familiar seems absurd, so that, e.g. Darwinism was laughed at as
incredible by many quite well-educated men for a generation —
the answer is that, while every sane man believes the world to be
a rational order, many men have false standards of order and
rationality. Again, in the case of a new theory, it commonly
happens that we do not at first take in what sort of a world it is
which the theory presents to us. See pp. 236—237.
160
AGNOSTICISM
we do not need these religious doctrines ; and if
we accept the common- sense ' principle of parsi-
mony ' — that is, the rule that we should not
invent hypotheses except for the purpose of
explaining facts — then we are justified in denying
them outright. Why suppose the government of
the world by a God, or by any rational principle,
conscious or otherwise ? If matter and its powers
had been just what Physical Science conceives
them to have been, then the Universe must have
been just what the Universe is. Granted the
matter and the forces, the world, as we know it,
is the necessary result. The individual particles
of matter, and the individual forces by which
each is moved, would have done all that has been
done ; and no general principles, whether acting
consciously or unconsciously, are required to
assist them. The introduction of such principles
is a pure piece of gratuitous invention."
This objection has been answered in advance
in the preceding chapters. The answer may be
expressed by means of a comparison. Certain
vibrations of the air produce that succession of
sounds which we call the Ninth Symphony of
Beethoven. Granted that these vibrations take
place and that we hear them, then, however they
may have been produced, we have the Choral
Symphony. But is it therefore " gratuitous ' ' to
infer that these sounds presuppose the influence
of definite aesthetic principles ? Given the vibra-
tions, you have all that is necessary for the
L 161
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
aesthetic effect. But still, apart from the influence
of aesthetic principles, this collection of sounds
would not have occurred. If the orderly arrange-
ment of the Universe is no more an accident than
is the connectedness of Beethoven's music — if
there are certain principles of order by which- the
Universe is dominated — then there is nothing
gratuitous in predicting that whatever follows
from these principles will actually occur. Such
predictions are made both by Religion and by
Naturalism. Religion and Naturalism differ, not
because Naturalism is cautious and scientific
while Religion is irresponsible and romantic, but
because they interpret differently the principles
which are embodied in the Universe as it presents
itself to our mind and senses. Is it, then, that
Religion sees aspects of the world to which
Naturalism is blind, or that Religion imagines
what Naturalism perceives to have no existence ?
It is a common view that certain aspects of the
world excite our wonder because we interpret
them wrongly. " Wonder," it is said, " here as
elsewhere is the offspring of ignorance. Grasp
the self-evident principles of the indestructibility
of matter and the persistence of energy — once
perceive that it is impossible that something
should become nothing* — and you will see that
* Spencer, First Principles, Part II, chap, iv, p. 177. It might
very naturally be said that even though we cannot show it necessary
that matter and its fundamental powers should remain unchanged,
this necessity may quite possibly exist. Such necessity would ex-
plain much of the uniformity of Nature, but not the largest part.
162
AGNOSTICISM
all the order and uniformity which amazes you so
much follows directly from this simple principle."*
But this is a piece of extremely fallacious reason-
ing. Even if we granted that the indestructibility
of matter and energy was a self-evident truth,
which it is not, still this is quite distinct from
the principle of uniformity. It does not follow,
because each piece of matter retains for ever its
fundamental qualities, that therefore a great
number of separate pieces of matter must all be
similar to one another. The unchangeableness of
each is not the same thing as the uniformity of all.
Again, it would still be quite a new point that
Nature is not merely uniform, but admirable ;
that it adopts just those uniformities which cause
it to be a thing of sublimity and beauty. It is not
true, then, that Herbert Spencer's principle that
" something cannot become nothing " renders all
wonder needless and irrational.
The fact is that we are confronted with a
persistent but unsuccessful attempt to set
* The principle of the permanence of substance is treated as
self-evident. It is then illegitimately identified with uniformity.
The assumption is then made that all the orderliness which we
admire follows from uniformity as a matter of course. Spencer
is right in saying that every empirical proof of " permanence "
presupposes it. It is an a priori assumption, but not self-evident.
Annihilation is not inconceivable : it is not even unimaginable.
" It is here now and will be here to-morrow " are two truths,
not one. The principle that something cannot become nothing
would forbid the evanescence of feelings.
163
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
Naturalism upon a pedestal. " The supporters of
Naturalism," it is suggested, " differ widely from
the upholders of Religion. They promulgate no
arbitrary fancies : they rely on observation and
not on authority ; they modestly confine them-
selves to statements which can be verified ; they
do not deal in mysteries."
No one of these claims can be made good,
not even the claim to absolute independence of
authority. The masters of Natural Science, it is
true, have set a most noble example of fresh and
independent investigation. In this matter the
theologian cannot do better than humbly take
them as his models. But reliance on authority
is a matter for individual self-examination. Have
we not all relied much — have we not most of us
relied too much — on the authority of those very
masters who taught the lesson of free inquiry ?
Are we aware how many of our physical convic-
tions have been adopted without any personal
investigation at all, but simply because the edu-
cated men of our generation agreed to accept
them ? We are apt to despise the Middle Ages
for their reliance on Aristotle. He was the
greatest observer of Nature with whom they were
acquainted. Have we never exhibited an equally
uncritical trust ?
Again, though there are few virtues more at-
tractive to this generation than intellectual
modesty — a fact to which Agnosticism has owed
much of its popularity — it must be remembered
164
AGNOSTICISM
that Agnosticism does not say merely " I do not
know." It declares positively that on certain
subjects knowledge is unattainable. There is no
special modesty in affirming that everything in
heaven and earth can be described in the terms
of one's own philosophy.
Nor is it true that Naturalism succeeds in
eliminating all mystery from the world. When
Haeckel tells us that " the Universe or cosmos is
eternal, infinite, illimitable," and that " its sub-
stance with its two attributes (matter and
energy) fills infinite space and is in eternal
motion," he may be right or he may be wrong.
But unquestionably he is speaking of subjects
difficult to grasp. The assertion that God existed
from all eternity, whether true or false, is ad-
mittedly difficult. Why should less difficulty
arise with an eternal movement, an infinitely
extended substance ? That which is inimitably
extended — which possesses size and yet is of no
size in particular — will seem to some to be, not
merely mysterious, but self-contradictory.
Again, is the elimination of mystery always a
proof of correctness ? Can we lay it down that
nothing can exist except what can be readily
understood ? A prejudice exists against the
belief in a fixed objective standard of right and
wrong, beauty and ugliness. " If the distinction
between good and bad exists in our minds only,
then," it is said, " it is merely a mental fact, and
quite easily intelligible. If, on the other hand,
165
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
we hold that there is a real goodness and a real
beauty, independent of conscious minds, then the
question arises where and how this distinction
exists. It is not a fact in the material world ; it
is not a fact of conscious experience ; what then
is it ? Had we not better say with Huxley that
except material facts, and mental facts, and the
relations between them, there are no other
objects of knowledge ? Had we not better reject
such mysterious figments as an objective standard
of goodness and beauty ? ' But the interesting
fact is that common sense refuses to make this
rejection. Whatever difficulties may be subse-
quently raised, we all understand quite well what
is meant by saying that a thing is really right or
wrong. The supporters of Naturalism themselves
have given noble witness to this doctrine. They
maintain the duty of a Galileo to stand firm
against a world of persecutors. Could you hold
to an objective standard of duty in a more abso-
lute form ?
Much, then, of the common defence of
Naturalism rests on prejudices which will not
bear examination. Thus, when Naturalism
limits the Universe to those facts which can be
investigated by Natural Science — when it denies
God and a future life — it must surely have some-
thing better to go upon than the purely negative
principle that these things have not come within
166
AGNOSTICISM
our experience, and therefore they cannot be. It
must be tacitly employing some principle of
limitation of a more positive character.
In the writings of eminent Agnostics we may
learn what this positive principle is. They are
impressed with the aesthetic unity of nature as
they conceive it. Huxley in an eloquent passage
compared the course of Nature to the changing
scenes of a kaleidoscope ; and opined that if we
could only forget our individual sufferings — as of
unregarded animalcules who had somehow got
between the bits of glass of the kaleidoscope — the
spectacle of these changing scenes, of which each
is the logical result of the preceding one in accord-
ance with those principles which we call the laws
of Nature, would fill us with complete intellectual
satisfaction, with the Amor Intellectualis Dei. To
every one who has ever felt the sublimity of that
iron necessity, by which in Nature events appear
to follow events in inevitable sequence, this
enthusiasm will be readily intelligible. He will
understand the resistance which is provoked by
the doctrines of religion. In such a mood it is no
welcome thought that this iron law may be but
the will of a Power Who can change it, Who can
suspend its operation by occasional miracle, Who
intends to bring the whole stately procession of
events to an abrupt end at the Day of Judgment.
The modern reader, even if on reflection he is
still a believer in miracle himself, must feel some
sympathy with the youthful heroine of Bret
167
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
Harte's tale, who when a canting divine tries to
check her astronomical enthusiasm by the re-
minder that astronomical laws were for once
suspended, when at Joshua's command the moon
stood still in the valley of Ajalon, exclaims with
an oath that it is a lie, and that she does not
believe it. The breaking of natural law seems an
offence against aesthetic congruity ; and therefore
the very suggestion of such a breach is received
with indignation. It is as though since " the first
seeds whereof the world did spring " had agreed
(according to the poet's mythology)*
To leave their first disordered combating
And in a dance such measure to observe
As all the world their motion should preserve,
we had got the measure so beaten into our souls,
that even in thought we can hardly bear to break
the rhythm.
t(
But," the agnostic may reply, " though these
aesthetic comparisons are in their way quite apt,
though I perceive that the unchanging order of
Nature is sublime, it is not because of its sublimity
that I believe in it. Nature, as I conceive it,
agrees with my ideal of a rational order ; but I
utterly reject the principle that what is demanded
by this ideal must therefore occur." We can
only ask him whether this answer will survive a
searching self-examination. Our agnostic rejects
God and the Supernatural. Why ? Not because
* Sir J. Davies, The Antiquity of Dancing.
168
AGNOSTICISM
these beliefs are directly opposed to experience.
No one can claim to have experienced God's non-
existence. Nor can experience show us that there
is no future life. On these matters sensible
experience and mathematical proof (as we have
seen) are alike silent. Nor, again, can our denial
rest upon the supposed self-evident principle of
the indestructibility of matter and energy. Grant
this principle to be as self-evident as you will, it
does not prove the continued regularity of Nature.*
By this process of discovering the inadequacy of
the reasons commonly given, we may arrive at the
real reason on which the denial of religious beliefs
is based. | An immense number of modern men
are so much impressed with the sublimity of
Nature that they cannot conceive it to be but a
* See above, chap, iv, p. 40 ; cf. p. 228.
f See Mr. Russell's Problems of Philosophy, chap, vi, p. 99.
He says very truly that " the belief that the sun will rise to-
morrow might be falsified if the earth came suddenly into
contact with a large body which destroyed its rotation ; but the
laws of motion and the law of gravitation would not be infringed
by that event." But he is surely wrong when he continues that
" the business of science is to find uniformities, such as the laws
of motion and the law of gravitation, to which, so far as our
experience extends, there are no exceptions." This at least is not
the sole business of science. The further you advance along
this path, the nearer you come to the purely formal principles,
such as that nothing happens without some cause, that there is
some order of Nature. Our aim in Science is not merely to get
to principles so general that they cannot be contradicted, but to
discover what is likely to happen. Science is a study of reality
— of the actual. Thus it may be of more importance, scientifically
as well as practically, to know that the sun will rise, than to
know that even if it didn't the more general laws of Nature might
still remain unviolated.
169
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
part of a wider whole. Their imagination utterly
fails to construct an artistic Whole worthy to
include " this present world " as a mere episode
within itself. " A very pretty poem, Mr. Pope,"
said a critic of his Iliad or Odyssey, "but it is not
Homer." "A very charming imagination," say
many, speaking of the gorgeous visions of the
Apocalypse, " but it is not Nature." Such minds,
when they speak of a rational Universe, think of
such a Universe as filled Professor Huxley with
the Amor Intellectualis Dei.
It is obvious that on such grounds a vigorous
defence of Naturalism may be made. But it is
equally clear that, defended on such grounds,
Naturalism must descend from its pedestal. Or
— to change the metaphor — if the Universe as
conceived by Naturalism and the Universe as
conceived in Christian Theology are both de-
fended as embodiments of the ideal of reason,
Naturalism and Theology enter the fight on equal
terms. Both are forms of Optimism, and our
decision in favour of one or of the other depends
ultimately on the particular standard of good and
evil which we adopt.
170
CHAPTER XIII
SPECIAL DIFFICULTIES
Religion, however, as we must still admit, has
special difficulties of its own.
First, there is the difficulty of imagining a
Future Life. It is not easy to frame such a
picture as will satisfy the mind ; and yet it is
unsatisfactory if Religion presents us with the
prospect of a life which no one could really
desire.
The difficulty arises when we try to conceive
the Future Life in a form at once attractive and
complete. The heavenly scenes described in
certain Mediaeval hymns, and painted in certain
Mediaeval pictures, are full of beauty. But we
cannot seriously regard the heaven which they
depict as a home in which we could ourselves be
happy. The man who has come into contact
with the varied spiritual interests of modern
life — with the many subjects touched on, say, in
Goethe's Faust — cannot be, and ought not to
be, satisfied with a state of bliss adequate to
simpler needs :
The shout of them that triumph
The song of them that feast :
171
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
yet if we attempt to fill out the Mediaeval repre-
sentations of heaven with additions drawn from
the distinctive experiences of modern life, we
sacrifice the unity and congruity which gave
these earlier representations their charm, and
produce a mere jumble of discordant features.
There is an element of truth, then, in Matthew
Arnold's criticism of the conception of heaven in
" our English popular religion." The garlands,
the trees, the fountains, the flowers, the harmony
of falling waters, human voices, and musical in-
struments — of which according to him the popular
picture of heaven is composed — may justly be
described, he thinks, as " poor fragments all of
this low earth." In the wording of this criticism
we have some ground for complaint. It is
strange that a poet should have nothing to say of
roses, lilies, trees, and falling waters but that
they are low and poor. As elements in a perfect
human existence, if such an existence is con-
ceivable at all, these natural objects must
surely have their place. We should miss them
if they were absent. But the critic's real ob-
jection is not to the separate features, but
to the picture as a whole. " Yet who," he
asks, " can devise any conception of a future
state of bliss which shall bear close examination
better ? "
Now, if by devising a conception of a future
life he means constructing a detailed programme,
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SPECIAL DIFFICULTIES
we may admit that this is beyond our powers.
If some one had actually partaken in the heavenly
life, and then returned again to earth, even so he
might well be unable to describe heaven in terms
intelligible to those who had not seen it. An
intelligent foreigner who had graduated at a Con-
tinental University, decided to spend a year at
Oxford. Meeting an Oxford man who knew
something of the difference between England and
the Continent, he asked for a description of
Oxford life. The description was given with some
wealth of detail ; but the foreigner could not
understand it. He was able to form no concep-
tion of what Oxford could be like. It was only
after he had lived there himself that he exclaimed,
" You told me, and I could not understand your
description. Now I come here ; and it is all
exactly as you said."
The moral of this story is plain. The believer
in a future life may be suffered to describe his
faith in general terms. It is unreasonable to ask
for details. Each age as it passes brings to man-
kind new forms of activity and enjoyment. In a
perfect life we may be convinced that every one
of these will be present. Heaven, if it is to be
heaven, must be the home of wide human sym-
pathies : a place where we shall all understand,
even if we do not all engage in them, all the
manifold functions both of active and of contem-
plative life ; where our heart will not be closed
even to those delights which are not specially
173
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
congenial with our natural temperament ; where
we shall share, at least by sympathy, the special
joys of the saint, the scholar, the thinker, the
lover, the sportsman, the warrior, the man of
business : where, looking back with more in-
telligence upon our earthly life, we shall find the
very divergence of taste which has divided us on
earth to be but a closer bond of union in heaven.
Just as it is often the travelled man who best
understands his own country, so an association
with all the types of humanity which have in-
habited this globe from the days of the palaeolithic
man onwards, might well lead us to understand
better the peculiar gifts which are individually
our own. We may even hope to gain such
increased sympathy with others that it is no
longer a pain, but a pure delight, to look into
happiness through another man's eyes. Even in
this life our isolation is far from being complete.
We may often — perhaps always except when the
thought of his happiness turns our minds to our
own privations — receive genuine happiness from
the happiness of another. We can almost feel
the pain of a man who, standing close beside us,
is hurt or wounded. Men have been known to
swoon at the breaking of another's bone. Thus,
if in heaven we could enter as much into our
neighbour's pleasure as we do here into his pain,
then a type of existence is at least conceivable
which shall contain every element of perfect
happiness. Yet we may be still able to frame no
174
SPECIAL DIFFICULTIES
artistic picture of a life uniting such immense
diversity of good things.
But apart from this general difficulty there are
more special ones. Since new difficulties are sure
to occur to the human mind in each generation,
this subject can never be treated with complete-
ness. The utmost we can do is to examine one
or more of the objections which sound most
formidable, and to show that they are not so
unanswerable as they appear.
Take this modern rendering of an ancient prob-
lem. " The thing I loved," says the hero of
Miss Schreiner's admirable story,* " was a woman
proud and young ; it had a mother once, who
dying kissed her little baby, and prayed God that
she might see it again. If it had lived the loved
thing would itself have had a son, who, when he
closed the weary eyes, and smoothed the wrinkled
forehead of his mother, would have prayed God
to see that old face smile again in the hereafter.
To the son heaven will be no heaven if the sweet
worn face is not in one of the choirs : he will look
for it through the phalanx of God's glorified
angels ; and the youth will look for the maid, and
the mother for the baby. And whose then shall
she be at the resurrection of the dead ? '
The difficulty here raised may at first sight
* The Story of an African Farm, Part II, chap. xiii.
175
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
seem insuperable. If the longings of all three
hearts are to be satisfied, then at the Resurrec-
tion, it is argued, the woman must appear at once
as new-born baby, grown-up girl, and aged mother.
But is it certain that the longings which are
really felt can be satisfied only under these im-
possible conditions ? What the mourner desires
above all is to meet again the identical person
whom he has lost, not that person in the last phase
in which he knew him. It happens often that the
great joy of meeting an old friend is to find how
entirely, in spite of changed opinions and changed
appearance, he is at heart the same person
whom we knew long ago. With persons of shallow
character it is otherwise. The boy who seemed
so chivalrous and original has his soul now
fettered to the routine work of his office. The
girl who was such a good companion has now no
characteristics except the manners of her set, and
no interests but the usual interests of her social
class. Yet even in these cases it is conceivable
that there may happen in heaven what sometimes
happens on earth. There may be a re-emergence
of the soul as we knew it in youth. The freshness
of individuality may be restored. It may even be
restored in a form which shows that the inter-
mediate period of conventionality and worldliness
had its own value in the development of the
personality. For, though it is the person as such
that we value most, each separate phase has its
charm ; the mellowness of our age, the vigour of
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SPECIAL DIFFICULTIES
our prime, the freshness of our infancy. These
distinct charms — so Miss Schreiner's hero argues —
cannot be present together. The son, the youth,
the mother, must one or other of them be dis-
appointed. But are these various qualities es-
sentially incompatible ? It has been held that the
dead are to be restored at the Resurrection in
full vigour of mind and body as in the prime of
life. The man who has lived to old age, and then
has been restored to full strength at the resurrec-
tion of the dead, need not be conceived as losing
in that restoration all the special charms he has
acquired during the patient weariness of declining
years. There is nothing monstrous or unex-
ampled in the union of youthful fire with the
broad judgment of old age. There are some men
who cannot but recognize that they themselves
retain in mature life in a quite unusual degree the
feelings and instincts of their youth. Again, there
is nothing monstrous and unexampled in the
restoration of vigour after a temporary eclipse.
Men who have sunk into premature old age
through ill-health have sometimes regained all
their powers when health has come back to them.
Yet it is not in the least needful that as strength
returns they should forget the special experiences
of their time of weakness. There is, in fact,
ample earthly analogy for things which, when
alleged of heaven, are said to be contradictory
and inconceivable. Thus, it is far from certain
that in every case a son must experience dis-
m 177
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
appointment at the Resurrection if a mother rose
again as in her prime ; if that which he had sown
in weakness was raised in power. In the case put
by Miss Schreiner there is nothing essentially incon-
ceivable in a resurrection which should satisfy the
heart's desires both of the lover and the son.
The case of the dying mother parting from her
infant is no doubt more difficult. All depends
upon what she actually hoped and thought ; and
in such matters there is little uniformity in human
feelings. Her chief desire may have been that
the child too might die, so that she might take it
with her. Or, again, she may have dwelt chiefly
on the hope that she might be permitted to watch
over the child, herself unseen, during the progress
of its early years. In God, it is sometimes said,
the dead are nearer to us than the living. But,
whatever wide variety of feeling is conceivable,
it must surely be extremely rare that any mother
should feel the desire which Miss Schreiner's
argument requires. A mother can hardly wish
that, after growing up on earth, the child should
be put back to a state of infancy in heaven. If a
woman has once accepted as inevitable the part-
ing from her child, whether through death or
through mere absence, the very last thing she can
seriously desire is that its development should be
arrested at the moment of parting. In those
families where the generations have succeeded
each other rapidly, a man may still be thought of
by his mother primarily as her first-born, the
178
SPECIAL DIFFICULTIES
child she has reared — and towards her he may
still retain the affectionateness of boyhood — to
his wife he may be primarily the lad who won her
love, while to his grown-up sons and daughters
he may speak with the mature authority of a
father. In this case there has been no parting.
" He has changed," his friends may say, " but we
have not lost him. Yet if we had lost him, and
if at the Resurrection he were restored to us much
as he is now — if his mother had died when he was
a child, if he himself had died when his children
were young, leaving his wife a widow — need any
one of his family, mother, wife, or children, feel any
element of disappointment in such a restoration ? '
The mother, it is probable, would not so much wish
for a different restoration from this, as complain
that, even in the best restoration she could hope for,
there is something which she has lost for ever. ' It
is others who nursed him. By my early death I lost
what not even heaven can give me back again."
Thus the real difficulty is not that which Miss
Schreiner suggests — namely, that the joys which
the three friends would chiefly desire are mutually
incompatible — but the sense that there are some
losses which nothing can make good. This is a
very common feeling in many varied relations.
To attain the object of one's desires later on is
not always as good as attaining it at first. There
are some men with whom the greatest triumphs
of adult life have been no compensation for
failure at school. It is not every one to whom the
179
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
highest parliamentary honours in his later years
would really make up for the disappointment of
losing his first election. Yet, even so, we may ask
whether there is any one thing in the world about
which we can say, " If I miss this good thing now,
it is absolutely inconceivable that it can ever be
restored to me in any context whatsoever " ? The
experience of life has shown most of us that the
disappointments of youth are not always so irre-
mediable as we thought at the time. It is not
only that we forget. The very joys of which we
had said, " It is now or never : unless I can have
it in this form I can never have it at all," have
sometimes come to us with complete satisfaction
in a new and unexpected context ; so that at the
end we exclaim, " The compensation here has in
it no element of disappointment. If I had known
in my keenest fits of despair just what awaited me
later, even then I should have felt that, when the
time came, the reversal of my ill-fortune would be
complete." The wheel sometimes, even in this
life, turns the full circle ; and the whirligig of
time brings in full its revenges and compensations.
Perhaps, then, all our difficulties arise because
we limit the possibilities of heaven unduly. The
answer of Christ to the Sadducee conveys the very
opposite moral to that which has been perversely
drawn from it. We err if we attribute to heaven
the exact limitations of this earth.
tt
Still," it may be said, " you have not touched
180
SPECIAL DIFFICULTIES
the most significant element in the pathos of
human life. There is always the fading of the
past. Even if our children live, their childhood
dies. That which gave us delight exists nowhere
in the world. We have in its stead the growing
boy or girl ; the substitute we have learned to
accept in its place. But it is only thoughtlessness
which sees no loss in this substitution. The sad-
ness which fills the mind which contemplates the
vanishing beauties of Venice or of Nuremburg —
this, if we look below the surface, gives the
character to human life in general ; a character
from which not even heaven could escape, unless
for the joy and movement of life as we know it
were substituted the lifeless repose of the Byzan-
tine mosaic."
Lamentations in this vein are characteristic of
an age that loves history. Yet it is worth while
to point out that the passage of time is not always
felt to bring loss. The sense of loss, therefore, is
due, not to time and change as such, but to special
circumstances. At the end of the performance of
some favourite Symphony, the First Movement
has already faded into the past. If this is the
last performance we shall ever hear from the same
conductor and the same performers, the conclu-
sion may bring feelings of melancholy and regret.
But under ordinary circumstances we have no
such feelings. The music has ended, but it has
not vanished. It is present and accessible ; a
working element in the life we live. And so it
181
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
is with all those elements of our past life and
history which are fully preserved for us in records
or in pictures, in common and public memory, in
their social and political effects. The victory of
Waterloo must have been as fully present to the
victor to the last day of his life as at the moment
when the battle was won. In such cases the past
lives in the present. To every mind to whom the
word " God ' has any meaning — indeed, for all
who conceive that there is in the world any such
element of permanence as is implied in our ad-
mission that statements which concern the past,
if true once, are true for ever — it is at least an
intelligible assertion that our whole past may
conceivably be as really present to us for all
eternity as the crucial events of our personal or
national history are present to us now. If the
opening notes of a melody had become nothing
to us before its close, we should never hear a
melody as such. The notes are still present and
effective, though they have ceased to sound.
There is, in principle, nothing difficult or unfami-
liar in the hope that in God every single incident
in the earthly history of our race may be present
and accessible, a living and working fact for all
eternity in the heavenly life of mankind.
Yet we must not leave this subject without
recurring to the note of warning. If we wish the
belief in a future life to be taken seriously, the
182
SPECIAL DIFFICULTIES
whole question must be handled with boldness.
There is no attractiveness in a hope of heaven
which ignores our real aspirations. It is wise,
however, neither to give too free a rein to our
imagination, nor to be discouraged at the failure
of the imagination to deal adequately with these
matters. The great artist, as we see in the case
of Milton, can weld into a harmonious whole what
to us would have seemed beforehand to be but a
chaos of discordant elements. Things which have
seemed to us irreconcilable, the artist may unite
by a flash of his intuition. And Nature is an
artist of the first rank. For the greatest artists
her work is the model. But not only are the
artists her scholars and her copyists; they are
also her creation. She produces them from the
storehouse of her inexhaustible resources. If we
continue to use the word " Nature " in its widest
sense, our very hopes of heaven themselves are of
her making. What, therefore, she has blended
in our hopes, she may blend yet more har-
moniously in our fruition.
183
CHAPTER XIV
GOD
Another class of difficulties is concerned, not
with Heaven, but with God. " The God to which
the argument points," it may be said, " is cer-
tainly a God with plenty to do.* What could be
a more laborious undertaking than the ceaseless
planning of delicate effects of colour in every part
of the material Universe ? No less laborious,
and much more unsavoury, must be His super-
intendence of the processes of birth and of diges-
tion, of the circulation of the blood, of the
chemistry of respiration. Thus the Argument
from Design or any variant of it, so far as it gives
us a God at all, represents Him as devoting a
great part of His attention to menial tasks. Such
a God cannot say with Teucer in the Ajax f that
He practises no base mechanical art ; and this
difficulty has been felt acutely by religious men
themselves ; as is shown by the attempts of the
Gnostics and others to frame a theory of God
which shall remove Him as far as possible from
contact with material things."
The answer to this objection is that mechanical
* Cf. De Natura Deorurn, Bk. II, 23, 59 ; cf. Bk. I.
f Line 1121.
184
GOD
work is base when it is divorced from thought,
but not otherwise. To the mountain-climber the
overcoming of material obstacles is an end in
itself. Again, there is nothing servile in the work
of the skilled gardener. In all ages Achilles
would have been reckoned a nobler type of the
heroic warrior than the man who merely devises
successful campaigns in his study. Untiring
activity, and a mind bent on mechanical details,
are consistent, not only with dignity, but with
mental repose. Beethoven intent on the execu-
tion of the runs and arpeggios of his own Sonata
Appassionata * is a figure neither restless nor
undignified. Indeed, religion might well take him
as an earthly parallel to those who, receiving the
rest that remaineth for the people of God, never-
theless rest not day nor night in their thanks-
givings and praises. There is nothing inconsistent
with dignity in activity as such, nor in attention
to a multiplicity of details, so long as the details
do not distract the mind from its complete unity
of purpose, feeling, and conception. There is
nothing inconsistent with freedom in the task of
superintending the perpetual repetitions which
occur in Nature ; since these repetitions resemble,
not the meaningless iterations of insanity, but the
significant iterations of the Fine Arts. It is the
Fine Arts, again, which afford us an analogy for
understanding the relation of God to human life
in its obscener aspects. The tragedy of Macbeth
* Op. 57.
185
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
is a greater and fuller work of art, as we saw, in
virtue of some of its less pleasing incidents. The
Divine Comedy of Dante would be impoverished
beyond description by the omission of the In-
ferno ; and some of its details which are in-
dividually most offensive contribute to the poem
as a whole an element which we could not spare.*
It cannot be said that here aesthetic parallels are
out of place ; since the whole objection we are
considering is based on considerations which are
predominantly aesthetic. The obscene elements,
whether in a work of human art or in the Universe,
can only be judged justly when seen in relation to
the purport of the whole.
" But," it may be said, " the chief burden of
the difficulty, as most men feel it, lies not in the
thought of a God engrossed in unworthy
activities ; but in the thought that He inflicts
manifold sufferings upon those whom He calls
His children and His friends. This objection is
twofold. First, the actual sins and sufferings of
mankind are such that it is hard to justify the
God Who allows them to happen. Secondly, if
even for our own good God inflicts such evils upon
us, does there not arise an intolerable personal
relation between God and man ? We could no
more make friends with such a God than with
the angel in the poem who steals his host's silver
cup to cure him of his excessive attachment to
* Inferno, xxviii, 22-30 ; xxi, 137-139 ; xvii, 74, 75.
186
GOD '
worldly possessions. Such acts, however well-
intentioned, are utterly averse to the spirit of
friendship. They must utterly destroy both
confidence and sympathy. The same objection
holds against all Providential explanations of
evil. Life becomes a sort of play or game ; a
sort of obstacle-race with obstacles which need
not have existed, but are planned to give our
faculties exercise, to test or develop our endurance.
Can the God Who forms such a plan look His own
suffering creatures in the face without shame ?
Can we conceive that the God of the New Testa-
ment — the Father of Jesus Christ — could avow
such a policy even to the meanest of human
beings ? Can we conceive Him as saying even to
King Bomba of Naples, ' It was I Who de-
liberately placed you amid strong temptations :
it was I Who gave you a nature prone to yield to
them ; the result is a career of shame and failure ;
but the reprobation of mankind which has fol-
lowed has been a witness to the dignity of the
Moral Law sufficient to justify the experiment.'
If the Creator, after so describing His policy,
turned to exhortation — if He said, 4 Now repent :
trust Me, and I will save you : ' must not the
answer be, ' I can never trust One Who has made
me the victim of an experiment so cruel and so
wanton ' ? "
It is well that difficulties that are felt keenly
should be expressed frankly. They are perhaps
187
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
less unanswerable than they seem. With regard
to the first objection — the difficulty of justifying
the various evils that exist — we ought always to
ask ourselves in respect to each one, Do I really
wish it away ? Should I seriously think the
world better if it had not existed — if it had lacked
the heroic sufferings of Socrates, the manly
patience of the poor and the oppressed ? In each
individual case it is our duty to restrain oppres-
sion and to punish the oppressor. But if by a
word we could make sure that all oppression
should henceforth vanish from the earth, are we
certain that this is a word which we should be
doing right to speak ?
It is often the very men who are most sensitive
to individual evils who are most conscious of the
goodness of the wiiole. The poet, whose highest
function is in tragedy, yet makes life the theme
of his praises. St. Paul, who seeks deliverance
from this present evil world, asserts that nothing
is unclean of itself, that the earth is the Lord's
and the fullness thereof. The saint who has
fought a lifelong battle against sin, exclaims on
his deathbed, " Glory be to God for all things."
Thus if we are asked, about any one evil thing,
whether we are absolutely certain that the world
as a whole would be the better for its removal, it
is rarely easy to give a positive answer. There
are some, no doubt, who hold that the world
would be better if it contained no evil at all. The
ablest upholder of this view at the present time
188
GOD
is Dr. Rashdall. But what would Dr. Rashdall
feel, if he learnt that there were serious grounds
for suspecting that, though the dialogue narrated
in the Phcedo took place much as Plato reported
it, yet Socrates in fact was not under sentence of
death, but merely believed himself to be so, while
his friends humoured his delusion ? If the delu-
sion was quite complete, Socrates would still be a
noble figure. Yet if, after all, he was the victim,
not of persecution, but of persecution-mania,
this theory would sadly spoil the story.* The
decisive refutation of the theory would surely
be as gratifying to Dr. Rashdall as to the
rest of the learned world. He must surely,
for once, find himself rejoicing in the reality of
evil.
The second objection is in effect that Providence
— so far as it consists in the infliction of evil — is a
wanton playing with souls, a wanton trifling with
serious interests. The God — it is said — Who
brings about a European war because men have
" forgotten Him " is a God Who cares for nothing
so long as His own vanity is satisfied. He is like
the tyrant who should desolate a province
because its inhabitants had omitted to pay him
the customary acts of polite acknowledgment.
If we look at the matter from this point of
view it is natural that we should exclaim with
a modern writer, " Strange that believers in a
* And cf. p. 191.
189
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
divine revelation seem unable to conceive a
decent God ! " *
But such a view misconceives the meaning of
religious language. To " forget God " means, in
the mouth of the religious man, to forget righteous-
ness ; to forget just dealing, mercy, and truth.
If God vindicates righteousness — in which we on
the rational side of our nature have interest as
well as He— He is at least not inflicting pain for a
trivial reason. The punishment of the Pharaohs
and the Bombas is richly deserved. If they go
unpunished too long, it is the natural instinct of
mankind to demand that God shall show His
power ; and the dead weight of indifference which
is the chief enemy of every reformer — the in-
difference of the multitude which is careless of
truth, careless of human suffering — is an object
of just wrath, no less than are the crimes of the
more conspicuous sinner. If, further, we once
perceive that apart from evil certain of the best
of good things f cannot be realized — that the per-
mission of evil by God is the only way to the full
attainment of victory by the spirit of man — then
there can no longer be any suspicion that God's
providential dealing is a mere play, a cruel ex-
periment of which we are the suffering victims.
If this is the only way by which the fullness of
good may be attained, if moreover God Himself
shares with us to the full in all the sufferings we
* See Religion and the War, Charles T. Gorham, p. 11
(Rationalist Press Association). f See chap. i.
190
GOD
endure — if He is ever " afflicted in the afflictions
of His people " and feels as His own the sufferings
of the least of His brethren* — then there is no
justification for the impression that God is treat-
ing men as mere pawns in His game. Only
through the overcoming of the opposition of that
which exalts itself against righteousness — only
through the evil will of man subdued after
success by failure, punishment, repentance — can
righteousness gain its complete triumph. This
triumph is far from being merely spectacular.
No one had deeper insight into the need of such
spiritual victory than Dante ; yet we shall hardly
suspect that Dante found merely spectacular
enjoyment in his own sufferings. As religion
conceives the matter, all is done in deadly earnest :
suffering and temptation are the only means by
which the perfecting of the human spirit can be
achieved ; and God is at all points Himself our
fellow-sufferer.
Thus the difficulties that we are now consider-
ing arise, in the main, from an arbitrary and
mythological conception of God, which is not
that of the religious man, and is not the just out-
come of any reasonable theistic argument. This
mythological conception is presupposed in the
dialogue which our supposed objector imagines
* Isaiah lxiii, 9 ; St. Matt, xxv, 40, 45 ; cf. Judges x, 16 ;
Romans viii, 26.
191
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
between the Creator and King Bomba. God,
however, as religion conceives Him, is not to be
identified with the Divine Father of the poets.
He is almost as unlike the God of Paradise Lost
as He is unlike the Homeric Zeus. The God of
religion is no mere character in the drama of his-
tory, external to us as are the other persons with
whom we come in contact. He is rather the
author of the whole ; the poet Who is at once each
of the characters and more than any * ; the God
in Whom we live and move and have our being ;
our own inmost self f ; the very principle of life
on which our own life and individuality is based,
Whose will is at the root of all our most personal
activities ; the Giver even of the very strength
by which we resist Him.J At the basis even of
the flagrant rebellion of a Bomba or a Pharaoh
there lies some thought, some ideal; something
therefore which must be conceived as having its
place among the conceptions of the divine reason,
something which is not utterly outside the sym-
pathy of the Divine Artist. Again, the true
Moral Law is not entirely absent from the mind
even of the worst of criminals. The wrath of
God speaks to them as something not wholly
alien from themselves, but in the accusing voice
of their own conscience. Thus they do not stand
* That the poet should be in turn each of his characters is
quite consistent with the recognition that one of them may speak
the poet's own ultimate view in a special sense.
f Cf. St. John, xvii, 2, 21, 23; xiv, 1, 4, 5.
$ Exodus ix, 16 ; Romans ix, 17.
192
GOD
towards God in such a purely external relation
as is implied in our imaginary dialogue. In
falling under God's wrath they fall also under
their own. They trust His accusing Voice because
it speaks within themselves : because it is the
true language of their own heart. And this
trust is not always destroyed, even if they come
to hold that the Inward Voice speaks the will of
the same God Who also in His Providence has
hardened their hearts. For proof of this we need
only turn to history. The prophet is speaking
the language of piety, not of rebellion, when he
asks, " Why dost Thou make us to err from Thy
ways and hardenest our heart from Thy fear ? "*
Again, the Founder of Christianity recognizes the
reality of evil and God's power over it, recognizes
God as the sender or withholder of temptation,
in the very prayer in which He teaches us to
regard God as our Father.
Let us, then, but feel to the full the wickedness
of oppression, and the justice of the oppressor's
doom : let us but feel that the great stories of
the oppressor's overthrow can stir the soul more
deeply than almost any episode in history : we
shall then perceive how the oppressor himself,
from a changed point of view, may come to
rejoice in his own defeat, and even indirectly in
the sins and errors which gave occasion to this
sublime vindication of the Moral Law. '' The
truth of God hath more abounded through my lie
* Isaiah lxiii, 17 ; cf. xlv, 5, 7 ; Amos iii, 6.
N 193
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
unto His glory." Such a rejoicing is far from
making light of evil ; for only to the penitent who
has renounced evil can such a view of the indirect
value of evil have any serious significance.*
We are dealing here with difficulties which lie
within the religious beliefs themselves. The sug-
gestion we have to meet is that, even if on general
grounds we were inclined to believe in God, the
internal difficulties of the conception of God are
an insuperable obstacle to faith. We must ask,
then, what the nature of that conception is. If
the Theism of the plain man is based upon
Optimism ; if the belief that the world is a
rational whole is the foundation of his belief in
God ; if the plain man's God embodies the plain
man's ideal ; to what sort of a Theism does his
Optimism lead him ? The answer must surely
be that, though the God of popular religion is a
* We may compare here the case of the man who feels that
but for his youthful disobedience he would never have really
known his parents' strength of character. " In a sense," he
may say, " I can't regret my faults ; for but for them I should
never have known the patience and forbearance of my father."
If he added that the memory had always made him feel how
differently he would have behaved to his father if he could have
had his time over again, this remark would be perfectly natural.
If some one — Mr. Bernard Shaw for example — told him that in
strict logic he ought to feel that, if he could have his time over
again, he would behave at least as badly, or if he thought that
his father's patience could have borne yet greater strain, then
still worse, this advice would be taken for a joke. This com-
parison, if thought out, is sufficient to refute the usual objections
to the view expressed above.
194
GOD
Person, He is never a Person merely. " God," it
has been said, " is everywhere present in human
life, but He is not a character in history." If we
conceive of the ultimate law of the Universe — the
ultimate necessity by which men and all things
are what they are — as something fundamentally
good, and also as conscious of itself in such a sense
that we may enter into communion with it and
make it the object of our love and worship,* then
we have the personal God which religion sets
before us. It is not in this form that the concep-
tion of God gives rise to the chief objections which
are brought against it.
* See Epilogue, below, p. 218.
195
CHAPTER XV
CONCLUSION
We may now draw together the heads of our
argument into a single view.
There is a story, now forgotten, which some
few years ago was often told in religious circles.
A certain atheist, it was said, had a friend who
possessed an Orrery.* The unbeliever, catching
sight of this machine, asked who had made it.
His friend answered him ironically. No one, he
said, had made it. It was a mere collection of
bits of wood and metal which had somehow come
together at haphazard. For why not ? If it is
impossible that the mechanism, by which the
Orrery copies on a small scale the movements of
the planets, should be the work of chance, is not
this still more obviously impossible in the case
of the planets themselves ? If it cannot be
chance that brings together the parts of the
Orrery, how can it be chance which brings
together the parts of the Universe ?
Suppose that a conversation on this subject
should happen to arise, among a group of men of
* Cf. Cicero, De Natura Deorum, Bk. II, § 88 ; and see chap, v,
above.
196
CONCLUSION
ordinary education, in a railway carriage or a
smoking-room. If a believer in God countered
the attacks of a sceptic by telling this story of
the Orrery, the company would probably feel that
the believer had had the best of the argument.
The man of deep religious experience, it is true,
seldom cares much for such reasonings. They
seem to him to establish the existence rather of an
almighty Watchmaker whose ingenuity we can
admire, than of a God whom we can worship.
Still the common sense of the plain man finds in
them something attractive, and it is well worth
our while to inquire whether it may not be that,
here as so often, the plain man is partly right.
The unbeliever has at the outset an obvious
retort. " This argument," he will say, " is purely
ignorant. It can carry weight with those only
who know no Physical Science ; since it ignores
the Principle of Uniformity on which Physical
Science is built."
But — as we have seen above — we have no
right to take the uniformity of Nature as a matter
of course ; nor as a self-evident truth. It is mere
confusion of thought — though a very common
confusion — which identifies the uniformity of
Nature with the principle of inertia,* the prin-
ciple that things must remain unchanged until
something changes them. Those who compare
Nature with the Orrery do not ignore uniformity.
Rather, it is much in their minds. It is just
* See p. 163 above.
197
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
because they see this and other examples of
order, and perceive that such order is not a matter
of course, that they ask the perfectly reasonable
question — Is all this order and uniformity an
accident ? Their argument is a naive way of
asking this question and giving the answer No.
If the uniformity of Nature is an accident, what
right should we have to use it — as we all do use
it — as a principle of prediction ?
But this question and answer do not carry us
far on the road to Theism. When we compare
the Orrery and the Universe, we are thinking of
other things besides Uniformity. We may there-
fore pursue our questionings. Is the beauty of
the landscape a parallel case to the various
examples of accidental beauty already given ?
We call the chance -formed colour- scheme on the
palette an accident, because the aesthetic prin-
ciples to which it conforms have had nothing to
do with its production. If aesthetic principles
have equally little influence upon Nature — that
is, none at all — natural beauty would be equally
an accident. Is it, then, sheer accident that
Nature never violates the laws of aesthetic har-
mony, as these are often violated by the dress-
maker, the gardener, or the architect ?
Especially we must ask whether beauty can
be explained away on Darwinian principles. The
attempts at such explanation rest chiefly, as we
saw, on the notion that the sense of beauty is an
198
CONCLUSION
illusion : that when we profess to discriminate
between what is more or less beautiful, we are
merely thinking of what we have found to be
more or less pleasant. It is probable, however,
that Sullivan's Pinafore has given more pleasure
in a decade than the Passion Music of Bach has
given in a century. Yet the admiration we ex-
press for classical music is not all of it in-
sincere. Most men have the faculty to perceive
that the melodies of Mozart are more truly
graceful than a ball-room waltz, even though,
in our lower and more normal moods, the
waltz may please us most. And most men, too,
can be made to perceive that Nature produces
many forms as truly graceful as the best of
Mozart's tunes, even though some of these
forms pass unnoticed and give little pleasure
except to the chosen few who love them. Thus,
distinguishing the beautiful from the pleasant,
we shall see how little of the world's beauty can be
explained by natural selection.*
Again, can natural selection explain that ten-
dency to correctness which we find in human
thought ? It would be well that those who think
so should try their skill on some of the laws of
permutations and combinations, Any man of
normal intelligence can be made to see that on
three bells we can ring six changes and no more.
Yet at what stages in our development can this
* See chap, x, above.
199
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
knowledge have been of service in the preserva-
tion of the species ?
But suppose that we acknowledge in Nature a
tendency towards physical beauty and mental
correctness. We still cannot state these ten-
dencies in the form of unqualified laws. Not all
thinking leads to true results. Not all forms in
the world are beautiful, as is plain from the
extreme hideousness of much recent architecture.
Is there, then, any wider or more fundamental
truth than these, which, being true universally,
is fit to be used as an absolute principle of pre-
diction ?
" The ultimate principle of scientific predic-
tion," it may be said, " is that principle of uni-
formity which we have already considered in
another connexion." But uniformity is not abso-
lutely universal. Some things in Nature remain
the same ; others become different. History
repeats itself sometimes ; it does not repeat
itself always. The sunrise is repeated daily ;
the changes of the seasons every year ; the brain
of Shakespeare never. When and where, then,
are we to expect uniformity ? Mere unthinking
observation will not decide the question. If we
reflect, we shall see that the mind requires to
grasp some general plan or scheme of the world's
procedure, to enable us to decide when to expect
uniformity and when to expect change.
That our predictions are thus based upon our
200
CONCLUSION
conception of a plan, rather than on rules or laws
in the narrower sense of these terms, will be more
readily admitted if we remember that the power
of predicting natural events belonged to mankind
before the growth of the systematic science
of modern times. Our modern prediction of
eclipses is not a whit more rational than the
confidence of our ruder ancestors in the regular
return of spring. Our systematic science is built
upon a foundation of sound, though unsystematic,
knowledge. This unsystematic knowledge was
not based on the special formulations which are
new — the Law of Uniformity, the Permanence of
Substance, the Conservation of Energy — but on
that ancient insight into the world's order which,
when compared with our more modern formula-
tions, is seen to be at once more comprehensive
and less abstract than they.
Can we state this confidence in the world's
order in the form of a law true without exception ?
We hold it a universal law that no utter ab-
surdities can find a place in the Universe. If we
ask why the Pagan myths are incredible, the
distinctively modern principles in science do not
help us to an answer. The Greek gods are no
more inconsistent with the bare principle of
uniformity than any other exceptional person-
alities. The story of the Olympian hierarchy
does not in its entirety conflict with any of the
formulated principles of chemistry or physics.
If we know nothing of the universe except
201
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
what direct experience tells us — if we have no
knowledge of its character as a complete whole —
then, as we saw above,* there may be be-
yond the reach of our telescopes particles of
matter of unknown powers, rushing towards us in
unknown numbers at an unknown speed. Given
so many unknown factors, who can say that such
an incursion might not repeat at any moment the
alleged miracles of Orpheus or Amphion ? Thus
if any one chose to put up a defence of the Myths,
the formulated principles of Natural Science
could by themselves do little against him.f
Still we should not accept the Myths : we should
continue to reject them. We are convinced that
the Universe agrees with our conception of a
rational world, not in respect of uniformity only,
but in all other respects likewise. If, then —
pursuing our interrogations — we ask, " Is the
observed agreement of the world with this
standard of rationality an accident ? " we shall
answer that the world must agree with this
standard, and that it is on this conviction that
we base our predictions. We are not infallible ;
but just so far as we are convinced that an
alleged occurrence would make the world utterly
grotesque and absurd, so far are we convinced
that the alleged occurrence did not take place.
And the negative principle, that absurdities do
not happen, is not really separable from the
positive one that the Universe must conform
* Chap, iv, p. 40. t See Note II at end of Epilogue.
202
CONCLUSION
itself as a whole to the ideal of right reason.
Here we find the thought which the popular
arguments are seeking to express. When men
compare the Universe to an Orrery — when they
argue that if we saw a fair city we should know
that it was built by men, not by mice or weasels,*
and therefore a fortiori that the Universe is not
the product of blind forces and unconscious
atoms — what lies behind such arguments is the
conviction that the world is governed by rational
principles. The comprehensive law that the
world agrees with the ideal of reason, can cover
all such minor laws as those which prescribe
uniformity and beauty in Nature, and some
correctness in human thought. The full reali-
zation of the ideal of reason is the supreme end
which includes the realization in due measure of
these lesser ends within itself.
Our questions have brought us to a point at
which we can deal with several difficulties that
may already have occurred to the reader's mind.
We can see, for one thing, why men who have
held a materialistic creed sometimes swing round,
and accept some form of thoroughgoing ortho-
doxy, with an apparently uncritical haste. We
saw that no one really believes in a Universe
which is in conflict with his own serious ideal.
To many a man the orderly Universe presented
* De Natura Deorum.
203
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
to him by Naturalism seems wholly satisfactory.
The strict orderliness of the physical events
appears to him as the sole rational interest. But
if such a man comes to see that reason has other
interests no less rational : if he comes to feel that
the ultimate defeat of morality and justice — the
ultimate triumph of dead matter over life and
reason — is no less a blot on the world's rationality
than a plunge into physical chaos, that the ulti-
mate victory of right is no less demanded by
reason than is physical order, the whole founda-
tion of his naturalistic creed is shaken. The
prospect that, as the sun burns out and the earth
cools, civilization must be overwhelmed and at
length conscious life must itself perish, affords no
hope that the defeat of our best spiritual interests
can be averted. Nor, when we come to this point,
is it easy to see how the hope of full spiritual victory
can be realized apart from a future life and bodily
resurrection, or, at least, apart from something
which to Naturalism must seem supernatural and
miraculous . But if once the rationality of the world
seems to involve the future life, what difficulty is
there in principle in accepting occasional miracles
during our present existence ? Few of us have
the mental energy to think out a creed for our-
selves. Why, then — it is asked — should we not
accept, as at least approximately correct, the
traditional beliefs of the churches ?
What, again, are we to say of those who profess
204
CONCLUSION
belief in a God of limited powers ? Our argument
rests on the conviction that the many agreements
we perceive between the actual world and our
ideal of what a rational world should be, are no
accident. But if the principle which orders the
world in accordance with the rational ideal is not
the ultimate law of the Universe ; if this prin-
ciple is but one tendency among others which may
at times overpower it ; any agreement there may
be between the world and the ideal of reason is
but an accident after all. On such a theory the
principles of right reason may be overpowered at
any point whatsoever. On this theory, why
should not God be destroyed, or grow weak, or
go mad ? Our one guarantee against absurdities
— against the utter triumph of unreason — can be
found only in the certainty that the world is
rational as a whole. Hence, the importance,
which common sense has always perceived, of
the problem of evil. If in the whole scheme of
the Universe any single event occurs which, in
view of its place in the Universe at large, is ulti-
mately and absolutely indefensible, the whole
basis of Optimism and religious faith is destroyed.
What other principle have we behind right reason
to regulate the departures from the rational
standard ? Our real God, on such a theory, is
the ultimate principle which keeps a ring in the
battles of Ormuzd and Ahriman. Since ex hypo-
thesi this ultimate principle is not subject to right
reason, what guarantee have we as to its action ?
205
CHALLENGE OF UNIVERSE
If the demands of right reason are not the last
word, who can say whether these demands will be
fulfilled mostly, or often, or but seldom ?
Again, we see how to answer those who deny
religious beliefs on the simple ground that they are
contrary to experience. They are no more contrary
to experience than is the state of the world in the
days when (as some have held) the " glowing ball
of the earth was formed out of a gaseous mass."*
It is only the ignorant man who limits his beliefs
within the bounds of what he has seen. Reason,
starting from a basis of experience, builds up a
theory of the Universe as a whole, including the
far past and the future. And every such theory,
materialistic or religious, must lead us to believe
in events which are unlike anything we have
ourselves experienced. *j"
Lastly, we learn how to meet the criticism of
popular and traditional religion implied in Mr.
Russell's phrase, " The Free Man's Worship."
* Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe, chap, xiii, 11 : " Monistic
geogeny."
t The man who says that he cannot believe, e.g., in a future
life, because it is " contrary to experience," is at one with those
who interpret the principle of uniformity as equivalent to the
statement that " the future resembles the past " or that " all
parts of the world are alike." So interpreted, the law is simply
untrue. If, again, we interpret uniformity as equivalent to
" universal causation," we have here a principle so purely formal
that it could never by itself be the basis of any prediction. Re-
flection as to what the uniformity of Nature means will deliver us
from many errors.
206
CONCLUSION
We must meet it in part by confessing that it is in
part just. Religion has at times dwelt too much
upon rewards and punishments. It has spoken
the language of bondage rather than of freedom.
It has degraded the service of God to the pru-
dential avoiding of His judgments.
Yet the degradation has often been in words
rather than in thought. Even on the punitive
conception of religion we must not be unfairly
severe. It has been the foe to sentimentality, which
is in religion a deadly enemy to the soul. The
frail woman who loves to conceive herself under
sentimental categories — " a charming sinner," a
" fair penitent " — may learn by the Puritan's stern
lesson to see wrongdoing as it is. Nor is false sen-
timent a vice of one sex only. But sentimentality
has no place in a religion of true freedom.*
The whole course of this argument should have
served to bring to light the relation between re-
ligion and morality. The sudden passage from
unbelief to orthodox faith is often the direct
result of a newly acquired sense of the absoluteness
of moral obligation ; just as the opposite change
from orthodoxy to unbelief is often the result of
some moral disillusionment. Moral insight can
give men grounds for belief — sound, if not explicit
— apart from evidential reasoning. And it is
good that so it should be. It is the few who can
follow chains of reasoning ; but moral obligation,
in which true freedom lies, is intelligible to all.
* Cf. Preface, p, xxii.
207
EPILOGUE
A PONS ASINORUM IN PHILOSOPHY
Throughout the course of the fifteen chapters
which make up the body of this volume, no use
has been made of the technical language either
of the Philosopher or of the Theologian. Tech-
nical language is useful as a sort of intellectual
shorthand. But there is always a danger that
it may conceal obscurity and inconsequence of
thought. And even where it does not tend to
confuse the mind of the writer, it often leaves the
reader with a needless sense of difficulty where
the subject in itself is quite plain. It is therefore
good for every writer to practise himself in putting
his thoughts into plain untechnical English, even
though technical language may save space and
labour.
In the few words, however, that still remain to
be said, this self-denying ordinance need no
longer be maintained. As the philosophical
reader will already have noticed, an important
part of the argument has been in essence an attack
upon the doctrine known as Conceptualism.
Conceptualism asserts that the only real things
in the world are those which are individual and
208
EPILOGUE
separate ; and treats all the relations between
them, and all the general notions under which we
conceive them, as nothing better than mere
creations of the mind. " Terms," said Newman,
" sometimes stand for certain ideas existing in
our own minds and for nothing outside of them.
All things in the exterior world are unit and in-
dividual, and are nothing else ; but the mind has
the gift of bringing before it abstractions and
generalizations, which have no existence, no
counterpart, out of it."*
Now Conceptualism is in this curious position
that, though no intelligent man who really faces
the argument against it can continue to hold it,
yet it was as a matter of fact the creed, not only
of Newman, but of the great majority of intelli-
gent men through the whole course of the nine-
teenth century. We may be sure, too, that it
will crop up again and again in the future. The
doctrine seems, at first sight, both attractive and
convincing. It is also one of those doctrines which
men are tempted, when they have learnt them,
to expound in a rhetorical and vituperative
manner. " Do our pundits at Oxford still need
to be taught the self-evident truth that general
ideas exist, and can exist, in the mind alone ? '
" Is it really necessary at this time of day to
correct the erroneous fancy of the Mediaeval
Schoolmen that Universals can have an ex-
* Grammar of Assent (Longmans, New Impression, 1916),
p. 9.
o 209
EPILOGUE
istence independent of the mind which knows
them ? "
Among the philosophers, however, of the
present moment Conceptualism finds few de-
fenders. The case against it is strong and plain.
The sun and moon, for example, are unit and
individual — two separately existing things. The
knowledge of the relation between them — that
one is larger than the other — is open only to the
mind that compares them. Hence, says the Con-
ceptualist, this relation is a purely mental fact.
It is based upon the mental act of comparison.
But this is to put the cart before the horse.
For let us suppose that no mind had ever com-
pared them. Their difference of size would not
be the less real. The relation, then, which is
expressed when we make a mental comparison of
their sizes, is not purely in the mind. Only a
mind can perceive it ; for only a mind can per-
ceive anything. But it is not the mental com-
parison which creates the relation. It merely
recognizes a relation which is there whether
recognized or not.
And if the truth that the sun is larger than the
moon holds good apart from our knowledge of it,
it is so with other truths also. Take the highest
number that has ever been individually conceived
by any mind, divine or human. Suppose it
multiplied by the next highest number. Ex
hypothesi the product of this operation has never
210
EPILOGUE
dwelled in a mind. Yet obviously there is a right
answer to this long sum ; though no one may
ever take the trouble to find it. Similarly it was
true, before the time of the early geometer who
first discovered it, that the interior angles of a
triangle are equal to two right angles. The
geometer merely discovers the truths with which
he deals ; he does not invent them. They would
have been just as true as they are now, if no
one had ever known them. That two straight
lines cannot enclose a space must be clear to
every rational mind which faces the question.
But this impossibility would have been just as
absolute as it is, if no mind had ever faced
the question at all ; and it is equally valid for
Theist and for Atheist.
But here we may take a further step. If we
see that certain truths are prior to their discovery
by a thinking mind, it follows that the ideas which
these truths involve have a like independence.
They are not the mind's own creation. The
mind recognizes that they have meaning : but it
is not this recognition which gives them meaning.
If in the nature of things two straight lines cannot
enclose a space, then in the nature of things there
must be such a thing — such an idea — as straight-
ness. This truth is hard to express in suitable
language ; for language has grown up among men
unaccustomed to specifically philosophic think-
211
EPILOGUE
ing. But the thought with which we are here
concerned has in itself no special difficulty, if we
will face it. If the axioms are prior (as we have
seen) to our thinking ; the ideas which these
axioms imply are prior to our thinking in like
manner. The meaning of ideas is something fixed
and firm ; something which no thinking can think
away. It is conceivable, perhaps, that nothing
need have had actual existence ; it is not conceiv-
able that " being " should have had no meaning ;
nor that " equality ' and " inequality " should
have had no meaning, nor that there should have
been no difference between them.
Thus we are brought by simple stages — or
stages which, if difficult, have no difficulty ex-
cept because such thought is unfamiliar — to the
Platonic doctrine which makes ideas the ultimate
basis of the Universe ; the ultimate basis of all
truth and of all reality.* The idea cannot be
thought away. If the Universe rests on ideas,
it rests on a foundation which cannot be shaken.
Popular Materialism rests on an unexplained
atom. Popular Theism is, philosophically, in no
better case.f It rests on an unexplained Mind.
Only so far as we conceive the world as resting on
ideas — as following from what these ideas are
and mean — have we any true finality. We need
* Cf. Religion in an Age of Doubt, pp. 158-160, 190-194,
especially p. 158, note.
f It is in his religion, not in his theology, that the plain man
exhibits his deepest thought. His theology is often curiously
shallow. Cf. Religion in an Age of Doubt, pp. 161, 191, etc.
212
EPILOGUE
explanation ; and explanation can come through
ideas only. But we can only explain through
ideas that which, in its own nature, follows from
them. In Geometry our explanation is complete.
We can show every link in the chain of sequence.
In other cases our explanations are incomplete.
We can show some links of the chain, but have to
assume others. But unless we took this assump-
tion seriously — if we thought that, wherever there
are gaps in our knowledge there are also gaps in
the real sequence of connexions which our ex-
planation presupposes — the whole explanation
would come to nothing.
The assertion that not only truths, but actual
things, can be conceived as following from the
meaning of ideas, may at first sight seem extra-
ordinarily difficult. Yet it may be illustrated
for the unphilosophical man from his own beliefs.
He conceives Space as a really existing thing —
the receptacle within which all matter dwells —
really extending indefinitely on all sides. If asked
why he thinks that it thus extends on and on
without limit, he can only answer that it must do
so, since the notion of a limit is contradicted by
the very idea of Space itself. Therefore he holds
(though he would not say so) that this infinite
extension, which he takes as a hard fact, follows
from the meaning of an idea.
This Platonic thought has had curiously in-
adequate recognition by subsequent philosophers.
213
EPILOGUE
But we may make a favourable exception in the
case of Hegel. In spite of his doctrine of the
Subject- Object,* Hegel is probably in his inmost
thought far less subjective than most of his
disciples. At least he protests strongly against
the view that an idea is something in our heads.
From this protest, if we accept it, there follows
a result of great importance to philosophy. We
get rid, in the first place, of a way of speaking
that has done harm in England to the cause of a
sane Idealism. We shall eschew such phrases as
that " mind is the only ultimate reality," that
" whatever exists, exists for mind and in mind
alone." Such language arose because, first, men
saw T clearly that every existing thing could exist
only under a universal idea, and further, that every
existing thing implied the reality of relations ;
while, secondly, they assumed erroneously that
both Universals and Relations are dependent for
their existence upon a mind that knows them.
This erroneous assumption is but a form of Con-
ceptualism ; and it illustrates well the difficulty
which many minds feel, even among the philosophi-
cally trained, in rejecting Conceptualism entirely.
We may thus fairly regard the total rejection of
Conceptualism as a Pons Asinorum for the philo-
sopher. If we fail to make this rejection the failure
may confuse all our further thinking.
For with Conceptualism there should perish at
* See, e.g., Encyklopadie der Philosophischen Wissenschaften,
1st edition, § 162, p. 112.
214
EPILOGUE
least one famous chimera, the Universal Ego ;
and perhaps also another, the Unconscious Self.
The doctrine of the Unconscious Self has, for
psychology, a certain value. It enables us to
recognize certain familiar facts. We wake on the
eighth stroke of the clock, and recognize the cumu-
lative effect of the seven strokes that have preceded
it, of which (as it is said) we have been " uncon-
sciously aware." " I cannot paint," says Keble,*
to Memory's eye
The scene, the glance, I dearest love —
Unchang'd themselves, in me they die,
Or faint, or false, their shadows prove.
But is the language which is now usual any more
satisfactory than phrases which avoid the palpable
contradiction involved in speaking of an " un-
conscious knowledge " ? If we say, rather, that
we were not aware of the seven earlier strokes,
when they fell on our sleeping ear, but became
aware of them when the eighth stroke waked us —
if we say that we are so far aware of the real
nature of the scene, or the face, which we love,
that we recognize the falseness or inadequacy of
the picture which is all that our imagination
presents to us — is this expression any less true
than the phrase " unconscious knowledge "as an
account of the phenomena which we are seeking
to describe ?
The " Universal Ego," identified with God,
lands us in more serious error. Like the phrase
* The Christian Year, Fourth Sunday in Advent.
215
EPILOGUE
' unconscious knowledge," it involves the assump-
tion* that truth can have no existence outside a
mind. But as an attractive short cut to Theism
it has special dangers of its own. The argument
implied is, briefly, that since there are many
truths and many relations which are not yet
known, and may never be known, to the mind of
man, these — since truths and relations imply a
thinking mind — must exist in the mind of God.
But, since truth (as we have seen when we re-
nounced Conceptualism) is prior to the mind that
knows it, such an argument is not really valid.
The Universe involves a scheme of relations ;
but it is not therefore a self-conscious mind. This
argument could never give us such a God as
religion can seriously accept. If God is a mere
Knower, He has but a secondary position in the
Universe. He is posterior to, and dependent on,
the truths which He, like us, is aware of. If God
is — as religion maintains — the " all in all," the
Source of Truth, we must revise a conception
which represents Him as merely dependent on
truth, dependent on ideas, as knowing them.
Necessity — necessary truth- — implies a truth
which cannot be thought away ; which must
hold good ; which cannot without open or hidden
* This doctrine of an " unconscious self " (except so far as it
is merely a convenient facon de parler for psychology) may be
taken to rest on the following argument : There are certain truths
which, though my knowledge presupposes them, I do not know.
But truths cannot exist outside a mind, therefore (if I do not
wish to drag in the divine mind) I will say that they are in my
mind, but unconsciously.
216
EPILOGUE
contradiction be denied. For if without contra-
diction it may be thought to be otherwise, what
right have we to call it necessary ? If this argu-
ment is rejected, how can we distinguish between
necessity and mere fact ? The necessary is that
which not only does exist, but must exist, because
it cannot without contradiction be conceived as
non-existent. Thus all necessity — whether of
general truth or of individual fact — is in its
own nature intelligible necessity — necessity which
could be seen to be necessary if we had sufficient
knowledge — even though we may not as yet
understand the necessity nor see the contradic-
tion involved in this denial. A God Who is to be
the " all in all " must be conceived as not merely
knowing this truth, but as including it within
His own Nature.
The Platonic theory conceives the world as
following from the Idea of the Good, somewhat
as the truths of Geometry follow from the idea of
straightness, of line, of circle, or of triangle.*
This Platonic doctrine may be interpreted perhaps
in more ways than one. But some such concep-
tion — some belief that the world must follow from
what the " Good " means — is involved in any such
optimistic theory as we have seen to be implied
in our practical faith in the world's rationality.
We have seen how we assume in all our predic-
tions that the world is a rational whole, and
how we can give to this rationality no definite
* See references at foot of p. 212.
217
EPILOGUE
meaning unless by interpreting it in an optimistic
sense.
Is such a conception of God consistent with the
belief in a conscious God Whom we can worship ?
Can the ultimate necessity of all truth and of all
things be conceived as conscious of itself? If
the ultimate necessity in virtue of which all
things are what they are is fully conscious of
itself, can such a distinction between God's mind
and our own be drawn as the relation of the
worshipper and the Object of worship demands ?
In a Universe so conceived is there any place for
human freedom ?
Such are the questions we must dare to ask :
and it is worth while to consider here some
possible answers. Suppose that some one says,
" Your real God, on your own showing, is the
1 Idea of the Good,' or the ' ultimate necessity
of things ' : and even if, in some mysterious way,
this necessity could be conceived as conscious of
itself, still this consciousness — this mere know-
ledge — is, as you admit, but secondary and an off-
shoot, since every being who knows the Universe
is posterior to the Universe which he knows.
How then can you worship such a God as this ? "
It is possible here to call to our aid certain de-
finite Christian conceptions and experiences. The
Christian who, with full consciousness of what he
is doing, has been driven by irresistible spiritual
attraction to worship One Who grew in wisdom
218
EPILOGUE
and stature — One Whose humanity and finitude
we acknowledge even in the very act of wor-
shipping Him ; One Who even as eternal Son is
distinguished from the Source and Fountain of
Godhead — will at least understand how God, the
ultimate reality, may be felt to be in such sense
identical with a conscious person (although in
this identity there is still distinction) that in wor-
shipping that Person, we are in contact with the
ultimate reality itself. It is not needful to
develop this argument here. The question of
worship can only be raised intelligently by those
who have themselves worshipped. The subject
does not lend itself to contentious treatment.
The type of mind which most naturally raises this
question will see, in what has just been said, at
least the germ of an answer.
A more difficult question concerns the relation
of God to the mathematical axioms. As we have
already seen, it is not natural to speak of God as
laying down these axioms — as ordaining by His
supreme will that two straight lines should be
unable to enclose a space. Are the mathematical
axioms, then, conditions, existing externally to
God's own will, to which His will has to submit ?
The view, expressed in Platonic language above,
seeks to avoid Dualism by regarding the world,
all its laws and all its contents, as following from
the Idea of the Good. But can all the laws of the
Universe — can the axioms of Geometry — follow
from this supreme idea ? Is it conceivable that,
219
EPILOGUE
even if we became omniscient, we could deduce
Geometry from this supposed central truth ?
What has " the Good " to do with Geometry ?
And — even if some one replied that we have no
right to assume that there is no connexion between
two ideas, merely on the ground that we our-
selves cannot see any intermediating links between
them — still we should be disposed to say, " This
deduction of geometrical truths from the Idea of
the Good is unmeaning, because the axioms are
ultimate and self-evident, and so cannot be
deduced from anything." This perhaps might be
our considered reply.
But let us reflect further. Is it certain that
every truth which seems independent, on the
ground that we can see its evidence without
looking beyond it, is therefore so absolutely
independent that it could not conceivably be
subsumed under any truth or law wider than
itself ? Take the case of some of the principles
with which we come in contact in our aesthetic
experience. Any man who has advanced beyond
the notion that art-criticism is all mere moon-
shine can be made to recognize that there are
certain laws binding upon the artist which are
not the arbitrary creation of the human will.
For example, it is true that the trombone-player
who in playing the Lobgesang wished to amend
the opening theme of the Symphony by substi-
tuting an F, preceded by a turn, for the first
E Flat, was not improving the music, but spoiling
220
EPILOGUE
it.* And this is not merely a truth, but a necessary
truth. Such an alteration of the passage, whenever
repeated, must inevitably and always spoil its
beauty. This again is a truth which a musical
man, even if we imagine him unacquainted with
the rest of Mendelssohn's work, can at once
perceive. The character of the movement de-
mands the rejection of the trombone-blower's
emendation. Indeed, if this variation had been
by some accident introduced into all the printed
copies, there are probably many musicians who
would have had the insight to restore the true
reading on purely a priori grounds ; and if this
had happened — so clear is the witness of aesthetic
necessity and suitability in such cases — it is pretty
certain that the restoration would soon have won
its way to general acceptance. This probability
will be admitted by those who know the history
of the restoration of corrupt passages, and of
artistic emendation and restoration in general.
Yet whenever we can say, " This emendation
or restoration is imperatively required by the
immediate context : we need not go beyond the
immediate context to see its necessity," we can
also recognize the same aesthetic requirement as
* The proposed emendation was as follows :
See Stainer and Barrett's Dictionary of Musical Terms, under
Cadenza.
221
EPILOGUE
connected with the general character and law of
the style to which the work we are restoring
belongs. The incapacity of Mendelssohn's phrase
to admit without loss the suggested alteration is
connected with the whole character of Mendels-
sohn's style. It is by recognizing what is and
what is not possible in various passages, by recog-
nizing their distinctive character, that we evince
our knowledge of the character of his style in
general. The special aesthetic demands, whose
force we feel in particular passages, fall into their
place in our conception of the style. These par-
ticular demands, and the law of the style as a
whole, mutually throw light on one another.
Without following out this comparison into de-
tails, we may see in it enough to show that a law,
which carries its own evidence within it, may
still be subsumed under a law wider than itself.
Each passage in a sense stands alone ; its
character and its beauty is within itself, so that it
cannot be said to derive its charm wholly from
outside. But this independence is not complete.
The phrase gains some of its beauty and signifi-
cance from its context : some from other works
of the same composer and other composers of
the same period. This is why the accomplished
musician sees in almost any good work charms
that will be unperceived by the beginner
This same musical example throws light, for
those who will reflect upon it, upon the other
problem of combined dependence and indepen-
222
EPILOGUE
dence which has been already mentioned. It
does something to help us to conceive how our
will may have independence and freedom — how
each act of choice may have within itself its own
necessity and raison d'etre — and may yet be con-
ceived as subsumed under that wider necessity
which dominates the whole Universe ; how (if
we prefer to employ the language of religion)
our wills may be our own, and we may be respon-
sible for our own choice, while all the time it is
God that worketh in us both to will and to do.
It is not desirable that any of these analogies
and suggestions should be here worked out in
full. Still it is good that something should be
said to suggest that, in the argument stated above,
there are philosophical implications which might
be dealt with at full length on a fitting occasion.
No harm will be done if the reader has carried
away the belief that Theism has its difficulties.
If we can grasp firmly the conviction that the
rational appearance which the world wears in so
many and varied aspects is no accident, we then
have a positive ground for faith. For a faith so
grounded, intellectual difficulties will be rather a
stimulus than a discouragement.
223
NOTE I
The name of Kant, sprinkled freely over the
pages of a religious book, tends to give the im-
pression that the book is difficult and obscure.
In the above arguments, therefore, Kant has
been but very rarely mentioned. Two of his
criticisms, however, must be quoted before we
leave the subject.*
(I) " According to the physico-theological argu-
ment," he says, " the connexion and harmony
existing in the world evidence the contingency of
the form merely, but not of the matter — that is,
of the substance — of the world. To establish the
truth of the latter opinion, it would be necessary
to prove that all things would be in themselves
incapable of this harmony and order unless they
were, even as regards their substance, the product
of a supreme wisdom. But this would require
very different grounds of proof from those pre-
sented by the analogy with human art. This
proof can at most, therefore, demonstrate the
existence of an architect of the world ( Weltbaumeis-
ter), whose efforts are limited by the capabilities
of the material with which he works, but not of a
* Meiklejohn's translation (pp. 384-386) is somewhat free, but
it will serve for our present purpose. German paging, 654, etc.
224
NOTE I
creator of the world, to whom all things are subject
(aber nicht einen Weltschopfer, dessert Idee alles
unterworfen ist).
(II) " It cannot be expected," he continues,
" that any one will be bold enough to declare that
he has a perfect insight into the relation which
the magnitude of the world he contemplates
bears (in its extent as well as in its content) to
omnipotence, into that of the order and design
in the world to the highest wisdom, and that of
the unity of the world to the absolute unity of a
Supreme Being. Physico-theology is, therefore,
incapable of presenting a determinate conception
of a supreme cause of the world, and is therefore
insufficient as a principle of theology — a theology
which is itself to be the basis of religion."
With regard to the former of these criticisms,
the reader should observe that the teleological
argument as stated in the present volume does
not confine itself to a comparison between natural
beauty and human art ; but goes on to insist
that all our prediction (of eclipses and other natural
events) implies the belief that the agreement of the
world in general with the ideal of right reason is no
accident. Yet this — we saw — would be an acci-
dent, unless it be a necessary law that everything
in the world — matter itself no less than its ar-
rangement — should be subject to this ideal. If
the supreme law of the Universe were that " all
things with certain exceptions must be in accord-
p 225
NOTE I
ance with the ideal of right reason," these three
qualifying words * would make the law self-
contradictory, and absolutely useless as a principle
of prediction.
The opinion expressed in the second of these
quotations is an opinion so natural to man that
we can only rejoice that it should have found
expression in such impressive language. Yet it
is not too much to say that Kant in this passage
is stating the very principle of all unbelief in its
opposition to faith. He asserts, in effect, that
while we recognize the world as good — even as
astonishingly and immeasurably good (see Meikle-
john, p. 385) — no one can dare to say that it is
perfect, or can dare to say how much needs to be
added to the world as we know it, to bring it to
the point at which it would comprehend " all
possible perfection and completeness." Now
faith exhibits just this audacity which Kant
condemns. Not in detail, but in outline, it pre-
sents to us (under the conception of a Universe
in which all things in heaven and earth are sub-
jected to Christ) the ideal of a perfect world.
The " mind of Christ " is imperfectly fulfilled in
this present world ; therefore, it is argued, this
world is but part of a wider whole in which His
ideal is fully realized. Faith lives among these
absolute standards of value which Kant in this
passage is denying our power to set up. And
* See chap, xv, pp. 204-206 ; cf. also Religion in an Age of
Doubt, pp. 156-158.
226
NOTE I
here faith has the support of common sense. If
some one said that absolute perfection lies so far
beyond our ken that (for all we can know to the
contrary) there may be a type of humanity as far
superior to that exhibited by Christ, as Christ is
superior to Nero — or that there may be an in-
tellectual attitude as far superior to the honest
search for truth as the honest search for truth is
superior to wilful obscurantism and sophistry —
the plain man would soon declare himself an
Absolutist, as against such consistent Relativism
as this.
For the rest, Kant's criticism of the Argument
from Design depends mainly upon his doctrine
of the impotence of " mere ideas " to carry us
beyond the limits of experience. The examples
given in the course of the preceding chapters are
enough to show how even our common everyday
knowledge disproves the limitations which Kant
would put upon our faculties.
227
NOTE II
On the Possibility of a Collision which should
threaten Disaster to the Whole Solar System
An astronomical friend, who has been good
enough to read the present essay in proof, makes
objection to the phrase on p. 40 : "If immense
masses of matter of unknown powers might, for
all we knew, be rushing upon us at an unknown
degree of rapidity." He objects to the hypo-
thetical form of the sentence. " The possibility,"
he says, " is a real one." " I really think," he
writes, " that there is some probability, more
or less remote, of the suggested catastrophe.
The phenomena connected with 'new' stars
suggest collisions amongst stars, one or both
being previously dark stars. There is ample
evidence for the belief that multitudes of dark
stars exist — viz. stars too cold to be luminous
and therefore visible. There may be such a star
on its way towards the sun in a sufficiently direct
line to threaten disaster at some future date.
Celestial bodies possessing very great speeds are
known, and a body such as is here suggested
might possess a speed great enough to ensure its
existence and proximity remaining unrecognized
until it was within a few days' journey of us, at
228
NOTE II
any rate. Viewed in the light of an observational
knowledge of the solar system and the stellar
universe, however, the probability of such an
occurrence can be estimated, and is found to be
extremely small, even during a period of millions
of years. Hence, while the possibility, in my
opinion, cannot be dismissed, it need not seem
alarming." " Such a catastrophe," he adds,
" would not in the least invalidate the laws of
Nature."
The same critic has made many very valuable
suggestions which I have gratefully followed.
But here, I venture to think, he has misunderstood
the character of my hypothesis, and has confused
it with a more sober one. He has not noticed
the word " unknown " — " of unknown powers,"
' If we knew nothing of the world outside," etc.
(p. 40). He is thinking simply of the supposition
that a dark star might come into collision with
the sun, while the properties of matter in general
remained unchanged. Now even on this hypo-
thesis, surely, it would be too much to say that
' the laws of Nature would not be invalidated
in the least" The catastrophe as conceived must
seriously affect the well-known law that the sun
rises daily : though here an astronomer would
doubtless reply that what he chiefly means by a
law of Nature is not that an individual material
object should behave in its accustomed way, but
that any natural object should behave in a way
calculable from the general laws of physics and
229
NOTE II
chemistry ; and thus he will rightly insist that
an utterly unprecedented event may be as much
in accordance with natural law as what has
happened daily without interruption since human
memory began. This is mainly a question of
words.
But if we are at liberty to suppose a dark star
in collision with the sun, why are we not at
liberty to frame also, purely for purposes of
argument, a still more violent hypothesis ? Why
may we not ask what would follow if we knew
nothing — literally and absolutely nothing — about
the special nature, powers, and properties of
such material bodies as may lurk beyond the
confines of the known universe ? Suppose that
we knew nothing of these bodies beyond what is
involved (1) in the negative truth that we cannot
show the existence of such bodies to be impossible,
(2) in the definition of a material body as such,
and (3) in those demonstrable or self-evident
truths which must hold good everywhere and
always. On this hypothesis, particles of unknown
character — with unknown and unexampled powers
of influencing other bodies which they may
approach — might be moving upon us with un-
exampled speed from any conceivable variety of
directions. Their behaviour when they arrived
might be as fantastic as anything which — to use
the phrase of Hume — the " most whimsical imagi-
nation can invent." They might make their way
harmlessly through great distances within our
230
NOTE II
known world, and then, like bombs provided with
a time-fuse, might suddenly produce unprece-
dented movements, and so by assailing the smaller
particles might change the behaviour of the
larger bodies. " The electron," says a modern
writer, " is one hundred thousand times smaller
than the atom, and the spaces between electrons
perhaps one hundred million times the diameter
of an electron. This suggests an arrangement
like a planetary system." If we accept this
view of the contents of space — or even if we go
no farther than to regard it as possibly and
conceivably correct — then, under the effects of
such a bombardment as we have been imagin-
ing of our known world by particles from
outside, the physical world which we know
might be so much changed that almost any law
we can think of might be swallowed up in its
exceptions.
The legitimacy of a hypothesis depends upon
the purpose for which it is constructed. The
main purpose of the present volume is to show —
(1) that we all believe that the whole universe is
framed on some intelligible scheme, and, further,
that it is ordered according to some ideal which
we can recognize as rational ; (2) that apart from
this act of faith we should have no basis for those
predictions on which our daily life depends, since
the few self-evident or demonstrable principles
which our minds possess are not enough to give us
any working knowledge of Nature, or to rule out
231
NOTE II
as impossible even some of the grossest absurdities.
To support these two conclusions we may point
to one absurd hypothesis after another, and may
ask with regard to each — How could you disprove
this absurdity, apart from that act of faith we
have mentioned ?
The only valid objection to this procedure in
this connexion would be if it could be shown that
—quite apart from any faith in the general
rationality of the world — these various absur-
dities must be held impossible each on its own
merits ; that in framing such hypotheses we are
advancing something which is unmeaning or
internally self-contradictory, something which
contradicts principles the truth of which is
evident a 'priori.
With a disputant who adopted this method, it
might be worth while to challenge his supposed
a priori principles one by one. But another
method of reply would be to grant them all for
purpose of argument, and then to show that, in
spite of them, fantastic hypotheses can be
invented which, if accepted, would make our
everyday predictions insecure.
This task might be carried out in detail. But
for any one who has understood the point at issue
it is hardly necessary that this should be done.
The onus probandi lies on the objector. Will any
one have the boldness to maintain that he can
show — on a priori principles such as that " matter
cannot be annihilated," that " nothing can act
232
NOTE II
but where it is," that " two pieces of matter
cannot simultaneously occupy the same place,"
etc. (even if the truth of all those principles
be granted) — the impossibility of every absurd
hypothesis which the most ingenious imagination
can suggest ?
Take the extreme case alluded to in chapter xv,
the supposed miracles of Amphion and Orpheus,
when
Trees uprooted left their place
Sequacious of the lyre.
" The ultimate nature of gravitation," wrote
Sir Oliver Lodge in 1888, " is not at present
known, and it may turn out to be a property
really inherent in matter. But it is more probable
that it is not a pulling property inherent in matter
at all, but a pushing property of some external
energetic arrangement not at present understood,
due probably to a strain in the medium in which
all matter is immersed."*
This statement may be open to many criticisms.
Yet we are at any rate on safe ground if we say
that the gravitative tendency of gross matter
is either due to " some external energetic arrange-
ment," or is not due to this. In the former case,
this external energetic arrangement may in its
turn be influenced by some other arrangement
external to itself, and so on. How, on such a
theory, could we possibly be sure that the gravi-
* Elementary Mechanics, p. 15, note.
233
NOTE II
tative tendency of gross matter may not be
destroyed in consequence of the irruption into
our world of particles of unknown character
arriving from a great distance, that this irrup-
tion might not occur in such a way that some
particles retained their attractive power while
others lost it? If anything of this kind
happened, we should be dealing with the
destruction of the gravitative tendency, as dis-
tinct from the familiar cases where it is merely
overpowered.
Suppose, on the other hand, that we reject the
notion of this external energetic arrangement
altogether. The mere fact that gravitation had
no such physical explanation behind it would
not prove that the gravitative property was
" inherent " in matter in the sense of being
permanent and unchangeable. But if, apart
from our general faith in the rationality of the
universe, we can have no guarantee of the un-
changeableness of what we are accustomed to
regard as the fundamental properties of matter,
then — apart from this same faith — we can have
no assurance that we may not any day witness
the very miracles that are associated with the
names of Orpheus and Amphion.
If the man of science is indignant at being
asked to discuss these nonsensical possibilities,
his very indignation is a tacit admission of the
conclusion we are seeking to reach. It shows that
he rejects these suggestions simply because they
234
NOTE II
are in themselves fantastic. His ultimate con-
viction is — exactly as we are maintaining — that
the world in which we live is not an " unsub-
stantial fairy place," but a rational Universe.
He feels that these fantastic hypotheses are not
worth the trouble of refuting, just because, being
fantastic, they cannot be true.
But if, apart from our faith in the rationality of
the Universe, we cannot show these wild sup-
positions to be impossible, may we not at least
show them to be highly improbable ? An im-
pressive answer to this question may be found in
the following quotation from Lotze * : " The
one supposition of there being a universal inner
connexion of all reality as such, which alone
enables us to argue from the structure of any one
section of reality to that of the rest, is the
foundation of every attempt to arrive at know-
ledge by means of experience, and is not derivable
from experience itself. Whoever casts doubt
on this supposition, not only loses the pros-
pect of being able to calculate anything
future with certainty, but robs himself at the
same time of the only basis on which to found
the more modest hope of being able under
definite circumstances to consider the occurrence
of one event as more probable than that of
another."
This quotation helps to show the difference
* Metaphysic, Book I, Introduction, iii.
235
NOTE II
between the two hypotheses which we are here
concerned to distinguish. I — for purpose of
argument — am venturing to think away the
" one supposition " of which Lotze speaks. My
critic, in his hypothesis concerning the dark star,
is maintaining it : for otherwise how could he
speak of " probabilities " in reference to that
part of the Universe which lies beyond our
observation ?
My critic denies that he finds the prospect of
possible collision alarming. There is a certain
type of scientific thinker who, in the shock of such
a collision, would be anxious only to find evidence
that the fundamental laws of physics were not
contradicted, and when satisfied on this head
would exclaim, like Wolfe at Quebec, " Then I die
happy." Of such a one we may quote the noble
words of Horace :
Si fractus illabatur orbis
Impavidum ferient ruinae.
But, for most of us, the real ground of confidence
which keeps us calm is the conviction that we
know enough of the Universe at large to be pretty
sure that the suggested catastrophe will not occur,
and to be absolutely * sure that, if it does, it
* My critic objects to this word " absolutely." He admits that
science rests upon the " act of faith which we all make with
regard to the rationality of the material Universe," but denies
that, even on this fundamental question, he himself would ever
rise to absolute assurance, such assurance as would exclude all
possibility of his being mistaken. He refers to Poe's " Thousand
and Second Tale of Scheherezade " to show how men may be
236
NOTE II
will only occur as part of a world-scheme which
as a whole our reason must approve. This
latter conviction is common to the scientific
mistaken in rejecting as utterly incredible what may after all
turn out to be true.
Now the belief in the rationality of the Universe may be ex-
pressed, negatively, in the assertion that " absurdities cannot
happen." We are tacitly using a syllogism of which the major
premiss is " Absurdities cannot happen," the minor premiss
" A or B is an absurdity," and the conclusion " A or B cannot
happen." The Sultan in Poe's tale is incorrect in his minor
premiss only. He thinks that his friend's accurate prophecies of
modern life are fantastic and incredible merely because the life
they depict is unfamiliar to his mind. (See note to chapter xii,
p. 160, above.) We are all liable to similar errors. But even in
face of such warnings — even with a vivid memorj' - in our minds
of our own mistakes and those of other people — there are still
certain particular suggestions which we should reject as absurd ;
there are certain "tall stories" (to use the colloquial phrase)
that we should absolutely refuse to accept.
It is the major premiss, however, which most concerns us here.
Surely, if we remember (1) that this act of faith in the rationality
of the world is presupposed in all our ordinary proofs, physical,
historical, and legal, (2) that, as Lotze points out, apart from our
general conception of the Universe as a whole, we have no ground
for regarding even the " tallest " of " tall stories " as in the least
degree improbable, we must admit that our belief in the world's
rationality is a matter of absolute certainty in our minds. We
know that certain absurdities will not really happen. It is an
interesting fact to the philosopher that there are certain con-
nexions of thought in which we are all tempted to say, of these
very same absurdities, " Of course I cannot disprove their
possibility : they may happen after all," while at the same time
we should be indignant if our friends seriously attributed to us
the credulousness which these words imply. To say, " These
events are not in the least impossible, and yet I know that they
cannot really take place," is an obvious piece of inconsistency.
If we are tempted to speak in this inconsistent manner, we ought
to inquire very carefully into the meaning of our own words.
In what sense are we alleging that these things, which we do not
at all believe, are nevertheless quite credible ?
237
NOTE II
man whose faith in physics would not be dis-
turbed by the overthrow of the solar system,
and to the religious man who would still trust
in God, though the heavens should pass away
with a great noise, and the elements melt with
fervent heat.*
In these discussions it is always worth while
to remember that the advance of science will in
all probability continue in the future as it has
in the past : that new hypotheses will be sug-
gested, while theories which are much in our mind
to-day may pass into oblivion. It is even
possible that in some future day the necessity of
each physical event may be demonstrated, so
that the behaviour of matter may be as clear to
men's minds as are the properties of circles and
triangles. Men would then no longer need to rely
upon a general faith in the rationality of the
universe.
Yet, even so, the argument of this essay would
not really be out of date, except for those who
should have the hardihood to maintain that all
the methods which we to-day employ are totally
incorrect, that our results when right came right
by mere accident. So far as our present methods
are sound, an argument is valid which rests upon
a correct analysis of the principles which those
methods presuppose. And it is well worth while
* See 2 Peter iii, 10.
238
NOTE II
detaching in our minds such general reasoning
from the special hypotheses which may happen
for one reason or another to be prominent in
the discussions of the present moment. The
former may well have more permanent value
than the latter.
289
INDEX
Achilles, 185
^Eschylus, 112
African Farm, Story of an, 175-179
Ahriman, 205
Ajax, 184
Allen, the late Mr. Grant, 135
Amphion, 202, 233, 234
Angelico, Fra, 123, 127
Aphrodite, 75
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 3, 51-55, 56, 57
Aristotelian Society, Proceedings of, 132
Aristotle, 6, 7, 44, 50-51, 52, 164
Arnold, Matthew, 19, 137-139, 142, 172
Athanasius, St., xix
Atomic theory, 102
Atonement, substitutionary doctrine of, xxi
Australian camp, Story of an, 62
Autolycus, 67
Axioms, how related to the Will of God, 219
Bach, J. S., 85, 112, 115, 199
Beethoven, 85, 115, 161, 162, 185
Bergson, 35
Bomba, King, 187, 192
Bourrienne, 22
Bret Harte, 168
Carlyle, 22, 28
Carmen, 115
Censor, Story of military, 1
Cicero, 48-51, 196, 203
Collision, destructive of Solar System, 40, 169, 202, 228-238
q 241
INDEX
Conceptualism, 95, 208, etc.
Conservatorium, pupils in, 61
Cosmological proof, the, 23
Counterpoint, rules of, 91
Dante, Inferno, 126, 186, 191
Darwin, 21, 27, 33, 35, 36, 37, 44, 58, 83, 97-101, 116-133,
149
Davies, Sir J., 168
Democritus, 30
Divine immanence, ix, 34
Electron, the, 231
Empedocles, 52, 53
Ends, kingdom of, 84, 91
Euclid, 27, 32
Fagin, 66
Falstaff, 66
Final Cause, the, 51-52
Francis of Assisi, St., xix, 140
Galileo, 59, 63, 166
Gladstone, Mr., 42, 55
Goethe, 7, 8, 171
Good, Idea of the, xviii, 218-220
Gorham, Mr. C, 190
Haeckel, Professor, 34, 165, 206
Hegel, 49, 214
Helmholtz, 33
Herodotus, 61
Homer, 170, 192
Horace, 236
Hume, 230
Huxley, 95, 150, 166, 167, 170
Hydrogen, 103
Idea of the Good, the, xviii, 218-220
Inertia, not identical with Uniformity, 163, 197
242
INDEX
James, William, 133
Kant, 27, 58, 224-227
Keats, 144
Keble, 215
Law, of Nature, 29, 60, 93, 95
the term not to be confined to Physics, 60, etc., 72
Life, origin of, 32-35, chap, ix
Lodge, Sir Oliver, 158, 233
Lotze, 154, 155, 235, 237
Macbeth, 126, 185
Mahomet, 127
Martyrs of Science, 59
Mendelssohn, 220, 222
Mephistopheles, 78
Mill, J. S., 150
Milton, 183, 192
Minucius Felix, xv, xvi
Montefiore's Synoptic Gospels, 145
Morality, a miracle, 59, 64
Mountain-climbing, 86, 185, cf. pp. 4-8
Mozart, 115, 116, 199
Napoleon I : his belief in God, 22, 23
Nature an artist, 183
Naval Occasions, 86
Newman, Cardinal J. H., 209
Newton, 31, 102
Nero, 227
Nuremburg, 181
Octavius of Minucius Felix, xv, xvi
Order relapsing into Chaos, 76, 80, cf. pp. 40, 202, 228
Ormuzd, 205
Orpheus, 202, 233, 234
Orrery, story of an, 196
Oxygen, 103
243
INDEX
Parabola, the, 31
Paul, St., xix, 9, 192, 193
Pearson, Professor Karl, 100-106
Plato, xviii, 189, 213, 217, 219
Poe, E. A., 236
Posidonius, his sphere, 49
Rashdall, Dr. Hastings (Dean of Carlisle), 189
Rationalist Press Association, xvii, 190
Roscoe, Sir H., 102
Rubens, 123
Ruskin, 121
Russell, Mr. Bertrand, 15-21, 29, 38, 74, 77, 78, 79, 121, 151-
155, 159, 169, 206
His parable of the chicken, 77 ; his conception of world
as tragedy, 121, note
Rutilius, 59, 60
Scepticism, moral, compendious answer to, 65, cf. 68
Schopenhauer, 74
Schreiner, Miss, 175-179
Scholasticism, charge of, 82, 90
Second Empire, fashions of the, 135
Shakespeare, 112, 123, 127
brain of, 200
Shaw, Mr. Bernard, 194
Smith, Sidney, 69
Socrates, 45, 47, 51, 188, 189
Spencer, Herbert, 150, 162, 163
Sterne, 112
Sullivan, Sir A., 199
Stinging-nettle, the, 124
Teleology, definition of, 51
Titian, 112
Tupper, Martin, 123
Uniformity, distinct from Inertia, 163, 197
Universal Ego, a philosophic fiction, 215
244
INDEX
Veley, Mr. V. H., 103
Venice, 181
Virgil, 134
Vitalism, an unfortunate doctrine, 34, 35
some truth in its fundamental meaning, 105, etc.
Wallace, 149
Webb, Mr. C. C. J., 9, 22
Wells, Mr. H. G., 12, 13
Wernle, 145
Wolfe, General, 236
Xenophon, 45, 47
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