THE
FOUNDATIONS OF BELIEF
BEING
NOTES INTRODUCTORY TO THE
STUDY or THEOLOGY
' • ' 'by^' the' '
RIGHT HON. ARTHUR JAMES BALf (A-TR
AUTHOR OF "a DEFENCE OF PHILOSOPH'C DOJt«T," 2TC.
EIGHTH EDITION, RZVISEO
IV/TH A NEIV INTRODUCTION A^'D SUMMARY
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
LONDON AND BOMBAY
THE KEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
685C4i).
. - ..i./. DONS
LONGMANS, •*G'RSEN,« vJnd CO.
Copyright, 1902, by
ioNGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
All rights reserved
_' ■ ' , y^ First Edition, Febrvary, 1895
REpRfCiT^Eli, ^^ARcSh, A^'RIL, MaY, JuNE, AND OCTOBER, 1895, DECEMBER. I.-96
, « • Revised, April, 1902
TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
New YORK
THE
FOUNDATIONS OF BELIEF
BEING
NOTES INTRODUCTORY TO THE
STUDY OF THEOLOGY
{N^otes added for the first time in this Edition are included in
square brackets.]
13
CONTENTS
PAGB
Introduction
vii
Note .
': 'i :• \.'\^ ^>' ^ "^ '■' ''' '
. XXXV
Preliminary
I
PART I
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF BELIEF
CHAPTER
I. Naturalism and Ethics xi
II. Naturalism and Esthetic 33
III. Naturalism and Reason 67
IV. Summary and Conclusion of Part I , . . 77
PART II
SOME REASONS FOR BELIEF
I. The Philosophic Basis of Naturalism , . 89
II. Idealism ; after some recent English Writ-
ings 137
III. Philosophy and Rationalism . . . .163
IV. Rationalist Orthodoxy 182
f\
VI CONTENTS
PART III
SOME CAUSES OF BELIEF
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Causes of Experience 193
II. AUTHORITV AND REASO^ ...... 202
SUGGESTIONS TOWARDS A PROVISIONAL PHILOSOPHY
I. The Groundwork 243
II. ' Ultimate Scientific Ideas ' . . . .261
III. Science and Theology 271
IV. Suggestions towards a Provisional Unifica-
tion 303
APPENDIX
Beliefs, Formulas, and Realities . . .341
SUMMARY 371
INTRODUCTION
TO
THE EIGHTH EDITION
Except for three or four explanatory notes and a few
verbal corrections, the body of the following essay
remains what it was in the preceding editions. But
I have added a summary of the argument, and trans-
ferred to an appendix two chapters which are some-
what parenthetical in character. I propose now to
say a few words by way of introduction, in the hope
of preventing some of the misconceptions to which
experience has shown this presentation of my views
to be peculiarly liable.
I am far from thinking that these misconceptions
are mainly due to the carelessness of the reader.
Surveying the work after an interval of years, with
a rested eye, I perceive in it certain peculiarities or,
if it be preferred, errors of construction, which may
well leave the reader more impressed — favourably or
unfavourably — by particular arguments and episodes
than by the ordered sequence of the whole. A well-
known theologian (who, by the way, has himself
completely failed to catch my general drift) observed
vii
Vlll INTRODUCTION TO
in a review, which he has since republished, that, the
book is redeemed by its digressions ; ^ and though I
cannot be expected gratefully to accept so dubious
a compliment, I admit that the interest of certain
branches of the subject has occasionally betrayed
me into giving them a relative prominence which
the bare necessities of the general argument hardly
seem to justify. Examples in point are the aesthetic
discussion in the second chapter of Part I., and the
chapter on Authority in Part III.
I have made no attempt to correct this fault, if
fault it be. Had I done so the book would, no doubt,
have been a good deal altered, but I doubt whether
it would on the whole have been altered for the
better. It might have gained in proportion and
balance ; but it would, perhaps, have lost whatever
freshness and spontaneity it may ever have possessed.
I have, therefore, contented myself with providing,
in the argumentative summary mentioned above, a
corrective to the too detailed treatment of certain
portions of the work, hoping that by thus unspar-
ingly thinning out the trees I shall enable the most
careless wayfarer to understand without difficulty
the general lie of the wood. I desire, however,
emphatically to express a (perhaps not unbiassed)
opinion that the book is something more than the ex-
pansion of its sum mary, and that no extract or essence
^ Catholicism, Roman and Anglican, by Principal Fairbairn,
p. 384.
THE EIGHTH EDITION IX
can really reproduce the qualities of the original
preparation — whatever those qualities may be worth.
To turn now from the form of the essay to its
substance. The objection which seems most readily
to suggest itself to my critics, is that the whole
argument is a long endeavour to find in doubt the
foundation of belief, to justify an excess of credulity
by an excess of scepticism. If all creeds, whether
scientific or theological (it is thus I am supposed to
argue), are equally irrational, all may be equally ac-
cepted. If there is no reason for believing anything,
and yet something must in fact be believed, let that
something be what we like rather than what we dis-
like. If constructive reason is demonstrably barren,
why should we be ashamed to find contentment in
prejudice ?
I am not concerned to defend a theory which,
whatever be its merits, is by no means the one which
the following essay is intended to advocate. But it
may be worth while to dwell for a moment on the
causes to which this misconception of the argument
is probably due. The first of these, though by
much the least important, is, I imagine, to be found
in the avowedly tentative character of the scheme
of thought I have endeavoured to expound. This
scheme certainly claims, rightly or wrongly, to be
philosophical, but it does not claim to constitute a
philosophy ; nor do I for a moment desire to enter
into the humblest competition with the great archi-
X IXTRODUCTION TO
tects of metaphysical systems. The world owes much
to these remarkable men, but it does not owe them as
yet a generally accepted theory of the knowable ; nor
can I perceive any satisfactory indication that we
are on the high-road to such a measure of agree-
ment, either about the method of philosophy or its
results, as has prevailed for two centuries in the case
of science. Kant was of opinion that * metaphysic,
notwithstanding its high pretension, had' (up to the
publication of the ' Critique of Pure Reason ' ) ' been
wandering round and round the same point without
gaining a step.' If Kant's criterion of progress,
namely, universal and permanent approval, is to be
as rigorously applied to the period subsequent to
178 1 as he applied it to the preceding twent}^ cen-
turies, I fear that in t/ns respect the publication of
his masterpiece can hardly be said to open a new
philosophic epoch. But without fully accepting this
pessimistic view, it is surely permitted to those who
do not feel themselves able either to frame a fresh
system of philosophy or to acknowledge the jurisdic-
tion of any old one, candidly to confess the fact,
without thereby laying themselves open to the
charge of being dangerous sceptics masquerading
for some sinister purpose as defenders of the faith!
No doubt this unambitious procedure has its diffi-
culties. It carries with it, as an almost inevitable
corollary, the admission, not onl}^ that the provisional
theory advocated is incomplete, but that to a certain
THE EIGHTH EDITION XI
extent its various parts are not entirely coherent.
For if our ideal philosophy is, as I think it ought to
be, a system of thought co-extensive with the know-
able and the real, whose various elements are shown
not only to be consistent, but to be interdependent,
then it seems highly probable that anything short of
this would not only be incomplete, but to a certain
extent obscure and contradictory. It does not seem
likely, nay, it seems almost impossible, that our
knowledge of what is only a fragment could be exact
knowledge even of that fragment. Divorced from
the context which it explains, and by which it is it-
self explained, it must surely present incongruities
and mysteries incapable of complete solution. To
know in part must not merely be to know something
less than the whole, but to know that something
loosely and imperfectly.
Now this modest estimate of the present reach of
speculation may, no doubt, be contrasted with two
others, both of which seem at first sight more in
harmony with the dignity of reason. That dignity
is, of course, not impaired by a mere admission of
ignorance. It is on all hands allowed that by far the
largest portion of the knowable is yet unknown, and,
so far as mankind on this planet are concerned, is
likely to remain so. But our ignorance and our cor-
relative knowledge may be pictured in more than
one way. We might, for example, conceive ourselves
as in possession of a general outline of the knowable.
Xii INTRODUCTION TO
though ignorant of its details— as understanding in
a broad but thoroughly consistent fashion the mutual
relation of its principal provinces, though minutely
acquainted with but a small corner of one of them.
We should in that case be like geographers who had
determined by an accurate triangulation the position
of a few high mountain peaks dominating some vast
continent, while avowedly unable to explore its in-
terior, to penetrate its forests, or navigate its streams.
Their knowledge would thus be small ; yet in a cer-
tain sense it would cover the ground, it would be
thoroughly coherent, and neither the progress of
thought nor accumulating discoveries, however they
might fill up its outlines, could seriously modify
them.
Something not much less than this has from time
to time been claimed for the great metaphysical and
theological systems by their disciples, perhaps even
by their founders. And though I cannot persuade
myself that we have as yet reached anything like
this breadth and sureness of vision, it is not with
those who think otherwise that m}^ main controversy
has to be fought out. The vital issue lies rather
with those (in this book termed Naturalists) who
map out the world of knowledge in a very different
fashion. Unlike the metaphysicians, they glory in
the limitations of their system. The narrower range
of their vision is, they think, amply redeemed by its
superior certitude. They admit, or rather proclaim,
THE EIGHTH EDITION Xlll
that the area of reality open to their investigation is
small compared with that over which Metaphysics
or Theology profess to range. But though small,
it is admittedly accessible ; such surveys as have
already been made of it are allowed on all hands to
be trustworthy ; and it yields up its treasures of
knowledge to methods of exploration which, valid
though they be, can never, from the nature of the
case, be employed in searching out the secrets of
the surrounding solitudes.
It is, I imagine, by those whose philosophy con-
forms to this type, who are naturalistic rather than
metaphysical, that the charge against the following
essay of misusing sceptical methods is principally
urged. And this is what might have been expected.
Scepticism in the field of Theology or Metaphysic
is too common to excite remark. Believers in
Naturalism are sceptical about all theology and all
metaphysics. Theologians and Metaphysicians are
sceptical about all theology and all metaphysics but
their own. The one subject which sceptical criticism
usually spares is the one subject against which, in
this essay, it is directed, namely, the current beliefs
about the world of phenomena. No wonder there-
fore that those to whom beliefs of this character rep-
resent the sum of all actual and all possible knowl-
edge find ground of suspicion against this method of
conducting controversy. No wonder they suggest
that freedom of thought when thus employed is in
xiv INTRODUCTION TO
some danger of degenerating into licence ; that at the
best it is useless, and may easily become harmful.
Objections like these compel us to enquire into the
legitimate uses of sceptical or destructive criticism.
That it has its uses is denied by none. To hasten
the final disintegration of dying superstition would
be one, I suppose, universally approved of. But
there will be less agreement about its value when ap-
plied, as it is applied in the following pages, to beliefs
which are neither dead nor likely to die. Everybody
is gratified by the refutation of theories from which
they differ ; but they are apt to receive with im-
patience any criticism of statements on the truth of
which (it may be) both they and the critic are agreed.
Such questionings of the unquestionable are judged
not only to be superfluous, but to be of dubious ex-
pediency— disquieting yet unproductive, a profitless
display of more or less ingenious argumentation.
Now, it may readily be acknowledged that philo-
sophic scepticism which neither carries with it, nor
is intended to carry with it, any practical doubt,
finds its chief uses within the region of pure specu-
lation. There it may be a valuable measure of the
success which speculative effort has already attained,
a needful corrective of its exaggerated pretensions.
It is at once a spur to philosophic curiosity and a
touchstone of philosophic work. But even outside
the sphere of pure speculation this sceptical criticism
has its uses — humbler, no doubt, yet not without
THE EIGHTH EDITION XV
their value. Though it provides no material out of
which a creed can be formed, it may yet give a much-
needed warning that the apparent stability of some
very solid-looking beliefs cannot be shown to extend
to their foundations. It may thus most wholesomely
disturb a certain kind of intellectual dogmatism,
which is often a real hindrance to free speculation,
and so prepare the ground for constructive labours,
to which directly it contributes nothing.
This is the use to which I have endeavoured to
put it; and surely not without ample justification.
How many persons are there who acquiesce in the
limitations of the Naturalistic creed, not because it
appeals to them as adequate — responsive and satis-
fying to their whole nature — but because loyalty to
reason seems to require their acceptance of it, and to
require their acceptance of nothing else? ' Positive
knowledge ' they are taught to believe is really
knowledge, and is the only knowledge. All else is
but phantasie, unverified and unverifiable — specula-
tive ore, unminted by experience, which each man
may arbitrarily assess at his own valuation, which
no man can force into general circulation. Natural-
ism, on the other hand, provides them with a system
of beliefs which, with all its limitations, is in their
judgment rational, self-consistent, sure. It may not
give them all they ask ; but what it promises it gives ;
and what it gives may be accepted in all security.
Now critical scepticism is the leading remedy
THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
6a5C4i).
L
L6NG^*^AN3, ''OR-cEN/ -AND CO.
Copyright, 1902, by
^.ONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
• All rights reserved
FiKST Edition, Febri-ary, 1895
REiRiN'TEr, I.Iar6h, Avril, May, June, and October,
. • Revised, April, 1902
j5, December, 1.^96
TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK
THE
FOUNDATIONS OF BELIEF
BEING
NOTES INTRODUCTORY TO THE
STUDY OF THEOLOGY
[Azotes added for the first time in this Edition are included in
square brackets.]
T)0<V/
CONTENTS
Introduction
Note .
Preliminary
PAGE
vii
XXXV
I
PART I
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF BELIEF
CHAPTER
I. Naturalism and Ethics
II. Naturalism and Esthetic
III. Naturalism and Reason
IV. Summary and Conclusion of Part I ,
II
33
67
77
PART II
SOME reasons for BELIEF
I. The Philosophic Basis of Naturalism . . 89
II. Idealism : after some recent English Writ-
ings 137
III. Philosophy and Rationalism . . . .163
IV. Rationalist Orthodoxy 182
-■\
VI CONTENTS
PART III
SOME CAUSES OF BELIEF
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Causes of Experience 193
II. AUTHORITV AND REASON 202
PART IV
SUGGESTIONS TOWARDS A PROVISIONAL PHILOSOPHY
I. The Groundwork 243
II. • Ultimate Scientific Ideas' . . . .261
III. Science and Theology 271
IV. Suggestions towards a Provisional Unifica-
tion 303
APPENDIX
Beliefs, Formulas, and Realities . . .341
SUMMARY 371
INTRODUCTION
THE EIGHTH EDITION
Except for three or four explanatory notes and a few
verbal corrections, the body of the following essay
remains what it was in the preceding editions. But
I have added a summary of the argument, and trans-
ferred to an appendix two chapters which are some-
what parenthetical in character. I propose now to
say a few words by way of introduction, in the hope
of preventing some of the misconceptions to which
experience has shown this presentation of my views
to be peculiarly liable.
I am far from thinking that these misconceptions
are mainly due to the carelessness of the reader.
Surveying the work after an interval of years, with
a rested eye, I perceive in it certain peculiarities or,
if it be preferred, errors of construction, which may
well leave the reader more impressed — favourably or
unfavourably — by particular arguments and episodes
than by the ordered sequence of the whole. A well-
known theologian (who, by the way, has himself
completely failed to catch my general drift) observed
vii
Vlll INTRODUCTION TO
in a review, which he has since republished, that the
book is redeemed by its digressions ; ^ and though I
cannot be expected gratefully to accept so dubious
a compliment, I admit that the interest of certain
branches of the subject has occasionally betrayed
me into giving them a relative prominence which
the bare necessities of the general argument hardly
seem to justify. Examples in point are the aesthetic
discussion in the second chapter of Part I., and the
chapter on Authority in Part III.
I have made no attempt to correct this fault, if
fault it be. Had I done so the book would, no doubt,
have been a good deal altered, but I doubt whether
it would on the whole have been altered for the
better. It might have gained in proportion and
balance ; but it would, perhaps, have lost whatever
freshness and spontaneity it may ever have possessed.
I have, therefore, contented myself with providing,
in the argumentative summary mentioned above, a
corrective to the too detailed treatment of certain
portions of the work, hoping that by thus unspar-
ingly thinning out the trees I shall enable the most
careless wayfarer to understand without difficulty
the general lie of the wood. I desire, however,
emphatically to express a (perhaps not unbiassed)
opinion that the book is something more than the ex-
pansion of its sum mary, and that no extract or essence
* Catholicism, Roman and Anglican, by Principal Fairbairn,
p. 384.
THE EIGHTH EDITION IX
can really reproduce the qualities of the original
preparation — whatever those qualities may be worth.
To turn now from the form of the essay to its
substance. The objection which seems most readily
to suggest itself to my critics, is that the whole
argument is a long endeavour to find in doubt the
foundation of belief, to justify an excess of credulity
by an excess of scepticism. If all creeds, whether
scientific or theological (it is thus 1 am supposed to
argue), are equally irrational, all may be equally ac-
cepted. If there is no reason for believing anything,
and yet something must in fact be believed, let that
something be what we like rather than what we dis-
like. If constructive reason is demonstrably barren,
why should we be ashamed to find contentment in
prejudice?
I am not concerned to defend a theory which,
whatever be its merits, is by no means the one which
the following essay is intended to advocate. But it
may be worth while to dwell for a moment on the
causes to which this misconception of the argument
is probably due. The first of these, though by
much the least important, is, I imagine, to be found
in the avowedly tentative character of the scheme
of thought I have endeavoured to expound. This
scheme certainly claims, rightly or wrongly, to be
philosophical, but it does not claim to constitute a
philosophy ; nor do I for a moment desire to enter
into the humblest competition with the great archi-
X INTRODUCTION TO
tects of metaphysical systems. The world owes much
to these remarkable men, but it does not owe them as
yet a generally accepted theory of the knowable ; nor
can I perceive any satisfactor}^ indication that we
are on the high-road to such a measure of agree-
ment, either about the method of philosophy or its
results, as has prevailed for two centuries in the case
of science. Kant was of opinion that ' metaphysic,
notwithstanding its high pretension, had' (up to the
publication of the ' Critique of Pure Reason ' ) ' been
wandering round and round the same point without
gaining a step.' If Kant's criterion of progress,
namely, universal and permanent approval, is to be
as rigorously applied to the period subsequent to
178 1 as he applied it to the preceding twenty cen-
turies, I fear that in this respect the publication of
his masterpiece can hardly be said to open a new
philosophic epoch. But without fully accepting this
pessimistic view, it is surel}^ permitted to those who
do not feel themselves able either to frame a fresh
system of philosophy or to acknowledge the jurisdic-
tion of any old one, candidly to confess the fact,
without thereby laying themselves open to the
charge of being dangerous sceptics masquerading
for some sinister purpose as defenders of the faith!
No doubt this unambitious procedure has its diffi-
culties. It carries with it, as an almost inevitable
corollary, the admission, not only that the provisional
theory advocated is incomplete, but that to a certain
THE EIGHTH EDITION XI
extent its various parts are not entirely coherent.
For if our ideal philosophy is, as I think it ought to
be, a system of thought co-extensive with the know-
able and the real, whose various elements are shown
not only to be consistent, but to be interdependent,
then it seems highly probable that anything short of
this would not only be incomplete, but to a certain
extent obscure and contradictory. It does not seem
likely, nay, it seems almost impossible, that our
knowledge of what is only a fragment could be exact
knowledge even of that fragment. Divorced from
the context which it explains, and by which it is it-
self explained, it must surely present incongruities
and mysteries incapable of complete solution. To
know^ in part must not merely be to know something
less than the whole, but to know that something
loosely and imperfectly.
Now this modest estimate of the present reach of
speculation may, no doubt, be contrasted with two
others, both of which seem at first sight more in
harmony with the dignity of reason. That dignity
is, of course, not impaired by a mere admission of
ignorance. It is on all hands allowed that by far the
largest portion of the knowable is yet unknown, and,
so far as mankind on this planet are concerned, is
likely to remain so. But our ignorance and our cor-
relative knowledge may be pictured in more than
one way. We might, for example, conceive ourselves
as in possession of a general outline of the knowable,
Xil INTRODUCTION TO
though ignorant of its details— as understanding in
a broad but thoroughly consistent fashion the mutual
relation of its principal provinces, though minutely
acquainted with but a small corner of one of them.
We should in that case be like geographers who had
determined by an accurate triangulation the position
of a few high mountain peaks dominating some vast
continent, while avowedly unable to explore its in-
terior, to penetrate its forests, or navigate its streams.
Their knowledge would thus be small ; yet in a cer-
tain sense it would cover the ground, it would be
thoroughly coherent, and neither the progress of
thought nor accumulating discoveries, however they
might fill up its outlines, could seriousl}^ modify
them.
Something not much less than this has from time
to time been claimed for the great metaphysical and
theological systems by their disciples, perhaps even
by their founders. And though I cannot persuade
myself that we have as yet reached anything like
this breadth and sureness of vision, it is not with
those who think otherwise that my main controversy
has to be fought out. The vital issue lies rather
with those (in this book termed Naturalists) who
map out the world of knowledge in a very different
fashion. Unlike the metaphysicians, they glory in
the limitations of their system. The narrower range
of their vision is, they think, amply redeemed by its
superior certitude. They admit, or rather proclaim,
THE EIGHTH EDITION xiii
that the area of reality open to their investigation is
small compared with that over which Metaphysics
or Theology profess to range. But though small,
it is admittedly accessible ; such surveys as have
already been made of it are allowed on all hands to
be trustworthy ; and it yields up its treasures of
knowledge to methods of exploration which, valid
though they be, can never, from the nature of the
case, be employed in searching out the secrets of
the surrounding solitudes.
It is, I imagine, by those whose philosophy con-
forms to this type, who are naturalistic rather than
metaphysical, that the charge against the following
essay of misusing sceptical methods is principally
urged. And this is what might have been expected.
Scepticism in the field of Theology or Metaphysic
is too common to excite remark. Believers in
Naturalism are sceptical about all theology and all
metaphysics. Theologians and Metaphysicians are
sceptical about all theology and all metaphysics but
their own. The one subject which sceptical criticism
usually spares is the one subject against which, in
this essay, it is directed, namely, the current beliefs
about the world of phenomena. No wonder there-
fore that those to whom beliefs of this character rep-
resent the sum of all actual and all possible knowl-
edge find ground of suspicion against this method of
conducting controversy. No wonder they suggest
that freedom of thought when thus employed is in
XIV INTRODUCTION TO
some danger of degenerating into licence ; that at the
best it is useless, and may easily become harmful.
Objections like these compel us to enquire into the
legitimate uses of sceptical or destructive criticism.
That it has its uses is denied by none. To hasten
the final disintegration of dying superstition would
be one, I suppose, universally approved of. But
there will be less agreement about its value when ap-
plied, as it is applied in the following pages, to beliefs
which are neither dead nor likely to die. Everybody
is gratified by the refutation of theories from which
they differ ; but they are apt to receive with im-
patience any criticism of statements on the truth of
which (it may be) both they and the critic are agreed.
Such questionings of the unquestionable are judged
not only to be superfluous, but to be of dubious ex-
pediency— disquieting yet unproductive, a profitless
display of more or less ingenious argumentation.
Now, it may readily be acknowledged that philo-
sophic scepticism which neither carries with it, nor
is intended to carry with it, any practical doubt,
finds its chief uses within the region of pure specu-
lation. There it may be a valuable measure of the
success which speculative effort has already attained,
a needful corrective of its exaggerated pretensions.
It is at once a spur to philosophic curiosity and a
touchstone of philosophic work. But even outside
the sphere of pure speculation this sceptical criticism
has its uses — humbler, no doubt, yet not without
THE EIGHTH EDITION XV
their value. Though it provides no material out of
which a creed can be formed, it may yet give a much-
needed warning that the apparent stability of some
very solid-looking beliefs cannot be shown to extend
to their foundations. It may thus most wholesomely
disturb a certain kind of intellectual dogmatism,
which is often a real hindrance to free speculation,
and so prepare the ground for constructive labours,
to which directly it contributes nothing.
This is the use to which I have endeavoured to
put it; and surely not without ample justification.
How many persons are there who acquiesce in the
limitations of the Naturalistic creed, not because it
appeals to them as adequate — responsive and satis-
fying to their whole nature — but because loyalty to
reason seems to require their acceptance of it, and to
require their acceptance of nothing else ? ' Positive
knowledge ' they are taught to believe is really
knowledge, and is the only knowledge. All else is
but phantasie, unverified and unverifiable — specula-
tive ore, unminted by experience, which each man
may arbitrarily assess at his own valuation, which
no man can force into general circulation. Natural-
ism, on the other hand, provides them with a system
of beliefs which, with all its limitations, is in their
judgment rational, self-consistent, sure. It may not
give them all they ask ; but what it promises it gives ;
and what it gives may be accepted in all security.
Now critical scepticism is the leading remedy
xvi INlrvODUCTION TO
indicated for this mood of dogmatic serenity. If it
does nothing else, it should destroy the illusion that
Naturalism is a creed in which mankind may find
intellectual repose. It suggests the question whether,
after all, there is, from the point of view of disin-
terested reason, this profound distinction between
the beliefs which Naturalism accepts and those which
it rejects, and, if not, whether it can be legitimate to
suppose that the so-called * conflict between religion
and science ' touches more than the fringe of the
deeper problems wdth which we are really confronted
in our endeavour to comprehend the world in which
we live.
I have no doubt myself how this question should
be answered. In spite of the importunate clamour
which this 'conflict' has so often occasioned since
the revival of learning, drowning at times even the
domestic quarrelling of the Churches, the issues de-
cided have, after all, been but secondary and unes-
sential. It is true, no doubt, that high ecclesiastical
authorities have seen fit from time to time to de-
nounce the teaching of astronomy, or geology, or
morphology, or anthropology, or historical criticism.
It is also true that in the long run science is seen to
be justified of all her children. But do not on this
account let us fall into the vulgar error of supposing
that these skirmishings decide, or help to decide, the
great cause which is in debate between naturalism
and religion. It is not so. The difficulties and ob-
THE EIGHTH EDITION XVll
scurities which beset the attempt to fuse into a
coherent whole the living beliefs of men are not to
be found on one side only of the line dividing re-
ligion from science. Naturalism is not the goal
towards which we are being driven by the intel-
lectual endeavour of the ages ; nor is anything
gained either for philosophy or science by attempt-
ing to minimise its deficiencies.
Some may think that in the following pages I
have preached from this text with too persistent an
iteration. At any rate, I seem to have given certain
of my critics the impression that the principal, if not
the sole, object of this work was to show that our
beliefs concerning the material world and those con-
cerning the spiritual world are equally poverty-
stricken in the matter of philosophic proof, equally
embarrassed by philosophic difficulties. This, how-
ever, is not so ; and if any think that by over-em-
phasis I have given just occasion for the suspicion,
let them remember how deeply rooted is the prejudice
that had to be combated, how persistently it troubles
the conscience of the religious, how blatantly it
triumphs in the popular literature of infidelity.
But, of course, the dissipation of a prejudice,
however fundamental, can at best be but an indirect
contribution to the work of philosophic construction.
Concede the full claims of the argument just
referred to, it yet amounts to no more than this —
that while it is irrational to adopt the procedure of
xviii INTRODUCTION TO
Naturalism, and elevate scientific methods and
conclusions into the test and measure of universal
truth, it is not necessarily irrational for those who
accept the general methods and conclusions of
science, to accept also ethical and theological beliefs
which cannot be reached by these methods, and
which, it may be, harmonise but imperfectly with
these conclusions. This is indeed no unimportant
result: yet if the argument stopped here it might
not be untrue, though it would assuredly be mislead-
ing, to say that the following essay only contributed
to belief in one department of thought, by suggest-
ing doubt in another. But the argument does not
stop here. The most important part has still to be
noted — that in which an endeavour is made to show
that science, ethics, and (in its degree) aesthetics, are
severally and collectively more intelligible, better
fitted to form parts of a rational and coherent
whole, when they are framed in a theological setting,
than when they are framed in one which is purely
naturalistic.
The method of proof depends essentially upon the
principle that for a creed to be truly consistent, there
must exist a correspondence between the account it
gives of the origin of its beliefs and the estimate it
entertains of their value ; in other words, there must
be a harmony between the accepted value of results
and the accepted theory of causes. This compressed,
and somewhat forbidding, formula will receive ample
THE EIGHTH EDITION xix
illustration in succeeding chapters, but even here it
may perhaps be expanded and elucidated with ad-
vantage.
What, then, is meant by the phrase ' an accepted
value ' in (say) the case of scientific beliefs ; and
how can this be out of ' harmony with their origin ' ?
The chief * accepted value,' the only one which we
need here consider, is truth. And what the formula
asserts is that no creed is really harmonious which
sets this high value on truth, or on true beliefs, and
at the same time holds a theory as to the ultimate
origin of beliefs which suggests their falsity. If,
underlying the rational apparatus by which scientific
beliefs are formally justified, there is a wholly non-
rational machinery by which they are in fact pro-
duced, if we are of opinion that in the last resort
our stock of convictions is determined by the blind
interaction of natural forces and, so far as we know,
by these alone, then there is a discord between
one portion of our scheme of thought and another,
between our estimate of values and our theory of
origins, which may properly be described as incon-
sistency.
Again, if in the sphere of aesthetics we try to
combine the * accepted value ' of some great work of
art or some moving aspect of Nature, with a theory
which traces our feeling for the beautiful to a blind
accident or an irresponsible freak of fashion, a like
collision between our estimate of worth and our
XX INTRODUCTION TO
theory of origins must inevitably occur. The
emotions stirred in us by loveliness or grandeur
wither in the climate produced by such a doctrine,
and the message they seem to bring us — not, as we
would fain hope, of less import because it is inarticu-
late— becomes meaningless or trivial.
A precisely parallel argument may be applied
with even greater force in the sphere of ethics.
The ordinarily * accepted value ' of the moral law,
of moral sentiments, of responsibility, of repentance,
self-sacrifice, and high resolve, clashes hopelessly
with any doctrine of origins which should trace the
pedigree of ethics through the long-drawn develop-
ments produced by natural selection, till it be finally
lost in some material, and therefore non-moral, be-
ginning. In this case, as in the other two, we can
only reach a consistency (relative, indeed, and im-
perfect at the best) if we assume behind, or immanent
in, the chain of causes cognisable by science, a uni-
versal Spirit shaping them to a foreseen end.
The line of argument thus indicated is the exact
opposite of one with which we are all very familiar.
We are often told — and it may be properly told —
that this or that statement is true, this or that
practice laudable, because it comes to us with a
Divine sanction, or because it is in accordance with
Nature. In the argument on which I am insisting
the movement of thought is reversed. Starting from
the conception that knowledge is indeed real, that
THE EIGHTH EDITION XXI
the moral law does indeed possess authority, it
travels towards the conviction that the source from
which they spring can itself be neither irrational nor
unmoral. In the one case we infer validity from
origin : in the other, origin from validity.
It is of course evident that in strictness the
' validity ' from which ' origin ' is thus inferred, is
not so much the absolute validity of even the most
widely accepted conclusion, as the valid tendency of
the general processes out of which these conclusions
have arisen. To base our views of the universe on
the finality and adequacy of particular scientific
and ethical propositions or groups of propositions,
might well be considered hazardous. Not only is
the secular movement of thought constantly requir-
ing of us to restate our beliefs, but as I have shown
in a later portion of this volume, even in those
cases where no restatement is necessary, this is not
because the beliefs to be expressed remain un-
changed, but because our mode of expressing them is
elastic. No such admission, however, really touches
the essence of the argument. It is enough for my
purpose to establish that we cannot plausibly assume
a truthward tendency in the belief-forming processes,
a growing approximation to verity in their results,
unless we are prepared to go further, and to rest that
hypothesis itself on a theistic and spiritual founda-
tion.
On the argument thus barely and imperfectly
xxil INTRODUCTION TO
outlined two further observations may perhaps be
made. The first is that, like every other appeal
to consistency, it is essentially an argumentum ad
hominem. It can only affect the man who ' accepts '
both the * estimate of value ' and the * theory of
origin.' On him who is unmoved by beauty, or who
regards morality and moral sentiments as no more
than a device for the preservation of society or the
continuation of the race, neither the aesthetic nor the
ethic branch of the argument can have any hold or
purchase. For him, again, if any such there be,
whose agnosticism requires him to cut down his
creed to the bare acceptance of a perceiving Self and
a perceived series of subjective states, there can be
no conflict between the theory of origins and the
accepted value of the consequent beliefs, since by
hypothesis he neither has, nor could have, any theory
of origins at all. He lives in a world of shadows
related to each other only as events succeeding each
other in time ; a world in which there is no room for
contradiction as there is no room for anything that
deserves to be called knowledge. The man who
makes profession of such doctrines may justly be
suspected of lying, but he is not open, in this con-
nexion at least, to any charge of philosophic incon-
sistency.
It may in the second place be worth noting that
the preceding argument is both suggested by the
modern theory of universal development, and is
THE EIGHTH EDITION XXlll
(as I think) its necessary philosophic complement.
Before this general point of view was reached, the
interest taken in the causes which produced beliefs
as distinguished from the reasons which also justify
them, was confined to particular cases, and suggested
as a rule by a controversial or historical motive.
This or that doctrine was inspired (i.e. immediately
caused) by God, and therefore it was true ; by the
Devil, and therefore it was false : was due to the
teaching of a power-loving priesthood ; was un-
consciously suggested by self-interested motives;
was born of parental influence or the subtle power of
social surroundings — such and such like comments
have always been sufficiently common. But until
the theory of evolution began to govern our recon-
struction of the past, observations like these were but
detached and episodical notes. They represented no
generalised or universal view as to the genesis of
human opinions. To regard all beliefs whatever, be
they true or false, our own or other people's, as having
a natural history as well as a logical or philosophical
status; to see them not merely as conclusions, but
as effects, conditioned, like all other effects, by a
succession of causes stretching back into an illimit-
able past; to recognise the fact that, so far as
induction and observation can inform us, only a
fraction of these causes, and those not the most
fundamental, can be described as rational — all this is
new. New also (at least in degree) is it to realise
XXIV INTRODUCTION TO
that the beginnings of morality are lost among the
self-preserving and race-prolonging instincts which
we share with the animal creation ; that religion in
its higher forms is a development of infantine, and
often brutal, superstitions ; that in the pedigree of
the noblest and most subtle of our emotions are to
be discovered primitive strains of coarsest quality.
But though these truths are now admitted as
truths of anthropology, I do not think their full
philosophical consequences have yet been properly
worked out. Their true bearing on the theory of
scientific belief seems scarcely to have been recog-
nised. In the domain of religious speculations there
are many who suppose that to explain the natural
genesis of some belief or observance, to trace its
growth from a lower to a higher form in different
races and widely separated countries, is in some way
to throw it into discredit. In the sphere of Ethics
a like suspicion has perhaps prompted the various
attempts to construct ' intuitive ' systems of morals
which shall owe nothing to historical development
and psychological causation. I cannot believe that
this is philosophically to be defended. Nothing, and
least of all what most we value, has come to us ready
made from Heaven. Yet if we are still to value it,
the modern conception of its natural growth requires
us more than ever to believe that from Heaven in
the last resort it comes.
There is one more point on which I desire to throw
THE EIGHTH EDITION XXV
light before bringing this Introduction to a close, one
other class of objector whom, if possible, I should
wish to conciliate. To these critics it may seem that,
whatever be the value of the argumentative scheme
herein set forth, it does not even pretend to give them
that for which they have been looking. Compared
with the philosophy of which they dream, it appears
mere tinkering. It not only suffers, on its own con-
fession, from rents and gaps, imperfect cohesion, un-
solved antinomies, but it is infected by the vice
inherent in all apologetics — the vice of foregone
conclusions. It travels towards a predestined end.
Not content simply to follow reason where reason
freely leads, it endeavours to cajole it into uttering
oracles about the universe which shall do no violence
to what are conceived to be the moral and emotional
needs of man: a course which may be rational, but
the rationality of which should (they think) be
proved, but ought by no means to be assumed.
Now a criticism like this raises a most important
question, which, in its full generality, does not per-
haps receive all the attention it deserves. Since
belief necessarily precedes the theory of belief, what
is the proper relation which theory in the making
should bear to beliefs already made ? It may at
first seem that any serious attempt to devise a
philosophy should be preceded not merely by a sus-
pension of judgment as to the truth of all pre-philo-
sophic assumptions, but by their complete elimination
XXvi INTRODUCTION TO
as factors in the enquiry. From the nature of the
case, they can as yet be no more than guesses, and
in the eyes of philosophy a mere guess is as if it were
not. The examination into what we ought to believe
should therefore be wholly unaffected by what we
do in fact believe. The seeker after truth should
set forth on his speculative voyage neither commit*
ted to a predetermined course nor bound for any
port of predilection, and it should seem to him a far
smaller evil to lie stagnant and becalmed in univer-
sal doubt than to move towards the most attractive
goal on any impulse but that of striqtly disinterested
reason.
The policy is an attractive one ; but its immediate
consequence would be a total and absolute sundering
of theory and practice. In so far as he was theorist,
the philosopher acting on these principles would, or
should, regard himself as discredited if he believed
anything which was not either self-evident or ra-
tionally involved in that which was self-evident.
In so far as he was a citizen of the world, he could
not live ten minutes without acting on some principle
which still waits in vain for rational proof ; and he
would do so, be it observed, although (on his own
principles) there is no probability ivJiatever that when
he has reached the philosophic theory of which he
is in quest, it will be in any kind of agreement with
his pre-philosophic practice. ,If such a probability
exists, it should evidently have guided him in his
THE EIGHTH EDITION XXVll
investigations, and there would be at once an end of
the ' clean slate and disinterested reason.'
For myself indeed I doubt whether this method
is possible, or, if possible, likely to be fruitful. And
I am fortified in this conviction by the reflection
that those to whose constructive suggestions the
world owes most have favoured a different procedure.
They have not thus speculated in the void. In
their search for a world-theory wherein they might
find repose, they have been guided by some pre-con-
ceived ideal, borrowed in its main outlines from the
thought of their age, to which by excisions, modifi-
cations, or additions, they have sought to give
definiteness and a rational consistency. I do not,
of course, suggest that they were advocates speaking
from a brief, or that their conclusions were explicitly
formulated before their arguments were devised.
My meaning rather is that we must think of them
as working over, and shaping afresh, a body of
doctrine (empirical, ethical, metaphysical, or meta-
physico-theological, as the case may be), which in
the main the^y fotaid, but did not make ; that, judged
by their practice, they have not regarded 'disinter-
ested reason ' as the proper instrument of philosophic
construction; nor have they in fact disdained to
struggle towards foreseen and wished for conclu-
sions.
Is this not plainly true, for example, of such men
as Locke, Leibnitz, Berkeley, Kant, Hegel ? Is it
XXVlll INTRODUCTION TO
not confessed in the very name of the 'common-
sense ' school ? Should it not be admitted even of
thinkers whose conclusions deviate so much from
the normal as Spinoza or Schopenhauer? I say
nothing of the many schools of moralists who teach
an identic morality, though on the most divergent
grounds, nor of those who, in their endeavours to
frame a logic of experience assume (quite rightly, in
my opinion) that the empirical methods w^hich we
actually employ are those which it is their business
if possible to justify. It is sufficiently evident that
their example, if not their profession, amply supports
my contention.
This is not the place, however, to labour the
historic point ; and it is the less necessary because
I think the reader will probably agree with me that,
in its complete and consistent purity, this method of
' disinterested reason ' never has been, and probably
never will be, employed. What has been, and con-
stantly is, employed, is a partial and bastard adapta-
tion of it— an adaptation under which ' disinterested
reason,' or what passes for such, is only exercised for
purposes of destructive criticism, in arbitrarily se-
lected portions of the total area of belief. On this
subject, however, the reader endowed with sufficient
patience will hear much in the sequel. For the
present it is only necessary to state, by way of con-
trast, what I conceive to be the mode in which
philosophy can most profitably order its course in
THE EIGHTH EDITION xxix
the presence of those living beliefs which precede it
in order of time, though not in order of logic.
In my view, then, it should do avowedly, and
with open eyes, what in fact it has constantly done,
though silently and with hesitation. It should pro-
visionally assume, not of course that the general
body of our beliefs are in conformity with realit3%
but that they represent a stage in the movement
towards such conformity ; that in particular the
great presuppositions (such as, for example, the
uniformity of Nature or the existence of a persistent
reality capable of being experienced by us but inde-
pendent of our experience) which form as it were the
essential skeleton of our working creed, should be
regarded as matters which it is our business, if
possible, rationally to establish, but not necessarily
our business to ignore until such time as our efforts
shall have succeeded.
No doubt this method assumes a kind of harmony
between the knowing Self and the reality to be
known, which seems only plausible if both are part
of a common design ; while again, if such a design is
to be accepted at all, it can hardly be confined to the
Self as knowing subject, but must embrace other and
not less notable aspects of our complex personality.^
^ It might at first seem as if this postulated harmony might be
due not to design, but to the material universe having, in the process
of development, somehow evolved a mind, or rather a multitude of
minds, in this kind of correspondence with itself. The inadequacy
of such a theory is shown in a later chapter of this volume. But it
XXX INTRODUCTION TO
I may observe that this, and no more than this, is the
doctrine of * needs * to which, as expounded in the
foHowing pages,^ serious objection has been taken by
a certain number of my critics.
We have thus again reached the point of viev/ to
which, by a slightly different route, we had already
travelled. Whether, taking as our point of departure
beliefs as they are, we look for the setting which
shall bind them into the most coherent whole ; or
whether, in searching out what they ought to be, we
ask in what direction we had best start our explora-
tions, we seem equally moved towards the hypothesis
of a Spiritual origin common to the knower and the
known.
Now it will be observed that in both cases the
creed aimed at is an inclusive one. There is, I
mean, an admitted desire that no great department
of knowledge (real or supposed) in which there are
living and effective beliefs, shall be excluded from
the final co-ordination. But inasmuch as this final
co-ordination has not been reached, has indeed, as
we fear, been scarcely approached, we are not only
compelled in our gropings after a philosophy to
accept guidance from beliefs which as yet possess no
may be here observed that it is not very satisfactory to assume, even
provisionally, the truth of a full-fledged and very complex scientific
theory at the starting point of an mvestigation into the proof of the
fundamental principles on which that theory, and other empirical
doctrines, ultimately depend.
1 See below pp. 243-260.
THE EIGHTH EDITION XXXI
rational warranty, but to tolerate some which it
seems impossible at present to harmonise.
This seems a hard saying, and it inevitably sug-
gests the question whether happier results might
not be obtained by abandoning the attempt at com-
prehension, and boldly expunging a number of the
conflicting opinions sufficient to secure immediate
consistency.
I am not aware, however, that any operation of
this kind has so far been attended with the smallest
success, nor does it seem very easy to justify it in
the name of reason, unless on examination it turns
out that the opinions retained have a better claim
to reasonable acceptance than their rivals, a con-
tingency more remote than is often supposed. Even
from the purely empirical point of view, a considera-
tion of the natural history of knowledge, or what is
accepted as knowledge, gives fair warning that this
procedure (were it indeed practicable) would not be
without its dangers. For knowledge does not grow
merely by the addition of new discoveries : nor is it
purified merely by the subtraction of detected errors.
Truth and falsehood are often too intimately com-
bined to be dissociated by any simple method of
filtration. It is by a subtler process that new verities,
while increasing the sum of our beliefs, act even more
effectively as a kind of ferment, impressing on those
that already exist a novel and previously unsuspected
character; just as a fresh touch of colour added to a
XXxii INTRODUCTION TO
picture, though it immediately affects but one corner
of the canvas, may yet change the whole from un-
likeness to likeness, from confusion to significance.
Now if this be a faithful representation of what
actually occurs, it seems plain that to amputate im-
portant departments of belief in order to free what
remains from any trace of incoherence, might, even
if it succeeded, be to hinder, not to promote, the
cause of truth. Nothing, indeed, which is incoherent
can be true. But though it cannot be true, it may
not only contain much truth, but may contain more
than any system in which both the true and the false
are abandoned in the premature and, at this stage of
development, hopeless endeavour after a creed which,
within however narrow limits, shall be perfectly clear
and self-consistent. Most half-truths are half-errors ;
but who is there who would refrain from grasping
the half-truth although he could not obtain it at a
less cost than that of taking the half-error with it ?
There are those who would accept the historical
application of this doctrine, who would admit that
logical laxity had often in fact been of service to
intellectual progress, but would altogether deny the
propriety of admitting that such a theory could have
any practical bearing on their own case. They would
draw a distinction between a detected and an unde-
tected incoherence. The unconscious acquiescence
in the latter may happen to aid the cause of knowl-
edge : the conscious acquiescence in the former must
THE EIGHTH EDITION XXXlll
be a sin against reason. I do not think the distinc-
tion will hold. Our business is to reach as much
truth as we can ; and neither observation nor reflec-
tion ^ give any countenance to the notion that this
end will best be attained by turning the merely
critical understanding into the undisputed arbiter in
all matters of belief. Its importance for the clarifi-
cation of knowledge cannot indeed be exaggerated.
As a commentator it should be above control. As
cross-examiner its rights should be unlimited. But
it cannot arrogate to itself the duties of a final court
of appeal. Should it, for example, show, as I think
it does, that neither the common-sense views of ordi-
nary men, nor the modification of these on which
science proceeds, nor the elaborated systems of
metaphysics, are more than temporary resting-places,
seen to be insecure almost as soon as they are occu-
pied, yet we must still hold them to be stages on
a journey towards something better than a futile
scepticism which, were it possible in practice, would
be ruinous alike to every form of conviction, whether
scientific, ethical, or religious. When that journey
is accomplished, but only then, can we hope that all
difficulties will be smoothed away, all anomalies be
reconciled, and the certainty and rational interde-
pendence of all its parts made manifest in the trans-
parent Whole of Knowledge.
I have now endeavoured to present in isolation,
* See this Introduction, ante, p. xi.
XXXIV INTRODUCTION
and with all the lucidity consistent with brevity, the
fundamental ideas which underlie the various dis-
cussions contained in the following Essay. For their
development and illustration I must of course refer
to the work itself ; and it may well happen that this
preliminary treatment of them will not greatly pre-
dispose some of my readers in their favour. But
however this may be, I would fain hope that, whether
they be approved or disapproved, they cannot, after
what has been said, any longer be easily misunder-
stood.
Whittingehame, 1901.
NOTE
Part II., Chapter II., of the following Essay ap-
peared in 1893 in the October number of * Mind.*
Part I., Chapter I., was delivered as a Lecture to
the Ethical Society of Cambridge in the spring of
1893, and subsequently appeared in the July number
of the ' International Journal of Ethics ' in the pres-
ent year. Though published separately, both these
chapters were originally written for the present vol-
ume. The references to * Philosophic Doubt' which
occur from time to time in the Notes, especially at
the beginning of Part II., are to the only edition of
that book which has as yet been published. It is
now out of print, and copies are not easy to procure ;
but if I have time to prepare a new edition, care will
be taken to prevent any confusion which might arise
from a different numbering of the chapters.
I desire to acknowledge the kindness of those
who have read through the proof-sheets of these
Notes and made suggestions upon them. This
somewhat ungrateful labour was undertaken by my
friends, the Rev. E. S. Talbot, Professor Andrew
Seth, the Rev. James Robertson, and last, but very
XX XVI NOTE
far from least, my brother, Mr. G. W. Balfour, M.P.,
and my brother-in-law, Professor Henry Sidgwick.
None of these gentlemen are, of course, in any way
responsible for the views herein advocated, with
which some of them, indeed, by no means agree. I
am the more beholden to them for the assistance
they have been good enough to render me.
A. J. B.
Whittingehame, September 1894.
PRELIMINARY
As its title imports, the following Essay is intended
to serve as an Introduction to the Study of Theol-
ogy. The word ' Introduction/ however, is ambig-
uous ; and in order that the reader may be as little
disappointed as possible with the contents of the
book, the sense in which I here use it must be first
explained. Sometimes, by an Introduction to a sub-
ject is meant a brief survey of its leading principles
— a first initiation, as it were, into its methods and
results. For such a task, however, in the case of
Theology I have no qualifications. With the growth
of knowledge Theology has enlarged its borders
until it has included subjects about which even the
most accomplished theologian of past ages did not
greatly concern himself. To the Patristic, Dog-
matic, and Controversial learning which has always
been required, the theologian of to-day must add
knowledge at first hand of the complex historical,
antiquarian, and critical problems presented by the
Old and New Testaments, and of the vast and daily
increasing literature which has grown up around
them. He must have a sufficient acquaintance with
the comparative history of religions ; and in addi-
tion to all this, he must be competent to deal with
2 PRELIMINARY
those scientific and philosophical questions which
have a more profound and permanent bearing on
Theology even than the results of critical and his-
torical scholarship.
Whether any single individual is fully compe-
tent either to acquire or successfully to manipulate
so formidable an apparatus of learning, I do not
know. But in any case I am very far indeed from
being even among that not inconsiderable number
who are qualified to put the reader in the way of
profitably cultivating some portion of this vast and
always increasing field of research. The following
pages, therefore, scarcely claim to deal with the sub-
stance of Theology at all. They are in the narrow-
est sense of the word an ' introduction ' to it. They
deal for the most part with preliminaries ; and it is
only towards the end of the volume, where the Intro-
duction begins insensibly to merge into that which it
is designed to introduce, that purely theological doc-
trines are mentioned, except by way of illustration.
Although what follows might thus be fitly de-
scribed as ' Considerations preliminary to a study of
Theology,' I do not think the subjects dealt with
are less important on that account. For, in truth,
the decisive battles of Theology are fought beyond
its frontiers. It is not over purely religious contro-
versies that the cause of Religion is lost or won.
The judgments we shall form upon its special prob-
lems are commonly settled for us by our general
mode of looking at the Universe ; and this again, in
PRELIMINARY 3
SO far as it is determined by arguments at all, is
determined by arguments of so wide a scope that
they can seldom be claimed as more nearly con-
cerned with Theology than with the philosophy of
Science or of Ethics.
My object, then, is to recommend a particular
way of looking at the World - problems, which,
whether we like it or not, we are compelled to face.
I wish, if I can, to lead the reader up to a point of
view whence the small fragments of the Infinite
Whole, of which we are able to obtain a glimpse,
ma}^ appear to us in their true relative proportions.
This is, therefore, no work of ' Apologetics ' in the
ordinary sense of that w^ord. Theological doctrines
are not taken up in turn and defended from current
objections ; nor is there any endeavour here made
specifically to solve the ' doubts ' or allay the ' diffi-
culties ' which in this, as in every other, age perplex
the minds of a certain number of religious persons.
Yet, as I think that perhaps the greater number of
these doubts and difficulties would never even pre-
sent themselves in that character were it not for a
certain superficiality and one-sidedness in our habit-
ual manner of considering the wider problems of
belief, I cannot help entertaining the hope that by
what is here said the work of the Apologist proper
may indirectly be furthered.
It is a natural, if not an absolutely necessary
consequence of this plan, that the subjects allu.5*:d
to in the following pages are, as a rule, more secular
4 PRELIMINARY
than the title of the book might perhaps at first
suggest, and also that the treatment of some of
them has been brief even to meagreness. If the
reader is tempted to complain of the extreme con-
ciseness with which some topics of the greatest im-
portance are touched on, and the apparent irrele-
vance with which others have been introduced, I
hope he will reserve his judgment until he has read
to the end, should his patience hold out so long. If
he then thinks that the ' particular way of looking
at the World-problems ' which this book is intended
to recommend is not rendered clearer by any por-
tion of what has been written, I shall be open to his
criticism ; but not otherwise. What I have tried to
do is not to write a monograph, or a series of mono-
graphs, upon Theology, but to delineate, and, if
possible, to recommend, a certain attitude of mind ;
and I hope that in carrying out this less ambitious
scheme I have put in few touches that were super-
fluous and left out none that were necessary.
If it be asked, ' For whom is this book intended?'
I answer, that it is intended for the general body of
readers interested in such subjects rather than for
the specialist in Philosophy. I do not, of course,
mean that I have either desired or been able to
avoid questions which in essence are strictly philo-
sophical. Such an attempt would have been wholly
absurd. But no knowledge either of the history or
the technicalities of Philosophy is assumed in the
reader, nor do I believe that there is any train of
PRELIMINARY 5
thought here suggested which, if he thinks it worth
his while, he will have the least difficulty in follow-
ing. He may, and very likely will, find objection
both to the substance of my arguments and their
form. But I shall be disappointed if, in addition to
their other deficiencies, he finds them unintelligible
or even obscure.^
There is one more point to be explained before
these prefatory remarks are brought to a conclusion.
In order that the views here advocated may be seen
in the highest relief, it is convenient to exhibit them
against the background of some other and contrast-
ed system of thought. What system shall that be ?
In Germany the philosophies of Kant and his suc-
cessors may be (I know not whether they are)
matters of such common knowledge that they fit-
tingly supply a standard of reference, by the aid of
which the relative positions of other and more or
less differing systems may be conveniently deter-
mined. As to whether this state of things, if it
anywhere exists, is desirable or not, I offer no opinion.
But I am very sure that it does not at present exist
in any English-speaking community, and probably
never will, until the ideas of these speculative giants
are throughout rethought by Englishmen, and
reproduced in a shape which ordinary Englishmen
will consent to assimilate. Until this occurs Tran-
scendental Idealism must continue to be what it is
' These observations must not be taken as applying to Part II.,
Chapter II., which the general reader is recommended to omit.
6 PRELIMINARY
now — the intellectual possession of a small minor-
ity of philosophical specialists. Philosophy cannot,
under existing conditions, become, like Science, ab-
solutely international. There is in matters specu-
lative, as in matters poetical, a certain amount of
natural protection for the home-producer, which
commentators and translators seem unable alto-
gether to overcome.
Though, therefore, I have devoted a chapter to
the consideration of Transcendental Idealism as rep-
resented in some recent English writings, it is not
with overt or tacit reference to that system that I
have arranged the material of the following Essay.
Ihave, on the contrary, selected a system with which
I am in much less sj^mpathy, but which under many
names numbers a formidable following, and is in
reality the only system which ultimately profits by
any defeats which Theology may sustain, or which
may be counted on to flood the spaces from which
the tide of Religion has receded. Agnosticism,
Positivism, Empiricism, have all been used more or
less correctly to describe this scheme of thought;
though in the following pages, for reasons with
which it is not necessary to trouble the reader, the
term which 1 shall commonly employ is Naturalism.'
* C This sentence has greatly excited the wrath of Mr. Frederic
Harrison. But whether his indignation is directed against my de-
scription of the meaning in which the word ' Positivism ' is frequently
used, or against that meaning itself, is not quite so clear. If my
description is accurate, I see no reason why he should be angry with
me ; and that it is accurate seems beyond doubt. I commend to Mr.
PRELIMINARY 7
But whatever the name selected, the thing itself is
sufficiently easy to describe. For its leading doctrines
are that we may know * phenomena ' ^ and the laws
Harrison's attention the following passage from John Mill's volume
on ' Auguste Comte and Positivism : ' ^' The character by which he
(Comte) defines Positive Philosophy is the following : We have no
knowledge of anything but Phenomena ; and our knowledge of
Phenomena is relative, not absolute. . . . The laws of Phenomena
are all we know respecting them. Their essential nature and their
ultimate causes, either efficient or final, are unknown and inscrutable
to us.'
Mill's account of the ' character by which Comte defines Positive
Philosophy ' (which, as the reader will see, is almost identical with my
account of Naturalism) may, in Mr. Harrison's elegant language,! be
a * coagulated clot of confusions and mis-statements,' but passages of
a like import (which could easily be multiplied) fully account for the
use of the term ' Positivism ' to which I have referred in the text.
' Positivism,' says Mr. Harrison, ' is the religion of humanity resting
on the philosophy of human nature. ':t Very possibly ; but if so,
Positivism as described by Mr. Harrison is a strangely different thing
from ' Positive Philosophy ' as described by John Mill ; and it is
hardly to be wondered at that these words are sometimes employed
in a manner displeasing to the religious sect of which Mr, Harrison
is so distinguished a member. This, however, is no fault of mine.
Let me add that Mr. Harrison's ill humour may in part be due to
his supposing that I regard Positivists as being ipso facto materialists.
I need not say to the attentive reader of the following essay that I do
nothing of the sort.]
1 1 feel that explanation, and perhaps apology, is due for this use
of the word ' phenomena.' In its proper sense the term implies, I
suppose, that which appears, as distinguished from something, pre-
sumably more real, which does not appear, I neither use it as carry-
ing this metaphysical implication, nor do I restrict it to things which
appear, or even to things which cou /cf SippeRr to beings endowed with
senses like ours. The ether, for instance, though it is impossible that
we should ever know it except by its effects, I should call a phenom-
* P. 6, ed. 1865. \ Positivist Review y No. 29, p. 79.
X Positivist Review for May 1895, p. 79.
8 PRELIMINARY
by which they are connected, but nothing more.
' More ' there may or may not be ; but if it exists we
can never apprehend it : and whatever the World
may be 'in its reality* (supposing such an expression
to be otherwise than meaningless), the World for us,
the World with which alone we are concerned, or of
which alone we can have any cognisance, is that
World which is revealed to us through perception,
internal and external, and which is the subject-matter
of the Natural Sciences. Here, and here only, are
we on firm ground. Here, and here only, can we
discover anything which deserves to be described as
Knowledge. Here, and here only, may we profitably
exercise our reason or gather the fruits of Wisdom.
Such, in rough outline, is Naturalism. My first
task will be the preparatory one of examining certain
of its consequences in various departments of human
thought and emotion ; and to this in the next four
chapters I proceed to devote m3^self.
enon. The coagulation of nebular meteors into suns and planets I
should call a phenomenon, though nobody may have existed to whom
it could appear. Roughly speaking, things and events, the general
subject-matter of Natural Science, are what I endeavour to indicate by
a term for which, as thus used, there is, unfortunately, no substitute,
however little the meaning which I give to it can be etymologically
justified.
While I am on the subject of definitions, it may be as well to say
that, generally speaking, I distinguish between Philosophy and Meta-
physics. To Philosophy I give an epistemological significance. I
regard it as the systematic exposition of our grounds of knowledge.
Thus, the philosophy of Religion or the philosophy of Science would
mean the theoretic justification of our theological or scientific beliefs.
By Metaphysics, on the other hand, I usually mean the knowledge
that we have, or suppose ourselves to have, respecting realities which
are not phenomenal, e.g. God, and the Soul.
PART I
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF BELIEF
CHAPTER I
NATURALISiM AND ETHICS
The two subjects on which the professors of every
creed, theological and anti-theological, seem least
anxious to differ, are the general substance of the
Moral Law, and the character of the sentiments
with which it should be regarded. That it is
worthy of all reverence ; that it demands our
ungrudging submission ; and that we owe it not
merely obedience, but love — these are common-
places which the preachers of all schools vie with
each other in proclaiming. And they are certainly
right. Morality is more than a bare code of laws,
than a catalogue raisonne of things to be done or
left undone. Were it otherwise, we must change
something more important than the mere customa-
ry language of exhortation. The old ideals of the
world would have to be uprooted, and no new ones
could spring up and flourish in their stead ; the very
soil on which they grew would be sterilised, and the
phrases in which all that has hitherto been regard-
ed as best and noblest in human life has been ex-
pressed, nay, the words * best ' and * noblest ' them-
12 NATURALISM AND ETHICS
selves, would become as foolish and unmeaning as
the incantation of a forgotten superstition.
This unanimity, familiar though it be, is surely
very remarkable. And it is the more remarkable
because the unanimity prevails only as to con-
clusions, and is accompanied by the widest diver-
gence of opinion with regard to the premises on
which these conclusions are supposed to be founded.
Nothing but habit could blind us to the strangeness
of the fact that the man who believes that morality
is based on a priori principles, and the man who
believes it to be based on the commands of God,
the transcendentalist, the theologian, the mystic,
and the evolutionist, should be pretty well at
one both as to what morality teaches, and as to
the sentiments with which its teaching should be
regarded.
It is not my business in this place to examine
the Philosophy of Morals, or to find an answer to
the charge which this suspicious harmony of opinion
among various schools of moralists appears to
suggest, namely, that in their speculations they have
taken current morality for granted, and have squared
their proofs to their conclusions, and not their con-
clusions to their proofs. I desire now rather to
direct the reader's attention to certain questions
relating to the origin of ethical systems, not to their
justification ; to the natural history of morals, not to
its philosophy ; to the place which the moral law
occupies in the general chain of causes and effects^
NATURALISM AND ETHICS 13
not to the nature of its claim on the unquestioning
obedience of mankind. I am aware, of course, that
many persons have been, and are, of opinion that
these two sets of questions are not merely related,
but identical ; that the validity of a command
depends only on the source from which it springs ;
and that in the investigation into the character and
authority of this source consists the principal busi-
ness of the moral philosopher. I am not concerned
here to controvert this theory, though, as thus
stated, I do not agree with it. It will be sufficient
if I lay down two propositions of a much less,
dubious character: — (i) That, practically, human
beings being what they are, no moral code can be
effective which does not inspire, in those who are
asked to obey it, emotions of reverence ; and (2) that,
practically, the capacity of any code to excite this or
any other elevated emotion cannot be wholly inde-
pendent of the origin from which those who accept
that code suppose it to emanate.^
Now what, according to the naturalistic creed, is
the origin of the generally accepted, or, indeed, of any
other possible, moral law? What position does it
occupy in the great web of interdependent phenom-
ena by which the knowable ' Whole ' is on this
hypothesis constituted ? The answer is plain : as
' These are statements, it will be noted, not relating to ethics
proper. They have nothing to do either with the contents of the
moral law or with its validity ; and if we are to class them as be-
longing to any special department of knowledge at all, it is to psy-
chology or anthropology that they should in strictness be assigned.
NATURALISM AND ETHICS
life is but a petty episQjde-.in the history of the^
jiiverse ; as feeling is an attribute of only a frac-
tion of thin2:s that live, so moral sentiments and the
apprehension of moral rules are found in but^gi^
insignllicant minorit}' of things that feel. They are,
not, soto speak, among the necessities of Nature ; no
great spaces are marked out for their accommodation;
were they to vanish to-morrow, the great machine
would move on with no noticeable variation ; the
sijfli^realities would not suffer sensible diminution ;
the organic world itself would scarcely mark the
change. A few highly developed mammals, and
chiefest among these jjudi, would lose instincts and
beliefs which have proved of considerable value in
the strugfs-le for existence, if not between individuals,
at least between tribes and species. But put it at
the highest, we can say no more than that there^
would be a great diminution of human happiness,
that civilisation would become difficult or impossible,
and that the ' higher ' races might even succumb and
d^sapj)ear.
These are considerations which to the 'higher'
races themselves may seem not unimportant, how-
ever trifling to the universe at large. But let it be
noted that every one of these propositions can be
asserted with equal or greater assurance of all the
bodily appetites, and of man}- of the vulgarest forms
of desire and ambition. On most of the processes, in-
deed, by which consciousness and life are maintained
in the individual and perpetuated in the race we are
NATURALISM AND ETHICS 1 5
never consulted ; of their intimate character we are
for the most part totally ignorant, and no one is in
any case asked to consider them with any other
emotion than that of enlightened curiosity. But in
the few and simple instances in which our co-opera-
tion is required, it is obtained through the stimulus
supplied by appetite and disgust, pleasure and pain,
instinct, reason, and morality ; and it is hard to see,
on the naturalistic hypothesis, whence any one of
these various natural agents is to derive a dignity or
a consideration not shared by all the others, why
morality should be put above appetite, or reason
above pleasure.
It may, perhaps, be replied that the sentiments
with which we choose to regard any set of actions
or motives do not require special justification, that
there is no disputing about this any more than about
other questions of ' taste,* and that, as a matter of
fact, the persons who take a strictly naturalistic view
of man and of the universe are often the loudest
and not the least sincere in the homage they pay to
the 'majesty of the moral law.* This is, no doubt,
perfectly true ; but it does not meet the real diffi-
culty. I am not contending that sentiments of the
kind referred to may not be, and are not, frequently
entertained by persons of all shades of philosophical
or theological opinion. My point is, that in the case
of those holding the naturalistic creed the sentiments
and the creed are antagonistic ; and that the more
clearly the creed is grasped, the more thoroughly
16 NATURALISM AND ETHICS
the intellect is saturated with its essential teaching,
the more certain are the sentiments thus violently
and unnaturally associated with it to languish or to
die.
For not only does there seem to be no ground,
from the point of view of biology, for drawing a
distinction in favour of any of the processes, physio-
logical or psychological, by which the individual or
the race is benefited ; not only are we bound to
consider the coarsest appetites, the most calculating
selfishness, and the most devoted heroism, as all
sprung from analogous causes and all evolved for
similar objects, but we can hardly doubt that the
august sentiments which cling to the ideas of duty
and sacrifice are nothing better than a device of
Nature to trick us into the performance of altruistic
actions.^ The working ant expends its life in labour-
ing, with more than maternal devotion, for a prog-
eny not its own, and, so far as the race of ants is
concerned, doubtless it does well. Instinct, the in-
herited impulse to follow a certain course with no
developed consciousness of its final goal, is here the
instrument selected by Nature to attain her ends.
But in the case of man, more flexible if less certain
methods have to be employed. Does conscience,
in^idding us to do or to refrainTsp'eak "with an^
authority from which there seems no appeal? Does
^ It is scarcely necessary to state that by this phrase I do not
wish to suggest that Biology necessarily is teleological. Naturalism
of course cannot be.
NATURALISM AND ETHICS 1/
our blood tingle at the narrative of some great
deed? Do coui;^,ge and self-surrender extort our-
passionate sympathy, and invite, however vainly,
our hailing imitation? Does that which is noble
attract even the least noble, and that which is base
repel even the basest ? Nay, have the words ' noble '
and ' base ' a meanins: for us at all ? If so, it is from
no essential and immutable quality in the deeds
themselves. It is because, in the struggle for ex-
istence, the altruistic virtues are an advantage to
the family, the tribe, or the nation, but not always
an advantage to the individual ; it is because man
comes into the world richly endowed with the
inheritance of self-regarding instincts and appetites
required by his animal progenitors, but poor indeed
in any inbred inclination to the unselfishness neces-
sary to the well-being of the society in which he
lives ; it is because in no other way can the original
impulses be displaced by those of late growth to the
degree required by public utility, that Nature, in-
different to our happiness, indifferent to our morals,
but sedulous of our survival, commends disinterested
virtue to our practice by decking it out in all the
splendour which the specifically ethical sentiments
alone are capable of supplying. Could we imagine
the chronological order of the evolutionary process
reversed : if courage and abnegation had been the
qualities first needed, earliest developed, and there-
fore most deeply rooted in the ancestral organism ;
while selfishness, cowardice, greediness, and lust
2
t8 naturalism and ethics
represented impulses required only at a later stage
of physical and intellectual development, doubtless
we should find the ' elevated * emotions which now
crystallise round the first set of attributes transferred
without alteration or amendment to the second ; the
preacher would expend his eloquence in warning
us against excessive indulgence in deeds of self-
immolation, to which, like the ' worker ' ant, we
should be driven by inherited instinct, and in ex-
horting us to the performance of actions and the
cultivation of habits from which we now, unfortu-
nately, find it only too difficult to abstain.
Kant, as we all know, compared the Moral Law
to the starry heavens, and found them both sublime.
It would, on the naturalistic hypothesis, be more
appropriate to compare it to the protective blotches
on the beetle's back, and to find them both ingenious.
But how on this view is the ' beauty of holiness ' to
retain its lustre in the minds of those who know so
much of its pedigree ? In despite of theories, man-
kind— even instructed mankind — may, indeed, long
preserve uninjured sentiments which they have
learned in their most impressionable )xars from
those they love best ; but if, while they are being
taught the supremacy of conscience and the austere
majesty of duty, they are also to be taught that
these sentiments and beliefs are merely samples of
the complicated contrivances, many of them mean
and many of them disgusting, wrought into the
physical or into the social organism by the shaping
NATURALISM AND ETHICS I9
forces of selection and elimination, assuredly much
of the efficacy of these moral lessons will be de-
stroyed, and the contradiction between ethical senti-
ment and naturalistic theory will remain intrusive
and perplexing, a constant stumbling-block to those
who endeavour to combine in one harmonious creed
the bare explanations of Biology and the lofty claims
of Ethics.^
II
Unfortunately for my reader, it is not possible
wholly to omit from this section some references to
the questionings which cluster round the time-worn
debate on Determinism and Free Will ; but my re-
marks will be brief, and as little tedious as may be.
' It may perhaps be thought that in this section I have too confi-
dently assumed that morality, or, more strictly, the moral sentiments
(including among these the feeling of authority which attaches to
ethical imperatives), are due to the working of natural selection.
I have no desire to dogmatise on a subject on which it is the busi-
ness of the biologist and anthropologist to pronounce. But it
seems difficult to believe that natural selection should not have had
the most important share in producing and making permanent
things so obviously useful. If the reader prefers to take the op-
posite view, and to regard moral sentiments as ' accidental,' he may
do so, without on that account being obliged to differ from my
general argument. He will then, of course, class moral sentiments
with the aesthetic emotions dealt with in the next chapter.
Of course I make no attempt to trace the causes of the variations
on which selective action has worked, nor to distinguish between
the moral sentiments, an inclination to or an aptitude for which has
been bred into the physical organism of man or some races of
men, and those which have been wrought only into the social organ-
ism of the family, the tribe, or the State.
20 NATURALISM AND ETHICS
I have nothing here to do with the truth or vm-
truth of either of the contending theories. It is
sufficient to remind the reader that on the naturalis-
tic view, at least, free will is an absurdity, and that
those who hold that view are bound to believe that
every decision at which mankind have arrived, and
every consequent action which they have performed,
was implicitly determined by the quantity and dis-
tribution of the various forms of matter and energy
which preceded the birth of the solar system. The
fact, no doubt, remains ^ that every individual, while
balancing between two courses, is under the inevi-
table impression that he is at liberty to pursue either,
and that it depends upon * himself and himself
alone, 'himself as distinguished from his character,
his desires, his surroundings, and his antecedents,
which of the offered alternatives he will elect to
pursue. I do not know that any explanation has
been proposed of what, on the naturalistic h3^pothe-
sis, we must regard as a singular illusion. I vent-
ure with some diffidence to suggest, as a theory pro-
visionally adequate, perhaps, for scientific purposes,
that the phenomenon is due to the same cause as so
many other beneficent oddities in the organic world,
namely, to natural selection. To an animal with no
self-consciousness a sense of freedom would evidently
be unnecessary, if not, indeed, absolutely unmeaning.
But as soon as self-consciousness is developed, as
'At least, so it seems to me. There are, however, eminent
psychologists who differ.
NATURALISM AND ETHICS 21
soon as man begins to reflect, however crudely and
imperfectly, upon himself and the world in which he
lives, then deliberation, volition, and the sense of re-
sponsibility become wheels in the ordinary machinery
by which species-preserving- actions are produced;
and as these psychological states would be w^eakened
or neutralised if they w^ere accompanied by the imme-
diate consciousness that they were as rigidly deter-
mined by their antecedents as any other effects by
any other causes, benevolent Nature steps in, and by
a process of selective slaughter makes the conscious-
ness in such circumstances practically impossible.
The spectacle of all mankind suffering under the
delusion that in their decision they are free, when,
as a matter of fact, they are nothing of the kind,
must certainly appear extremely ludicrous to any
superior observer, were it possible to conceive, on
the naturalistic hypothesis, that such observers
should exist ; and the comedy could not be other-
wise than greatly relieved and heightened by the
performances of the small sect of philosophers who,
knowing perfectly as an abstract truth that freedom
is an absurdity, yet in moments of balance and
deliberation invariably conceive themselves to pos-
sess it, just as if they were savages or idealists.
The roots of a superstition so ineradicable must
lie deep in the groundwork of our inherited organ-
ism, and must, if not now, at least in the first begin-
ning of self-consciousness, have been essential to the
welfare of the race which entertained it. Yet it
22 NATURALISM AND ETHICS
may, perhaps, be thought that this requires us to
attribute to the dawn of intelligence ideas which are
notoriously of late development ; and that as the
primitive man knew nothing of ' invariable sequences '
or * universal causation,' he could in nowise be em-
barrassed in the struggle for existence by recognising
that he and his proceedings were as absolutely deter-
mined by their antecedents as sticks and stones. It
is, of course, true that in any formal or philosophical
shape such ideas would be as remote from the intel-
ligence of the savage as the differential calculus.
But it can, nevertheless, hardly be denied that, in
some shape or other, there must be implicitly present
to his consciousness the sense of freedom, since his
fetichism largely consists in attributing to inanimate
objects the spontaneity which he finds in himself ;
and it seems equally certain that the sense, I will
not say of coiistraint, but of inevitableness, would be
as embarrassing to a savage in the act of choice as
it would to his more cultivated descendant, and
would be not less productive of that moral im-
poverishment which, as I proceed briefly to point
out, Determinism is calculated to produce.^
' It seems to be regarded as quite simple and natural that this
attribution of human spontaneity to inanimate objects should be the
first stage in the interpretation of the external world, and that it
should be only after the uniformity of material Nature had been con-
clusively established by long and laborious experience that the same
principles were applied to the inner experience of man himself. But,
in truth, unless man in the very earliest stages of his development had
believed himself to be free, precisely the opposite order of discovery
might have been anticipated. Even now our means of external
NATURALISM AND ETHICS 23
And here I am anxious to avoid any appearance
of the exaggeration which, as I think, has sometimes
characterised discussions upon this subject. I admit
that there is nothing in the theory of determinism
which need modify the substance of the moral law.
That which duty prescribes, or the ' Practical Rea^
son ' recommends, is equally prescribed and recom-
mended whether our actual decisions are or are not
irrevocably bound by a causal chain which reaches
back in unbroken retrogression through a limitless
past. It may also be admitted that no argument
investigation are so imperfect that it is rather a stretch of lan-
guage to say that the theory of uniformity is in accordance with
experience, much less that it is established by it. On the contrary,
the more refined are our experiments, the more elaborate are our
precautions, the more difficult it is to obtain results absolutely identi-
cal with each other, qualitatively as well as quantitatively. So far,
therefore, as mere ot3servation goes, Nature seems to be always
aiming at a uniformity which she never quite succeeds in attaining;
and though it is no doubt true that the differences are due to errors
in the observations and not to errors in Nature, this manifestly cannot
be proved by the observations themselves, but only by a theory
established independently of the observations, and by which these
may be corrected and interpreted. But a man's own motives for
acting in a particular way at a particular time are simple compared
with the complexities of the material world, and to himself at least
might be known (one would suppose) with reasonable certainty.
Here, then (were it not for the inveterate illusion, old as self-
consciousness itself, that at the moment of choice no uniformity of
antecedents need insure a uniformity of consequences) would have
been the natural starting-point and suggestion of a theory of causa-
tion which, as experience ripened and knowledge grew, might have
gradually extended itself to the universe at large. Man would, in
fact, have had nothing more to do than to apply to the chaotic com-
plex of the macrocosm the principles of rigid and unchanging law by
which he had discovered the microcosm to be governed.
24 NATURALISM AND ETHICS
against good resolutions or virtuous endeavours
can fairly be founded upon necessitarian doctrines.
No doubt he who makes either good resolutions or
virtuous endeavours does so (on the determinist
theory) because he could not do otherwise ; but
none the less may these play an important part
among the antecedents by which moral actions are
ultimately produced. An even stronger admission
may, I think, be properly made. There is a fatalis-
tic temper of mind found in some of the greatest
men of action, religious and irreligious, in which the
sense that all that happens is fore-ordained does in
no Avay weaken the energy of volition, but only
adds a finer temper to the courage. It nevertheless
remains the fact that the persistent realisation of
the doctrine that voluntary decisions are as com-
pletely determined by external and (if you go far
enough back) by material conditions as involuntary
ones, does really conflict with the sense of personal
responsibility, and that with the sense of personal
responsibility is bound up the moral will. Nor is
this all. It may be a small matter that determinism
should render it thoroughly irrational to feel right-
eous indignation at the misconduct of other people.
It cannot be wholly without importance that it
should render it equally irrational to feel righteous
indignation at our own. Self-condemnation, repent-
ance, remorse, and the whole train of cognate emo-
tions, are really so useful for the promotion of virt-
ue that it is a pity to find them at a stroke thus
NATURALISM AND ETHICS 25
deprived of all reasonable foundation, and reduced,
if they are to survive at all, to the position of ami-
able but unintelligent weaknesses. It is clear, more-
over, that these emotions, if they are to fall, will not
fall alone. What is to become of moral admiration?
The virtuous man will, indeed, continue to deserve
and to receive admiration of a certain kind — the
admiration, namely, which w^e justly accord to a
well-made machine ; but this is a very different senti-
ment from that at present evoked by the heroic or
the saintly;* and it is, therefore, much to be feared
that, at least in the region of the higher feelings,
the world will be no great gainer by the effective
spread of sound naturalistic doctrine.
No doubt this conflict between a creed which
claims intellectual assent and emotions which have
their root and justification in beliefs which are
deliberately rejected, is greatly mitigated by the
precious faculty which the human race enjoys of
quietly ignoring the logical consequences of its own
accepted theories. If the abstract reason by which
such theories are contrived always ended in pro-
ducing a practice corresponding to them, natural
selection would long ago have killed off all those
who possessed abstract reason. If a complete
accord between practice and speculation were
required of us, philosophers would long ago have
been eliminated. Nevertheless, the persistent con-
flict between that which is thought to be true,
and that which is felt to be noble and of good
26 NATURALISM AND ETHICS
report, not only produces a sense of moral unrest in
the individual, but makes it impossible for us to
avoid the conclusion that the creed which leads to
such results is, somehow, unsuited for ' such beings
as we are in such a world as ours.'
Ill
There is thus an incongruity between the senti-
ments subservient to morality, and the naturalistic
account of their origin. It remains to inquire
whether any better harmony prevails between the
demands of the ethical imagination and what
Naturalism tells us concerning the final goal of all
human endeavour.
This is plainly not a question of small or sub-
sidiary importance, though it is one which I shall
make no attempt to treat with anything like com-
pleteness. Two only of these ethical demands is it
necessary, indeed, that I should here refer to : that
which requires the ends prescribed by morality to
be consistent; and that which requires them to be
adequate. Can we say that either one or the other
is of a kind which the naturalistic theory is able to
satisfy ?
The first of these questions — that relating to
consistency — w^ill no doubt be dealt with in different
ways by various schools of moralists ; but by what-
ever path they travel, all should arrive at a negative
conclusion. Those who hold as I do. that ' reason-
NATURALISM AND ETHICS 27
able self-love' has a legitimate position among
ethical ends ; that as a matter of fact it is a virtue
wholly incompatible with what is commonly called
selfishness ; and that societ}^ suffers not from having
too much of it, but from having too little, will
probably take the view that, until the world under-
goes a very remarkable transformation, a complete
harmony between ' egoism ' and ' altruism,' between
the pursuit of the highest happiness for one's self
and the highest happiness for other people, can
never be provided by a creed which refuses to
admit that the deeds done and the character
formed in this life can flow over into another,
and there permit a reconciliation and an adjust-
ment between the conflicting principles which are
not always possible here. To those, again, who
hold (as I think, erroneously), both that the
'greatest happiness of the greatest number 'is the
right end of action, and also that, as a matter of fact,
every agent invariably pursues his own, a heaven
and a hell, which should make it certain that
principle and interest were always in agreement,
would seem almost a necessity. Not otherwise,
neither by education, public opinion, nor positive
law, can there be any assured harmony produced
between that which man must do by the constitution
of his will, and that which he ought to do according
to the promptings of his conscience. On the other
hand, it must be acknowledged that those moralists
who are of opinion that ' altruistic ' ends alone are
28 NATURALISM AND ETHICS
worthy of being described as moral, and that man is
not incapable of pursuing them without any self-
regarding motives, require no future life to eke out
their practical system. But even they would prob-
ably not be unwilling to admit, with the rest of the
world, that there is something jarring to the moral
sense in a comparison between the distribution of
happiness and the distribution of virtue, and that no
better mitigation of the difficulty has yet been
suggested than that which is provided by a system
of ' rewards and punishments,' impossible in any uni-
verse constructed on strictly naturalistic principles.
With this bare indication of some of the points
which naturally suggest themselves in connection
with the first question suggested above, I pass on to
the more interesting problem raised by the second :
that which is concerned with the r;;^^/z^?/^/ adequacy
of the ends prescribed by Naturalistic Ethics. And
in order to consider this to the best advantage I
will assume that we are dealing with an ethical sys-
tem which puts these ends at their highest ; which
charges them, as it were, to the full with all that,
on the naturalistic theor}^, they are capable of con-
taining. Taking, then, as my text no narrow or
egoistic scheme, I will suppose that in the per-
fection and felicity of the sentient creation we may
find the all-inclusive object prescribed by morality
for human endeavour. Does this, then, or does it
not, supply us with all that is needed to satisfy our
ethical imagination ? Does it, or docs it not, pro-
NATURALISM AND ETHICS 29
vide us with an ideal end, not merely big enough
to exhaust our energies, but great enough to satisfy
our aspirations ?
At first sight the question may seem absurd.
The object is admittedly worthy ; it is admittedly
beyond our reach. The unwearied efforts of count-
less generations, the slow accumulation of inherited
experience, may, to those who find themselves able
to read optimism into evolution, promise some faint
approximation to the millennium at some far distant
epoch. How, then, can we, whose own contribution
to the great result must be at the best insignificant,
at the worst nothing or worse than nothing, presume
to think that the prescribed object is less than
adequate to our highest emotional requirements ?
The reason is plain: our ideals are framed, not
according to the measure of our performances, but
according to the measure of our thoughts; and our
thoughts about the world in which we live tend,
under the intiuence <)[ increasins: knowledii^e, con-
stantly to dwarf our estimate of the im[)ortance of
man, ii roan belndeed^ as Naturalism would have us
believe, no more than a phenomenon among phenom-
la, a natural object among other natural objects. _
■^ov whatls^mah looked at from this point of
view ? Time was when his tribe and its fortunes
were enough to exhaust the energies and to bound
the imagination of the primitive sage.^ The gods'
' The line of thought here is identical with that which I pursued
in an already published essay on the Religion of Humanity, I
'a
30 NATURALISM AND ETHICS
peculiar care, the central object of an attendant uni-
verse, that for which the sun shone and the dew
fell, to which the stars in their courses ministered, it
drew its origin in the past from divine ancestors,
and might by divine favour be destined to an indef-
inite existence of success and triumph in the future.
These ideas represent no early or rudimentary
stage in the human thought, yet have we left them
far behind. The family, the tribe, the nation, are
y no longer enough to absorb our interests. Man —
/ past, present, and future — lays claim to our devo-
1 tion. What, then, can we say of him ? Man, so far
as natural science by itself is able to teach us, is no
longer the final cause of the universe, the Heaven-
descended heir of all the ages. His very existence
is an accident, his story a brief and transitory
episode in the life of one of the meanest of the
planets. Of the combination of causes which first
converted a dead organic compound into the living
I progenitors of humanity, science, indeed, as yet
I knows nothing. It is enough that from such begin-
I nings famine, disease, and mutual slaughter, fit nurses
^ of the future lords of creation, have gradually
i evolved, after infinite travail, a race with conscience
•- enough to feel that it is vile, and intelligence
I enough to know that it is insignificant. We survey
the past, and see that its history is of blood and tears,
of helpless blundering, of wild revolt, of stupid ac-
have not hesitated to borrow the phraseology of that essay wherever
it seemed convenient.
NATURALISM AND ETHICS 31
quiescence, of empty aspirations. We sound the
future, and learn that after a period, long compared
with the individual life, but short indeed compared
with the divisions of time open to our investigation,
the energies of our system will decay, the glory of
the sun will be dimmed, and the earth, tideless and
inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for
a moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down
into the pit, and all his thoughts will perish. The
uneasy consciousness, which in this obscure corner
has for a brief space broken the contented silence of
the universe, will be at rest. Matter will know itself
no longer. ' Imperishable monuments ' and ' immortal
deeds,' death itself, and love stronger than death,
will be as though they had never been. Nor will
anything that is be better or be worse for all that the
labour, genius, devotion, and suffering of man have
striven through countless generations to effect.
It is no reply to say that the substance of the
Moral Law need suffer no change through any
modification of our views of man's place in the
universe. This may be true, but it is irrelevant.
We desire, and desire most passionately when we
are most ourselves, to give our service to that which
is Universal, and to that which is Abiding. Of what
moment is it, then (from this point of view), to be
assured of the fixity of the moral law when it and
the sentient world, where alone it has any signifi-
cance, are alike destined to vanish utterly away
within periods trifling beside those with which the
32 NATURALISM AND ETHICS
geologist and the astronomer lightly deal in the
course of their habitual speculations ? No doubt to
us ordinary men in our ordinary moments considera-
tions like these may seem far off and of little mean-
ing. In the hurry and bustle of every-day life death
itself — the death of the individual — seems shadowy
and unreal ; how much more shadowy, how much
less real, that remoter but not less certain death
which must some day overtake the race ! Yet, after
all, it is in moments of reflection that the worth of
creeds may best be tested ; it is through moments of
reflection that they come into living and effectual
contact with our active life. It cannot, therefore, be
a matter to us of small moment that, as we learn to
survey the material world w^ith a wider vision, as we
more clearly measure the true proportions which
man and his performances bear to the ordered Whole,
our practical ideal gets relatively dwarfed and
beggared, till we may well feel inclined to ask
whether so transitory and so unimportant an acci-
dent in the general scheme of things as the fortunes
of the human race can any longer satisfy aspirations
and emotions nourished upon beliefs in the Ever-
lasting and the Divine.
CHAPTER II
NATURALISM AND ^ESTHETIC
In the last chapter I considered the effects which
Naturalism must tend to produce upon the senti-
ments associated with Morality. I now proceed to
consider the same question in connection with the
sentiments known as aesthetic ; and as I assumed that
the former class were, like other evolutionary utilities,
in the main produced by the normal operation of
selection, so I now assume that the latter, being (at
least in any developed stage) quite useless for the
preservation of the individual or species, must be re-
garded, upon the naturalistic hypothesis, as mere by-
products of the great machinery by which organic
life is varied and sustained. It will not, I hope, be
supposed that I propose to offer this distinction as a
material contribution towards the definition either
of ethic or of aesthetic sentiments. This is a ques-
tion in which I am in no way interested ; and I am
quite prepared to admit that some emotions which
in ordinary language would be described as ' moral,*
are useless enough to be included in the class of
natural accidents ; and also that this class may,
3
34 NATURALISM AND .ESTHETIC
indeed does, include many emotions which no one
following common usage would characterise as
aesthetic. The fact remains, however, that the
capacity for every form of feeling must in the main
either be, or not be, the direct result of selection
and elimination ; and whereas in the first section of
the last chapter I considered the former class, taking
moral emotion as their type, so now I propose to
offer some observations on the second class, taking
as their type the emotions excited by the Beautiful.
Whatever value these Notes may have will not
necessarily be affected by any error that I may
have made in the apportionment between the two
divisions, and the reader may make what redistri-
bution he thinks fit, without thereby necessarily in-
validating the substance of the conclusions which I
offer for his acceptance.
I do not, however, anticipate that there will be
any serious objection raised from the scientific side
to the description of developed aesthetic emotion as
' accidental,' in the sense in which that word is
here employed. The obstacle I have to deal with
in conducting the argument of this chapter is of a
different kind. My object is to indicate the conse-
quences which flow from a purely naturalistic treat-
ment of the theory of the Beautiful ; and I am at once
met with the difficulty that, so far as I am aware,
no such treatment has ever been attempted on a
large scale, and that the fragmentary contributions
which have been made to the subject do not meet
NATURALISM AND .ESTHETIC 35
with general acceptance on the part of scientific in-
vestigators themselves. To say that certain capaci-
ties for highly complex feeling are not the direct
result of natural selection, and were not evolved to
aid the race in the struggle for existence, may be a
true, but is a purely negative account of the matter,
and gives but little help in dealing with the two
questions to which an answer is especially required :
namely. What are the causes, historical, psychologi-
cal, and physiological, which enable us to derive aes-
thetic gratification from some objects, and forbid us
to derive it from others ? and, Is there any fixed and
permanent element in Beauty, any unchanging reali-
ty which we perceive in or through beautiful objects,
and to which normal aesthetic feelings correspond ?
Now, it is clear that on the naturalistic hypothesis
the second question cannot be properly dealt with
till some sort of answer has been given to the first ;
and the answers given to the first seem so unsat-
isfactory that they can hardly be regarded as even
provisionally adequate.
In order to realise the difficulties and, as I think,
the shortcomings of existing theories on the sub-
ject, let us take the case of Music — by far the most
convenient of the Fine Arts for our purpose, part-
ly because, unlike Architecture, it serves no very
obvious purpose,^ and we are thus absolved from
' I may be permitted to ignore Mr. Spencer's suggestion that
ihe function of music is to promote sympathy by improving our
modulation in speech.
36 NATURALISM AND ESTHETIC
giving any opinion on the relation between beauty
and utility; partly because, unlike Painting and
Poetry, it has no external reference, and we are thus
absolved from giving any opinion on the relation
between beauty and truth. Of the inestimable
blessings which these peculiarities carry with them,
anyone may judge who has ever got bogged in the
barren controversies concerning the Beautiful and
the Useful, the Real and the Ideal, which fill so large
a space in certain classes of aesthetic literature.
Great indeed will he feel the advantages to be of
dealing with an Art whose most characteristic
utterances have so little directly to do, either with
utility or truth.
What, then, is the cause of our delight in Music?
It is sometimes hastily said to have originated in
the ancestors of man through the action of sexual
selection. This is of course impossible. Sexual
selection can only work on materials already in
existence. Like other forms of selection, it can im-
prove, but it cannot create; and the capacity for
enjoying music (or noise) on the part of the female,
and the capacity for making it on the part of the
male, must both have existed in a rudimentary state
before matrimonial preferences can have improved
either one gift or the other. I do not in any case
quite understand how sexual selection is supposed
even to improve the capacity for enjoyment. If the
taste exist, it can no doubt develop the means re-
quired for its gratification ; but how can it improve
NATURALISM AND ESTHETIC 37
the taste itself? The females of certain species o\
spiders, I believe, like to see good dancing. Sexual
selection, therefore, no doubt may gradually improve
the dancing of the male. The females of many
animals are, it seems, fond of particular kinds of
noise. Sexual selection may therefore gradually fur-
nish the male with the apparatus by which appro-
priate noises may be produced. In both cases,
however, a pre-existing taste is the cause of the
variation, not the variation of the taste ; nor, ex-
cept in the case of the advanced arts, which do not
flourish at a period when those who successfully
practise them have any advantage in the matri-
monial struggle, does taste appear to be one of the
necessary qualifications of the successful artist. Of
course, if violin - playing were an important aid to
courtship, sexual selection would tend to develop
that musical feeling and discrimination, without
which good violin-playing is impossible. But a
grasshopper requires no artistic sensibility before
it can successfully rub its wing-cases together ; so
that Nature is only concerned to provide the an-
atomical machinery by which such rubbing may
result in a sibilation gratifying to the existing
aesthetic sensibilities of the female, but cannot in
any way be concerned in developing the artistic
side of those sensibilities themselves.
Sexual selection, therefore, however well it may
be fitted to give an explanation of a large number of
animal noises and of the growth of the organs by
38 NATURALISM AND ESTHETIC
which they are produced, throws but little light on
the origin and development of musical feeling, either
in animals or men. And the other explanations I
have seen do not seem to me much better. Take,
for instance, Mr. Spencer's modification of Rousseau's
theory. According to Mr. Spencer, strong emotions
are naturally accompanied by muscular exertion, and,
among other muscular exertions, by contractions
and extensions of ' the muscles of the chest, abdomen,
and vocal cords.' The resultant noises recall by
association the emotions which gave them birth, and
from this primordial coincidence sprang, as we are
asked to believe, first cadenced speech, and then
music. Now I do not desire to quarrel with the
* primordial coincidence.' My point is, that even if
it ever took place, it affords no explanation of any
modern feeling for music. Grant that a particular
emotion produced a ' contraction of the abdomen,'
that the ' contraction of the abdomen ' produced a
sound or series of sounds, and that, through this
association with the originating emotion, the sound
ultimately came to have independent aesthetic value,
how are we advanced towards any explanation of
the fact that quite different sound-effects now please
us, and that the nearer we get to the original noises,
the more hideous they appear? How does the ' pri-
mordial coincidence ' account for our ancestors lik^
ing the tom-tom? And how does the fact that our
ancestors liked the tom-tom account for our liking
the Ninth Symphon}^ ?
NATURALISM AND ESTHETIC 39
The truth is that Mr. Spencer's theory, like all
others which endeavour to trace back the pleasure-
giving qualities of art to some simple and original
association, slurs over the real difficulties of the
problem. If it is the primitive association which
produces the pleasure-giving quality, the further this
is left behind by the developing art, the less pleasure
should be produced. Of course, if the art is con-
tinually fed from other associations and different
experiences, if fresh emotional elements are con-
stantly added to it capable of being worn and
weathered into the fitting soil for an assthetic har-
shest, in that case, no doubt, we may suppose that
with each new development its pleasure - giving
qualities may be enriched and multiplied. But then,
it is to these new elements and to these new experi-
ences, not to the ' primordial coincidence,' that we
should mainly look for the causal explanation of
our aesthetic feeling. In the case of music, where
are these new elements and experiences to be
found ? None can tell us ; few theorists even try.
Indeed, the procedure of those who account for
music by searching for the primitive association
which first in the history of man or of his ancestors
conferred aesthetic value upon noise, is as if one
should explain the Amazon in its flood by point-
ing to the rivulet in the far Andes which, as the
tributary most distant from its mouth, has the honour
of being called its source. This may be allowed to
stand as a geographical description, but it is very
40 NATURALISM AND ESTHETIC
inadequate as a physical explanation. Dry up the
rivulet, and the huge river would still flow on,
without abatement or diminution. Only its titular
origin has been touched ; and if we would know the
Amazon in its beginnings, and trace back the history
of the vast result through all the complex ramifica-
tions of its contributory causes, each great confluent
must be explored, each of the countless streams
enumerated whose gathered waters sweep into the
sea four thousand miles across the plain.
The imperfection of this mode of procedure will
become clear if we compare it with that adopted
by the same school of theorists when they endeavour
to explain the beauty of landscape. I do not mean
to express any assent to their account of the causes
of our feelings for scenery ; on the contrary, these
accounts seem to me untenable. But though unten-
able, they are not on the face of them inadequate.
Natural objects — the sky and hills, woods and waters
— are spread out before us as they were spread out
before our remotest ancestors, and there is no ob-
vious absurdity (if the hereditary transmission of
acquired qualities be granted) in conceiving them,
through the secular experience of mankind, to be-
come charged with associations which reappear for
us in the vague and massive form of sesthetic pleas-
ure. But according to all association theories of
music, that which is charged with the raw material of
aesthetic pleasure is not the music we wish to have
explained, but some primeval howl, or at best the
NATURALISM AND ESTHETIC 4I
unmusical variations of ordinary speech, and no
solution whatever is offered of the paradox that the
sounds which give musical delight have no associa-
tions, and that the sounds which have associations
give no musical delight.
It is, perhaps, partly in consequence of these or
analogous difficulties, but mainly in consequence of
his views on heredity, which preclude him from
accepting any theory which involves the transmis-
sion of acquired qualities, that Weismann gives an
account of the musical sense which is practically
equivalent to the denial that any explanation of the
pleasure we derive from music is possible at all.
For him, the faculties which enable us to appreciate
and enjoy music were evolved for entirely differ-
ent purposes, and it is a mere accident that, when
they come into relation with certain combinations
of sound, we obtain through their means assthetic
gratification. Mankind, no doubt, are continually
inventing new musical devices, as they are con-
tinually inventing new dishes. But as the second
process implies an advance in the art of cookery,
but no transmitted modification in the human pal-
ate, so the former implies musical progress, but no
change in the innate capacities of successive genera-
tions of listeners.^
^ I have made no allusion to Helmholtz's classic investigations,
for these deal chiefly with the physical character of the sounds, or
combinations of sound, which give us pleasure, but do not pretend
fully to answer the question why they give pleasure.
42 NATURALISM AND .ESTHETIC
II
This is, perhaps, a sufficiently striking example of
the unsatisfactory condition of scientific aesthetics,
and may serve to show how difficult it is to find in
the opinions of different authorities a common body
of doctrine on which to rest the argument of this
chapter. I should imagine, however, both from
the speculations to which I have just briefly ad-
verted, and from any others with which I am ac-
quainted, that no person who is at all in sympathy
with the naturalistic view of things would maintain
that there anywhere exists an intrinsic and essential
quality of beauty, independent of the feelings and
the taste of the observer. The very nature, indeed,
of the senses principally engaged indicates that on
the naturalistic hypothesis they cannot, in most cases,
refer to any external and permanent object of beauty.
For Naturalism (as commonly held) is deeply com-
mitted to the distinction between the primary and
the secondary qualities of matter ; the former (exten-
sion, solidity, and so forth) being supposed to exist as
they are perceived, while the latter (such as sound and
colour) are due to the action of the primary qualities
upon the sentient organism, and apart from the sen-
tient organism have no independent being. Every
scene in Nature, therefore, and every work of art,
whose beauty consists either directly or indirectly,
either presentatively or representatively, in colour or
NATURALISM AND .ESTHETIC 43
in sound, has, and can have, no more permanent exist-
ence than is possessed by that relation between the
senses and our material environment which gave
them birth, and in the absence of which they perish.
If we could perceive the succession of events which
constitute a sunset exactly as they occur, as they
are (physically, not metaphysically speaking) in
themselves, they would, so far as we can guess, have
no aesthetic merit, or even meaning. If we could
perform the same operation on a symphony, it
would end in a like result. The first would be no
more than a special agitation of the ether ; the
second would be no more than a special agitation
of the air. However much they might excite the
curiosity of the physicist or the mathematician, for
the artist they could no longer possess either inter-
est or significance.
It might, however, be said that the Beautiful,
although it cannot be called permanent as compared
with the general framework of the external world,
is, nevertheless, sufficiently permanent for all human
purposes, inasmuch as it depends upon fixed rela-
tions between our senses and their material sur-
roundings. Without at present stopping to dispute
this, let us consider whether we have any right to
suppose that even this degree of ' objectivity ' can
be claimed for the quality of beauty. In order to
settle the question we can, on the naturalistic
hypothesis, appeal, it would seem, to only one
authority, namely, the experience of mankind.
44 NATURALISM AND ESTHETIC
Does this, then, provide us with any evidence that
beauty is more than the name for a miscellaneous
flux of endlessly varying causes, possessing no
property in common, except that at some place, at
some time, and in some person, they have shown
themselves able to evoke the kind of feeling
which we choose to describe as aesthetic ?
Put thus there seems room for but one answer.
The variations of opinion on the subject of beauty
are notorious. Discordant pronouncements are
made by different races, different ages, different
individuals, the same individual at different times.
Nor does it seem possible to devise any scheme by
which an authoritative verdict can be extracted from
this chaos of contradiction. An appeal, indeed, is
sometimes made from the opinion of the vulgar to
the decision of persons of ^ trained sensibility ' ; and
there is no doubt that, as a matter of fact, through
the action of those who profess to belong to this
class, an orthodox tradition has grown up which
may seem at first sight almost to provide some faint
approximation to the ' objective ' standard of which
we are in search. Yet it Avill be evident on con^
sideration that it is not simply on their ' trained
sensibility ' that experts rely in forming their
opinion. The ordinar}^ critical estimate of a work
of art is the result of a highly complicated set of
antecedents, and by no means consists in a simple
and naked valuation of the ' aesthetic thrill ' which
the atoresaid work produces in the critic, now and
NATURALISM AND .ESTHETIC 45
here. If it were so, clearly it could not be of any
importance to the art critic when and by whom any
particular work of art was produced. Problems of
age and questions of authorship would be left en-
tirely to the historian, and the student of the beau-
tiful would, as such, ask himself no question but
this: How and why are my gesthetic sensibilities
affected by this statue, poem, picture, as it is in
itself ? or (to put the same thing in a form less open
to metaphysical disputation), What would my feelings
towards it be if I were totally ignorant of its date,
its author, and the circumstances of its production ?
As we all know, these collateral considerations
are never in practice ignored by the critic. He is
preoccupied, and rightly preoccupied, by a multi-
tude oi questions beyond the mere valuation of the
outstanding amount of aesthetic enjoyment which,
in the year 1892, any artistic or literary work, taken
simpliciter, is, as a matter of fact, capable 0/ produc-
ing. He is much concerned with its technical pecul-
iarities. He is anxious to do justice to its author,
to assign him his true rank among the productive
geniuses of his age and country, to make due allow-
ance for his ' environment,' for the traditions in
which he was nurtured, for the causes which make
his creative genius embody itself in one form rather
than in another. Never for one instant does the
critic forget, or allow his reader to forget, that the
real magnitude of the foreshortened object under
observation must be estimated by the rules of his-
46 NATURALISM AND /ESTHETIC
torical perspective. Never does he omit, in dealing
with the artistic legacies of bygone times, to take
account of any long - accepted opinion which may
exist concerning them. He endeavours to make
himself the exponent of the ' correct view.' His
judgment is, consciously or unconsciously, but not,
I think, wrongly, a sort of compromise between that
which he would form if he drew solely from his
own inner experience, and that which has been
formed for him by the accumulated wusdom of his
predecessors on the bench. He expounds case-
made law. He is partly the creature and partly the
creator of a critical tradition ; and we can easily
conjecture how devious his course would be, were
his orbit not largely controlled by the attraction of
received views, if we watch the disastrous fate
which so often overtakes him when he pronounces
judgment on new works, or on works of which
there is no estimate embodied in any literary creed
which he thinks it necessary to respect. Voltaire's
opinion of Shakespeare does not make one think
less of Voltaire, but it throws an interesting light
on the genesis of average critical decisions and the
normal growth of taste.
From these considerations, which might easily
be supplemented, it seems plain that the opinions of
critical experts represent, not an objective standard,
if such a thing there be, but an historical compro-
mise. The agreement among them, so far as such a
thing is to be found, is not due solely to the fact
NATURALISM AND .ESTHETIC 47
that with their own eyes they all see the same
things, and therefore say the same things ; it is not
wholly the result of a common experience : it arises
in no small measure from their sympathetic endeav-
ours to see as others have seen, to feel as others
have felt, to judge as others have judged. This
may be, and I suppose is, the fairest way of compar-
ing the merits of deceased artists. But, at the same
time, it makes it impossible for us to attach much
weight to the assumed consensus of the ages, or to
suppose that this, so far as it exists, implies the
reality of a standard independent of the varying
whims and fancies of individual critics. In truth,
however, the consensus of the ages, even about the
greatest works of creative genius, is not only in part
due to the process of critical manufacture indicated
above, but its whole scope and magnitude are ab-
surdly exaggerated in the phrases which pass cur-
rent on the subject. This is not a question, be it
observed, of aesthetic right and wrong, of good taste
or bad taste ; it is a question of statistics. We are
not here concerned with what the mass of mankind,
even of educated mankind, ought to feel, but with
what as a matter of fact they do feel, about the
works of literature and art which they have inher-
ited from the past. And I believe that every im-
partial observer will admit that, of the aesthetic
emotion actually experienced by any generation, the
merest fraction is due to the 'immortal ' productions
of the generations which have long preceded it.
J
48 NATURALISM AND .ESTHETIC
Their immortality is largely an immortality of
libraries and museums ; they supply material to
critics and historians, rather than enjoyment to
mankind ; and if it were to be maintained that one
music-hall song gives more aesthetic pleasure in a
night than the most exquisite compositions of Pales-
trina in a decade, I know not how the proposition
could be refuted.
The ancient Norsemen supposed that besides the
soul of the dead, which went to the region of de-
parted spirits, there survived a ghost, haunting,
though not for ever, the scenes of his earthly la-
bours. At first vivid and almost lifelike, it slowly
waned and faded, until at length it vanished, leav-
ing behind it no trace or memory of its spectral
presence amidst the throng of living men. So, it
seems to me, is the immortality we glibly predicate
of departed artists. If they survive at all, it is but
a shadowy life they live, moving on through the
gradations of slow decay to distant but inevitable
death. They can no longer, as heretofore, speak
directly to the hearts of their fellow-men, evoking
their tears or laughter, and all the pleasures, be
they sad or merry, of which imagination holds the
secret. Driven from the market-place, they become
first the companions of the student, then the victims
of the specialist. He who would still hold familiar
intercourse with them must train himself to pene-
trate the veil which, in ever-thickening folds, con-
ceals them from the ordinary gaze ; he must catch
/ceais
%
NATURALISM AND ESTHETIC 49
the tone of a vanished society, he must move in a
circle of alien associations, he must think in a lan-
guage not his own. Need we, then, wonder that
under such conditions the outfit of a critic is as
much intellectual as emotional, or that if from off
the complex sentiments with which they regard the
' immortal legacies of the past ' we strip all that is
due to interests connected with history, with biog-
raphy, with critical analyses, with scholarship, and
with technique, but a small modicum will, as a rule,
remain which can with justice be attributed to pure
aesthetic sensibility.
Ill
I have, however, no intention of implying by the
preceding observations that the aesthetic feelings
of ' the vulgar ' are less sophisticated than those of
the learned. A very cursory examination of * public
taste ' and its revolutions may suffice to convince
anyone of the contrary. And, in the first place, let
us ask why every ' public ' has a taste ? And why,
at least in Western communities, that taste is so apt
to alter? Why, in other words, do communities or
sections of communities so often feel the same thing
at the same time, and so often feel different things at
different times? Why is there so much uniformity,
and why is there so much change ?
These questions are of great interest, although
they have not, perhaps, met with all the attention
4
50 NATURALISM AND ESTHETIC
they deserve. In these Notes it would not be fitting
to attempt to deal with them at length, and I shall
only offer observations on two points which seem
relevant to the design of the present chapter.
The question of Uniformity is best approached
at the humbler end of the aesthetic scale, in connec-
tion, not with art in its narrower and loftier sense,
but with dress. Everybody is acquainted, either
by observation or by personal experience, with the
coercive force of fashion ; but not everybody is
aware what an instructive and interesting phenom-
enon it presents. Consider the case of bonnets.
During the same season all persons belonging, or
aspiring to belong, to the same ' public,' if they wear
bonnets at all, wear bonnets modelled on the same
type. Why do they do this ? If we were asking a
similar question, not about bonnets, but about steam-
engines, the answer would be plain. People tend
at the same date to use the same kind of engine for
the same kind of purpose because it is the best avail-
able. They change their practice when a better one
is invented. But as so used the words ' better* and
' best ' have no application to modern dress. Neither
efficiency nor economy, it will at once be admitted,
supplies the grounds of choice or the motives for
variation.
If, again, we were asking the question about some
great phase of art, we should probably be told that
the general acceptance of it by a whole generation
was due to some important combination of historic
NATURALISM AND ESTHETIC 5 1
causes, acting alike on artist and on public. Such
causes no doubt exist and have existed ; but the case
of fashion proves that uniformity is not produced by
them alone, since it will hardly be pretended that
there is any widely diffused cause in the social
environment, except the coercive operation of fash-
ion itself, which should make the bonnets which
were thought becoming in 1881 unbecoming in the
year 1892.
Again, we might be told that art contains essen-
tial principles of self-development, which require one
productive phase to succeed another by a kind of
inner necessity, and determine not merely that there
shall be variation, but what that variation shall be.
This also may be, and is, in a certain sense, true.
But it can hardly be supposed that we can explain
the fashions which prevail in any year by assuming,
not merely that the fashions of the previous years
were foredoomed to change, but also that, in the na-
ture of the case, only one change was possible, that,
namely, which actually took place. Such a doctrine
would be equivalent to saying that if all the bonnet-
wearers were for a space deprived of any knowledge
of each other's proceedings (all other things remain-
ing the same), they would, on the resumption of their
ordinary intercourse, find that they had all inclined
towards much the same modification of the type of
bonnet prevalent before their separation — a con-
clusion which seems to me, I confess, to be some-
what improbable.
52 NATURALISM AND .ESTHETIC
It may perhaps be hazarded, as a further expla-
nation, that this uniformity of practice is indeed a fact,
and is really produced by a complex group of causes
which we denominate ' fashion,' but that it is a
uniformity of practice alone, not of taste or feeling,
and has no real relation to any aesthetic problem
whatever. This is a question the answer to which
can be supplied, I apprehend, by observation alone ;
and the answer which observation enables us to give
seems to me quite unambiguous. If, as is possi-
ble, my readers have but small experience in such
matters themselves, let them examine the experi-
ences of their acquaintance. They will ftnd, if I
mistake not, that by whatever means conformity to
a particular pattern may have been brought about,
those who conform are not, as a rule, conscious of
coercion by an external and arbitrary authority.
They do not act under penalty ; they yield no un-
willing obedience. On the contrary, their admira-
tion for a ' well-dressed person,' qua well-dressed, is
at least as genuine an aesthetic approval as any they
are in the habit of expressing for other forms of
beauty ; just as their objection to an outworn fash-
ion is based on a perfectly genuine cesthetic dislike.
They are repelled by the unaccustomed sight, as a
reader of discrimination is repelled by turgidity or
false pathos. It appears to them ugly, even gro-
tesque, and they turn from it with an aversion as
disinterested, as unperturbed by personal or ' so-
ciety ' considerations, as if they were critics contem-
NATURALISM AND ESTHETIC 53
plating the production of some pretender in the
region of Great Art.
In truth this tendency in matters aesthetic is only
a particular case of a general tendency to agreement
which plays an even more important part in other
departments of human activity. Its operation, benefi-
cent doubtless on the whole, may be traced through
all social and political life. We owe to it in part
that deep-lying likeness in tastes, in opinions, and in
habits, without which cohesion among the individ-
ual units of a community would be impossible, and
which constitutes the unmoved platform on which
we fight out our political battles. It is no contemp-
tible factor among the forces by which nations are
created and religions disseminated and maintained.
It is the very breath of life to sects and coteries.
Sometimes, no doubt, its results are ludicrous.
Sometimes they are unfortunate. Sometimes merely
insignificant. Under which of these heads we should
class our ever-changing uniformity in dress I will
not take upon me to determine. It is sufficient for
my present purpose to point out that the aesthetic
likings which fashion originates, however trivial, are
perfectly genuine ; and that to an origin similar in
kind, however different in dignity and permanence,
should be traced much of the characteristic quality
which gives its special flavour to the higher artistic
sentiments of each successive generation.
54 NATURALISM AND ESTHETIC
IV
It is, of course, true that this ' tendency to agree,
ment,'^ this principle of drill, cannot itself determine
the objects in respect of which the agreement is to
take place. It can do much to make every member
of a particular ' public * like the same bonnet, or the
same epic, at the same time ; but it cannot deter-
mine what that bonnet or that epic is to be. A
fashion, as the phrase goes, has to be ' set,' and the
persons who set it manifestly do not follow it. What,
then, do they follow ? We note the influences that
move the flock. What moves the bell-wether?
Here again much might conveniently be learnt
from an examination of fashion and its changes, for
these provide us with a field of research where we
are disturbed by no preconceived theories or incon-
venient admirations, and where we may dissect our
subject with the cold impartiality which befits
scientific investigation. The reader, however, may
think that enough has been done already by this
method ; and I shall accordingly pursue a more
general treatment of the subject, premising that in
the brief observations which follow no complete
' Of course the ' tendency to agreement ' is not presented to the
reader as a simple, undecomposable social force. It is, doubtless,
highly complex, one of its most important elements being, I sup-
pose, the instinct of uncritical imitation, which is the very basis of all
effective education. The line of thought hinted at in this paragraph
is pursued much further in the Third Part of this Essay.
NATURALISM AND .ESTHETIC 55
analysis of the complexity of concrete Nature is
attempted, or is, indeed, necessary for my purpose.
It will be convenient, in the first place, to dis-
tinguish between the mode in which the public who
enjoy, and the artists who produce, respectively
promote aesthetic change. That the public are often
weary and expectant — weary of what is provided for
them, and expectant of some good thing to come —
will hardly be denied. Yet I do not think they can
be usually credited with the conscious demand for a
fresh artistic development. For though they often
want some new thing, they do not often want a new
kifid of thing ; and accordingly it commonly, though
not invariably, happens that, when the new thing
appears, it is welcomed at first by the few, and only
gradually — by the force of fashion and otherwise
— conquers the genuine admiration of the many.
The artist, on the other hand, is moved in no
small measure by a desire that his work should be
his own, no pale reflection of another's methods,
but an expression of himself in his own language.
He will vary for the better if he can, yet, rather than
be conscious of repetition, he will vary for the worse ;
for vary he must, either in substance or in form,
unless he is to be in his own eyes, not a creator, but
an imitator ; not an artist, but a copyist.^
It will be observed that I am not obliged to
* No doubt it is an echo of this feeling that makes purchasers
commonly prefer a bad original to the best copy of the best original—
a preference which in argument it would be exceedingly difficult to
justify.
$6 NATURALISM AND ^ESTHETIC
draw the dividing-line between originality and pla-
giarism ; to distinguish between the man who is one
of a school, and the man who has done no more
than merely catch the trick of a master. It is
enough that the artist himself draws the distinction,
and will never consciously allow himself to sink from
the first categor}^ into the second.
We have here, then, a general cause of change,
but not a cause of change in any particular direction,
or of any particular amount. These I believe to be
determined in part by the relation between the
artists and the public for whom they produce, and in
part by the condition of the art itself at the time the
change occurs. As regards the first, it is commonly
said that the artist is the creation of his age, and the
discovery of this fact is sometimes thought to be a
momentous contribution made by science to the
theory of aesthetic evolution. The statement, how-
ever, is unfortunately worded. The action of the
age is, no doubt, important, but it would be more
accurate, I imagine, to describe it as destructive
than as creative ; it does r^ot so much produce as
select. It is true, of course, that the influence of
' the environment ' in moulding, developing, and
stimulating genius within the limits of its original
capacity is very great, and may seem, especially in
the humbler walks of artistic production, to be all-
powerful. But innate and original genius is not the
creation of any age. It is a biological accident, the
incalculable product of two sets of ancestral ten-
NATURALISM AND .'ESTHETIC 57
dencies ; and what the age does to these biological
accidents is not to create them, but to choose from
them, to encourage those which are in harmony with
its spirit, to crush out and to sterilise the rest. Its
action is analogous to that which a plot of ground
exercises on the seeds which fall upon it. Some
thrive, some languish, some die; and the resulting
vegetation is sharply characterised, not because few
kinds of seed have there sown themselves, but
because few kinds have been allowed to grow up.
Without pushing the parallel too far, it may yet
serve to illustrate the truth that, as a stained win-
dow derives its character and significance from the
absorption of a large portion of the rays which
endeavour to pass through it, so an age is what it is,
not only by reason of what it fosters, but as much,
perhaps, by reason of what it destroys. We may con-
ceive, then, that from the total but wholly unknown
number of men of productive capacity born in any
generation, those whose gifts are in harmony with
the tastes of their contemporaries will produce their
best; those whose gifts are wholly out of harmony
will be extinguished, or, which is very nearly the
same thing, will produce only for the benefit of the
critics in succeeding generations ; while those who
occupy an intermediate position will, indeed, produce,
but their powers will, consciously or unconsciously,
be warped and thwarted, and their creations fall short
of what, under happier circumstances, they might
have been able to achieve.
58 NATURALISM AND ESTHETIC
Here, then, we have a tendency to change aris-
ing out of the artist's insistence on originality, and
a limitation on change imposed by the character
of the age in which he lives. The kind of change
will be largely determined by the condition of
the art which he is practising. If it be in an
early phase, full as yet of undeveloped possibili-
ties, then in all probability he will content him-
self with improving on his predecessors, without
widely deviating from the lines they have laid
down. For this is the direction of least resistance :
here is no public taste to be formed, here are no
great experiments to be tried, here the pioneer's
rough work of discovery has already been accom-
plished. But if this particular fashion of art has
culminated, and be in its decline ; if, that is to say,
the artist feels more and more difficulty in express-
ing himself through it, without saying worse what
his predecessors have said already, then one of
three things happens — either originality is perforce
sought for in exaggeration; or a new style is
invented ; or artistic creation is abandoned and the
field is given up to mere copyists. Which of these
events shall happen depends, no doubt, partly on
the accident of genius, but it depends, I think, still
more on the prevailing taste. If, as has frequently
happened, that taste be dominated by the memory
of past ideals ; if the little public whom the big
public follow are content with nothing that does
not conform to certain ancient models, a period o(
NATURALISM AND .ESTHETIC 59
artistic sterility is inevitable. But if circumstances
be more propitious, then art continues to move ;
the direction and character of its movement being
due partly to the special turn of genius possessed
by the artist who succeeds in producing a public
taste in harmony with his powers, and partly to the
reaction of the taste thus created, or in process of
creation, upon the general artistic talent of the
community.
Even, however, in those periods when the
movement of art is most striking, it is dangerous
to assume that movement implies progress, if by
progress be meant increase in the power to excite
cBsthetic emotion. It would be rash to assume this
even as regards Music, Avhere the movement has
been more remarkable, more continuous, and more
apparently progressive over a long period of time
than in any other art whatever. In music, the
artist's desire for originality of expression has been
aided generation after generation by the discovery
of new methods, new forms, new instruments. From
the bare simplicity of the ecclesiastical chant or the
village dance to the ordered complexity of the modern
score, the art has passed through successive stages
of development, in each of which genius has dis-
covered devices of harmony, devices of instrumenta-
tion, and devices of rhythm which would have been
musical paradoxes to preceding generations, and
became musical commonplaces to the generations
that followed after. Yet, what has been the net
6o NATURALISM AND ESTHETIC
gain ? Read through the long catena of critical
judgments, from Wagner back (if you please) to
Plato, which every age has passed on its own per-
formances, and you will find that to each of them
its music has been as adequate as ours is to us. It
moved them not less deeply, nor did it move them
differently ; and compositions which for us have
lost their magic, and which we regard as at best
but agreeable curiosities, contained for them the
secret of all the unpictured beauties which music
shows to her worshippers.
Surely there is here a great paradox. The
history of Literature and Art is tolerably well known
to us for many hundreds of years. During that
period Poetry and Sculpture and Painting have
been subject to the usual mutations of fashion; there
have been seasons of sterility and seasons of plenty;
schools have arisen and decayed ; new nations and
languages have been pressed into the service of Art;
old nations have fallen out of line. But it is not
commonly supposed that at the end of it all we
are much better off than the Greeks of the age of
Pericles in respect of the technical dexterity of the
artist, or of the resources which he has at his com-
mand. During the same period, and measured by the
same external standard, the development of Music
has been so great that it is not, I think, easy to exag-
gerate it. Yet, through all this vast revolution, the
position and importance of the art as compared with
other arts seem, so far as 1 can discover, to have
NATURALISM AND .ESTHETIC 6 1
suffered no sensible change. It was as great four
hundred years before Christ as it is at the present
moment. It was as great in the sixteenth, seven-
teenth, and eighteenth centuries as it is in the nine-
teenth. How, then, can we resist the conclusion
that this amazing musical development, produced
by the expenditure of so much genius, has added
little to the felicity of mankind; unless, indeed, it
so happens that in his particular art a steady level
of aesthetic sensation can only be maintained by
increasing doses of aesthetic stimulant.
These somewhat desultory observations do not,
it must be acknowledged, carry us very far towards'
that of which we are in search, namely, a theory
of aesthetics in harmony with naturalism. Yet, on
recapitulation, negative conclusions of some impor-
tance will, I think, be seen to follow from them. It
is clear, for instance, that those who, like Goethe,
long to dwell among ' permanent relations,* wherever
else they may find them, will at least not find them in
or behind the feeling of beauty. Such permanent
relations do, indeed, exist, binding in their unchang-
ing framework the various forms of energy and
matter which make up the physical universe ; but
it is not the perception of these Avhich, either in
Nature or in art, stirs within us aesthetic emotion —
else should we find our surest guides to beauty in
62 NATURALISM AND ESTHETIC
an astronomical chart or a table of chemical equiva-
lents, and nothing would seem to us of less aes-
thetic significance than a symphony or a love-song.
That which is beautiful is not the object as we
know it to be — the vibrating molecule and the un-
dulating ether — but the object as we know it not
to be — glorious with qualities of colour or of sound.
Nor can its beauty be supposed to last any longer
than the transient reaction between it and our spe-
cial senses, which are assuredly not permanent or
important elements in the constitution of the world
in which we live.
But even within these narrow limits — narrow, I
mean, compared with the wide sweep of our scientific
vision — there seemed to be no ground for supposing
that there is in Nature any standard of beauty to
which all human tastes tend to conform, any beauti-
ful objects which all normally constituted individuals
are moved to admire, any aesthetic judgments which
can claim to be universal. The divergence between
different tastes is, indeed, not only notorious, but is
what we should have expected. As our aesthetic
feelings are not due to natural selection, natural se-
lection will have no tendency to keep them uni-
form and stable. In this respect they differ, as I
have said, from ethical sentiments and beliefs. De^
viations from sound morality are injurious either
to the individual or to the community — those who
indulge in them are at a disadvantage in the struggle
for existence ; hence, on the naturalistic hypothesis,
NATURALISM AND ESTHETIC 63
the approximation to identity in the accepted codes
of different nations. But there is, fortunately, no
natural punishment annexed to bad taste ; and ac-
cordingly the variation between tastes has passed
into a proverb.
Even in those cases where some slender thread
of similarity seemed to bind together the tastes of
different times or different persons, further con-
sideration showed that this was largely due to
causes which can by no possibility be connected
with any supposed permanent element in beauty.
The agreement, for example, between critics, in so
far as it exists, is to no small extent an agreement
in statement and in analysis, rather than an agree-
ment in feeling ; they have the same opinion as to
the cooking of the dinner, but they by no means all
eat it with the same relish. In few cases, indeed,
do their estimates of excellence correspond with the
living facts of aesthetic emotion as shown either in
themselves or in anybody else. Their whole pro-
cedure, necessary though it may be for the compara-
tive estimate of the worth of individual artists, unduly
conceals the vast and arbitrary^ changes by which
the taste of one generation is divided from that of
another. And when we turn from critical tradi-
tion to the aesthetic likes and dislikes of men and
women ; when we leave the admirations which are
professed for the emotions which are felt, we find
* 'Arbitrary,' i.e. not due to any causes which point to the ex-
istence of objective beauty.
64 NATURALISM AND .ESTHETIC
in vast multitudes of cases that these are not
connected with the object which happens to ex-
cite them b}^ any permanent aesthetic bond at all.
Their true determining cause is to be sought in
fashion, in that 'tendency to agreement' which plays
so large and beneficent a part in social economy.
Nor, in considering the causes which produce the
rise and fall of schools, and all the smaller muta-
tions in the character of aesthetic production, did
we perceive more room for the belief that there is
somewhere to be found a permanent element in the
beautiful. There is no evidence that these changes
constitute stages in any process of gradual approxi-
mation to an unchanging standard ; they are not
born of any strivings after some ideal archetype ;
they do not, like the movements of science, bring
us ever nearer to central and immutable truth. On
the contrary, though schools are born, mature, and
perish, though ancient forms decay, and new ones
are continually devised, this restless movement is,
so far as science can pronounce, without meaning
or purpose, the casual product of the quest after
novelty, determined in its course by incalculable
forces, by accidents of genius, by accidents of public
humour, involving change but not progress, and
predestined, perhaps, to end universally, as at many
times and in many places it has ended already, in a
mood of barren acquiescence in the repetition of
ancient models, the very Nirvana of artistic imagi«
nation, without desire and without pain.
NATURALISM AND ESTHETIC 6$
And yet the persistent and almost pathetic
endeavours of aesthetic theory to show that the
beautiful is a necessary and unchanging element in
the general scheme of things, if they prove nothing
else, may at least convince us that mankind will not
easily reconcile themselves to the view which the
naturalistic theory of the world would seemingly
compel them to accept. We feel no difficulty,
perhaps, in admitting the full consequences of that
theory at the lower end of the aesthetic scale, in
the region, for instance, of bonnets and wall-papers.
We may tolerate it even when it deals with impor-
tant elements in the highest art, such as the sense
of technical excellence, or sympathy with the crafts-
man*s skill. But when we look back on those too
rare moments when feelings stirred in us by some
beautiful object not only seem wholly to absorb us,
but to raise us to the vision of things far above the
ken of bodily sense or discursive reason, we cannot
acquiesce in any attempt at explanation which con-
fines itself to the bare enumeration of psychological
and physiological causes and effects. We cannot
willingly assent to a theory which makes a good
composer only differ from a good cook in that he
deals in more complicated relations, moves in a
wider circle of associations, and arouses our feel-
ings through a different sense. However little,
therefore, we may be prepared to accept any par-
ticular scheme of metaphysical aesthetics — and most
of these appear to me to be very absurd — we must
66 NATURALISM AND ESTHETIC
believe that somewhere and for some Being there
shines an unchanging splendour of beauty, of which
in Nature and in Art we see, each of us from our
own standpoint, only passing gleams and stray reflec-
tions, whose different aspects we cannot now co-
ordinate, whose import we cannot fully comprehend,
but which at least is something other than the chance
play of subjective sensibility or the far-off echo of
ancestral lusts. No such mystical creed can, how-
ever, be squeezed out of observation and experi-
ment ; Science cannot give it us ; nor can it be
forced into any sort of consistency with the Nat-
uralistic Theory of the Universe.
CHAPTER III
NATURALISM AND REASON
Among those who accept without substantial modi-
fication the naturalistic theory of the universe are
some who find a compensation for the general non-
rationality of Nature in the fact that, after all, rea-
son, human reason, is Nature's final product. If the
world is not made by Reason, Reason is at all
events made by the world ; and the unthinking in-
teraction of causes and effects has at least resulted
in a consciousness wherein that interaction may be
reflected and understood. This is not Teleology.
Indeed it is a doctrine which leaves no room for any
belief in design. But in the minds of some who
have but imperfectly grasped their own doctrines,
it appears capable of partially meeting the senti-
mental needs to which teleology gives a fuller satis^
faction, inasmuch as reason thus finds an assured
place in the scheme cf things, and is enabled, after
the fashion of the Chinese, in some sort to ennoble
its ignoble progenitors.
This theory of the non-rational origin of reason,
which is a necessary corollary of the naturalistic
6S NATURALISM AND REASON
scheme, has philosophical consequences of great in-
terest, to some of which I have alluded elsewhere,^
and which must occupy our attention in a later
chapter of these Notes. In the meanwhile, there
are other aspects of the subject which deserve a
moment's consideration.
From the point of view of organic evolution
there is no distinction, I imagine, to be drawn be-
tween the development of reason and that of any
other faculty, physiological or psychical, by which
the interests of the individual or the race are pro-
moted. From the humblest form of nervous irri-
tability at one end of the scale, to the reasoning
capacity of the most advanced races at the other,
everything, without exception — sensation, instinct,
desire, volition — has been produced, directly or in-
directly, by natural causes acting for the most part
on strictly utilitarian principles. Convenience, not
knowledge, therefore, has been the main end to
which this process has tended. ' It was not for pur-
poses of research that our senses were evolved,' nor
was it in order to penetrate the secrets of the uni-
verse that we are endowed with reason.
Under these circumstances it is not surprising
that the faculties thus laboriously created are but
imperfectly fitted to satisfy that speculative curios-
ity which is one of the most curious by-products of
the evolutionary process. The inadequacy of our
intellect, indeed, to resolve the questions which it
' Philosophic Doubt, Pt. iii., ch. xiii.
NATURALISM AND REASON 69
is capable of asking is acknowledged (at least in
words) both by students of science and by students
of theology. But they do not seem so much im-
pressed with the inadequacy of our senses. Yet, if
the current doctrine of evolution be true, we have
no choice but to admit that with the great mass of
natural fact we are probably brought into no sensi-
ble relation at all. I am not referring here merely
to the limitations imposed upon such senses as we
possess, but to the total absence of an indefinite
number of senses which conceivably we might pos-
sess, but do not. There are sounds which the ear
cannot hear, there are sights which the eye cannot
see. But besides all these there must be countless
aspects of external Nature of which we have no
knowledge ; of which, owing to the absence of ap-
propriate organs, we can form no conception ; which
imagination cannot picture nor language express.
Had Voltaire been acquainted with the theory of
evolution, he would not have put forward his Mi-
cromegas so much as an illustration of a paradox
which cannot be disproved, as of a truth which can-
not be doubted. For to suppose that a course of
development carried out, not with the object of ex-
tending knowledge or satisfying curiosity, but solely
with that of promoting life, on an area so insig-
nificant as the surface of the earth, between limits
of temperature and pressure so narrow, and under
general conditions so exceptional, should have end-
ed in supplying us with senses even approximately
70 NATURALISM AND REASON
adequate to the apprehension of Nature in all her
complexities, is to believe in a coincidence more as-
tounding than the most audacious novelist has ever
employed to cut the knot of some entangled tale.
For it must be recollected that the same natural
forces which tend to the evolution of organs which
are useful tend also to the suppression of organs
that are useless. Not only does Nature take no
interest in our general education, not only is she
quite indifferent to the growth of enlightenment, un-
less the enlightenment improve our chances in the
struggle for existence, but she positively objects to
the very existence of faculties by which these ends
might, perhaps, be attained. She regards them as
mere hindrances in the only race which she desires
to see run ; and not content with refusing directly
to create any faculty except for a practical pur-
pose, she immediately proceeds to destroy faculties
already created when their practical purpose has
ceased ; for thus docs the eye of the cave-born fish
degenerate and the instinct of the domesticated
animal decay. Those, then, who are inclined to the
opinion that between our organism and its environ-
ments there is a correspondence which, from the
point of view of general knowledge, is even approx-
imately adequate, must hold, in the first place, that
samples or suggestions of every sort of natural man-
ifestation are to be found in our narrow and limited
world ; in the second place, that these samples are of
a character which would permit of nervous tissue
NATURALISM AND REASON 7 1
being so modified by selection as to respond specifi-
cally to their action ; in the third place, that such
specific modifications were not only possible, but
would have proved useful at the period of evolution
during which our senses in their present shape were
developed ; and in th.Q fourth place, that these modi-
fications would have proved useful enough to make
it worth while to use up, for the purpose of produc-
ing them, material which might have been, and has
been, otherwise employed.
All these propositions seem to me improbable,
the first two of them incredible.^ It is impossible,
' It may perhaps be said that it is not necessary that we should be
specifically affected by each particular kind of energy in order either
to discover its existence or to investigate its character. It is enough
that among its effects should be some which are cognisable by our
actual senses, that it should modify in some way the world we know,
that it should intervene perceptibly in that part of the general system
to which our organism happens to be immediately connected. This
is no doubt true, and our knowledge of electricity and magnetism
(among other things) is there to prove it. But let it be noted how
slender and how accidental was the clue which led us to the first
beginnings, from which all our knowledge of these great phenomena
is derived. Directly they can hardly be said to be in relation with
our organs of perception at all (notwithstanding the fact that light is
now regarded as an electro-magnetic phenomenon) and their indirect
relation with them is so slight that probably no amount of mere obser-
vation could, in the absence of experiment, have given us a notion of
their magnitude or importance. They were not sought for to fill a
gap whose existence had been demonstrated by calculation. Their
discovery was no inevitable step in the onward march of scientific
knowledge. They were stumbled upon by accident ; and few would
be bold enough to assert that if, for example, the human race had
not happened to possess iron, magnetism would ever have presented
itself as a subject requiring investigation at all.
72 NATURALISM AND REASON
therefore, to resist the conviction that there must be
an indefinite number of aspects of Nature respecting
which science never can give us any information,
even in our dreams. We must conceive ourselves as
feeling our way about this dim corner of the il-
limitable world, like children in a darkened room,
encompassed by we know not what ; a little better
endowed w^ith the machinery of sensation than the
protozoon, yet poorly provided indeed as compared
with a being, if such a one could be conceived,
whose senses were adequate to the infinite variety
of material Nature. It is true, no doubt, that we
are possessed of reason, and that protozoa are not.
But even reason, on the naturalistic theory, occupies
no elevated or permanent position in the hierarchy
of phenomena. It is not the final result of a great
process, the roof and crown of things. On the con-
trary, it is, as I have said, no more than one of many
experiments for increasing our chance of survival,
and, among these, by no means the most important
or the most enduring.
I II
People sometimes talk, indeed, as if it was the
difficult and complex work"^nnected with the main-_
^tenance of life that was perfornied by intellect. But
there can be no greater dejusidn! "The management
of the humblest organ would be infinlteTv" bejond
our mental capacity^ were it possible for us to be
NATURALISM AND REASON 73
entrusted with \t ; and as a matter of fact, it is only \
in the simplest jobs that discursive reason is per- \
mitted to have a hand at all; our tcndencY to take \
a different view being merely the self-importance of
a child who, because it is allowed to stamp the let-
tersj imagines that it conducts the correspondence.
The best way of hooking at mind on the naturalistic /
hypothesis is, perhaps, to regard it as an instrument !
for securing a If exibility of adaptation which instinct 7^
alone is not able to attain. Instinct is incompa- ;'
rably the better rnachine in every respect save one. 1
It works^more smoothly^ with less friction, with far ]
greater precision and accuracy. But it is not adapt- '
able. INIany generations and much slaughter are re- /V
quired to breed it into a race. Once acquireH^ it can
be modified or expelled only by the same harsh and
tedious methods. Mind, on the other hand, from
the point of view of organic evolution, may be con-
sidered as an inherited faculty for self-adjustment;
and though, as I have already had occasion to note,
the limits within Avhich such adjustment is permit-
ted are exceedingly narrow, within those limits it is
doubtless exceedingly valuable.
But even here one of the principal functions of
mind is to create habits by which, when they are
fully formed, it is itself supplanted. If the conscious
adaptation of means to ends was always necessary
in order to perform even those few functions for the
first performance of which conscious adaptation was
originally required, life would be frittered away in
74 NATURALISM AND REASON
I doing badly, but with deliberation, some small frao
Aition of that which we now do well without any
/deliberation at all. The formation of habits is, there-
j fore, as has often been pointed out, a necessary pre-
I liminary to the ' higher ' uses of mind ; for it, and it
! alone, sets attention and intelligence free to do work^
from which they v\-ouId otherwise be debarred by;^
their absorption in the petty needs of daily exists
j Qlice.
^ But while it is thus plain that the formation of
Ihabiis is an essential pre-requisite of mental develop-
i ment, it would also seem that it constitutes the
' first step in a process which, if thoroughly success-
; fill, would end in the destruction, if not of conscious;
ncss itself, at least of the higher manifestation of_
consciousness, such as will, attention, and discur^
siye reason.^ All these, as we may suppose, will be
gradually superseded in an increasing number of
departments of human activity by the growth of in-
stincts or inherited habits, by which even such adjust-
ments between the organism and its surroundings as
now seem most dependent on self-conscious mind
may be successfully effected.
These are prophecies, however, which concern
themselves with a very remote future, and for my
part I do not ask the reader to regard their fulfil-
ment as an inexorable necessity. It is enough if
^ Empirical psychologists are not agreed as to whether the ap-
parent unconsciousness which accompanies completed habits is real
or not. It is unnecessary for the purpose of my argument that this
point should be determined.
^\
NATURALISM AND REASON 75
they mark with sufficient emphasis the place which
Mind, in its higher manifestations, occupies in the
scheme of things, as this is presented to us by the a
naturalistic hypothesis. Mr. Spencer, who pierces/^
the future with a surer gaze than I can make the \
least pretence to, looks confidently f orwardto a ti,m,e I
\vhen the relation ofman to hisTurroundings will be /
so happily contrived that the reign of absolute right^ /
eousncss will prevail; conscience, grown unneces- /
sai-v. will be dispensed Avith ; the path of leas^
resistance will be the path of virtue; and not the '
' broad,' but the * narrow way/ will ' lead todestruc-
tion.' These excellent c<jnsequences seem to me
to flow very srpoothlv and satisfactorily from his
particu'^r ^ octjj n e of evolution, combined with his
particular doctrine of morals. But I confess that my
own personal gratification at the prospect is some-
what dimmed by the reflection that the same^kinB
of causes which make conscience superfluous will
relieve us from the necessity of intellectual effort,
and that by_tHe' time we are all perfectly good we
shall also be all perfectlv idiotic. i
I "know not how it may strike the reader ; but I
at least am left sensibly poorer b}^ this deposition of
Reason from its ancient position as the Ground of
all existence, to that of an expedient among other
expedients for the maintenance of organic life ; an ex-
pedient, moreover, which is temporary in its charac-
ter and insignificant in its effects. An irrational
Universe which accidentally turns out a few reason-
je NATURALISM AND REASON
ing animals at one corner of it, as a rich man may
experiment at one end of his park with some curious
' sport ' accidentally produced among his flocks and
herds, is a Universe which we might well despise if
we did not ourselves share its degradation. But
must we not inevitably share it? Rascal somewhere
observes that Man, howevjerjeeble^s j^et m^is j;er3^
feebleness superior to the blind forces of Nature ;
fox he knows himself, and the}' dq iiot I confess that
on the naturalistic hypothesis I see no such superi-
ority. If, indeed, there Avere a Rational Author of
Nature, and if in any degree, even the most insig-
nificant, we shared His attributes, we might well
conceive ourselves as of finer essence and more in-
trinsic worth than the material world which we in-
habit, immeasurable though it may be. But if we
be the creation of that world ; if it made us what
we are, and will again unmake us ; how then ? The
sense of humour, not the least precious among the
gifts with which the clash of atoms has endowed
us, should surely prevent us assuming any airs of
superiority over members of the same family of
'phenomena,' more permanent and more powerful
than ourselves.
CHAPTER IV
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION OF PART I
I HAVE now completed my survey of certain opin-
ions which naturalism seems to require us to hold
respecting important matters connected with Right-
eousness, Beauty, and Reason. The survey has
necessarily been concise ; but, concise though it has
been, it has, perhaps, sufficiently indicated the inner
antagonism which exists between the Naturalistic
system and the feelings which the best among man-
kind, including many who may be counted as adhe-
rents of that system, have hitherto considered as the
most valuable possessions of our race. If natural-
ism be true, or, rather, if it be the whole truth, then
is morality but a bare catalogue of utilitarian pre-
cepts ; beauty but the chance occasion of a passing
pleasure ; reason but the dim passage from one set
of unthinking habits to another. All that gives dig-
nity to life, all that gives value to effort, shrinks and
fades under the pitiless glare of a creed like this ;
and even curiosity, the hardiest among the nobler
passions of the soul, must languish under the con-
viction that neither for this generation nor for any
that shall come after it, neither in this life nor in
78 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION OF PART I
another, will the tie be wholly loosened by which
reason, not less than appetite, is held in hereditary
bondage to the service of our material needs.
I am anxious, however, not to overstate my case.
It is of course possible, to take for a moment aesthet-
ics as our text, that whatever be our views concern-
ing naturalism, we shall still like good poetry and
good music, and that we shall not, perhaps, find if
we sum up our pleasures at the year's end, that the
total satisfaction derived from the contemplation of
Art and Nature is very largely diminished by the
fact that our philosophy allows us to draw no im-
portant distinction between the beauties of a sauce
and the beauties of a symphony. Both may con-
tinue to afford the man with a good palate and a
good ear a considerable amount of satisfaction ; and
if all we desire is to find in literature and in art
something that will help us either 'to enjoy life or
to endure it,' I do not contend that, by any theory
of the beautiful, of this we shall wholly be deprived.
Nevertheless there is, even so, a loss not lightly
to be underrated, a loss that falls alike on him that
produces and on him that enjoys. Poets and artists
have been wont to consider themselves, and to be
considered by others, as prophets and seers, the re-
vealers under sensuous forms of hidden mysteries,
the symbolic preachers of eternal truths. All this
is, of course, on the naturalistic theory, very absurd.
They minister, no doubt, with success to some phase,
usually a very transitory phase, of public taste ; but
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION OF PART I 79
they have no mysteries to reveal, and what they tell
us, though it may be very agreeable, is seldom true,
and never important. This is a conclusion which,
howsoever it may accord with sound philosophy, is
not likely to prove very stimulating to the artist, nor
does it react with less unfortunate effect upon those
to whom the artist appeals. Even if their feeling of
delight in the beautiful is not marred for them in
immediate experience, it must suffer in memory and
reflection. For such a feeling carries with it, at its
best, an inevitable reference, not less inevitable be-
cause it is obscure, to a Reality which is eternal and
unchanging ; and we cannot accept without suffer-
ing the conviction that in making such a reference
we were merely the dupes of our emotions, the vic-
tims of a temporary hallucination induced, as it were,
by some spiritual drug.
But if on the naturalistic hypothesis the senti-
ments associated with beauty seem like a poor jest
played on us by Nature for no apparent purpose,
those that gather round morality are, so to speak, a
deliberate fraud perpetrated for a well-defined end.
The consciousness of freedom, the sense of respon-
sibility, the authority of conscience, the beauty of
holiness, the admiration for self-devotion, the sym-
pathy with suffering — these and all the train of be-
liefs and feelings from which spring noble deeds and
generous ambitions are seen to be mere devices for
securing to societies, if not to individuals, some
competitive advantage in the struggle for existence.
8o SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION OF PART I
They are not worse, but neither are they better
than the thousand-and-one appetites and instincts,
many of them, as I have said, cruel, and many of
them disgusting, created by similar causes in order
to carry out through all organic Nature the like un-
profitable ends ; and if we think them better, as in
our unreflecting moments we are apt to do, this, on
the Naturalistic hypothesis, is only because some
delusion of the kind is necessary in order to induce
us to perform actions which in themselves can con-
tribute nothing to our personal gratification.
The inner discord which finds expression in con-
clusions like these largely arises, as the reader sees,
from a want of balance or proportion between the
range of our intellectual vision and the circum-
stances of our actual existence. Our capacity for
standing outside ourselves and taking stock of the
position which we occupy in the universe of things
has been enormously and, it would seem, unfort-
unately, increased by recent scientific discovery.
We have learned too much. We are educated above
that station in life in which it has pleased Nature
to place us. We can no longer accept it without
criticism and without examination. We insist on
interrogating that material system which, according
to naturalism, is the true author of our being as to
whence we come and whither we go, what are the
causes which have made us what we are, and what
are the purposes which our existence subserves.
And it must be confessed that the answers given to
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION OF PART I 8 1
this question by our oracle are extremely unsatis-
factory. We have learned to measure space, and
we perceive that our dwelling-place is but a mere
point, wandering with its companions, apparently
at random, through the wilderness of stars. We
have learned to measure time, and we perceive that
the life not merely of the individual or of the nation,
but of the whole race, is brief, and apparently quite
unimportant. We have learned to unravel causes,
and we perceive that emotions and aspirations
whose very being seems to hang on the existence
of realities of which naturalism takes no account,
are in their origin contemptible and in their sug-
gestion mendacious.
To me it appears certain that this clashing be-
tween beliefs and feelings must ultimately prove
fatal to one or the other. Make what allowance
you please for the stupidity of mankind, take the
fullest account of their really remarkable power of
letting their speculative opinions follow one line of
development and their practical ideals another, yet
the time must come when reciprocal action will
perforce bring opinions and ideals into some kind of
agreement and congruity. If, then, naturalism is to
hold the field, the feelings and opinions inconsist-
ent with naturalism must be foredoomed to suffer
change ; and how, when that change shall come
about, it can do otherwise than eat all nobility out of
our conception of conduct and all worth out of our
conception of life, I am wholly unable to understand.
6
82 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION OF PART I
I am aware that many persons are in the habit
of subjecting these views to an experimental refuta-
tion by pointing to a great many excellent people
who hold, in more or less purity, the naturalistic
creed, but who, nevertheless, offer prominent ex-
amples of that habit of mind with which, as I have
been endeavouring to show, the naturalistic creed is
essentially inconsistent. Naturalism — so runs the
argument — co-exists in the case of Messrs. A., B.,
C, &c., with the most admirable exhibition of un-
selfish virtue. If this be so in the case of a hundred
individuals, why not in the case of ten thousand?
If in the case of ten thousand, why not in the case
of humanity at large ? Now, to the facts on which
this reasoning proceeds I raise no objection. I de-
sire neither to ignore the existence nor to mini-
mise the merits of these shining examples of virtue
unsupported by religion. But though the facts be
true, the reasoning based on them will not bear
close examination. Biologists tell us of parasites
which live, and can only live, within the bodies of
animals more highly organised than they. For
them their luckless host has to find food, to digest
it, and to convert it into nourishment which they
can consume without exertion and assimilate with-
out difficulty. Their structure is of the simplest
kind. Their host sees for them, so they need no
eyes ; he hears for them, so they need no ears ; he
works for them and contrives for them, so they
need but feeble muscles and an undeveloped ner-
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION OF PART I 83
vous system. But are we to conclude from this that
for the animal kingdom eyes and ears, powerful
limbs and complex nerves, are superfluities ? They
are superfluities for the parasite only because they
have first been necessities for the host, and when
the host perishes the parasite, in their absence, is
not unlikely to perish also.
So it is with those persons who claim to show by
their example that naturalism is practically consistent
with the maintenance of ethical ideals with which
naturalism has no natural affinity. Their spiritual
life is parasitic : it is sheltered by convictions which
belong, not to them, but to the society of which they
form a part ; it is nourished by processes in which
they take no share. And when those convictions
decay, and those processes come to an end, the alien
life which they have maintained can scarce be ex-
pected to outlast them.
I am not aware that anyone has as yet en-
deavoured to construct the catechism of the future,
purged of every element drawn from any other
source than the naturalistic creed. It is greatly to
be desired that this task should be undertaken in an
impartial spirit ; and as a small contribution to such
an object, I offer the following pairs of contrasted
propositions, the first member of each pair repre-
senting current teaching, the second representing the
teaching which ought to be substituted for it if the
naturalistic theory be accepted.
A. The universe is the creation of Reason, and
84 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION OF PART I
all things work together towards a reasonable
end.
B. So far as we are concerned^ reason is to be found
neither in the beginning of thijtgs nor in their end; and
though everythifig is pr edet ermine dy nothi^ig is fore-
ordained,
A. Creative reason is interfused with infinite
love.
B. As reason is absent, so also is love. The miniver sal
flux is ordered by blind catisation alone.
A. There is a moral law, immutable, eternal ; in
its governance all spirits find their true freedom
and their most perfect realisation. Though it be
adequate to infinite goodness and infinite intelli-
gence, it may be understood, even by man, suffi-
ciently for his guidance.
B. Among the causes by which the course of orgastic
and social development has been blindly determined are
pains ^ pleasures, instincts, appetites, disgusts, religions,
moralities, superstitions ; the sentiment of ivhat is noble
and intrijisically worthy; the sentiment of what is
ignoble and intri^isically worthless. From a purely
scientific point of view these all stand on an equality ;
all are action-producing causes developed, not to improve,
but siinply to perpetuate, the species.
A. In the possession of reason and in the enjoy-
ment of beauty, we in some remote way share the
nature of that infinite Personality in Whom we live
and move and have our being.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION OF PART I 85
B. Reason is but the psychological expression of cer-
tain physiological processes in the cerebral hemispheres ;
it is 710 more than an expedient among many expedients
by ivJiicJi the individual and the race are preserved ;
just as Beaiity is no more tha7t the name for such vary-
ijig and accidental attributes of the material or moral
worlds as may Jiappen for the moment to stir our
(Esthetic feelings.
A. Every human soul is of infinite value, eternal,
free ; no human being, therefore, is so placed as not
to have within his reach, in himself and others, ob-
jects adequate to infinite endeavour.
B. The ijidividual perishes ; the race itself does not
eyidure. Few can flatter themselves that their conduct
has any appreciable effect tipon its remoter destitties ;
and of those few, 7ione ca7i say zvith reaso7iable assur-
a7ice that the effect which they are desti7ied to produce
is the one which they desire. Eve7i if zve were free,
therefore, our ignora7ice would 77iake us helpless ; a7id it
77tay be al77iost a co7isolatio7i to reflect that our co7iduct
was deter77iined for us by U7ithi7iki7ig forces i7i a re77iote
past, and that if we are i77ipote7it to foresee its conse-
quences, we were 7iot less impote7it to arra7ige its causes.
The doctrines embodied in the second member
of each of these alternatives may be true, or may
at least represent the nearest approach to truth of
which we are at present capable. Into this question
I do not yet inquire. But if they are to constitute
the dogmatic scaffolding by which our educational
system is to be supported ; if it is to be in harmony
86 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION OF PART I
with principles like these that the child is to be
taught at its mother's knee, and the young man is to
build up the ideals of his life, then, unless I greatly
mistake, it will be found that the inner discord which
exists, and which must gradually declare itself, be-
tween the emotions proper to naturalism and those
which have actually grown up under the shadow of
traditional convictions, will at no distant date most
unpleasantly translate itself into practice.
PART II
SOME REASONS FOR BELIEF
CHAPTER I
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
I
So far we have been occupied in weighing certain
indirect and collateral consequences which seem
likely to flow from a particular theor}^ of the world
in which we live. The theory itself was taken for
granted. No attempt was made to examine its
foundations or to test their strength ; no compari-
son between its different parts was instituted for
the purpose of determining how far they really con-
stituted a coherent and intelligible whole. We
accepted it as we found it, turning with averted
eyes even from the speculative problems which lay
closest to the track of our immediate investigation.
This course is not the most logical ; and it might
perhaps appear a more fitting procedure to reserve
our consideration of the consequences of a system
until some conclusion had been arrived at concern-
ing its truth. Such, however, is not the ordinary
habit of mankind in dealing with problems in which
questions of abstract theory and daily practice are
closely intertwined ; and even philosophers show a
kindly reluctance too closely to examine the claims
of creeds whose consequences are in strict accord
with contemporary sentiment. I have a better rea-
son, however, to offer for the order here selected than
90 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
can be derived from precedent or example, a reason
based on the fact that, had I begun these Notes with
the discussion on which I am about to embark, their
whole character would probably have been misunder-
stood. They would have been regarded as contribu-
tions to philosophical discussion of a kind which
would only interest the specialist ; and the general
reader, to whom I desire particularly to appeal, would
have abandoned their perusal in disgust. For I can-
not deny, either that I am about to ask him to ac-
company me in a search after first principles ; or
(which is, perhaps, worse) that the search is destined
to be ineffectual. He will not only have to occupy
himself with arguments of a remote and abstract kind,
and for a moment to disturb the placid depths of
ordinary thought with unaccustomed soundings, but
the arguments will be to all appearance barren, and
the soundings will not find bottom. The full justifi-
cation for a procedure seemingly so futile can only
be found in the chapters which follow, and in the
general drift of the discussion taken as a whole ; but
in the meanwhile the reader will be able to appre-
ciate my immediate object if he will bear in mind
the precise point at which we have arrived.
Let him remember, then, that the result of the
inquiry instituted into the practical tendencies of
the naturalistic theory is to show them to be well-nigh
intolerable. The theory, no doubt, may for all that
be true, since it must candidly be admitted that there
is no naturalistic reason for anticipiating any pre-
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM 9I
established harmony between truth and expediency
in the higher regions of speculation. But at least
we are called upon to make a very searching inquiry
before we admit that it is true. We are not here
concerned with any mere curiosity of dialectics, with
the quest for a kind of knowledge which, however
interesting to the few, yet bears no fruit for ordinary
human use. On the contrary, the issues that have
to be decided are practical, if anything is practical.
They touch at every point the most permanent in-
terests of man, individual and social; and any pro-
cedure is preferable to a complacent acquiescence in
the loss of all the fairest provinces in our spiritual
inheritance.
This is a fact which has long been perceived by
the defenders of all the creeds, philosophical or
theological, with which the pretensions of naturalism
are in conflict. You will not open a modern work
of apologetics, for instance, without finding in it some
endeavour to show that the naturalistic theory is
insufficient, and that it requires to be supplemented
by precisely the very system in whose interests that
particular work was written. This, no doubt, is as
it should be ; and on this plan a great deal of valu-
able criticism and interesting speculation has been
produced. It is not, however, exactly the plan which
can be here pursued, partly because these Notes con-
tain, not a system of theology, but only an introduc-
tion to theology ; and partly because I have always
found it easier to satisfy myself of the insufficiency
92 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
of naturalism than of the absolute sufficiency of any
of the schemes by which it has been sought to modify
or to complete it.
In this chapter, however, I shall follow an easier
line of march, the nature of which the reader will
readily understand if he considers the two elements
composing the naturalistic creed : the one positive,
consisting, broadly speaking, of the teaching con-
tained in the general body of the natural sciences ;
the other negative, expressed in the doctrine that
beyond these limits, wherever they may happen to
lie, nothing is, and nothing can be, known. Now,
the usual practice with those who dissent from this
general view is, as I have said, to choose the sec-
ond, or negative, half of it for attack. They tell us,
for example, that the knowledge of phenomena
given by science carries with it b}^ necessary impli-
cation the knowledge of that which is above phe-
nomena ; or, again, that the moral nature of man
points to the reality of ends and principles which
cannot be exhausted by any investigation into a
merely natural world of causally related objects.
Without the least underrating such lines of investi-
gation, I purpose here to consider, not the negative,
but the positive half of the naturalistic system. I
shall leave for the moment unchallenged the state-
ment that beyond the natural sciences knowledge is
impossible ; but I shall venture, instead, to ask a few
questions as to the character of the knowledge
which is thought to be obtained within those limits.
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM 93
I shall not endeavour to prove that a scheme of
merely positive beliefs, admirable, no doubt, as far
as it goes, is yet intellectually insufficient unless it
be supplemented by a metaphysical or theological
appendix. But I shall examine the foundations of
the scheme itself; and though such criticisms on it
as I shall be able to offer can never be a substitute
for the real work of philosophic construction, they
would seem to be its fitting preliminary, and a pre-
liminary which the succeeding chapters may show
to be not without a profit of its own.
One great metaphysician has described the sys-
tem of another as * shot out of a pistol,' meaning
thereby that it was presented for acceptance with-
out introductory proof. The criticism is true not
only of the particular theory of the Absolute about
which it was first used, but about every system, or
almost every system, of belief which has ever passed
current among mankind. Some subtle analogy with
accepted doctrines, some general harmony with ex-
isting sentiments and modes of thought, has not un-
commonly been deemed sufficient to justify the most
audacious conjectures ; and the history of specula-
tion is littered with theories whose authors seem
never to have suffered under any overmastering need
to prove the opinions which they advanced. No
such overmastering need has, at least, been felt in
the case of ' positive knowledge,* and the very cir-
cumstance that, alike in its methods and in its results,
all men are practically agreed to accept it without
94 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
demur, has blinded them to the fact that it, too, has
been ' shot out of a pistol,' and that, like some more
questionable beliefs, it is still waiting for a rational
justification.
^ [For our too easy acquiescence in this state of
things I do not think science is itself to blame. It is
no part of its duty to deal with first principles. Its
business is to provide us with a theory of Nature ;
and it should not be required, in addition, to pro-
vide us with a theory of itself. This is a task which
properly devolves upon the masters of speculation ;
though it is one which, for various reasons, they have
not as yet satisfactorily accomplished. I doubt, in-
deed, whether any metaphysical philosopher before
Kant can be said to have made contributions to this
subject which at the present day need be taken into
serious account ; and, as I shall endeavour to indicate
in the next chapter, Kant's doctrines, even as modi-
fied by his successors, do not, so it seems to me, pro-
vide a sound basis for an ' epistemology of Nature.'
But if in this connection we owe little to the
metaphysical philosophers, we owe still less to those
in whom we had a better right to trust, namely, the
empirical ones. If the former have to some extent
neglected the theory of science for theories of the
Absolute, the latter have always shown an inclination
* The remarks on the history of philosophy which occupy the
remainder of this section are not essential to the argument, and may
be omitted by readers uninterested in that subject. The strictly
necessary discussion is resumed on p. loo.
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM 95
to sacrifice the theory of knowledge itself to theories
as to the genesis or growth of knowledge. They
have contented themselves with investigating the
primitive elements from which have been developed
in the race and in the individual the completed
consciousness of ourselves and of the world in which
we live. They have, therefore, dealt with the origins
of what we believe rather than with its justification.
They have substituted psychology for philosophy ;
they have presented us, in short, with studies in a
particular branch or department of science, rather
than with an examination into the grounds of science
in general. And when perforce they are brought
face to face with some of the problems connected
with the philosophy of science which most loudly
clamour for solution, there is something half-pathetic
and half-humorous in their methods of cutting a knot
which they are quite unable to untie. Can anything,
for example, be more naive than the undisturbed
serenity with which Locke, towards the end of his
great work, assures his readers that he * suspects that
natural philosophy is not capable of being made a
science ' ; or, as I should prefer to state it, that nat-
ural science is not capable of being made a philoso-
phy ? Or can anything be more characteristic than
the moral which he draws from this rather surprising
admission, namely, that as we are so little fitted to
frame theories about this present world, we had bet-
ter devote our energies to preparing for the next ?
This remarkable display of philosophic resignation
g6 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
in the father of modern empiricism has been imi-
tated, Avith differences, by a long line of distin-
guished successors. Hume, for example, though
naturally enough he declined to draw Locke's edify-
ing conclusion, did more than anyone else to estab-
lish Locke's despairing premise ; and his inferences
from it are at least equally singular. Having re-
duced our belief in the fundamental principles of sci-
entific interpretation to expectations born of habit ;
having reduced the world which is to be interpreted
to an unrelated series of impressions and ideas ; hav-
ing by this double process made experience impossi-
ble and turned science into foolishness, he quietly
informs us, as the issue of the whole matter, that
outside experience and science knowledge is impos-
sible, and that all except ' mathematical demonstra-
tion ' and * experimental reasoning ' on ' matters of
fact * is sophistry and illusion !
I think too well of Hume's speculative genius
and too ill of his speculative sincerity to doubt that
in making this statement he spoke, not as a philoso-
pher, but as a man of the world, making formal
obeisance to the powers that be. But what he said
half ironically, his followers have said with an un-
shaken seriousness. Nothing in the history of specu-
lation is more astonishing, nothing — if I am to speak
my whole mind — is more absurd than the way in
which Hume's philosophic progeny — a most distin-
guished race — have, in spite of all their differences,
yet been able to agree, dot/i that experience is essen-
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM 97
tially as Hume described it, and that from such an
experience can be rationally extracted anything even
in the remotest degree resembling the existing sys-
tem of the natural sciences. Like Locke, these gen-
tlemen, or some of them, have, indeed, been assailed
by momentary misgivings. It seems occasionally to
have occurred to them that if their theory of knowl-
edge were adequate, ' experimental reasoning,' as
Hume called it, was in a very parlous state ; and
that, on the merits, nothing less deserved to be
held with a positive conviction than what some of
them are wont to describe as ' positive ' knowledge.
But they have soon thrust away such unwelcome
thoughts. The self-satisfied dogmatism which is so
convenient, and, indeed, so necessary a habit in the
daily routine of life, has resumed its sway. They
have forgotten that they were philosophers, and
with true practical instincts have reserved their 'ob-
stinate questionings ' exclusively for the benefit of
opinions from which they were already predisposed
to differ.
Whether these historic reasons fully account for
the comparative neglect of a philosophy of science
I will not venture to pronounce. But that the
neglect has been real I cannot doubt. Admirable
generalisations of the actual methods of scientific
research, usually uTid£J"-r«eme^uch name as * Induc-
tive Logic,' Wi^r^^ic^'6 "n'^'aSiib^T^d in abundance.
But a full ai^t^stematic attempt, lira to enumerate,
LA;
and then tofj^tify/^'^'fej presunftositi^ on which all
98 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
science finally rests, has, it seems to me, still to be
made, and must form no insignificant or secondary
portion of the task which philosophy has yet to
perform. To some, perhaps to most, it may, indeed,
appear as if such a task were one of perverse fu-
tility ; not more useful and much less dignified than
metaphysical investigations into the nature of the
Absolute. However profitless in the opinion of the
objector these may be, at least it seems better to
strain after the transcendent than to demonstrate
the obvious. And science, it may well be thought,
is quite sure enough of its ground to be justified in
politely bowing out those who thus officiously ten-
der it a perfectly superfluous assistance.
This is a contention on the merits of which it
will only be possible to pronounce after the critical
examination into the presuppositions of science
which I desiderate has been thoroughly carried out.
It may then appear that nothing stands more in need
of demonstration than the obvious ; that at the very
root of our scientific system of belief lie problems of
which no satisfactory solution has hitherto been
devised ; and that, so far from its being possible
to ignore the difficulties which these involve, no
general theory of knowledge has the least chance of
being successful which does not explicitly include
within the circuit of its criticism, not only the beliefs
which seem to us to be dubious, but those also
which we hold with the most perfect practical
assurance.
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM 99
So much, at least, I have endeavoured to estab-
lish in another work to which reference has been
already made.^ And to this I must venture to refer
those readers who either wish to see this position
elaborately developed, or who are of opinion that I •
have in the preceding remarks treated the philosophy
of the empirical school with too scant a measure of
respect. The very technical discussion, however,
which it contains could not, I think, be made inter-
esting, or perhaps intelligible, to the majority of those
for whom this book is intended, and, even were it
otherwise, they could not appropriately be intro-
duced into the body of these Notes. Yet, though
this is impossible, it ought not, I think, to be quite
impossible to convey some general notion of the
sort of difficulty with which any empirical theory
of science would seem to be beset, and this without
requiring on the part of the reader any special
knowledge of philosophic terminology, or, indeed,
any knowledge at all except that of some few very
general scientific doctrines. If I could succeed,
however imperfectly, in such a task, it might be of
some slight service even to the reader conversant
with empirical theories in all their various forms.
For though he will, of course, recognise in what
follows the familiar faces of many old controversies,
the circumstance that they are here approached, not
from the accustomed side of the psychology of per-
ception, but from that of physics and physiology,
^ Cf. Prefatory Note.
aQKO ^(\
100 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
may perhaps give them a freshness they would not
otherwise possess.]
II
In order to fix our ideas let us recall, in however
rough and incomplete a form, the broad outlines of
scientific doctrine as it at present exists, and as it
has been developed from that unorganised knowl-
edge of a world of objects — animals, mountains, men,
planets, trees, water, fire, and so forth — which in some
degree or other all mankind possess. These objects
science conceives as ordered and mutually related
in one unlimited space and one unlimited time ; all
in their true reality independent of the presence or
absence of any observer, all governed in their be-
haviour by rigid and unvarying laws. These are its
material ; these it is its business to describe. Their
appearance, their inner constitution, their environ-
ment, the process of their development, the modes
in which they act and are acted upon — such and
such-like subjects of inquiry constitute the problems
which science has set itself to investigate.
The result of its investigations is now embodied
in a general, if provisional, view of the (phenomenal)
universe which may be accepted at least as a working
hypothesis. According to this view, the world con-
sists essentially of innumerable small particles of
definite mass, endowed with a variety of mechanical,
chemical, and other qualities, and forming by their
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM lOI
mutual association the various bodies which we can
handle and see, and many others which we can
neither handle nor see. These ponderable particles
have their being in a diffused and all-penetrating
medium, or ether, which possesses, or behaves as if
it possessed, certain mechanical properties of a very
remarkable character; while the whole of this ma-
terial^ system, ponderable particles and ether alike,
is animated (if the phrase may be permitted me) by
a quantity of energy which, though it varies in the
manner and place of its manifestation, yet never
varies in its total amount. It only remains to add,
as a fact of considerable importance to ourselves,
though of little apparent importance to the universe
at large, that a few of the material particles above
alluded to are arranged into living organisms, and
that among these organisms are a small minority
which have the remarkable power of extracting from
the changes which take place in certain of their
tissues psychical phenomena of various kinds; some
of which are the reflection, or partial reproduction
^ This ambiguity in the use of the word ' matter ' is apt to be a
nuisance in these discussions. The term is sometimes, and quite
properly, used only of ponderable matter, and in opposition to ether.
But when we talk of the ' material universe,' it is absurd to exclude
from our meaning the ether, which is the most important part of that
universe. The context will, I hope, always show in which sense the
word is used. I should perhaps add that I have deliberately refrained
from complicating the text by any allusion to recent hypotheses as
to the nature of the ether and its relation to ponderable matter or to
recent discoveries respecting the divisibility of the atom.
102 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS O'F NATURALISM
in perception and in thought, of fragments and
aspects of that material world to which they owe
theil- being.
Secure in this general view of things, the great
co-operative work of scientific investigation moves
swiftly on. The psychologist deals with the laws
governing mental phenomena and with the relations
of mind and body ; the physiologist endeavours to
surprise the secrets of the living organ ; the biologist
traces the development of the individual and the mu-
tations of the species ; the chemist searches out the
laws which govern the combination and reactions of
atoms and molecules; the astronomer investigates
the movements and the life-histories of suns and
planets ; while the physicist explores the inmost mys-
teries of matter and energy, not unprepared to dis-
cover behind the invisible particles and the insensible
movements with which he familiarly deals, explana-
tions of the material universe yet more remote from
the unsophisticated perceptions of ordinar}^ mankind.
The philosophic reader is of course aware that
many of the terms which 1 have used, and been
obliged to use, in this outline of the scientific view
of the universe may be, and have been, subjected to
philosophic analysis, and often with very curious
results. Space, time, matter, energy, cause, quality,
idea, perception — all these, to mention no others, are
expressions without the aid of which no account
could be given of the circle of the sciences; though
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM 103
every one of them suggests a multitude of specula-
tive problems, of which speculation has not as yet
succeeded in giving us the final and decisive solu-
tion. These problems, for the most part, however,
I put on one side.^ I take these terms as I find
them ; in the sense, that is, which everybody attrib-
utes to them until he begins to puzzle himself with
too curious inquiries into their precise meaning. No
such embarrassing investigations do I here wish to
impose upon my reader. It shall for the present be
agreed between us that the body of doctrine sum-
marised above is, so far as it goes, clear and intel-
ligible ; and all I shall now require of him is to look at
it from a new point of view, to approach it, as it were,
from a different side, to study it with a new intention.
Instead, then, of asking what are the beliefs which
science inculcates, let us ask why, in the last resort,
we hold them to be true. Instead of inquiring how
a thing happens, or what it is, let us inquire how we
know that it does thus happen, and why we believe
that so in truth it is. Instead of enumerating causes,
let us set ourselves to investigate reasons.
Ill
Now it is at once evident that the very same
general body of doctrines, the very same set of prop-
ositions about the ' natural ' world, arranged ac-
cording to the principles suggested by these ques-
tions, would fall into a wholly different order from
[' See, however, infra, the chapter on ' Ultimate Scientific
Ideas. '1
104 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
that which would be observed if its distribution
were governed merely by considerations based upon
the convenience of scientific exposition. Indeed,
we may say that there are at least four quite dif-
ferent orders, theoretically distinguishable, though
usually mixed up in practice, in which scientific
truth may be expounded. There is, first, the order
of discovery. This is governed by no rational prin-
ciple, but depends on historic causes, on the acci-
dents of individual genius and the romantic chances
of experiment and observation. There is, secondly,
the rhetorical order, useful enough in its proper
place, in which, for example, we proceed from the
simple to the difficult, or from the striking to the
important, according to the needs of the hearer.
There is, thirdly, the scientific order, in which,
could we only bring it to perfection, we should pro-
ceed from the abstract to the concrete, and from the
general law to the particular instance, until the
whole world of phenomena was gradually presented
to our gaze as a closely woven tissue of causes and
effects, infinite in its complexity, incessant in its
changes, yet at each moment proclaiming to those
who can hear and understand the certain prophecy
of its future and the authentic record of its past.
Lastly, there is what, according to the terminology
here employed, must be called the philosophic or-
der, in Avhich the various scientific propositions or
dogmas are, or rather should be, arranged as a
series of premises and conclusions, starting from
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM IO5
those which are axiomatic, i.e. for which proof can
be neither given nor required, and moving on
through a continuous series of binding inferences,
until the whole of knowledge is caught up and
ordered in the meshes of this all-inclusive dialectical
network.
In its perfected shape it is evident that the
philosophic series, though it reaches out to the
farthest confines of the known, must for each man
trace its origin to something which Jie can regard as
axiomatic and self-evident truth. There is no theo-
retical escape for any of us from the ultimate ' I.'
What ' I ' believe as conclusive must be drawn, by
some process which ' I ' accept as cogent, from
something which ' I ' am obliged to regard as intrin-
sically self-sufficient, beyond the reach of criticism
or the need for proof. The philosophic order and
the scientific order of statement, therefore, cannot
fail to be wholly different. While the scientific or-
der may start with the dogmatic enunciation of
some great generalisation valid through the whole
unmeasured range of the material universe, the philo-
sophic order is perforce compelled to find its point of
departure in the humble personality of the inquirer.
His grounds of belief, not the things believed in,
are the subject-matter of investigation. His reason,
or, if you like to have it so, his share of the Univer-
sal Reason, but in any case something which is Jiis,
must sit in judgment, and must try the cause. The
rights of this tribunal are inalienable, its authority
I06 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
incapable of delegation ; nor is there any superior
court by which the verdict it pronounces can be
reversed.
If now the question were asked, ' On what sort
of premises rests ultimately the scientific theory
of the world ? ' science and empirical philosophy,
though they might not agree on the meaning of
terms, would agree in answering, ' On premises
supplied by experience.' It is experience which has
given us our first real knowledge of Nature and her
laws. It is experience, in the shape of observation
and experiment, which has given us the raw material
out of which hypothesis and inference have slowly
elaborated that richer conception of the material
world which constitutes perhaps the chief, and cer-
tainly the most characteristic, glory of the modern
mind.
What, then, is this experience? or, rather, let us
ask (so as to avoid the appearance of trenching on
Kantian ground) what are these experiences ? Put-
ting ps3^chology on one side, these experiences, the
experiences on which are alike founded the practice
of the savage and the theories of the man of science,
are for the most part observations of material things
or objects, and of their behaviour in the presence of
or in relation to each other. These, on the empirical
theory of knowledge, supply the direct information,
the immediate data from which all our wider knowl-
edge ultimately draws its sanction. Behind these it is
impossible to go ; impossible, but also unnecessary.
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM 10/
For as the ' evidence of the senses ' does not derive its
authority from any higher source, so it is useless to
dispute its full and indefeasible title to command our
assent. According to this view, which is thoroughly
in accordance with common-sense, science rests in
the main upon the immediate judgments we form
about natural objects in the act of seeing, hearing,
and handling them. This is the solid, if somewhat
narrow, platform which provides us with a foothold
whence we may reach upward into regions where
the ' senses ' convey to us no direct knowledge,
where we have to do with laws remote from our
personal observation, and with objects which can
neither be seen, heard, nor handled.
IV
But although such a theory seems simple and
straightforward enough, in perfect harmony with the
habitual sentiments and the universal practice of
mankind, it would evidently be rash to rest satisfied
with it as a philosophy of science until we had at
least heard what science itself has to say upon the
subject. What, then, is the account which science
gives of these ' immediate judgments of the senses ' ?
Has it anything to tell us about their nature, or the
mode of their operation ? Without doubt it has ;
and its teaching provides a curious, and at first
sight an even startling, commentary on the com-
mon-sense version of that philosophy of experience
I08 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
whose general character has just been indicated
above.
For whereas common-sense tells us that our ex-
perience of objects provides us with a knowledge of
their nature which, so far as it goes, is immediate
and direct, science informs us that each particular
experience is itself but the final link in a long chain
of causes and effects, whose beginning is lost amid
the complexities of the material world, and whose
ending is a change of some sort in the ' mind ' of
the percipient. It informs us, further, that among
these innumerable causes, the thing ' immediately
experienced ' is but one ; and is, moreover, one
separated from the ' immediate experience ' which it
modestly assists in producing by a very large num-
ber of intermediate causes which are never experi-
enced at all.
Take, for example, an ordinary case of vision.
What are the causes which ultimately produce the
apparently immediate experience of (for example) a
green tree standing in the next field ? There are,
first (to go no further back), the vibrations among
the particles of the source of light, say the sun.
Consequent on these are the ethereal undulations
between the sun and the objects seen, namely, the
green tree. Then follows the absorption of most of
these undulations by the object ; the reflection of the
' green ' residue ; the incidence of a small fraction of
these on the lens of the eye ; their arrangement on
the retina ; the stimulation of the optic nerve ; and.
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM IO9
finally, the molecular change in a certain tract of the
cerebral hemispheres by which, in some way or
other wholly unknown, through predispositions in
part acquired by the individual, but chiefly inherited
through countless generations of ancestors, is pro-
duced the complex mental fact which we describe by
saying that ' we have an immediate experience of a
tree about fifty yards off.'
Now the experience, the causes and conditions of
which I have thus rudely outlined, is typical of all
the experiences, without exception, on which is based
our knowledge of the material universe. Some of
these experiences, no doubt, are incorrect. The
' evidence of the senses,' as the phrase goes, proves
now and then to be fallacious. But it is proved to
be fallacious by other evidence of precisely the same
kind ; and if we take the trouble to trace back far
enough our reasons for believing any scientific truth
whatever, they always end in some ' immediate
experience ' or experiences of the type described
above.
But the comparison thus inevitably suggested be-
tween ' immediate experiences ' considered as the
ultimate basis of all scientific belief, and immediate
experience considered as an insignificant and, so to
speak, casual product of natural laws, suggests some
curious reflections. I do not allude to the difficulty
of understanding how a mental effect can be pro-
duced by a physical cause — how matter can act on
mind. The problem I wish to dwell on is of quite
no THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
a different kind. It is concerned, not with the nat-
ure of the laws by which the world is governed, but
with their proof. It arises, not out of the difficulty
of feeling our way slowly along the causal chain
from physical antecedents to mental consequents,
but from the difficulty of harmonising this move-
ment with the opposite one, whereby we jump by
some instantaneous effort of inferential activity from
these mental consequents to an immediate conviction
as to the reality and character of some of their re-
moter physical antecedents. I am ' experiencing '
(to revert to our illustration) the tree in the next
field. While looking at it I begin to reflect upon
the double process I have just described. I remxcm-
ber the long-drawn series of causes, physical and
physiological, by which my perception of the object
has been produced. I realise that each one of these
causes might have been replaced by some other
cause without altering the character of the conse-
quent perception ; and that if it had been so re-
placed, my judgment about the object, though it
would have been as confident and as immediate as
at present, would have been wrong. Anything, for
instance, which would distribute similar green rays
on the retina of my eyes in the same pattern as that
produced by the tree, or anything which would pro-
duce a like irritation of the optic nerve or a like
modification of the cerebral tissues, would give me
an experience in itself quite indistinguishable from
my experience of the tree, though with the unfort-
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM III
unate peculiarity of being wholly incorrect. The
same message would be delivered, in the same terms
and on the same authority, but it would be false.
And though we are quite familiar with the fact that
illusions are possible and that mistakes will occur in
the simplest observation, yet we can hardly avoid
being struck by the incongruity of a scheme of be-
lief whose premises are wholly derived from wit-
nesses admittedly untrustworthy, yet which is un-
able to supply any criterion, other than the evidence
of these witnesses themselves, by which the char-
acter of their evidence can in any given case be de-
termined.
The fact that even the most immediate experi-
ences carry with them no inherent guarantee of their
veracity is, however, by far the smallest of the diffi-
culties which emerge from a comparison of the causal
movement from object to perception, with the cogni-
tive leap through perception to object. For a very
slight consideration of the teaching of science as to
the nature of the first is sufficient to prove, not merely
the possible, but the habitual inaccuracy of the second.
In other words, we need only consider carefully our
perceptions regarded as psychological results, in
order to see that, regarded as sources of information,
they are not merely occasionally inaccurate, but ha-
bitually mendacious. We are dealing, recollect, with
a theory of science according to which the ultimate
stress of scientific proof is thrown wholly upon our
immediate experience of objects. But nine-tenths
112 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
of our immediate experiences of objects are visual ;
and all visual experiences, without exception, are,
according to science, erroneous. As everybody
knows, colour is not a property of the thing seen :
it is a sensation produced in us by that thing. The
thing itself consists of uncoloured particles, which
become visible solely in consequence of their power
of either producing or reflecting ethereal undula-
tions. The degrees of brightness and the qualities
of colour perceived in the thing, and in virtue of
which alone any visual perception of the thing is
possible, are, therefore, according to optics, no part
of its reality, but are mere feelings produced in the
mind of the percipient by the complex movements
of material molecules, possessing mass and exten-
sion, but to which it is not only incorrect but un-
meaning to attribute either brightness or colour.
From the side of science these are truisms.
From the side of a theory or philosophy of science,
how^ever, they are paradoxes. It was sufficiently
embarrassing to discover that the messages con-
veyed to us by sensible experiences which the ob-
server treats as so direct and so certain are, when
considered in transit, at one moment nothing but
vibrations of imperceptible particles, at another
nothing but periodic changes in an unimaginable
ether, at a third nothing but unknown, and perhaps
unknowable, modifications of nervous tissue ; and
that none of these various messengers carry with
them any warrant that the judgment in which they
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM II3
finally issue will prove to be true. But what are we
to say about these same experiences when we dis-
cover, not only that they may be wholly false, but
that they are never wholly true? What sort of a
system is that which makes haste to discredit its
own premises ? In what entanglements of contra-
diction do we not find ourselves involved by the
attempt to rest science upon observations which
science itself asserts to be erroneous? By what
possible title do we proclaim the same immediate
experience to be right when it testifies to the inde-
pendent reality of something solid and extended,
and to be wrong when it testifies to the indepen-
dent reality of something illuminated and coloured?
There is, of course, an answer to all this, simple
enough if only it be true. The whole theory, it
may be said, on which we have been proceeding is
untenable, the undigested product of crude com-
mon-sense. The bugbear which frightens us is of
our own creation. We have no immediate expe-
rience of independent things such as has been
gratuitously supposed. What science tells us of the
colour element in our visual perceptions, namely,
that it is merely a feeling or sensation, is true of
every element in every perception. We are di-
rectly cognisant of nothing but mental states: all
else is a matter of inference; a hypothetical ma-
114 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
chinery devised for no other purpose than to ac-
count for the existence of the only realities of which
we have first-hand knowledge — namely, the mental
states themselves.
Now this theory does at first sight undoubtedly
appear to harmonise with the general teaching of
science on the subject of mental physiology. This
teaching, as ordinarily expounded, assumes through-
out a material world of objects and a psychical
world of feelings and ideas. The latter is in all
cases the product of the former. In some cases it
may be a copy or partial reflection of the former.
In no case is it identified with the former. When,
therefore, I am in the act of experiencing a tree in
the next field, what on this theory I am really doing
is inferring from the fact of my having certain feel-
ings the existence of a cause having qualities ade-
quate to produce them. It is true that the process
of inference is so rapid and habitual that we are un-
conscious of performing it. It is also true that the
inference is quite differently performed by the nat-
ural man in his natural moments and the scientific
man in his scientific moments. For, whereas the
natural man infers the existence of a material object
which in all respects resembles his idea of it, the
scientific man knows very well that the material ob-
ject only resembles his ideas of it in certain partic-
ulars— extension, solidity, and so forth — and that
in respect of such attributes as colour and illumi-
nation there is no resemblance at all. Nevertheless,
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM II5
in all cases, whether there be resemblance between
them or not, the material fact is a conclusion from
the mental fact, with which last alone we can be
said to be, so to speak, in any immediate empirical
relation.
As this theory regarding the sources of our
knowledge of the material world fits in with the
habitual language of mental physiology, so also it
fits in with the first instincts of speculative analysis.
It is, I suppose, one of the earliest discoveries of the
metaphysically minded youth that he can, if he so
wills it, change his point of view, and thereby sud-
denly convert what in ordinary moments seem the
solid realities of this material universe, into an un.
ending pageant of feelings and ideas, moving in
long procession across his mental stage, and having
from the nature of the case no independent being
before they appear, nor retaining any after they
vanish.
But however plausible be this correction of com-
mon-sense, it has its difficulties. In the first place,
it involves a complete divorce between the practice
of science and its theory. It is all very well to say
that the scientific account of mental physiology in
general, and of sense-perception in particular, re-
quires us to hold that what is immediately expe-
rienced are mental facts, and that our knowledge of
physical facts is but mediate and inferential. Such
a conclusion is quite out of harmony with its own
premises, since the propositions on which, as a
Il6 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
matter of historical verity, science is ultimately
founded are not propositions about states of mind,
but about material things. The observations on
which are built, for example, our knowledge of anat-
omy or our knowledge of chemistry were not, in
the opinion of those who originally made them or
have since confirmed them, observations of their
own feelings, but of objects thought of as wholly
independent of the observer. They may have been
mistaken. Such observations may be impossible.
But, possible or impossible, they were believed to
have occurred, and on that belief depends the
whole empirical evidence of science as scientific
discoverers themselves conceive it.
The reader will, I hope, understand that I am
not here arguing that the theory of experience now
under consideration, the theory, that is, which con-
fines the field of immediate experience to our own
states of mind, is inconsistent with science, or even
that it supplies an inadequate empirical basis for
science. On these points I may have a word to
say presently. My present contention simply is,
that it is not experience tJius luiderstood which
has supplied men of science with their knowl-
edge of the physical universe. The}' have never
suspected that, while they supposed themselves
to be perceiving independent material objects,
they were in reality perceiving quite another
set of things, namely, feelings and sensations of
a particular kind, grouped in particular ways,
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM II 7
and succeeding each other in a particular order.
Nor, if this idea had ever occurred to them, would
they have admitted that these two classes of things
could by any merely verbal manipulation be made
the same. So that if this particular account of the
nature of experience be accurate, the system of
thought represented by science presents the singu-
lar spectacle of a creed which is believed in practice
for one set of reasons, though in theory it can only
be justified by another; and which, through some
beneficent accident, turns out to be true, though
its origin and each subsequent stage in its gradual
development are the product of error and illusion.
This is perplexing enough. Yet an even stronger
statement would seem to be justified. We must not
only say that the experiences on which science is
founded have been invariably misinterpreted by those
who underwent them, but that, if they had not been
so misinterpreted, science as we know it would
never have existed. We have not merely stumbled
on the truth in spite of error and illusion, which is
odd, but because of error and illusion, which is odd-
er. For if the scientific observers of Nature had
realised from the beginning that all they were observ-
ing was their own feelings and ideas, as empirical
idealism and mental physiology alike require us to
hold, they surely would never have taken the trouble
to invent a Nature {i.e. an independently existing
system of material things) for no other purpose than
to provide a machinery by which the occurrence of
Il8 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
feelings and ideas might be adequately accounted
for. To go through so much to get so little, to
bewilder themselves in the ever-increasing intricacies
of this hypothetical wheel -work, to pile world on
world and add infinity to infinity, and all for no more
important object than to find an explanation for a
few fleeting impressions, say of colour or resistance,
would, indeed, have seemed to them a most super-
fluous labour. Nor is it possible to doubt that this
task has been undertaken and partially accomplished
only because humanity has been, as for the most part
it still is, under the belief not merely that there ex-
ists a universe possessing the independence which
science and common-sense alike postulate, but that
it is a universe immediately, if imperfectly, revealed
to us in the deliverances of sense-perception.
VI
We can scarcely deny, then, though the paradox
be hard of digestion, that, historically speaking, if
the theory we are discussing be true, science owes
its being to an erroneous view as to what kind of
information it is that our experiences directly convey
to us. But a much more important question than
the merely historical one remains behind, namely,
whether, from the kind of information which our ex- «
periences do thus directly convey to us, anything at
all resembling the scientific theory of Nature can be
reasonably extracted. Can our revised conception
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM I 19
of the material world really be inferred from our
revised conception of the import and limits of ex-
perience? Can we by any possible treatment of
sensations and feelings legitimately squeeze out of
them trustworthy knowledge of the permanent and
independent material universe of which, according
to science, sensations and feelings are but transient
and evanescent effects ?
I cannot imagine the process by which such a
result may be attained, nor has it been satisfactorily
explained to us by any apologist of the empirical
theory of knowledge. We may, no doubt, argue
that sensations and feelings, like everything else,
must have a cause ; that the hypothesis of a material
world suggests such a cause in a form which is
agreeable to our natural beliefs; and that it is a
hypothesis we are justified in adopting when we find
that it enables us to anticipate the order and char-
acter of that stream of perceptions which it is called
into existence to explain. But this is a line of argu-
ment which really will not bear examination. Every
one of the three propositions of which it consists is,
if we are to go back to fundamental principles, either
disputable or erroneous. The principle of causation
cannot be extracted out of a succession of individual
experiences, as is implied by the first. The world
described by science is not congruous with our
natural beliefs, as is alleged by the second. Nor can
we legitimately reason back from effect to cause in
the manner required by the third.
120 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
A very brief comment will, 1 think, be sufficient
to make this clear, and I proceed to offer it on each of
the three propositions, taking them, for convenience,
in the reverse order, and beginning, therefore, with
the third. This in effect declares that as the material
world described by science would, if it existed, pro-
duce sensations and impressions in the very manner
in which our experiences assure us that they actual-
ly occur, we may assume that such a world exists.
But may we ? Even supposing that there was this
complete correspondence between theory and fact,
which is far, unfortunately, from being at present
the case, are we justified in making so bold a logical
leap from the known to the unknown ? I doubt it.
Recollect that by hypothesis we are strictly im-
prisoned, so far as direct experiences are concerned,
within the circle of sensations or impressions. It is
in this self-centred universe alone, therefore, that
we can collect the premises of further knowledge.
How can it possibly supply us with any principles
of selection by which to decide between the various
kinds of cause that may, for anything we know to
the contrary, have had a hand in its production?
None of these kinds of cause are open to observa-
tion. All must, from the nature of the case, be
purely conjectural. Because, therefore, we happen
to have thought of one which, with a little goodwill,
can be forced into a rude correspondence with the
observed facts, shall we, oblivious of the million
possible explanations which a superior intelligence
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM 121
might be able to devise, proceed to decorate our
particular fancy with the title of the ' Real World ' ?
If we do so, it is not, as the candid reader will be
prepared to admit, because such a conclusion is
justified by such premises, but because we are pre-
disposed to a conclusion of this kind by those
instinctive beliefs which, in unreflective moments,
the philosopher shares with the savage. In such
moments all men conceive themselves (by hypoth-
esis erroneously) as having direct experiences of
an independent material universe. When, therefore,
science, or philosophers on behalf of science, pro-
ceed to infer such a universe from impressions of
extension, resistance, and so forth, they find them-
selves, so far, in an unnatural and quite illegitimate
alliance with common-sense. By procedures which
are different, and essentially inconsistent, the two
parties have found it possible to reach results which
at first sight look very much the same. Immediate
intuitions wrongly interpreted come to the aid of
mediate inferences illegitimately constructed ; we
find ourselves quite prepared to accept the conclu-
sions of bad reasoning, because they have a partial
though, as I shall now proceed to show, an illusory
resemblance to the deliverances of uncriticised ex-
perience.
This, it will be observed, is the subject dealt
with in the second of the three propositions on
which I am engaged in commenting. It alleges that
the world described by science is congruous with
122 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
our natural beliefs ; a thesis not very important in
itself, which I only dwell on now because it affords
a convenient text from which to preach the great
oddity of the creed which science requires us to
adopt respecting the world in which we live. This
creed is evidently in its origin an amendment or
modification of our natural or instinctive view of
things, a compromise to which we are no doubt
compelled by considerations of conclusive force, but
a compromise, nevertheless, which, if we did not
know it to be true, we should certainly find it diffi-
cult not to abandon as absurd.
For, consider what kind of a world it is in which
we are asked to believe — a world which, so far as
most people are concerned, can only be at all
adequately conceived in terms of the visual sense,
but which in its true reality possesses neither of the
qualities characteristically associated with the visual
sense, namely, illumination and colour. A world
which is half like our ideas of it and half unlike
them. Like our ideas of it, that is to say, so far as
the so-called primary qualities of matter, such as
extension and solidity, are concerned ; unlike our
ideas of it so far as the so-called secondary qualities,
such as warmth and colour, are concerned. A
hybrid world, a world of inconsistencies and strange
anomalies. A world one-half of which may com-
mend itself to the empirical philosopher, and the
other half of which may commend itself to the plain
man, but which as a whole can commend itself tq
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM 1 23
neither. A world which is rejected by the first be-
cause it arbitrarily selects what he regards as modes
of sensation, and hypostatises them into permanent
realities ; while it is scarcely intelligible to the
second, because it takes what he regards as perma-
nent realities, and evaporates them into modes of
sensation. A world, in short, which seems to
harmonise neither with the conclusions of critical
empiricism nor with the ' unmistakable evidence of
the senses ' ; which outrages the whole psychology
of the one, and is in direct contradiction with the
deliverances of the other.
So far as the leading philosophic empiricists are
concerned — and it is only with them that we need
deal — the result of these difficulties has been extra-
ordinary. They have found it impossible to swal-
low this strange universe, consisting partly of
microcosms furnished with impressions and ideas
which, as such, are of course transient and essenti-
ally mental, partly of a macrocosm furnished with
material objects whose qualities exactly resemble
impressions and ideas, with the embarrassing ex-
ception that they are neither transient nor mental.
They have, therefore, been compelled by one device
or another to sweep the macrocosm as conceived by
science altogether out of existence. In the name of
experience itself they have destroyed that which
professes to be experience systematised. And we
are presented with the singular spectacle of thinkers
whose claim to our consideration largely consists in
124 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
their uncompromising empiricism playing uncon-
scious havoc with the most solid results which em-
pirical methods have hitherto attained.
I say 'unconscious' havoc, because, no doubt, the
truth of this indictment would not be admitted by
the majority of those against whom it is directed.
Yet there can, I think, be no real question as to its
truth. In the case of Hume it will hardly be
denied ; and Hume, perhaps, would himself have
been the last to deny it. But in the case of John
Mill, of Mr. Herbert Spencer,^ and of Professor
Huxley, it is an allegation which would certainly be
repudiated, though the evidence for it seems to me
to lie upon the surface of their speculations. The
allegation, be it observed, is this — that while each
of these thinkers has recognised the necessity for
some independent reality in relation to the ever-
moving stream of sensations which constitute our
immediate experiences, each of them has rejected
the independent reality which is postulated and ex-
plained by science, and each of them has substituted
for it a private reality of his own. Where the
physicist, for example, assumes actual atoms and
motions and forces. Mill saw nothing but permanent
possibilities of sensation, and Mr. Spencer knows
' It is probably accurate to describe Mr. Spencer as an empiri-
cist ; though he has added to the accustomed first principles of em-
piricism certain doctrines of his own which, while they do not
strengthen his system, make it somewhat difficult to classify. The
reader interested in such matters will find most of the relevant
points discussed in Philosophic Doubt, chaps, viii., ix., x.
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM 12$
nothing but ' the unknowable.' Without discussing
the place which such entities may properly occupy
in the general scheme of things, I content myself
with observing, what I have elsewhere endeavoured
to demonstrate at length, that they cannot occupy
the place now filled by material Nature as conceived
by science. That which is a ' permanent possibil-
ity,' but is nothing more, is permanent only in name.
It represents no enduring reality, nothing which
persists, nothing which has any being save during
the brief intervals when, ceasing to be a mere
' possibility,' it blossoms into the actuality of sen-
sation. Before sentient beings were, it was not.
When they cease to exist, it will vanish away. If
they change the character of their sensibility, it will
sympathetically vary its nature. How unfit is this
unsubstantial shadow of a phrase to take the place
now occupied by that material universe, of which
we are but fleeting accidents, whose attributes are
for the most part absolutely independent of us,
whose duration is incalculable !
A different but not a less conclusive criticism
may be passed on Mr. Spencer's 'unknowable.' For
anything I am here prepared to allege to the con-
trary, this may be real enough ; but, unfortunately,
it has not the kind of reality imperatively required
by science. It is not in space. It is not in time.
It possesses neither mass nor extension; nor is it
capable of motion. Its very name implies that it
eludes the grasp of thought, and cannot be caught
126 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
up into formulae. Whatever purpose, therefore,
such an 'object' may subserve in the universe of
things, it is as useless as a ' permanent possibility '
itself to provide subject-matter for scientific treat-
ment. If these be all that truly exist outside the
circle of impressions and ideas, then is all science
turned to foolishness, and evolution stands confessed
as a mere figment of the imagination. Man, or
rather * I,' become not merely the centre of the
world, but am the world. Beyond me and my ideas
there is either nothing, or nothing that can be known.
The problems about which we disquiet ourselves in
vain, the origin of things and the modes of their de-
velopment, the inner constitution of matter and its
relations to mind, are questionings about nothing,
interrogatories shouted into the void. The baseless
fabric of the sciences, like the great globe itself, dis-
solves at the touch of theories like these, leaving not
a wrack behind. Nor does there seem to be any
other course open to the consistent agnostic, were
such a being possible, than to contemplate in patience
the long procession of his sensations, without disturb-
ing himself with futile inquiries into what, if any-
thing, may lie beyond.
VII
There remains but one problem further with
which I need trouble the readers of this chapter. It
is that raised by the only remaining proposition of
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM 127
the three with which I promised just now to deal.
This asserts, it may be recollected, that the principle
of causation and, by parity of reasoning, any other
universal principle of sense-interpretation, may by
some process of logical alchemy be extracted, not
merely from experience in general,^ but even from
the experience of a single individual.
But who, it may be asked, is unreasonable enough
to demand that it should be extracted from the ex-
perience of a single individual? What is there in
the empirical theory which requires us to impose so
arbitrary a limitation upon the sources of our knowl-
edge ? Have we not behind us the whole experience
of the race ? Is it to count for nothing that for num-
berless generations mankind has been scrutinising
the face of Nature, and storing up for our guidance
innumerable observations of the laws which she
obeys ? Yes, I reply, it is to count for nothing ; and
for a most simple reason. In making this appeal to
the testimony of mankind with regard to the world
in which they live, we take for granted that there is
such a world, that mankind has had experiences of
it, and that, so far as is necessary for our purpose,
we know what those experiences have been. But
by what right do we take those things for granted ?
They are not axiomatic or intuitive truths ; they
must be proved by something ; and that something
must, on the empirical theory, be in the last resort
experience, and experience alone. But whose ex-
* See Philosophic Doubt, ch. i.
128 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
perience ? Plainly it cannot be general experience,
for that is the very thing whose reality has to be es-
tablished, and whose character is in question. It
must, therefore, in every case and for each individual
man be his own personal experience. This, and only
this, can supply him with evidence for those funda-
mental beliefs, without whose guidance it is impos-
sible for him either to reconstruct the past or to an-
ticipate the future.
Consider, for example, the law of causation ; one,
but by no means the only one, of those general prin-
ciples of interpretation which, as I am contending,
are presupposed in any appeal to general experience,
and cannot, therefore, be proved by it. If we en-
deavour to analyse the reasoning by which we ar-
rive at the conviction that any particular event or
any number of particular events have occun-ed out-
side the narrow ring of our own immediate percep-
tions, we shall find that not a step of this process
can we take without assuming that the course of
Nature is uniform^ ; or, if not absolutely uniform, at
least sufficiently uniform to allow us to argue with
tolerable security from effects to causes, or, if need
be, from causes to effects, over great intervals of
time and space. The whole of what is called his-
torical evidence is, in its most essential parts, noth-
' The reader will find some observations on the meaning of the
phrase, ' Uniformity of Nature,' on p. 289 et seq. In this chapter
I have assumed (following empirical usage) that the L^niformity of
Nature and the Law of Causation are different expressions for the
same thing.
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM 129
ing more than an argument or series of arguments
of this kind. The fact that mankind have given
their testimony to the general uniformity of Nature,
or, indeed, to anything else, can be established by
the aid of that principle itself, and by it alone ; so
that if we abandon it, we are in a moment deprived
of all logical access to the outer world, of all cogni-
sance of other minds, of all usufruct of their accu-
mulated knowledge, of all share in the intellectual
heritage of the race. While if we cling to it (as, to
be sure, we must, whether we like it or not), we can
do so only on condition that we forego every en-
deavour to prove it by the aid of general experience;
for such a procedure would be nothing less than to
compel what is intended to be the conclusion of our
argument to figure also among the most important
of its premises.
The problem, therefore, is reduced to this : Can
we find in our personal experience adequate evi-
dence of a law which, like the law of Causation,,
does, by the very terms in which it is stated, claim
universal jurisdiction, as of right, to the utmost
verge both of time and space. And surely, to enun-
ciate such a question is to suggest the inevitable
answer. The sequences familiar to us in the petty
round of daily life, the accustomed recurrence of
something resembling a former consequent, follow-
ing on the heels of something resembling a former
antecedent, are sufficient to generate the expecta-
tions and the habits by which we endeavour, with
9
130 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
what success we may, to accommodate our behav-
iour to the unyielding requirements of the world
around us. But to throw upon experiences such as
these ^ the whole burden of fixing our opinions as to
the constitution of the universe is quite absurd. It
would be absurd in any case. It would be absurd
even if all the phenomena of which we have imme-
diate knowledge succeeded each other according to
some obvious and undeviating order ; for the con-
trast between this microscopic range of observation
and the gigantic induction which it is sought to rest
thereon, would rob the argument of all plausibility.
But it is doubly and trebly absurd when we reflect
on what our experiences really are. So far are they
from indicating, when taken strictly by themselves,
the existence of a world where all things small and
great follow with the most exquisite regularity and
the most minute obedience the bidding of unchang-
ing law, that they indicate precisely the reverse. In
certain regions of experience, no doubt, orderly se-
quence appears to be the rule : day alternates with
night, and summer follows upon spring ; the sun
moves through the zodiac, and unsupported bodies
fall usually, though, to be sure, not always, to the
ground. Even of such elementary astronomical and
physical facts, however, it could hardly be main-
tained that any man Avould have a right, on the
strength of his personal observation alone, confident-
' At least in the absence of any transcendental interpretation of
them. See next chapter.
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM 131
ly to assert their undeviating regularity. But when
we come to the more complex phenomena with
which we have to deal, the plain lesson taught by
personal observation is not the regularity, but the
irregularity, of Nature. A kind of ineffectual at-
tempt at uniformity, no doubt, is commonly appar-
ent, as of an ill-constructed machine that will run
smoothly for a time, and then for no apparent reason
begin to jerk and quiver ; or of a drunken man who,
though he succeeds in keeping to the high-road, yet
pursues along it a most wavering and devious course.
But of that perfect adjustment, that all-penetrating
governance by law, which lies at the root of scientific
inference we find not a trace. In many cases sensa-
tion follows sensation, and event hurries after event,
to all appearances absolutely at random : no ob-
served order of succession is ever repeated, nor is it
pretended that there is any direct causal connection
between the members of the series as they appear
one after the other in the consciousness of the indi-
vidual. But even when these conditions are reversed,
perfect uniformity is never observed. The most
careful series of experiments carried out by the most
accomplished investigators never show identical re-
sults ; and as for the general mass of mankind, so far
are they from finding, either in their personal experi-
ences or elsewhere, any sufficient reason for accept-
ing in its perfected form the principle of Universal
Causation, that, as a matter of fact, this doctrine has
been steadily ignored by them up to the present hour.
1^2
This apparent irregularity of Nature, obvious
enough when we turn our attention to it, escapes
our habitual notice, of course, because we invariably
attribute the want of observed uniformity to the
errors of the observer. And without doubt we do
well. But what does this imply ? It implies that we
bring to the interpretation of our sense-perception
the principle of causation ready made. It implies
that we do not believe the world to be governed by
immutable law because our experiences appear to
be regular ; but that we believe that our experi-
ences, in spite of their apparent irregularity, follow
some (perhaps) unknown rule because we first be-
lieve the world to be governed by immutable law.
But this is as much as to say that the principle is
not proved by experience, but that experience is un-
derstood in the light of the principle. Here, again,
empiricism fails us. As in the case of our judgments
about particular matters of fact, so also in the case
of these other judgments, whose scope is co-exten-
sive with the whole realm of Nature, we find that
any endeavour to formulate a rational justification
for them based on experience alone breaks down,
and, to all appearance, breaks down hopelessly.
VIII
But even if this reasoning be sound, may the
reader exclaim, What is it that we gain by it ? What
harvest are we likely to reap from such broadcast
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM 1 33
sowing of scepticism as this? What does it profit
us to show that a great many truths which every-
body believes, and which no abstract speculations
will induce us to doubt, are still waiting for a philo-
sophic proof ? Fair questions, it must be admitted ;
questions, nevertheless, to which I must reserve my
full answer until a later stage of our inquiry. Yet
even now something may be said, by way of conclu-
sion to this chapter, on the relation which these crit-
icisms bear to the scheme of thought whose practi-
cal consequences we traced out in the first part of
these Notes.
I begin by admitting that the criticisms them-
selves are, from the nature of the case, incomplete.
They contain but the concise and even meagre out-
line of an argument which is itself but a portion
only of the whole case. For want of space, or to
avoid unsuitable technicalities, much has been omitted
which would have been relevant to the issues raised,
and have still further strengthened the position
which has been taken up. Yet, though more might
have been said, what has been said is, in my opinion,
sufficient ; and I shall, therefore, not scruple hence-
forth to assume that a purely empirical theory of
things, a philosophy which depends for its premises
in the last resort upon the particulars revealed to
us in perceptive experience alone, is one that can-
not rationally be accepted.
Is this conclusion, then, adverse to Naturalism ?
And, if so, must it not tell with equal force against
134 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
Science, seeing that it is solely against that part of
the naturalistic teaching which is taken over bodily
from Science that it appears to be directed ? Of
these two questions, I answer the first in the affirm-
ative, the second in the negative. Doubtless, if
empiricism be shattered, it must drag down natural-
ism in its fall ; for, after all, naturalism is nothing
more than the assertion that empirical methods are
valid, and that no others are so. But because any
effectual criticism of empiricism is the destruction
of naturalism, is it therefore the destruction of sci-
ence also ? Surely not. The adherent of natural-
ism is an empiricist from necessity ; the man of
science, if he be an empiricist, is so only from
choice. The latter may, if he please, have no philos-
ophy at all, or he may have a different one. He is
not obliged, any more than other men, to justify his
conclusions by an appeal to first principles ; still less
is he obliged to take his first principles from so poor
a creed as the one we have been discussing. Science
preceded the theory of science, and is independent
of it. Science preceded naturalism, and will sur-
vive it. Though the convictions involved in our
practical conception of the universe are not beyond
the reach of theoretic doubts, though we habitually
stake our all upon assumptions which we never at-
tempt to justify, and which we could not justify it
we would, yet is our scientific certitude unshaken ;
and if we still strive after some solution of our
sceptical difficulties, it is because this is necessary
THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM 1 35
for the satisfaction of an intellectual ideal, not be-
cause it is required to fortify our confidence either
in the familiar teachings of experience or in their
utmost scientific expansion. And hence arises my
principal complaint against naturalism. With Em-
pirical philosophy, considered as a tentative con-
tribution to the theory of science, I have no desire
to pick a quarrel. That it should fail is nothing.
Other philosophies have failed. Such is, after all,
the common lot. That it should have been con-
trived to justify conclusions already accepted is, if a
fault at all — which I doubt — at least a most venial
one, and one, moreover, which it has committed in
the best of philosophic company. That it should
derive some moderate degree of imputed credit
from the universal acceptance of the scientific be-
liefs which it countersigns, may be borne with,
though for the real interests of speculative inquiry
this has been, I think, a misfortune. But that it
should develop into naturalism, and then, on the
strength of labours which it has not endured, of
victories which it has not won, and of scientific
triumphs in which it has no right to share, presume,
in despite of its speculative insufficiency, to dictate
terms of surrender to every other system of belief, is
altogether intolerable. Who would pay the slight-
est attention to naturalism if it did not force itself
into the retinue of science, assume her livery, and
claim, as a kind of poor relation, in some sort to rep*
resent her authority and to speak with her voice ?
136 THE PHILOSOPHIC BASIS OF NATURALISM
Of itself it is nothing. It neither ministers to the
needs of mankind, nor does it satisfy their reason.
And if, in spite of this, its influence has increased, is
increasing, and as yet shows no signs of diminution ;
if more and more the educated and the half-educated
are acquiescing in its pretensions and, however re-
luctantly, submitting to its domination, this is, at
least in part, because they have not learned to dis-
tinguish between the practical and inevitable claims
which experience has on their allegiance, and the
speculative but quite illusory title by which the em-
pirical school have endeavoured to associate natural-
ism and science in a kind of joint supremacy over
the thoughts and consciences of mankind.
CHAPTER II
IDEALISM ; AFTER SOME RECENT ENGLISH WRITINGS *
The difficulties in the way of an empirical philos-
ophy of science, with which we dealt in the last
^ The reader who has no familiarity with philosophic literature is
advised to omit this chapter. The philosophic reader will, I hope,
regard it as provisional. Transcendental Idealism is, if I mistake
not, at this moment in rather a singular position in this country.
In the land of its birth (as I am informed) it is but little considered.
In English-speaking countries it is, within the narrow circle of
professed philosophers, perhaps the dominant mood of thought;
while w^ithout that circle it is not so much objected to as totally
ignored. This anomalous state of things is no doubt due in part
to the inherent difficulty of the subject; but even more, I think, to
the fact that the energy of English Idealists has been consumed
rather in the production of commentaries on other people's systems
than in expositions of their own. The result of this is that we do
not quite know where we are, that we are more or less in a con-
dition of expectancy, and that both learners and critics are placed
at a disadvantage. Pending the appearance of some original work
which shall represent the constructive views of the younger school
of thinkers, I have written the following chapter, with reference
chiefly to the writings of the late Mr. T. H. Green, which at pres-
ent contain the most important exposition, so far as I know, of this
phase of English thought. Mr. Bradley's noteworthy work, Ap-
pearance and Reality, published some time after this chapter was
finished, is written with characteristic independence ; but I know
not whether it has yet commanded any large measure of assent
from the few who are competent to pronounce a verdict upon its
merits.
138 IDEALISM
chapter, largely arise from the conflict which exists
between two parts of a system, the scientific half of
which requires us to regard experience as an effect
of an external and independent world, while the
philosophic or epistemological half offers this same
experience to us as the sole groundwork and logi-
cal foundation on which any knowledge whatever
of an external and independent world may be ra-
tionally based. These difficulties and the arguments
founded on them require to be urged, in the first in-
stance, in opposition to those who explicitly hold
what I have called the * naturalistic ' creed ; and
then to that general body of educated opinion
which, though reluctant to contract its beliefs with-
in the narrow circuit of ' naturalism,' yet habitually
assumes that there is presented to us in science a
body of opinion, certified by reason, solid, certain,
and impregnable, to which theology adds, as an edi-
fying supplement, a certain number of dogmas, of
which the well-disposed assimilate as many, but
only as many, as their superior allegiance to * posi-
tive ' knowledge will permit them to digest.
These two classes, however, by no means exhaust
the kinds of opinion with which it is necessary to
deal. And in particular there is a metaphysical
school, few indeed in numbers, but none the less im-
portant in matters speculative, whose general posi-
tion is wholly distinct and independent; who would,
indeed, not perhaps very widely, dissent from the
negative conclusions already reached, but who have
IDEALISM 139
their own positive solution of the problem of the
universe. In their opinion, all the embarrassments
which may be shown to attend on the empirical
philosophy are due to the fact that empirical philos-
ophers wholly misunderstand the essential nature
of that experience on which they profess to found
their beliefs. The theory of perception evolved out
of Locke, by Berkeley and Hume, which may be
traced without radical modification through their
modern successors, is, according to the school of
which I speak, at the root of all the mischief. Of
this theory they make short w^ork. They press to
the utmost the sceptical consequences to which it
inevitably leads. They show, or profess to show,
that it renders not only scientific knowledge, but
any knowledge whatever, impossible ; and they of-
fer as a substitute a theory of experience, very re-
mote indeed from ordinary modes of expression, by
which these consequences may, in their judgment,
be entirely avoided.
The dimensions and character of these Notes ren-
der it impossible, even were I adequately equipped
for the task, to deal fully with so formidable a sub-
ject as Transcendental Idealism, either in its
historical or in its metaphysical aspect. Remote
though it be from ordinary modes of thought, some
brief discussion of the theory with which, in some
recent English works, it supplies us concerning Nat-
ure and God is, however, absolutely necessary ;
and I therefore here present the following observa-
140 IDEALISM
tions to the philosophic reader with apologies for
their brevity, and to the unphilosophic reader with
apologies for their length.
From what I have already said it is clear that
the theory to which Transcendental Idealism may
be, from our point of view, considered as a reply, is
not the theory of experience which is taken for
granted in ordinary scientific statement, but the
closely allied 'ps3xhological theory of perception'
evolved by thinkers usually classed rather as philos-
ophers than as men of science. The difference is
not wholly immaterial, as will appear in the sequel.
What, then, is this ' psychological theory of per-
ception ' ? Or, rather, where is the weak point in it
at which it is open to attack by the transcendental
idealists? It lies in the account given by that the-
ory of the real. According to this account the
' real * in external experience, that which, because it
is not due to an}^ mental manipulation by the per-
cipient, such as abstraction or comparison, may be
considered as the experienced fact, is, in ultimate
analysis, either a sensation or a group of sensations.
These sensations and groups of sensations are sub-
jected in the mind to a process of analysis and com-
parison. Discrimination is made between those
which are unlike. Those which have points of re-
semblance arc called by a common name. The se-
quences and CO -existences which obtain among
them are noted ; the laws by which they are bound
together are discovered ; and the order in which
IDEALISM 141
they may be expected to recur is foreseen and un-
derstood.
Now, sa}' the idealists, if everything of which ex-
ternal reality can be predicated is thus either a sen-
sation or a group of sensations, if these and these only
are ' given ' in external appearance, everything else, in
eluding relations, being mere fictions of the mind,
we are reduced to the absurd position of holding
that the real is not only unknown, but is also un-
knowable. For a brief examination of the nature of
experience is sufficient to prove that an unrelated
' thing ' (be that ' thing ' a sensation or a group of
sensations), which is not qualified by its resemblance
to other things, its difference from other things, and
its connection with other things, is really, so far as
we are concerned, northing' at all. It is not an
object of possible experience ; its true character
must be for ever hid from us ; or, rather, as char-
acter consists simply in relations, it has no char-
acter, nor can it form part of that intelligible
world with which alone we have to deal.
Ideas of relation are, therefore, required to con-
vert the supposed ' real ' of external experience into
something of which experience can take note. But
such ideas themselves are unintelligible, except as the
results of the intellectual activity of some ' Self ' or
' I '. They must be somebody's thought, somebody's
ideas ; if only for the purpose of mutual compari-
son, there must be some bond of union between
them other than themselves. Here again, therefore,
142 IDEALISM
the psychological analysis of experience breaks
down, and it becomes plain that just as the real in
external experience is real only in virtue of an in-
tellectual element, namely, ideas of relation (cate-
gories), through which it was apprehended, so in
internal experience ideas and sensations presuppose
the existence of an ' I,' or self-conscious unity, which
is neither sensation nor idea, which ought not,
therefore, on the psychological theory to be con-
sidered as having any claim to reality at all, but
which, nevertheless, is presupposed in the very pos-
sibility of phenomena appearing as elements in a
single experience.
We are thus apparently left by the idealist theory
face to face with a mind (thinking subject) which is
the source of relations (categories), and a world which
is constituted by relations : with a mind which is
conscious of itself, and a world of which that mind
may without metaphor be described as the creator.
We have, in short, reached the central position of
transcendental idealism. But before we proceed to
subject the system to any critical observations, let
us ask what it is we are supposed to gain by endeav-
ouring thus to rethink the universe from so unaccus-
tomed a point of view.
In the first place, then, it is claimed for this theory
that it frees us from the scepticism which, in matters
scientific as well as in matters theological, follows
inevitably upon the psychological doctrine of percep-
tion as just explained : a scepticism which not only
IDEALISM 143
leaves no room for God and the soul, but destroys
the very possibility of framing any general proposi-
tion about the ' external ' world, by destroying the
possibility of there being any world, * external * or
otherwise, in which permanent relation shall exist.
In the second place, it makes Reason no mere
accidental excrescence on a universe of material
objects; an element to be added to, or subtracted
from, the sum of ' things * as the blind shock of un-
thinking causes may decide. Rather does it make
Reason the very essence of all that is or can be : the
(immanent) cause of the world - process ; its origin
and its goal.
In the third place, it professes to establish on a
firm foundation the moral freedom of self-conscious
agents. That ' Self ' which is the prior condition of
there being a natural world cannot be the creature
of that world. It stands above and beyond the sphere
of causes and effects; it is no mere object among
other objects, driven along its predestined course by
external forces in obedience to alien laws. On the
contrary, it is a free, autonomous Spirit, not only
bound, but able, to fulfil the moral commands which
are but the expression of its own most essential being.
II
I am reluctant to suggest objections to any theory
which promises results so admirable. Yet I cannot
think that all the difficulties with which it is sur-
144 IDEALISM
rounded have been fairly faced, or, at any rate, fully
explained, by those who accept its main principles.
Consider, for example, the crucial question of the
analysis which reduces all experience to an experience
of relations, or, in more technical language, which
constitutes the universe out of categories. We may
grant without difficulty that the contrasted theory,
which proposes to reduce the universe to an unrelated
chaos of impressions or sensations, is quite untenable.
But must we not also grant that in all experience
there is a refractory element which, though it cannot
be presented in isolation, nevertheless refuses wholly
to merge its being in a network of relations, necessary
as these may be to give it ' significance for us as
thinking beings ' ? If so, whence does this irreduc-
ible element arise ? The mind, we are told, is the
source of relation. What is the source of that which
is related ? A ' thing-in-itself ' which, by impressing
the percipient mind, shall furnish the ' matter ' for
which categories provide the ' form,' is a way out of
the difficulty (if difficulty there be) which raises more
doubts than it solves. The followers of Kant them-
selves make haste to point out that this hypothetical
cause of that which is ' given ' in experience cannot,
since ex hypothesi it lies beyond experience, be known
as a cause, or even as existing. Nay, it is not so much
unknown and unknowable as indescribable and unin-
telligible ; not so much a riddle whose meaning is
obscure as mere absence and vacuity of any meaning
whatever. Accordingly, from the speculations with
IDEALISM 145
which we are here concerned it has been dismissed
with ignominy, and it need not, therefore, detain us
further.
But we do not get rid of the difficulty by getting
rid of Kant's solution of it. His dictum still seems
to me to remain true, that ' without matter categories
are empty.' And, indeed, it is hard to see how it is
possible to conceive a universe in which relations
shall be all in all, but in which nothing is to be per-
mitted for the relations to subsist between. Rela-
tions surely imply a something which is related,
and if that something is, in the absence of relations,
* nothing for us as thinking beings,' so relations in
the absence of that something are mere symbols
emptied of their signification ; they are, in short, an
* illegitimate abstraction.'
Those, moreover, who hold that these all-consti-
tuting relations are the ' work of the mind ' would
seem bound also to hold that this concrete world of
ours, down to its minutest detail, must evolve itself
a priori out of the movement of '■ pure thought.'
There is no room in it for the ' contingent' ; there is
no room in it for the ' given ' ; experience itself would
seem to be a superfluity. And we are at a loss, there-
fore, to understand why that dialectical process which
moves, I will not say so convincingly, but at least so
smoothly, through the abstract categories of * being,'
' not-being,' ' becoming,' and so forth, should stumble
and hesitate when it comes to deal with that world
of Nature which is, after all, one of the principal
10
146 IDEALISM
subjects about which we desire information. No
explanation which I remember to have seen makes
it otherwise than strange that we should, as the ideal-
ists claim, be able so thoroughly to identify ourselves
with those thoughts of God which are the necessary
preliminary to creation, but should so little under-
stand creation itself ; that we should out of our
unaided mental resources be competent to reproduce
the whole ground-plan of the universe, and should
yet lose ourselves so hopelessly in the humblest of
its ante-rooms.
This difficulty at once requires us to ask on what
ground it is alleged that these constitutive relations
are the * work of the mind.' It is true, no doubt, that
ordinary usage would describe as mental products
the more abstract thoughts (categories), such, for
example, as ' being,' ' not-being,' ' causation,' ' reci-
procity,' &c. But it must be recollected, in the first
place, that transcendental idealism does not, as a
rule, derive its inspiration from ordinary usage ; and
in the second place, that even ordinary usage alters
its procedure when it comes to such more concrete
cases of relation as, for instance, ' shape ' and ' posi-
tion,' which, rightly or wrongly, are always con-
sidered as belonging to the 'external' world, and
presented by the external world to thought, not cre-
ated by thought for itself.
Are the transcendental idealists, then, bound by
their own most essential principles, in opposition both
to their arguments against Kant's ' thing-in-itself '
IDEALISM 147
and to the ordinary beliefs of mankind, to invest the
thinking ' self ' with this attribute of causal or quasi-
causal activity ? It certainly appears to me that they
are not. Starting, it will be recollected, from the
analysis (criticism) of experience, they arrived at the
conclusion that the world of objects exists and has
a meaning only for the self-conscious ' I ' (subject),
and that the self-conscious ' I ' only knows itself in
contrast and in opposition to the world of objects.
Each is necessary to the other ; in the absence of the
other neither has any significance. How, then, can
we venture to say of one that the other is its product ?
and if we say it of either, must we not in consistency
insist on saying it of both ? Thus, though the pres-
ence of a self-conscious principle may be necessary
to constitute the universe, it cannot be considered
as the creator of that universe ; or if it be, then must
we acknowledge that precisely in the same way and
precisely to the same extent is the universe the cre-
ator of the self-conscious principle.
All, therefore, that the transcendental argument
requires or even allows us to accept, is a * manifold '
of relations on the one side, and a bare self-conscious
principle of unity on the other, by which that mani-
fold becomes inter-connected in the ' field of a single
experience.' We are not permitted, except by a
process of abstraction which is purely temporary and
provisional, to consider the ' manifold ' apart from
the ' unity,' nor the * unity ' apart from the * manifold.'
The thoughts do not make the thinker, nor the
148 IDEALISM
thinker the thoughts ; but together they constitute
that Whole or Absolute whose elements, as they are
mere no -sense apart from one another, cannot in
strictness be even said to contribute separately to-
wards the total result.
Ill
Now let us consider what bearing this conclusion
has upon (i) Theology, (2) Ethics, and (3) Science.
I. As regards Theology, it might be supposed
that at least idealism provided us with a universe
which, if not created or controlled by Reason (crea-
tion and control implying causal action), may yet
properly be said to be throughout infused by Rea-
son and to be in necessary harmony with it. But
on a closer examination difficulties arise which some-
what mar this satisfactory conclusion. In the first
place, if theology is to provide us with a ground-
work for religion, the God of whom it speaks must
be something more than the bare ' principle of unity '
required to give coherence to the multiplicity of
Nature. Apart from Nature He is, on the theory
we are considering, a mere metaphysical abstraction,
the geometrical point through which pass all the
threads which make up the web of possible experi-
ence : no fitting object, surely, of either love, rever-
ence, or devotion. In combination with Nature He
is no doubt ' the principle of unity,' and all the ful-
ness of concrete reality besides ; but every quality
IDEALISM 149
with which He is thus associated belongs to that por-
tion of the Absolute Whole from which, by hypoth-
esis, He distinguishes Himself ; and, were it other-
wise, we cannot find in these qualities, compacted,
as they are, of good and bad, of noble and base, the
Perfect Goodness without which religious feelings
can never find an adequate object. Thus, neither
the combining principle alone, nor the combining
principle considered in its union with the multipli-
city which it combines, can satisfy the requirements
of an effectual theology. Not the first, because it is
a barren abstraction ; not the second, because in its
all-inclusive universality it holds in suspension, with-
out preference and without repulsion, every element
alike of the knowable world. Of these none, what-
ever be its nature, be it good or bad, base or noble,
can be considered as alien to the Absolute : all are
necessary, and all are characteristic.
Of these two alternatives, I understand that it
is the first which is usually adopted by the school
of thought with which we are at present concerned.
It may therefore be desirable to reiterate that a
* unifying principle ' can, as such, have no qualities,
moral or otherwise. Lovingkindness, for example,
and Equity are attributes which, like all attributes,
belong not to the unifying principle, but to the
world of objects which it constitutes. They are
conceptions which belong to the realm of empir-
ical psychology. Nor can I see any method by
which they are to be hitched on to the * pure spirit-
150 IDEALISM
ual subject,' as elements making up its essential
character.
2. But if this be so, what is the ethical value of
that freedom which is attributed by the idealistic
theory to the self-conscious ' I ' ? It is true that this
' I ' as conceived by idealism is above all the ' cate-
gories,' including, of course, the category of causa-
tion. It is not in space nor in time. It is subject
neither to mutation nor decay. The stress of ma-
terial forces touches it not, nor is it in any servitude
to chance or circumstance, to inherited tendencies
or acquired habits. But all these immunities and
privileges it possesses in virtue of its being, tiot an
agent in a world of concrete fact, but a thinking
' subject,' for whom alone, as it is alleged, such a
world exists. Its freedom is metaphysical, not moral ;
for moral freedom can only have a meaning at all
in reference to a being who acts and who wills,
and is only of real importance for us in relation to
a being who not only acts, but is acted on, who not
only wills, but who wills against the opposing influ-
ences of temptation. Such freedom cannot, it is
plain, be predicated of a mere ' subject,' nor is the
freedom proper to a ' subject ' of any worth to man
as ' object,' to man as known in experience, to man
fighting his way with varying fortunes against the
stream of adverse circumstances, in a world made
up of causes and effects.^
* This proposition would, probably, not be widely dissented from
by some of the ethical writers of the idealist school. The freedom
IDEALISM 151
These observations bring into sufficiently clear
relief the difficulty which exists, on the idealistic
theory, in bringing together into any sort of intelli-
gible association the ' I ' as supreme principle of
unity, and the * I * of empirical psychology, which
which they postulate is not the freedom merely of the pure self-con-
scious subject. On the contrary, it is the individual, with all his
qualities, passions, and emotions, who in their view possesses free
will. But the ethical value of the freedom thus attributed to self-
conscious agents seems on further examination to disappear. Man-
kind, it seems, are on this theory free, but their freedom does not
exclude determinism, but 07ily that form of determhiisin which
consists in external constraint. Their actions are upon this view
strictly prescribed by their antecedents, but these antecedents are
nothing other than the characters of the agents themselves.
Now it may seem at first sight plausible to describe that man as
free whose behaviour is due to ' himself ' alone. But without quar-
relling over words, it is, I think, plain that, whether it be proper to
call him free or not, he at least lacks freedom in the sense in which
freedom is necessary in order to constitute responsibility. It is im-
possible to say of him that he ' ought,' and therefore he ' can'. For
at any given moment of his life his next action is by hypothesis
strictly determined. This is also true of every previous moment,
until we get back to that point in his life's history at which he can-
not, in any intelligible sense of the term, be said to have a char-
acter at all. Antecedently to this, the causes which have produced
him are in no special sense connected with his individuality, but form
part of the general complex of phenomena which make up the
world. It is evident, therefore, that every act which he performs
may be traced to pre-natal, and possibly to purely material, antece-
dents, and that, even if it be true that what he does is the outcome
of his character, his character itself is the outcome of causes over
which he has not, and cannot by any possibility have, the smallest
control. Such a theory destroys responsibility, and leaves our ac-
tions the inevitable outcome of external conditions not less com-
pletely than any doctrine of controlling fate, whether materialistic
or theological.
152 IDEALISM
has desires and fears, pleasures and pains, faculties
and sensibilities ; which ivas not a little time since,
and which a little time hence will be no more. The
* I * as principle of unity is outside time ; it can have,
therefore, no history. The * I ' of experience, which
learns and forgets, which suffers and which enjoys,
unquestionably has a history. What is the relation
between the two ? We seem equally precluded from
saying that they are the same, and from saying that
they are different. We cannot say that they are the
same, because they are, after all, divided by the whole
chasm which distinguishes ' subject ' from ' object.'
We cannot say they are different, because our feel-
ings and our desires seem a not less interesting and
important part of ourselves than a mere unifying
principle whose functions, after all, are of a purely
metaphysical character. We cannot say they are
' two aspects of the same thing,' because there is no
virtue in this useful phrase which shall empower it
on the one hand to ear-mark a fragment of the world
of objects, and say of it, ' this is I,' or, on the other,
to take the ' pure subject ' by which the world of
objects is constituted, and say of it that it shall be
itself an object in that world from which its essential
nature requires it to be self-distinguished.
But as it thus seems difficult or impossible in-
telligibly to unite into a personal whole the * pure *
and the 'empirical' Self, so it is difficult or impossible
to conceive the relations between the pure, though
limited, self-consciousness which is * I ' and the uni-
IDEALISM 153
versal and eternal Self-consciousness which is God.
The first has been described as a ' mode ' or * mani-
festation ' of the second. But are we not, in using
such language, falling into the kind of error against
which, in other connections, the idealists are most
careful to warn us ? Are we not importing a cate-
gory which has its meaning and its use in the world
of objects into a transcendental region where it
really has neither meaning nor use at all ? Grant, how-
ever, for the sake of argument, that it has a meaning ;
grant that we may legitimately describe one ' pure
subject ' as a ' mode ' or ' manifestation * of another —
how is this partial identity to be established ? How
can we, who start from the basis of our own limited
self-consciousness, rise to the knowledge of that
completed and divine self-consciousness of which,
according to the theory, we share the essential nat-
ure ?
The difSculty is evaded but not solved in those
statements of the idealist theory which always speak
of Thought without specifying w/iose Thought. It
seems to be thus assumed that the thought is God's,
and that in rethinking it we share His being. But
no such assumption would seem to be justifiable.
For the basis, we know, of the whole theory is a
* criticism ' or analysis of the essential elements of
experience. But the criticism must, for each of us,
be necessarily of /izs ozvn experience, for of no other
experience can he know anything, except indirectly
and by way of inference from his own. What, then.
154 IDEALISM
is this criticism supposed to establish (say) for me ?
Is it that experience depends upon the unification
by a self-conscious * I * of a world constituted by re-
lations? In strictness, No. It can only establish
that my experience depends upon a unification by
my self-conscious ' I ' of a world of relations present
to me, and to me alone. To this ' I,' to this particu-
lar ' self-conscious subject/ all other ' I's,' including
God, must be objects, constituted like all objects by
relations, rendered possible or significant only by
their unification in the * content of a single experi-
ence ' — namely, my own. In other words, that which
(if it exists at all) is essentially * subject' can only be
known, or thought of, or spoken about, as * object.'
Surely a very paradoxical conclusion.
It may perhaps be said by way of reply, that in
talking of particular ' I's ' and particular experiences
we are using language properly applicable only to
the ' self ' dealt with by the empirical psychologist,
the ' self ' which is not the * subject,' but the ' object,*
of experience. I will not dispute about terms ; and
the relations which exist between the ' pure ego '
and the ' empirical ego ' are, as I have already said,
so obscure that it is not always easy to employ a
perfectly accurate terminology in endeavouring to
deal with them. Yet this much would seem to be
certain. If the words ' self,' ' ego,' ' I,' are to be used
intelligibly at all, they must mean, whatever else
they do or do not mean, a * somewhat ' which is self-
distinguished, not only from every other knowable
IDEALISM 155
object, but also from every other possible ' self.'
What we are ' in ourselves,' apart from the flux of
thoughts and feelings which move in never-ending
pageant through the chambers of consciousness,
metaphysicians have, indeed, found it hard to say.
Some of them have said we are nothing. But if this
conclusion be, as I think it is, conformable neither
to our instinctive beliefs nor to a sound psychology ;
if we are, as I believe, more than a mere series of
occurrences, yet it seems equally certain that the
very notion of Personality excludes the idea of any
one person being a ' mode ' of any other, and forces
us to reject from philosophy a supposition which, if
it be tolerable at all, can find a place only in mys-
ticism.
But the idealistic theory pressed to its furthest
conclusions requires of us to reject, as it appears to
me, even more than this. We are not only precluded
by it from identifying ourselves, even partially, with
the Eternal Consciousness : we are also precluded
from supposing that either the Eternal Conscious-
ness or any other consciousness exists, save only our
own. For, as I have already said, the Eternal Con-
sciousness, if it is to be known, can only be known
on the same conditions as any other object of knowl-
edge. It must be constituted by relations ; it must
form part of the ' content of experience ' of the
knower; it must exist as part of the 'multiplicity*
reduced to ' unity ' by his self-consciousness. But to
say that it can only be known on these terms, is to
156 IDEALISM
say that it cannot be known as it exists ; for if it
exists at all, it exists by hypothesis as Eternal Sub-
ject, and as such it clearly is not constituted by rela-
tions, nor is it either a ' possible object of experi-
ence,' or ' anything for us as thinking beings.'
No consciousness, then, is a possible object of
knowledge for any other consciousness : a statement
which, on the idealistic theory of knowledge, is
equivalent to saying that for any one consciousness
all other consciousnesses are less than non-existent.
For as that which is ' critically ' show^n to be an in-
evitable element in experience has thereby conferred
on it the highest possible degree of reality, so that
which cannot on any terms become an element in
experience falls in the scale of reality far below mere
not-being, and is reduced, as we have seen, to mere
meaningless no-sense. By this kind of reasoning
the idealists themselves demonstrate the ' I ' to be
necessary; the unrelated object and the thing-in-itself
to be impossible. Not less, by this kind of reason-
ing, must each one of us severally be driven to the
conclusion that in the infinite variety of the universe
there is room for but one knowing subject, and that
this subject is ' himself.*^
' Prof. Caird, in his most interesting and suggestive lecture on
the Evolution of Religion, puts forward a theory essentially dif-
ferent from the one I have just been dealing with. In his view, a
multiplicity of objects apprehended by a single self-conscious subject
does not suffice to constitute an intelligible universe. The world of
objects and the perceiving mind are themselves opposites which re-
quire a higher unity to hold them together. This higher unity is
IDEALISM 157
IV
3. That the transcendental * solipsism * which is
the natural outcome of such speculations is not less
inconsistent with science, morality, and common-
sense than the psychological, or Berkeleian ^ form
of the same creed, is obvious. But without attempt-
ing further to press idealism to results which, wheth-
er legitimate or not, all idealists would agree in
God ; so that by the simplest of metaphysical demonstrations Prof.
Caird lays deep the foundations of his theology, and proves not
only that God exists, but that His Being is philosophically involved
in .the very simplest of our experiences.
I confess, with regret, that this reasoning appears to me incon-
clusive. Surely we must think of God as, on the transcendental
theory, we think of ourselves ; that is, as a Subject distinguishing
itself from, but giving unity to, a world of phenomena. But if
such a Subject and such a world cannot be conceived without also
postulating some higher unity in which their differences shall vanish
and be dissolved, then God Himself would require some yet higher
deity to explain His existence. If, in short, a multiplicity of phe-
nomena presented to and apprehended by a conscious ' I ' form to-
gether an intelligible and self-sufficient whole, then it is hard to see
by what logic we are to get beyond the solipsism which, as I have
urged in the text, seems to be the necessary outcome of one form,
at least, of the transcendental argument. If, on the other hand,
subject and object cannot form such an intelligible and self-suffi-
cient whole, then it seems impossible to imagine what is the nature
of that Infinite One in which the multiplicity of things and persons
find their ultimate unity. Of such a God we can have no knowl-
edge, nor can we say that we are formed in His image, or share
His essence.
' Of course I do not mean to suggest that Berkeley was a ' so-
lipsist.' On the scientific bearing of psychological idealism, see
Philosophic Doubt, chap. ix.
158 IDEALISM
repudiating, let me, in conclusion, point out how
little assistance this theory is able under any circum-
stances to afford us in solving important problems
connected with the Philosophy of Science.
The psychology of Hume, as we have seen, threw
doubt upon the very possibility of legitimately fram-
ing general propositions about the world of objects.
The observation of isolated and unrelated impres-
sions of sense, which is in effect what experience
became reduced to under his process of analysis,
may generate habits of expectation, but never can
justify rational beliefs. The law of universal causa-
tion, for example, can never be proved by a mere
repetition, however prolonged, of similar sequences,
though the repetition may, through the association
of ideas, gradually compel us to expect the second
term of the sequence whenever the first term comes
within the field of our observation. So far Hume
as interpreted by the transcendental idealists.
Now, how is this diflficulty met on the idealistic
theory ? Somewhat in this way. These categories
or general principles of relation have not, say the
idealists, to be collected (so to speak) from individual
and separate experiences (as the empirical philoso-
phers believe, but as Hume, the chief among empiri-
cists, showed to be impossible) ; neither are they,
as the a priori philosophers supposed, part of the
original furniture of the observing mind, intended
by Providence to be applied as occasion arises to
the world of experience with which by a beneficent,
IDEALISM 159
if unexplained, adaptation they find themselves in a
pre-established harmony. On the contrary, they are
the ' necessary prius! the antecedent condition, of
there being any experience at all; so that the difficul-
ty of subsequently extracting them from experience
does not arise. The world of phenomena is in truth
their creation ; so that the conformity between the
two need not be any subject of surprise. Thus, at
one and the same time does idealism vindicate ex-
perience and set the scepticism of the empiricist at
rest.
I doubt, however, whether this solution of the
problem will really stand the test of examination.
Assuming for the sake of argument that the world
is constituted by ' categories,' the old difficulty arises
in a new shape when we ask on what principle those
categories are in any given case to be applied. For
they are admittedly not of universal application ; and,
as the idealists themselves are careful to remind us,
there is no more fertile source of error than the im-
portation of them into a sphere wherein they have
no legitimate business. Take, for example, the cate-
gory of causation, from a scientific point of view the
most important of all. By what right does the
existence of this * principle of relation ' enable us to
assert that throughout the whole world every event
must have a cause, and every cause must be invariably
succeeded by the same event ? Because we cari apply
the category, are we, therefore, hoimd to apply it ?
Docs any absurdity or contradiction ensue from our
l6o IDEALISM
supposing that the order of Nature is arbitrary and
casual, and that, repeat the antecedent with what
accuracy we may, there is no security that the ac-
customed consequent will follow ? I must confess
that I can perceive none. Of course, we should thus
be deprived of one of our most useful ' principles of
unification ' ; but this would by no means result in the
universe resolving itself into that unthinkable chaos
of unrelated atoms which is the idealist bugbear.
There are plenty of categories left ; and if the final
aim of philosophy be, indeed, to find the Many in
One and the One in Many, this end would be as
completely, if not as satisfactorily, accomplished by
conceiving the world to be presented to the thinking
'subject' in the haphazard multiplicity of unordered
succession, as by any more elaborate method. Its
various elements lying side by side in one Space and
one Time would still be related together in the con-
tent of a single experience ; they would still form an
intelligible whole ; their unification would thus be ef-
fectually accomplished without the aid of the higher
categories. But it is evident that a universe so con-
stituted, though it might not be inconsistent with Phi-
losophy, could never be interpreted by Science.
As we saw in the earlier portion of this chapter,
it is not very easy to understand why, if the universe
be constituted by relations, and relations are the
work of the mind, the mind should be dependent on
experience for finding out anything about the uni-
verse. But granting the necessity of experience, it
IDEALISM l6l
seems as hard to make that experience answer our
questions on the idealist as on the empirical hypothe-
sis. Neither on the one theory nor on the other does
any method exist for extracting general truths out of
particular observations, unless some general truths are
first assumed. On the empirical hypothesis there are
no such general truths. Pure empiricism has, there-
fore, no claim to be a philosophy. On the idealist
hypothesis there appears to be only one general truth
applicable to the whole intelligible world — a world
which, be it recollected, includes everything in re-
spect to which language can be significantly used ; a
world which, therefore, includes the negative as well
as the positive, the false as well as the true, the im-
aginary as well as the real, the impossible as well as
the possible. This single all-embracing truth is that
the multiplicity of phenomena, whatever be its nature,
must always be united, and only exists in virtue of
being united, in the experience of a single self-con-
scious Subject. But this general proposition, what-
ever be its value, cannot, I conceive, effectually guide
us in the application of subordinate categories. It
supplies us with no method for applying one principle
rather than another within the field of experience. It
cannot give us information as to what portion of that
field, if any, is subject to the law of causation, nor
tell us which of our perceptions, if any, may be taken
as evidence of the existence of a permanent world
of objects such as is implied in all scientific doctrine.
Though, therefore, the old questions come upon us
1 62 IDEALISM
in a new form, clothed, I will not say shrouded, in a
new terminology, they come upon us with all the old
insistence. They are restated, but they are not
solved ; and I am unable, therefore, to find in idealism
any escape from the difficulties which, in the region
of theology, ethics, and science, empiricism leaves
upon our hands.^
* I have made in this chapter no reference to the idealistic theory
of ^esthetics. Holding the views I have indicated upon the general
import of idealism, such a course seemed unnecessary. But I can-
not help thinking that even those who find in that theory a more
satisfactory basis for their convictions than I am able to do, must
feel that there is something rather forced and arbitrary in the at-
tempts that have been made to exhibit the artistic fancies of an
insignificant fraction of the human race during a very brief period of
its history as essential and important elements in the development
and manifestation of the world-producing * Idea.'
CHAPTER III
PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALISM
Briefly, if not adequately, I have now endeavoured
to indicate the weaknesses which seem to me to be
inseparable from any empirical theory of the uni-
verse, and almost equall}^ to beset the idealistic
theory in the form given to it by its most systematic
exponents in this country. The reader may perhaps
feel tempted to ask whether I propose, in what pur-
ports to be an Introduction to Theology, to pass
under similar review all the metaphysical systems
which have from time to time held sway in the
schools, or have affected the general course of specu-
lative opinion. He need, however, be under no alarm.
My object is strictly practical ; and I have no con-
cern with theories, however admirable, which can
no longer pretend to any living philosophic power
— which have no de facto claims to present us with
a reasoned scheme of knowledge, and which can-
not prove their importance by actually supplying
grounds for the conviction of some fraction, at least, of
those by whom these pages may conceivably be read.
In saying that this condition is not satisfied by
l64 PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALISM
the great historic systems which mark with their
imperishable ruins the devious course of European
thought, I must not be understood as suggesting that
on that account these lack either value or interest.
All I say is, that their interest is not of a kind which
brings them properly within the scope of these
Notes. Whatever be the nature or amount of our
debt to the great metaphysicians of the past, unless
here and now we go to them not merely for stray
arguments on this or that question, but for a rea-
soned scheme of knowledge which shall include as
elements our own actual beliefs, their theories are
not, for the purposes of the present discussion, any
concern of ours.
Now, of how many systems, outside the two that
have already been touched on, can this even plausi-
bly be asserted ? Run over in memory some of
the most important. Men value Plato for his imag-
ination, for the genius with which he hazarded
solutions of the secular problems which perplex
mankind, for the finished art of his dialogue, for the
exquisite beauty of his style. But even if it could be
said — which it cannot — that he left a system, could
it be described as a system which, as such, has any
effectual vitality ? It would be difficult, perhaps
impossible, to sum up our debts to Aristotle. But
assuredly they do not include a tenable theory of
the universe. The Stoic scheme of life may still
touch our imagination ; but who takes any inter-
est in its metaphysics? Who cares for the Soul
PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALISM 165
of the world, the periodic conflagrations, and the
recurring cycles of mundane events ? The Neo-
Platonists were mystics ; and mysticism is, as I sup-
pose, an undying element in human thought. But
who is concerned about their hierarchy of beings
connecting through infinite gradations the Absolute
at one end of the scale with Matter at the other ?
These, however, it may be said, were systems
belonging to the ancient world ; and mankind have
not busied themselves with speculation for these
two thousand years and more without making some
advance. I agree ; but in the matter of providing
us with a philosophy — with a reasoned system of
knowledge — has this advance been as yet sub-
stantial ? If the ancients fail us, do we, indeed, fare
much better with the moderns ? Are the meta-
physics of Descartes more living than his physics?
Do his two substances or kinds of substance, or the
single substance of Spinoza, or the innumerable
substances of Leibnitz, satisfy the searcher after
truth ? From the modern English form of the em-
piricism which dominated the eighteenth century,
and the idealism which disputes its supremacy in
the nineteenth, I have already ventured to express
a reasoned dissent. Are we, then, to look to such
schemes as Schopenhauer's philosophy of Will,
and Hartmann's philosophy of the Unconscious, to
supply us with the philosophical metaphysics of
which we are in need ? They have admirers in
this country, but hardly convinced adherents. Of
l66 PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALISM
those who are quite prepared to accept their pes-
simism, how many are there who take seriously its
metaphysical foundation ?
In truth there are but three points of view from
which it seems worth while to make ourselves ac-
quainted with the growth, culmination, and decay
of the various metaphysical dynasties which have
successively struggled for supremacy in the world
of ideas. The first is purely historical. Thus re-
garded, metaphysical systems are simply significant
phenomena in the general history of man : symp-
toms of his spiritual condition, aids, it may be, to
his spiritual growth. The historian of philosophy,
as such, is therefore quite unconcerned with the
truth or falsehood of the opinions whose evolution
he is expounding. His business is merely to ac-
count for their existence, to exhibit them in their
proper historical setting, and to explain their char-
acter and their consequences. But, so considered,
I find it difficult to believe that these opinions have
been elements of primary importance to the ad-
vancement of mankind. All ages, indeed, which
have exhibited intellectual vigour have cultivated
one or more characteristic systems of metaphysics ;
but rarely, as it seems to me, have these systems
been in their turn important elements in determin-
ing the character of the periods in which they flour-
ished. They have been effects rather than causes ;
indications of the mood in which, under the special
stress of their time and circumstance, the most de-
PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALISM 1 6/
tached intellects have faced the eternal problems of
humanity ; proofs of the unresting- desire of man-
kind to bring their beliefs into harmony with spec-
ulative reason. But the beliefs have almost always
preceded the speculations ; they have frequently
survived them ; and I cannot convince myself that
among the just titles to our consideration some-
times put forward on behalf of metaphysics we may
count her claim to rank as a powerful instrument of
progress.
No doubt — and here we come to the second
point of view alluded to above — the constant dis-
cussion of these high problems has not been barren
merely because it has not as yet led to their solu-
tion. Philosophers have mined for truth in many
directions, and the whole field of speculation seems
cumbered with the dross and lumber of their aban-
doned workings. But though they have not found
the ore they sought for, it does not therefore follow
that their labours have been wholly vain. It is
something to have realised what not to do. It is
something to discover the causes of failure, even
though we do not attain any positive knowledge of
the conditions of success. It is an even more sub-
stantial gain to have done something towards dis-
engaging the questions which require to be dealt
with, and towards creating and perfecting the ter-
minology without which they can scarcely be ade-
quately stated, much less satisfactorily answered.
And there is yet a third point of view from
l68 PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALISM
which past metaphysical speculations are seen to
retain their value, a point of view which may be
called (not, I admit, without some little violence to
accustomed usage) the (Esthetic. Because reasoning
occupies so large a place in metaphysical treatises
we are apt to forget that, as a rule, these are works
of imagination at least as much as of reason. Meta-
physicians are poets who deal with the abstract and
the super-sensible instead of the concrete and the
sensuous. To be sure they are poets with a differ-
ence. Their appropriate and characteristic gifts
are not the vivid realisation of that which is given
in experience ; their genius does not prolong, as it
were, and echo through the remotest regions of feel-
ing the shock of some definite emotion ; they create
for us no new worlds of things and persons ; nor
can it be often said that the product of their la-
bours is a thing of beauty. Their style, it must be
owned, has not always been their strong point ; and
even when it is otherwise, mere graces of presenta-
tion are but unessential accidents of their work.
Yet, in spite of all this, they can onl}^ be justly es-
timated by those who are prepared to apply to
them a quasi-sesthetic standard ; some other stand-
ard, at all events, than that supplied by purely
argumentative comment. It may perhaps be shown
that their metaphysical constructions are faulty,
that their demonstrations do not convince, that
their most permanent dialectical triumphs have
fallen to them in the paths of criticism and negation.
PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALISM 169
Yet even then the last word will not have been
said. For claims to our admiration will still be
found in their brilliant intuitions, in the subtlety of
their occasional arguments, in their passion for the
Universal and the Abiding, in their steadfast faith
in the rationality of the world, in the devotion with
which they are content to live and move in realms
of abstract speculation too far removed from ordi-
nary interests to excite the slightest genuine sym-
pathy in the breasts even of the cultivated few. If,
therefore, we are for a moment tempted, as surely
may sometimes happen, to contemplate with re-
spectful astonishment some of the arguments which
the illustrious authors of the great historic systems
have thought good enough to support their case,
let it be remembered that for minds in which the
critical intellect holds undisputed sway, the crea-
tion of any system whatever in the present state of
our knowledge is, perhaps, impossible. Only those
in whom powers of philosophical criticism are bal-
anced, or more than balanced, by powers of meta-
physical imagination can be fitted to undertake the
task. Though even to them success may be impos-
sible, at least the illusion of success is permitted ;
and but for them mankind would fall away in hope-
less discouragement from its highest intellectual
ideal, and speculation would be strangled at its
birth.
To some, indeed, it may appear as if the loss
would not, after all, be great. What use, they may
170 PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALISM
exclaim, can be found for any system which will
not stand critical examination ? What value has
reasoning which does not satisfy the reason ? How
can we know that these abstruse investigations sup-
ply even a fragmentary contribution towards a final
philosophy, until we are able to look back upon
them from the perhaps inaccessible vantage ground
to be supplied by this final philosophy itself ? To
such questionings I do not profess to find a com-
pletely satisfactory answer. Yet even those who
feel inclined to rate extant speculations at the low-
est value will perhaps admit that metaphysics, like
art, give us something we could ill afford to spare.
Art may not have provided us with any reflection
of immortal beauty ; nor metaphysics have brought
us into communion with eternal truth. Yet both
may have historic value. In speculation, as in art,
we find a vivid expression of the changeful mind of
man, and the interest of both, perhaps, is at its
highest when they most clearly reflect the spirit of
the age which gave them birth, when they are most
racy of the soil from which they sprung.
II
To this point I may have to return. But my
more immediate business is to bring home to the
reader's mind the consequences which may be
drawn from the admission — supposing him disposed
PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALISM 17I
to make it — that we have at the present time neither
a satisfactory system of metaphysics nor a satisfac-
tory theory of science. Many persons — perhaps it
would not be too much to say most persons — are
prepared contentedly to accept the first of these
propositions ; but it is on the truth of the second
that I desire to lay at least an equal stress. The
first man one meets in the street thinks it quite nat-
ural to accept the opinion that sense-experience is
the only source of rational conviction ; that every-
thing to which it does not testify is untrue, or, if
true, falls within the domain, not of knowledge, but
of faith. Yet the criticism of knowledge indicated
in the two preceding chapters shows how one-
sided is such a view. If faith be provisionally de-
fined as conviction apart from or in excess of proof,
then it is upon faith that the maxims of daily life,
not less than the loftiest creeds and the most far-
reaching discoveries, must ultimately lean. The
ground on which constant habit and inherited pre-
dispositions enable us to tread with a step so easy
and so assured, is seen on examination to be not less
hollow beneath our feet than the dim and unfamiliar
regions which lie beyond. Certitude is found to be
the child, not of Reason, but of Custom ; and if we
are less perplexed about the beliefs on which we
are hourly called upon to act than about those
which do not touch so closely our obvious and im-
mediate needs, it is not because the questions sug-
gested by the former are easier to answer, but be-
1/2 PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALISM
cause as a matter of fact we are much less inclined
to ask them.
Now, if this be true, it is plainly a fact of capi-
tal importance. It must revolutionise our whole
attitude towards the problems presented to us by
science, ethics, and theology. It must destroy the
ordinary tests and standards whereby we measure
essential truth. In particular, it requires us to see
what is commonly, if rather absurdly, called the
conflict between religion and science in a wholly
new aspect. We can no longer be content with the
simple view, once universally accepted, that when-
ever any discrepancy, real or supposed, occurs be-
tween the two, science must be rejected as hereti-
cal ; nor with the equally simple view, to which the
former has long given place, that every theological
statement, if unsupported by science, is doubtful ;
if inconsistent with science, is false.
Opinions like these are evidently tolerable only
on the hypothesis that we are in possession of a
body of doctrine which is not only itself philosoph-
ically established, but to whose canons of proof
all other doctrines are bound to conform. But if
there is no such body of doctrine, what then ? Are
we arbitrarily to erect one department of belief into
a law-giver for all the others ? Are we to say that
though no scheme of knowledge exists, certain in
its first principles, and coherent in its elaborated
conclusions, yet that from among the provisional
schemes which we are inclined practically to accept
PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALISM 173
one is to be selected at random, within whose limits,
and there alone, the spirit of man may range in con-
fident security ?
Such a position is speculatively untenable. It
involves a use of the Canon of Consistency not
justified by any philosophy ; and as it is indefensible
in theory, so it is injurious in practice. For, in truth,
though the contented acquiescence in inconsistency
is the abandonment of the philosophic quest, the de-
termination to obtain consistency at all costs has
been the prolific parent of many intellectual narrow-
nesses and many frigid bigotries. It has shown
itself in various shapes ; it has stifled and stunted
the free movement of thought in different ages and
diverse schools of speculation ; its unhappy effects
may be traced in much theology which professes to
be orthodox, in much criticism which delights to be
heterodox. It is, moreover, the characteristic note
of a not inconsiderable class of intelligences who
conceive themselves to be specially reasonable be-
cause they are constantly employed in reasoning,
and who can find no better method of advancing
the cause of knowledge than to press to their ex-
treme logical conclusions principles of which, per-
haps, the best that can be said is that they contain,
as it were in solution, some element of truth which
no reagents at our command will as yet permit us to
isolate.
174 PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALISM
III
That I am here attacking no imaginary evil wilt,
I think, be evident to any reader who recalls the
general trend of educated opinion during the last
three centuries. It is, of course, true that in dealing
with so vague and loosely outlined an object as
* educated opinion * we must beware of attributing
to large masses of men the acceptance of elaborate
and definitely articulated systems. Systems are, and
must be, for the few. The majority of mankind are
content with a mood or temper of thought, an impulse
not fully reasoned out, a habit guiding them to the
acceptance and assimilation of some opinions and the
rejection of others, which acts almost as automati-
cally as the processes of physical digestion. Behind
these half-realised motives, and in closest association
with them, may sometimes, no doubt, be found a
' theory of things ' which is their logical and explicit
expression. But it is certainly not necessary, and
perhaps not usual, that this theory should be clearly
formulated by those who seem to obey it. Nor for
our present purpose is there any important distinc-
tion to be made between the case of the few who
find a reason for their habitual judgments, and that
of the many who do not.
Keeping this caution in mind, we may consider
without risk of misconception an illustration of the
misuse of the Canon of Consistency provided for us
PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALISM 175
by the theory corresponding to that tendency of
thought which has played so large a part in the
development of the modern mind, and which is com-
monly known as Rationalism. Now what is Ration-
alism ? Some may be disposed to reply that it is the
free and unfettered application of human intelligence
to the problems of life and of the world ; the un-
prejudiced examination of every question in the dry
light of emancipated reason. This may be a very
good account of a particular intellectual ideal ; an
ideal which has been sought after at many periods
of the world's history, although assuredly it has been
attained in none. Usage, however, permits and even
encourages us to employ the word in a much more
restricted sense: as indicating a special form of that
reaction against dogmatic theology which became
prominent at the end of the seventeenth century ;
which dominated so much of the best thought in the
eighteenth century, and which has reached its most
complete expression in the Naturalism which occu-
pied our attention through the first portion of these
Notes.^ A reaction of some sort was no doubt in-
[' In spite of this explicit statement I have been supposed by
some of my critics to have attacked Reason where I have only been
attacking Rationalism. I gather, for instance, that Professor Karl
Pearson has fallen into this mistake in a pamphlet published in
1895 which purports to be a review of the present work. It con-
tains a most interesting and curious mixture of bad politics, bad
philosophy, and bad temper, and is styled ' Reaction.'
I have modified in this edition the historic description of Ration-
alism in deference to a well-founded criticism of Professor Pringle
Pattison (A. Seth). See Mans Place in the Cosmos, p. 256.]
176 PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALISM
evitable. Men found themselves in a world where
Literature, Art, and Science were enormously ex-
tending the range of human interests; in which
Religion seemed approachable only through the
languishing controversies which had burnt with
so fierce a flame during the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries ; in which accepted theological
methods had their roots in a very different period of
intellectual growth, and were ceasing to be appro-
priate to the new developments. At such a time
there was, undoubtedl}^, an important and even a
necessary work to be done. The mind of man can-
not, any more than the body, vary in one direction
alone. The whole organism suffers or gains from
the change, and every faculty and every limb must
be somewhat modified in order successfully to meet
the new demands thrown upon it by the altered bal-
ance of the remainder. So is it also in matters intel-
lectual. It is hopeless to expect that new truths and
new methods of investigation can be acquired with-
out the old truths requiring to be in some respects
reconsidered and restated, surveyed under a new
aspect, measured, perhaps, by a different standard.
Much had, therefore, to be modified, and something
— let us admit it — had to be destroyed. The new
s^^stem could hardly produce its best results until
the refuse left by the old system had been removed ;
until the waste products were eliminated which,
like those of a muscle too long exercised, poisoned
PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALISM 1 77
and clogged the tissues in which they had once
pla3'ed the part of living and effective elements.
The world, then, required enlightenment, and the
rationalists proceeded after their own fashion to en-
lighten it. Unfortunatel}^ however, their whole pro-
cedure was tainted by an original vice of method
which made it impossible to carry on the honour-
able, if comparatively humble, work of clearance and
purification without, at the same time, destroying
much that ought properly to have been preserved.
They were not content with protesting against prac-
tical abuses, with vindicating the freedom of science
from theological bondage, with criticising the de-
fects and explaining the limitations of the somewhat
cumbrous and antiquated apparatus of prevalent
theological controversy — apparatus, no doubt, much
better contrived for dealing with the points on which
theologians differ than for defending against a com-
mon enemy the points on which theologians are for
the most part agreed. These things, no doubt, to
the best of their power, they did ; and to the doing
of them no objection need be raised. The objection
is to the principle on which the things were done.
That principle appeared under many disguises, and
was called by many names. Sometimes describing
itself as Common-sense, sometimes as Science, some-
times as Enlightenment, with infinite varieties of ap-
plication and great diversity of doctrine, Rationalism
consisted essentially in the application, consciously
or unconsciousl}', of one great method to the decision
178 PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALISM
of every controversy, to the moulding of every creed.
Did a belief square with a view of the universe
based exclusively upon the prevalent mode of inter-
preting sense-perception? If so, it might survive.
Did it clash with such mode, or lie beyond it? It
was superstitious ; it was unscientific ; it was ridicu-
lous ; it was incredible. Was it neither in harmony
with nor antagonistic to such a view, but simply be-
side it? It might live on until it became atrophied
from lack of use, a mere survival of a dead past.
These judgments were not, as a rule, supported
by any very profound arguments. Rationalists as
such are not philosophers. They are not pantheists
nor speculative materialists. They ignore, if they
do not despise, metaphysics, and in practice eschew
the search for first principles. But they judge as
men of the world, reluctant either to criticise too
closely methods which succeed so admirably in
everyday affairs, or to admit that any other methods
can possibly be required by men of sense.
Of course, a principle so loosely conceived has
led at different times and in different stages of knowl-
edge to very different results. Through the greater
portion of the world's history the * ordinary mode of
interpreting sense-perception ' has been perfectly
consistent with so-called ' supernatural ' phenomena.
It may become so again. And if during the rational-
ising centuries this has not been the case, it is be-
cause the interpretation of sense-perceptions has
PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALISM 179
during that period been more and more governed by
that Naturalistic theory of the world to which it has
been steadily gravitating. It is true that the process
of eliminating incongruous beliefs has been gradual.
The general body of rationalisers have been slow to
see and reluctant to accept the full consequences of
their own principles. The assumption that the kind
of ' experience ' which gave us natural science was
the sole basis of knowledge did not at first, or neces-
sarily, carry with it the further inference that noth-
ing deserved to be called knowledge which did not
come within the circle of the natural sciences. But
the inference was practically, if not logically, in-
evitable. Theism, Deism, Design, Soul, Conscience,
Morality, Immortality, Freedom, Beauty — these and
cogaate words associated with the memory of great
controversies mark the points at which rationalists
who are not also naturalists have sought to come to
terms with the rationalising spirit, or to make a stand
against its onward movement. It has been in vain.
At some places the fortunes of battle hung long in the
balance ; at others the issues may yet seem doubtful.
Those who have given up God can still make a fight
for conscience ; those wh© have abandoned moral re-
sponsibility may still console themselves with artistic
beauty. But, to my thinking, at least, the struggle
can have but one termination. Habit and education
may delay the inevitable conclusion ; they cannot in
the end avert it. For these ideas are no native growth
l8o PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALISM
of a rationalist epoch, strong in their harmony with
contemporary moods of thought. They are the prod-
ucts of a different age, survivals from, as some think,
a decaying system. And howsoever stubbornly they
may resist the influences of an alien environment, if
this undergoes no change, in the end they must
surely perish.
Naturalism, then, the naturalism whose practical
consequences have already occupied us so long, is
nothing more than the result of rationalising methods
applied with pitiless consistency to the whole circuit
of belief; it is the completed product of rationalism,
the final outcome of using the ' current methods of
interpreting sense-perception ' as the universal in-
strument for determining the nature and fixing the
limits of human knowledge. What wealth of spiritual
possession this creed requires us to give up I have
already explained. What, then, does it promise us in
exchange? It promises us Consistency. Religion
may perish at its touch, it may strip Virtue and
Beauty of their most precious attributes ; but in ex-
change it promises us Consistency. True, the promise
is in any circumstances but imperfectly kept. This
creed, which so arrogantly requires that every-
thing is to be made consistent with it, is not, as we
have seen, consistent with itself. The humblest at-
tempts to co-ordinate and to justify the assumptions
on which it proceeds with such unquestioning con-
fidence bring to light speculative perplexities and
contradictions whose very existence seems unsus-
PHILOSOPHY AND RATIONALISM l8l
pected, whose solution is not even attempted. But
even were it otherwise we should still be bound to
protest against the assumption that consistency is a
necessity of the intellectual life, to be purchased, if
need be, at famine prices. It is a valuable commod-
ity, but it may be bought too dear. No doubt a
principal function of Reason is to smooth awa}^ con-
tradictions, to knock off corners, and to fit, as far as
may be, each separate belief into its proper place
within the framework of one harmonious creed. No
doubt, also, it is impossible to regard any theory
which lacks self-consistency as either satisfactory or
final. But principles going far beyond admissions
like these are required to cornpel us to acquiesce in
rationalising methods and naturalistic results, to the
destruction of every form of belief with which they
do not happen to agree. Before such terms of sur-
render are accepted, at least the victorious system
must show, not merely that its various parts are
consistent with each other, but that the whole is
authenticated by Reason. Until this task is accom-
plished (and how far at present it is from being ac-
complished in the case of naturalism the reader
knows) it would be an act of mere blundering Un-
reason to set up as the universal standard of belief a
theory of things which itself stands in so great need
of rational defence, or to make a reckless and un-
thinking application of the canon of consistency when
our knowledge of first principles is so manifestly
defective.
CHAPTER IV
RATIONALIST ORTHODOXY
At this point, however, it may perhaps occur to the
reader that I have somewhat too lightly assumed
that Rationalism is the high-road to Naturalism.
Why, it may be asked, is there any insuperable
difficulty in framing another scheme of belief which
shall permanently satisfy the requirements of consist-
ency, and yet harmonise in its general procedure
with the rationalising spirit ? Why are we to as-
sume that the extreme type of this mode of thought
is the only stable type ? Such doubts would be the
more legitimate because there is actually in exis-
tence a scheme of great historic importance, and
some present interest, by which it has been sought
to run Modern Science and Theology together into
a single coherent and self-sufficient system of
thought, by the simple process of making Science
supply all the premises on which theological conclu-
sions are afterwards based. If this device be really
adequate, no doubt much of what was said in the
last chapter, and much that will have to be said
in future chapters, becomes superfluous. If 'our
ordinary method of interpreting sense-perception,*
which gives us Science, is able also to supply us
RATIONALIST ORTHODOXY 1 83
with Theology, then at least, whether it be philo-
sophically valid or not, the majority of mankind may
very well rest content with it until philosophers
come to some agreement about a better. If it does
not satisfy the philosophic critic, it will probably
satisfy everyone else ; and even the philosophic
critic need not quarrel with its practical outcome.
The system by which these results are thought
to be attained pursues the following method. It
divides Theology into Natural and Revealed. Nat-
ural Theology expounds the theological beliefs
which may be arrived at by a consideration of the
general course of Nature as this is explained to us
by Science. It dwells principally upon the number-
less examples of adaptation in the organic world,
which apparently display the most marvellous indi-
cations of ingenious contrivance, and the nicest ad-
justment of means to ends. From facts like these
it is inferred that Nature has an intelligent and a
powerful Creator. From the further fact that these
adjustments and contrivances are in a large number
of cases designed for the interests of beings capable
of pleasure and pain, it is inferred that the Creator
is not only intelligent and powerful, but also benevo-
lent ; and the inquiring mind is then supposed to be
sufficiently prepared to consider without prejudice
the evidence for there having been a special Revela-
tion by which further truths may have been im-
parted, not otherwise accessible to our unassisted
powers of speculation.
1 84 RATIONALIST ORTHODOXY
The evidences of Revealed Religion are not
drawn, like those of Natural Religion, from general
laws and widel}^ disseminated particulars ; but they
profess none the less to be solely based upon facts
which, according to the classification I have adhered
to throughout these Notes, belong to the scientific
order. According to this theory, the logical bur-
den of the entire theological structure is thrown
upon the evidence for certain events which took
place long ago, and principally in a small district to
the east of the J^Iediterranean, the occurrence of
which it is sought to prove by the ordinary meth-
ods of historical investigation, and by these alone —
unless, indeed, we are to regard as an important
ally the aforementioned presumption supplied by
Natural Theology. It is true, of course, that the
immediate reason for accepting the beliefs of Re-
vealed Religion is that the religion is revealed. But
it is thought to be revealed because it was promul-
gated by teachers who were inspired ; the teach-
ers are thought to have been inspired because
they worked miracles; and they are thought to
have worked miracles because there is historical
evidence of the fact, which it is supposed would be
more than sufficient to produce conviction in any
unbiassed mind.
Now it must be conceded that if this general
train of reasoning be assumed to cover the whole
ground of ' Christian Evidences,' then, whether it
be conclusive or inconclusive, it does at least attain
RATIONALIST ORTHODOXY 1 85
the desideratum of connecting Science on the one
hand, Religion — ' Natural ' and ' Revealed ' — on the
other, into one single scheme of interconnected prop-
ositions. But it attains it by making Theology in
form a mere annex or appendix to Science ; a mere
footnote to history ; a series of conclusions inferred
from data which have been arrived at by precise-
ly the same methods as those which enable us to
pronounce upon the probability of any other events
in the past history of man, or of the world in which
he lives. We are no longer dealing with a creed
whose real premises lie deep in the nature of
things. It is no question of metaphysical specula-
tion, moral intuition, or mystical ecstasy with which
we are concerned. We are asked to believe the
Universe to have been designed by a Deity for the
same sort of reason that we believe Canterbury
Cathedral to have been designed by an architect ;
and to believe in the events narrated in the Gospels
for the same sort of reason that we believe in the
murder of Thomas a Becket.
Now I am not concerned to maintain that these
arguments are bad ; on the contrary, my personal
opinion is that, as far as they go, they are good.
The argument, or perhaps I should say an argu-
ment, from design, in some shape or other, will al-
ways have value ; while the argument from history
must always form a part of the evidence for any
historical religion. The first will, in my opinion,
survive any presumptions based upon the doctrine
1 86 RATIONALIST ORTHODOXY
vof natural selection ; the second will survive the con-
sequences of critical assaults. But more than this is
desirable ; more than this is, indeed, necessary. For
however good arguments of this sort are, or may be
made, they are not equal by themselves to the task
of upsetting so massive an obstacle as developed
Naturalism. They have not, as it were, sufficient
intrinsic energy to effect so great a change. They
may not be ill directed, but they lack momentum.
They may not be technically defective, but they are
assuredl}' practically inadequate.
To many this may appear self-evident. Those
who doubt it will, I think, be convinced of its truth
if they put themselves for a moment in the position
of a man trained on the strictest principles of Natu-
ralism ; acquainted with the general methods and
results of Science ; cognisant of the general course
of secular human history, and of the means by
which the critic and the scholar have endeavoured
to extort the truth from the records of the past. To
such a man the growth and decay of great religions,
the legends of wonders worked and suffering en-
dured by holy men in many ages and in different
countries, are familiar facts — to be fitted somehow
into his general scheme of knowledge. Thej are
phenomena to be explained by anthropology and
sociology, instructive examples of the operation of
natural law at a particular stage of human develop-
ment— this, and nothing more.
Now present to one whose mind has been so
RATIONALIST ORTHODOXY 1 8/
prepared and disciplined, first this account of Natu-
ral Religion, and then this version of the evidences
for Revelation. So far as Natural Religion is con-
cerned he will probably content himself with say-
ing, that to argue from the universality of causation
within the world to the necessity of First Cause
outside the world is a process of very doubtful va-
lidity : that to argue from the character of the
world to the benevolence of its Author is a process
more doubtful still : but that, in any case, we need
not disturb ourselves about matters we so little
understand, inasmuch as the Deity thus inferred,
if He really exists, completed the only task which
Natural Religion supposes Him to have undertaken
when, in a past immeasurably remote, He set going
the machinery of causes and effects, which has ever
since been in undisturbed operation, and about
which alone we have any real sources of information.
Supposing, however, you have induced your
Naturalistic philosopher to accept, if only for the
sake of argument, your version of Natural Religion,
what will he say to your method of extracting the
proofs of Revealed Religion from the Gospel his-
tory ? Explain to him that there is good historic
evidence of the usual sort for believing that for one
brief interval during the history of the Universe,
and in one small corner of this planet, the continu-
ous chain of universal causation has been broken ;
that in an insignificant country inhabited by an un-
important branch of the Semitic peoples events are
1 88 RATIONALIST ORTHODOXY
alleged to have taken place which, if they really
occurred, at once turn into foolishness the whole
theory in the light of which he has been accus-
tomed to interpret human experience, and convey
to us knowledge which no mere contemplation of
the general order of Nature could enable us even
dimly to anticipate. What would be his reply ?
His reply would be, nay, is (for our imaginary in-
terlocutor has unnumbered prototypes in the world
about us), that questions like these can scarcely be
settled by the mere accumulation of historic proofs.
Granting all that was asked, and more, perhaps,
than ought to be conceded ; granting that the evi-
dence for these wonders was far stronger than any
that could be produced in favour of the apocryphal
miracles which crowd the annals of every people ;
granting even that the evidence seemed far more
than sufficient to establish any incident, however
strange, which does not run counter to the rec-
ognised course of Nature ; what then ? We were
face to face with a difficulty, no doubt ; but the in-
terpretation of the past was necessarily full of dif-
ficulties. Conflicts of testimony with antecedent
probability, conflicts of different testimonies with
each other, were the familiar perplexities of the
historic inquirer. In thousands of cases no abso-
lutely satisfactory solution could be arrived at.
Possibly the Gospel histories were among these.
Neither the theory of myths, nor the theory of
contemporary fraud, nor the theory of late inven-
RATIONALIST ORTHODOXY 189
tion, nor any other which the ingenuity of critics
could devise, might provide a perfectly clean-cut
explanation of the phenomena. But at least it
might be said with confidence that no explanation
could be less satisfactory than one which required
us, on the strength of three or four ancient docu-
ments— at the best written by eye-witnesses of little
education and no scientific knowledge, at the worst
spurious and of no authority — to remodel and revo-
lutionise every principle which governs us with an
unquestioned jurisdiction in our judgments on the
Universe at large.
Thus, slightly modifying Hume, might the dis-
ciple of Naturalism reply. And as against the
rationalising theologian, is not his answer conclu-
sive ? The former has borrowed the premises, the
methods, and all the positive conclusions of Nat-
uralism. He advances on the same strategic prin-
ciples, and from the same base of operations. And
though he professes by these means to have over-
run a whole continent of alien conclusions with
which Naturalism will have nothing to do, can he
permanently retain his conquests? Is it not certain
that the huge expanse of his theology, attached by
so slender a tie to the main system of which it is in-
tended to be a dependency, will sooner or later have
to be abandoned ; and that the weak and artificial
connection which has been so ingeniously contrived
will snap at the first strain to which it shall be sub-
jected by the forces either of criticism or sentiment?
PART III
SOME CAUSES OF BELIEF
CHAPTER I
CAUSES OF EXPERIENCE
So far the results at which we have arrived may be
not unfairly described as purely negative. In the
first part of these Notes I endeavoured to show that
Naturalism was practically insufficient. In the first
chapter of Part II. I indicated the view that it was
speculatively incoherent. The obvious conclusion
was therefore drawn, that under these circumstances
it was in the highest degree absurd to employ with
an unthinking rigour the canon of consistency as if
Rationalism, which is Naturalism in embryo, or
Naturalism, which is Rationalism developed, placed
us in the secure possession of some unerring
standard of truth to which all our beliefs must be
made to conform. A brief criticism of one theolog-
ical scheme, by which it has been sought to avoid
the narrownesses of Naturalism without break-
ing with Rationalising methods, confirmed the con-
clusion that any such procedure is predestined to
be ineffectual, and that no mere inferences of the
ordinary pattern, based upon ordinary experience,
will enable us to break out of the Naturalistic
prison-house.
13
194 CAUSES OF EXPERIENCE
But if Naturalism by itself be practically insuf-
ficient, if no conclusion based on its affirmations will
enable us to escape from the cold grasp of its nega-
tions, and if, as I think, the contrasted system of
Idealism has not as yet got us out of the difficulty,
what remedy remains? One such remedy consists
in simply setting up side by side with the creed of
natural science another and supplementary set of
beliefs, which may minister to needs and aspirations
which science cannot meet, and may speak amid
silences which science is powerless to break. The
natural world and the spiritual world, the world
which is immediately subject to causation and the
world which is immediately subject to God, are, on
this view, each of them real, and each of them the
objects of real knowledge. But the laws of the
natural world are revealed to us by the discoveries
of science ; while the laws of the spiritual world are
revealed to us through the authority of spiritual
intuitions, inspired witnesses, or divinely guided
institutions. And the two regions of knowledge lie
side by side, contiguous but not connected, like em-
pires of different race and language, which own no
common jurisdiction nor hold any intercourse with
each other, except along a disputed and wavering
frontier where no superior power exists to settle
their quarrels or determine their respective limits.
To thousands of persons this patchwork scheme
of belief, though it may be in a form less sharply
defined, has, in substance, commended itself; and if
CAUSES OF EXPERIENCE 195
and in so far as it really meets their needs I have
nothing to say against it, and can hold out small
hope of bettering it. It is much more satisfactory
as regards its content than Naturalism ; it is not
much less philosophical as regards its method ;
and it has the practical merit of supplying a rough-
and-ready expedient for avoiding the consequences
which follow from a premature endeavour to force
the general body of belief into the rigid limits of
one too narrow system.
It has, however, obvious inconveniences. There
are many persons, and they are increasing in num-
ber, who find it difficult or impossible to acquiesce
in this unconsidered division of the ' Whole ' of
knowledge into two or more unconnected frag-
ments. Naturalism may be practically unsatisfac-
tory. But at least the positive teaching of Natural-
ism has secured general assent ; and it shocks their
philosophic instinct for unity to be asked to patch
and plaster this accepted creed with a number of
heterogeneous propositions drawn from an entirely
different source, and on behalf of which no such
common agreement can be claimed.
What such persons ask for, and rightly, is a
philosophy, a scheme of knowledge, which shall
give rational unity to an adequate creed. But, as
the reader knows, I have it not to give ; nor does it
even seem to me that we have any right to flatter
ourselves that we are on the verge of discovering
some all-reconciling theory by which each inevitable
196 CAUSES OF EXPERIENCE
claim of our complex nature may be harmonised
under the supremacy of Reason. Unity, then, if it
is to be attained at all, must be sought for, so to
speak, at some lower speculative level. We must
either pursue the Rationalising and Naturalistic
method already criticised, and compel the desired
unification of belief by the summary rejection of
everything which does not fit into some convenient
niche in the scheme of things developed by em-
pirical methods out of sense-perception ; or if, either
for the reasons given in the earlier chapters of these
Notes, or for others, we reject this method, we must
turn for assistance towards a new quarter, and apply
ourselves to the problem by the aid of some more
comprehensive, or at least more manageable, prin-
ciple.
II
To this end let us temporarily divest ourselves
of all philosophic preoccupation. Provisionally re-
stricting ourselves to the scientific point of view,
let us forbear to consider beliefs from the side of
proof, and let us survey them for a season from the
side of origin only, and in their relation to the
causes which gave them birth. Thus considered
they are, of course, mere products of natural con-
ditions; psychological growths comparable to the
flora and fauna of continents or oceans ; objects of
which we may say that they are useful or harmful,
plentiful or rare, but not, except parenthetically and
CAUSES OF EXPERIENCE 1 97
with a certain irrelevance, that they are true or
untrue.
How, then, would these beliefs appear to an in-
vestigator from another planet who, applying the
ordinary methods of science, and in a spirit of de-
tached curiosity, should survey them from the out-
side, with no other object than to discover the place
they occupied in the natural history of the earth
and its inhabitants ? He would note, I suppose, to
begin with, that the vast majority of these beliefs
were the short-lived offspring of sense-perception,
instinctive judgments on observed matter-of-fact.
' The sun is shining,' ' there is somebody in the room,'
' I feel tired,' would be examples of this class ; whose
members, from the nature of the case, refer imme-
diately only to the passing moment, and die as soon
as they are born. If now our investigator turned his
attention to the causes of these beliefs of perception,
he would, of course, discover, in the first place, that,
when normal, they were invariably due to the action
of external objects upon the organism, and more par-
ticularly upon the nervous system, of the percipient ;
and in the second place, that though these beliefs
were thus all due to a certain kind of neural change,
the converse of the proposition is by no means true,
since, taking the organic world at large, it was by
no means the casejji^^1^ttf|lt=-"eba^nges of this kind
invariably, or G^fcni ?l^ually,..issu6^^SKbeliefs of per-
ception, or, infl^d, iri^ai^y, ps^chjcal i^f^lt whatever.
For consider how (the Qa^$g ^jimUff prdsent itself to
198 CAUSES OF EXPERIENCE
our supposed observer. He would see a series of or-
ganisms possessed of nervous systems ranging from
the most rudimentary type to the most complex.
He would observe that the action of the exterior
world upon those systems varied, in like manner,
from the simple irritation of the nerve-tissue to the
multitudinous correspondences and adjustments in-
volved in some act of vision by man or one of the
higher mammals. And he would conclude, and
rightly, that between the upper and the lower mem-
bers of the scale there were differences of degree,
but not of kind ; and that existing gaps might be
conceived as so filled in that each type might melt
into the one immediately below it by insensible gra-
dations.
If, however, he endeavoured to draw up a scale
of psychical effects whose degrees should correspond
with this scale of physiological causes, two results
would make themselves apparent. The first is, that
the lower part of the psychical scale would be a blank,
because in the case of the simple organisms nervous
changes carried with them no mental consequents.
The second is, that even when mental consequents
do appear, they form no continuous series like their
physiological antecedents ; but, on the contrary,
those at the top of the scale are found to differ in
something more than degree from those which appear
lower down. We do not, for example, suppose that
protozoa can properly be said to feel, nor that every
animal which feels can properly be said to form
CAUSES OF EXPERIENCE 199
judgments or to possess immediate beliefs of percep-
tion.
One conclusion our observer would, I suppose,
draw from facts like these is, that while neural sen-
sibility to external influences is a widespread bene-
fit to organic Nature, the feelings, and still more
the beliefs, to which in certain cases it gives rise are
relatively insignificant phenomena, useful supple-
ments to the purely physiological apparatus, neces-
sary, perhaps, to its highest developments, but still,
if operative at all,^ rather in the nature of final im-
provements to the machinery than of parts essential
to its working.
A like result would attend his study of the next
class of beliefs that might fall under his notice,
those, namely, which, though they do not relate to
things or events within the field of perception, like
those we have just been considering, are yet not
less immediate in their character. Memories of the
past are examples of this type ; I should be in-
clined to add, though I do not propose here to
justify my opinion, certain instinctive and, so to
speak, automatic expectations about the future or
that part of the present which does not come with-
in the reach of direct experience. Like the beliefs
of perception of which we have been speaking,
they would seem to be the psychical side of neu-
ral changes which, at least in their simpler forms,
need be accompanied by no psychical manifestation.
^See Note on Chapter V., page 285.
200 CAUSES OF EXPERIENCE
Physiological co-ordination is sufficient by itself to
perform services for the lower animals similar in
kind to those which, in the case of man, are use-
fully, or even necessarily, supplemented by their
beliefs of memory and of expectation.
These two classes of belief, relating respectively
to the present and the absent, cover the whole
ground of what is commonly called experience,
and something more. They include, therefore, at
least in rudimentary form, all particulars which, on
any theory, are required for scientific induction;
and, according to empiricism in its older forms,
they supply not this only, but also the whole of the
raw material, without any exception, out of which
reason must subsequently fashion whatever stock
of additional beliefs it is needful for mankind to
entertain.
Our Imaginary Observer, however, quite indif-
ferent to mundane theories as to what ought to
produce conviction, and intent only on discovering
how convictions are actually produced, would soon
find out that there were other influences besides
reasoning required to supplement the relatively
simple physiological and psychological causes
which originate the immediate beliefs of perception,
memory, and expectation. These immediate be-
liefs belong to man as an individual. They involve
no commerce between mind and mind. They might
equally exist, and would equally be necessary, if
each man stood face to face with material Nature
CAUSES OF EXPERIENCE 201
in friendless isolation. But they neither provide,
nor by any merely logical extension can be made to
provide, the apparatus of beliefs which we find act-
ually connected with the higher scientific social and
spiritual life of the race. These also are, without
doubt, the product of antecedent causes — causes
many in number and most diverse in character.
They presuppose, to begin with, the beliefs of per-
ception, memory, and expectation in their element-
ary shape; and they also imply the existence of
an organism fitted for their hospitable reception
by ages of ancestral preparation. But these condi-
tions, though necessary, are clearly not enough ;
the appropriate environment has also to be pro-
vided. And though I shall not attempt to analyse
with the least approach to completeness the ele-
ments of which that environment consists, yet it
contains one group of causes so important in their
collective operation, and yet in popular discourse
so often misrepresented, that a detailed notice of it
seems desirable.
CHAPTER II
AUTHORITY AND REASON
This group is perhaps best described by the term
Authority, a word which by a sharp transition
transports us at once into a stormier tract of specu-
lation than we have been traversing in the last few
pages, though, as my readers may be disposed to
think, for that reason, perhaps, among others, a
tract more nearly adjacent to theology and the
proper subject-matter of these Notes. However
this may be, it is, I am afraid, the fact that the dis-
cussion on which I am about to enter must bring us
face to face with one problem, at least, of which,
so far as I am aware, no entirely satisfactory solu-
tion has yet been reached ; which certainly I can-
not pretend to solve ; which can, therefore, for the
present only be treated in a manner provisional,
and therefore unsatisfactory. Nor are these peren-
nial and inherent difficulties the only obstacles we
have to contend with. For the subject is, unfort-
unately, one familiar to discussion, and, like all
topics which have been the occasion of passionate
debate, it is one where party watchwords have
AUTHORITY AND REASON 203
exercised their perturbing and embittering influ-
ence.
It would be, perhaps, an exaggeration to assert
that the theory of authority has been for three cen-
turies the main battlefield whereon have met the
opposing forces of new thoughts and old. But if so,
it is only because, at this point at least, victory is
commonly supposed long ago to have declared itself
decisively in favour of the new. The very statement
that the rival and opponent of authority is reason ^
seems to most persons equivalent to a declaration
that the latter must be in the right, and the former
in the wrong ; while popular discussion and specula-
tion have driven deep the general opinion that au-
thority serves no other purpose in the economy of
Nature than to supply a refuge for all that is most
bigoted and absurd.
The current theory by which these views are sup-
ported appears to be something of this kind. Every-
one has a * right ' to adopt any opinions he pleases.
It is his ' duty,' before exercising this ' right,' criti-
cally to sift the reasons by which such opinions may
be supported, and so to adjust the degree of his con-
victions that they shall accurately correspond with
the evidences adduced in their favour. Authority,
therefore, has no place among the legitimate causes
of belief. If it appears among them, it is as an in-
* It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to note that throughout this
chapter I use Reason in its ordinary and popular, not in its tran-
scendental, sense. There is no question here of the Logos or Ab-
solute Reason.
204 AUTHORITY AND REASON
truder, to be jealously hunted down and mercilessly
expelled. Reason, and reason only, can be safely
permitted to mould the convictions of mankind. By
its inward counsels alone should beings who boast
that they are rational submit to be controlled.
Sentiments like these are among the common-
places of political and social philosophy. Yet, looked
at scientifically, they seem to me to be, not merely
erroneous, but absurd. Suppose for a moment a com-
munity of which each member should deliberately
set himself to the task of throwing off so far as pos-
sible all prejudices due to education ; where each
should consider it his duty critically to examine the
grounds whereon rest every positive enactment and
every moral precept which he has been accustomed
to obey ; to dissect all the great loyalties which make
social life possible, and all the minor conventions
which help to make it easy ; and to \veigh out with
scrupulous precision the exact degree of assent
which in each particular case the results of this proc-
ess might seem to justify. To say that such a com-
munity, if it acted upon the opinions thus arrived
at, would stand but a poor chance in the struggle
for existence is to say far too little. It could never
even begin to be ; and if by a miracle it w^as created,
it would without doubt immediately resolve itself
into its constituent elements.
For consider by way of illustration the case of
Morality. If the right and the duty of private
judgment be universal, it must be both the privilege
AUTHORITY AND REASON 205
and the business of every man to subject the maxims
of current morality to a critical examination ; and
unless the examination is to be a farce, every man
should bring to it a mind as little warped as pos-
sible by habit and education, or the unconscious bias
of foregone conclusions. Picture, then, the condi-
tion of a society in which the successive generations
would thus in turn devote their energies to an im-
partial criticism of the ' traditional ' view. What
qualifications, natural or acquired, for such a task
we are to attribute to the members of this emanci-
pated community I know not. But let us put them
at the highest. Let us suppose that every man and
woman, or rather every boy and girl (for ought
Reason to be ousted from her rights in persons
under twenty-one years of age ?), is endowed with
the aptitude and training required to deal with
problems like these. Arm them with the most re-
cent methods of criticism, and set them down to the
task of estimating with open minds the claims which
charity, temperance and honesty, murder, theft and
adultery respectively have upon the approval or
disapproval of mankind. What the result of such
an experiment would be, what wild chaos of opin-
ions would result from this fiat of the Uncreating
Word, I know not. But it might well happen that
even before our youthful critics got so far as a re-
arrangement of the Ten Commandments, they might
find themselves entangled in the preliminary ques-
tion whether judgments conveying moral approba-
206 AUTHORITY AND REASON
tion and disapprobation were of a kind which rea-
sonable beings should be asked to entertain at all ;
whether ' right ' and ' wrong ' were words repre-
senting anything more permanent and important
than certain likes and dislikes which happen to be
rather widely disseminated, and more or less arbi-
trarily associated with social and legal sanctions. I
conceive it to be highly probable that the con-
clusions at which on this point they would arrive
would be of a purely negative character. The ethi-
cal systems competing for acceptance would by
their very numbers and variety suggest suspicions
as to their character and origin. Here, would our
students explain, is a clear presumption to be found
on the very face of these moralisings that they were
contrived, not in the interests of truth, but in the in-
terests of traditional dogma. How else explain the
fact, that while there is no great difference of opin-
ion as to what things are right or wrong, there is no
semblance of agreement as to why they are right
or why they are wrong. All authorities concur, for
instance, in holding that it is wrong to commit mur-
der. But one philosopher tells us that it is wrong
because it is inconsistent with the happiness of man-
kind, and that to do anything inconsistent with the
happiness of mankind is wrong. Another tells us
that it is contrary to the dictates of conscience, and
that everything which is contrary to the dictates of
conscience is wrong. A third tells us that it is
against the commandments of God, and that every-
AUTHORITY AND REASON 207
thing which is against the commandments of God is
wrong. A fourth tells me that it leads to the gal-
lows, and that, inasmuch as being hanged involves
a sensible diminution of personal happiness, creat-
ures who, like man, are by nature incapable of
doing otherwise than seek to increase the sum of
their personal pleasures and diminish the sum of
their personal pains cannot, if they really compre-
hend the situation, do anything which may bring
their existence to so distressing a termination.
Now whence, it would be asked, this curious mixt-
ure of agreement and disagreement ? How account
for the strange variety exhibited in the premises of
these various systems, and the not less strange uni-
formity exhibited in their conclusions ? Why does
not as great a divergence manifest itself in the
results arrived at as we undoubtedly find in the
methods employed ? How comes it that all these
explorers reach the same goal, when their points of
departure are so widely dispersed ? Plainly but one
plausible method of solving the difficulty exists.
The conclusions were in every case determined be-
fore the argument began, the goal was in every case
settled before the travellers set out. There is here
no surrender of belief to the inward guidance of un-
fettered reason. Rather is reason coerced to a fore-
ordained issue by the external operation of prejudice
and education, or by the rougher machinery of social
ostracism and legal penalty. The framers of ethical
systems are either philosophers who are unable to
208 AUTHORITY AND REASON
free themselves from the unfelt bondage of custom-
ary opinion, or advocates who find it safer to exer-
cise their liberty of speculation in respect to pre-
mises about which nobody cares, than in respect to
conclusions which might bring them into conflict
with the police.
So might we imagine the members of our eman-
cipated community discussing the principles on
which morality is founded. But, in truth, it were
a vain task to work out in further detail the results
of an experiment which, human nature being what
it is, can never be seriously attempted. That it can
never be seriously attempted is not, be it observed,
because it is of so dangerous a character that the
community in its wisdom would refuse to embark
upon it. This would be a frail protection indeed.
Not the danger of the adventure, but its impossi-
bility, is our security. To reject all convictions
which are not the products of free speculative in-
vestigation is, fortunately, an exercise of which hu-
manity is in the strictest sense incapable. Some
societies and some individuals may show more incli-
nation to indulge in it than others. But in no con-
dition of society and in no individual will the incli-
nation be more than very partially satisfied. Always
and everywhere our Imaginary Observer, contem-
plating from some external coign of vantage the
course of human history, would note the immense,
the inevitable, and on the whole the beneficent, part
which Authority plays in the production of belief.
AUTHORITY AND REASON 209
II
This truth finds expression, and at first sight we
might feel inclined to say recognition also, in such
familiar commonplaces as that every man is the
'product of the society in which he lives,' and that
* it is vain to expect him to rise much above the level
of his age.' But aphorisms like these, however use-
ful as aids to a correct historical perspective, do not,
as ordinarily employed, show any real apprehension
of the verity on which I desire to insist. They be-
long to a theory which regards these social influ-
ences as clogs and hindrances, hampering the free
movements of those who might under happier cir-
cumstances have struggled successfully towards the
truth ; or as perturbing forces which drive mankind
from the even orbit marked out for it by reason.
Reason, according to this view, is a kind of Ormuzd
doing constant battle against the Ahriman of tradi-
tion and authority. Its gradual triumph over the
opposing powers of darkness is what we mean by
Progress. Everything which shall hasten the hour
of that triumph is a gain ; and if by some magic
stroke we could extirpate, as it were in a moment,
every cause of belief which was not also a reason,
we should, it appears, be the fortunate authors of a
reform in the moral world only to be paralleled by
the abolition of pain and disease in the physical. I
have already indicated some of the grounds which
210 AUTHORITY AND REASON
induce me to form a very different estimate of the
part which reason plays in human affairs. Our an-
cestors, whose errors we palliate on account of their
environment with a feeling of satisfaction, due partly
to our keen appreciation of our own happier position
and greater breadth of view, were not to be pitied
because they reasoned little and believed much ; nor
should we necessarily have any particular cause for
self-gratulation if it were true that we reasoned
more and, it may be, believed less. Not thus has
the world been fashioned. But, nevertheless, this
identification of reason with all that is good among
the causes of belief, and authority with all that is
bad, is a delusion so gross and yet so prevalent that
a moment's examination into the exaggerations and
confusions which lie at the root of it may not be
thrown away.
The first of these confusions may be dismissed
almost in a sentence. It arises out of the tacit as-
sumption that reason means rigJit reason. Such an
assumption, it need hardly be said, begs half the
point at issue. Reason, for purposes of this discus-
sion, can no more be made to mean right reason than
authority can be made to mean legitimate authority.
True, we might accept the first of these definitions,
and yet deny that all right belief was the fruit of
reason. But we could hardly deny the converse
proposition, that reason thus defined must always
issue in right belief. Nor need we be concerned to
deny a statement at once so obvious and so barren.
AUTHORITY AND REASON 211
The source of error which has next to be noted
presents points of much greater interest. Though it
be true, as I am contending, that the importance of
reason among the causes which produce and main-
tain the beliefs, customs, and ideals which form the
groundwork of life has been much exaggerated,
there can yet be no doubt that reason is, or appears
to be, the cause over which we have the most direct
control, or rather the one which we most readily
identify with our own free and personal action. We
are acted on by authority. It moulds our ways of
thought in spite of ourselves, and usually unknown
to ourselves. But when we reason we are the au-
thors of the effect produced. We have ourselves
set the machine in motion. For its proper w^orking
we are ourselves immediately responsible ; so that it
is both natural and desirable that we should concen-
trate our attention on this particular class of causes,
even though we should thus be led unduly to
magnify their importance in the general scheme of
things.
I have somewhere seen it stated that the steam-
engine in its primitive form required a boy to work
the valve by which steam was admitted to the
cylinder. It was his business at the proper period
of each stroke to perform this necessary operation
by pulling a string ; and though the same object
has long since been attained by mechanical methods
far simpler and more trustworthy, yet I have little
doubt that until the advent of that revolutionary
212 AUTHORITY AND REASON
youth who so tied the string to one of the moving
parts of the engine that his personal supervision was
no longer necessary, the boy in office greatly magni-
fied his functions, and regarded himself with par-
donable pride as the most important, because the
only rational, link in the chain of causes and effects
by which the energy developed in the furnace was
ultimately converted into the motion of the fly-
wheel. So do we stand as reasoning beings in the
presence of the complex processes, physiological
and psychical, out of which are manufactured the
convictions necessary to the conduct of life. To the
results attained by their co-operation reason makes
its slender contribution ; but in order that it may do
so effectively, it is beneficently decreed that, pend-
ing the evolution of some better device, reason
should appear to the reasoner the most admirable
and important contrivance in the whole mechanism.
The manner in which attention and interest are
thus unduly directed towards the operations, vital
and social, which are under our direct control,
rather than those which we are unable to modify, or
can only modify by a very indirect and circuitous
procedure, may be illustrated by countless exam-
ples. Take one from physiology. Of all the com-
plex causes which co-operate for the healthy nour-
ishment of the body, no doubt the conscious choice
of the most wholesome rather than the less whole-
some forms of ordinary food is far from being the
least important. Yet, as it is within our immedi-
AUTHORITY AND REASON 21 3
ate competence, we attend to it, moralise about it,
and generally make much of it. But no man can by
taking thought directly regulate his digestive secre-
tions. We never, therefore, think of them at all
until they go wrong, and then, unfortunately, to
very little purpose. So it is with the body politic.
A certain proportion (probably a small one) of the
changes and adaptations required by altered sur-
roundings can only be effected through the solvent
action of criticism and discussion. How such dis-
cussion shall be conducted, what are the arguments
on either side, how a decision shall be arrived at,
and how it shall be carried out, are matters which
we seem able to regulate by conscious effort and the
deliberate adaptation of means to ends. We there-
fore unduly magnify the part they play in the fur-
therance of our interests. We perceive that they
supply business to the practical politician, raw ma-
terial to the political theorist ; and we forget amid
the buzzing of debate the multitude of incom-
parably more important processes, by whose unde-
signed co-operation alone the life and growth of the
State are rendered possible.
Ill
There is, however, a third source of illusion, re-
specting the importance of reason in the actual con-
duct of human affairs, which well deserves the atten-
tive study of those who, like our Imaginary Observer,
are interested in the purely external and scientific in-
214 AUTHORITY AND REASON
vestigation of the causes which produce belief. I
have already in this chapter made reference to the
* spirit of the age ' as one form in which authority most
potently manifests itself ; and undoubtedly it is so.
Dogmatic education in early 3^ears may do much.^
The immediate pressure of domestic, social, scientific,
ecclesiastical surroundings in the direction of spe-
cific beliefs may do even more. But the power of
authority* is never more subtle and effective than
when it produces a psychological ' atmosphere ' or
' climate ' favourable to the life of certain modes of
belief, unfavourable, and even fatal, to the life of
others. Such ' climates ' may be widely diffused, or
the reverse. Their range may cover a generation,
an epoch, a whole civilisation, or it may be nar-
rowed down to a sect, a family, even an individual.
And as the}^ may vary infinitely in respect to the
extent of their influence, so also they may vary in
respect to its intensity and qualit3^ But whatever
be their limits and whatever their character, their
importance to the conduct of life, social and individ-
ual, cannot easily be overstated.
Consider, for instance, their effect on great
classes of belief with which reasoning, were it only
on account of their mass, is quite incompetent to
deal. If all credible propositions, all propositions
which somebody at some time had been able to be-
lieve, were only to be rejected after their claims had
* I may again remind the reader that the word ' dogmatic ' as
used in these Notes has no special theological reference.
AUTHORITY AND REASON 21$
been impartially tested by a strictly logical inves-
tigation, the intellectual machine would be over-
burdened, and its movements hopelessly choked by
mere excess of material. Even such products as it
could turn out would, as I conjecture (for the ex-
periment has never been tried), prove but a mot-
ley collection, so diverse in design, so incongruous
and ill-assorted, that they could scarcely contribute
the fitting furniture of a well-ordered mind. What
actually happens in the vast majority of cases is
something very different. To begin with, external
circumstances, mere conditions of time and place,
limit the number of opinions about which anything
is known, and on which, therefore, it is (so to speak)
materially possible that reason can be called upon
to pronounce a judgment. But there are internal
limitations not less universal and not less necessary.
Few indeed are the beliefs, even among those which
come under his observation, which any individual
for a moment thinks himself called upon seriously
to consider with a view to their possible adoption.
The residue he summarily disposes of, rejects with-
out a hearing, or, rather, treats as if they had not
even that prima facie claim to be adjudicated on
which formal rejection seems to imply.
Now, can this process be described as a rational
one ? That it is not the immediate result of reason-
ing is, I think, evident enough. All would admit,
for example, that when the mind is closed against
the reception of any truth by ' bigotry ' or * inveterate
2l6 AUTHORITY AND REASON
prejudice,' the effectual cause of tlie victory of error
is not so much bad reasoning as something which,
in its essential nature, is not reasoning at all. But
there is really no ground for drawing a distinction
as regards their mode of operation between the .
' psychological climates ' which we happen to like and
those of which we happen to disapprove. However
various their character, all, I take it, work out their
results very much in the same kind of way. For
good or for evil, in ancient times and in modern,
among savage folk and among civilised, it is ever by
an identic process that they have sifted and selected
the candidates for credence, on which reason has
been afterwards called upon to pass judgment ; and
that process is one with which ratiocination has little
or nothing directly to do.
But though these * psychological climates ' do not
work through reasoning, may they not themselves,
in many cases, be the products of reasoning? May
they not, therefore, be causes of belief which belong,
though it be only at the second remove, to the domain
of reason rather than to that of authority ? To the
first of these questions the answer must doubtless be
in the affirmative. Reasoning has unquestionably a
great deal to do with the production of psychological
climates. As ' climates ' are among the causes which
produce beliefs, so are beliefs among the causes
which produce ' climates,' and all reasoning, therefore,
which culminates in belief may be, and indeed must
be, at least indirectly concerned in the effects which
AUTHORITY AND REASON 2\J
belief develops. But are these results rational ? Do
they follow, I mean, on reason qua reason ; or are
they, like a schoolboy's tears over a proposition of
Euclid, consequences of reasoning, but not conclu-
sions from it ?
In order to answer this question it may be worth
while to consider it in the light of an example which
I have already used in another connection and under
a different aspect. It will be recollected that in a
preceding chapter I considered Rationalism, not as
a psychological climate, a well-characterised mood of
mind, but as an explicit principle of judgment, in
which the rationalising temper may for purposes of
argument find definite expression. To Rationalism
in the first of these senses — to Rationalism, in other
words, considered as a form of Authority — I now
revert; taking it as an incident specially suited to
our purpose, not only because its meaning is well
understood, but because it is found at our own level
of intellectual development, and we can therefore
study its origin and character with a kind of insight
quite impossible when we are dealing with the
* climates ' which govern in so singular a fashion the
beliefs of primitive races. These, too, may be, and I
suppose are, to some extent, the products of reason-
ing. But the reasoning appears to us as arbitrary
as the resulting * climates ' are repugnant ; and
though we can note and classify the facts, we can
hardly comprehend them with sympathetic under-
standing.
2l8 AUTHORITY AND REASON
With Rationalism it is different. How the dis-
coveries of science, the growth of criticism, and the
diffusion of learning should have fostered the ration-
alising temper seems intelligible to all, because all,
in their different degrees, have been subject to these
very influences. Not everyone is a rationalist ; but
everyone, educated or uneducated, is prepared to
reject without further examination certain kinds of
statement which, before the rationalising era set in,
would have been accepted without difficulty by the
wisest among mankind.
Now this modern mood, whether in its qualified
or unqualified {i.e. naturalistic) form, is plainly no
mere product of non-rational conditions, as the enu-
meration I have just given of its most conspicuous
causes is sufficient to prove. Natural science and
historical criticism have not been built up without a
vast expenditure of reasoning, and (though for present
purposes this is immaterial) very good reasoning,
too. But are we on that account to say that the
results of the rationalising temper are the work of
reason ? Surely not. The rationalist rejects miracles ;
and if you force him to a discussion, he may no doubt
produce from the ample stores of past controversy
plenty of argument in support of his belief. But do
not therefore assume that his belief is the result of
his argument. The odds are strongly in favour of
argument and belief having both grown up under
the fostering influence of his ' psychological climate.'
For observe that precisely in the way in which he
AUTHORITY AND REASON 219
rejects miracles he also rejects witchcraft. Here
there has been no controversy worth mentioning.
The general belief in witchcraft has died a natural
death, and it has not been worth anybody's while to
devise arguments against it. Perhaps there are none.
But, whether there be or not, no logical axe was re-
quired to cut down a plant which had not the least
chance of flourishing in a mental atmosphere so rig-
orous and uncongenial as that of rationalism ; and
accordingly no logical axe has been provided.
The belief in mesmerism, however, supplies in
some ways a more instructive case than the belief
either in miracles or witchcraft. Like these, it
found in rationalism a hostile influence. But, unlike
these, it could call in almost at will the assistance
of what would now be regarded as ocular demon-
stration. For two generations, however, this was
found insufficient. For two generations the rational-
istic bias proved sufficiently strong to pervert the
judgment of the most distinguished observers, and
to incapacitate them from accepting what under
more favourable circumstances they would have
called the ' plain evidence of their senses.' So that
we are here presented with the curious spectacle of
an intellectual mood or temper, whose origin was
largely due to the growth of the experimental
sciences, making it impossible for those affected to
draw the simplest inference, even from the most
conclusive experiments.
This is an interesting case of the conflict be-
220 AUTHORITY AND REASON
tween authority and reason, because it illustrates the
general truth for which 1 have been contending, with
an emphasis that would be impossible if we took as our
example some worn-out vesture of thought, thread-
bare from use, and strange to e3^es accustomed to
newer fashions. Rationalism, in its turn, may be pre-
destined to suffer a like decay ; but in the meanwhile
it forcibly exemplifies the part played by authority in
the formation of beliefs. If rationalism be regarded
as a non-rational effect of reason and a non-rational
cause of belief, the same admission will readily be
made about all other intellectual climates ; and that
rationalism should be so regarded is now, I trust, plain
to the reader. The only results which reason can
claim as hers by an exclusive title are of the nature of
logical conclusions ; and rationalism, in the sense in
which I am now using the word, is not a logical con-
elusion, but an intellectual temper. The only instru-
ments which reason, as such, can employ are argu-
ments; and rationalism is not an argument, but an
impulse towards belief, or disbelief. So that, though
rationalism, like other ' psychological climates,' is
doubtless due, among other causes, to reason, it is not
on that account a rational product ; and though in its
turn it produces beliefs, it is not on that account a
rational cause.
From the preceding considerations it may, I think,
be fairly concluded, firstly, that reason is not neces-
sarily, nor perhaps usually, dominant among the im
AUTHORITY AND REASON 221
mediate causes which produce a particular * psycho-
logical climate.' Secondly, that the efficiency of such
a ' climate ' in promoting or destroying beliefs is quite
independent of the degree to which reason has con-
tributed to its production ; and, thirdly, that however
much the existence of the 'climate' may be due to
reason, its action on beliefs, be it favourable or hostile,
is in its essential nature wholly non-rational.
IV
The most important source of error on this sub-
ject remains, however, to be dealt with; and it arises
directly out of that jurisdiction which in matters of
belief we can hardly do otherwise than recognise as
belonging to Reason by a natural and indefeasible
title. No one finds (if my observations in this matter
are correct) any serious difficulty in attributing the
origin of other people's beliefs, especially if he disa-
agree with them, to causes which are not reasons.
That interior assent should be produced in countless
cases by custom, education, public opinion, the con-
tagious convictions of countrymen, family, party, or
Church, seems natural, and even obvious. That but
a small number, at least of the most important and
fundamental beliefs, are held by persons who could
give reasons for them, and that of this small number
only an inconsiderable fraction are held in conse-
quence of the reasons by which they are nominally
222 AUTHORITY AND REASON
supported, may perhaps be admitted with no very
great difficulty. But it is harder to recognise that
this law is not merely, on the whole, beneficial, but
that without it the business of the world could not
possibly be carried on ; nor do we allow, without
reluctance and a sense of shortcoming, that in our
own persons we supply illustrations of its operation
quite as striking as any presented to us by the rest
of the world.
Now this reluctance is not the result of vanity,
nor of any fancied immunity from weaknesses com-
mon to the rest of mankind. It is, rather, a direct
consequence of the view we find ourselves compelled
to take of the essential character of reason and of
our relations to it. Looked at from the outside, as
one among the complex conditions which produce
belief, reason appears relatively insignificant and
ineffectual ; not only appears so, but must be so, if
human society is to be made possible. Looked at
from the inside, it claims by an inalienable title to be
supreme. Measured by its results it may be little;
measured by its rights it is everything. There is no
problem it may not investigate, no belief which it
may not assail, no principle which it may not test.
It cannot, even by its own voluntary act, deprive it-
self of universal jurisdiction, as, according to a once
fashionable theory, primitive man, on entering the
social state, contracted himself out of his natural
rights and liberties. On the contrary, though its
AUTHORITY AND REASON 223
claims may be ignored, they cannot be repudiated ;
and even those who shrink from the criticism of
dogma as a sin, would probably admit that they do
so because it is an act forbidden by those they are
bound to obey ; do so, that is to say, nominally at
least, for a reason which, at any moment, if it should
think fit, reason itself may reverse.
Why, under these circumstances, we are moved
to regard ourselves as free intelligences, forming
our opinions solely in obedience to reason ; why we
come to regard reason itself, not only as the sole
legitimate source of belief — which, perhaps, it may
be — but the sole source of legitimate beliefs — which
it assuredly is not, must now, I hope, be tolerably
obvious, and needs not to be further emphasised.
It is more instructive for our present purpose to
consider for a moment certain consequences of this
antinomy between the equities of Reason and the
expediencies of Authority which rise into promi-
nence whenever, under the changing conditions of
society, the forces of the latter are being diverted
into new and unaccustomed channels.
It is true, no doubt, that the full extent and diffi-
culty of the problems involved have not commonly
been realised by the advocates either of authority
or reason, though each has usually had a sufficient
sense of the strength of the other's position to induce
him to borrow from it, even at the cost of some little
inconsistency. The supporter of authority, for in-
224 AUTHORITY AND REASON
Stance, may point out some of the more obvious evils
by which any decrease in its influence is usually ac-
companied: the comminution of sects, the divisions
of opinion, the weakened powers of co-operation, the
increase of strife, the waste of power. Yet, so far as
I am aware, no nation, party, or Church has ever
courted controversial disaster by admitting that, if
its claims were impartially tried at the bar of Reason,
the verdict would go against it. In the same way,
those who have most clamorously upheld the pre-
rogatives of individual reason have always been
forced to recognise by their practice, if not by their
theory, that the right of ever}' man to judge on every
question for himself is like the right of every man
who possesses a balance at his bankers to require its
immediate payment in sovereigns. The right may
be undoubted ; but it can only be safely enjoyed on
condition that too many persons do not take it into
their heads to exercise it together. Perhaps, how-
ever, the most striking evidence, both of the powers
of authority and the rights of reason, may be found
in the fact already alluded to, that beliefs which are
really the offspring of the first, when challenged, in-
variably claim to trace their descent from the second,
although this improvised pedigree may be as imagi-
nary as if it were the work of a college of heralds.
To be sure, when this contrivance has served its
purpose it is usually laid silently aside, while the
belief it was intended to support remains quietly in
AUTHORITY AND REASON 22$
possession, until, in the course of time, some other,
and perhaps not less illusory, title has to be devised
to rebut the pleas of a new claimant.
If the reader desires an illustration of this pro-
cedure, here is one taken at random from English
political history. Among the results of the move-
ment which culminated in the Great Rebellion was
of necessity a marked diminution in the universality
and efficacy of that mixture of feelings and beliefs
which constitutes loyalty to national government.
Now loyalty, in some shape or other, is necessary for
the stability of any lorm of polity. It is one of the
most valuable products of authority, and, whether
in any particular case conformable to reason or
not, is essentially unreasoning. Its theoretical basis
therefore excites but little interest, and is of very sub-
ordinate importance so long as it controls the hearts
of men with undisputed sway. But as soon as its su-
premacy is challenged, men begin to cast about anx-
iously for reasons why it should continue to be obeyed.
Thus, to those who lived through the troubles
which preceded and accompanied the Great Rebel-
lion, it became suddenly apparent that it was above
all things necessary to bolster up by argument the
creed which authority had been found temporarily
insufficient to sustain; and of the arguments thus
called into existence two, both of extraordinary ab-
surdity, have become historically famous — that con-
tained in Hobbes's ' Leviathan,' and that taught for a
226 AUTHORITY AND REASON
period with much vigour by the Anglican clergy
under the name of Divine right. These theories
may have done their work ; in any case they had
their day. It was discovered that, as is the way of
abstract arguments dragged in to meet a concrete
difficulty, they led logically to a great many conclu-
sions much less convenient than the one in whose
defence they had been originally invoked. The
crisis which called them forth passed gradually
away. They were repugnant to the taste of a dif-
ferent age ; ' Leviathan ' and ' passive obedience *
were handed over to the judgment of the historian.
This is an example of how an ancient principle,
broadly based though it be on the needs and feelings
of human nature, may be thought now and again to
require external support to enable it to meet some
special stress of circumstances. But often the stress
is found to be brief ; a few internal alterations meet
all the necessities of the case ; to a new generation the
added buttresses seem useless and unsightly. They
are soon demolished, to make way in due time, no
doubt, for others as temporary as themselves. Noth-
ing so quickly waxes old as apologetics, unless, per-
haps, it be criticism.
A precisely analogous process commonly goes
on in the case of new principles struggling into rec-
ognition. As those of older growth are driven by
the instincts of self-preservation to call reasoning to
their assistance, so these claim the aid of the same
AUTHORITY AND REASON 22/
ally for purposes of attack and aggression ; and the
incongruity between the causes by which beliefs are
sustained, and the official reasons by which they are
from time to time justified, is usually as glaring in
the case of the last novelty in doctrine as in that of
some long descended and venerable prejudice. Wit-
ness the ostentatious futility of the theories — ' rights
of man,' and so forth — by the aid of which the modern
democratic movement was nursed through its infant
maladies.
Now these things are true, not alone in politics,
but in every field of human activity where authority
and reason co-operate to serve the needs of mankind
at large. And thus may we account for the singular
fact that in many cases conclusions are more perma-
nent than premises, and that the successive growths
of apologetic and critical literature do often not more
seriously affect the enduring outline of the beliefs
by which they are occasioned than the successive
forests of beech and fir determine the shape of the
everlasting hills from which they spring.
Here, perhaps, I might fitly conclude this por-
tion of my task, were it not that one particular mode
in which Authority endeavours to call in reasoning
to its assistance is so important in itself, and has led
to so much confusion both of thought and of Ian-
228 AUTHORITY AND REASON
guage, that a few paragraphs devoted to its consid-
eration may help the reader o ta clearer understand-
ing of the general subject. Authority, as I have
been using the term, is in all cases contrasted with
Reason, and stands for that group of non-rational
causes, moral, social, and educational, which pro-
duces its results by psychic processes other than
reasoning. But there is a simple operation, a mere
turn of phrase, by which many of these non-rational
causes can, so to speak, be converted into reasons
without seeming at first sight thereby to change
their function as channels of Authority ; and so con-
venient is this method of bringing these two sources
of conviction on to the same plane, so perfectly does
it minister to our instinctive desire to produce a
reason for every challenged belief, that it is con-
stantly resorted to (without apparently any clear
idea of its real import), both by those who re-
gard themselves as upholders and those who regard
themselves as opponents of Authority in matters of
opinion. To say that I believe a statement because
I have been taught it, or because my father believed
it before me, or because everybody in the village
believes it, is to announce what everyday experi-
ence informs us is a quite adequate cause of belief —
it is not, however, per se, to give a reason for belief
at all. But such statements can be turned at once
into reasons by no process more elaborate than that
of explicitly recognising that my teachers, my family,
AUTHORITY AND REASON 229
or my neighbours, are truthful persons, happy in the
possession of adequate means of information — propo-
sitions which in their turn, of course, require argu-
mentative support. Such a procedure may, I need
hardly say, be quite legitimate ; and reasons of this
kind are probably the principal ground on which in
mature life we accept the great mass of our sub-
ordinate scientific and historical convictions. I be-
lieve, for instance, that the moon falls in towards the
earth with the exact velocity required by the force of
gravitation, for no other reason than that I believe in
the competence and trustworthiness of the persons
who have made the necessary calculations. In this
case the reason for my belief and the immediate
cause of it are identical ; the cause, indeed, is a cause
only in virtue of its being first a reason. But in the
former case this is not so. Mere early training,
paternal authority, or public opinion, were causes
of belief before they were reasons ; they continued
to act as non-rational causes after they became rea-
sons; and it is not improbable that to the very end
they contributed less to the resultant conviction in
their capacity as reasons than they did in their
capacity as non-rational causes.
Now the temptation thus to convert causes into
reasons seems under certain circumstances to be
almost irresistible, even when it is illegitimate. Au-
thority, as such, is from the nature of the case dumb
in the presence of argument. It is only by reasoning
230 AUTHORITY AND REASON
that reasoning can be answered. It can be, and has
often been, thrust silently aside by that instinctive
feeling of repulsion which we call prejudice when
we happen to disagree with it. But it can only be
replied to by its own kind. And so it comes about
that whenever any system of belief is seriously ques-
tioned, a method of defence which is almost certain
to find favour is to select one of the causes by which
the belief has been produced, and forthwith to erect
it into a reason wh}^ the system should continue to
be accepted. Authority, as I have been using the
term, is thus converted into ' an authority,' or into
* authorities.' It ceases to be the opposite or cor-
relative of reason. It can no longer be contrasted
with reason. It becomes a species of reason, and as
a species of reason it must be judged.
So judged, it appears to me that two things per-
tinent to the present discussion may be said of it.
In the first place, it is evidently an argument of im-
mense utility and of very wide application. As I
have just noted, it is the proximate reason for an
enormous proportion of our beliefs as to matters of
fact, past and present, and for that very large body
of scientific knowledge which even experts in science
can have no opportunity of personally verifying.
But, in the second place, it seems not less clear that
the argument from * an authority' or 'authorities'
is almost always useless as 2i foundation for a system
of belief. The deep-lying principles which alone
AUTHORITY AND REASON 23 1
deserve this name may be, and frequently are, the
product of authority. But the attempt to ground
them dialectically upon an authority can scarcely be
attempted, except at the risk of logical disaster.
Take as an example the general system of our
beliefs about the material universe. The greater
number of these are, as we have seen, quite legiti-
mately based upon the argument from 'authorities';
not so those few which lie at the root of the system.
These also are largely due to Authority. But they
cannot be rationally derived from * authorities ' ;
though the attempt so to derive them is almost cer-
tain to be made. The ' universal experience,' or the
* general consent of mankind,' will be adduced as an
authoritative sanction of certain fundamental pre-
suppositions of physical science ; and of these, at
least, it will be said, securus judicat or bis t err arum.
But a very little consideration is sufficient to show
that this procedure is illegitimate, and that, as I have
pointed out, we can neither know that the verdict
of mankind has been given, nor, if it has, that any-
thing can properly be inferred from it, unless we first
assume the truth of the very principles which that
verdict was invoked to establish.^
The state of things is not materially different
in the case of ethics and theology. There also the
argument from * an authority ' or ' authorities ' has
^ Cf. for a development of this statement, Philosophic Doubt,
chap. vii.
232 AUTHORITY AND REASON
a legitimate and most important place ; there also
there is a constant inclination to extend the use of
the argument so as to cover the fundamental portions
of the system ; and there also this endeavour, when
made, seems predestined to end in a piece of circular
reasoning. I can hardly illustrate this statement
without mentioning dogma ; though, as the reader
will readily understand, I have not the slightest de-
sire to do anything so little relevant to the purposes
of this Introduction in order to argue either for or
against it. As to the reality of an infallible guide,
in whatever shape this has been accepted by various
sections of Christians, I have not a word to say. As
part of a creed it is quite outside the scope of my
inquiry. I have to do with it only if, and in so far
as, it is represented, not as part of the thing to be
believed, but as one of the fundamental reasons for
believing it; and in that position I think it inad-
missiblco
Merely as an illustration, then, let us consider for
a moment the particular case of Papal Infallibility,
an example which may be regarded with the greater
impartiality as I am not, I suppose, likely to have
among the readers of these Notes many by whom it
is accepted. If I rightly understand the teaching of
the Roman Catholic theologians upon this subject,
the following propositions, at least, must be accepted
before the doctrine of Infallibility can be regarded as
satisfactorily proved or adequately held : — (i) That
AUTHORITY AND REASON 233
the words *Thou art Peter, and upon this rock,' &c.,
and, again, ' Feed my sheep,' were uttered by Christ;
and that, being so uttered, were of Divine authorship,
and cannot fail. (2) That the meaning of these words
is — (a) that St. Peter was endowed with a primacy
of jurisdiction over the other Apostles; (d) that he
was to have a perpetual line of successors, similarly
endowed with a primacy of jurisdiction; (c) that
these successors were to be Bishops of Rome; (d)
that the primacy of jurisdiction carries with it the
certainty of Divine ' assistance ' ; (e) that though this
' assistance ' does not ensure either the morality, or,
the wisdom, or the general accuracy of the Pontiff
to whom it is given, it does ensure his absolute
inerrancy whenever he shall, ex cathedra, define a
doctrine of faith or morals ; (/) that no pronounce-
ment can be regarded as ex cathedrd unless it relates
to some matter already thoroughly sifted and con-
sidered by competent divines.
Now it is no part of my business to ask how the
six sub-heads constituting the second of these con-
tentions can by any legitimate process of exegesis be
extracted from the texts mentioned in the first; nor
how, if they be accepted to the full, they can obviate
the necessity for the complicated exercise of private
judgment required to determine whether any particu-
lar decision has or has not been made under the con-
ditions necessary to constitute it a pronouncement
ex cathedrd. These are questions to be discussed
234 AUTHORITY AND REASON
between Roman Catholic and non-Roman Catholic
controversialists, and with them I have nothing here
to do. My point is, that the first proposition alone
is so absolutely subversive of any purely naturalistic
view of the universe, involves so many fundamental
elements of Christianity {e.g. the supernatural char-
acter of Christ and the trustworthiness of the first
and fourth Gospels, with all that this carries with
it), that if it does not require the argument from an
infallible authority for its support, it seems hard to
understand where the necessity for that argument
can come in at any fundamental stage of apologetic
demonstration. And that this proposition does not
require infallible authority for its support seems
plain from the fact that it does itself supply the main
ground on which the existence of infallible authority
is believed.
This is not, and is not intended to be, an objec-
tion to the doctrine of Papal Infallibility ; it is not,
and is not intended to be, a criticism by means of
example directed against other doctrines involving
the existence of an unerring guide. But if the reader
will attentively consider the matter he will, I think,
see that whatever be the truth or the value of such
doctrines, they can never be used to supply any
fundamental support to the systems of which they
form a part without being open to a reply like that
which I have supposed in the case of Papal Infalli-
bility. Indeed, when we reflect upon the character
AUTHORITY AND REASON 235
of the religious books and of the religious organisa-
tions through which Christianity has been built up ;
when we consider the variety in date, in occasion,
in authorship, in context, in spiritual development,
which mark the first ; the stormy history and the in-
evitable division which mark the second ; when we,
further, reflect on the astonishing number of the
problems, linguistic, critical, metaphysical, and his-
torical, which must be settled, at least in some pre-
liminary fashion, before either the books or the or-
ganisations can be supposed entitled by right of
rational proof to the position of infallible guides, we
can hardly suppose that we were intended to find in
these the logical foundations of our system of reli-
gious beliefs, however important be the part (and
can it be exaggerated?) which they were destined
to play in producing, fostering, and directing it.
VI
Enough has now, perhaps, been said to indicate
the relative positions of Reason and Authority in the
production of belief. To Reason is largely due the
growth of new and the sifting of old knowledge ;
the ordering, and in part the discovery, of that vast
body of systematised conclusions which constitute
so large a portion of scientific, philosophical, ethical,
political, and theological learning. To Reason we
are in some measure beholden, though not, perhaps,
236 AUTHORITY AND REASON
SO much as we suppose, for hourly aid in managing
so much of the trifling portion of our personal af-
fairs entrusted to our care by Nature as we do not
happen to have already surrendered to the control
of habit. By Reason also is directed, or misdirected,
the public policy of communities within the nar-
row limits of deviation permitted by accepted cus-
tom and tradition. Of its immense indirect conse-
quences, of the part it has played in the evolution
of human affairs by the disintegration of ancient
creeds, by the alteration of the external conditions
of human life, by the production of new moods of
thought, or, as I have termed them, psychological
climates, we can in this connection say nothing.
For these are no rational effects of reason; the
causal nexus by which they are bound to reason has
no logical aspect; and if reason produces them, as
in part it certainly does, it is in a manner indistin-
guishable from that in which similar consequences
are blindly produced by the distribution of conti-
nent and ocean, the varying fertility of different re-
gions, and the other material surroundings by which
the destinies of the race are modified.
When we turn, however, from the conscious
work of Reason to that which is unconsciously per-
formed for us by Authority, a very different spec-
tacle arrests our attention. The effects of the first,
prominent as they are through the dignity of their
origin, are trifling compared with the all-pervading
AUTHORITY AND REASON 237
influences which flow from the second. At every
moment of our lives, as individuals, as members of
a family, of a party, of a nation, of a Church, of a
universal brotherhood, the silent, continuous, unno-
ticed influence of Authority moulds our feelings, our
aspirations, and, what we are more immediately con-
cerned with, our beliefs. It is from Authority that
Reason itself draws its most important premises. It
is in unloosing or directing the forces of Authority
that its most important conclusions find their prin-
cipal function. And even in those cases where we
may most truly say that our beliefs are the rational
product of strictly intellectual processes, we have,
in all probability, only got to trace back the thread
of our inferences to its beginnings in order to per-
ceive that it finally loses itself in some general prin-
ciple which, describe it as we may, is in fact due
to no more defensible origin than the influence of
Authority.
Nor is the comparative pettiness of the role thus
played by reasoning in human affairs a matter for
regret. Not merely because we are ignorant of the
data required for the solution, even of very simple
problems in organic and social life, are we called on
to acquiesce in an arrangement which, to be sure,
we have no power to disturb ; nor yet because these
data, did we possess them, are too complex to be
dealt with by any rational calculus we possess or are
ever likely to acquire; but because, in addition to
238 AUTHORITY AND REASON
these difficulties, reasoning is a force most apt to di-
vide and disintegrate ; and though division and dis-
integration may often be the necessary preliminaries
of social development, still more necessary are the
forces which bind and stiffen, without which there
would be no society to develop.
It is true, no doubt, that we can, without any
great expenditure of research, accumulate instances
in which Authority has perpetuated error and re-
tarded progress ; for, unluckily, none of the influ-
ences, Reason least of all, by which the history of
the race has been moulded have been productive of
unmixed good. The springs at which we quench
our thirst are always turbid. Yet, if we are to
judge with equity between these rival claimants, we
must not forget that it is Authority rather than
Reason to which, in the main, we owe, not religion
only, but ethics and politics ; that it is Authority
which supplies us with essential elements in the
premises of science ; that it is Authority rather than
Reason which lays deep the foundations of social
life ; that it is Authority rather than Reason which
cements its superstructure. And though it may
seem to savour of paradox, it is yet no exaggeration
to say, that if we would find the quality in which
we most notably excel the brute creation, we should
look for it, not so much in our faculty of convincing
and being convinced by the exercise of reasoning, as
AUTHORITY AND REASON 239
in our capacity for influencing and being influenced
through the action of Authority.
[NOTE
ON THE USE OF THE WORDS ' AUTHORITY ' AND ' REASON '
Much criticism has been directed against the use to which the
word ' Authority ' has been put in this chapter. And there can be
no doubt that a terminology which draws so sharp a distinction
between phrases so nearly identical as ' authority ' and ' an author-
ity ' must be open to objection.
Yet it still seems to me difficult to find a more suitable expres-
sion. There is no word in the English language which describes
what I want to describe, and yet describes nothing else. Every
alternative term seems at least as much open to misconception as
the one I have employed, and I do not observe that those who have
most severely criticised it, have suggested an unobjectionable sub-
stitute. Professor Pringle Pattison (Seth) in a most interesting and
sympathetic review of this work,' goes the length of saying that my
use of the word is a * complete departure from ordinary usage.' '
But I can hardly think that this is so. However else the word may
be employed in common parlance, it is surely often employed ex-
actly as it is in this chapter — namely, to describe those causes of
belief which are not reasons and yet are due to the influence of
mind on mind. Parental influence is typical of the species : and it
would certainly be in conformity with accepted usage to describe
this as ' Authority. ' A child does not accept its mother's teaching
because it regards its mother as ' an authority ' whom it is reason-
able to believe. The process is one of non-rational (not zVrational)
causation. Again I do not think it would be regarded as forced to
talk of the ' authority of public opinion ' or the ' authority of cus-
tom ' exactly with the meaning which such expression would bear
in the preceding chapter. ' He submitted to the authority of a
1 Since republished in Mart's Place in the Cosmos.
' Op. cit. p. 265.
240 AUTHORITY AND REASON
stronger will.' ' He never asked on what basis the claims of his
Church rested ; he simply bowed, as from his childhood he had
always bowed, to her unchallenged authority.^ ' No doubts were
ever entertained, no inconvenient questions were ever asked, about
the propriety of a practice which was enforced by the authority of
unbroken custom.' I think it will be admitted that in all these ex-
amples the word ' authority ' is used in the sense I have attributed
to it, that this sense is a natural sense, and that no other single word
could advantageously be substituted for it. If so, the reasons for
its employment seem not inadequate.
I feel on even stronger ground in replying to the criticisms
passed on my use here of the word ' reason.' Professor Pattison,
though he does not like it, admits that it is in accordance with the
practice of the older English thinkers. I submit that it is also in
accordance with the usage prevalent in ordinary discourse. But I
go further and say that I am employing the word in the sense in
which it is always employed when ' reason ' is contrasted with ' au-
thority.' If a man boasts that all his opinions have been arrived at
by ' following reason,' he is referring not to the Universal Reason
or Logos, but to his own faculty of discursive reason: and what he
wishes the world to understand is that his beliefs are based on rea-
soning, not on authority or prejudice. Now this is the very indi-
vidual whom I had in my mind when writing this chapter : and if I
had been debarred from using the words ' reason ' and ' reasoning '
in their ordinary everyday meaning, I really do not see in what lan-
guage I could have addressed myself to him at all.]
PART IV
SUGGESTIONS TOWARDS
A PROVISIONAL PHILOSOPHY
CHAPTER I
THE GROUNDWORK
We have now considered beliefs, or certain impor-
tant classes of them, under three aspects. We have
considered them from the point of view of their
practical necessity ; from that of their philosophic
proof ; and from that of their scientific origin. In-
quiries relating- to the same subject-matter more
distinct in their character it would be difficult to
conceive. It remains for us to consider whether it
is possible to extract from their combined results
any general view which may command at least a
provisional assent.
It is evident, of course, that this general view, if
we are fortunate enough to reach it, will not be of
the nature of a complete or adequate philosophy.
The unification of all belief into an ordered whole,
compacted into one coherent structure under the
stress of reason, is an ideal which we can never
"abandon; but it is also one which, in the present
condition of our knowledge, perhaps even of our
faculties, we seem incapable of attaining. For the
244 THE GROUNDWORK
moment we must content ourselves with something
less than this. The best system we can hope to
construct will suffer from gaps and rents, from loose
ends and ragged edges. It does not, however, fol-
low from this that it will be without a high degree
of value ; and, whether valuable or w^orthless, it may
at least represent the best within our reach.
By the best I, of course, mean best in relation to
reflective reason. If we have to submit, as I think
we must, to an incomplete rationalisation of belief,
this ought not to be because in a fit of intellectual
despair we are driven to treat reason as an illusion ;
nor yet because we have deliberately resolved to
transfer our allegiance to irrational or non-rational
inclination ; but because reason itself assures us that
such a course is, at the lowest, the least irrational
one open to us. If we have to find our way over
difficult seas and under murky skies without com-
pass or chronometer, we need not on that account
allow the ship to drive at random. Rather ought
we to weigh with the more anxious care every in-
dication, be it negative or positive, and from what-
ever quarter it may come, which can help us to
guess at our position and to lay out the course
which it behoves us to steer.
Now, the first and most elementary principle
which ought to guide us in framing any provisional
scheme of unification, is to decline to draw any dis-
tinction between different classes of belief where no
relevant distinction can as a matter of fact be dis-
THE GROUNDWORK 245
covered. To pursue the opposite course would be
gratuitously to irrationalise (to coin a convenient
word) our scheme from the very start ; to destroy,
by a quite arbitrary treatment, any hope of its
symmetrical and healthy development. And yet,
if there be any value in the criticisms contained
in the Second Part of these Notes, this is precisely
the mistake into which the advocates of natural-
ism have invariably blundered. Without any pre-
liminary analysis, nay, without any apparent sus-
picion that a preliminary analysis was necessary
or desirable, they have chosen to assume that
scientific beliefs stand not only upon a different,
but upon a much more solid, platform than any
others ; that scientific standards supply the sole
test of truth, and scientific methods the sole instru-
ments of discovery.
The reader is already in possession of some
of the arguments which are, as it seems to me,
fatal to such claims, and it is not necessary here
to repeat them. What is more to our present
purpose is to find out whether, in the absence of
philosophic proof, judgments about the phenome-
nal, and more particularly about the material,
world possess any other characteristics which, in
our attempt at a provisional unification of know-
ledge, forbid us to place them on a level with other
classes of belief. That there are differences of
some sort no one, I imagine, will attempt to deny.
But are they of a kind which require us either
246 THE GROUNDWORK
to give any special precedence to science, or to
exclude other beliefs altogether from our general
scheme ?
One peculiarity there is which seems at first
sight effectually to distinguish certain scientific be-
liefs from any which belong, say, to ethics or the-
ology ; a peculiarity which may, perhaps, be best
expressed by the word ' inevitableness.' Every-
body has, and everybody is obliged to have, some
convictions about the world in which he lives — con-
victions which in their narrow and particular form
(as what I have before called beliefs of perception,
memory, and expectation) guide us all, children,
savages, and philosophers alike, in the ordinary
conduct of day-to-day existence ; which, when gen-
eralised and extended, supply us with some of the
leading presuppositions on which the whole fabric
of science appears logically to depend. No convic-
tions quite answering to this description can, I think,
be found either in ethics, aesthetics, or theology.
Some kind of morality is, no doubt, required for the
stability even of the rudest form of social life. Some
sense of beauty, some kind of religion, is, perhaps,
to be discovered (though this is disputed) in every
human community. But certainly there is nothing
in any of these great departments of thought quite
corresponding to our habitual judgments about the
things we see and handle; judgments which, with
reason or without it, all mankind are practically
compelled to entertain.
THE GROUNDWORK 247
Compare, for example, the central truth of theol-
ogy— 'There is a God' — with one of the funda-
mental presuppositions of science (itself a general-
ised statement of what is given in ordinary judg-
ments of perception) — ' There is an independent
material world.' I am myself disposed to doubt
whether so good a case can be made out for accept-
ing the second of these propositions as can be made
out for accepting the first. But while it has been
found by many, not only possible, but easy, to doubt
the existence of God, doubts as to the independent
existence of matter have assuredly been confined to
the rarest moments of subjective reflection, and
have dissolved like summer mists at the first touch
of what we are pleased to call reality.
Now, what are we to make of this fact ? In the
opinion of many persons, perhaps of most, it affords
a conclusive ground for elevating science to a dif-
ferent plane of certitude from that on which other
systems of belief must be content to dwell. The
evidence of the senses, as we loosely describe these
judgments of perception, is for such persons the best
of all evidence : it is inevitable, so it is true ; seeing,
as the proverb has it, is indeed believing. This
somewhat crude view, however, is not one which
we can accept. The coercion exercised in the pro-
duction of these beliefs is not, as has been already
shown, a rational coercion. Even while we submit
to it we may judge it; and in the very act of be-
lieving we may be conscious that the strength of
24B THE GROUNDWORK
our belief is far in excess of anything which mere
reasoning can justify.
I am making no complaint of this disparity be-
tween belief and its reasons. On the contrary, I
have already noted my dissent from the popular
view that it is our business to take care that, as far
as possible, these two shall in every case be nicely
adjusted. It cannot, I contend, be our duty to do
that in the name of reason which, if it were done,
would bring any kind of rational life to an immedi-
ate standstill. And even if we could suppose it to
be our duty, it is not one which, as was shown in
the last chapter, we are practically competent to
perform. If this be true in the case of those be-
liefs which owe their origin largely to Authority,
or the non-rational action of mind on mind, not less
is it true in the case of those elementary judgments
which arise out of sense - stimulation. Whether
there be an independent material universe or not
may be open* to philosophic doubt. But that, if it
exists, it is expedient that the belief in it should be
accepted with a credence which for all practical
purposes is immediate and unwavering, admits, I
think, of no doubt whatever. If we could suppose
a community to be called into being who, in its
dealings with the * external world,' should permit
action to wait upon speculation, and require all its
metaphysical difficulties to be solved before repos-
ing full belief in some such material surroundings
as those which we habitually postulate, its members
THE GROUNDWORK 249
would be overwhelmed by a ruin more rapid and
more complete than that which, in a preceding
chapter, was prophesied for those who should suc-
ceed in ousting authority from its natural position
among the causes of belief.
But supposing this be so, it follows necessarily,
on accepted biological principles,^ that a kind of
credulity so essential to the welfare, not merely of
the race as a whole, but of every single member of
it, will be bred by elimination and selection into
its inmost organisation. If we consider what must
have happened ^ at that critical moment in the history
of organic development when first conscious judg-
ments of sense-perception made themselves felt as
important links in the chain connecting nervous
irritability with muscular action, is it not plain that
any individual in whom such judgments were ha-
bitually qualified and enfeebled by even the most le-
gitimate scepticism would incontinently perish, and
that those only would survive who possessed, and
could presumably transmit to their descendants, a
stubborn assurance which was beyond the power of
reasoning either to fortify or to undermine ?
No such process would come to the assistance of
^ At the first glance, the reader may be disposed to think that to
bring in science to show why no pecuHar certainty should attach to
scientific premises is logically inadmissible. But this is not so :
though the converse procedure, by which scientific conclusions
would be made to establish scientific premises, would, no doubt,
involve an argument in a circle.
^ Cf. Note, p. 285.
250
THE GROUNDWORK
other faiths, however true, which were the growth
of higher and later stages of civilised development.
For, in the first place, such faiths are not necessa-
rily, nor perhaps at all, an advantage in the struggle
for existence. In the second place, even where they
are an advantage, it is rather to the community as a
whole in its struggles with other communities, than
to each particular individual in his struggle with
other individuals, or with the inanimate forces of
Nature. In the third place, the whole machinery of
selection and elimination has been weakened, if not
paralysed, by civilisation itself. And, in the fourth
place, were it still in full operation, it could not,
through the mere absence of time and opportunity,
have produced any sensible effect in moulding the
organism for the reception of beliefs which, by
hypothesis, are the recent acquisition of a small and
advanced minority.
II
We are now in a position to answer the question
put a few pages back. What, I then asked, if any,
is the import, from our present point of view, of the
universality and inevitableness which unquestion-
ably attach to certain judgments about the world of
phenomena, and to these judgments alone? The
answer must be, that these peculiarities have no
import. They exist, but they are irrelevant. Faith
which, if not in excess of reason, is at
THE GROUNDWORK 251
least independent of it, seems to be a necessity in
every great department of knowledge which touches
on action; and what great department is there
which does not? The analysis of sense-experience
teaches us that we require it in our ordinary deal-
ings with the material world. The most cursory
examination into the springs of moral action shows
that it is an indispensable supplement to ethical
speculation. Theologians are for the most part
agreed that without it religion is but the ineffectual
profession of a barren creed. The comparative
value, however, of these faiths is not to be measured
either by their intensity or by the degree of their
diffusion. It is true that all men, whatever their
speculative opinions, enjoy a practical assurance
with regard to what they see and touch. It is also
true that few men have an assurance equally strong
about matters of which their senses tell them noth-
ing immediately ; and that many men have on such
subjects no assurance at all. But as this is precisely
what we should expect if, in the progress of evolu-
tion, the need for other faiths had arisen under con-
ditions very different from those which produced
our innate and long-descended confidence in sense-
perception, how can we regard it as a distinction in
favour of the latter? We can scarcely reckon uni-
versality and necessity as badges of pre-eminence,
at the same moment that we recognise them as
marks of the elementary and primitive character of
the beliefs to which they give their all-powerful, but
252 THE GROUNDWORK
none the less irrational, sanction. The time has
passed for believing that the further we go back
towards the ' state of nature,' the nearer we get to
Virtue and to Truth.
We cannot, then, extract out of the coercive
character of certain unreasoned beliefs any principle
of classification which shall help us to the provi-
sional philosophy of which we are in search. What
such a principle would require us to include in our
system of beliefs contents us not. What it would
require us to exclude we may not willingly part
with. And if, dissatisfied with this double defici-
ency, we examine more closely into its character
and origin, we find, not only that it is without
rational justification — of which at this stage of our
inquiry we have no right to complain — but that the
very account which it gives of itself precludes us
from finding in it even a temporary place of intel-
lectual repose.
I do not, be it observed, make it a matter of
complaint that those who erect the inevitable judg-
ments of sense-perception into a norm or standard
of right belief have thereby substituted (however
unconsciously) psychological compulsion for ra-
tional necessity ; for, as rational necessity does not,
so far as I can see, carry us at the best beyond a
system of mere 'solipsism,' it must, somehow or
other, be supplemented if we are to force an en-
trance into any larger and worthier inheritance.
My complaint rather is, that having asked us to
THE GROUNDWORK 253
acquiesce in the guidance of non-rational impulse,
they should then require us arbitrarily to narrow-
down the impulses which we may follow to the
almost animal instincts lying- at the root of our
judgments about material phenomena. It is surely
better — less repugnant, I mean, to reflective reason
— to frame for ourselves some wider scheme which,
though it be founded in the last resort upon our
needs, shall at least take account of other needs than
those we share with our brute progenitors.
And here, if not elsewhere, I may claim the sup-
port of the most famous masters of speculation.
Though they have not, it may be, succeeded in sup-
plying us with a satisfactory explanation of the Uni-
verse, at least the Universe which they have sought
to explain has been something more than a mere
collection of hypostatised sense-perceptions, packed
side by side in space, and following each other with
blind uniformity in time. All the great architects
of systems have striven to provide accommodation
within their schemes for ideas of wider sweep and
richer content ; and whether they desired to support,
to modify, or to oppose the popular theolog}^ of
their day, they have at least given hospitable wel-
come to some of its most important conceptions.
In the case of such men as Leibnitz, Kant, Hegel,
this is obvious enough. It is true, I think, even in
such a case as that of Spinoza. Philosophers, in-
deed, may find but small satisfaction in his methods
or conclusions. They may see but little to admire
254 THE GROUNDWORK
in his elaborate but illusory show of quasi-mathe-
matical demonstration ; in the Nature which is so
unlike the Nature of the physicist that we feel no
surprise at its being also called God ; in the God
Who is so unlike the God of the theologian that we
feel no surprise at His also being called Nature ; in
the a priori metaphysic which evolves the universe
from definitions; in the freedom which is indistin-
guishable from necessity ; in the volition which is
indistinguishable from intellect; in the love which
is indistinguishable from reasoned acquiescence ;
in the universe from which have been expelled pur-
pose, morality, beauty, and causation, and which
contains, therefore, but scant room for theology,
ethics, aesthetics, or science. In the two hundred
years and more which have elapsed since the pub-
lication of his system, it may be doubted whether
two hundred persons have been convinced by his
reasoning. Yet he continues to interest the world ;
and why ? Not, surely, as a guide through the mazes
of metaphysics. Not as a pioneer of ' higher ' criti-
cism. Least of all because he was anything so com-
monplace as a heretic or an atheist. The true rea-
son appears to me to be very different. It is partly,
at least, because in despite of his positive teaching
he was endowed with a religious imagination which,
in however abstract and metaphysical a fashion,
illumined the whole profitless bulk of inconclusive
demonstration; which enabled him to find in notions
most remote from sense-experience the only abiding
THE GROUNDWORK 255
realities; and to convert a purely rational adhesion
to the conclusions supposed to flow from the nature
of an inactive, impersonal, and unmoral substance,
into something not quite inaptly termed the Love
of God.
It will, perhaps, be objected that we have no
right to claim support from the example of system-
makers with whose systems we do not happen to
agree. How, it may be asked, can it concern us that
Spinoza extracted something like a religion out of
his philosophy, if we do not accept his philosophy?
Or that Hegel found it possible to hitch large frag-
ments of Christian dogma into the development of
the ' Idea,* if we are not convinced by his dialectic?
It concerns us, I reply, inasmuch as facts like these
furnish fresh confirmation of a truth reached before
by another method. The naturalistic creed, which
merely systematises and expands the ordinary judg-
ments of sense-perception, we found by direct ex-
amination to be quite inadequate. We now note
that its inadequacy has been commonly assumed by
men whose speculative genius is admitted, who have
seldom been content to allow that the world of
which they had to give an account could be nar-
rowed down to the naturalistic pattern.
256 THE GROUNDWORK
III
But a more serious objection to the point of view
here adopted remains to be considered. Is not, it
will be asked, the whole method followed through-
out the course of these Notes intrinsically unsound ?
Is it not substantially identical with the attempt,
not made now for the first time, to rest superstition
upon scepticism, and to frame our creed, not in
accordance with the rules of logic, but with the
promptings of desire? It begins (may it not be
said ?) by discrediting reason ; and having thus
guaranteed its results against inconvenient criti-
cism, it proceeds to make the needs of man the
measure of ' objective ' reality, to erect his conve-
nience into the touchstone of Eternal Truth, and to
mete out the Universe on a plan authenticated only
by his wishes.
Now, on this criticism I have, in the first place,
to observe that it errs in assuming, either that the
object aimed at in the preceding discussion is to
discredit reason, or that as a matter of fact this has
been its effect. On the contrary, be the character
of our conclusions what it may, they have at least
been arrived at by allowing the fullest play to free,
rational investigation. If one consequence of this
investigation has been to diminish the importance
commonly attributed to reason among the causes
by which belief is produced, it is by the action of
THE GROUNDWORK 257
reason itself that this result has been brought about.
If another consequence has been that doubts have
been expressed as to the theoretic validity of certain
universally accepted beliefs, this is because the right
of reason to deal with every province of knowledge,
untrammelled by arbitrary restrictions or customary
immunities, has been assumed and acted upon. If,
in addition to all this, we have been incidentally
compelled to admit that as yet we are without a sat-
isfactory philosophy, the admission has not been
asked for in the interests either of scepticism or of
superstition. Reason is not honoured by pretend-
ing that she has done what as a matter of fact is still
undone; nor need we be driven into a universal
license of credulity by recognising that we must for
the present put up with some working hypothesis
which falls far short of speculative perfection.
But, further, is it true to say that, in the absence
of reason, we have contentedly accepted mere desire
for our guide? No doubt the theory here advocated
requires us to take account, not merely of premises
and their conclusions, but of needs and their satis-
faction. But this is only asking us to do explicitly
and on system what on the naturalistic theory is
done unconsciously and at random. By the very
constitution of our being we seem practically driven
to assume a real world in correspondence with our
ordinary judgments of perception. A harmony of
some kind between our inner selves and the universe
of which we form a part is thus the tacit postulate
258 THE GROUNDWORK
at the root of every belief we entertain about ' phe-
nomena ' ; and all that I now contend for is, that a
like harmony should provisionally be assumed be-
tween that universe and other elements in our nat-
ure which are of a later, of a more uncertain, but of
no ignobler, growth.
Whether this correspondence is best described
as that which obtains between a * need ' and its ' sat-
isfaction,* may be open to question. But, at all
events, let it be understood that if the relation so
described is, on the one side, something different
from that between a premise and its conclusion, so,
on the other, it is intended to be equally remote from
that between a desire and its fulfilment. That it has
not the logical validity of the first I have already
admitted, or rather asserted. That it has not the
casual, wavering, and purely ' subjective ' character
of the second is not less true. For the correspond-
ence postulated is not between the fleeting fancies
of the individual and the immutable verities of an
unseen world, but between these characteristics of
our nature, which we recognise as that in us which,
though not necessarily the strongest, is the highest ;
which, though not always the most universal, is
nevertheless the best.
But because this theory may seem alike remote
from familiar forms both of dogmatism and scepti-
cism, and because I am on that account the more
anxious that no unmerited plausibility should be at-
tributed to it through any obscurity in my way of
THE GROUNDWORK 259
presenting it, let me draw out, even at the cost of
some repetition, a brief catalogue of certain things
which may, and of certain other things which may
not, be legitimately said concerning it.
We may say of it, then, that it furnishes us with
no adequate philosophy of religion. But we may
not say of it that it leaves religion worse, or, indeed,
otherwise provided for in this respect than science.
We may say of it that it assumes without proof
a certain consonance between the ' subjective * and
the ' objective ' ; between what we are moved to
believe and what in fact is. We may not say that
the presuppositions of science depend upon any
more solid, or, indeed, upon any different, founda-
tion.
We may say of it, if we please, that it gives us a
practical, but not a theoretic, assurance of the
truths with which it is concerned. But, if so, we
must describe in the same technical language our
assurance respecting the truths of the material
world.
We may say of it that it accepts provisionally
the theory, based on scientific methods, which
traces back the origin of all beliefs to causes which,
for the most part, are non-rational, and which carry
with them no warranty that they will issue in right
opinion. But we may not say of it that the distinc-
tion thus drawn between the non-rational causes
which produce the immediate judgments of sense-
perception, and those which produce judgments in
17
26o THE GROUNDWORK
the sphere of ethics or theology, implies any supe-
rior certitude in the case of the former.
We may say of it that it admits judgments of
sense-perception to be the most inevitable, but denies
them to be the most worthy.
We may say of it generally, that as it assumes
the Whole, of which we desire a reasoned know-
ledge, to include human consciousness as an element,
it refuses to regard any system as other than irra-
tional which, like Naturalism, leaves large tracts and
aspects of that consciousness unaccounted for and
derelict ; and that it utterly declines to circumscribe
the Knowable by frontiers whose delimitation Rea-
son itself assures us can be justified on no rational
principle whatsoever.
CHAPTER II
* ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS '
If, as is not unlikely, there are readers who are
unwilling to acknowledge this kind of equality be-
tween the different branches of knowledge — who
are disposed to represent Science as a Land of
Goshen, bright beneath the unclouded splendours
of the midday sun, while Religion lies beyond,
wrapped in the impenetrable darkness of the Egyp-
tian plague — I would suggest for their further con-
sideration certain arguments, not drawn like those
in an earlier portion of this Essay from the defi-
ciencies which may be detected in scientific proof,
but based exclusively upon an examination of funda-
mental scientific ideas considered in themselves. For
these ideas possess a quality, exhibited no doubt
equally by ideas in other departments of knowledge,
which admirably illustrates our ignorance of what
we know best, our blindness to what we see most
clearly. This quality, indeed, is not very easy to
describe in a sentence ; but perhaps it may be pro-
visionally indicated by saying that, although these
ideas seem quite simple so long as we only have
262 ' ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS '
to handle them for the practical purposes of daily
life, yet, when they are subjected to critical inves-
tigation, they appear to crumble under the pro-
cess ; *to lose all precision of outline ; to vanish like
the magician in the story, leaving only an elu-
sive mist in the grasp of those who would arrest
them.
Nothing, for instance, seems simpler than the
idea involved in the statement that we are, each of
us, situated at any given moment in some par-
ticular portion of space, surrounded by a multitude
of material things, which are constantly acting
upon us and upon each other. A proposition of
this kind is merely a generalised form of the judg-
ments which we make every minute of our waking
lives, about whose meaning we entertain no manner
of doubt, which, indeed, provide us with our famil-
iar examples of all that is most lucid and most cer-
tain. Yet the purport of the sentence which ex-
presses it is clear only till it is examined, is certain
only till it is questioned ; while almost every word
in it suggests, and has long suggested, perplexing
problems to all who are prepared to consider them.
What are ' we ' ? What is space ? Can * we ' be
in space, or is it only our bodies about which any
such statement can be made ? What is a * thing ' ?
and, in particular, what is a * material thing ' ?
What is meant by saying that one ' material thing '
acts upon another ? What is meant by saying that
* material things ' act upon ' us ' ? Here are six
* ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS ' 263
questions all directly and obviously arising out of
our most familiar acts of judgment. Yet, direct and
obvious as they are, it is hardly too much to say
that they involve all the leading problems of mod-
ern philosophy, and that the man who has found an
answer to them is the fortunate possessor of a toler-
ably complete system of metaphysic.
Consider, for example, the simplest of the six
questions enumerated above, namely. What is a
' material thing ' ? Nothing could be plainer till
you consider it. Nothing can be obscurer when
you do. A ' thing ' has qualities — hardness, weight,
shape, and so forth. Is it merely the sum of these
qualities, or is it something more ? If it is merely
the sum of its qualities, have these any independent
existence ? Nay, is such an independent existence
even conceivable ? If it is something more than the
sum of its qualities, what is the relation of the 'quali-
ties ' to the ' something more ' ? Again, can we on re-
flection regard a ' thing ' as an isolated ' somewhat,'
an entity self-sufficient and potentially solitary ? Or
must we not rather regard it as being what it is in
virtue of its relation to other ' somewhats,' which,
again, are what they are in virtue of their relation to
it, and to each other? And if we take, as I think we
must, the latter alternative, are we not driven by it
into a profitless progression through parts which
are unintelligible by themselves, but which yet
obstinately refuse to coalesce into any fully intel-
ligible whole ?
264 ' ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS '
Now, I do not serve up these cold fragments of
ancient though unsolved controversies for no better
purpose than to weary the reader who is familiar
with metaphysical discussion, and to puzzle the
reader who is not. I rather desire to direct atten-
tion to the universality of a difficulty which many
persons seem glad enough to acknowledge when
they come across it in Theology, though they ad-
mit it only with reluctance in the case of Ethics and
Esthetics, and for the most part completely ignore
it when they are dealing with our knowledge of
* phenomena.' Yet in this respect, at least, all these
branches of knowledge would appear to stand very
much upon an equality. In all of them conclusions
seem more certain than premises, the superstruct-
ure more stable than the foundation. In all of
them we move with full assurance and a practical
security only among ideas which are relative and
dependent. In all of them these ideas, so clear and
so sufficient for purposes of everyday thought and
action, become confused and but dimly intelligible
when examined in the unsparing light of critical
analysis.
We need not, therefore, be surprised if we find
it hard to isolate the permanent element in Beauty,
seeing that it eludes us in material objects; that the
ground of Moral Law should not be wholly clear,
seeing that the ground of Natural Law is so ob-
scure ; that we do not adequately comprehend God,
seeing that we can give no very satisfactory ac-
' ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS ' 265
count of what we mean by * a thing.' Yet I think
a more profitable lesson is to be learnt from admis-
sions like these than the general inadequacy of our
existing metaphysic. And it is the more necessary
to consider carefully what that lesson is, inasmuch
as a very perverted version of it forms the basis of
the only modern system of English growth which,
professing to provide us with a general philosophy,
has received any appreciable amount of popular
support.
Mr. Spencer's theory admits, nay, insists, that
what it calls ' ultimate scientific ideas ' are incon-
sistent and, to use his own phrase, ' unthinkable.'
Space, time, matter, motion, force, and so forth, are
each in turn shown to involve contradictions which
it is beyond our power to solve, and obscurities
which it is beyond our power to penetrate ; while
the once famous dialectic of Hamilton and Mansel
is invoked for the purpose of enforcing the same
lesson with regard to the Absolute and the Uncon-
ditioned, which those thinkers identified with God,
but which Mr. Spencer prefers to describe as the
Unknowable.
So far, so good. Though the details of the dem-
onstration may not be altogether to our liking,
I, at least, have no particular quarrel with its gen-
eral tenor, which is in obvious harmony with much
that I have just been insisting on. But when we
have to consider the conclusion which Mr. Spencer
contrives to extract from these premises, our differ-
266 'ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS'
ences become irreconcilable. He has proved, or
supposes himself to have proved, that the ' ultimate
ideas ' of science and the ' ultimate ideas ' of the-
ology are alike ' unthinkable.' What is the proper
inference to be drawn from these statements ?
Why, clearly, that science and theology are so far
on an equality that every proposition which con.
siderations like these oblige us to assert about the
one, we are bound to assert also about the other ;
and that our general theory of knowledge must
take account of the fact that both these great de-
partments of it are infected by the same weakness.
This, however, is not the inference drawn by Mr.
Spencer. The idea that the conclusions of science
should be profaned by speculative questionings is to
him intolerable. He shrinks from an admission
which seems to him to carry universal scepticism
in its train. And he has, accordingly, hit upon a
device for ' reconciling ' the differences between
science and religion by which so lamentable a ca-
tastrophe may be avoided. His method is a simple
one. He divides the verities which have to be be-
lieved into those which relate to the Knowable and
those which relate to the Unknowable. What is
knowable he appropriates, without exception, for
science. What is unknowable he abandons, with-
out reserve, to religion. With the results of this
arbitration both contending parties should, in his
opinion, be satisfied. It is true that religion may
complain that by this arrangement it is made the
* ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS ' 267
residuary legatee of all that is ' unthinkable ' ; but
then, it should remember that it obtains in exchange
an indefeasible title to all that is ' real.* Science,
again, may complain that its activities are confined
to the 'relative' and the 'dependent'; but then,
it should remember that it has a monopoly of the
' intelligible.' The one possesses all that can be
known ; the other, all that seems worth knowing.
With so equal a partition of the spoils both dispu-
tants should be content.
Without contesting the fairness of this curious
arrangement, I am compelled to question its valid-
ity. Science cannot thus transfer the burden of its
own obscurities and contradictions to the shoulders
of religion; and Mr. Spencer is only, perhaps, mis-
led into supposing such a procedure to be possible
by his use of the word ' ultimate.' ' Ultimate * scien-
tific ideas may, in his opinion, be ' unthinkable '
without prejudice to the ' thinkableness ' of 'proxi-
mate ' scientific ideas. The one may dwell for ever
in the penumbra of what he calls ' nascent conscious-
ness,' in the dim twilight where religion and science
are indistinguishable ; while the other stands out,
definite and certain, in the full light of experience
and verification. Such a view is not, I think, philo-
sophically tenable. x\s soon as the ' unthinkable-
ness ' of ' ultimate ' scientific ideas is speculatively
recognised, the fact must react upon our specula-
tive attitudes towards 'proximate' scientific ideas.
That which in the order of reason is dependent can-
263 * ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS '
not be unaffected by the weaknesses and the ob-
scurities of that on which it depends. If the one is
unintelligible, the other can hardly be rationally es-
tablished.
In order to prove this — if proof be required — we
need not travel beyond the ample limits of Mr.
Spencer's own philosophy. To be sure he obstinately
shuts his ears against speculative doubts respecting
the conclusions of science. ' To ask whether science
is substantially true is [he observes] much like asking
whether the sun gives light.' ^ It is, I admit, very
much like it. But then, on Mr. Spencer's principles,
does the sun give light? After due consideration we
shall have to admit, I think, that it does not. For
the question, if intelligently asked, not only involves
the comprehension of matter, space, time, and force,
which are, according to Mr. Spencer, all incompre-
hensible, but there is the further difficulty that, if his
system is to be believed, ' what we are conscious of
as properties of matter, even down to weight and re-
sistance, are but subjective affections produced by
objective agencies, which are unknown and unknow-
able.' 2 It would seem, therefore, either that the sun
is a ' subjective affection,' in which case it can hardly
be said to 'give light' ; or it is * unknown ' and ' un-
knowable,' in which case no assertion respecting it
can be regarded as supplying us with any very
flattering specimen of scientific certitude.
The truth is that Mr. Spencer, like many of his
* Fi'rsi Principles, p. 19. - Principles of Psychology, ii. 493.
'ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS' 269
predecessors, has impaired the value of his specula-
tions by the hesitating timidity with which he has
pursued them. Nobody is required to investigate
first principles ; but those who voluntarily undertake
the task should not shrink from its results. And if
among these we have to count a theoretical scepti-
cism about scientific knowledge, we make matters,
not better, but worse, by attempting to ignore it. In
Mr. Spencer's case this procedure has, among other
ill consequences, caused him to miss the moral which
at one moment lay ready to his hand. He has had
the acuteness to see that our beliefs cannot be limited
to the sequences and the co-existences of phenomena ;
that the ideas on which science relies, and in terms
of which all science has to be expressed, break down
under the stress of criticism ; that beyond what we
think we know, and in closest relationship with it,
lies an infinite field which we do not know, and which
with our present faculties we can never know, yet
which cannot be ignored without making what we
do know unintelligible and meaningless. But he
has failed to see whither such speculations must in-
evitably lead him. He has failed to see that if the
certitudes of science lose themselves in depths of un-
fathomable mystery, it may well be that out of these
same depths there should emerge the certitudes of
religion ; and that if the dependence of the * know-
able' upon the 'unknowable' embarrasses us not in
the one case, no reason can be assigned why it should
embarrass us in the other.
270 ' ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS
Mr. Spencer, in short, has avoided the error of
dividing all reality into a Perceivable which concerns
us, and an Unperceivable which, if it exists at all,
concerns us not. Agnosticism so understood he ex-
plicitly repudiates by his theory, if not by his practice.
But he has not seen that, if this simple-minded creed
be once abandoned, there is no convenient halting-
place till we have swung round to a theory of things
which is almost its precise opposite : a theory which,
though it shrinks on its speculative side from no
severity of critical analysis, yet on its practical side
finds the source of its constructive energy in the
deepest needs of man, and thus recognises, alike in
science, in ethics, in beauty, in religion, the halting
expression of a reality beyond our reach, the half-
seen vision of transcendent Truth.
CHAPTER III
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
The point of view we have thus reached is obvi-
ously the precise opposite of that which is adopted
by those who either accept the naturalistic view of
things in its simplicity, or who agree with natural-
ism in taking our knowledge of Nature as the core
and substance of their creed, while gladly adding to
it such supernatural supplements as are permitted
them by the canons of their rationalising philosophy.
Of these last there are two varieties. There are
those who refuse to add anything to the teaching
of science proper, except such theological doctrines
as they persuade themselves may be deduced from
scientific premises. And there are those who, being
less fastidious in the matter of proof, are prepared,
tentatively and provisionally, to admit so much of
theology as they think their naturalistic premises
do not positively contradict.
It must, I think, be admitted that the members
of these two classes are at some disadvantage com-
pared with the naturalistic philosophers proper. To
2/2 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
be sure, the scheme of belief so confidently propound-
ed by the latter is, as we have seen, both incoherent
and inadequate. But its incoherence is hid from
them by the inevitableness of its positive teaching ;
while its inadequacy is covered by the, as yet, un-
squandered heritage of sentiments and ideals which
has come down to us from other ages inspired by
other faiths. On the other hand, as a set-off against
this, they may justly claim that their principles,
such as they are, have been worked out to their le-
gitimate conclusion. They have reached their jour-
ney's end, and there they may at least rest, if it is
not given them to be thankful. Far different is the
fate of those who are reluctantly travelling the road
to naturalism, driven thither by a false philosophy
honestly entertained. To them each new discovery
in geology, morphology, anthropology, or the ' high-
er criticism,' arouses as much theological anxiety
as it does scientific interest. They are perpetually
occupied in the task of ' reconciling,' as the phrase
goes, * religion and science.' This is to them, not an
intellectual luxury, but a pressing and overmaster-
ing necessity. For their theology exists only on
sufferance. It rules over its hereditary territories
as a tributary vassal dependent on the forbearance
of some encroaching overlord. Province after
province which once acknowledged its sovereignty
has been torn from its grasp ; and it depends no
longer upon its own action, but upon the uncon-
trolled policy of its too powerful neighbour, how
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 273
long it shall preserve a precarious authority over
the remainder.
Now, my reasons for entirely dissenting from
this melancholy view of the relations between
the various departments of belief have been one
of the chief themes of these Notes. But it must
not be supposed that I intend either to deny that
it is our business to ' reconcile ' all beliefs, so far
as possible, into a self-consistent whole, or to as-
sert that, because a perfectly coherent philosophy
cannot as yet be attained, it is, in the meanwhile, a
matter of complete indifference how many contra-
dictions and obscurities we admit into our provi-
sional system. Some contradictions and obscurities
there needs must be. That we should not be able
completely to harmonise the detached hints and
isolated fragments in which alone Reality comes in-
to relation with us ; that we should but imperfectly
co-ordinate what we so imperfectly comprehend,
is what we might expect, and what for the pres-
ent we have no choice but to submit to. Yet
it will, I think, be found on examination that
the discrepancies which exist between different de-
partments of belief are less in number and impor-
tance than those which exist within the various de-
partments themselves; that the difficulties which
science, ethics, or theology have to solve in common
are more formidable by far than any which divide
them from each other ; and that, in particular, the
supposed 'conflict between science and religion,'
274 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
which occupies so large a space in contemporary
literature, is the theme of so much vigorous debate,
and seems to so many earnest souls the one question
worth resolving, is either concerned for the most
part with matters in themselves comparatively tri-
fling, or touches interests lying far beyond the limits
of pure theology.
Of course, it must be remembered that I am now
talking of science, not of naturalism. The differ-
ences between naturalism and theology are, no
doubt, irreconcilable, since naturalism is by defini-
tion the negation of all theology. But science must
not be dragged into every one of the many quarrels
which naturalism has taken upon its shoulders.
Science is in no way concerned, for instance, to deny
the reality of a world unrevealed to us in sense-per-
ception, nor the existence of a God who, however
imperfectly, may be known by those who diligently
seek Him. All it says, or ought to say, is that these
are matters beyond its jurisdiction ; to be tried,
therefore, in other courts, and before judges admin-
istering different laws.
But we may go further. The being of God may
be beyond the province of science, and yet it may
be from a consideration of the general body of
scientific knowledge that philosophy draws some
important motives for accepting the doctrine. Any
complete survey of the ' proofs of theism ' would, I
need not say, be here quite out of place ; yet, in
order to make clear where I think the real difficulty
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 275
lies in framing any system which shall include both
theology and science, I may be permitted to say
enough about theism to show where I think the
difficulty does not lie. It does not lie in the doctrine
that there is a supernatural or, let us say, a meta-
physical ground, on which the whole system of
natural phenomena depend ; nor in the attribution
to this ground of the quality of reason, or, it may
be, of something higher than reason, in which rea-
son is, so to speak, included. This belief, with all
its inherent obscurities, is, no doubt, necessary to
theology, but it is at the same time so far, in my
judgment, from being repugnant to science that,
without it, the scientific view of the natural world
would not be less, but more, beset with difficulties
than it is at present.
This fact has been in part obscured by certain
infelicities in the popular statements of what is
known as the ' Argument from Design.* In a
famous answer to that argument it has been point-
ed out that the inference from the adaptation of
means to ends, which rightly convinces us in the
case of manufactured articles that they are pro-
duced by inteUigent contrivance, can scarcely be
legitimately applied to the case of the universe as
a whole. An induction which may be perfectly
valid within the circle of phenomena, may be quite
meaningless when it is employed to account for
the circle itself. You cannot infer a God from
the existence of the world as you infer an architect
276 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
from the existence of a house, or a mechanic from
the existence of a watch.
Without discussing the merits of this answer at
length, so much may, I think, be conceded to it —
that it suggests a doubt whether the theologians
who thus rely upon an inductive proof of the being
of God are not in a position somewhat similar to
that of the empirical philosophers who rely upon
an inductive proof of the uniformity of Nature.
The uniformity of Nature, as I have before ex-
plained, cannot be proved by experience, for it is
what makes proof from experience possible.^ We
must bring it, or something like it, to the facts in
order to infer anything from them at all. Assume
it, and we shall no doubt find that, broadly speaking
and in the rough, what we call the facts conform to
it. But this conformity is not inductive proof, and
must not be confounded with inductive proof. In
the same way, I do not contend that, if we start from
Nature without God, we shall be logically driven to
believe in Him by a mere consideration of the ex-
amples of adaptation which Nature undoubtedly con-
tains. It is enough that when we bring this belief
with us to the study of phenomena, we can say of
1 This phrase has a Kantian ring about it ; but I need not say
that it is not here used in the Kantian sense. The argument is
touched on, as the reader may recollect, at the end of Chapter I.,
Part II. See, however, below, a further discussion as to what the
uniformity of Nature means, and as to what may be properly in-
ferred from it.
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 277
it, what we have just said of the principle of uni-
formity, namely, that, ' broadly speaking and in the
rough,' the facts harmonise with it, and that it gives
a unity and a coherence to our apprehension of the
natural world which it would not otherwise possess.
II
But the argument from design, in whatever
shape it is accepted, is not the only one in favour of
theism with which scientific knowledge furnishes
us. Nor is it, to my mind, the most important.
The argument from design rests upon the world as
known. But something also may be inferred from
the mere fact that we know — a fact which, like
every other, has to be accounted for. And how is
it to be accounted for? I need not repeat again
what I have already said about Authority and Rea-
son ; for it is evident that, whatever be the part
played by reason among the proximate causes of
belief, among the ultimate causes it plays, accord-
ing to science, no part at all. On the naturalistic
hypothesis, the whole premises of knowledge are
clearly due to the blind operation of material causes,
and in the last resort to these alone. On that hy-
pothesis we no more possess free reason than we
possess free will. As all our volitions are the in-
evitable product of forces which are quite alien to
morality, so all our conclusions are the inevitable
product of forces which are quite alien to reason.
278 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
As the casual introduction of conscience, or a ' good
will,' into the chain of causes which ends in a ' vir-
tuous action ' ought not to suggest any idea of
merit, so the casual introduction of a little ratiocina-
tion as a stray link in the chain of causes which
ends in what we are pleased to describe as a ' dem-
onstrated conclusion,' ought not to be taken as
implying that the conclusion is in harmony with
fact. Morality and reason are august names, which
give an air of respectability to certain actions and
certain arguments ; but it is quite obvious on exam-
ination that, if the naturalistic hypothesis be cor-
rect, they are but unconscious tools in the hands of
their unmoral and non - rational antecedents, and
that the real responsibility for all they do lies in the
distribution of matter and energy which happened
to prevail far back in the incalculable past.
These conclusions are, no doubt, as we saw at
the beginning of this Essay, embarrassing enough
to Morality. But they are absolutely ruinous to
Knowledge. For they require us to accept a sys-
tem as rational, one of whose doctrines is that the
system itself is the product of causes which have no
tendency to truth rather than falsehood, or to false-
hood rather than truth. Forget, if )'Ou please, that
reason itself is the result, like nerves or muscles, of
physical antecedents. Assume (a tolerably violent
assumption) that in dealing with her premises she
obeys only her own laws. Of what value is this
autonomy if those premises are settled for her by
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 279
purely irrational forces, which she is powerless to
control, or even to comprehend ? The professor of
naturalism rejoicing in the display of his dialectical
resources, is like a voyager, pacing at his own pleas-
ure up and down the ship's deck, who should sup-
pose that his movements had some important share
in determining his position on the illimitable ocean.
And the parallel would be complete if we can con-
ceive such a voyager pointing to the alertness of
his step and the vigour of his limbs as auguring
well for the successful prosecution of his journey,
while assuring you in the very same breath that the
vessel, within whose narrow bounds he displays all
this meaningless activity, is drifting he knows not
whence nor whither, without pilot or captain, at the
bidding of shifting winds and undiscovered currents.
Consider the following propositions, selected
from the naturalistic creed or deduced from it : —
(i.) My beliefs, in so far as they are the result of
reasoning at all, are founded on premises produced
in the last resort by the ' collision of atoms.'
(ii.) Atoms, having no prejudices in favour of
truth, are as likely to turn out wrong premises as
right ones ; nay, more likely, inasmuch as truth is
single and error manifold.
(iii.) My premises, therefore, in the first place,
and my conclusions in the second, are certainly
untrustworthy, and probably false. Their falsity,
moreover, is of a kind which cannot be remedied ;
since any attempt to correct it must start from
280 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
premises not suffering under the same defect. But
no such premises exist.
(iv.) Therefore, again, my opinion about the
original causes which produced my premises, as it
is an inference from them, partakes of their weak-
ness ; so that I cannot either securely doubt my
own certainties or be certain about my own doubts.
This is scepticism indeed ; scepticism which is
forced by its own inner nature to be sceptical even
about itself; which neither kills belief nor lets it
live. But it may perhaps be suggested in reply to
this argument, that whatever force it may have
against the old-fashioned naturalism, its edge is
blunted when turned against the evolutionary ag-
nosticism of more recent growth ; since the latter
establishes the existence of a machinery which, irra-
tional though it be, does really tend gradually, and
in the long run, to produce true opinions rather
than false. That machinery is, I need not say. Se-
lection, and the other forces (if other forces there be)
which bring the ' organism ' into more and more
perfect harmony with its ' environment.' Some har-
mony is necessary — so runs the argument — in order
that any form of life may be possible ; and as life de-
velops, the harmony necessarily becomes more and
more complete. But since there is no more impor-
tant form in which this harmony can show itself than
truth of belief, which is, indeed, only another name
for the perfect correspondence between belief and
fact. Nature, herein acting as a kind of cosmic In-
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 28 1
quisition, will repress by judicious persecution any
lapses from the standard of naturalistic orthodoxy.
Sound doctrine will be fostered ; error will be dis-
couraged or destroyed; until at last, by methods
which are neither rational themselves nor of rational
origin, the cause of reason will be fully vindicated.
Arguments like these are, however, quite insuffi-
cient to justify the conclusion which is drawn from
them. In the first place, they take no account of
any causes which were in operation before life ap-
peared upon the planet. Until there occurred the
unexplained leap from the Inorganic to the Organic,
Selection, of course, had no place among the evolu-
tionary processes ; while even after that date it was,
from the nature of the case, only concerned to foster
and perpetuate those chance -borne beliefs which
minister to the continuance of the species. But
what an utterly inadequate basis for speculation is
here ! We are to suppose that powers which were
evolved in primitive man and his animal progenitors
in order that they might kill with success and marry
in security, are on that account fitted to explore the
secrets of the universe. We are to suppose that
the fundamental beliefs on which these powers of
reasoning are to be exercised reflect with sufficient
precision remote aspects of reality, though they were
produced in the main by physiological processes
which date from a stage of development when the
only curiosities which had to be satisfied were those
of fear and those of hunger. To say that instru-
282 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
ments of research constructed solely for uses like
these cannot be expected to supply us with a meta-
physic or a theology, is to say far too little. They
cannot be expected to give us any general view even
of the phenomenal world, or to do more than guide
us in comparative safety from the satisfaction of one
useful appetite to the satisfaction of another. On
this theory, therefore, we are again driven back to
the same sceptical position in which we found our-
selves left by the older forms of the ' positive,' or
naturalistic creed. On this theory, as on the other,
reason has to recognise that her rights of indepen-
dent judgment and review are merely titular digni-
ties, carrying with them no effective powers ; and
that, whatever her pretensions, she is, for the most
part, the mere editor and interpreter of the utter-
ances of unreason.
I do not believe that any escape from these per-
plexities is possible, unless we are prepared to bring
to the study of the world the presupposition that it
was the work of a rational Being, who made it intel-
ligible, and at the same time made 7is, in however
feeble a fashion, able to understand it. This concep-
tion does not solve all difficulties ; far from it.^ But,
^ According to a once prevalent theory, ' innate ideas ' were true
because they were implanted in us by God. According to my way
of putting it, there must be a God to justify our confidence in (what
used to be called) innate ideas. I have given the argument in a
form which avoids all discussion as to the nature of the relation
between mind and body. Whatever be the mode of describing
this which ultimately commends itself to naturalistic psychologists,
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 283
at least, it is not on the face of it incoherent. It does
not attempt the impossible task of extracting reason
from unreason ; nor does it require us to accept
among scientific conclusions any which effectually
shatter the credibility of scientific premises.
Ill
Theism, then, whether or not it can in the strict
meaning of the word be described as proved by sci-
ence, is a principle which science, for a double rea-
son, requires for its own completion. The ordered
system of phenomena asks for a cause ; our knowl-
edge of that system is inexplicable unless we assume
for it a rational Author. Under this head, at least,
there should be no ' conflict between science and re-
ligion.*
It is true, of course, that if theism smoothes away
some of the difficulties which atheism raises, it is not
on that account without difficulties of its own. We
cannot, for example, form, I will not say any ade-
quate, but even any tolerable, idea of the mode in
which God is related to, and acts on, the world of
phenomena. That He created it, that He sustains
it, we are driven to believe. How He created it,
how He sustains it, is impossible for us to imagine.
But let it be observed that the difficulties which thus
arise are no peculiar heritage of theology, or of a
the reasoning in the text holds good. C/. the purely sceptical
presentation of the argument contained in Philosophic Doubt,
chap. xiii.
284 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
science which accepts among its presuppositions the
central truth which theology teaches. Naturalism
itself has to face them in a yet more embarrassing
form. For they meet us not only in connection with
the doctrine of God, but in connection with the doc-
trine of man. Not Divinity alone intervenes in the
world of things. Each living soul, in its measure
and degree, does the same. Each living soul which
acts on its surroundings raises questions analogous
to, and in some ways more perplexing than, those
suggested by the action of a God immanent in a
universe of phenomena.
Of course I am aware that, in thus speaking of
the connection between man and his material sur-
roundings, I am assuming the truth of a theory
which some men of science (in this, however, travel-
ling a little beyond their province) would most
energetically deny. But their denial really only
serves to emphasise the extreme difficulty of the
problem raised by the relation of the Self to phenom-
ena. So hardly pressed are they by these difficul-
ties that, in order to evade them, they attempt an
impossible act of suicide ; and because the Self
refuses to figure as a phenomenon among phenom-
ena, or complacently to fit in to a purely scientific
view of the world, they set about the hopeless task
of suppressing it altogether. Enough has already
been said on this point to permit me to pass it by.
I will, therefore, only observe that those who ask us
to reject the conviction entertained by each one of
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 285
US, that he does actually and effectually intervene in
the material world, may have many grounds of ob-
jection to theology, but should certainly not include
among them the reproach that it asks us to believe
the incredible.
But, in truth, without going into the metaphysics
of the Self, our previous discussions ^ contain ample
^ Cf. a7ite, Part II., Chaps. I. and II. It may be worth while
reminding the reader of one set of difficulties to which I have made
Httle reference in the text. Every theory of the relation between
Will, or, more strictly, the Willing Self and Matter, must come under
one of two heads : — (i) Either Will acts on Matter, or (2) it does
not. If it does act on Matter, it must be either as Free Will or as
Determined Will. If it is as Free Will, it upsets the uniformity of
Nature, and our most fundamental scientific conceptions must be
recast. If it is as Determined Will, that is to say, if volition be in-
terpolated as a necessary link between one set of material move-
ments and another, then, indeed, it leaves the uniformity of Nature
untouched ; but it violates mechanical principles. According to
the mechanical view of the world, the condition of any material sys-
tem at one moment is absolutely determined by its condition at the
preceding moment. In a world so conceived there is no room for
the interpolation even of Determined Will among the causes of ma-
terial change. It is mere surplusage.
(2.) If the Will does not act on Matter, then we must suppose
either that volition belongs to a psychic series running in a parallel
stream to the physiological changes of the brain, though neither in-
fluenced by it nor influencing it — which is, of course, the ancient
theory of pre-established harmony ; or else we must suppose that
it is a kind of superfluous consequence of certain physiological
changes, produced presumably without the exhaustion of any form
of energy, and having no effect whatever, either upon the material
world or, I suppose, upon other psychic conditions. This reduces
us to automata, and automata of a kind very difficult to find proper
accommodation for in a world scientifically conceived.
None of these alternatives seem very attractive, but one of them
would seem to be inevitable.
286 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
material for showing how impenetrable are the mists
which obscure the relation of mind to matter, of
things to the perception of things. Neither can be
eliminated from our system. Both must perforce
form elements in every adequate representation of
reality. Yet the philosophic artist has still to arise
who shall combine the two into a single picture,
without doing serious violence to essential features,
either of the one or the other. I am myself, indeed,
disposed to doubt whether any concession made by
the ' subjective ' to the ' objective,' or by the * ob-
jective' to the 'subjective,' short of the total de-
struction of one or the other, will avail to produce
a harmonious scheme. And certainly no discord
could be so barren, so unsatisfying, so practically
impossible, as a harmony attained at such a cost.
We must acquiesce, then, in the existence of an un-
solved difficulty. But it is a difficulty which meets
us, in an even more intractable form, when we strive
to realise the nature of our own relations to the little
world in which we move, than when we are dealing
with a like problem in respect to the Divine Spirit,
Who is the Ground of all being and the Source of
all change.
IV
But though there should thus be no conflict
between theology and science, either as to the exist-
ence of God or as to the possibility of His acting
on phenomena, it by no means follows that the idea
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 28/
of God which is suggested by science is compatible
with the idea of God which is developed by theology.
Identical, of course, they need not be. Theology
would be unnecessary if all we are capable of learn-
ing about God could be inferred from a study of
Nature. Compatible, however, they seemingly must
be, if science and religion are to be at one.
And yet I know not whether those who are most
persuaded that the claims of these two powers are
irreconcilable rest their case willingly upon the most
striking incongruity between them which can be
produced — I mean the existence of misery and the
triumphs of wrong. Yet no one is, or, indeed, could
be, blind to the difficulty which thence arises. From
the world as presented to us by science we might
conjecture a God of power and a God of reason ;
but we never could infer a God Avho was wholly
loving and wholly just. So that what religion pro-
claims aloud to be His most essential attributes are
precisely those respecting which the oracles of
science are doubtful or are dumb.
One reason, I suppose, why this insistent thought
does not, so far as my observation goes, supply a
favourite weapon of controversial attack, is that
ethics is obviously as much interested in the moral
attributes of God as theology can ever be (a point
to which I shall presently return). But another
reason, no doubt, may be found in the fact that the
difficulty is one which has been profoundly realised
by religious minds ages before organised science can
288 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
be said to have existed ; while, on the other hand,
the growth of scientific knowledge has neither in-
creased nor diminished the burden of it by a feather-
weight. The question, therefore, seems, though not,
I think, quite correctly, to be one which is wholly,
as it were, within the frontiers of theology, and
which theologians may, therefore, be left to deal
with as best they may, undisturbed by any argu-
ments supplied by science. If this be not in theory
strictly true, it is in practice but little wide of the
mark. The facts which raise the problem in its
acutest form belong, indeed, to that portion of the
experience of life which is the common property of
science and theology ; but theology is much more
deeply concerned in them than science can ever be,
and has long faced the unsolved problem which they
present. The weight which it has thus borne for
all these centuries is not likely now to crush it ; and,
paradoxical though it seems, it is yet surely true,
that what is a theological stumbling-block may also
be a religious aid ; and that it is in part the thought
of * all creation groaning and travailing in pain to-
gether, waiting for redemption,' which creates in
man the deepest need for faith in the love of God.
I conceive, then, that those who talk of the * con-
flict between science and religion ' do not, as a rule,
refer to the difficulty presented by the existence of
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 289
Evil. Where, then, in their opinion, is the point of
irreconcilable difference to be found? It will, I sup-
pose, at once be replied, in Miracles. But though
the answer has in it a measure of truth, though, with-
out doubt, it is possible to approach the real kernel
of the problem from the side of miracles, I confess
this seems to me to be in fact but seldom accom-
plished ; while the very term is more suggestive of
controversy, wearisome, unprofitable, and unending,
than any other in the language, Free Will alone be-
ing excepted. Into this Serbonian bog I scarcely
dare ask the reader to follow me, though the advent-
ure must, I am afraid, be undertaken if the purpose
of this chapter is to be accomplished.
In the first place, then, it seems to me unfort-
unate that the principle of the Uniformity of Nat-
ure should so often be dragged into a controversy
with which its connection is so dubious and obscure.
For what do we mean by saying that Nature is uni-
form ? We may mean, perhaps we ought to mean,
that (leaving Free Will out of account) the condition
of the world at one moment is so connected with its
condition at the next, that if we could imagine it
brought twice into exactly the same position, its
subsequent history would in each case be exactly
the same. Now no one, I suppose, imagines that uni-
formity in this sense has any quarrel with miracles.
If a miracle is a wonder wrought by God to meet
the needs arising out of the special circumstances of
a particular moment, then, supposing the circum-
290 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
Stances were to recur, as they would if the world
were twice to pass through the same phase, the
miracle, we cannot doubt, would recur also. It is
not possible to suppose that the uniformity of Nat-
ure thus broadly interpreted would be marred by
Him on Whom Nature depends, and Who is im-
manent in all its changes.
But it will be replied that the uniformity with
which miracles are thus said to be consistent carries
with it no important consequences whatever. Its
truth or untruth is a matter of equal indifference to
the practical man, the man of science, and the phi-
losopher. It asserts in reality (it may be said) no
more than this, that if history once began repeating
itself, it would go on doing so, like a recurring dec-
imal. But as history in fact never does exactly re-
peat itself, as the universe never is twice over pre-
cisely in the same condition, we should no more be
able to judge the future from the past, or to detect
the operation of particular laws of Nature in a world
where only this kind of theoretic uniformity pre-
vailed, than we should under the misrule of chaos
and blind chance.
There is force in these observations, which are,
however, much more embarrassing to the philos-
ophy of science than to that of theology. Without
doubt all experimental inference, as well as the or-
dinary conduct of life, depends on supplementing
this general view of the uniformit)^ of Nature with
certain working hypotheses which are not, though
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 29I
they always ought to be, most carefully distin-
guished from it. One of these is, that Nature is
not merely uniform as a whole, but is made up of a
bundle of smaller uniformities ; or, in other words,
that there is a determinate relation, not only be-
tween the successive phases of the whole universe,
but between successive phases of certain fragments
of it; which successive phases we commonly de-
scribe as ' causes ' and ' effects.' Another of these
working hypotheses is, that though the universe as
a whole never repeats itself, these isolated fragments
of it do. And a third is, that we have means at our
disposal whereby these fragments can be accurately
divided off from the rest of Nature, and confidently
recognised when they recur. Now I doubt whether
any one of these three presuppositions — which, be it
noted, lie at the very root of the collection of em-
pirical maxims which we dignify with the name of
inductive logic — can, from the point of view of philos-
ophy, be regarded as more than an approximation.
It is hard to believe that the concrete Whole of
things can be thus cut up into independent portions.
It is still harder to believe that any such portion is
ever repeated absolutely unaltered ; since its char-
acter must surely in part depend upon its relation
to all the other portions, which (by hypothesis) are
not repeated with it. And it is quite impossible to
believe that inductive logic has succeeded by any
of its methods in providing a sure criterion for de-
termining, when any such portion is apparently re-
292 'science and theology
peated, whether all the elements, and not more than
all, are again present which on previous occasions
did really constitute it a case of ' cause * and ' effect.* ^
If this seems paradoxical, it is chiefly because
we habitually use phraseology which, strictly inter-
preted, seems to imply that a ' law of Nature,' as it
is called, is a sort of self-subsisting entity, to whose
charge is confided some department in the world
of phenomena, over which it rules with undisputed
sway. Of course this is not so. In the world of
phenomena. Reality is exhausted by what is and
what happens. Beyond this there is nothing. These
* laws ' are merely abstractions devised by us for
our own guidance through the complexities of fact.
They possess neither independent powers nor actual
existence. And if we would use language with per-
fect accuracy, we ought, it would seem, either to
say that the same cause would always be followed
by precisely the same effect, if it recurred — which
it never does ; or that, in certain regions of Nature,
though only in certain regions, we can detect sub-
ordinate uniformities of repetition which, though
not exact, enable us without sensible insecurity or
error to anticipate the future or reconstruct the
past.
This hurried glance which I have asked the
reader to take into some obscure corners of induc-
tive theory is by no means intended to suggest that
' See some of these points more fully worked out in Philosophic
Doubt, Part I., Chap. II.
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 293
it is as easy to believe in a miracle as not ; or even
that on other grounds, presently to be referred to,
miracles ought not to be regarded as incredible.
But it does show, in my judgment, that no profit can
yet be extracted from controversies as to the pre-
cise relation in which they stand to the Order of
the world. Those engaged in these controversies
have not uncommonly committed a double error.
They have, in the first place, chosen to assume that
we have a perfectly clear and generally accepted
theory as to what is meant by the Uniformity of
Nature, as to what is meant by particular Laws of
Nature, as to the relation in which the particular
Laws stand to the general Uniformity, and as to the
kind of proof by which each is to be established.
And, having committed this philosophic error, they
proceed to add to it the historical error of crediting
primitive theology with a knowledge of this theory,
and with a desire to improve upon it. They seem
to suppose that apostles and prophets were in the
habit of looking at the natural world in its ordinary
course, with the eyes of an eighteenth-century deist,
as if it were a bundle of uniformities which, once
set going, went on for ever automatically repeating
themselves ; and that their message to mankind con-
sisted in announcing the existence of another, or
supernatural world, which occasionally upset one
or two of these natural uniformities by means of a
miracle. No such theory can be extracted from
their writings, and no such theory should be read
294 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
into them ; and this not merely because such an at-
tribution is unhistorical, nor yet because there is
any ground for doubting the interaction of the
' spiritual ' and the ' natural ' ; but because this ac-
count of the ' natural ' itself is one which, if inter-
preted strictly, seems open to grave philosophical
objection, and is certainly deficient in philosophic
proof.
The real difficulties connected with theological
miracles lie elsewhere. Two qualities seem to be of
their essence : they must be wonders, and they must
be wonders due to the special action of Divine power ;
and each of these qualities raises a special problem of
its own. That raised by the first is the question of
evidence. What amount of evidence, if any, is suf-
ficient to render a miracle credible? And on this,
which is apart from the main track of ni}^ argument,
I may perhaps content myself with pointing out,
that if by evidence is meant, as it usually is, histor-
ical testimony, this is not a fixed quantity, the same
for every reasonable man, no matter what may be
his other opinions. It varies, and must necessarily
vary, with the general views, the 'psychological
climate,' which he brings to its consideration. It is
possible to get twelve plain men to agree on the evi-
dence which requires them to announce from the jury
box a verdict of guilty or not guilty, because they
start with a common stock of presuppositions, in the
light of which the evidence submitted to them may,
without preliminary discussion, be interpreted. But
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 295
when, as in the case of theological miracles, there is
no such common stock, any agreement on a verdict
can scarcely be looked for. One of the jury may
hold the naturalistic view of the world. To him, of
course, the occurrence of a miracle involves the
abandonment of the whole philosophy in terms of
which he is accustomed to interpret the universe.
Argument, custom, prejudice, authority — every con-
viction-making machine, rational and non-rational,
by which his scheme of belief has been fashioned —
conspire to make this vast intellectual revolution
difficult. And we need not be surprised that even
the most excellent evidence for a few isolated inci-
dents is quite insufficient to effect his conversion;
nor that he occasionally shows a disposition to go
very extraordinary lengths in contriving historical
or critical theories for the purpose of explaining
such evidence away.
Another may believe in * verbal inspiration.' To
him, the discussion of evidence in the ordinary sense
is quite superfluous. Every miracle, whatever its
character, whatever the circumstances in which it
occurred, whatever its relation, whether essential
or accidental, to the general scheme of religion, is
to be accepted with equal confidence, provided it
be narrated in the works of inspired authors. It is
written : it is therefore true. And in the light of
this presupposition alone must the results of any
merely critical or historical discussion be finally
judged.
296 SCIENXE AND THEOLOGY
A third of our supposed jurj^men may reject
both naturalism and verbal inspiration. He may
appraise the evidence alleged in favour of ' Wonders
due to the special action of Divine power ' by the
light of an altogether different theory of the world
and of God's action therein. He may consider re-
ligion to be as necessary an element in any adequate
scheme of belief as science itself. Every event,
therefore, whether wonderful or not, a belief in
whose occurrence is involved in that religion, every
event by whose disproof the religion would be seri-
ously impoverished or altogether destroyed, has be-
hind it the whole combined strength of the system
to which it belongs. It is not, indeed, beheved in-
dependently of external evidence, any more than
the most ordinary occurrences in history are be-
lieved independently of external evidence. But
it does not require, as some people appear to sup-
pose, the impossible accumulation of proof on proof,
of testimony on testimony, before the presumption
against it can be neutralised. For, in truth, no such
presumption may exist at all. Strange as the mira-
cle must seem, and inharmonious when considered
as an alien element in an otherwise naturalistic set-
ting, it may assume a character of inevitableness, it
may almost proclaim aloud that thus it has occurred,
and not otherwise, to those who consider it in its
relation, not to the natural world alone, but to the
spiritual, and to the needs of man as a citizen of
both.
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 29/
VI
Many other varieties of ' psychological climate '
might be described ; but what I have said is, perhaps,
enough to show how absurd it is to expect any
unanimity as to the value of historical evidence until
some better agreement has been arrived at respect-
ing the presuppositions in the light of which alone
such evidence can be estimated. I pass, therefore,
to the difficulty raised by the second, and much more
fundamental, attribute of theological miracles to
which I have adverted, namely, that they are due to
the * special action of God.' But this, be it ob-
served, is, from a religious point of view, no pecul-
iarity of miracles. Few schemes of thought which
have any religious flavour about them at all, wholly
exclude the idea of what I will venture to call the
* preferential exercise of Divine power,' whatever
differences of opinion may exist as to the manner in
which it is manifested. There are those who reject
miracles but who, at least in those fateful moments
when they imaginatively realise their own helpless-
ness, will admit what in a certain literature is called
a '■ special Providence.' There are those who reject
the notion of ' special Providence,' but who admit a
sort of Divine superijiiejjLdsnce over the general
course of histo^^^oT^r^^^^^ACE ^™^e, again, who re-
ject in its omefary §h^pe the idda?^ Divine super-
intendence, Ipiu wjio conceive that Ai^y can escape
298 SCIENXE AND THEOLOGY
from philosophic reproach by beating out the idea
yet a little thinner, and admitting that there does
exist somewhere a ' Power which makes for right-
eousness.'
For my own part, I think all these various
opinions are equally open to the only form of attack
which it is worth while to bring against any one of
them. And if we allow, as (supposing religion in
any shape to be true) we must allow, that the 'pref-
erential action ' of Divine power is possible, nothing
is gained by qualifying the admission with all those
fanciful limitations and distinctions with which dif-
ferent schools of thought have seen fit to encumber
it. The admission itself, however, is one which, in
whatever shape it may be made, no doubt suggests
questions of great difficulty. How can the Divine
Being Who is the Ground and Source of everything
that is. Who sustains all, directs all, produces all, be
connected more closely with one part of that which
He has created than with another? If every event
be wholly due to Him, how can we say that any single
event, such as a miracle, or any tendency of events,
such as 'making for righteousness,' is specially His?
What room for difference or distinction is there
within the circuit of His universal power? Since
the relation between His creation and Him is
throughout and in every particular one of absolute
dependence, what meaning, can we attach to the
metaphor which represents Him as taking part with
one fragment of it, or as hostile to another?
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 299
Now it has, in the first place, to be observed that
ethics is as much concerned with this difficulty as
theology itself. For if we cannot believe in ' prefer-
ential action,' neither can we believe in the moral
qualities of which 'preferential action' is the sign ;
and with the moral qualities of God is bound up
the fate of anything which deserves to be called
morality at all. I am not now arguing that ethics
cannot exist unsupported by theism. On this theme
I have already said something, and shall have to say
more. My present contention is, that though history
may show plenty of examples in heathendom of
ethical theory being far in advance of the recognised
religion, it is yet impossible to suppose that morality
would not ultimately be destroyed by the clearly
realised belief in a God Who was either indifferent
to good or inclined to evil.
For a universe in which all the power was on the
side of the Creator, and all the morality on the side
of creation, would be one compared with which the
universe of naturalism would shine out a paradise
indeed. Even the poet has not dared to represent
Jupiter torturing Prometheus without the dim fig-
ure of Avenging Fate waiting silently in the back-
ground. But if the idea of an immoral Creator
governing a world peopled with moral, or even
with sentient, creatures, is a speculative nightmare,
the case is not materially mended by substituting
for an immoral Creator an indifferent one. Once
assume a God, and we shall be obliged, sooner or
300 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
later, to introduce harmony into our system by
making obedience to His will coincident with the
established rules of conduct. We cannot frame our
advice to mankind on the hypothesis that to defy
Omnipotence is the beginning of wisdom. But if
this process of adjustment is to be done consistently
with the maintenance of any eternal and absolute
distinction between right and wrong, then must His
will be a ' good will,' and we must suppose Him to
look with favour upon some parts of this mixed
world of good and evil, and with disfavour upon
others. If, on the other hand, this distinction seems
to us metaphysically impossible ; if we cannot do
otherwise than regard Him as related in precisely
the same way to every portion of His creation, look-
ing with indifferent eyes upon misery and happiness,
truth and error, vice and virtue, then our theology
must surely drive us, under whatever disguise, to
empty ethics of all ethical significance, and to re-
duce virtue to a colourless acquiescence in the Ap-
pointed Order.
Systems there are which do not shrink from
these speculative conclusions. But their authors
will, I think, be found rather among those who ap-
proach the problem of the world from the side of a
particular metaphysic, than those who approach it
from the side of science. He who sees in God no
more than the Infinite Substance of which the
world of phenomena constitutes the accidents, or
who requires Him for no other purpose than as In-
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 3OI
finite Subject, to supply the ' unity ' without which
the world of phenomena would be an * unmeaning
flux of unconnected particulars,' may naturally sup-
pose Him to be equally related to everything, good
or bad, that has been, is, or can be. But I do not
think that the man of science is similarly situated ;
for the doctrine of evolution has in this respect
made a change in his position which, curiously
enough, brings it closer to that occupied in this
matter by theology and ethics than it was in the
days when ' special creation ' was the fashionable
view.
I am not contending, be it observed, that evolu-
tion strengthens the evidence for theism. My point
rather is, that if the existence of God be assumed,
evolution does, to a certain extent, harmonise with
that belief in His ' preferential action ' which relig-
ion and morality alike require us to attribute to
Him. For whereas the material and organic world
was once supposed to have been created 'all of a
piece,' and to show contrivance on the part of its
Author merely by the machine-like adjustment of its
parts, so now science has adopted an idea which has
always been an essential part of the Christian view
of the Divine economy, has given to that idea an
undreamed-of extension, has applied it to the whole
universe of phenomena, organic and inorganic, and
has returned it again to theology enriched, strength-
ened, and developed. Can we, then, think of evolu-
tion in a God-created world without attributing to
302 SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
its Author the notion of purpose slowly worked
out ; the striving towards something which is not,
but which gradually becomes, and in the fulness of
time will be ? Surely not. But, if not, can it be
denied that evolution — the evolution, I mean, which
takes place in time, the natural evolution of science,
as distinguished from the dialectical evolution of
metaphysics — does involve something in the nature
of that ' preferential action * which it is so difficult
to understand, yet so impossible to abandon ?
CHAPTER IV
SUGGESTIONS TOWARDS A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION
But if I confined myself to saying that the belief
in a God who is not merely ' substance,' or * sub-
ject/ but is, in Biblical language, ' a living God,\af-
fords no ground of quarrel between theology and
science, I should much understate my thought. I
hold, on the contrary, that some such presupposi-
tion is not only tolerated, but is actually required,
by science ; that if it be accepted in the case of
science, it can hardly be refused in the case of
ethics, aesthetics, or theology ; and that if it be thus
accepted as a general principle, applicable to the
whole circuit of belief, it will be found to provide
us with a working solution of some, at least, of the
difficulties with which naturalism is incompetent to
deal.
For what was it that lay at the bottom of those
difficulties ? Speaking broadly, it may be described
as the perpetual collision, the ineffaceable incon-
gruity, between the origin of our beliefs, in so far
as these can be revealed to us by science, and the
beliefs themselves. This it was that, as I showed
304 A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION
in the first part of this Essay, touched with the frost
of scepticism our ideals of conduct and our ideals
of beauty. This it was that, as I showed in the
Second Part, cut down scientific philosophy to the
root. And all the later discussions with which I
have occupied the attention of the reader serve
but to emphasise afresh the inextricable confusion
which the naturalistic hypothesis introduces into
every department of practice and of speculation, by
refusing to allow us to penetrate beyond the phe-
nomenal causes by which, in the order of Nature,
our beliefs are produced.
Review each of these departments in turn, and,
in the light of the preceding discussion, compare its
position in a theological setting with that which it
necessarily occupies in a naturalistic one. Let the
case of science be taken first, for it is a crucial one.
Here, if anywhere, we might suppose ourselves in-
dependent of theology. Here, if anywhere, we
might expect to be able to acquiesce without embar-
rassment in the negations of naturalism. But when
once we have realised the scientific truth that at
the root of every rational process lies an irrational
one ; that reason, from a scientific point of vicAv, is
itself a natural product ; and that the whole mate-
rial on which it works is due to causes, physical,
physiological, and social, which it neither creates
nor controls, we shall (as I showed just now) be
driven in mere self-defence to hold that, behind
these non-rational forces, and above them, guiding
A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION 305
them by slow degrees, a.nd, as it were, with diffi-
culty, to a rational issue, stands that Supreme Rea-
son in whom we must thus believe, if we are to be-
lieve in anything-.
Here, then, we are plunged at once into the
middle of theology. The belief in God, the attribu-
tion to Him of reason, and of what I have called
' preferential action ' in relation to the world which
He has created, all seem forced upon us by the sin-
gle assumption that science is not an illusion, and
that, with the rest of its teaching, we must accept
what it has to say to us about itself as a natural
product. At no smaller cost can we reconcile the
origins of science with its pretensions, or relieve
ourselves of the embarrassments in which we are
involved by a naturalistic theory of Nature. But
evidently the admission, if once made, cannot stand
alone. It is impossible to refuse to ethical beliefs
what we have already conceded to scientific beliefs.
For the analogy between them is complete. Both
are natural products. Neither rank among their re-
moter causes any which share their essence. And
as it is easy to trace back our scientific beliefs to
sources which have about them nothing which is
rational, so it is easy to trace back our ethical be-
liefs to sources which have about them nothing
which is ethical. Both require us, therefore, to seek
behind these phenomenal sources for some ultimate
ground with which they shall be congruous ; and as
we have been moved to postulate a rational God in
306 A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION
the interests of science, so we can scarcely decline
to postulate a moral God in the interests of moral-
ity.
But, manifestly, those who have gone thus far
cannot rest here. If we are to assign a ' providen-
tial * origin to the long and complex train of events
which have resulted in the recognition of a moral
law, we must embrace within the same theory those
sentiments and influences, without which a moral
law would tend to become a mere catalogue of com-
mandments, possessed, it may be, of an undisputed
authority, but obtaining on that account but little
obedience. This was the point on which I dwelt at
length in the first portion of this Essay. I then
showed, that if the pedigrees of conscience, of our
ethical ideals, of our capacity for admiration, for
sympathy, for repentance, for righteous indignation,
were finally to lose themselves among the accidental
variations on which Selection does its work, it was
inconceivable that they should retain their virtue
when once the creed of naturalism had thoroughly
penetrated and discoloured every mood of thought
and belief. But if, deserting naturalism, we regard
the evolutionary process issuing in these ethical re-
sults as an instrument for carrying out a Divine
purpose, the natural history of the higher sentiments
is seen under a wholly different light. They may
be due, doubtless they are in fact due, to the same
selective mechanism which produces the most cruel
and the most disgusting of Nature's contrivances for
A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION 307
protecting the species of some loathsome parasite.
Between the two cases science cannot, and natural-
ism will not, draw any valid distinction. But here
theology steps in, and by the conception of design
revolutionises our point of view. The most un-
lovely germ of instinct or of appetite to which we
trace back the origin of all that is rnost noble and of
good report, no longer throws discredit upon its
developed offshoots. Rather is it consecrated by
them. For if, in the region of Causation, it is wholly
by the earlier stages that the later are determined,
in the region of Design it is only through the later
stages that the earlier can be understood.
But if these be the consequences which flow from
substituting a theological for a naturalistic inter-
pretation of science, of ethics, and of ethical senti-
ments, what changes will the same process effect in
our conception of aesthetics? Naturalism, as we
saw, destroys the possibility of objective beauty — of
beauty as a real, persistent quality of objects ; and
leaves nothing but feelings of beauty on the one
side, and on the other a miscellaneous assortment of
objects, called beautiful in their moments of favour,
by which, through the chance operation of obscure
associations, at some period, and in some persons,
these feelings of beauty are aroused. A conclusion
of this kind no doubt leaves us chilled and depressed
spectators of our own aesthetic enthusiasms. And
it may be that to put the scientific theory in a theo-
logical setting, instead of in a naturalistic one, will
308 A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION
not wholly remove the unsatisfactory effect which
the theory itself may leave upon the mind. And
yet it surely does something. If we cannot say that
Beauty is in any particular case an ' objective ' fact,
in the sense in which science requires us to believe
that 'mass,' for example, and 'configuration,' are
' objective ' facts, w^e are not precluded on that
account from referring our feeling of it to God, nor
from supposing that in the thrill of some deep emo-
tion we have for an instant caught a far-off reflec-
tion of Divine beauty. This is, indeed, my faith ;
and in it the differences of taste which divide man-
kind lose all their harshness. For we may liken
ourselves to the members of some endless proces-
sion winding along the borders of a sunlit lake.
Towards each individual there will shine along its
surface a moving lane of splendour, where the
ripples catch and deflect the light in his direction ;
w^hile on either hand the waters, which to his neigh-
bour's eyes are brilliant in the sun, for him lie dull
and undistinguished. So may all possess a like en-
joyment of loveliness. So do all owe it to one un-
changing Source. And if there be an endless
variety in the immediate objects from which we
severally derive it, T know not, after all, that this
should furnish any matter for regret.
A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION 309
II
And, lastly, we come to theology, denied by
naturalism to be a branch of knowledge at all, but
whose truth we have been obliged to assume in
order to find a basis for the only knowledge which
naturalism allows.
Those who are prepared to admit that, in dealing
with the causes of scientific and ethical belief, the
theory which offers least difficulty is that which
assumes them to have been ' providentially ' guided,
are not likely to raise objections to a similar theory
in the case of religion. For here, at least, might we
expect preferential Divine intervention, supposing
such intervention were anywhere possible. Much
more, then, if it be accepted as actual in other regions
of belief. And this is, in fact, the ordinary view of
mankind. They have almost always claimed for
their beliefs about God that they were due to God.
The belief in religion has almost always carried with
it, in some shape or other, the belief in Inspiration.
To this rule there is, no doubt, to be found an
apparent exception in what is known as natural re-
ligion— natural religion being defined as the religion
to which unassisted reason may attain, in contrast
to that which can be reached only by the aid of rev-
elation. But, for my own part, I object altogether
to the theory underlying this distinction. I do not
believe that, strictly speaking, there is any such
3IO A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION
thing as ' unassisted reason.' And I am sure that if
there be, the conclusions of ' natural religion ' are not
among its products. The attentive reader does not
require to be told that, according to the views here
advocated, ever}^ idea involved in such a proposition
as that ' There is a moral Creator and Ruler of the
world ' (which I may assume, for purposes of illus-
tration, to constitute the substance of natural re-
ligion) is due to a complex of causes, of which human
reason was not the most important ; and that this
natural religion never would have been heard of,
much less have been received with approval, had it
not been for that traditional religion of which it
vainly supposes itself to be independent.
But if this way of considering the matter be ac-
cepted ; if we are to apply unaltered, in the case of
religious beliefs, the procedure already adopted in
the case of scientific, ethical, and aesthetic beliefs,
and assume for them a Cause harmonious with their
essential nature, we must evidently in so doing trans-
cend the common division between * natural * and
* supernatural.* We cannot consent to see the * pref-
erential working of Divine power' only in those
religious manifestations which refuse to accommo-
date themselves to our conception (whatever that
may be) of the strictly ' natural ' order of the world ;
nor can we deny a Divine origin to those aspects of
religious development which natural laws seem com-
petent to explain. The familiar distinction, indeed,
between ' natural * and ' supernatural ' coincides
A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION 3II
neither with that between natural and spiritual, nor
with that between ' preferential action ' and ' non-
preferential,' nor with that between ' phenomenal *
and ' noumenal.' It is, perhaps, less important than
is sometimes supposed ; and in this particular con-
nection, at all events, is, as it seems to me, merely
irrelevant and confusing — a burden, not an aid, to
religious speculation.
For, whatever difference there may be between
the growth of theological knowledge and of other
knowledge, their resemblances are both numerous
and instructive. In both we note that movement
has been sometimes so rapid as to be revolutionary,
sometimes so slow as to be imperceptible. In both,
that it has been sometimes an advance, sometimes
a retrogression. In both, that it has been some-
times on lines permitting a long, perhaps an indefi-
nite, development, sometimes in directions where far-
ther progress seems barred for ever. In both, that
the higher is, from the point of view of science,
largely produced by the lower. In both, that, from
the point of view of our provisional philosophy, the
lower is only to be explained by the higher. In
both, that the final product counts among its causes
a vast multitude of physiological, psychological,
political, and social antecedents with which it has no
direct rational or spiritual affiliation.
How, then, can we most completely absorb these
facts into our theory of Inspiration ? It would, no
doubt, be inaccurate to say that inspiration is that,
312 A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION
seen from its Divine side, which we call discovery
when seen from the human side. But it is not, I
think, inaccurate to say that every addition to knowl-
edge, whether in the individual or the community,
whether scientific, ethical, or theological, is due to a
co-operation between the human soul which assimi-
lates and the Divine power which inspires. Neither
acts, or, as far as we can pronounce upon such mat-
ters, could act, in independent isolation. For * un-
assisted reason ' is, as I have already said, a fiction ;
and pure receptivity it is impossible to conceive.
Even the emptiest vessel must limit the quantity
and determine the configuration of any liquid with
which it may be filled.
But because this view involves a use of the term
'inspiration' which, ignoring all minor distinctions,
extends it to every case in which the production of
belief is due to the ' preferential action ' of Divine
power, it does not, of course, follow that minor dis-
tinctions do not exist. All I wish here to insist on
is, that the sphere of Divine influence in matters of
belief exists as a whole, and may therefore be studied
as a Avhole ; and that, not improbabl}^ to study it as
a whole would prove no unprofitable preliminary to
any examination into the character of its more im-
portant parts.
So studied, it becomes evident that Inspiration, if
this use of the word is to be allowed, is limited to no
age, to no country, to no people. It is required by
those who learn not less than bv those who teach.
A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION 313
Wherever an approach has been made to truth,
wherever any individual soul has assimilated some
old discovery, or has forced the secret of a new one,
there is its co-operation to be discovered. Its work-
ings are to be traced not merely in the later devel-
opment of beliefs, but far back among their unhon-
oured beginnings. Its aid has been granted not
merely along the main line of religious progress, but
in the side-alleys to which there seems no issue.
Are we, for example, to find a full measure of inspi-
ration in the highest utterances of Hebrew prophet
or psalmist, and to suppose that the primitive relig-
ious conceptions common to the Semitic race had in
them no touch of the Divine ? Hardly, if we also
believe that it was these primitive conceptions which
the ' Chosen People ' were divinely ordained to pu-
rify, to elevate, and to expand until they became
fitting elements in a religion adequate to the neces-
sities of a world. Are we, again, to deny any meas-
ure of inspiration to the ethico-religious teaching of
the great Oriental reformers, because there was
that in their general systems of doctrine which pre-
vented, and still prevents, these from merging as a
whole in the main stream of religious advance ?
Hardly, unless we are prepared to admit that men
may gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles.
These things assuredly are of God ; and whatever
be the terms in which we choose to express our
faith, let us not give colour to the opinion that His
assistance to mankind has been narrowed down to
314 A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION
the sources, however unique, from which we imme.
diately, and consciously, draw our own spiritual
nourishment.
If a preference is shown by any for a more
limited conception of the Divine intervention in
matters of belief, it must, I suppose, be on one of
two grounds. It may, in the first place, arise out
of a natural reluctance to force into the same cate-
gory the transcendent intuitions of prophet or
apostle and the stammering utterances of earlier
faiths, clouded as these are by human ignorance
and marred by human sin. Things spiritually so far
asunder ought not, it may be thought, by any sys-
tem of classification, to be brought together. They
belong to separate worlds. They differ not merely
infinitely in degree, but absolutely in kind ; and a
risk of serious error must arise if the same term is
loosely and hastily applied to things which, in their
essential nature, lie so far apart.
Now, that there may be, or, rather, plainly are,
many modes in which belief is assisted by Divine
co-operation I have already admitted. That the
word ' inspiration * may, with advantage, be con-
fined to one or more of these I do not desire to
deny. It is a question of theological phraseology,
on which I am not competent to pronounce ; and if
I have seized upon the word for the purposes of my
argument, it is with no desire to confound any dis-
tinction which ought to be preserved, but because
there is no other term which so pointedly expresses
A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION 315
that Divine element in the formation of beliefs on
which it was my business to lay stress. This, if my
theory be true, does, after all, exist, howsoever it
may be described, to the full extent which I have
indicated ; and though the beliefs which it assists in
producing differ infinitely from one another in their
nearness to absolute truth, the fact is not disguised,
nor the honour due to the most spiritually perfect
utterances in aught imperilled, by recognising in
all some marks of Divine intervention.
But, in the second place, it may be objected that
inspiration thus broadly conceived is incapable of
providing mankind with any satisfactory criterion of
religious truth. Since its co-operation can be traced
in so much that is imperfect, the mere fact of its
co-operation cannot in any particular case be a pro-
tection even against gross error. If, therefore, we
seek in it not merely a Divinely ordered cause of
belief, but also a Divinely ordered ground for believ-
ing, there must be some means of marking off those
examples of its operation which rightfully command
our full intellectual allegiance, from those which are
no more than evidences of an influence towards the
truth working out its purpose slowly through the
ages.
This is beyond dispute. Nothing that I have
said about inspiration in general as a source of belief
affects in any way the character of certain instances
of inspiration as an authority for belief. Nor was
it intended to do so ; for the problem, or group of
3l6 A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION
problems, which would thus have been raised is
altogether beside the main course of my argument.
They belong, not to an Introduction to Theology,
but to Theology itself. Whether there is an authority
in religious matters of a kind altogether without
parallel in scientific or ethical matters ; what, if it ex-
ists, is its character, and whence come its claims to
our obedience, are questions on which theologians
have differed, and still differ, and which it is quite
beyond my province to decide. For the subject of
this Essay is the ' foundations of belief,' and, as I
have already indicated,^ the kind of authority con-
templated by theologians is never ' fundamental,' in
the sense in which that word is here used. The
deliverances of no organisation, of no individual, of
no record, can lie at the roots of belief as reason,
whatever they may do as cause. It is always possi-
ble to ask whence these claimants to authority derive
their credentials, what titles the organisation or the
individual possesses to our obedience, whether the
records are authentic, and what is their precise im-
port. And the mere fact that such questions may
be put, and that they can neither be thrust aside as
irrelevant nor be answered without elaborate critical
and historical discussion, shows clearly enough that
we have no business wath them here.
' See a?ite, chapter on Authority and Reason.
A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION 317
III
But although it is evidently beyond the scope
of this work to enter upon even an elementary
discussion of theological method, it seems right
that I should endeavour, in strict continuation of
the argument of this chapter, to say something on
the source from which, according to Christianity,
any religious authority whatever must ultimately
derive its jurisdiction. What I have so far tried to
establish is this — that the great body of our beliefs,
scientific, ethical, theological, form a more coherent
and satisfactory whole if we consider them in a
Theistic setting, than if we consider them in a Nat-
uralistic one. The further question, therefore,
inevitably suggests itself. Whether we can carry the
process a step further, and say that they are more
coherent and satisfactory if considered in a Chris-
tian setting than in a merely Theistic one ?
The answer often given is in the negative. It is
always assumed by those who do not accept the
doctrine of the Incarnation, and it is not uncommonly
conceded by those who do, that it constitutes an ad-
ditional burden upon faith, a new stumbling-block
to reason. And many who are prepared to accom-
modate their beliefs to the requirements of (so-called)
* Natural Religion,' shrink from the difficulties and
perplexities in which this central mystery of Revealed
Religion threatens to involve them. But what are
3l8 A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION
these difficulties? Clearly they are not scientific.
We are here altogether outside the region where
scientific ideas possess any worth, or scientific cate-
gories claim any authority. It may be a realm of
shadows, of empty dreams, and vain speculations.
But whether it be this, or whether it be the abiding-
place of the highest Reality, it evidently must be
explored by methods other than those provided for
us by the accepted canons of experimental research.
Even when we are endeavouring to comprehend the
relation of our own finite personalities to the material
environment with which they are so intimately con-
nected, we find, as we have seen, that all familiar
modes of explanation break down and become mean-
ingless. Yet we certainly exist, and presumably we
have bodies. If, then, we cannot devise formul2e
which shall elucidate the familiar mystery of our
daily existence, we need neither be surprised nor
embarrassed if the unique mystery of the Christian
faith refuses to lend itself to inductive treatment.
But though the very uniqueness of the doctrine
places it beyond the ordinary range of scientific
criticism, the same cannot be said for the historical
evidence on which, in part at least, it rests. Here,
it will perhaps be urged, we are on solid and familiar
ground. We have only got to ignore the arbitrary
distinction between ' sacred ' and ' secular,' and apply
the well-understood methods of historic- criticism to
a particular set of ancient records, in order to extract
from them all that is necessary to satisfy our curi-
A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION 319
osity. If they break down under cross-examination,
we need trouble ourselves no further about the
metaphysical dogmas to which they point. No im-
munity or privilege claimed for the subject-matter
of belief can extend to the merely human evidence
adduced in its support ; and as in the last resort the
historical element in Christianity does evidently rest
on human testimony, nothing can be simpler than to
subject this to the usual scientific tests, and accept
with what equanimity we may any results which
they elicit.
But, in truth, the question is not so simple as
those who make use of arguments like these would
have us suppose. ' Historic method ' has its limita-
tions. It is self-sufficient only within an area which
is, indeed, tolerably extensive, but which does not
embrace the universe. For, without taking any very
deep plunge into the philosophy of historical criti-
cism, we may easily perceive that our judgment as
to the truth or falsity of any particular historic state-
ment depends, partly on our estimate of the writer's
trustworthiness, partly on our estimate of his means
of information, partly on our estimate of the intrin-
sic probability of the facts to which he testifies. But
these things are not ' independent variables,' to be
measured separately before their results are balanced
and summed up. On the contrary, it is manifest
that, in many cases, our opinion on the trustworthi-
ness and competence of the witnesses is modified by
cur opinion as to the inherent likelihood of what
320 A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION
they tell us ; and that our opinion as to the inherent
likelihood of what they tell us may depend on
considerations with respect to which no historical
method is able to give us any conclusive informa-
tion. In most cases, no doubt, these questions of
antecedent probability have to be themselves de-
cided solely, or mainly, on historic grounds, and, fail-
ing anything more scientific, by a kind of historic
instinct. But other cases there are, though they be
rare, to whose consideration we must bring larger
principles, drawn from a wider theory of the world ;
and among these should be counted as first, both in
speculative interest and in ethical importance, the
early records of Christianity.
That this has been done, and, from their own
point of view, quite rightly done, by various de-
structive schools of New Testament criticism, every-
one is aware. Starting from a philosophy which for-
bade them to accept much of the substance of the
Gospel narrative, they very properly set to work to
devise a variety of hypotheses which would account
for the fact that the narrative, with all its peculiari-
ties, was nevertheless there. Of these hypotheses
there are many, and some of them have occasioned
an admirable display of erudite ingenuity, fruitful
of instruction from every point of view, and for all
time. But it is a great, though common, error to
describe these learned efforts as examples of the un-
biassed application of historic methods to historic
documents. It would be more correct to say that
A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION 32 1
they are endeavours, by the unstinted employment
of an elaborate critical apparatus, to force the testi-
mony of existing records into conformity with the-
ories on the truth or falsity of which it is for philos-
ophy, not history, to pronounce. What view I take of
the particular philosophy to which these critics make
appeal the reader already knows ; and our immediate
concern is not again to discuss the presuppositions
with which other people have approached the con-
sideration of New Testament history, but to arrive at
some conclusion about our own.
How, then, ought the general theory of things at
which we have arrived to affect our estimate of the
antecedent probability of the Christian views of
Christ? Or, if such a phrase as 'antecedent proba-
bility ' be thought to suggest a much greater nicety
of calculation than is at all possible in a case like
this, in what temper of mind, in what mood of ex-
pectation, ought our provisional philosophy to in-
duce us to consider the extant historic evidence for
the Christian story ? The reply must, I think, de-
pend, as I shall show in a moment, upon the view
we take of the ethical import of Christianity ; while
its ethical import, again, must depend on the degree
to which it ministers to our ethical needs.
322 A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION
IV
Now ethical needs, important though they are,
occupy no great space, as a rule, in the works of
ethical writers. I do not say this by way of criti-
cism ; for I grant that any examination into these
needs would have only an indirect bearing on the
essential subject-matter of ethical philosophy, since
no inquiry into their nature, history, or value would
help either to establish the fundamental principles
of a moral code or to elaborate its details. But,
after all, as I have said before, an assortment of
* categorical imperatives,' however authoritative and
complete, supplies but a meagre outfit wherewith to
meet the storms and stresses of actual experience.
If we are to possess a practical system, which shall
not merely tell men what they ought to do, but
assist them to do it ; still more, if we are to regard
the spiritual quality of the soul as possessing an in-
trinsic value not to be wholly measured by the ex-
ternal actions to which it gives rise, much more
than this will be required. It will not only be
necessary to claim the assistance of those ethical
aspirations and ideals which are not less effectual
for their purpose though nothing corresponding to
them should exist, but it will also be necessary, if
it be possible, to meet those ethical needs which
must work more harm than good unless we can
sustain the belief that there is somewhere to be
A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION 3^3
found a Reality wherein they can find their satis-
faction.
These are facts of moral psychology which, thus
broadly stated, nobody, I think, will be disposed to
dispute, although the widest differences of opinion
may and do prevail as to the character, number, and
relative importance of the ethical needs thus called
into existence by ethical commands. It is, further,
certain, though more difficulty may be felt in ad-
mitting it, that these needs can be satisfied in many
cases but imperfectly, in some cases not at all, with-
out the aid of theology and of theological sanctions.
One commonly recognised ethical need, for exam-
ple, is for harmony between the interests of the in-
dividual and those of the community. In a rude
and limited fashion, and for a very narrow circle of
ethical commands, this is deliberately provided by
the prison and the scaffold, the whole machinery of
the criminal law. It is provided, with less delibera-
tion, but with greater delicacy of adjustment, and
over a wider area of duty, by the operation of pub-
lic opinion. But it can be provided, with any ap-
proach to theoretical perfection, only by a future
life, such as that which is assumed in more than one
system of religious belief.
Now the question is at once suggested by cases
of this kind whether, and, if so, under what limita-
tions, we can argue from the existence of an ethical
need to the reality of the conditions under which
alone it would be satisfied. Can we, for example,
324 A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION
argue from the need for some complete correspond-
ence between virtue and felicity, to the reality of
another world than this, where such a correspond-
ence will be completely effected ? A great ethical
philosopher has, in substance, asserted that we can.
He held that the reality of the Moral Law implied
the reality of a sphere where it could for ever be
obeyed, under conditions satisfactory to the ' Practi-
cal Reason ' ; and it was thus that he found a place
in his system for Freedom, for Immortality, and for
God. The metaphysical machinery, indeed, by which
Kant endeavoured to secure these results is of a kind
which we cannot employ. But we may well ask
whether somewhat similar inferences are not fitting
portions of the provisional philosophy I am endeav-
ouring to recommend ; and, in particular, whether
they do not harmonise with the train of thought we
have been pursuing in the course of this Chapter.
If the reality of scientific and of ethical knowledge
forces us to assume the existence of a rational and
moral Deity, by whose preferential assistance they
have gradually come into existence, must we not
suppose that the Power which has thus produced
in man the knowledge of right and wrong, and
has added to it the faculty of creating ethical ideals,
must have provided some satisfaction for the ethical
needs which the historical development of the spirit-
ual life has gradually called into existence ?
Manifestly the argument in this shape is one
which must be used with caution. To reason purely
A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION 325
a priori from our general notions concerning the
working of Divine Providence to the reality of
particular historic events in time, or to the preva-
lence of particular conditions of existence through
eternity, would imply a knowledge of Divine mat-
ters which we certainly do not possess, and which,
our faculties remaining what they are, a revelation
Irom Heaven could not, I suppose, communicate to
us. My contention, at all events, is of a much
humbler kind. I confine myself to asking whether,
in a universe which, by hypothesis, is under moral
governance, there is not a presumption in favour of
facts or events which minister, if true, to our highest
moral demands? and whether such a presumption,
if it exists, is not sufficient, and more than sufficient,
to neutralise the counter -presumption which has
uncritically governed so much of the criticism di-
rected in recent times against the historic claims
of Christianity ? For my own part, I cannot doubt
that both these questions should be answered in
the affirmative ; and if the reader will consider the
variety of ways by which Christianity is, in fact,
fitted effectually to minister to our ethical needs, I
find it hard to believe that he will arrive at any dif-
ferent conclusion.
326 A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION
I need not say that no complete treatment of
this question is contemplated here. Any adequate
survey of the relation in which Christianity stands
to the moral needs of man would lead us into the
very heart of theology, and would require us to con-
sider topics altogether unsuited to these controver-
sial pages. Yet it may, perhaps, be found possible
to illustrate my meaning without penetrating far
into territories more properly occupied by theo-
logians; while, at the same time, the examples of
which I shall make use may serve to show that,
among the needs ministered to by Christianity,
are some which increase rather than diminish
with the growth of knowledge and the progress
of science ; and that this Religion is therefore
no mere reform, appropriate only to a vanished
epoch in the history of culture and civilisation,
but a development of theism now more necessary
to us than ever.
I am aware, of course, that this may seem in
strange discord with opinions very commonly held.
There are many persons who suppose that, in addi-
tion to any metaphysical or scientific objections to
Christian doctrines, there has arisen a legitimate
feeling of intellectual repulsion to them, directly
due to our more extended perception of the magni-
A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION 327
tude and complexity of the material world. The
discovery of Copernicus, it has been said, is the
death-blow to Christianity: in other words, the
recognition by the human race of the insignificant
part which they and their planet play in the cosmic
drama renders the Incarnation, as it were, intrinsi-
cally incredible. This is not a question of logic, or
science, or history. No criticism of documents, no
haggling over ' natural ' or ' supernatural,* either
creates the difficulty or is able to solve it. For it
arises out of what I may almost call an aesthetic
sense of disproportion. ' What is man, that Thou
art mindful of him ; and the son of man, that Thou
visitest him ? ' is a question charged by science
with a weight of meaning far beyond what it could
have borne for the poet whose lips first uttered
it. And those whose studies bring perpetually to
their remembrance the immensity of this material
world, who know how brief and how utterly im-
perceptible is the impress made by organic life in
general, and by human life in particular, upon the
mighty forces which surround them, find it hard
to believe that on so small an occasion this petty
satellite of no very important sun has been chosen
as the theatre of an event so solitary and so stu-
pendous.
Reflection, indeed, shows that those who thus
argue have manifestly permitted their thoughts
about God to be controlled by a singular theory of
His relations to man and to the world, based on an
328 A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION
unbalanced consideration of the vastness of Nature.
They have conceived Him as moved by the mass of
His own works ; as lost in spaces of His own crea-
tion. Consciously or unconsciously, they have fallen
into the absurdity of supposing that He considers
His creatures, as it were, with the eyes of a con-
tractor or a politician ; that He measures their
value according to their physical or intellectual im-
portance ; and that He sets store by the number
of square miles they inhabit or the foot-pounds of
energy they are capable of developing. In truth,
the inference they should have drawn is of precise-
ly the opposite kind. The very sense of the place
occupied in the material universe by man the in-
telligent animal, creates in man the moral being a
new need for Christianity, which, before science
measured out the heavens for us, can hardly be
said to have existed. Metaphysically speaking, our
opinions on the magnitude and complexity of the
natural world should, indeed, have no bearing on
our conception of God's relation, either to us or
to it. Though we supposed the sun to have been
created some six thousand years ago, and to be
* about the size of the Peloponnesus,' yet the funda-
mental problems concerning time and space, matter
and spirit, God and man, would not on that account
have to be formally restated. But then, we are not
creatures of pure reason ; and those who desire the
assurance of an intimate and effectual relation with
the Divine life, and who look to this for strength
A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION 329
and consolation, find that the progress of scientific
knowledge makes it more and more difficult to ob-
tain it by the aid of any merely speculative theism.
The feeling of trusting dependence which was easy
for the primitive tribes, who regarded themselves
as their God's peculiar charge, and supposed Him
in some special sense to dwell among them, is not
easy for us ; nor does it tend to become easier. We
can no longer share their naive anthropomorphism.
We search out God with eyes grown old in study-
ing Nature, with minds fatigued by centuries of
metaphysic, and imaginations glutted with material
infinities. It is in vain that we describe Him as im-
manent in creation, and refuse to reduce Him to an
abstraction, be it deistic or be it pantheistic. The
overwhelming force and regularity of the great nat-
ural movements dull the sharp impression of an
ever-present Personality deeply concerned in our
spiritual well-being. He is hidden, not revealed, in
the multitude of phenomena, and as our knowledge
of phenomena increases, He retreats out of ail real-
ised connection with us farther and yet farther into
the illimitable unknown.
Then it is that, through the aid of Christian doc-
trine, we are saved from the distorting influences
of our own discoveries. The Incarnation throws
the whole scheme of things, as we are too easily apt
to represent it to ourselves, into a different and far
truer proportion. It abruptly changes the whole
scale on which we might be disposed to measure
330 A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION
the magnitudes of the universe. What we should
otherwise think great, we now perceive to be rela-
tively small. What we should otherwise think
trifling, we now know to be immeasurably impor-
tant. And the change is not only morally needed,
but is philosophically justified. Speculation by it-
self should be sufficient to convince us that, in the
sight of a righteous God, material grandeur and
moral excellencies are incommensurable quantities ;
and that an infinite accumulation of the one cannot
compensate for the smallest diminution of the other.
\^et I know not whether, as a theistic speculation,
this truth could effectually maintain itself against
the brute pressure of external Nature. In the world
looked at by the light of simple theism, the evi-
dences of God's material po\ver lie about us on
every side, daily added to by science, universal,
overwhelming:. The evidences of His moral inter-
est have to be anxiously extracted, grain by grain,
through the speculative analysis of our moral nature.
Mankind, however, are not given to speculative
analysis ; and if it be desirable that they should
be enabled to obtain an imaginative grasp of this
great truth ; if they need to have brought home to
them that, in the sight of God, the stability of the
heavens is of less importance than the moral growth
of a human spirit, I know not how this end could be
more completely attained than by the Christian doc-
trine of the Incarnation.
A somewhat similar train of thought is suggested
A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION 33 1
by the progress of one particular branch of scien.
tific investigation. Mankind can never have been
ignorant of the dependence of mind on body. The
feebleness of infancy, the decay of age, the effects
of sickness, fatigue, and pain, are facts too obvious
and too insistent ever to have passed unnoticed.
But the movement of discovery has prodigiously
emphasised our sense of dependence on matter. We
now know that it is no loose or variable connection
which ties mind to body. There may, indeed, be
neural changes which do not issue in consciousness ;
but there is no consciousness, so far as accepted
observations and experiments can tell us, which is
not associated with neural changes. Looked at,
therefore, from the outside, from the point of view
necessarily adopted by the biologist, the psychic
life seems, as it were, but an intermittent phospho-
rescence accompanying the cerebral changes in
certain highly organised mammals. And science,
through countless channels, with irresistible force
drives home to each one of us the lesson that we are
severally bound over in perpetual servitude to a
body for whose existence and qualities we have no
responsibility whatever.
As the reader is well aware, views like these
will not stand critical examination. Of all creeds,
materialism is the one which, looked at from the
inside — from the point of view of knowledge and
the knowing Self — is least capable of being philo-
sophically defended, or even coherently stated.
332 A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION
Nevertheless, the burden of the body is not, in
practice, to be disposed of by any mere process of
critical analysis. From birth to death, without
pause or respite, it encumbers us on our path. We
can never disentangle ourselves from its meshes,
nor divide with it the responsibility for our joint
performances. Conscience may tell us that we
ought to control it, and that we can. But science,
hinting that, after all, we are but its product and its
plaything, receives ominous support from our ex-
periences of mankind. Philosophy may assure us
that the account of body and mind given by mate-
rialism is neither consistent nor intelligible. Yet
body remains the most fundamental and all-pervad-
ing fact with which mind has got to deal, the one
from which it can least easily shake itself free, the
one that most complacently lends itself to every
theory destructive of high endeavour.
Now, what is wanted here is not abstract specu-
lation or negative dialectic. These, indeed, may
lend us their aid, but they are not very powerful
allies in this particular species of warfare. They
can assure us, with a well-grounded confidence, that
materialism is wrong, but they have (as I think)
nothing satisfactory to put in its place, and cannot
pretend to any theoretic explanation which shall
cover all the facts. What we need, then, is some-
thing that shall appeal to men of flesh and blood,
struggling with the temptations and discourage-
ments which flesh and blood is heir to : confused
A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION 333
and baffled by theories of heredity : sure that the
physiological view represents at least one aspect of
the truth ; not sure how any larger and more con-
soling truth can be welded on to it; yet swayed
towards the materialist side less, it may be, by
materialist reasoning than by the inner confirma-
tion which a humiliating experience gives them of
their own subjection to the body.
What support does the belief in a Deity inef-
fably remote from all human conditions bring to
men thus hesitating whether they are to count
themselves as beasts that perish, or among the Sons
of God ? What bridge can be found to span the
immeasurable gulf which separates Infinite Spirit
from creatures who seem little more than physi-
ological accidents ? What faith is there, other than
the Incarnation, which will enable us to realise that,
however far apart, they are not hopelessly divided ?
The intellectual perplexities which haunt us in
that dim region where mind and matter meet may
not be thus allayed. But they who think with me
that, though it is a hard thing for us to believe that
we are made in the likeness of God, it is yet a very
necessary thing, will not be anxious to deny that an
effectual trust in this great truth, a full satisfaction
of this ethical need, are among the natural fruits of
a Christian theory of the world.
One more topic there is, of the same family as
those with which we have just been dealing, to
which, before concluding, I must briefly direct the
334 A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION
reader's attention. I have alread}- said something
about what is known as the 'problem of evil,' and
the immemorial difficulty which it throws in the way
of a completel}^ coherent theory of the world on a
religious or moral basis. I do not suggest now
that the doctrine of the Incarnation supplies any
philosophic solution of this difficulty. I content
myself with pointing out that the difficulty is much
less oppressive under the Christian than under any
simpler form of Theism ; and that though it may re-
tain undiminished whatever speculative force it pos-
sesses, its moral grip is loosened, and it no longer
parches up the springs of spiritual hope or crushes
moral aspiration.
For where precisely does the difficulty lie ? It
lies in the supposition that an all-powerful Deity
has chosen out of an infinite, or at least an unknown,
number of possibilities to create a world in which
pain is a prominent, and apparently an ineradicable,
element. His action on this view is, so to speak,
gratuitous. He might have done otherwise; He
has done thus. He might have created sentient
beings capable of nothing but happiness ; He has in
fact created them prone to misery, and subject by
their very constitution and circumstances to extreme
possibilities of physical pain and mental affliction.
How can One of Whom this can be said excite our
love? How can He claim our obedience? How
can He be a fitting object of praise, reverence, and
worship? So runs the familiar argument, accepted
A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION 335
by some as a permanent element in their melancholy
philosophy ; wrung from others as a cry of anguish
under the sudden stroke of bitter experience.
This reasoning is in essence an explication of
what is supposed to be involved in the attribute of
Omnipotence ; and the sting of its conclusion lies in
the inferred indifference of God to the sufferings of
His creatures. There are, therefore, two points at
which it may be assailed. We may argue, in the
first place, that in dealing with subjects so far above
our reach, it is in general the height of philosophic
temerity to squeeze out of every predicate the last
significant drop it can apparently be forced to yield ;
or drive all the arguments it suggests to their ex-
treme logical conclusions. And, in particular, it
may be urged that it is erroneous, perhaps even
unmeaning, to say that the universality of Omnip-
otence includes the power to do that which is ir-
rational; and that, without knowing the Whole, we
cannot say of any part whether it is rational or
not.
These are metaphysical considerations which, so
long as they are used critically, and not dogmatically,
negatively, not positively, seem to me to have force.
But there is a second line of attack, on which it is
more my business to insist. I have already pointed
out that ethics cannot permanently flourish side by
side with a creed which represents God as indifferent
to pain and sin ; so that, if our provisional philoso-
phy is to include morality within its circuit (and
336 A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION
what harmony of knowledge would that be which
did not ?), the conclusions which apparently follow
from the co-existence of Omnipotence and of Evil
are not to be accepted. Yet this speculative reply
is, after all, but a fair-weather argument ; too abstract
easily to move mankind at large, too frail for the sup-
port, even of a philosopher, in moments of extrem-
ity. Of what use is it to those who, under the stress
of sorrow, are permitting themselves to doubt the
goodness of God, that such doubts must inevitably
tend to wither virtue at the root ? No such conclu-
sion will frighten them. They have already almost
reached it. Of what worth, they cry, is virtue in a
world where sufferings like theirs fall alike on the
just and on the unjust? For themselves, they know
only that they are solitary and abandoned ; victims
of a Power too strong for them to control, too callous
for them to soften, too far for them to reach, deaf to
supplication, blind to pain. Tell them, with certain
theologians, that their misfortunes are explained and
justified by an hereditary taint ; tell them, with certain
philosophers, that, could they understand the world
in its completeness, their agony would show itself
an element necessary to the harmony of the Whole,
and they will think you are mocking them. What-
ever be the worth of speculations like these, it is not
in the moments when they are most required that
they come effectually to our rescue. What is needed
is such a living faith in God's relation to Man as
shall leave no place for that helpless resentment
A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION 33/
against the appointed Order so apt to rise within us
at the sight of undeserved pain. And this faith is
possessed by those who vividly realise the Christian
form of Theism. For they worship One who is no
remote contriver of a universe to whose ills He is
indifferent. If they suffer, did He not on their
account suffer also ? If suffering falls not always on
the most guilty, was He not innocent ? Shall they
cry aloud that the world is ill-designed for their
convenience, when He for their sakes subjected
Himself to its conditions? It is true that beliefs
like these do not in any narrow sense resolve our
doubts nor provide us with explanations. But they
give us something better than many explanations.
For they minister, or rather the Reality behind them
ministers, to one of our deepest ethical needs : to a
need which, far from showing signs of diminution,
seems to grow with the growth of civilisation, and
to touch us ever more keenly as the hardness of an
earlier time dissolves away.
Here, then, on the threshold of Christian Theol-
ogy, I bring my task to a conclusion. I feel, on
looking back over the completed work, even more
strongly than I felt during its progress, how hard
was the task I have undertaken, and how far beyond
my powers successfully to accomplish. For I have
aimed at nothing less than to show, within a reason-
338 A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION
able compass and in a manner to be understood by
all, how, in face of the complex tendencies which
sway this strange age of ours, we may best draw to-
gether our beliefs into a comprehensive unity which
shall possess at least a relative and provisional sta-
bility. In so bold an attempt I may well have failed.
Yet, whatever be the particular weaknesses and de-
fects which mar the success of my endeavours, three
or four broad principles emerge from the discussion,
the essential importance of which I find it impos-
sible to doubt, whatever errors I may have made
in their application.
1. It seems beyond question that any system
which, with our present knowledge and, it may
be, our existing faculties, we are able to construct
must suffer from obscurities, from defects of proof,
and from incoherences. Narrow it down to bare
science — and no one has seriously proposed to re-
duce it further — you will still find all three, and in
plenty.
2. No unification of belief of the slightest the-
oretical value can take place on a purely scien-
tific basis — on a basis, I mean, of induction from
particular experiences, whether 'external' or * inter-
nal.'
3. No philosophy or theory of knowledge (epis-
temology) can be satisfactory which does not find
room within it for the quite obvious, but not suffi-
ciently considered fact that, so far as empirical
science can tell us anything about the matter, most
A PROVISIONAL UNIFICATION 339
of the proximate causes of belief, and all its ultimate
causes, are non-rational in their character.
4. No unification of beliefs can be practically
adequate which does not include ethical beliefs as
well as scientific ones ; nor which refuses to count
among ethical beliefs, not merely those which have
immediate reference to moral commands, but those
also which make possible moral sentiments, ideals
and aspirations, and which satisfy our ethical needs.
Any system which, when worked out to its legiti-
mate issues, fails to effect this object can afford no
permanent habitation for the spirit of man.
To enforce, illustrate, and apply these principles
has been the main object of the preceding pages.
How far I have succeeded in showing that the least
incomplete unification open to us must include the
fundamental elements of Theology, and of Chris-
tian Theology, I leave it for others to deter-
mine ; repeating only the conviction, more than
once expressed in the body of this Essay, that it is
not explanations which survive, but the things
which are explained ; not theories, but the things
about which we theorise; and that, therefore, no
failure on my part can imperil the great truths, be
they religious, ethical, or scientific, whose interde-
pendence I have endeavoured to establish.
APPENDIX
BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES
It may be useful to add to the preceding argu-
ment on the foundations of belief some observations
on the formal side of their historical development,
which will not only serve, I hope, to make clearer
the general scheme here advocated, but may help to
solve certain difficulties which have sometimes been
felt in the interpretation of theological and ecclesi-
astical history.
Assuming, as we do, that Knowledge exists, we
can hardly do otherwise than make the further as-
sumption that it has grown and must yet further
grow. In what manner, then, has that growth been
accomplished? What are the external signs of its
successive stages, the marks of its gradual evolution ?
One, at least, must strike all who have surveyed,
even with a careless eye, the course of human specu-
lation— I mean the recurring process by which the
explanations or explanatory formulas in terms of
342 BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES
which mankind endeavour to comprehend the uni-
verse are formed, are shattered, and then in some
new shape are formed again. It is not, as we some-
times represent it, by the steady addition of tier to
tier that the fabric of knowledge uprises from its
foundation. It is not by mere accumulation of
material, nor even by a plant-like development, that
our beliefs grow less inadequate to the truths which
they strive to represent. Rather are we like one
who is perpetually engaged in altering some ancient
dwelling in order to satisfy new-born needs. The
ground-plan of it is being perpetually modified. We
build here ; we pull down there. One part is kept
in repair, another part is suffered to decay. And
even those portions of the structure which may in
themselves appear quite unchanged, stand in such
new relations to the rest, and are put to such differ-
ent uses, that they would scarce be recognised by
their original designer.
Yet even this metaphor is inadequate, and per-
haps misleading. We shall more accurately conceive
the true history of knowledge if we represent it under
the similitude of a plastic body whose shape and size
are in constant process of alteration through the
operation both of external and of internal forces. The
internal forces are those of reason. The external
forces correspond to those non-rational causes on
whose importance I have already dwelt. Each of
these agencies may be supposed to act both by way
of destruction and of addition. By their joint oper-
BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES 343
ation new material is deposited at one point, old
material is eroded at another ; and the whole mass,
whose balance has been thus disturbed, is constantly
changing its configuration and settling towards a
new position of equilibrium, which it may approach,
but can never quite attain.
We must not, however, regard this body of be-
liefs as being equally mobile in all its parts. Certain
elements in it have the power of conferring on the
whole something in the nature of a definite struct-
ure. These are known as ' theories,' ' hypotheses,'
' generalisations,' and ' explanatory formulas ' in gen-
eral. They represent beliefs by which other beliefs
are co-ordinated. They supply the framework in
which the rest of knowledge is arranged. Their
right construction is the noblest work of reason ; and
without their aid reason, if it could be exercised at
all, would itself be driven from particular to particu-
lar in helpless bewilderment.
Now the action and reaction between these for-
mulas and their contents is the most salient, and in
some respects the most interesting, fact in the his-
tory of thought. Called into being, for the most part,
to justify, or at least to organise, pre-existing beliefs,
they can seldom perform their office without modi-
fying part, at least, of their material. While they
give precision to what would otherwise be indeter-
minate, and a relative permanence to what would oth-
erwise be in a state of flux, they do so at the cost of
some occasional violence to the beliefs with which
344 BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES
they deal. Some of these are distorted to make
them fit into their predestined niches. Others, more
refractory, are destroyed or ignored. Even in sci-
ence, where the beliefs that have to be accounted for
have often a native vigour born of the imperious
needs of sense-perception, we are sometimes dis-
posed to see, not so much what is visible, as what
theory informs us ought to be seen. While in the
region of aesthetic (to take another example), where
belief is of feebler growth, the inclination to admire
what squares with some current theory of the beau-
tiful, rather than with what appeals to any real feel-
ing for beauty, is so common that it has ceased even
to amuse.
But this reaction of formulas on the beliefs which
they co-ordinate or explain is but the first stage in
the process we are describing. The next is the
change, perhaps even the destruction, of the for-
mula itself by the victorious forces that it has pre-
viously held in check. The plastic body of belief,
or some portion of it, under the growing stress of
external and internal influences, breaks through, it
may be with destructive violence, the barriers by
which it was at one time controlled. A new theory
has to be formed, a new arrangement of knowl-
edge has to be accepted, and under changed con-
ditions the same cycle of not unfruitful changes
begins again.
I do not know that any illustration of this famil-
iar process is required, for in truth such examples
BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES 345
are abundant in every department of Knowledge.
As chalk consists of little else but the remains of
dead animalculse, so the history of thought consists
of little else but an accumulation of abandoned ex-
planations. In that vast cemetery every thrust of the
shovel turns up some bone that once formed part of
a living theory ; and the biography of most of these
theories would, I think, confirm the general account
which I have given of their birth, maturity, and
decay.
II
Now we may well suppose that under existing
circumstances death is as necessary in the intellect-
ual world as it is in the organic. It may not always
result in progress, but without it, doubtless, prog-
ress would be impossible ; and if, therefore, the
constant substitution of one explanation for another
could be effected smoothly, and as it were in silence,
without disturbing anything beyond the explana-
tions themselves, it need cause in general neither
anxiety nor regret. But, unfortunately, in the case
of Theology, this is not always the way things hap-
pen. There, as elsewhere, theories arise, have their
day, and fall ; but there, far more than elsewhere, do
these theories in their fall endanger other interests
than their own. More than one reason may be given
for this difference. To begin with, in Science the
beliefs of sense-perception, which, as I have implied,
346 BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES
are commonly vigorous enough to resist the warp-
ing effect of theory, even when the latter is in its
full strength, are not imperilled by its decay. They
provide a solid nucleus of unalterable conviction,
which survives uninjured through all the mutations
of intellectual fashion. We do not require the as-
sistance of hypotheses to sustain our faith in what
we see and hear. Speaking broadly, that faith is
unalterable and self-sufficient.
Theology is less happily situated. There it often
happens that when a theory decays, the beliefs to
which it refers are infected by a contagious weak-
ness. The explanation and the thing explained are
mutually dependent. They are animated as it were
with a common life, and there is always a danger
lest they should be overtaken by a common de-
struction.
Consider this difference between Science and
Theology in the light of the following illustration.
The whole instructed world were quite recently
agreed that heat was a form of matter. With equal
unanimity they now hold that it is a mode of motion.
These opinions are not only absolutely inconsistent,
but the change from one to the other is revolution-
ary, and involves the profoundest modification of
our general views of the material world. Yet no
one's confidence in the existence of some quality in
things by which his sensations of warmth are pro-
duced is thereby disturbed ; and we may hold either
of these theories, or both of them in turn, or no
BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES 347
theory at all, without endangering the stability of
our scientific faith.
Compare with this example drawn from physics
one of a very different kind drawn from theology.
If there be a spiritual experience to which the his-
tory of religion bears witness, it is that of Recon-
ciliation with God. If there be an ' objective ' cause
to which the feeling is confidently referred, it is to
be found in the central facts of the Christian story.
Now, incommensurable as the subject is with that
touched on in the last paragraph, they resemble
each other at least in this — that both have been the
theme of much speculation, and that the accounts
of them which have satisfied one generation, to an-
other have seemed profitless and empty. But there
the likeness ends. In the physical case, the feeling
of heat and the inward assurance that it is really
connected with some quality in the external body
from which we suppose ourselves to derive it, sur-
vive every changing speculation as to the nature of
that quality and the mode of its operation. In the
spiritual case, the sense of Reconciliation connected
by the Christian conscience with the life and death
of Christ seems in many cases to be bound up with
the explanations of the mystery which from time to
time have been hazarded by theological theorists.
And as these explanations have fallen out of favour,
the truth to be explained has too often been aban-
doned also.
This is not the place to press the subject further:
348 BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES
and I have neither the right in these Notes to as-
sume the truth of particular theological doctrines,
nor is it my business to attempt to prove them. But
this much more I may perhaps be allowed to say by
way of parenthesis. If the point of view which this
Essay is intended to recommend be accepted, the
precedent set, in the first of the above examples, by
science is the one which ought to be followed by
theology. No doubt, when a belief is only accepted
as the conclusion of some definite inferential process,
with that process it must stand or fall. If, for in-
stance, we believe that there is hydrogen in the sun,
solely because that conclusion is forced upon us by
certain arguments based upon spectroscopic obser-
vations, then, if these arguments should ever be dis-
credited, the belief in solar hydrogen would, as a
necessary consequence, be shaken or destroyed.
But in cases where the belief is rather the occasion
of an hypothesis than a conclusion from it, the de-
struction of the hypothesis may be a reason for de-
vising a new one, but is certainlj^ no reason for aban-
doning the belief. Nor in science do we ever take
any other view. We do not, for example, step over
a precipice because we are dissatisfied with all the
attempts to account for gravitation. In theology,
however, experience does sometimes lean too tim_
idly on theory, and when in the course of time
theory decays, it drags down experience in its
fall. How many persons are there who, because
they dislike the theories of Atonement propounded.
BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES 349
say, by Anselm, or by Grotius, or the versions of
these which have imbedded themselves in the de-
votional literature of Western Europe, feel bound
* in reason ' to give up the doctrine itself? Because
they cannot compress within the rigid limits of
some semi-legal formula a mystery which, unless it
were too vast for our full intellectual comprehen-
sion, would surely be too narrow for our spiritual
needs, the mystery itself is to be rejected ! Because
they cannot contrive to their satisfaction a system
of theological jurisprudence which shall include Re-
demption as a leading case, Redemption is no longer
to be counted among the consolations of mankind !
in
There is, however, another reason beyond the
natural strength of the judgments due to sense-per-
ception which tends to make the change or abandon-
ment of explanatory formulas a smoother operation
in science than it is in theology ; and this reason is
to be found in the fact that Religion works, and, to
produce its full results, must needs work, through
the agency of organised societies. It has, therefore,
a social side, and from this its speculative side
cannot, I believe, be kept wholly distinct. For al-
though feeling is the effectual bond of all societies,
these feelings themselves, it would seem, cannot be
properly developed without the aid of something
which is, or which does duty as, a reason. They
350 BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES
require some alien material on which, so to speak,
they may be precipitated ; round which they may
crystallise and coalesce. In the case of political
societies this reason is founded on identity of race,
of language, of country, or even of mere material
interest. But when the religious society and the
political are not, as in primitive times, based on a
common ground, the desired reason can scarcely
be looked for elsewhere, and, in fact, never is
looked for elsewhere, than in the acceptance of com-
mon religious formulas. Whence it comes about
that these formulas have to fulfil two functions
which are not merely distinct but incomparable.
They are both a statement of theological conclu-
sions and the symbols of a corporate unity. They
represent at once the endeavour to sj^stematise re-
ligious truth and to organise religious associations ;
and they are therefore subject to two kinds of
influence, and involve two kinds of obligation,
which, though seldom distinguished, are never
identical, and may sometimes even be opposed.
The distinction is a simple one ; but the refusal
to recognise it has been prolific in embarrassments,
both for those who have assumed the duty of con-
triving symbols, and for those on whom has fallen
the burden of interpreting them. The rage for de-
fining ^ which seized so large a portion of Christen-
dom, both Roman and non-Roman, during the Ref-
ormation troubles, and the fixed determination to
' Cf. Note on page 369.
BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES 35 1
turn the definitions, when made, into impassable
barriers between hostile ecclesiastical divisions, are
among the most obvious, but not, I think, among
the most satisfactory, facts in modern religious his-
tory. To the definitions taken simply as well-in-
tentioned efforts to make clear that which was ob-
scure, and sj^stematic that which was confused, I
raise no objections. Of the practical necessity for
some formal basis of Christian co-operation I am, as
I have said, most firmly convinced. But not every
formula which represents even the best theological
opinion of its age is therefore fitted to unite men
for all time in the furtherance of common religious
objects, or in the support of common religious in-
stitutions ; and the error committed in this con-
nection by the divines of the Reformation, and the
counter-Reformation, largely consisted in the mista-
ken supposition that symbols and decrees, in whose
very elaboration could be read the sure prophecy
of decay, were capable of providing a convenient
framework for a perpetual organisation.
It is, however, beyond the scope of these Notes
to discuss the dangers which the inevitable use of
theological formulas as the groundwork of ecclesi-
astical co-operation may have upon Christian unity,
important and interesting as the subject is. I am
properly concerned solely with the other side of
the same shield, namely, the dangers with which
this inevitable combination of theory and practice
may threaten the smooth development of religious
352 BELIEFS, FORMULx\S, AND REALITIES
beliefs — dangers which do not follow in the parallel
case of science, where no such combination is to be
found. The doctrines of science have not got to be
discussed amid the confusion and clamour of the
market-place ; they stir neither hate nor love ; the
fortunes of no living polity are bound up with them ;
nor is there any danger lest they become petrified
into party watchwords. Theology is differently
situated. There the explanatory formula may be
so historically intertwined with the sentiments and
traditions of the ecclesiastical organisation ; the
heat and pressure of ancient conflicts may have so
welded them together, that to modify one and leave
the other untouched seems well-nigh impossible.
Yet even in such cases it is interesting to note how
unexpectedly the most difficult adjustments are
sometimes effected ; how, partly by the conscious,
and still more by the unconscious, wisdom of man-
kind ; by a little kindly forgetfulness ; by a few
happy inconsistencies ; by methods which might
not always bear the scrutiny of the logician, though
they may well be condoned by the philosopher, the
changes required by the general movement of belief
are made with less friction and at a smaller cost —
even to the enlightened — than might, perhaps, ante-
cedently have been imagined.
BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES 353
IV
The road which theological thought is thus
compelled to travel would, however, be rougher
even than it is were it not for the fact that large
changes and adaptations of belief are possible within
the limits of the same unchanging formulas. This
is a fact to which it has not been necessary hitherto
to call the reader's attention. It has been more
convenient, and so far not, I think, misleading, to
follow familiar usage, and to assume that identity
of statement involves identity of belief ; that when
persons make the same assertions intelligently and
in good faith they mean the same thing. But
this on closer examination is seen not to be the
case. In all branches of knowledge abundant ex-
amples are to be discovered of statements which
do not fall into the cycle of change described in
the last section, which no lapse of time nor
growth of learning would apparently require us
to revise. But in every case it will, I think, be
found that, with the doubtful exception of purely
abstract propositions, these statements, themselves
unmoved, represent a moving body of belief, vary-
ing from one period of life to another, from in-
dividual to individual, and from generation to gen-
eration.
Take an instance at random. I suppose that
the world, so long as it thinks it worth while to
354 BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES
have an opinion at all upon the subject, will con-
tinue to accept without amendment the assertion that
Julius Cassar was murdered at Rome in the first
century B.C. But are we, therefore, to suppose
that this proposition must mean the same thing
in the mouths of all who use it? Surely not.
Even if we refuse to take account of the associated
sentiments which give a different colour in each
man's eyes to the same intellectual judgment, we
cannot ignore the varying positions which the
judgment itself may hold in different systems of
belief. It is manifestly absurd to say that a state-
ment about the mode and time of Caesar's death
has the same significance for the schoolboy who
learns it as a line in a memoria iechnica, and the his-
torian (if such there be) to whom it represents a
turning-point in the history of the world. Nor is it
possible to deny that any alteration in our views on
the nature of Death, or on the nature of Man, must
necessarily alter the import of a proposition which
asserts of a particular man that he suffered a par-
ticular kind of death.
This may perhaps seem to be an unprofitable
subtlety ; and so, to be sure, in this particular case,
it is. But a similar reflection is of obvious impor-
tance when we come to consider, for example, such
propositions as ' there is a God,' or ' there is a world
of material things.' Both these statements might
be, and are, accepted by the rudest savage and by
BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES 355
the most advanced philosopher. They may, so far
as we can tell, continue to be accepted by men in all
stages of culture till the last inhabitant of a perishing
world is frozen into unconsciousness. Yet plainly
the savage and the philosopher use these words in
very different meanings. From the tribal deity of
early times to the Christian God, or, if you prefer it,
the Hegelian Absolute ; from Matter as conceived
by primitive man to Matter as it is conceived by the
modern physicist, how vast the interval ! The for-
mulas are the same, the beliefs are plainly not the
same. Nay, so wide are they apart, that while to
those who hold the earlier view the later would be
quite meaningless, it may require the highest effort
of sympathetic imagination for those whose minds
are steeped in the later view to reconstruct, even
imperfectly, the substance of the earlier. The civil-
ised man cannot fully understand the savage, nor
the grown man the child.
Now a question of some interest is suggested
by this reflection. Can we, in the face of the
wide divergence of meaning frequently conveyed
by the same formula at different times, assert
that what endures in such cases is anything more
than a mere husk or shell? Is it more than the
mould into which any metal, base or precious, may
be poured at will? Does identity of expression
356 BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES
imply anything which deserves to be described as
community of belief? Are we here dealing with
things, or only with words?
In order to answer this question we must have
some idea, in the first place, of the relation of Lan-
guage to Belief, and, in the second place, of the re-
lation of Belief to Reality. That the relation be-
tween the first of these pairs is of no very precise
or definite kind I have already indicated. And the
fact is so obvious that it would hardly be worth
while to insist on it were it not that Formal Logic
and conventional usage both proceed on exactly the
opposite supposition. They assume a constant rela-
tion between the symbol and the thing symbolised ;
and they consider that so long as a word is used (as
the phrase is) ' in the same sense,' it corresponds, or
ought to correspond, to the same thought. But this
is an artificial simplification of the facts ; an hy-
pothesis, most useful for certain purposes, but one
which seldom or never corresponds with concrete
reality. If in the sweat of our brow we can
secure that inevitable differences of meaning do
not vitiate the particular argument in hand, we
have done all that logic requires, and all that lies
in us to accomplish. Not only would more be
impossible, but more would most certainly be un-
desirable. Incessant variation in the uses to which
we put the same expression is absolutely necessary
if the complexity of the Universe is, even in the
BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES 357
most imperfect fashion, to find a response in thought.
If terms were counters, each purporting always to
represent the whole of one unalterable aspect of
reality, language would become, not the servant of
thought, nor even its ally, but its tyrant. The wealth
of our ideas would be limited by the poverty of our
vocabulary. Science could not flourish, nor Litera-
ture exist. All play of mind, all variety, all devel-
opment would perish ; and mankind would spend its
energies, not in using words, but in endeavouring to
define them.
It was this logical nightmare which oppressed
the intellect of the Middle Ages. The schoolmen
have been attacked for not occupying themselves
with experimental observation, which, after all, was
no particular business of theirs ; for indulging in
excessive subtleties — surely no great crime in a
metaphysician; and for endeavouring to combine
the philosophy and the theology of their day into a
coherent whole — an attempt which seems to me to
be entirely praiseworthy. A better reason for their
not having accomplished the full promise of their
genius is to be found in the assumption which lies
at the root of their interminable deductions, namely,
that language is, or can be made, what logic by a
convenient convention supposes it to be, and that if
it were so made, it would be an instrument better
fitted on that account to deal with the infinite vari-
ety of the actual world.
358 BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES
VI
If language, from the very nature of the case,
hangs thus loosely to the belief which it endeavours
to express, how closely does the belief fit to the
reality with which it is intended to correspond ? To
hear some persons talk one would really suppose
that the enlightened portion of mankind, i.e. those
who happen to agree with them, were blessed with
a precise knowledge respecting large tracts of the
Universe. They are ready on small provocation to
embody their beliefs, whether scientific or theologi-
cal, in a series of dogmatic statements which, as
they will tell you, accurately express their own ac-
curate opinions, and between which and any differing
statements on the same subject is fixed that great
gulf which divides for ever the realms of Truth
from those of Error. Now I would venture to warn
the reader against paying any undue meed of rever-
ence to the axiom on which this view essentially de-
pends, the axiom, I mean, that ' every belief must be
either true or not true.' It is, of course, indisputable.
But it is also unimportant ; and it is unimportant for
this reason, that if we insist on assigning every be-
lief to one or other of these two mutually exclusive
classes, it will be found that most, if not all, the posi-
tive beliefs which deal with concrete reality — the
very beliefs, in short, about which a reasonable man
may be expected principally to interest himself —
BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES 359
would in strictness have to be classed among the
* not true.* I do not say, be it observed, that all
propositions about the concrete world must needs
be erroneous ; for, as we have seen, every proposi-
tion provides the fitting verbal expression for many
different beliefs, and of these it may be that one ex-
presses the full truth. My contention merely is, that
inasmuch as any fragmentary presentation of a con-
crete whole must, because it is fragmentary, be
therefore erroneous, the full complexity of any true
belief about reality will necessarily transcend the
comprehension of any finite intelligence. We know
only in part, and we therefore know wrongly.
But it may perhaps be said that observations like
these involve a confusion between the ' not true '
and the ' incomplete.' A belief, as the phrase is,
may be ' true so far as it goes,' even though it does
not go far enough. It may contain the truth and
nothing but the truth, but not the whole truth. Why
should it under such circumstances receive so severe
a condemnation ? Why is it to be branded, not only
as inadequate, but as erroneous? To this I reply
that the division of beliefs into the True, the Incom-
plete, and the Wholly False may be, and for many
purposes is, a very convenient one. But in the first
place it is not philosophically accurate, since that
which is incomplete is touched throughout with
some element of falsity. And in the second place it
does not happen to be the division on which we are
engaged. We are dealing with the logical contra-
360 BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES
dictories ' True ' and ' Not True.' And what makes
it worth while dealing with them is, that the partic-
ular classification of beliefs which they suggest lies
at the root of much needless controversy in all
branches of knowledge, and not least in theology ;
and that everywhere it has produced some confusion
of thought and, it may be, some defect of charity.
It is not in human nature that those who start from
the assumption that all opinions are either true or
not true, should do otherwise than take for granted
that their own particular opinions belong to the
former category ; and that therefore all inconsistent
opinions held by other people must belong to the
latter. Now this, in the current affairs of life, and
in the ordinary commerce between man and man, is
not merely a pardonable but a necessary way of look-
ing at things. But it is foolish and even dangerous
when we are engaged on the deeper problems of
science, metaphysics, or theology ; when we are
endeavouring in solitude to take stock of our posi-
tion in the presence of the Infinite. However pro-
found may be our ignorance of our ignorance, at
least we should realise that to describe (when using
language strictly) any scheme of belief as wholly
false which has even imperfectly met the needs of
mankind, is the height of arrogance ; and that to
claim for any beliefs which we happen to approve
that they are wholly true, is the height of absurdity.
Somewhat more, be it observed, is thus required
of us than a bare confession of ignorance. The
BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES 36 1
least modest of men would admit without difficulty
that there are a great many things which he does
not understand ; but the most modest may perhaps
be willing to suppose that there are some things
which he does. Yet outside the relations of abstract
propositions (about which I say nothing) this cannot
be admitted. Nowhere else — neither in our know-
ledge of ourselves, nor in our knowledge of each
other, nor in our knowledge of the material world,
nor in our knowledge of God, is there any belief
which is more than an approximation, any method
which is free from flaw, any result not tainted with
error. The simplest intuitions and the remotest
speculations fall under the same condemnation.
And though the fact is apt to be hidden from us
by the unyielding definitions with which alike in
science and theology it is our practice to register
attained results, it would, as we have seen, be a
serious mistake to suppose that any complete corre-
spondence between Belief and Reality was secured
by the linguistic precision and the logical impecca-
bility of the propositions by which beliefs themselves
are communicated and recorded.
To some persons this train of reflection suggests
nothing but sceptical misgiving and intellectual
despair. To me it seems, on the other hand, to save
us from both. What kind of a Universe would that
be which we could understand? If it were intel-
ligible (by us), would it be credible ? If our reason
could comprehend it, would it not be too narrow
362 BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES
for our needs ? * I believe because it is impossible *
may be a pious paradox. ' I disbelieve because it is
simple ' commends itself to me as an axiom. An
axiom doubtless to be used with discretion : an
axiom which may easily be perverted in the inter-
ests of idleness and superstition ; an axiom, never-
theless, which contains a valuable truth not always
remembered by those who make especial profession
of worldly wisdom.
VII
However this may be, the opinions here advo--
Gated may help us to solve certain difficulties oc-
casionally suggested by current methods of dealing
with the relation between Formulas and Beliefs. It
has not always, for instance, been found easy to
reconcile the immutability claimed for theological
doctrines with the movement observed in theologi-
cal ideas. Neither of them can readily be aban-
doned. The conviction that there are Christian
verities which, once secured for the human race,
cannot by any lapse of time be rendered obsolete
is one which no Church would willingly abandon.
Yet the fact that theological thought follows the
laws which govern the evolution of all other thought,
that it changes from age to age, largely as regards
the relative emphasis given to its various elements,
not inconsiderably as regards the substance of those
elements themselves, is a fact written legibly across
BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES 363
the pages of ecclesiastical history. How is this
apparent contradiction to be accommodated ?
Consider another difficulty — one quite of a dif-
ferent kind. The common sense of mankind has
been shocked at the value occasionally attributed
to uniformity of theological profession, when it is
perhaps obvious from many of the circumstances of
the case that this carries with it no security for uni-
formity of inward conviction. There is an unreal-
ity, or at least an externality about such professions
which, to those who think (rightly enough) that
religion, if it is to be of any value, must come from
the heart, is apt not unnaturally to be repulsive.
Yet, on the other hand, it is but a shallow form of
historical criticism which shall attribute this desire
for conformity either to mere impatience of ex-
pressed differences of opinion (no doubt a powerful
and widely distributed motive), or to the perversi-
ties of Priestcraft. What, then, is the view which
we ought to take of it ? Is it good or bad ? and, if
good, what purpose does it serve ?
Now these questions may be answered, I think,
at least in part, if we keep in mind two distinc-
tions on which in this and the preceding chapter
I have ventured to insist — the distinctions, I mean,
m the first place^ between the function of formu-
las as the systematic expression of religious doc-
trine, and their function as the basis of religious co-
operation ; and the distinction, iji the second place^
between the accuracy of any formula and the real
364 BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES
truth of the various beliefs which it is capable of
expressing.
Uniformity of profession, for example, to take the
last difficulty first, can be regarded as unimportant
only by those who forget that, while there is no
necessary connection whatever between the causes
which conduce to successful co-operation and those
which conduce to the attainment of speculative
truth, of these two objects the first may, under
certain circumstances, be much more important than
the second. A Church is something more than a
body of more or less qualified persons engaged more
or less successfully in the study of theology. It
requires a very different equipment from that which
is sufficient for a learned society. Something more
is asked of it than independent research. It is an
organisation charged with a great practical work.
For the successful promotion of this work unity, dis-
cipline, and self-devotion are the principal requisites ;
and, as in the case of every other such organisation,
the most powerful source of these qualities is to be
found in the feelings aroused by common memories,
common hopes, common loyalties ; by professions
in which all agree ; by a ceremonial which all share ;
by customs and commands which all obey. He,
therefore, who would wish to expel such influences
either from Church or State, on the ground that
they may alter (as alter they most certainly will) the
opinions which, in their absence, the members of
the community, left to follow at will their own spec-
BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES 365
ulative devices, would otherwise form, may know
something of science or philosophy, but assuredly
knows little of human nature.
But it will perhaps be said that co-operation, if
it is only to be had on these terms, may easily be
bought too dear. So, indeed, it may. The history
of the Church is unhappily there to prove the fact.
But as this is true of religious organisations, so also
is it true of every other organisation — national, po-
litical, military, what you will — by which the work
of the world is rendered possible. There are cir-
cumstances which may make schism justifiable, as
there are circumstances which make treason justifi-
able, or mutiny justifiable. But without going into
the ethics of revolt, without endeavouring to de-
termine the exact degree of error, oppression, or
crime on the part of those who stay within the
organisation which may render innocent or neces-
sary the secession of those who leave it, we may rest
assured that something very different is, or ought to
be> involved in the acceptance or rejection of com-
mon formulas than an announcement to the world
of a purely speculative agreement respecting the
niceties of doctrinal statement.
This view may perhaps be more readily accepted
when it is realised that, as I have pointed out, no
agreement about theological or any other doctrine
insures, or, indeed, is capable of producing, same-
ness of belief. We are no more able to believe what
other people believe than to feel what other people
366 BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES
feel. Two friends read together the same descrip-
tion of a landscape. Does anyone suppose that it
stirs within them precisely the same quality of sen-
timent, or evokes precisely the same subtle associa-
tions ? And yet, if this be impossible, as it surely
is, even in the case of friends attuned, so far as may
be, to the same emotional key, how hopeless must
it be in the case of an artist and a rustic, an Ancient
and a Modern, an Andaman islander and a European !
But if no representation of the splendours of Nature
can produce in us any perfect identity of admiration,
why expect the definitions of theology or science to
produce in us any perfect identity of belief? It may
not be. This uniformity of conviction which so
many have striven to attain for themselves, and to
impose upon their fellows, is an unsubstantial phan-
tasm, born of a confusion between language and the
thought which language so imperfectly expresses.
In this world, at least, we are doomed to differ even
in the cases where we most agree.
There is, however, consolation to be drawn from
the converse statement, which is, I hope, not less true.
If there are differences where we most agree, surely
also there are agreements where we most differ. I
like to think of the human race, from whatever
stock its members may have sprung, in whatever
age they may be born, whatever creed they may
profess, together in the presence of the One Reality,
engaged, not wholly in vain, in spelling out some
fragments of its message. All share its being ; to
BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES 367
none are its oracles wholly dumb. And if both in
the natural world and in the spiritual the advance-
ment we have made on our forefathers be so great
that our interpretation seems indefinitely removed
from that which primitive man could alone compre-
hend, and wherewith he had to be content, it may
be, indeed I think it is, the case that our approxi-
mate guesses are still closer to his than they are to
their common Object, and that far as we seem to
have travelled, yet, measured on the celestial scale,
our intellectual progress is scarcely to be discerned,
so minute is the parallax of Infinite Truth.
These observations, however, seem only to ren-
der more distant any satisfactory solution of the
first of the difficulties propounded above. If knowl-
edge must, at the best, be so imperfect ; if agree-
ment, real inner agreement, about the object of
knowledge can thus never be complete ; and if, in
addition to this, the history of religious thought is,
like all other history, one of change and develop-
ment, where and what are those immutable doc-
trines which, in the opinion of most theologians,
ought to be handed on, a sacred trust, from genera-
tion to generation? The answer to this question is,
I think, suggested by the parallel cases of science
and ethics. For all these things may be said of
them as well as of theology, and they also are the
trustees of statements which ought to be preserved
unchanged through all revolutions in scientific and
ethical theory. Of these statements I do not pre*
368 BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES
tend to give either a list or a definition. But with-
out saying what they are, it is at least permissible,
after the discussion in the last chapter, to say what,
as a rule, they are not. They are not Explanatory.
Rare indeed is it to find explanations of the concrete
which, if they endure at all, do not require perpetual
patching to keep them in repair. Not among these,
but among the statements of things explained, of
things that want explanation, yes, and of things that
are inexplicable, we must search for the proposi-
tions about the real world capable of ministering
unchanged for indefinite periods to the uses of Man-
kind. Such propositions may record a particular
'fact,' as that 'Caesar is dead.' They may embody
an ethical imperative, as that ' Stealing is wrong.'
They may convey some great principle, as that the
order of Nature is uniform, or that ' God exists.*
All these statements, even if accurate (as I assume,
for the sake of argument, that they are), will, no
doubt, as I have said, have a different import for
different persons and for different ages. But this is
not only consistent with their value as vehicles for
the transmission of truth — it is essential to it. If
their meaning could be exhausted by one genera-
tion, they would be false for the next. It is because
they can be charged with a richer and richer con-
tent as our knowledge slowly grows to a fuller har-
mony with the Infinite Reality, that they may be
counted among the most precious of our inalienable
possessions.
BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES 369
NOTE
The permanent value which the results of the great
ecclesiastical controversies of the first four centuries have
had for Christendom, as compared with that possessed by
the more transitory speculations of later ages, illustrates,
I think, the suggestion contained in the text. For what-
ever opinion the reader may entertain of the decisions at
which the Church arrived on the doctrine of the Trinity,
it is at least clear that they were not in the nature of ex-
planations. They were, in fact, precisely the reverse.
They were the negation of explanations. The various
heresies which it combated were, broadly speaking, all
endeavours to bring the mystery as far as possible into
harmony with contemporary speculations. Gnostic, Neo-
platonic, or Rationalising, to relieve it from this or that
difficulty : in short, to do something towards * explaining '
it. The Church held that all such explanations or partial
explanations inflicted irremediable impoverishment on the
idea of the Godhead which was essentially involved in the
Christian revelation. They insisted on preserving that
idea in all its inexplicable fulness ; and so it has come
about that while such simplifications as those of the
Arians, for example, are so alien and impossible to modern
modes of thought that if they had been incorporated with
Christianity they must have destroyed it, the doctrine
of Christ's Divinity still gives reality and life to the wor-
ship of millions of pious souls, who are wholly ignorant
both of the controversy to which they owe its preser-
370 BELIEFS, FORMULAS, AND REALITIES
vation, and of the technicalities which its discussion has
involved.^
1 [On this unoffending note Principal Fairbairn, writing as an
expert theologian, has passed some severe comments (see * Cathol-
icism, Roman and Anglican,' p. 356 et seq.). He seems to think
the terms used in the definitions of Nicea and Chalcedon must, be-
cause they are technical, be therefore ' of the nature of explana-
tions.' I cannot agree. I think they were used, not to explain the
mystery they were designed to express, but to show with unmis-
takable precision wherein the rival formula, which was so much
more in harmony with the ordinary philosophic thought of the day,
fell short of what was required by the Christian consciousness.]
371
SUMMARY
1. All men who reflect at all, interpret theirex-
periences in the light of certain broad theories and
preconceptions as to the world in which they live.
These theories and preconceptions need not be ex-
plicitly formulated, nor are they usually, if ever,
thoroughly self-consistent. They do not remain un-
changed from age to age ; they are never precisely
identical in two individuals. Speaking, however, of
the present age and of the general body of educated
opinion, they may be said to fall roughly into two
categories — which we may call respectively the
Spiritualistic and the Naturalistic. In the Natural-
istic class are included by common usage Positivism,
Agnosticism, Materialism, &c., though not always
with the good will of those who make profession of
these doctrines (pp. i-8).
2. In estimating the value of any of these theories
we have to take into account something more than
their * evidence ' in the narrow meaning often given
to that term. Their bearing upon the most important
forms of human activity and emotion deserves also
to be considered. For, as I proceed to show, there
3/2 SUMMARY
may, in addition to the merely logical incongruities
in which the essence of inconsistency is commonly
thought to reside, be also incongruities between
theory and practice, or theory and feeling, producing
inconsistencies of a different, but, it may be, not less
formidable description.
3. In the first chapter (pp. 11-32) I have endeav-
oured to analyse some of these incongruities as they
manifest themselves in the collision between Natural-
ism and Ethical emotions. That there are emotions
proper to Ethics is admitted on all hands (p. 11). It
is not denied, for instance, that a feeling of reverence
for what is right — for what is prescribed by the
moral law — is a necessary element in any sane and
healthy view of things : while it becomes evident on
reflection that this feeling cannot be independent of
the origin from which that moral law is supposed to
flow, and the place which it is thought to occupy in
the Universe of things (p. 13).
4. Now on the Naturalistic theory, the place it
occupies is insignificant (p. 14), and its origin is quite
indistinguishable from that of any other contrivance
by which Nature provides for the survival of the
race. Courage and self-devotion are factors in
evolution which came later into the field than e.g.
greediness or lust: and they require therefore the
special protection and encouragement supplied by
fine sentiments. These fine sentiments, however,
are merely a device comparable to other devices,
SUMMARY 373
often disgusting or trivial, produced in the interests
of race-preservation by Natural Selection ; and when
we are under their sway we are being cheated by
Nature for our good — or rather for the good of the
species to which we belong (pp. 14-19).
5. The feeling of freedom is, on the Naturalist
theory, another beneficent illusion of the same kind.
If Naturalism be true, it is certain that we are not
free. If we are not free, it is certain that we are not
responsible. If we are not responsible, it is certain
that we are exhibiting a quite irrational emotion
when we either repent our own misdoings or rever-
ence the virtues of other people (pp. 20-26).
6. There is yet a third kind of disharmony be-
tween the emotions permitted by Naturalism and
those proper to Ethics — the emotions, namely, which
relate to the consequences of action. We instinctively
ask for some adjustment between the distribution of
happiness and the distribution of virtue, and for an
ethical end adequate to our highest aspirations. The
first of these can only be given if we assume a future
life, an assumption evidently unwarranted by Natu-
ralism (pp. 26-28) ; the second is rendered impossible
by the relative insignificance of man and all his
doings, as measured on the scale supplied by modern
science. The brief fortunes of our race occupy but
a fragment of the range in time and space which is
open to our investigations ; and if it is only in rela-
tion to them that morality has a meaning, our prac-
374 SUMMARY
tical ideal must inevitably be petty, compared with
the sweep of our intellectual vision (pp. 28-32).
7. With Chapter II. (p. 33) we turn from Ethics
to Esthetics ; and discuss the relation which Natu-
ralism bears to the emotions aroused in us by Peauty.
A comparatively large space (pp. 35-61) is devoted
to an investigation into the * natural history ' of taste.
This is not only (in the author's opinion) intrinsically
interesting, but it is a desirable preliminary to the
contention (pp. 61-65) that (on the Naturalist view
of things) Beauty represents no permanent quality
or relation in the world as revealed to us by Science.
This becomes evident when we reflect (a) that could
we perceive things as the I^hysicist tells us they are,
we might regard them as curious and interesting,
but hardly as beautiful ; {b) that differences of taste
are notorious and, indeed, inevitable, considering
that no causes exist likely to call into play the
powerful selective machinery by which is secured
an approximate uniformity in morals; {c) that even
the apparent agreement among official critics repre-
sents no identity of taste ; while {d) the genuine
identity of taste, so often found in the same public
at the same time, is merely a case of that ' tendency
to agreement ' which, though it pla3^s a most im-
portant part in the general conduct of social life,
has in it no element of permanence, and, indeed,
under the name of fashion, is regarded as the ver}-
type of mutability.
SUMMARY 375
8. From these considerations it becomes apparent
(pp. 65, 66) that aesthetic emotion at its best and
highest is altogether discordant with Naturalistic
theory.
9. The advocates of Naturalism may perhaps
reply that, even supposing the foregoing arguments
were sound, and there is really this alleged collision
between Naturalistic theory and the highest emo-
tions proper to Ethics and ^Esthetics, yet, however
much we may regret the fact, it should not affect
our estimate of a creed which, professing to draw its
inspiration from reason alone, ought in no wise to be
modified by sentiment. How far this contention can
be sustained will be examined later. In the mean-
while it suggests an inquiry into the position which
that Reason to which Naturalism appeals occupies
a«c®rding to Naturalism itself in the general scheme
of things (Chapter III. pp. 67-^6).
10. According to the spiritual view of things, the
material Universe is the product of Reason. Accord-
ing to Naturalism it is its source. Reason and the
inlets of sense through which reason obtains the data
on which it works are the products of non-rational
causes ; and if these causes are grouped under the
guidance of Natural Selection so as to produce a
rational or partially rational result, the character of
this result is determined by our utilitarian needs
rather than our speculative aspirations (pp. 67-72).
11. Reason therefore, on the Naturalistic hypoth-
376 SUMMARY
esis, occupies no very exalted or important place
in the Cosmos. It supplies it neither with a First
cause nor a Final cause. It is a merely local accident
ranking- after appetite and instinct among the expe-
dients by which the existence of a small class of
mammals on a very insignificant planet is rendered
a little less brief, though perhaps not more pleasur-
able, than it would otherwise be (pp. 72-76).
12. Chapter IV. (pp. 77-86) is a summary of the
three preceding ones and terminates with a con-
trasted pair of catechisms based respectively on the
Spiritualistic and the Naturalistic method of inter-
preting the world (pp. 83-86).
13. This incongruity between Naturalism and the
higher emotions inevitably provokes an examination
into the evidence on which Naturalism itself rests,
and this accordingly is the task to which we set our-
selves at the beginning of Part II. (See Part II.,
Chapter I., pp. 89-136.) Now on its positive side
the teaching of Naturalism is by definition identical
with the teaching of Science. But while Science is
not bound to give any account of its first principles,
and in fact never does so. Naturalism, which is
nothing if not a philosophy, is in a different position.
The essential character of its pretensions carries
with it the obligation to supply a reasoned justifica-
tion of its existence to any who may require it.
14. It is no doubt true that Naturalistic philoso-
phers have never been very forward to supply this
SUMMARY 377
reasoned justification (pp. 94-96), yet we cannot go
wrong in saying that Naturalistic theory, in all its
forms, bases knowledge entirely upon experiences ;
and that of these experiences the most important
are those which are given in the * immediate judg-
ments of the senses * (pp. 106, 107), and principally
of vision (p. 108).
15. A brief consideration, however, of this simple
and common-sense statement shows that two kinds
of difficulty are inherent in it. In the Jirst place, the
very account which Science gives of the causal steps
by which the object experienced (e.g. the thing seen)
makes an impression upon our senses, shows that the
experiencing self, the knowing * I,' is in no imme-
diate or direct relation with that object (pp. 107-1 1 1) ;
and it shows further that the message thus conveyed
by the long chain of causes and effects connecting
the object experienced and the experiencing self, is
essentially mendacious (pp. 111-118). The attempt
to get round this difficulty either by regarding the
material world as being not the object immediately
experienced, but only an inference from it, or by
abolishing the material world altogether in the man-
ner of Berkeley, Hume, and J. S. Mill, is shown
(pp. 1 18-126) to be impracticable, and to be quite
inconsistent with the teaching of Science, as men
of science understand it.
16. In the second p\2ice, it is clear that we require
in order to construct the humblest scientific edifice,
3/8 SUMMARY
not merely isolated experiences, but general princi-
ples (such as the law of universal causation) by which
isolated experiences may be co-ordinated. How on
any purely empirical theory are these to be obtained ?
No method that will resist criticism has ever been
suggested ; and the difficulty, insuperable in any
case, seems enormously increased when we reflect
that it is not the accumulated experience of the race,
but the narrow experience of the individual on which
we have to rely. It must be my experience for me,
and your experience ior you. Otherwise we should
find ourselves basing our belief in these general
principles upon our general knowledge of mankind
past and present, though we cannot move a step
towards the attainment of such general knowledge
without first assuming these principles to be true
(pp. 127-132).
17. It would not be possible to go further in the
task of exposing the philosophic insufficiency of the
Naturalistic creed without the undue employment
of philosophic technicalities. But, in my view, to
go further is unnecessary. If fully considered, the
criticisms contained in this chapter are sufficient,
without any supplement, to show the hoUowness of
the Naturalistic claim, and as it is with Naturalism
that this work is mainly concerned, there seems no
conclusive necessity for touching on rival systems
of Philosophy.
As a precautionary measure, however, and to
SUMMARY 379
prevent a flank attack, I have (in Part II. Chapter
II.) briefly examined certain aspects of Transcen-
dental Idealism in the shape in which it has prin-
cipally gained currency in this country ; while at
the beginning of the succeeding chapter (pp. 163-
170) I have indicated my reason for respectfully
ignoring any other of the great historic systems of
Philosophy.
18. The conclusion of this part of the discussion,
therefore, is that neither in Naturalism, with which
we are principally concerned, nor in Rationalism,
which is Naturalism in the making (pp. 174-180),
nor in any other system of thought which com-
mands an important measure of contemporary as-
sent, can we find a coherent scheme which shall
satisfy our critical faculties. Now this result may
seem purely negative ; but evidently it carries^ with
it an important practical corollary. For whereas
the ordinary canons of consistency might require us
to sacrifice all belief and sentiments which did not
fully harmonise with a system rationally based on
rational foundations, it is a mere abuse of these
canons to apply them in support of a system whose
inner weaknesses and contradictions show it to be
at best but a halting and imperfect approximation
to one aspect of absolute truth (pp. 180, 181).
19. Chapter IV. in Part II. (pp. 182-189) may be
regarded as a parenthesis, though a needful paren-
thesis, in the course of the general argument. It is
38o SUMMARY
designed to expose the absurdity of the endeavour
to make rationalising theories (as defined on pp.
174-180) issue not in Naturalism but in Theology.
Paley's ' Evidences of Christianity ' is the best
known example of this procedure ; and I have en-
deavoured to show that, however valuable it may
be as a supplement to a spiritualistic creed already
accepted, it is quite unequal to the task of refuting
Naturalism by extracting Spiritualism out of the
Biblical narrative by ordinary historical and induc-
tive methods.
20. With Part II. Chapter IV. ends the critical
or destructive portion of the Essay. With Part III.
(p. 194) begins the attempt at construction. The
preliminary stage of this consists in some brief ob-
servations on the Natural History of beliefs. By
the natural history of beliefs I mean an account of
beliefs regarded simply as phenomena among other
phenomena; not as premises or conclusions in a
logical series, but as antecedents or consequents in
a causal series. From this point of view we have to
ask ourselves not whether a belief is true, but whence
it arose ; not whether it ought to be believed, but
how it comes to be believed. We have to put our-
selves, so to speak, in the position of a superior being
making anthropological investigations from some
other planet (p. 197), or into the position we our-
selves occupy when examining opinions which have
for us only an historic interest.
SUMMARY 381
21. Such an investigation directed towards what
may roughly be described as the ' immediate beliefs
of experience ' — those arising from perception and
memory— shows that they are psychical accompani-
ments of neural processes — processes which in their
simpler form appear neither to possess nor to require
this mental collaboration. Physiological co-ordina-
tion, unassociated with any psychical phenomena
worthy to be described as perception or belief, is
sufficient for the lower animals or for most of them ;
it is in many cases sufficient for man. Conscious
experience and the judgments in which it is embodied
seem, from this point of view, only an added and
almost superfluous perfection, a finishing touch given
to activities which often do excellently well with no
such rational assistance (pp. 197-201).
22. Empirical philosophy in its cruder form
would have us believe that by some inductive leger-
demain there may be extracted from these psycho-
logical accidents the vast mass of supplementary
beliefs actually required by the higher social and
scientific life of the race (pp. 200, 201). We have
already shown as regards one great scientific axiom
(the uniformity of Nature) that this is not logically
possible. We may now say more generally that
from the point of view of Natural History it is not
what in fact happens. Not reasoning, inductive or
deductive, is the true parent of this numerous off-
spring : we should be nearer the mark if we looked
382 SUMMARY
to Authority — using this as a convenient collective
name for the vast multitude of psychological causes
of belief, not being also reasons for it, which have their
origin in the social environment, and are due to the
action of mind on mind.
23. An examination into this subject carried out
at considerable length (Part III., Chapter II., pp.
202-240) serves to show not merely that this is so,
but that, if society is to exist, it could not be other-
wise. Reasoning no doubt has its place both in the
formation of beliefs and in their destruction. But
its part is insignificant compared with that played
by Authority. For it is to Authority that we owe
the most fundamental premises on which our reason-
ings repose ; and it is Authority which commonly
determines the conclusions to which they must in
the main adapt themselves.
24. These views, taken in connection with the
criticism on Naturalism contained in Part II., show
that the beliefs of which Naturalism is composed
must on its own principles have a non-rational source,
and on any principles must derive largely from Au-
thority : that Naturalism neither owes its origin to
reason, nor has as yet been brought into speculative
harmony with it. Why, then, should t be regarded
as of greater validity than (say) Theology ? Is there
any relevant difference between them ? and, if not,
is it reasonable to act as if there were? (pp. 243'
246).
SUMMARY 383
25. One difference there undoubtedly is (p. 246).
About the judgments which form the starting-point
of Science there is unquestionably an inevitableness
lacking to those which lie at the root of Theology or
Ethics. There may be, and are, all sorts of specu-
lative difficulties connected with the reality or even
the meaning of an external world ; nevertheless our
beliefs respecting what we see and handle, however
confused they may seem on analysis, remain abso-
lutely coercive in their assurance compared with the
beliefs with which Ethics and Theology are prin-
cipally concerned (pp. 246, 247).
26. There is here no doubt a real difference —
though one which the Natural History of beliefs may
easily explain (p. 249). But is it a relevant differ-
ence? Assuredly not. The coercion exercised by
these beliefs is not a rational coercion. It is due
neither to any deliberate act of reason, nor to any
blind effect of heredity or tradition which reason ex
post facto can justify. The necessity to which we
bow, rules us by violence, not by right.
27. The differentiation which Naturalism makes
in favour of its own narrow creed is thus an irrational
differentiation, and so the great masters of specula-
tive thought, as well as the great religious prophets,
have always held (pp. 252-255).
28. And if no better ground for accepting as fact
a material world more or less in correspondence with
our ordinary judgments of sense perceptions can be
384 SUMMARY
alleged than the practical need for doing so, there is
nothing irrational in postulating a like harmony be-
tween the Universe and other Elements in our nat-
ure ' of a later, a more uncertain, but no ignobler
growth' (pp. 256-260).
29. Nor can it be said that, in respect of distinct-
ness or lucidity, fundamental scientific conceptions
have any advantage over Theological or Ethical ones
(pp. 261-265). Mr. Spencer has indeed pointed out
with great force that ' ultimate scientific ideas,' like
* ultimate religious ideas,' are ' unthinkable.' But he
has not drawn the proper moral from his discovery.
If in the case of Science we accept unhesitatingly
postulates about the material world as more certain
than any reason which can be alleged in their defence ;
if the needs of everyday life forbid us to take account
of the difficulties which seem on analysis to becloud
our simplest experiences, practical wisdom would
seem to dictate a like course when we are dealing
with the needs of our spiritual nature.
30. We have now reached a point in the argu-
ment at which it becomes clear that the ' conflict
between Science and Religion,' if it exists, is not
one which in the present state of our knowledge can
or ought to require us to reject either of these sup-
posed incompatibles. For in truth the difficulties
and contradictions are to be found rather within
their separate spheres than between them. The
conflicts from which they suffer are in the main
SUMMARY 385
civil conflicts ; and if we could frame a satisfying
philosophy of Science and a satisfying philosophy of
Religion, we should, I imagine, have little difficulty
in framing a philosophy which should embrace them
both (p. 273).
31. We may, indeed, go much further, and say
that, unless it borrow something from Theology, a
philosophy of Science is impossible. The perplexi-
ties in which we become involved if we accept the
Naturalistic dogma that all beliefs ultimately trace
their descent to non-rational causes, have emerged
again and again in the course of the preceding ar-
gument. Such a doctrine cuts down any theory of
knowledge to the root. It can end in nothing but
the most impotent scepticism. Science, therefore, is
at least as much as Theology compelled to postulate
a Rational Ground or Cause of the world, who made
it intelligible and us in some faint degree able to
understand it (pp. 277-283).
32. The difficulties which beset us whenever we
attempt to conceive how this Rational (and therefore
Spiritual) cause acts upon or is related to the Mate-
rial Universe, are no doubt numerous and probably
insoluble. But they are common to Science and to
Religion, and, indeed, are of a kind which cannot
be avoided even by the least theological of philoso-
phies, since they are at once suggested in their most
embarrassing form whenever we try to realise the
relation between the Self and the world of matter,
386 SUMMARY
a relation which it is impossible practically to deny
or speculatively to understand (pp. 283-286).
33. It is true that at first sight most forms of
religion, and certainly Christianity as ordinarily held,
seem to have burdened themselves with a difficulty
from which Science is free — the familiar difficulty of
Miracles. But there is probably here some miscon-
ception. Whether or not there is sufficient reason
for believing any particular Wonder recorded in
histories, sacred or profane, can only be decided by
each person according to his general view of the
system of the world. But however he ma}^ decide,
his real difficulty will not be with any supposed
violation of the principle of Uniformity (a principle
not always accurately understood by those who
appeal to it (pp. 289-292)), but with a metaphysical
paradox common to all forms of religion, whether
they lay stress on the ' miraculous ' or not.
34. What is this metaphysical paradox? It is
the paradox involved in supposing that the spiritual
source of all that exists exercises ' preferential action '
on behalf of one portion of his creation rather than
another; that He draws a distinction between good
and bad, and having created all, yet favours only a
part. This paradox is implied in such expressions as
* Providence,' ' A Power that makes for Righteous-
ness,* * A Benevolent Deity,' and all the other
phrases by which Theology adds something to the
notion of the ' Infinite Substance,* or * Universal
SUMMARY 387
Idea or Subject,' which is the proper theme of a
non-theological Metaphysic (pp. 297-302).
35. In this preferential action, however. Science
and Ethics seem as much interested as Theology.
For, in the first place, it is worth noting that if we
accept the doctrine of a First Cause immanent in
the world of phenomena, the modern doctrine of
Evolution almost requires us to hold that there is in
the Universe a purpose being slowly worked out — a
* striving towards something which is not, but which
gradually becomes, and, in the fulness of time, will
be' (pp. 301-302).
36. But, in truth, much stronger reasons have
already been advanced for holding that both Science
and Ethics must postulate not merely a universal
substance or subject, but a Deity working by what
I have ventured to call ' preferential methods.' So
far as Science is concerned, we have already seen
that at the root of every rational process lies a
non-rational one, and that the least unintelligible
account which can be given of the fact that these
non-rational processes, physical,, physiological, and
social, issue in knowledge is, that to this end they
were preferentially guided by Supreme Reason
(pp. 303-306).
37. A like argument may be urged with even
greater force in the case of Ethics. If we hold— as
teachers of all schools profess to hold — that morality
is a thing of intrinsic worth, we seem driven also to
388 SUMMARY
assume that the complex train of non-moral causes
which have led to its recognition, and have at the
same time engendered the sentiments which make
the practice of it possible, have produced these re-
sults under moral — i.e. preferential — guidance (pp.
306, 307).
38. But if Science and Ethics, to say nothing of
Esthetics (pp. 307, 308), thus require the double
presupposition of a Deity and of a Deity working by
'preferential' methods, we need feel no surprise if
these same preferential methods have shown them-
selves in the growth and development of Theology
(p. 310).
39. The reality of this preferential intervention
has been persistently asserted by the adherents of
every religion. They have always claimed that their
beliefs about God were due to God. The one ex-
ception is to be found in the professors of what is
rather absurdly called Natural Religion, who are
wont to represent it as the product of ' unassisted
reason.' In face, however, of the arguments already
advanced to prove that there is no such thing as
unassisted reason, this pretension may be summarily
dismissed (pp. 309-311).
40. Though we describe, as we well may, this
preferential action in matters theological by the
word Inspiration, it does not follow, of course, that
what is inspired is on that account necessarily true,
but only that it has an element of truth due to the
SUMMARY 389
Divine co-operation with our limited intelligences.
And for my own part I am unwilling to admit that
some such element is not to be found in all the great
religious systems which have in any degree satisfied
the spiritual needs of mankind (pp. 31 1-3 14).
41. So far the argument has gone to show that
the great body of our beliefs, scientific, ethical,
aesthetic, and theological, form a more coherent and
satisfactory whole in a Theistic than in a Natural-
istic setting. Can the argument be pressed further?
Can we say that those departments of knowledge,
or any of them, are more coherent and satisfactory
in a distinctively Christian setting than in a mere-
ly Theistic one? (p. 317). If so, the a priori ^yq-
suppositions which have induced certain learned
schools of criticism to deal with the Gospel narra-
tives as if these were concerned with events intrin-
sically incredible will need modification, and there
may even on consideration appear to be an a priori
presupposition in favour of their general veracity
(PP- 317-325).
42. Now it can, I think, be shown that the central
doctrine of Christianity, the doctrine which essen-
tially differentiates it from every other religion, has
an ethical import of great and even of an increasing
value. The Incarnation as dogma is not a theme
within the scope of this work ; but it may not be
amiss, by way of Epilogue, to enumerate three as-
pects of it in which it especially ministers, as noth-
390 SUMMARY
ing else could conceivably minister, to some of the
most deep-seated of our moral necessities.
43 (a). The whole tendency of modern discovery
is necessarily to magnify material magnitudes to the
detriment of spiritual ones. The insignificant part
played by moral forces in the cosmic drama, the
vastness of the physical forces by which we are
closed in and overwhelmed, the infinities of space,
time, and energy thrown open by Science to our
curious investigations, increase (on the Theistic
hypothesis) our sense of the power of God, but
relatively impoverish our sense of his moral interest
in his creatures. It is surely impossible to imagine
a more effective cure for this distorted yet most
natural estimate than a belief in the Incarnation
(pp. 326-330).
44 {b). Again, the absolute dependence of mind
on body, taught, and rightly taught, by empirical
science, confirmed by each man's own humiliating
experience, is of all beliefs the one which, if fully
realised, is most destructive of high endeavour.
Speculation may provide an answer to physiological
materialism, but for the mass of mankind it can pro-
vide no antidote ; nor yet can an antidote be found in
the bare theistic conception of a God ineffably remote
from all human conditions, divided from man by a
gulf so vast that nothing short of the Incarnation
can adequately bridge it (pp. 330-333).
45 (c). A like thought is suggested by the * prob-
SUMMARY
391
lem of evil,' that immemorial difficulty in the way
of a completely consistent theory of the world on a
religious basis. Of this difficulty, indeed, the Incar-
nation affords no speculative solution, but it does
assuredly afford a practical palhation. For whereas
a merely metaphysical Theism leaves us face to face
with a Deity who shows power but not mercy, who
has contrived a world in which, so far as direct ob-
servation goes, the whole creation travails together
in misery, Christianity brings home to us, as nothing
else could do, that God is no indifferent spectator
of our sorrows, and in so doing affords the surest
practical alleviation to a pessimism which seems
fostered alike by the virtues and the vices of our
modern civilisation (pp. 333-337).
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11