Science & religion in contemporary philosophy

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

.SCIENCE & RELIGION

IN

CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY

BY

EMILE BOUTROUX

MEMBER OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE
PROFESSOR OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS

TRANSLATED BY

JONATHAN NIELD

NEW YORK

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1911

All rights reserved

PBEFACE POUK L'EDITION ANGLAISE

C'EST avec un vif plaisir que je vois mon ouvrage :
Science et Religion introduit en anglais dans les pays
de langue anglaise, auxquels m'attachent des liens
si etroits de reconnaissance intellectuelle et morale.
J'appre'cie d'autant plus ce privilege, que le travail de
M. Jonathan Nield n'est pas une simple transcription
litte*rale du fran§ais en anglais, mais une veritable
traduction, qui, remontant du texte a la pense'e meme,
sait modifier la forme pour conserver le fond. J'ai lu
en grande partie cette traduction, et 1'ai trouve'e tres
soignee, tres nette, tres exacte, tres intelligemment
et scrupuleusement fidele. Je suis meme redevable
au traducteur de quelques corrections, pour lesquelles
je lui adresse mes bien sinceres remerciements.

J'espere que le point de vue ou je me suis place
inte'ressera le lecteur anglais. Selon moi, 1'esprit
huruain, d4sormais, ne peut plus se con tenter de
maintenir, cote a cote, la religion et la science, comme
deux faits bruts, sans, s'inquieter de 1'accord ou du
disaccord qui peut exister entre elles. D'autre part,
les anciens systemes de conciliation rationnelle ne
satisfont plus, ni le savant, ni le croyant, ni le

philosophe. Ma position, en cette matiere, n'est,

v

223076

vi SCIENCE AND RELIGION

proprement, ni celle du rationaliste dogmatique, qui
impose a 1'etre, a priori, des formes donnees et
immuables, ni celle du pragmatiste radical, qui ne
consent a justifier le fait que par le fait, et qui ne
voit dans une id£e vraie autre chose qu'une ide*e
empiriquement ve'rifie'e. Je m' applique a distinguer,
de la science positive, classification logique des
faits revise's et observes, la raison proprement dite,
besoin spontane" et perfectible d'harmonie et de
convenance, et effort pour re*aliser ces conditions
dans la connaissance et dans la vie.

Au nom de cette raison vivante, je scrute Tidee
d'une vie pleinement humaine. Et je trouve que,
rapportees a une telle vie, comme a leur source et a
leur fin communes, la science et la religion sont toutes
deux egalement ne*eessaires, et se concilient quant a
leurs principes essentiels. La science a trait aux
choses sans lesquelles Thomme ne peut pas vivre, la
religion a celles sans lesquelles il ne veut pas vivre.

SMILE BOUTEOUX.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

RELIGION AND SCIENCE FROM GREEK ANTIQUITY TO THE
PRESENT TIME

PAGES

A I. RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GREEK ANTIQUITY . 1-7

II. THE MIDDLE AGES — Christianity; the Schoolmen; the

Mystics ....... 7-12

III. SCIENCE AND RELIGION SINCE THE RENAISSANCE — The
Renaissance — Modern times : Rationalism ; Romanticism
— Science and Religion separated by an impassable barrier 12-35

PAKT I
THE NATURALISTIC TENDENCY

CHAPTER I

AUGUSTE COMTB AND THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY

The encounter henceforth inevitable.

I. THE DOCTRINE OF AUGUSTE COMTE ON SCIENCE AND RE-
LIGION— The generalisation of the idea of science and
the organisation of the sciences : Science and Philosophy —
Philosophy and Religion : the religion of Humanity . 42-61

II. THE INTERPRETATION OF THE DOCTRINE — Sociology and
religion : what the latter adds to the former — The logical
relation of philosophy and religion in Comte : does the
second contradict the first ? . . . . 61-75

vii

Vlll

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

i

I

III. THE VALUE OF THE DOCTRINE — Science impeded by Re-
ligion, Religion impeded by Science — Humanity, an
ambiguous concept — Man aspires to go beyond himself :
that very fact constitutes religion — The internal contra-
diction of Positivism

75-82

CHAPTER II

HERBERT SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE

I. THE DOCTRINE OF H. SPENCER ON SCIENCE, RELIGION,
AND THEIR RELATIONS — The Unknowable, science and
religion — Evolutionism, religious evolution . . 85-94

II. THE INTERPRETATION OF THE DOCTRINE — The motives
which guided H. Spencer — The relation between the theory
of religious evolution and the theory of The Unknowable —
The negative Unknowable and the positive Unknowable
— H. Spencer and Pascal . . . . 95-110

III. THE VALUE OF THE DOCTRINE — Is The Unknowable of
H. Spencer merely a residuum of religion ? The value of
feeling according to H. Spencer — Moreover, the doctrine
has a rational foundation — The weak point in the system :
The Unknowable conceived from a purely objective point
of view. H. Spencer allows it too much or too little . 110-121

CHAPTER III

HAECKEL AND MONISM

I. THE DOCTRINE OF HAECKEL ON RELIGION IN ITS RE-
LATIONS WITH SCIENCE — The conflicts between religion
and science — Evolutionary Monism as a solution, both
scientific and rational, of the enigmas which are the raison
d'etre of religions — The religious need — The progressive
advance of existing religions, in so far as they possess
utility, towards Evolutionary Monism as religion . . 123-142

II. THE VALUE OF THE DOCTRINE — (a) The idea of a scientific

philosophy : how does Haeckel pass from science to
philosophy ? (b) Scientific philosophy as the negation and
substitute of religions : how does Haeckel pass from
Monism as philosophy to Monism as religion ? . . 142-157

III. SCIENTIFIC PHILOSOPHY AND ETHICS AT THE PRESENT

TIME— Stientific philosophy : the obscurity or looseness of
this concept — The ethics of solidarity : the ambiguity of
this term — Persistency of Dualism touching the relation
between man and things . . . . .158-170

CONTENTS ix

CHAPTER IV

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY

Nature and natural phenomena : consideration of religious pheno-
mena substituted for that of the objects of religion.

PAGES

I. PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF RELIGIOUS PHENOMENA
— Religious phenomena considered subjectively, objectively
— The historical evolution of the religious sentiment —
Religious phenomena explained by the laws of psychic life 174-184

II. SOCIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF RELIGIOUS PHENOMENA —
The advantages of the sociological point of view — The
essence of religious phenomena : dogmas and rites — In-
sufficiency of the psychological explanation ; religion as
social duty . . . . ... 185Jifi_

III. CRITICISM OF PSYCHOLOGY AND OF SOCIOLOGY — The
ambition of these systems — Are the explanations that they
supply really scientific ?— :Are~the human ego and human
society resolvable into mechanical causes ? — Psychology
powerless to explain the feeling of religious obligation —
Sociology, in its appeal to society, not only real, but ideal 196-213

PAKT II
THE SPIRITUALISTIC TENDENCY

CHAPTER I

RITSCHL AND RADICAL DUALISM

Recognition of the fact that religion must come to terms with science.

I. RITSCHLIANISM — Ritschl : religious feeling and religious
history — Wilhelm Herrmann : distinction between the
groundwork and the content of faith — Auguste Sabatier :
distinction between faith and belief . . . 218-226

II. THE VALUE OF RITSCHLIANISM — The development of the
specifically religious element — The danger of anti-intel-
lectualism : a subjectivity without content — Chimerical
pursuit of an internal world unrelated to the external
world 226-235

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

CHAPTEE II

RBLISION AND THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE

The dogmatic conception of science and the critical conception.

I. APOLOGY OF RELIGION BASED ON THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE
— Experience as the unique principle of scientific knowledge
— Consequences : limits in the theoretical order, limits in
the practical order — Scientific laws, simple methods of
research — Limits and signification of the correspondence
of scientific knowledge with fact — The latitude that science,
so understood, leaves to religion for its development —
Letter and spirit : contingent and relative character of
religious formulae . . . . .238-255

II. THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE PRECEDING DOCTRINE — The
polemic raised by a word: "the failure of science" — In
what sense science confesses that she has limits — Pre-
carious situation of religion in this system . . 255-258

III. SCIENCE CONSIDERED AS PREDISPOSED TOWARDS RELIGION

— Religious doctrines as outlined in science itself ; the diffi-
culty of maintaining this point of view— jJCbe^nature of the
limits imposed on science : they are not~simply negative,
but imply a supra-scientific " beyond " as condition of the
very aim of science . . . . . . 259-273

IV. REMAINING DIFFICULTIES — The autonomy of science and

that of religion remain compromised — The insufficiency of

a purely critical method . . . . .274-276

J

CHAPTER III

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION

I. PRAGMATISM — The scientific concept as hypothetical im-
perative ; the pragmatistic notion of truth . . 278-281

II. THE IDEA OF A PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN ACTION— Science,

the creation of man's activity — Religion, the realisation of
the human soul's deepest want— Dogmas as purely practical
truths — Religion and Science correspond to the distinction
between the source and the means of action . . 281-298

III. CRITICAL REMARKS — Difficulties inherent in the concept of

pure activity — Necessity of a strictly intellectual principle

for science and for religion itself .... 299-304

INTRODUCTION

RELIGION AND SCIENCE FROM GREEK ANTIQUITY
TO THE PRESENT TIME

L RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GREEK ANTIQUITY.
II. THE MIDDLE AGES — Christianity ; the Schoolmen ; the Mystics.

III. SCIENCE AND RELIGION SINCE THE RENAISSANCE — The Renaissance
— Modern times : Rationalism ; Romanticism — Science and
Religion separated by an impassable barrier.

BEFORE coming to the study of the relations between
Science and Keligion, as they actually appear to-day,
it is interesting to make a rapid survey of the history
of those relations in the civilisations of which ours is
the heir.

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN GREEK ANTIQUITY

Keligion, in ancient Greece, had not to grapple
with Science, as we now understand it, i.e. with the
whole of positive knowledge acquired by humanity ;
but it encountered the philosophy, or rational in-
terpretation, either of natural phenomena and life, or
of men's traditional beliefs.} Philosophy was born, in
part, from Eeligion itself. The latter, in Greece,
had not in its service an organised priesthood.

i B

* /...,. SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Consequently it did not express itself by hard and
fast dogmas, lit only imposed rites — external acts —
which entered into the life of the citizen. It was,
moreover, rich in legends, in myths, which charmed
the imagination, trained the mind, and stimulated
thought. Whence came these legends ? Without
doubt — it was believed — from forgotten revelations ;
but they were so copious, so different, so shifting, and,
in many cases, so contradictory, childish, offensive
and absurd, that it was impossible not to see in them
the work of man as well as of divine revelation.
To depart, in myths, from the primitive and the
adventitious would have been a vain undertaking.
Essentially an artist, moreover, the Greek was con-
scious— even when he spoke of the gods — of playing
with his subject ; and he scorned the proper meaning
of the stories which he told. On the other hand,
those gods who, according to tradition, had taught
the ancients the rudiments of the traditional legends,
were themselves fallible and limited : they knew but
little more of these than men. So it came about
that philosophy was developed very freely under the
care and protection of the popular mythology itself.

She began, in the usual way, by disowning and
striking her nurse. " It is," said Xenophanes, " men
who have created the gods, for in these latter they
find again their own shape, their feelings, their speech.
If oxen knew how to depict, they would give to their
gods the form of oxen. Homer and Hesiod have
attributed to the gods all that, among men, is shame-
ful and criminal." The stars, asserted Anaxagoras,
were not divinities : they were incandescent masses,
of the same nature as terrestrial stones. Some of the
Sophists jested on the gods themselves. "It is not for

INTRODUCTION 3

me," said Protagoras, " to seek out either if the gods
exist, or if they do not exist : many things hinder
me from this, notably the obscurity of the subject
and the shortness of human life."

So grew philosophy — critical, superior or indifferent
in regard to religious beliefs, morally independent,
and free even politically ; for, if some philosophers
were suppressed, that was only for details which
appeared to contradict the public religion.

This development of philosophy was nothing but
the development of human intelligence and reason ;
and thinkers were enamoured of reason to this extent,
that they aspired to make of it the principle of man
and of the universe.

The task given to reason, thenceforth, was that of
proving its reality and power, as against the blind
necessity, the universal flux, the indifferent chance,
which appeared the sole law of the world.

Inspiration, during this task, was found in the
consideration of Art, where the thought of the artist
is seen struggling with a heterogeneous matter, with-
out which there could not be any realisation. This
matter — in its shape, its laws, its own tendencies — is
indifferent or even impervious to the idea which one
would make it express. The artist masters it, for all
that : much more, he wins it over, and makes it appear
supple and smiling in its borrowed form. It seems
now that the marble aimed at representing Pallas or
Apollo, and that the artist has only set free its
properties.

Would not reason, in the face of Ananke, be in an
analogous situation ? According to Plato, according to
Aristotle, Ananke — brute matter — is not thoroughly
hostile to reason and to measure. The more we

4 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

investigate the nature of reason and that of matter,
the more we see them approximate, invoke one
another, become reconciled. In what is apparently
the most indeterminate matter, demonstrates Aristotle,
there is already some form. Matter, at bottom, is
only form in potency. Therefore, reason is, and is
efficacious, since, without her, nothing that exists
would continue as it is, but would go back to chaos.
We moan over the brutality of fate, over the miseries
and iniquities of life, and that is just ; but disorder
is only one aspect of things : he who looks at them
with reason, finds again reason in them.

The Greek philosophers were bent on making more
and more important, more and more powerful, that
reason whose role in nature they had thus discerned.
And the more they exalted her, the more, in com-
parison with beings who partook of matter and non-
entity, she appeared to merit surpassingly that title
of Divine which popular religion had lavished at
random. All nature hangs on reason, but all nature
is powerless to equal it, said Aristotle ; and, proving
the existence of thought in itself — of the Perfect
Eeason, he called this Reason " God." If, then,
reason turned aside from traditional religion, it was
to establish, through knowledge of nature itself, a
truer religion.

The god -reason was not, moreover, reasoning in
the abstract. It was nature's master, the king who
ruled all things. To it belonged properly the name
of Zeus. " This entire universe which turns in the
heavens," said Cleanthes the Stoic, in addressing Zeus,
" of itself goes whither thou leadest it. Thy hand,
which holds the thunderbolt, submits all things — the
greatest as the least — to universal reason. Nothing,

INTRODUCTION 5

anywhere, is done without thee ; nothing, unless it be
what the wicked do in their folly. But thou knowest
how, from an odd number, to make an even number ;
thou renderest harmonious things that are discordant ;
beneath thy gaze, hate is turned into friendship. 0
God, who behind the clouds orderest the thunder, take
men out of their baneful ignorance ; disperse the mists
that darken their minds, 0 father ; and let them share
in the intelligence by which thou rulest all things with
justice, in order that we may render thee honour for
honour, praising thy works without intermission, as it
is fitting mortals should. For, unto mortals and gods
alike, there is given no higher prerogative than that
of praising eternally, in worthy speech, the Universal
Law."

That was philosophical religion. Was it the irre-
concilable enemy of popular religion ? Was every-
thing in those myths which Time had spared and
consecrated only fantasy, disorder, and chaos accord-
ing to its view ? The multitude had deified the stars.
But were not the stars, with the perfect regularity of
their movements, direct manifestations of law, i.e. of
reason, of God ? The multitude worshipped Jupiter
as king of gods and men. Did not this belief contain
the sense of affinity which bound together all parts of
the universe, making of them one single body subject
to a common soul ? Religion ordered respect for the
laws, fidelity to duty, piety towards the dead ; it lent
to human feebleness the support of tutelary deities.
Was it not, in that, the interpreter and helper of
reason 1 Reason, the true god, was not unapproach-
able by man ; he participated in it. Religion could,
therefore, be at once human and worthy of reverence.
It was the part of philosophy to penetrate the secret

6 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

relations between traditional doctrines and universal
reason, and to preserve, among these doctrines, all
that contained some soul of truth.

Thus it was that philosophy became reconciled b^
degrees to religion. Already Plato and Aristotle had
welcomed the traditional belief in the divinity of sky
and stars, and, in a general way, had sought in myths
some traces or rudiments of philosophical thought.

With the Stoics, reason — become, in a pantheistic
sense, the part-mistress of the soul and the principle
and end of all things — was, somehow, necessarily
present in men's spontaneous and general beliefs, in
everything that taught them to get away from their
individual opinions and passions. Most certainly,
myths, legends, religious ceremonies, in so far as they
lowered the gods to the level of man or below man,
deserved only contempt ; but at the back of these
tales, if one knew how to understand them, if from
the literal sense one could disentangle the allegorical,
there were truths. Zeus was the symbol of God
binding all things together by his unity and his omni-
presence ; the secondary gods were types of those
divine powers which were manifested in the multi-
plicity and diversity of the elements, of the earth's
products, of great men, of the benefactors of
humanity. It was the same Zeus who, according as
one considered the aspect of his being, was by turns
Hermes, Dionysus, Heracles. Heracles was power,
Hermes divine knowledge. The worship of Heracles
meant regard for effort, for intensity, for right judg-
ment, and contempt of slackness and luxury. On
this track the Stoics did not know how to stop, and
the fancifulness of their allegorical interpretations
exceeded all limit. It was that they had at heart

INTRODUCTION 7

the saving, to the largest extent possible, of popular
beliefs and practices ; deeming that, if reason was to
operate not only on a select few, but on all men, it
should be clothed in sundry forms, corresponding to
the variety of intellects.

The last considerable manifestation of the philo-
sophical spirit of the Greeks was Neo-Platonism, which,
speculating on the essence of reason, thought to be
exalted, by its doctrine of the Infinite One, above
reason itself. But the more the Deity was made
transcendent with regard to things, with regard to
life and thought even, the more it was judged necessary
to introduce, between the inferior and superior forms
of being, a hierarchy of intermediary beings. This
intermedium it was which constituted the field of
popular religion. Its gods, nigh to our feebleness,
helped to raise us towards the supreme God. And
Plotinus, but especially his disciple Porphyry, justified
by degrees, from the point of view of reason, all the
elements of religion : myths, traditions, worship of
images, divination, prayer, sacrifices, magic. Symbols
intercalated between the sensible and the intelligible,
all these things were good and partaking of truth,
through the necessary part they played in the con-
version of man towards the immaterial and the
ineffable.

II

THE MIDDLE AGES

Such was, as regards religion, the attitude of Greek
philosophy. The Christian thought, which succeeded
to it, shattered the framework of natural knowledge
and action within which this philosophy was regulated.

8 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Laden with an infinity of love and power which the
clear genius of the Greeks had mistrusted, the religious
idea was no longer limited to being the supreme
explanation, the perfect model, the life and unity of
the world. It was established, from the first, by itself
above and outside things, in virtue of sole excellence
and absolute supremacy. God was, because He was
Power, Majesty and Independence — because He was
Being. Henceforward the understanding would not
ascend painfully, by way of induction, from the signs
of perfection that our world could offer, to a Cause
scarcely more perfect than these. The God of
Christianity was revealed in and through Himself,
exclusive of all the beings of this world ; these latter
were only samples of His power, created out of
nothing and that arbitrarily. Religion was going,
therefore, to display herself quite freely, with look
fixed on God alone. She would be herself as far as
possible, while a religion based on contemplation of
nature and man would always remain mingled with
anthropomorphism and naturalism.

It was in this sense that Christ said to men : " You
are troubled about many things, but one alone is
needful " ; and again : " Seek ye first the kingdom of
God, and all else shall be added unto you."

It appeared that spirit itself, without borrowing
anything from matter, was going to be realised in
this world and to fashion there a supernatural body.

In fact, Christian thought had to reckon with the
conditions of the world which it wished to conquer —
that world with its institutions, with its customs, its
beliefs, its traditions. In order to be understood, it had
necessarily to speak the language of the men to whom
appeal was made.

INTRODUCTION 9

It was under the form of Greek philosophy that
Christianity encountered rational and scientific thought.
In a sense, it found in this encounter the opportunity
of acquiring a clearer consciousness of its own mind —
of developing and defining it. To a doctrine of pure
light, in which God was only reckoned one with
universal law, in which the world was, of itself,
sensitive to the attraction of harmony and justice,
Christianity opposed faith in a supernatural revelation,
profound feeling for the misery and depravity of the
natural man, and the affirmation of a God all love and
pity, who was made man in order to save men. But,
on the other hand, when pagan writers denounced these
ideas as against reason, the Christians, accepting their
adversaries' point of view, protested against that ac-
cusation ; and Origen, against Celsus, demonstrated
the rationality of the Christian faith.

In this manner was opened out the way which
necessarily led to what has been called Scholasticism.

Since Christianity aimed at mastering human life
outright, it had to secure satisfaction for the needs of
the intellect as well as those of will and heart. But
intellect then stood for that chef-d'ceuvre of clearness,
of logic and of harmony which was called Greek philo-
sophy. To go from faith to intellect, therefore, was to
rejoin that philosophy. Truth could not contradict
truth : it was the same God, perfect and constant,
who was the author of natural enlightenment and
of revelation. So, true philosophy and true religion
were only, at bottom, one and the same thing.

This view of Scotus Erigena, however, was too
summary. The sources, therefore the compass, of
philosophy and of religion were not the same. Between
philosophy and theology agreement was certain, but

io SCIENCE AND RELIGION

each in its sphere. To philosophy would be restored
knowledge of created things and of that portion of
God's nature which could be deduced from created
things ; to theology, knowledge of the character and
interior life of Deity. Reason and faith would share
thus the domain of existence, as, in the community,
Pope and Emperor shared authority. Not with equal
right, however ; reason and faith formed a feudal and
Aristotelian hierarchy, in which the inferior owed
homage to the superior, and in which the superior
ensured the security and rights of the inferior. Philo-
sophy demonstrated the preambles of faith. Grace
did not destroy, but realised in their fulness the powers
of nature and of reason.

This concordat between philosophy and theology
implied mutual adaptation.

As regards Greek philosophy, those parts were
cultivated, preferably, which served the development
of Christian dogmatics : for instance, Ontology, which
was especially regarded as a doctrine of natural
theology. In Aristotelian logic, that mathematic of
demonstration, was sought the theory of intelligi-
bility ; and, from this point of view, there was
assigned to it an exclusively formal character which
it did not have with Aristotle.

On the other hand, religion was submitted to
a method of accommodation. That which, in the
Gospel, was essentially spirit, love, union of souls,
inward life, irreducible to words and formulae, had
— in order to tally with Scholastic conditions of
intelligibility — to sink itself in rigid definitions, to
be regulated in long chains of syllogisms, to be
transmuted into an abstract and definitive system
of concepts.

INTRODUCTION n

It was thus that in the Middle Ages Christianity
satisfied the needs of the intellect, in assuming a form
borrowed from Greek philosophy. This contingent
combination could not last for ever.

Already, during this same period, certain Christians
more or less isolated and sometimes suspected, called
Mystics, had not ceased to demand, for the individual
conscience, the right of communicating with God
directly, above philosophical and even theological
intermediaries. To dialectics they opposed faith and
love ; to theory, practice. Moreover, they did not
aim at concentrating the whole of religion in pure
spirit and bare potentiality. They showed that two
ways were open to the soul : first of all the via
purgativa, in which man purified himself from the
stains of the natural life ; then the via illuminativa,
in which, from the bosom of God, sharing in His light
and power, the soul realised itself and was revealed
in a new form, the creation and direct expression of
the spirit itself. Deeds, taught Master Eckhart, did
not stop the instant that the soul attained holiness.
On the contrary, it was with holiness that there began
real activity, at once free and good — the love of all
creatures and of enemies even, the work of universal
peace. Deeds were not the method, but they were
the radiance of sanctification.

While, in effusions sometimes vague, but living
and fervent, the mystics maintained, against the
abstract and rigid formulae of the School, the free
spirit of Christianity, Scholasticism, by a kind of
inward travail, saw the separation of those two
elements which it had reconciled and striven to
unite harmoniously. The categories established
by Greek philosophy had been destined by their

12 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

inventors to embrace and make intelligible the things
of our earth. The Christian idea, except by re-
nouncing itself, could not give way here positively.
On the other hand, philosophy became aware, in
Scholasticism, of its own bondage. It was charged
with proving the Divine Personality and the possi-
bility of Creation, the Immortality of the Soul, and
human free-will. Was it certain that, left to its own
guidance, it would reach these conclusions ? Besides,
was it consistent with the conditions of philosophical
knowledge that dogmas should be first of all laid
down, and that it should then be limited to the work
of analysis and inference ?

Ill

SCIENCE AND RELIGION SINCE THE RENAISSANCE

From the internal dissolution of Scholasticism, as
also from external circumstances, there resulted the
double movement which characterised the Kenaissance
period.

On the one side, mystical Christianity, which put
the essence of religion in inward life, in the direct
relation of the soul with God, in the personal ex-
perience of salvation and sanctification, broke away
violently from the traditional Church. And one
circumstance helped to give what was called the
Keformation, precision and settled purpose, without
which it would have remained, perhaps, a mere
spiritual aspiration, analogous to those which mani-
fested themselves in the Middle Ages. The need of
personal religious life which was the foundation of it,
came into line with that love of old texts, re-established

INTRODUCTION 13

in their genuineness and purity, which Humanism had
just initiated. Just as the Catholicism of the Middle
Ages had associated Aristotle and the theology of the
Fathers, so Luther combined Erasmus and the mystic
sense. And, thus renewed, the Christian idea yielded
fresh scope.

On the other side, philosophy broke the chains
which, under the Schoolmen, had bound her to
theology. Leaning, sometimes on Plato, sometimes
on Aristotle himself, sometimes on Stoicism or
Epicureanism, or on other like doctrine of Antiquity,
she shook off, with uniform energy, the yoke of
theology and the yoke of the Aristotle of the Middle
Ages ; and, in changing her master, she set out for
independence. A Nicholas of Cusa, a Bruno, a
Campanella proclaimed new doctrines.

That was not all : Science properly so called, thell
positive Science of Nature, emerged at this epoch,|'
and aimed at unfolding itself freely. It culminated
in the ambition to produce, to convert the forces of
nature to its own use, to create. Previously, it was I
chiefly the Devil who had the pretension to intervene J
in the course of things created and governed by
God, and to make them produce what they did
not produce of themselves ; also the alchemists, who
sought to make gold, and were readily confused with
sorcerers. Thenceforward, the idea of a Science,
active and no longer merely contemplative — faith
in the possibility of man's rule over Nature, was
irresistible.

In his impatience to reach the goal, Faust, dis-
abused of the barren learning of the Schoolmen,
devoted himself to magic. What mattered the means,
provided there was success in winning the unknown

i4 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

forces which produced phenomena, and in making
them act at will ?

Drum hab' ich mich der Magie ergeben.1

Thus it was that, in the sixteenth century, the
occult sciences furnished the prelude to Science.
They were, moreover, joined, in the mind of that
time, with a naturalistic pantheism, which called for
a purely natural explanation of things and the em-
ployment of the experimental method.

To this period of confusion and of fermentation
succeeded, with Bacon and Descartes, a new age — an
age of discipline, of order, and of equipoise. Cartesian
rationalism was the most precise and the most com-
plete expression of the mind which then prevailed.

On the one hand, the experimental science of
pature, already clearly understood by Leonardo da
/Vinci, was, with Galileo, definitely established. To-
' wards 1604, through the discovery of the laws of the
pendulum, Galileo had proved that it was possible to
explain the phenomena of nature through binding
them all together, without calling for the intervention
of any force existing outside them. The notion of
Natural Law was, from that time, established. And
this Science, which made appeal to mathematics and
experience only, having been (notably by Gassendi)
recombined with the ancient Epicurean Atomism, was
deemed incompatible with Christian supernaturalism
by numerous intellects. Some daring logicians,
frivolous or serious, the freethinkers, made use of
Science to support Naturalism and Atheism.
*; On the other hand, Keligious Faith, strengthened

1 "That is why I have applied myself to magic." — GOETHE, Faust.

INTRODUCTION 15

by its very trials, manifested itself with a new vigour
— now on the Protestant side, now on the Catholic.
For the one, as for the other, Faith could no longer
be a mere trick of disposition, joined to secular
traditions and practices. It had become an inward
conviction, worthy of struggle and suffering.

What, in the spiritual jurisdiction of mind, was to
be the harmony of these two powers, Science and
Keligion, which invoked seemingly opposite principles ?
This question was solved by Descartes in a manner
which, for long, appeared to satisfy the exigencies of
the modern intellect.

Descartes started with the mutual independence of j
Keligion and Science. Science, limited to the domain!
of Nature, found its object in the appropriation of)
natural forces, and its instruments in mathematics \
and experience. Keligion had to do with the super- •
terrestrial destinies of the soul, and rested on a certain J
number of beliefs — very simple, moreover, and having I
no affinity with the subtleties of Scholastic Theology, j
Science and Keligion could not trouble or prevail y
over one another, because, in their normal and legiti- /
mate development, they did not meet. The time !
must never return when, as in the Middle Ages, j
theology could impose on philosophy the conclusions
which the latter had to demonstrate, and the
principles from which it had to start. Science and
Religion were both autonomous.

But it did not follow that the human mind had
only to accept them as two orders of truth foreign to
one another. A philosophical mind could not put
up with Dualism pure and simple. Cartesian ism was
just the philosophy of the connection or relationship
established between two different things — irreducible

16 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

in themselves to logical standpoint. In the principle
he adopted — cogito ergo sum — Descartes intended
to lay down a kind of conjunction unknown to the
dialectic of the School. Cogito ergo sum was not
the conclusion of a syllogism : on the contrary, this
proposition was itself the condition and proof of the
syllogism from which it was supposed to have issued.
Being presented, in this proposition, with the copula
ergo, one could translate the necessity which it
expressed by a universal proposition such as quid-
quid cogitat, est, thereby rendering possible the
construction of a syllogism ending in cogito ergo
sum. The first and truly fertile knowledge was just
this connection between two terms given as foreign
to one another.

How was such a connection to be discovered ?
Experience, pointed out Descartes, offers us knowledge
of exactly this kind. Now, from experimental con-
nections, at first contingent, the mind — interpreting
the experience of the senses with the help of a kind of
supersensible experience, called by Descartes intuition
— disengages necessary and universal knowledge. In
ourselves there is a principle and foundation of
necessary connection, and this principle is none other
than what we call reason. Kationalism, a rationalism
which attributed to reason a certain faculty of con-
junction, a content, with laws and a power of its
own ; such was the point of view that Descartes
represented.

This was how he conceived the correspondence
between Religion and Science.

Just as he had found in reason the basis of a view
binding sum to cogito, so, in this same reason,
Descartes thought he had found the relation of man

INTRODUCTION 17

to God, and of God to the world, whence resulted the
radical harmony of Science, of Nature, and of Keligous
Beliefs. This result was obtained, in the case of
Descartes, through analysis of the content of reason,
and through certain deductions, no longer syllogistic
and purely formal, but mathematical and constructive,
proceeding from this very content.

It is clear, moreover, that there was no question
here of the fundamental principles of Keligion : God,
His infinity, His perfection ; and our dependence upon
Him. As to what concerned positive religion, philo-
sophy had no competence to reason about it. When
one thought of all the sects, heresies, disputes and
calumnies to which Scholastic Theology had given
rise, one could only wish for their complete disappear-
ance. In fact, the simple and the ignorant gained
heaven as well as the learned : their naive beliefs
were surer than the theology of the theologians.

Such was the Cartesian doctrine. In the bosom
of reason itself appeared, according to this doctrine,
both the germs out of which grew respectively
Religion and Science, and the special bond which
secured, along with their compatibility, their mutual
independence. This original rationalism, which may
be called modern rationalism, dominated the philo-
sophical thought of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries.

In a philosopher's category, this rationalism tends
to become dogmatic. Confident in his powers, he
seeks to constitute, on lines parallel with the science
of nature, a science of divine things which will in no
degree fall short, as regards evidence and certainty,
of the physical and mathematical sciences.

c

i8 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

With Spinoza, reason established the existence of
the absolutely infinite Substance, which is God, and,
from the essence of that Substance, deduced the
principle of the universal laws of nature. In that
way the attempt of science to reduce to law the ap-
parently confused multitude of particular things was
justified. On the other hand, encountering certain
texts reputed sacred, such as the Judseo-Christian
Bible, reason laid down the principle that Scripture
ought to be explained by Scripture alone, in so far as
it was a question of determining the historical sense
of doctrines and the intention of prophets ; but that,
once this work of exegesis had been accomplished, it
was her province to decide whether our assent should
be given to those doctrines.

Leibnitz, fathoming the distinction between the
truths of reason and the truths of fact, which together
constitute science, discovers their common principle
in a possible Infinite which envelopes both necessary
and actual existence, and which is none other than
what we call God. According to him, while the
sciences study the relation of things considered, in
sense perception, as external to one another, religion
is at pains to embrace, in its living reality, that
internal and universal harmony, that mutual penetra-
tion of beings, that aspiration of each for the well-
being and joy of all, which is the hidden spring of
their utmost life and endeavour : and, in this way
also, men are made capable of sharing in, and con-
tributing to the glory of God as the very end and
principle of every thing that exists or aspires after
existence.

Subtile and metaphysical with a Spinoza, a Male-
branche, a Leibnitz, dogmatic and objective rationalism

INTRODUCTION 19

became more and more simple with Locke and the
Deists, who addressed themselves to men of the world
and to society. For the Deists, reason was not only
the opposite of tradition and authority : it shut out
all belief in those things which surpassed either our
clear ideas or the nature of which we formed part.
Thenceforward, reason banished systematically every
mystery, every dogma transmitted by the positive
religions. Nothing was allowed to stand but the
religion called natural or philosophical, which was
expected to provide adequate expression in the double
affirmation of God's existence as Architect of the
world, and the Immortality of the Soul conditional
on the fulfilment of justice. In professing these
doctrines, Deism regarded itself as occupying exactly
the same standing-ground as the natural sciences.
Entirely analogous, in its view, were physical truths
and moral truths. No action, moreover, was attri-
buted to the First Cause, which could contradict
the mechanical laws proclaimed by Science. Deistic
rationalism rejected miracle and special providence.

The special quality of this rationalism was that it
more and more deprived Keligion of its characteristic
elements, so as to reduce it to a small number of very
dry, very abstract formulae, more calculated to furnish
occasion for argument than to satisfy the aspirations
of the human soul. Moreover, these so-called rational
demonstrations of the existence of God and of the
Immortality of the Soul were, in the eyes of an
unprejudiced critic, far from possessing the scientific
evidence that was pretended.

It was not, therefore, surprising that, in order to
define the relations between Science and Eeligion,
modern rationalism should have gone in quest of a

20 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

point of view other than that which was objective or
dogmatic.

Pascal had already sought the elements of his
proof in the conditions of human knowledge, of life,
of action, i.e. in the sphere of the Knowing Subject,
and not in that of Being taken in itself. He dis-
tinguished between reason in the narrow sense of the
word, and the heart : the latter, still reason of a kind,
i.e. order and connection, but a reason infinitely finer,
in which the original faculties — scarcely to be under-
stood— outstripped the range of the geometrical mind.
This superior reason had for object, no longer logical
abstractions, but realities. To work out fully all
the required proofs was a task beyond our powers.
Happily, this concrete reason expressed itself in us
through a direct view of truth, an intuition with
which our heart, our instinct, our nature was en-
dowed. To despise the intuitions of the heart in
order to restrict our adhesion to the reasoning of the
geometrical mind, was contradictory ; for, in reality,
it was already the heart or instinct which gave us the
notions of Space and Time, of Movement and Number,
the bases of our sciences. The heart was needed by
reason, in order to get support for its reasonings.
Moreover, just as it perceived that there were, in
Space, three dimensions, so the heart, if it was not
warped, perceived that there was a God.

The method called critical (previously practised by
Pascal), which set out from the analysis of our means
of knowing, and which, by the origin of our ideas,
judged of their import and value, was clearly defined
by Locke. That philosopher sets in relief a distinc-
tion upon which Descartes had already insisted : the

INTRODUCTION 21

distinction between knowledge properly so called, and
assent or belief. There is knowledge properly so
called in the event of our possessing incontestable
proofs of the truth which we maintain. If the proofs
at our disposal are not of this kind, our adhesion is
only assent. Now it must be noted that, while
Science seeks and acquires genuine knowledge W
Practical Life rests, almost entirely, on simple beliefs.'^
The force of custom, the obscurity of questions, the
necessity, where action is concerned, of deciding
without delay — these create simple assent, or belief,
and not that knowledge which is the habitual principle
of our judgments. Not that we judge groundlessly :
we are guided by probability, especially by testimonies
deserving of credit. How, then, can we discard
religious beliefs, under pretence of their being only
beliefs ? They are all the more legitimate through
having for surety the veracity of God Himself. If
one is careful to retain only that which is indeed
Divine revelation, and to make sure that one possesses
the true meaning of it, religious faith is as certain a
principle of affirmation as knowledge itself.

This acute and broad " man of the world "
philosophy was the origin of the wise and profound
system of Kant. In the very constitution and in the
working of reason, Kant finds all the fundamental
conditions, both of Science and of Keligion. Keason
constructs Science. She does not fashion it (an
impossible feat) with the sole elements which experi-
ence provides : it is from herself that spring the
notions of space and time, of permanence, of causality,
without which science would be impossible. But why
should not reason, which governs the given world,
purpose, not only to know, but to modify that world,

22 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

and to make it more and more the expression of her
own nature, of her own will ? Should not reason be
able to assert herself, not only as theoretical and
contemplative, but yet again as active, practical, and
creative ? And should she not be able to exercise her
control, not only over the human will, but, further,
over the external and material world, with which that
will is in harmony ? Doubtless such a possibility can
be only a matter of belief, and not of science ; but we
have here to do with a belief that reason, integrally
consulted, justifies, enjoins, and determines. Eeason
is entitled to the highest place : if we can labour to
procure her rule, we ought to do so. And if certain
ideas are, for us, by virtue of our constitution, practi-
cally necessary auxiliaries for the accomplishment of
this task, we must adhere to these ideas. Now, such
are the ideas of Freedom, of God, and of Immortality,
understood in a sense, no longer theoretical, but
practical and moral. (JReligion is thejpractical belief
that the work of reason is realisable, an indispensable
belief seeing that we give ourselves whole-heartedly
to this work, which implies effort and sacrifice on our
part.) We must include, then, moral and religious
beliefs. Thus it is that, for Kant, the same reason,
by turns theoretical and practical, according as she
aims either at knowing things or at ruling action,
establishes both Science, and Morality, whence flows
Religion ; assuring to each of them an independent
sphere, yet knitting them together through relation-
ship to a common principle.

This connection is further strengthened and ren-
dered clearer among the idealists succeeding Kant.
Fichte tries to show that the real world presented to
scientific observation is already, by nature, impreg-

INTRODUCTION 23

$
nated with morality and with rationality ; that it is

only, at bottom, pure spirit, transforming itself, by
an act of unconscious intelligence, into object and
image, in order to reach, by reflection on that
image, consciousness of self. Hence, reason, justice,
humanity are no longer in the world as strangers,
seeking, by strategy, to establish themselves and to
supersede one another in nature. The will that is
free and good has, by virtue of itself, material con-
sequences. Moral consciousness, that gleam of the
Infinite, is the principle of the very life that we live
in this world. ^Religion, which renders us sharers in
the causality of reason, is to the merely verifying
Science what the vapours of the sky are to the
waters which fertilise the ground. )

For Hegel, Science and Religion are nothing but
necessary and logically successive " moments " of the
spirit's development. Science is the knowledge of
things in so far as they are external to one another,
i.e. in so far as they are deprived of consciousness
and of freedom. This condition is only a stage
through which the Idea must pass in order to become
personal and to labour in the realisation of spirit.
Under its most complex form, which is the human
organism, external and material being becomes
capable of a special development, called History.
And, by favour of that conflict of interests and wills,
of that struggle against suffering and evil, of that
rich invention of methods, of that continual experi-
mentation, of that creation and accumulation of moral
forces, which characterise History, new powers —
conscience and freedom — are awakened and developed
in man, i.e. in the world. Henceforward, that which
was only matter becomes spiritual ; form, without

24 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

ever breaking up or vanishing, becomes, more and
more, the free and complete realisation of spirit. The
individual, the family, the community, the State —
these are the successive moments of this development.
And the work of the living spirit is accomplished, to
the fullest possible extent, in art, in revealed religion,
in philosophy ; this last being, in some way, religion
in itself, as it is when freed from the symbols with
which art and the various religions enveloped it.

The philosophy of Hegel requires us, in the last
analysis, to see God grow and gain consciousness of
Himself, in the world and by the world, and to
become ourselves the support and reality of this
same Supreme Consciousness. Science, as such, has
nothing religious about it, and remains a stranger to
religion. But for the philosopher, who follows the
internal and necessary evolution of the Idea, science
is only a moment in the progress of Being. She
(science) sets herself unwittingly towards a higher
stage of knowledge, of consciousness ; and, in taking
the very direction thus indicated, thought arrives
logically at religion and at philosophy. Faith always
wishes to become understanding. That which, in
science, is only blind belief in a given matter, in art,
religion, and philosophy becomes expression, senti-
ment, knowledge of the principle of things.

Thus was developed, whether in the objective or
in the subjective sense, Cartesian rationalism. A
third development of that rationalism is what has
been called the philosophy of the Enlightenment.
Very different in its manifestations, this philosophy,
which flourished in the eighteenth century, had
this general character : it considered that the pure

INTRODUCTION 25

intellect, separated from feeling, i.e. clear and distinct
knowledge or science, ought to be sufficient guarantee
for the perfecting and happiness of humanity. In
France, La Mettrie, the Encyclopaedists, Helvetius
and d'Holbach combined Bacon with Descartes so as
to form a kind of empirical or even materialistic
rationalism, thoroughly hostile to religious beliefs.
The progress of science was enthusiastically upheld,
and a kind of religious faith in moral and political
progress, considered as the natural and necessary
consequence of scientific and intellectual progress,
was propagated. The finest expression of this
generous confidence in the practical efficacy of the
Enlightenment is the celebrated work of Condorcet
entitled, Esquisse d'un tableau historique des pro-
gres de I' esprit humain.

In opposition to the various forms of rationalism
there appeared, as early as the second half of the
seventeenth century, especially in England, a moral
philosophy which found, in the irrational element of
human nature, in feeling, in instinct, the primitive
and fundamental fact. It is in this way that Shaftes-
bury, opposing to the philosophy of reflection the
Hellenic sense of nature and harmony, places in an
immediate and instinctive aesthetic sense the criterion
of moral good. Butler gives this role to conscience,
Hutchinson to the moral sense. The sceptical meta-
physics of Hume lead up to an act of confidence in
nature as the mother of custom ; and his system of
morals rests on the natural sympathy between man
and man. Sympathy is yet again the principle of
the economist Adam Smith. And the Scottish school,
intending to re-establish, in every sphere, the r6le

26 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

and value of intuition or immediate experience, in
opposition to logic, glorifies common sense with its
irreducible data whether theoretical or practical.

It is evidently with this new revival of the ancient
naturalism in which instinct was placed above reflec-
tion, that the moral revolution, of which Kousseau
was the exponent par excellence, allies itself. The
enthusiasm with which his discourse of 1750 was
received, shows to what degree the ideas therein
supported were in the air. From his inward life, from
his character, from his genius still more than from
his lectures or from his philosophical meditations,
Rousseau derived this precept, clear for him as a truth
of actual experience : that feeling is, in itself, an
independent and absolute principle, that it is in no
way amenable to intellectual knowledge, but, on the
contrary, is superior to it in the sense that our ideas
are only, for the most part, logical constructions,
fictions, invented too late to explain and justify our
feelings. Adopting this standpoint, Rousseau believed
that what were called progress and civilisation con-
stituted, in reality, only corruption and error ; for the
principle of that civilisation was^ in contrast with the
natural order, the supremacy of mind over feeling,
of the artificial over the spontaneous, of science over
disposition. Guided, originally, by nature, by instinct
— the very principle of life — Humanity had sinned in
eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, of the proud
intellect, that is, which thinks itself supreme. Hence-
forth the Race was dedicated to death, except through
conversion and re-entrance into the path of nature.
To re-establish in all matters the supremacy of feel-
ing, of intuition, of immediate perception, and to
govern the use of intellect on this principle — therein

INTRODUCTION 27

was safety, therein lay the means of realising an
order of things as superior to the primitive Eden as
a being who is intelligent and a man is raised above
an animal that is stupid and restricted.

The ideas of Kousseau on religion are the application
of his principles.

It does not much matter that he maintains nearly
the same dogmas as the Deists, and that, seen from
outside, his natural religion hardly differs from that
of the philosophers. What is new and important is
the source that he assigns to these ideas, the way in
which he believes in them and professes them. They
are no longer for him doctrines which are demonstrated
by reasoning : they are the spontaneous effusions of
his individual soul. I do not wish, says the Savoyard
vicar, setting forth his profession of faith, to argue
with you, nor even to aim at convincing you ; enough
if I can show you what I think in the simplicity of
my heart. Consult your own during the whole of my
address, that is all I ask of you. They tell us that
conscience is the work of prejudice ; nevertheless I
know by my experience that she insists on following
the order of nature against every law of man.

Thus religion proceeds from the heart, from feeling,
from conscience, from nature, as from a first and inde-
pendent source. She has in view the satisfaction of
the heart's requirements, the enfranchisement, the
control, the ennoblement of our moral life : everything
outside this principle and this end is not only super-
fluous but harmful.

To have upheld these ideas with clearness and
decision, while forcibly affirming their opposition to
received ideas, was already a work of importance.
What made this work a revolution was the enthusiasm

28 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

animating it, of which the language of Rousseau
was the expression. His writings were his doctrine
realised : it was nature, with its irresistible dash ; it
was spontaneity, life, passion, faith, action, breaking
in upon a literature in which mind was supreme, and
compressing or bending to its ends logic, ideas, facts,
arguments, all the instruments of intellectual culture.
From this conception of religion there resulted two
remarkable consequences.

^J3rought back to feeling, as to a principle radi-
cally distinct from knowledge, absolute and original,
religion had no longer to do with science. Science
and religion spoke entirely different languages : they
could, then, be expanded indefinitely without risk of
ever meeting.

• In the second place, feeling had to behave quite
otherwise than reason towards the positive faiths.
Reason tended to dry up religion, to deprive it of
the elements which only find support in imagina-
tion and feeling, in order to reduce it to that small
number of ideas which can be methodically inferred
from the most assured scientific and philosophical
research. Thence came Deism, that thin substitute
for faith which philosophical rationalists were wont to
offer.

But feeling has other needs, other resources, and
other ventures. Seeing that it is quite as original as
reason, perhaps more so, why should its expressions
be limited to the formulae approved by science ? By
nature the heart is creative : its overflowing life is
poured out in images, in thought-combinations, in
myths and in poems. Set at the core of religion, and
declared autonomous, feeling will not be able to rest
content with such a legacy of rational deism as that in

INTRODUCTION 29

which Kousseau had thought he recognised its genuine
expression. Genius cannot be content with repeating
ready-made phrases. The inorganic, in the living
person, is either eliminated or transformed, so as to
become living itself. Hence, not only will feeling, as
Kousseau conceives it, replace the congealed formulae
of the philosophers by living productions; but it is
clear, from its advent, that, as regards traditional
forms and symbols — rich after a manner other than
that of philosophical concepts — it will not maintain
the systematic hostility reached by the rationalists.
These forms speak to the heart and to the imagination :
indeed, to this fact they owe their origin. Why should
the heart reject them without testing their efficacy ?
I confess to you, says the Savoyard vicar, that the
sanctity of the Gospel is an argument which speaks
to my heart, and one to which I should even be sorry
to find any good reply. Look at the books of the
philosophers with all their parade ; how small they
are in comparison with this. You compare Socrates,
his knowledge and his intellect. What a distance
from him to the son of Mary ! If the life and death
of Socrates betoken a sage, the life and death of
Jesus betoken a god.

The work of Rousseau could not, any more in
religion than in politics, in ethics, or in education,
claim finality : it was a starting-point. Some of the
ideas which inspired it were calculated to bring about
religious restoration.

The witness and herald par excellence of this re-
storation was the author of Le Genie du Christianisme.
Falling back upon the principle of Rousseau — the
sovereignty of feeling — Chateaubriand wins for
individual and social life, no longer only the vague

30 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

abstractions of the religion called natural, but the
dogmas, rites and traditions of Catholicism, in their
precise and concrete form. Far from his seeing in
these particularities any frivolous overplus, under
pretence that they are impossible to deduce from the
principles of pure reason, it is every detail of the
outside appearances, as well as the moral contents of
religion, which becomes, with him, the proof of its
divine origin, inasmuch as every detail strikes the
imagination and the heart, charms, moves, consoles,
soothes, strengthens, exalts the human conscience.
To-day, says he, the way to be followed is that of
going from effect to cause, and of proving, not any
more that Christianity is excellent because it comes
from God, but that it comes from God because it is
excellent. The poetry of bells constitutes a stronger
argument than a syllogism ; it is felt and taken into
life, while a syllogism leaves us indifferent.

But, one must ask, do all these beliefs, all these
customs, so eloquently described as charming and
beneficial in their results, correspond, at least, with
true and existing objects ; or are they only the vain
satisfaction of our desires and dreams ? It is clear
that for the author of Le Genie du Christianisme
this question is without interest. His exposition
makes us love Christianity for the beauty of its
worship, for the genius of its orators, for the virtues
of its apostles and its disciples : what more is wanted ?
Is not love itself a reality, perhaps the truest and
most profound of all realities ? Why should the
truth which is established through its agreement with
the conditions of love, of life, of being, prove less
true than that which is built on the abstractions of
the understanding ?

INTRODUCTION 31

These ideas, more or less clearly conceived, con-
trolled the movement which has been called Romanti-
cism. Feeling is therein the one rule : life, the
consciousness of living and feeling, is the aim that
the superior man sets before himself. He shuns the
abstractions which have interest only for the perfectly
bare reason. He surrenders himself to poetry, to
passion, to enthusiasm, these being the things that
stir the soul. He loves suffering and tears, which
exalt self-consciousness to a marvellous degree. He
is interested in all the expressions of life that the
literatures of sundry peoples and the history of
sundry times can offer. He wants to resuscitate, to
bring home to his own experience, the ways of think-
ing and feeling that belonged to vanished periods.
He has a predilection for religion, which enlarges his
soul through awakening and sustaining in it the
haunting sense of infinity ; and, if he follows the bent
of his imagination, he is disposed to be specially
sympathetic towards the concrete and positive in-
stitutions of revealed religion.

In thus giving way to feeling, is he running the
risk of putting himself in opposition to science ? The
pure Romanticist ignores that problem. The scientist
analyses and infers, whereas he, for his part, lives,
believes and loves. How would it be possible for
science to take away his very self ?

This conception of things has been shown, notably
in France, in the turn that college studies and
philosophy have taken. Under the respective names
of Sciences and Humanities, the culture of taste, of
sentiment, of soul on the one side, and the knowledge
of mathematics and of the laws of nature on the other,
were separated and isolated. Not only was literature

32 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

self-sufficing, but it readily claimed for itself the
pre-eminence, since man, the heart, life were deemed
superior to nature and nature's mechanism.

On the other hand, philosophy, so closely united
with the sciences for a Plato, a Descartes, a Leibnitz,
became — as officially taught — exclusively literary and
sentimentally inclined ; admitting, with Chateau-
briand, that the value of her doctrines should be
gauged by their consequences, according to the
salutary or harmful character of their influence.
Generally reserved over matters religious, in so far
as she hoped to maintain the classical point of view
of reason, she was, in fact, driven in the direction of
religion, betraying in that manner the substratum of
Komantic sentimentalism which was hidden under
her prudent rationalism.

This considerable revolution, which had become
all-powerful after Eousseau, but had been born before
him, through an awakening of the Hellenic sense of
nature, in opposition to abstract ideology, was not
peculiar to France : it manifested itself, under various
aspects, in all the countries of Europe. It seemed
especially original and fruitful in German Komanticism;
the motto — if one may say so — of this last-named
movement was the saying of Novalis : Die Poesie ist
das dcht absolut Reelle (Poetry is absolute truth).

Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, the
romantic principle was placed at the very heart of re-
ligion by the great theologian Schleiermacher. Neither
the intellect, nor the will, according to Schleier-
t macher, can bring us into the religious sphere. Religion
4 is neither an act of knowledge nor a rule : it is a life,
it is an experience ; and this life has its source in the

INTRODUCTION 33

deepest part of our being, viz. feeling. "We cannot
proceed through knowledge of religion to religion ;
this latter is an original fact.

The man who experiences religious emotion tends,
besides, to make clear to himself, through his intellect,
the nature and reason of his state of soul; and he
finds that his feeling expresses, at bottom, the absolute
dependence of the creature with regard to the Infinite
Cause of the universe. In the development, in the
spontaneous brilliancy of this feeling, is constituted
the religious life. It has in view the exalting of
individuality — what neither science nor morality could
bring about. It tends to express itself, not through
adequate ideas (that is impossible), but through
symbols which can represent it in consciousness and
make it yield communicable emotions. What is called
dogma is nothing but an intellectual representation of
the object or cause of these emotions. Sometimes the
heart, enriching the intellect, creates symbols immedi-
ately by the power of genius ; sometimes it makes
use of the symbols offered by existing religions. But
these same symbols it does not receive passively, it
infuses life into them : it preserves for them, in that
way, a religious character. Traditions, dogmas have
only meaning, have only value, if they are constantly
revivified by the feeling of individuals,

No obstacle, moreover, can be, opposed by science
to the creation or adoption of this or that religious
symbol. Science herself is only a method of sym-
bolical representation. She expresses in signs the
endeavour of the mind to understand things, i.e. to
perceive the identity of being and thought — an ideal
which is for us unrealisable.

In short, with Schleiermacher, being excels knowing. \

34 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Truth is hand and glove with life ; the exaltation
of the superior life, of the life of the soul and of
feeling, is the highest truth of all. All that which
is formula, dogma, letter, thing, matter, has only
value as symbol of this super-intellectual truth.

More metaphysical in Germany, more literary in
France, the conception of religion corresponding to
Eomanticism became the prevailing one in the course
of the nineteenth century. Religion, during that time,
rested essentially, not on the intellect, but on the
heart ; she had her principles, her arguments, her
works, which obtruded themselves on reason in the
name of a transcendent authority. Doubtless, there
were not wanting apologists of religion who caught
up again the rusty weapons of the great seventeenth-
century rationalists, or who endeavoured to forge
these anew, in order that they themselves, also,
might attack, in the name of reason, the adversaries
who invoked her. But life was on the side of those
who, without caring for science and independent of
reason, without anxiety for alliance with philosophy
and with temporal powers, unfolded religious truth
in all its originality and all its amplitude. What
flourished was free religion, based on its own special
sanctions — the heart, faith, tradition, and labouring
towards the development and exaltation of spiritual
forces.

On her side, Science had become accustomed to
ignore Religion. More and more distinctly did she
consider herself as resting on objective experience
entirely, and as having no other object than the
discovery of the immanent connections of phenomena.
What mattered to her those doctrines founded on

INTRODUCTION

35

another principle and aiming at quite different ends ? v
The two points of view could exist in the mind of even
the same individual ; they did not mingle at all. In
entering his laboratory, the scientist left his religious
convictions at the door, though he might take them
up again on leaving.

To sum up, the relation between Religion and
Science which had established itself in the course of
the nineteenth century was a jadi&aljiltalism, Science
and Religion were no longer two expressions (analogous
in spite of their unequal value) of one and the same
object, viz. Divine Reason, as they were formerly in
Greek philosophy ; they were no longer two given
truths between which the agreement was demon-
strable, as with the Schoolmen ; Science and Religion
had no longer, as with the modern rationalists," a
common surety — reason : each of them absolute in itst
own way, they were Distinct at every point, as were
distinct, according to thlTreigning psychology, the two
faculties of the soul, intellect and feeling, to which,
respectively, they corresponded. Thanks to this
mutual independence, they could find themselves in
one and the same consciousness ; they existed there,
the one beside the other, like two material, impene-
trable atoms placed side by side in space. They had
come to an understanding, explicitly or tacitly, in order
to abstain from scrutinising one another's principles.
Mutual respect for the positions achieved, and on that
very account, for each, security and liberty — such was
the device of the period.

PART I
THE NATUEALISTIC TENDENCY

37

CHAPTER I

AUGUSTE COMTE AND THE RELIGION OP HUMANITY

THE encounter henceforth inevitable.

I. THE DOCTRINE OP AUGUSTE COMTE ON SCIENCE AND RELIGION —
The generalisation of the idea of science and the organisation
of the sciences : Science and Philosophy — Philosophy and
Religion : the religion of Humanity.

II. THE INTERPRETATION OF THE DOCTRINE — Sociology and religion :
what the latter adds to the former — The logical relation of
philosophy and religion in Comte : does the second contradict
the first ?

III. THE VALUE OP THE DOCTRINE — Science impeded by Religion,
Religion impeded by Science — Humanity, an ambiguous con-
cept— Man aspires to go beyond himself : that very fact
constitutes religion — The internal contradiction of Positivism.

There can be nothing clearer or more convenient
for the purpose of setting one's ideas in order and for
conducting an abstract discussion, than precise defini-
tions and inviolable lines of demarcation. Shut up
respectively in the heart and in the intellect, as if in
the two separate compartments of a bulkhead, science
and religion had no chance of entering into conflict.
Enough that each of them allowed to the other the
liberty which was claimed and enjoyed by itself.
In this way the problem of the relation between
science and religion was solved, very easily, in the

39

40 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

world of concepts. It was quite another matter in
the real world.

In fact, neither science nor religion meant to limit
its competency and action, however big the province
assigned to it. The postulate of the maxim held in
honour at this time — " Eender to Caesar that which
is Caesar's, and to God that which is God's " — was, in
the special sense given to it, not only that, in man,
the religious faculties have nothing in common with
the scientific faculties, but that in things themselves
there are two worlds, spirit and matter, a spiritual
province and a temporal province, which nowhere
clash. Now, this hypothesis may be a useful com-
promise ; it is not reality as given , it is nearly the
contrary of that reality. Where do we find, in man,
the dividing line between heart and intellect ; in
nature, the demarcation between bodies and souls?
Hence it came about that religion, all the more eager
for expansion because she was declared independent,
found herself confined to the sanctuary of conscience,
and strove to conquer the visible world. And, on
the other hand, science, emboldened by her successes,
which were every day more striking, and by the ever-
increasing consciousness of her object and method,
proclaimed that the entire world of reality, in all its
parts, was henceforth open to her investigation, pro-
vided that she advanced by rule, in going, according
to the precept of Descartes, from the simple to the
compound, from the easy to the difficult, from that
which is immediately cognisable to that which we can
only reach mediately.

From that time the conflict, so skilfully set aside
in theory, was inevitable in practice. If religion
claims to rule over body and soul alike, and science

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 41

over soul and body alike, they are bound to come
into collision, and the question of knowing how to
settle the quarrel obtrudes itself.

Many, doubtless, will persist in thinking that the
simplest way still is to maintain, by mutual discretion,
a compromise which leads to peace ; and, declaring
that they themselves slumber very well on the soft
pillow of indifference, they will complain of the noise
that is being made on all sides, and threatening to
wake them. There will remain others, who, pleading
the intellectual superiority of a St. Thomas, a
Descartes, a Malebranche, a Leibnitz, will ask why
we should no longer fall back on the arguments that
satisfied those thinkers, and will blame the progress
of an unrestrained criticism for the grievous disrepute
into which the classic compromises have fallen. But
the human mind, considered in its permanence
throughout the ages, is not to be confounded with
the mental characteristics of such and such individuals,
be these ever so numerous, and remarkable for
learning and ability. The mind is a co-ordination,
therefore a comparing of the sundry ideas that ex-
perience brings ; it is an endeavour to establish
agreement or harmony between them, either by the
adaptation of some to others, or by the elimination
of these for the benefit of those. That is why, when
science and religion face one another, the mind is
necessarily bound, sooner or later, to compare them,
in order to know if it can, without contradicting
itself, keep them together in some way, or if it must
decide on rejecting the one so as to preserve the
other.

And, in this reflection which obtrudes itself, it is
clear that the mind can be inspired by such and such

42 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

a doctrine formerly professed by a great intellect ;
but, in being thus inspired, it cannot revive the
doctrine purely and simply, since it is quite unlikely
that there will not be, in the phenomena sprung from
great revolutions, any new element calling for change
of attitude.

This sense of a necessary encounter between
science and religion is generally found among the
thinkers who applied themselves to these subjects
from about the fourth decade of the nineteenth
century. They may be divided into two classes,
according as they show rather a naturalistic or a
spiritualistic tendency. At the head of the first we
place Auguste Comte.

THE DOCTRINE OF AUGUSTE COMTE ON SCIENCE
AND RELIGION

The system of Auguste Comte consists in a
methodical advance from science to religion by way
of philosophy. The method according to which this
advance is accomplished, and which determines the
meaning and value of the conclusions, is called by
Comte positive ; and the system itself, more especially
its religious culmination, receives from him the name
of Positivism. This term signifies : firstly, that Comte
aims at satisfying the real needs of the human spirit,
and those only ; secondly, that he allows as sole means
toward this satisfaction, a knowledge equally real,
i.e. relative to facts that, in respect of human intelli-
gence, are at once true and accessible — a knowledge
which, itself, ought to be adapted to our genuine needs.

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 43

Utility and reality — these two words exhaust the I
contents of the term " positive."

From these two aspects, moreover, there follows
a third — the organic aspect. For human knowledge
and feeling, incapable of any fixed organisation so long
as they are not submitted to their true standard, will
form a definitive system, from the time of their being
referred to an end that can be taken as both one and
incontestable.

Of the two essential elements of a positive notion,
the real and the useful, the first is found in science,
and in it alone. Theology and metaphysics, which
claim, in their turn, to make known to us the nature
of things, are delusive methods. Science will, there-
fore, be the basis of positivism ; and, to enable us to
systematise and turn to account all that is within our
reach, positivism will insist on our viewing the whole
of what is given in such a way as to comply with the
limits of science properly so called.

As a matter of fact, human knowledge is far from
presenting wholly, even now, the scientific form. If
mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry are veri-
table sciences, biology scarcely begins to break loose
from the swaddling bands of metaphysics ; the study
of specifically human phenomena is still abandoned
to scholars and historians — strangers to the idea of
science.

The first need of all, then, is that of determining
the idea of science, and of seeing how this idea can
be applied to all the branches of human knowledge.

The method which Auguste Comte here follows is
very remarkable. He proceeds from the concrete to
the concrete, and not from an abstract principle laid

44 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

down a priori in advance of its dialectical conse-
quences. He starts, not from logic — the science
of concepts — but from mathematics, real science as
constituted here and now.

He will begin by determining the distinctive marks
which constitute mathematics a science. Then he will
set before himself the task, not of imposing these
marks upon all other branches of knowledge, but of
adapting them, by proper modifications and without
impairing their essence, to the variety of objects
that come under experience. It is this adaptation
that he calls generalisation, extension. The same in-
tellectual form will recur in all our knowledge, mutatis
mutandis, and science will be both one and manifold.

Now, the science of mathematics, according to
Auguste Comte, owes its definite form to the exclusive
search after positive laws, i.e. after precise and utf-
changeable relations between given conditions. This,
then, is the object, duly determined, which ought to
be assigned to all kinds of knowledge. It is a
determination which is reached : firstly, through
seeking, in the thing to be known, an aspect which
will enable us to range it under the laws of science ;
secondly, through conceiving these laws themselves in
a manner that accords with the proper nature of the
object to be known.

Following these principles, Comte defines the form
adapted to each order of science, and ends with the
theory of a new science, called sociology, which will
be to moral and social facts what physics and chemistry
are to the phenomena of inorganic nature.

As regards sciences already in existence, he pre-
scribes formulae that carry an important philosophical
meaning.

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 45

In physics there should be complete rejection of
everything resembling those unverified influences to
which appeal was long made for fantastic explana-
tions. For the purposes of a real science, only the
phenomenal conditions of visible phenomena need be
specified.

Biology presents, in comparison with the physico-
chemical sciences, a capital difference. The laws that
she studies are the mutual relations of functions and
of organs. In order to discover these laws, there
is need, most certainly, for discarding the meta-
physical hypothesis of vital spontaneity, and for
considering vital phenomena as subjected to the
general laws of matter, of which they present only
simple modifications. But, on the other hand, we
must guard against making biology the slave of
the inorganic sciences. In the inorganic sciences
the mind proceeds from the simple to the compound.
The argument to be deduced from this example is,
not that the whole of science ought necessarily to
proceed in this manner, but that, in the category
of phenomena considered by these sciences, the
simple is more accessible than the compound, is
Imown to^us before the compound. But when
living beings are in question, it is the contrary that
takes place. Here the whole is more accessible to us
and better known than the parts. While the idea of
the universe can never become positive, seeing that
the universe will always exceed our means of observa-
tion, in biology, on the contrary, it is the details which
keep out of reach : beings that have life are the more
easily known because they are more complex and more
exalted. The animal idea is clearer than the vege-
table idea, and the idea of man is clearer than that of

46 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

other animals ; so that the notion of man, for us the
only immediate one, is the point of departure requisite
in all biology. Thus, while the physical sciences
advance from the parts to the whole, biology, for the
very purpose of remaining, like the physical sciences,
a positive science, must proceed from the whole to the
details.

If the positive method has had to be submitted to
such a modification in order to conform to the condi-
tions of the biological sciences, there need be no cause
for astonishment that, before we can enter upon the
study of moral and social facts, still greater modifica-
tions have to be made in it. The method will remain
positive, in spite of these modifications, should it prove
really effectual in enabling us to penetrate, through
the apparent disorder and the apparent spontaneity
of social and human life, to relations that are consistent
with the idea of natural law.

And, moreover, since society is a consensus or

solidarity, after the manner of the living body, the

same modification of method will be needed in regard

to it as obtained in the case of biology, and we shall

proceed from the whole to the parts. But the whole,

in sociology, will no longer be the individual, who, on

the contrary, is here only a member or part : it will be

society, and, in the highest classification, humanity.

] The first theme in the study of human facts from the

( scientific standpoint is the theme of collective facts.

That is not all. A distinction which needs to be
made in every science, but which, in the inferior
sciences, has only a secondary meaning, becomes here
important : that between statics and dynamics. On
the side of statics we study the consensus or social
organism as it is related to the conditions of its

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 47

existence, and reach the theory of order. On the
side of dynamics we reduce to law all that is
implied in progress — the human phenomenon par
excellence.

Proceeding from the whole to the details, and
following the method of social dynamics, we shall
first of all determine the general progress of humanity.
We shall employ, with that end in view, an appropri-
ate mode of observation : the study of general history.
This study scrutinises human facts under their collec-
tive aspect : those alone which are observable from
the outside, those alone which are facts in the exact
meaning of the word ; and, from the consideration of
these facts, it extricates the general traits which
characterise the different periods. By itself, however,*
general history would not suffice as the foundation of 1
sociology. But, combined with the knowledge of
fundamental and permanent tendencies innate in
human nature, it will furnish those dynamic laws
that require to be determined.

Auguste Comte, in this respect, does not reason
merely as a theorist. He considers that he has dis-
covered, in what he calls the law of the three stages,
how to know — in the necessary succession of the
Theological stage, the Metaphysical stage, and the
Positive stage — the fundamental law of human
progress ; and thence he infers ab actu ad posse.

In this way, when the notion of science has been
at the same time determined in its principle and
adapted to the diversity of the objects to be known,
everything that is accessible, everything that is, for
us, really existent can become the subject-matter of
science.

48 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

But Positivism does not seek the real merely to
attain the useful. How are we, with the help of the
real knowledge furnished us by the sciences, to reach
a stage of truly positive knowledge ?

At this point the genuine role of philosophy begins.
In order that the search after the real may coincide
with that after the useful, philosophy must define the
useful, and bring science to bear upon it ; for the
latter, left to herself, would not undergo the necessary
discipline.

... tin a general manner, the special end pursued by
humanity is coherence, harmony, unity of conception
and will. At the present time, Auguste Comte con-
siders, this harmony, which was previously assured by
the Church's rule, has been disturbed by the Eevolu-
tion, and the object now to be sought is the regenera-
tion of society through the establishment of a new
system of co-ordination — immovable and definitive.
The mistake which dogs us, lies in believing that we
can re-establish this harmony immediately by means
of political or religious institutions. Institutions are,
indeed, essential, but these institutions must have a
foundation ; and the idea of the end to be reached,
the practical idea pure and simple, is an insufficient
foundation. Mere doing does not suffice in itself.
We miss our aim when we make pretence of rushing
straight away in its pursuit, without preliminary study
of the means to be employed, without initiation. Art
for art's sake is a chimera, theory for the sake of
theory is vanity : what really counts is art for the
sake of theory.

At this point the intervention of philosophy be-
comes necessary. If practical life were sufficient, the
work of social regeneration would belong altogether

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 49

to politics. If science, by itself, were competent, we
could hand over the business of governing society to
the scientists. But, both these hypotheses being
equally false, we ought to institute a special investi-
gation, in order to determine the conditions of the
passage from knowledge to action. This investigation
is the concern of science. The doctrine is of first
importance for Auguste Comte, who, in virtue of it,
believes that he can re-establish, for the welfare of
humanity, the double character (at once theoretical
and practical) of ancient wisdom.

The idea that, according to Comte, philosophy
brings just here, is the vanity of looking for the
moral and political convergence of human sentiment
and action, unless we have previously realised logical
coherence in thought and character. Intellectual
unity is the condition of moraljinjty. The useful is,
therefore, before all else, the realisation of intellectual
unity. To establish this unity is, in a special sense,
the task of philosophy.

Constituted quite uniformly according to the
positive idea of natural law, the sciences possess a
certain homogeneity, which might incline us to believe
in their possible unification on the scientific field itself.
But such an inference contains a dangerous fallacy.
Analogous in their methods, the sciences are, for us,
insurmountably separated from one another as regards
their object. The very necessity of their resting
satisfied, as regards method, with analogy, while
renouncing identity, has its origin in an irreducible
difference of subject-matter. One, in the sense of
being a need of the human mind, science is perforce
multiple and diverse in its realisation. It cannot be
helped, but there is no purely one thing that we can

E

50 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

call Science. There are, and there always will be
only sciences, the six fundamental sciences which the
GOUTS de philosophic positive has specified.

rely on the scientists for the labour of procuring
the intellectual unity of mankind is, then, impossible.
So far as they are scientists, they exhibit tendencies
which run counter to this superior aim. They affect
specialisation, parcelling out reality, and ignoring or
despising one another. Or, yet again, deeming that
his own branch of learning is science par excellence,
each of them claims to impose his method, such as it
is, on all the other sciences. That is the case with
mathematicians : infatuated by the success that they
have gained in their own domain, through proceeding
from the parts to the whole, they would like to
transfer their materialistic standpoint to biology and
sociology, whereas these sciences ought, on the con-
trary, to proceed from the whole to the parts. The
mathematical mind — at once anarchical, narrow,
encroaching, and despotic — is the worst plague of
humanity.

Furthermore, the scientists have a tendency to
I cultivate science for its own sake ; to go into raptures
i over the ingenuity of their discoveries, even when these
I cannot serve any purpose ; to search after a childish
accuracy in insignificant matters ; and to apply them-
! selves, for the sake of showing off their virtuosity as
? dilettanti, to innumerable factitious problems.

For all these reasons, science, or rather the sciences,
cannot be organised by themselves ; they must be
regulated by thought from the outside.

The immediate and objective synthesis of the
sciences being impossible, there remains for trial a
subjective synthesis, a synthesis effected, not from

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 51

the standpoint of things, but from the standpoint of
man, who, with the help of the sciences, pursues his
own ends. Now the science constituted last of all,
viz. that just created by Auguste Comte, furnishes,
he believes, the elements of this synthesis.

For the accomplishment of this work, sociology
learns, through the example of theology in bygone
times, how to unite minds by means of a subjective
principle. But this principle was furnished by the
imagination. What we have now to do is to resume
the work of the theologians, at the same time trusting
entirely to facts and to reason.

The principle of organisation will be the sociologi-
cal notion par excellence — the notion of humanity. "
Humanity, in the spatial sense, exists only in its
parts which are actual individuals ; but, regarded as
a whole subsisting in time, it goes beyond its
manifestation in space.

While the generalisation of the idea of science pro-
ceeded necessarily from the simplest sciences to the
most complex, the organisation of the sciences ought to
descend from sociology to the sciences of private life.

Social facts are, first of all, systematised through
the notion of humanity. Scattered in space, they
are all bound together by means of a special reference
— the reference of connection or solidarity between
the past, the present and the future. The connection f
between human events proceeds from two causes — j
external and internal. The external cause is that]
transmission of human attainment from generation toj
generation, which we call tradition ; the internal cause)
is our common instinct for improvement. The idea of
progress by means of preservation and order, is the
principle of the systematisation of social phenomena.

52 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

/ Again, this same idea can be employed in training,
/ gradually, the inferior sciences. They also should
I take human happiness as their end and standard.
They ought never to forget that they are made by
man and for man. They will, therefore, set aside all
speculation which is not calculated to improve the
human lot, which is not human in its object. They
will not bring to their examination of the laws of
nature the curiosity of a mere amateur. Their motto
will be : taking prevision for the sake of making
provision.

Not only will they be altogether adjusted with a
view to social welfare, but the special relation of end
to means will be established between them. Each
superior science will determine the problems that
ought to be discussed by the inferior sciences, and
the extent to which research may be carried on with
advantage. In return, the laws established by the
inferior sciences will be applied unrestrictedly to the
superior, the irreducible peculiarity of the latter
having for ground and condition of existence the very
laws that are surpassed and supplemented.

!lt is in this way that natural laws will be deter-
mined in an entirely positive sense, i.e. from the
standpoint of utility and reality. The relativity
which critical philosophy has imposed on human
knowledge will be maintained, moreover, not in the
sense (negative and useless) that one phenomenon is
conditioned by another, but in the positive sense that
I every kind of knowledge is relative to man, and only
possesses meaning as instrument, immediate or remote,
• of his improvement. The consequences issuing from
this doctrine are considerable : the science of mathe-
matics, which some of us wished to make the royal

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 53

science, falls to the lowest rank in the scale of our
knowledge.

Such is the organisation of the sciences on which
sociology is based. This organisation realises mental
coherence, intellectual unity, without which the re-
generation of society is impossible.

The sphere of philosophy extends as far as this.
Can we be satisfied, then, with having reached
intellectual unity, if moral and political unity are
produced therefrom ; or must we, in order to ensure
the realisation of this supreme unity, furnish man
with new resources, and make appeal to powers of
another kind ?

Philosophy, in her work of synthesis, while making
use of the data that the sciences provided, has not
concerned herself about these data themselves. She
has found in sociology the principle of a systematisa-
tion of the sciences, through which intellectual unity
among men could be realised. She had not to inquire,
on account of the work that she had in view, how. it
comes about that society exists, or what may be the
nature of its scope and its principle. This inquiry,
nevertheless, obtrudes itself before the man who
wishes, effectively and not only in the way of theory,
to regenerate society. The sciences furnish materials,
philosophy regulates thp.ae. materials. But the whole
of this work remains abstract and conditional. Who
can satisfy us that society, just as science imagines it,
will exist and continue to be upheld ?

History shows us realised communities. What has
produced them ? Can we point to either science or
philosophy? Observation shows us that religion is
the agent. It is to the persistent action of religion

54 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

that sociology owes both its aim and its raison d'etre.
Will this aim subsist if religion disappears ? When
the cause has been removed, will the effect remain
intact ?

Let us consider human nature. The intellect, in
its working there, cannot create or preserve the social
bond. The cleverest of all the intellectual associations
can only organise egoism and isolation. In a general
way the intellect can do no more than regulate and
systematise : it is unable to produce. That which
creates is the heart. The heart is bound to be
mentioned if we are to account for such a supreme
creation as that of the social organism.

And the heart can never be confounded with
instinct, with nature, with fact pure and simple. For
it is a trait of the human nature immediately given
to us, that its less exalted and more selfish instincts
prevail over the nobler impulses of sympathy and
altruism. Doubtless these impulses exist originally,
even as the selfish instinct itself; but they get, from
this instinct, neither energy nor perseverance. Now,
/ it is the sympathetic affections which alone can
! engender and sustain the social state, through re-
straining the divergent promptings of individual
I instincts.

The existence of communities is, therefore, tied
down to a state of things that neither instinct nor
intellect can realise. It is a question of finding, for
the sympathetic impulse in man, something that will
help to strengthen it and render it superior to the
selfish instinct. Help of this kind has, in the past,
been procured for it by the various religions. They
have, in their own way, made union of hearts a
condition of intellectual union. The human subsoil

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 55

of these ancient institutions ought to be taken up and
preserved, even if the dogmas through which they
were expressed are condemned to vanish. Religion,
then, after being herself regenerated, will furnish the
first principle of the regeneration of society.

The method to be followed in effecting this restora-
tion is to disentangle, from the negative and decaying
elements contained in the traditional religions, the
positive, human, indestructible element of which they
were the vehicle. In this way we shall consummate
Positivism which reaches its culminating point in
Positive Religion.

The whole teaching of religion is summed up in
two dogmas : God and Immortality. What is the
positive content of these two dogmas ?

The idea of God, so far as it interprets the real
need of man, is the idea of a universal being, boundless
and eternal, with whom human souls communicate : a
being who inspires them with strength to overcome
their selfish and divergent impulses in order that they
may tend to harmonise and be united in him.

The positive idea of Immortality is the ascription
of a share in the eternal life of the divine being to the
righteous : i.e. to those who, already in this life, have
shown towards God and their fellow-men a love that
is real and efficacious.

Now, Positivism has no difficulty in finding a
double object, real and accessible, for the satisfaction
of these conditions. This object is not far from us,
it is near and actually in us : it is nothing else than
Humanity.

Humanity has often been conceived as a simple
universal notion : in such a case it is the abstraction

56 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

of the Schoolmen, an empty and inert form. We
are still able to understand by Humanity the collec-
tion of actually existing men. In this sense it is a
reality ; but how can it prevail over actual individuals
to the extent of declaring the God and the Immortality
that they crave.

But Humanity, as presented to us in all its breadth,
differs altogether from a scholastic abstraction or a
spatial collection. Humanly ifl a fiOTitinnity and a
solidarity in time. It is made up of all that men have
felt, thought and accomplished in respect of what is
good, noble, eternal. It is the supra-spatial being
in which the uncertain and transitory strivings of the
individual are brought to rest through purification
and organisation — in which immortal life and tutelary
influence are manifested.

Humanity, thus understood, is itself the God that
men demand : the real being, boundless and eternal,
with which they are in immediate relation, in
which they have being, movement, life. From the
reservoir of moral forces accumulated within this
being throughout the centuries are poured out great
thoughts and noble sentiments. Humanity is the
Great Being that raises us above ourselves, that
imparts to our sympathetic impulses the fulness of
power needed for their rule over selfish impulses.
In Humanity men love one another and enter into
communion.

So, in Humanity, individuals are able to enjoy,
in very truth, the immortality for which they long.
For therein is gathered, preserved and incorpor-
ated everything that is conformable to its essence,
everything that is calculated to render it greater,
more beautiful, more powerful. It is nothing but the

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 57

thoughts and sentiments of real men, and is more
largely composed of the dead than of the living. As
to the dead, they live in the remembrance of the
actual generations — a remembrance that is stirring,
vivid, and efficacious; their influence is shown in the
noble emulation which they never cease to arouse
amongst the living, inciting these to render themselves
deserving of reunion with their grandsires.

It is true that we cannot conceive of this God as
personal, or of this immortality as objective. Positiv-
ism resents as imaginary the dogmas of the so-called
revealed religions. But how does that injure religion
in the true sense? What is a God who is limited, selfish,
transcendent, capricious, in comparison with Humanity
which is all in all, immanent, and, in its sublimity,
truly one with, the humblest? How can material
persistence in space be compared with this survival
in time and in consciousness which alone realises
that dearest longing of the human heart — the union of
souls in eternity ?

If there is a religion which satisfies, in a sure and
definitive fashion, the irreducible and indispensable
religious instinct of human nature, it is Positivism
or the Keligion of Humanity.

This religion is not an abstraction, but a life : it is
the positive development of altruism and love. But
the method to be followed, in order to practise this
religion effectively, is of capital importance. The older
religions have had love, in like manner, for their
object ; nevertheless, under their traditional form, they
are doomed. The truth is, no institution can live
which does not respect the law underlying the
conditions of existence. Now, just as philosophy, in
order to be positive and stable, must be preceded by

58 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

science whence she receives the very subject-mattei
which it is her mission to organise, so religion, in
order to be indestructible, must depend upon science
and philosophy. It is in the real and rational world
that the proper work of religion lies : therein will she
look for the conditions of her action.

She will proceed, in the same way as science and
philosophy, from the concrete to the concrete, and
not from the abstract to the concrete. Away, then,
with that banal philanthropy which has no motive
power beyond the abstract and vague idea of mankind,
an idle academic entity from which positivism has
extricated us. Humanity, as an a priori supposition,
would be nothing but a metaphysical principle, egoistic
and revolutionary — one that would tend, in its appli-
cation, to destroy those partial yet concrete expres-
sions of humanity which the theological age had shown
merit in realising.

Love cannot be communicated through an idea.
It originates in personal relationship, and, singularly,
in the relationship between man and woman. It is
from this relationship that we must start, if we would
see a living and efficacious love awakened and
developed in the soul, and not be content with the
mere concept of love, i.e. with a wretched logical
abstraction. As the generalisation of the idea of
science is accomplished through extending to the
unframed sciences (saving the requisite corrections)
the distinctive marks of the sciences already con-
structed ; as the philosophical organisation of the
sciences is brought about through starting from
sociology, the science immediately available, and
through again descending the ladder of the sciences,
considered as means with reference to the social end :

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 59

so love, originating — according to the law of nature
— in the relationship of the sexes, will become wider
by degrees and be made universal. And this will be
effected under quite real conditions, if, setting out
from its first object, it is directed, successively and
methodically, towards those increasingly wide and
complex objects which our universe provides for it.
Now there are four essential stages through which love
ought to pass in order to be realised in all its breadth
and all its power; these are individual relationship,
family, country, and humanity.

When, after surmounting the initiatory grades, we
come, in this way, to love Humanity with a love which
is at once very exalted and very real, then, and then
only, the Great Being lives in us, controls and governs
our existence. And under the irresistible influence
of this sovereign power our nature is transformed,
altruism prevailing over selfishness. In turning
Godward, our love for our fellows becomes practical
instead of'theoretical, spontaneous instead of forced.
Our hearts are knit in God.

Since, when love is in question, the reality is
everything and pure theory insignificant, we ought
not to overlook anything that can help to engender
and develop that reality. Now, it is not in vain
that the traditional religions have laid feeling and
ini^nation under contribution in the human soul.
Feeling andjmagination are the, motive powers -of-the 7
soul. They make it vibrate and live, while ideas only
affect it superficially. The mistake of the theologians
was that, lacking a theory of the real, they took the
fictions of the imagination for realities. But the man
who is firmly established in the impregnable strong-

60 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

hold of true science and true philosophy has no longer
to distrust imagination. He can restore to it a role
that the anxious metaphysician did not dare openly
to attribute to it. Fiction is no longer delusive when
we know that it is fiction, and when we are prepared
to restrain it, as soon as it is tempted to supplant
reality. And man is so constituted that fictions,
which are understood as fictions, have no less virtue
for him than those which are received as truths.
The imagination does not demand truth, but that we
should throw ourselves into things ; and, once moved
by agreeable representations, it communicates its
glowing intensity to heart and will.

Positivism^ then, after having proscribed dogmas
in so far as they gave themselves out as truths,
will not shrink from reviving imaginative fetichism
as a practical auxiliary, subordinate to the rational
principle of religion. It will revive it as an aid
(conformable to human nature) towards producing
that concrete and effective systematisation of feelings,
without which the total synthesis needed for the
regeneration of society remains a simple idea.

The fetichism that Comte re-establishes will be,
in fact, purely poetical. It will consist in endowing,
under cover of hypothesis, the given types of natural
existence with active and beneficial wills — with wills,
that is, analogous to our own. Man feels himself too
isolated as long as nature is regarded merely as the
expression of laws that are blind and inevitable. In
order that he may act fervently and joyously, he
requires to consider himself as surrounded by friends
who understand and support him. It is, therefore,
expedient that he should imagine, under the forces
of nature, beings analogous to himself who sympathise

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 61

with him. For the perfecting of law, wills are
necessary.

That is why the positivist's worship will not have
to do only with the memory of the heroes of humanity.
Its essential objects will be : the Great Being of ?
Humanity, the Great Fetich or the Earth, and th$ '
Great Medium or Space. These three hypostases will
constitute the Trinity of the positivist. And thus
it will be possible for every natural law to be legiti-
mately symbolised by a kind of pagan deity, calculated
to interest the imagination.

II

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE DOCTRINE

Such is the doctrine of Auguste Comte in regard
to the relations between science and religion. There
is the reverse of agreement over the meaning of this
doctrine.

Numerous interpreters deem that we ought to
allow for what is not doctrine in the strict sense, but
the expression of the man's own intimate and acci-
dental feeling : that, if we rightly take away this
element of anecdote, there remains, eventually, of the
religion of Comte only what was already in his
sociology : viz. man, more precisely, social man, as
the measure and rule of human knowledge.

Others, deeming that the religious doctrines and
institutions hold, in point of fact, a very large place
in the achievement of Comte, and are, in them-
selves, clearly distinct from the strictly philosophical
theories, acknowledge the special meaning that he
has attributed to religion, but deny that his

62 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

religious doctrine is connected logically with his
philosophical doctrine.

Does the religious part of Comte's work, when we
compare it with the sociology, bring forward any
principle that is really new ?

We will not allow ourselves, declare some, to be
misled by words. Auguste Comte is speaking of the
subjective, of feeling, of the heart, of morality, of
eternity, of religion. In fact, it is only a question,
in these theories, of mystical appearance, of the
necessary predominance of the social and human
standpoint in scientific research and in life. Believing
that, from the point of view of things — from the
objective point of view, the systematisation of the
sciences is impossible, Comte describes as subjective
the point of view which he recommends : it consists
in organising the sciences for man's profit, i.e. it is a
purely human point of view.

In like manner, what he calls the heart is only
a traditional word, used to designate social feeling,
the love of others, in opposition to self-love. The
metaphysicians, according to Comte, have discredited
reason, through identifying it with individual specu-
lation. He, for his part, is going to employ the word
heart (usually contrasted with reason) in order to
denote the social point of view as distinct from that
point of view which is metaphysical. And this
subordination of the mind to the heart will not
signify anything, in his case, unless it be the obliga-
tion to base scientific research on social utility, under
the influence of the social sentiment.

If this were so, the leap that Comte appears to
take, in passing from philosophy to ethics and to

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 63

religion, would not exist : there would, in reality, be
nothing more in his ethics and in his religion than
in his sociology.

Does this interpretation agree with the philosopher's
own thought ?

The question would be quickly settled if we were
really anxious to attach any value to the declarations
of Comte himself. For he has told us, with all the
vigour and insistence in his power, that from 1845
he discusses things under another aspect, following
a new method — the reverse of the first. He speaks
in many a place of his sentimental evolution, of his
moral regeneration, of his second existence. He
distinguishes^ . from 4he_ positive- philosophy which
was but preliminary, the_positivism or religion of
Humanity, which alone comprehends all the elements
of social regeneration.

But, it may be said, his testimony is open to
suspicion. In 1844-45 he met with Clotilde de Vaux,
and the stormy passion then working in his heart was
enough to unhinge his judgment. Moreover, he had
been insane, and continued subject to relapses. His
sickness took the precise form of a profound senti-
mental disorder. Self-deception was possible over
the actual share of sentiment in the development of
his philosophical thought.

We must, therefore, examine separately the differ-
ent elements of the doctrine, and compare them.

If we look at the conclusions of the Cours de
philosophic positive, we see therein the positive
method presented as tending essentially to exalt the
meaning of the whole over any partial meaning.1
And, in accordance with this principle, the human

1 Fifty-seventh lecture.

64 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

individual is treated as an abstraction pure and
simple. Metaphysics constitutes the apotheosis of
individualism ; for, in giving the individual a higher
reality, it consecrates and uplifts the egoism of the
natural man. The Positive philosophy regards
Humanity as the only real, especially in the intel-
lectual and moral order.1

Thus do we find the matter stated in the Cours de
philosophic positive. The language of the Syst&me
de politique positive is very different.

Comte is seeking therein the conditions which are
to guarantee the persistent influence of the great
servants of humanity. Vanished from the world of
space, they yet maintain an existence in time. In
this sense they form a veritable being that is con-
tinually augmented in proportion as new members of
the elect press forward in their phalanx. But here
we must avoid falling into the ontological aberration.
Temporal or_subjective existence is not sufficient.
Each organ of the Supreme Being implies, of necessity,
an objective and spatial existence. Man, therefore,
gives support to TTumamty,~ during his actual life,
before serving as her organ after his death. We
ourselves, in the act of living with our dead, keep
them in existence. Their superior dignity does not
exempt them from the need of our worship in order
to become concrete after a fashion. The individual,
indeed, is only of value in so far as he resembles the
Great Being. But he is, himself, the actual depositary
of existence, and, in virtue of this, something that is
needful to the eternal.

Even in its subjective existence, the Supreme Being
cannot be simply regarded as universal and impersonal.

1 Fifty-eighth lecture.

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 65

For, in reality, it acts directly by means of objective
organs alone : and these organs are the individual
beings who have done best service in becoming, after
their spatial existence, our world's legitimate repre-
sentatives. The worship of certain individuals, of
heroes, forms thus an essential part of the worship of
Humanity.

In short, as, according to this view, these superior
men constitute a certain personification of the Great
Being, they are deserving of homage, in the literal
sense even, provided that, in our thought, we set
aside the imperfections which, too often, impair the
best natures in this world.1

The new element that the religious doctrine intro-
duces at this point, is manifest. The individual, after
being debased by the positive philosophy, is exalted
by Positivism or positive religioji. He now plays a
part indispensable as the condition of objective exist-
ence, of efficacious action and of development, to that
Great Being which the sociology was content to
imagine as abstract idea.

From this point, the terms subjective, moral, heart,
religion, fully comprise, in their religious meaning, the
notions that were lacking in the sociology.

The sociology was kept within the limits of prov-
ing that, without the preponderance of the affective
faculties over the intellectual faculties, the notion of
the social organism would be unintelligible. Wherein
lay the reason of this preponderance ? Was it realis-
able, and, once realised, could it be maintained in a
sure manner ? The sociology ignored these questions
altogether.

We understand, now, that the heart possesses an

1 Syst. depol. posit., Statique #xialc, ch*p. i.

F

66 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

instinct called the religious instinct, in virtue of which
the individual is able to live with the dead, and to
assimilate their excellences ; thus it is that he (the
individual) becomes capable of overcoming his egoism
and of gaining a living experience of the social senti-
ment. The sociology was only the abstract conception
of the social bond, while religion is its realisation.
5 Religion alone exhibits, in individuals, the conversion
which is needed to make them the genuine props of a
society which only exists in them and by them.

It appears, then, only right to admit the contention
of Auguste Comte : his religious theory, compared with
his philosophy properly so called, introduces something
that is new and different. But another difficulty is
now presented to us. Far from exaggerating, in his
assertions, the originality of his religious doctrine,
may not Comte have been too much in the right?
Would not this very doctrine differ from his philosophy,
just as, in reality, it had no sort of connection with
the latter, but contradicted it outright — returning,
finally, to those same theological and anthropomorphic
tenets that the positive philosophy had irreversibly
condemned ?

If we compare the doctrines, the principles, the
general tendencies of thought to be found in the
earlier and later writings of Auguste Comte, we can
easily gain the impression that the relation between
philosophy and religion is, for him, no mere difference,
but a decided opposition. On one side, the method
of the intellect, and on the other, the method of the
heart : there a scrupulous anxiety for demonstration,
for the realisation of the idea of science : here inspira-
tion, intuition, the immediate knowledge of the mystic ;

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 67

there, regard for life, for action, for social profit : here
the heart set up as man ager-in- chief of human affairs ;
love, not only distinguished from thought and action,
but placed above them.

Moreover, some one may urge, it is very difficult
to avoid looking upon these differences as the sign
of a veritable revolution, when it is noted that they
were put forward at the very time of that sentimental
occurrence which, on his own confession, unsettled
Comte entirely, viz. the meeting with Clotilde de
Vaux.1 The sudden influence of his unhealthy love
for this insignificant woman, henceforth the pre-
ponderating influence of his whole life, while it
explains the philosopher's change of tone, marks, at
the same time, the gravity of the change. In fact
it becomes clear that two lives, two methods, two
doctrines, logically incompatible, are presented to us
in the story of the man who, besides being the
founder of the positive philosophy, was the worshipper
of Clotilde de Vaux.

It is true that Comte himself is never weary of
maintaining the contrary. He explains that the
great systematisation reserved for his century ought
to embrace the totality of human feelings as well as
the totality of ideas; that the systemati action nf
ideas ought to take precedence, and to rest solgly_on
the intellect, while the systematisation of feelings
implies a newad[ustment, not only of thought,.. Jmt
of the entire~80uT— • -feeling in its actual experience
Being alone capable of realising it. Auguste Comte
has affirmed as clearly as possible the fundamental
unity that he himself attributed to his work, in
taking for epigraph to the preface of his Systdme de

1 October 1844, then August 1845.

68 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

politique positive the saying of Alfred de Vigny :
" In what does a great life consist ? In making the
conceptions of youth the achievement of riper years."

But here again we cannot confine ourselves to the
philosopher's own judgment ; for great thinkers excel
in co-ordinating and harmonising too late the various
phases of their intellectual life, be these ever so
incongruous.

In order to know if Comte has contradicted
himself, and if, in his religious doctrine, he has, not
completed, but abjured the principles of his philosophy,
we must consider his person and his work as one
whole.

Now, we mark that, from the beginning of his
philosophical reflection, when he had scarcely passed
his twentieth year and was engrossed, like the men
of his day, in the re-organisation of society, he had
a clear idea of the decided mistake shown in bringing
this question to the front : a question that, in reality,
depended on several others which needed solution
first. As early as 1822, at the age of twenty-four,
he published a pamphlet entitled : Plan des travaux
scientifiques nScessaires pour reorganiser la societe.
Therein is to be found the germ of his sociology. He
sees distinctly that, instead of adopting the eighteenth-
century maxim — Law makes custom — we ought to say,
Institutions depend on custom, which, in its turn,
depends on belief.

Thus, the scientific and theoretical studies which
he is about to undertake, do not constitute, in his
view, an end : they are the means (apparently in-
direct, but actually indispensable) required in pre-
paring social re -organisation, which alone is the
veritable end.

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 69

Doubtless, these theoretical studies ought, in his
opinion, to occupy him only a small number of years.
But there befell him something analogous to what
had been illustrated in the case of Kant, when that
philosopher, intending to write a critical introduction
to metaphysics, took ten years in the composition of
a work — the Critique of Pure Reason itself. Comte
consecrated the years 1826-42 to the conception,
revision and publication of the preliminary part of
his undertaking.

In the course of these prolonged inquiries, the
mind of the philosopher could not remain unchanged.
He aimed at realising the unity of thought in him-
self and in humanity. He perceived, not without
astonishment perhaps, that this unity was not to
be gained through an objective systematisation of
knowledge, effected with the help of a material
principle. In the series of the sciences there is,
evidently, ji_lnaJais_JbeJ^^
sciences which advance fromthe

ag3rbioTogy~whicbjroceeds from the wjiolft to the
parjB. Anew gap is seen between biology wjierein
coj- ordination in space still prevails, and_sociology
with its essential law of continuity in time. In short,
each science adds to the principles of the anterior
sciences something really new ; that is why the
systematisation of the sciences is only possible, as a
completed synthesis, from a point of view which
belongs to it, intellectually, as a purely subjective
synthesis. Philosophy is the science of this systema-
tisation. It is a special activity of thought which,
through unity of end, through the relation of means
to end, binds together elements of knowledge that
are, in themselves, irreducible. Philosophy is, in a

70 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

way, something that is heterogeneous and irreducible
with regard to the sciences.

Aware of the leap that he has been compelled to
take in order to pass from science to philosophy, and
understanding clearly that intellectual unity can be
no more than a synthesis (a synthesis which is, not
an object, but an activity of thought), why should
Auguste Comte be bound, henceforward, to derive
practice from theory, objectively, analytically, im-
mediately ? His chief idea is only to start on the
task of political reform — a task that is practical in
the true sense, after he has exhausted its conditions.
He has already discovered that, in order to begin
working for the political regeneration of society, the
human mind must exchange the standpoint of the
scientist for that of the philosopher. Would no other
condition be required ? A priori, nothing demands,
nothing excludes the introduction of a new middle
term.

In reality, the Cours de philosophic positive
gives already the anticipation of a study bearing
specially on the moral conditions of social reorgan-
isation : the results of such a study cannot be
determined a priori.

Already Comte sees very distinctly that the
.dLjthe affective _£acultJ68 over the

intellectual faculties is indispensable,, if the social
organism that sociology implies is to be realised.1
How can that preponderance be assured ? Will the
positive philosophy agree to a solution of the
problem through a return to religion, i.e. to a mental
form that the law of the three stages shows us as
actually superseded \

• * Fiftieth lecture.

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 71

It must be noted that, in the law of the three
stages, theology and metaphysics are considered ex-
clusgelj_from the standpoint of knowledge they

flTAjnv>vpr| JTYipntpnf. as rPgarrla nnr in«at.rnr>i-ir>^ j^

tEeTa^S-^of-jaatttfe. But if there should turn out
to be (not, doubtless, in theology, but in religion
properly so called) some extra-intellectual element,
related, not to knowledge, but to practice, that
element would remain intact, even admitting the
law of the three stages.

Yet again : the sociology has been founded on
the idea of the solidarity of human generations
through the ages, it has established the connection
between progress and order — the need of destroying
and replacing only those products of the past which
are distinctly opposed to the positive spirit, and of
religiously preserving, on the contrary, everything
that paves the way for a higher state.

Since, then, Auguste Comte has already inter-
calated philosophy between science and politics, there .
is nothing to prevent him, now, from intercalating
religion between philosophy and politics.

How has that intercalation been produced? It
has been determined by the romantic passion of
Auguste Comte for Clotilde de Vaux. This fact
is incontestable. But it has not, necessarily, the
significance that many have attributed to it.

The mediocrity of the beloved object and the
extremely affectionate disposition of Auguste Comte,
reduce this incident to the level of mere contingency.

Restrained, perhaps, by the severe intellectual
task to which, as the philosopher of 1826 to 1842,
he had applied himself, his sensibility was over-
excited in 1845 under the influence of an ordinary

72 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

event. It is a question, here, of understanding the
use to which Comte was going to put this incident —
so little philosophical in itself. The historical origin
of ideas, while it may divert our scholarly curiosity,
is generally of slight consequence when we want to
determine their value. Would a theorem of geometry
be less true through having been demonstrated by
a madman ?

It needs to be stated that Comte is not exactly
an intellectualist or an apostle of science : he is a
positivist. In this capacity, he allows only what
is at once real and useful, but he rejects nothing
that exhibits these two qualities. Now, following
these lines, he has come to regard the religious
phenomenon as a positive datum. In man there
dwells a religious instinct, i.e. a certain faculty for
perceiving and thinking. Love is sufficient for the
manifestation of this instinct ; for, of itself, it leads
to adoration and worship.

Can this religious sentiment be brought into that
rational harmony with the intellectual synthesis of
knowledge which the general idea of positivism
demands ?

It should be noted that, once the intellectual
synthesis has been achieved, a deficiency is discovered
in the event of our wishing to be assured, no longer
merely in regard to the theoretical possibility of
sociology as a science, but in regard to the realisa-
tion of normal society. Provided that society is in
existence, it is essential that, among individuals,
altruism should prevail over egoism. But the jntejr
lect_cannot, by itself alone, bring about this result.
And, regarded as a natural endowment, feeling is,
not only indifferent to order, but anarchical. If,

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 73

in order to systematise ideas, we have to reconsider
them, in the same way and with even greater reason, in_
order to systematise feelings, we must experience them.

Now, the void thus left by philosophy is quite
filled up by religion as defined by the positivist.

Positivism sets out from the concrete : man will
therefore begin with a determinate feeling. Positiv-
ism generalises through extension and adaptation —
rising gradually from relatively simple realities to
those that are more complex, but still concrete.
Accordingly, man will extend to family, to country,
to humanity (dignifying and in no way lessening
the reality of each) the love that is at one time
kindled within him by means of the natural and
moral relationship existing between man and woman.
From the standpoint of the end, positivism adapts *j
and organises the means. That is why the idea of
the religion of Humanity will discipline the feelings,
and will allow society to recover, from the old
religions, many a real and useful element which had
perforce to disappear provisionally, along with empty
theologies, when men lacked the power to discriminate
between the good and the bad in traditional religions.

In this way there is established, gradually, a
religious systematisation analogous to the philo-
sophical systematisation. It is true that Comte is
continually showing the connection between this
systematisation and his love for Clotilde de Vaux.
Let us give him credit for this. " To thee alone, my
Clotilde, I have been indebted, during an unparalleled
year, for the tardy but decisive expansion of the
sweetest human feelings. A sacred intimacy, at once
paternal and fraternal, and quite compatible with
mutual respect, has enabled me to appreciate, amid

74 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

all thy personal charms, such a marvellous combina-
tion of tenderness and nobility as no other heart ever
realised in like degree. . . . The familiar contempla-
tion of such perfection was bound (though this was
hidden from me at the time) to increase my systematic
passion for that universal advancement which we both
regarded as the general purpose of human life whether
public or private. . . . Together we conceived, in
worthy fashion, the beautiful harmony existing
between functions at once conjoined and inde-
pendent . . . while the one led towards the
establishment, in scientific method, of convictions
that were active and masculine, the other led towards
the development, in sesthetical method, of feelings
that were profound and feminine. When two
functions are thus similarly indispensable, any notion
of precedence is out of the question." l Let no shallow
critic come forward, now, with insinuations about the
tediousness of this exceptional homage : " All thinkers
who know how to appreciate the mental reaction of
the sympathetic affections, will take sufficient note
of the time employed in retracing and reanimating
emotions of this pure quality."

Such was the love of Auguste Comte for Clotilde :
the sum of it he has given us in his synthesis.

As to the re -establishment of fetichism, that is
explained by the anxiety for realisation which was
becoming more and more dominant with Auguste
Comte. The imagination has a reality of its own,
and that a potent one. Positivism, which preserves
by means of adaptation, will not set it aside, but will
make use of it. Enough that the imagination does
not destroy the work of reason, that its fictions be

1 Syst. de pol. posit., Dedication.

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 75

not taken for truths. Similarly, the rationalism of
a Plato made room for myth as the auxiliary of
philosophy in practice.

It is not to be denied, however, that Comte has
started here on a slippery incline. Positivism rested
on a double principle — the real and the useful. Its
perfection consisted in maintaining an exact balance
between these two terms. Now, the evolution of
Comte seems to have consisted in first of all sub-
ordinating the useful to the real, ere coming, by
degrees, to subordinate the real to the useful. Such
an evolution is by no means accidental, seeing that,
from the very first, it was his avowed intention to
study the real with the sole object of finding use
for it. But there are, undoubtedly, considerable
difficulties in defining satisfactorily both the real and
the useful, as well as their relations — difficulties that
Comte has not sufficiently had in mind.

Ill

THE VALUE OF THE DOCTRINE

What is the value of this doctrine ? What lesson
can we derive from it ?

The Positivism of Comte may be defined as the
synthesis of science and religion, brought about by
means of the concept of humanity. Brought back to
the needs of man, science leads to religion, and it is
the latter, alone, that can secure the realisation of
those ends for which science supplies the means. On
the other hand, finding in humanity itself the fitting
object of its worship, religion accomplishes its task
without leaving the real world in which science moves.

;6 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Does this synthesis satisfy reason ?

It has been frequently remarked that the position
of science in the system is one of singular embarrass-
ment. Not only is it debarred from applying itself
to inquiries of doubtful social utility, and from carry-
ing its prepossession for accuracy beyond the limits
that satisfy practical life ; but arbitrary hypotheses —
mere fictions of the imagination — are imposed upon
it, when its own bent towards positivism is not shown
sufficiently. Comte arrives, in this way, at his defini-
tion of logic : the normal conjunction of feelings,
images and signs for the purpose of suggesting to us
those conceptions which harmonise with our moral,
intellectual and physical needs. Free, independent
science is more and more treated with suspicion and
dislike. Science tends to specialise and to break up :
she is, therefore, essentially anarchical. Her futile
inquisitiveness — sheer mental concupiscence, her
insufferable pride ought to be restrained. Science
must be submitted to feeling. Her excesses may
appear strange, but they are conceivable, if we under-
stand that the office of science has been, from earliest
times, to strive after the knowledge of things as they
are, not as we would have them be : in fact to strip
them, as much as possible, of that distinctive mark of
humanity which it is the intention of Comte, before
all else, to confer upon them.

Keligion, in Comtism, is not less cramped than
science. In vain does she seek to recover that
mastery over philosophy which belonged to her under
Scholasticism : she is tormented by a secret aspiration
that she can neither curb nor satisfy.

She would like to retain, in all their fulness, those
sentiments dear to the heart of man : love toward

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 77

God as the foundation of love toward man, and faith
in Immortality as the pledge of communion with the
dead. And Comte insists, more and more, on the
reality and value of the extra-intellectual or sub-
jective elements of our nature. Is not feeling a
fact; is not the imagination a part of the human
soul, quite* as much as the senses or the reason?
What can be more real than instinct — especially
religious instinct; that irreducible ground of our
being ? I

But reason, being likewise a principle of our
nature, checks these effusions of the heart. If
humanity properly so called (humanity as it appears
in space and time) is itself the measure of being and
of knowing, the eternity of the Great Being is but a
word : the whole of God's reality is contained in the
\ thought, actually present in certain individuals, of a
certain collection of human facts ; while Immortality
amounts to no more than remembrance.

It is not without reason that we dispute over the
value of the .subjective in the scheme of Auguste
Comte. He is at once willing and not willing to
constitute it a genuine reality.

The embarrassment that he experiences is connected
with the principle of his adoption. Humanity is an
ambiguous notion, incapable of furnishing a first
principle. There is man as visible, as seen from the
outside — a collection of given facts, analogous to all
other facts ; and there is man as internal, i.e. as one
who thinks, desires, loves and seeks. When, in spite
of his proscription of psychology, he has taken clear
note of the reality that belongs to man as internal,
Comte offers the world of facts to his ambition, having
previously constituted it an impassable prison in order

78 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

to be quite sure that man could not get away from
it ; and he bids him rule over the world and find
happiness therein. But the barrier that he has raised
between facts and ideas, between given realities and
ideal possibilities, is illusory. The human soul turns
out to be precisely the effort to go beyond what is
given, to do better, to seek after something else, to
surpass itself. Man, said Pascal, stands for what is
infinitely above man.

It is not the closing up, once and for all, of meta-
physical and religious inquiries that makes man the
measure of things — it is the reopening of them. For,
what is man? Can he be sure that he is, himself,
only a datum, a collection of facts, a thing ?

Philosophers, said Goethe, have torn in pieces the
external and material deity who was throned above
the clouds : what they have done amounts to nothing.
Let man re-enter into himself, and he will find there
the true God — internal as regards existence and not
external, a creative influence and not a given
phenomenon.

Web ! Weh !
Du hast sie zerstort
Die schone Welt
Mit machtiger Faust ;
Sie stiirzt, sie zerfallt !

Machtiger

Der Erdensohne

Prachtiger

Baue sie wieder,

In deinem Busen baue sie auf ! l

1 Goethe, Faust : Woe ! Woe ! Thou hast shattered it, the splendid
world, with thy destroying hand ; it crumbles, it falls asunder. . . .
Mighty son of earth, thou must rebuild it more glorious still ; build it in
thine own bosom.

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 79

Comte, it is true, regarded human instinct as
irreversibly fixed, in the same way as the instinct of
animals. But science was bound to show that animal
instinct is an unalterable datum. As to man, he is
true man only if he takes his actual instinct as a
starting-point from which to rise higher — not as a
limit which he is forbidden to pass.

That ia th^ d^ataMg p^int in t-hft

Comte. His positivism, with its fixity and arbitrari-
ness, would be legitimate, if human nature were
something given once for all. It is but the artificial
fixing of a transient phase in the life of humanity, if
man is a being who is ever seeking, modifying and
re-creating himself.

Can we say that this creation of man by man is
arbitrary? Man would be humiliated if this were
shown him. For, in his wish to do better, he could,
then, only bestir himself at random like an atom of
Epicurus. But he believes that, while lacking a full
pattern in what is given him, his work has, neverthe-
less, a regulating principle — one that, in a high sense,
has its necessity, its existence and its value. That
principle, which dwells at once within him and above
him, is what he calls God.

It is thus that, in humanity itself, are found the
germs of a religion in which the object goes beyond
humanity. In order that man should rest content
with man, it would be necessary for him to unlearn
the yv&Oi aeavrov of ancient wisdom. He cannot
go to the foundations of self without being made
to recognise the strongest compulsion to enlarge the
reality, the perfection and the value of humanity.
Doubtless the legacy of past humanity, and the
conditions therein prescribed, enter as an essential

8o SCIENCE AND RELIGION

part into the ideal which is proper to man, and
this ideal, in order to be practical, must remain
close to given reality. But fact cannot succeed in
governing idea, seeing that the overpassing of fact
is just what is in question. Faith in the superior
reality of an ideal object, irreducible to whatever is
given, yet capable of being impressed on the given,
has produced the very heroes whom Auguste Comte
so rightly honours : they are the saints of his calendar,
because they have not believed in his religion.

Positivism thus appears, throughout, to be placed
in a position of unstable equilibrium. It knows
only the real and the useful. But in the real and
the useful are necessarily implied other and higher
notions.

The scientist, to whom we look for inquiry into
the real, soon discovers that all impressions of all
individuals are equally real, and that his task lies
precisely in distinguishing — from this same real —
something that is more stable, more profound, less
dependent on the conditions of a perception that
is only individual and human. He claims as true
that object which he can neither lay hold of nor
define exactly : while his vague idea of it directs
his investigations, and, by degrees, comes into shape
before him under the influence of these same investi-
gations. And, once in possession of this idea, he
cannot subordinate it to any utility, be this ever so
urgent. The truth itself is, in his eyes, a supreme
utility. Science investigates by reason of her love
for truth. It is her honour, her pride and her joy
which she cannot allow to be stolen from her by any
philosophical or political system. It is no question
of understanding whether the interest of practical

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 81

science herself can be best served in allowing theorists
to believe that they are only labouring for the sake
of theory. Science, as such, is a legitimate and
absolutely noble activity which, through the agency
of philosophy as guardian of the ideal, ought to be
enfranchised and made aware of its capacities, instead
of being left to. the bondage of any purpose that
may appear.

In like manner, the man of heart and will, to
whom is given the task of searching for the useful
within the limits of the real, must not rest content
with this object. What is the useful ? What is
the real ? Man is desirous of determining the first,
and of creating, in some way, the second. The useful
may be defined as the means to be e™p1oypd by m^
in_realising the object which I have perceived, and
which reason presents to me as worthy of man's
endeavour. And the real^jygf nmy ^y} is snTnatfymg
thatj myself bring into existence through borrowing
powers to be found in the very idea of the task
that I set myself. In other words^jnan-is- constrained
tQLjpujb the good and the beantifol n.boY» 4fce- ^asef trl,
seeing that in these we find the source and measure
of the useful itself. The Good and the Beautiful,
as well as the True, demand, in their turn, to be
considered as utilities — as the utility par excellence.

So it comes about that the principle of Comte,
the notion of the positive as union of the real and
the useful, leads, of itself (as soon as man sets it in
operation), to those superior objects in given reality
that Comte had intended to eliminate. The real
and the useful are, for us, an incentive towards the
True, the Beautiful and the Good.

Vain is the attempt — in order to take from the

G

82 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

human soul the desire for what is beyond man — to
show that this desire is illusive in the sense of wast-
ing away and disappearing by degrees, as a useless
instrument : the real man does not recognise his
own nature in this description of it. Comte forbids
v us to see anythmggjtp look for anytMrLg^beyond^jthe
worldthat we inhabit. This world, according to

him, suffices as our be all and end all. But Littr^
soon discovers that this " all " is a mere island,
surrounded on every side by an ocean which we are
forbidden, says he, to explore, but which offers us a
spectacle as salutary as it is formidable.

Is it possible to enclose the infinite, and to
reckon on disuse as enabling us to lose the idea of
it ? Science and Eeligion are m^u^Uyj^LCOELYfinienced
sglongas we pretend To~lind^room for both of them
in the finite world^bTEiman^phenomena : would they
not recover" their lib"elr^"aBdr"autonomy respectively,
if we were to allow — beyond the given world that
science claims — the existence of another world, open
to our desires, to our beliefs, to our dreams ? Would
such a doctrine run counter to the affirmations of
modern science, or would it not, rather, be demanded
by science herself? This way of approaching the
problem was that of an illustrious English philosopher,
one of the principal contributors to the thought of
our time : Herbert Spencer.

CHAPTEK II

HERBERT SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE

I. THE DOCTRINE OF H. SPENCER ON SCIENCE, RELIGION, AND THEIR
RELATIONS — The Unknowable, science and religion — Evolu-
tionism, religious evolution.

II. THE INTERPRETATION OF THE DOCTRINE — The motives which
guided H. Spencer — The relation between the theory of re-
ligious evolution and the theory of The Unknowable — The
negative Unknowable and the positive Unknowable — H.
Spencer and Pascal.

III. THE VALUE OF THE DOCTRINE — Is The Unknowable of H. Spencer
merely a residuum of religion 1 The value of feeling according
to H. Spencer — Moreover, the doctrine has a rational founda-
tion— The weak point in the system : The Unknowable con-
ceived from a purely objective point of view. H. Spencer
allows it too much or too little.

IN our estimate of what is most original in Herbert
Spencer's philosophy, we cannot include his specula-
tions concerning religion. Eoughly speaking, they
occupy only a small space in his works. But, if it is
always interesting to understand the ideas of a great
thinker in regard to this subject, there are special
reasons for seeking to know what Herbert Spencer
has written about it.

He belonged to a family of preachers and pro-
fessors, wherein religion was deemed the matter of
first importance. On his mother's side he was

83

84 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

connected with an old French Huguenot family —
that of Brettel. His great-grandfather was John
Brettel, who, as personal friend of John Wesley, the
founder of Methodism, applied himself to the task of
spreading that doctrine. His mother, Harriet Holmes,
was a woman of great piety : although a Methodist,
she rigidly observed the rites of the Church of
England. George Spencer, Herbert's father, was
keenly interested in religious matters. Originally
attached to Methodism, he seceded from it on the
plea of not finding therein the inward religion that
he needed, and went over to the Quakers. His
religious disposition was expressed in a veritable re-
pugnance towards ecclesiastical rules and ceremonies.

To these influences Herbert Spencer was far from
being insensible. In his Facts and Comments, as
well as in his Autobiography, he shows that religious
matters have an increasing hold upon his affection.
It is with reflections about religion that the Auto-
biography ends. In this way, the scientist who, by
means of his immense studies, rendered himself
capable of attempting that wonderful synthesis of the
sciences with which his name remains connected, was
no less qualified, on the side of life and thought, to
discuss the relations between religion and science.

It is not only because it expresses an important
side of the philosopher's own mind that the teaching
of Herbert Spencer in regard to religion is interesting.
That teaching is summed up in what Huxley has
called Agnosticism. Now, Agnosticism is one of the
most important forms of philosophical thought as it
exists to-day. What is Agnosticism ? For some, it
is a mysticism which is afraid of lowering God by
setting Him within our reach ; for others, it is only

SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE 85

an esoteric name behind which atheism is concealed.
Agnosticism is a particular solution of the problem
which the relations between religion and science
involve ; this problem we are bound to examine, and,
if we are to study it in a concrete manner, we could
not do better than consider it as expounded by
Herbert Spencer.

THE DOCTRINE OF H. SPENCER ON SCIENCE,
RELIGION, AND THEIR RELATIONS

It is essentially in the opening part of First
Principles, entitled " The Unknowable," and in those
parts of The Principles of Sociology which treat, at
one time of the psychological data or bases of socio-
logy, at another of the evolution of ecclesiastical
institutions, that the passages concerning religion and
its relations with science are to be found.

The last word of Herbert Spencer's philosophy
may be expressed as follows : there is for us, incon-
testably, at the centre and origin of all things, an
Unknowable — a principle, that is, which we can
neither set aside nor reach. This doctrine binds
together religion and science.

It often seems as if religion and science were
opposed to one another : hence many people are
driven to believe that the principles underlying these
two are radically irreconcilable. For all that, we are
compelled to note that both are equally given in
experience as genuine realities.

It would be an error to regard religion as an
artificial affair, manufactured by the mind through

86 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

the accidental caprice of its imagination. Religion
has been suggested to man by the very things of his
experience : it is the spontaneous reaction of his
thought, of his heart, of his soul, in response to the
control exercised over him by the external world.

On the other hand, science, in like manner, is
not the artificial and quasi-supernatural contrivance
imagined (maybe through imperfect understanding)
by those who glory in opposing it to the knowledge
of the multitude. Science is common everyday
experience itself, become, in the process of its natural
evolution, more precise, more connected, more instruc-
tive, and far more capable than common experience
of overstepping, in its affirmations, the limits of
actual perception.

Science and religion have, then, one and the same
origin : both are generated naturally in the human
mind, by reason of its relation with the world ; they
are, to the same extent, realities, spontaneous mani-
festations of nature : it is, therefore, nonsense to
inquire if the existence of the one is compatible with
that of the other. They are able to coexist seeing
that they do coexist ! The only problem is that
of seeking out the reason and meaning of this
coexistence.

If we adhere to the examination of particular
determinations, be these religious or scientific, we
prove, indeed, flagrant contradictions between them,
and we can only deem unnatural and feeble those
efforts in the way of conciliation that ingenious
exegetes strive to multiply. But the accidental
cannot make us forget what is essential. In order to
arrive at a clear appreciation of science and religion,
we must consider, not their particular and contingent

SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE 87

expressions, but their most general and most abstract
propositions : perhaps, in this way, they will turn out
to be quite reconcilable.

The special dogmas offered by the various religions
(dogmas that often bring them into conflict with
science) express, in reality, not supernatural revela-
tions, but the endeavour of the human mind to
imagine, in a manner agreeable to its categories and
methods, what is absolute and infinite : this task is
forced upon it by feeling. Now, all these formulae
— be they ever so learned, ingenious, or acute — turn
out to be incapable of supporting the analysis. They
appear satisfactory so long as we consider them from
a poetical and sentimental standpoint, without strictly
defining the meaning of words and the connection of
ideas. But it is no longer the same when we seek to
imagine them and to demonstrate them in a precise
fashion.

For instance, let the question be in regard to the
origin of the world — one of those questions which
religion, in its various forms, usually attempts to
solve. If we determine with precision the explana-
tions that this problem allows, we find that they are
reduced to three. We may assume, either that the
world exists from all eternity, or that it has created
itself, or that it has been created by an external
power. Now, submitted to philosophical criticism,
not one of these three hypotheses is really intelligible:
each of the three conceals within itself logical incom-
patibilities, each is intrinsically contradictory. It is
impossible to realise them in thought — to use the
forcible English expression. These results have been,
according to Herbert Spencer, definitely established
through the criticism of Hamilton and of Mansel.

88 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Examination of the other determinations that theology
claims to impose on primal being — unity, freedom,
personality, brings us to like conclusions.

That is why the object of religion, the absolute,
in so far as we try to picture it as existent, is incom-
prehensible, unthinkable.

What shall we now say about science ? Is it not,
contrariwise, clear and obvious — from beginning to
end — in its principles, in its reasonings, in its results ?
Not so, in Herbert Spencer's view ! Science, in her
definitive task of reducing quality to quantity, cannot
dispense with such notions as space, time, matter,
movement, force, seeing that they are the necessary
conditions of quantity. But all these notions, if we
attempt to realise them in thought, end, likewise, in
contradictions.

Try for instance, to imagine clearly, i.e. to under-
stand with precise and absolute determination, what
existence implies, whether space or time. If space
and time really exist, there are, with respect to their
nature, only three possible hypotheses. They must
be either entities, or attributes of entities, or subjec-
tive realities. But not one of these three hypotheses
can be developed without contradiction. Spencer,
once again, adopts the results of Kantian and Scottish
criticism.

That which is true of space and of time is equally
so of the other primary data of science. Do we
endeavour, tracing back the course of universal evolu-
tion, to conceive matter as having existed originally
in a state of complete diffusion ? We find ourselves
confronted by the impossibility of imagining how it
has reached that state. Do we turn our gaze towards
the future ? We are debarred from assigning limits

SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE 89

to the succession of phenomena spread out before us.
If, on the other hand, man looks into himself, he finds
that the two ends of the thread of consciousness are
beyond his reach. He can only comprehend the
production of a state of consciousness after that state
has already slipped by ; and the disappearance of the
conscious into the unconscious eludes him in like
manner. The essence, the genesis and the end of all
things are hidden from us. All our science leads to
mystery in the long run.

There is, then, a resemblance, a bond, between
science and religion. Both of these, when we dive into
their principles, imply the unknowable, the unthink-
able. Religion takes its rise in this unknowable,
which it struggles fruitlessly to define. In vain, on
its side, would science resolve on establishing itself
within the region of the definable and knowable.
The greater its progress and demonstration, the more
obtrusive becomes that unknowable which it was
bent on eliminating. Where religion begins, sciencej
ends. They turn their backs on one another, and
yet they are reunited.

But would not the notion of the absolute, in
which science and religion are thus reconciled, be a
pure negation ? Would not this unknowable, this
unthinkable be reduced to an abstraction, to a
nonentity? If this were so, the reconciliation that
it effects would be only a word.

It is the peculiar merit and originality of Herbert
Spencer to have established, as a positive reality,
that Unknowable which, for his predecessors Hamilton
and Mansel, was only a negation. He has declared, f
he has maintained that the Absolute is unknowable :1
he has not concluded thence that we can affirm

90 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

nothing in regard to it. Between knowledge, properly
so called, which grasps the thing in its full determina-
tion, and total ignorance which reduces the thing to a
name devoid of meaning, Herbert Spencer has put an
intermedium, viz. to know the thing in so far as it is
perceived under its most general aspects.

In order to establish, in this sense, that the absolute
can be positive and yet unknowable, Herbert Spencer
distinguishes between positive consciousness and
definite consciousness. We are mistaken in thinking
that the first necessarily implies the second. This
opinion rests on a logical error. A thing can, in
reality, very well be at once positive and indefinite.
And it is precisely to the affirmation of a conscious-
ness at once indefinite and positive that we are led
in examining this unknowable — the postulate of both
science and religion.

When I say that the absolute is unknowable,

[ unthinkable, I mean that it cannot be realised in

thought, known under a concrete form, set up as

an object of definite knowledge. What does this

impossibility signify ?

Let us assume that the mind intends to think the
absolute. It will necessarily be obliged to attribute
to it certain determinations. For instance, it will
have to suppose it either as limited or as unlimited.
These two attributes are contradictory. The mind
will, therefore, be bound to choose between them.
Now, analysis demonstrates with uniform precision,
on the one hand, that I am obliged to think of the
absolute as limited since it cannot possibly be un-
limited ; on the other hand, that I am obliged to
think of it as unlimited since it cannot possibly be
limited. If, therefore, I try to imagine the absolute, I

SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE 91

find myself in presence of two contradictory absolutes
— the one limited, the other unlimited. But this
result is not the last word in the analysis.

If the limited and the unlimited are opposed to one
another, it is only in so far as there is, behind them, a
subject which brings them together, compares them,
and judges them incompatible ; in other words, it is
in so far as there is a consciousness behind them.
Accordingly, the limited and the unlimited, regarded
no longer through the medium of words that isolate
them from one another, but through the mental agency
that is presupposed in every concept, are not totally
inconsistent. After they have both been annulled,
in so far as they are objects of definite conscious-
ness, there remains the consciousness implied in this
very fact of being aware : a consciousness indefinite
and, nevertheless, positive. To affirm that definite
consciousness of the absolute is impossible, is, ipso
facto, to affirm the existence of a positive indefinite
consciousness of that absolute.

The method of Herbert Spencer is, not that of
formal and scholastic dialectics, but a concrete method
of inference. He starts from what is empirically
given, and eliminates therefrom all that cannot be
imagined as existent. He stops when, like the chemist,
he finds himself in presence of an irreducible residuum.
Now, underlying the absolute, he discovers, in this
/way, an indefinite consciousness. Predicated by this
consciousness, the absolute is, indeed, something that
is real and positive, though unknowable.

And so, the reconciliation of religion and philosophy
is effected, not by means of a word, but in a real
manner : it is not negative, but positive. Whatever
may be the intrinsic nature of their connection, there

92 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

exists for us a living unity, viz. consciousness, which
assures us of its reality.

Religion proceeds from the affirmation of the
absolute, and she has truth on her side, seeing
that we have a positive consciousness of this same
absolute. Science cannot succeed in dispersing the
mystery by which, in the fullest sense, she is sur-
rounded ; and this incapacity is, indeed, irremediable,
since we have, and must continue to have, only an
indefinite consciousness of the absolute.

This doctrine of the relations between religion
and science, nevertheless, is only in some degree
the metaphysical introduction of the system. The
system, properly so called, gravitates towards the
idea of science. It aims at establishing the synthesis
of the sciences by means of principles which are
taken from the notion of the knowable.

The sciences class objects according to their re-
semblances— seeking for the reduction of those vague
and incomplete resemblances which are qualitative,
to the complete and exact resemblances which
mathematicians call equality and identity. The
sciences, by themselves, only attain to a partially
unified knowledge. Philosophy tends to unify know-
ledge in a complete manner. Its instrument is the
law of evolution, which the sciences exhibit, and
which the analysis of our notion of the knowable
makes good.

The sciences study facts, all the facts ; and, finally,
incorporated in philosophy, they see these facts range
themselves, in every province, under that law of
evolution which is the common principle of being
and of knowing. Following this law, taken in its

SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE 93

most general sense, all things pass necessarily, pro-
gressively, from a state of incoherent homogeneity to
a state of definite and coherent heterogeneity.

The various religions are submitted to the law of
evolution in the same way as all other phenomena.
Thus religion, which was set opposite science in
First Principles, when it was a question of seeking
for its ultimate object, is now — as a phenomenon
given in space and time — ranged purely and simply
among the wholly analogous things that science and
philosophy study.

The problem to be investigated at this point,
according to the philosophy of evolution, is the
phenomenal genesis of ecclesiastical institutions.

The starting-point of religions after the historical
method, the elementary fact which, through diversi-
fication, produces their infinite variety, is simply, in
Herbert Spencer's view, the idea of what we call the
double. Man sees his image or double in the water.
Similarly, he sees himself in a dream, just as he sees
in a dream the image of other men. This double,
while resembling the original, is not necessarily
identical with it : man's first impulse is to regard
the one and the other as two distinct beings. Now,
when sleep has passed away, what becomes of the
double ? Man has a natural disposition to believe
that he is not annihilated, that he is simply removed,
that he will, perhaps, reappear in another dream.
Consequently, when death comes, man readily believes
that this mysterious self subsists, and that it remains
more or less like his ordinary self — therefore, more or
less like the visible being of which it was the double.
Thence issues the belief in ghosts, in supernatural
beings, in their power, in their influence over human

94 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

life. Such is the historical origin of religions, according
to Herbert Spencer : and, here, he is in agreement
with the Epicureans.

From this belief are derived dogmas, rites, ecclesi-
astical institutions.

Every real being has its double, capable of being
considered as a ghost. The inferior ghosts come, in
time, to be grouped under the domination of superior
ghosts called gods ; finally, these latter are themselves
subordinated to a single God. These supernatural
powers man has sought to picture to himself, in the
act of rendering them accessible and propitious : out
of this desire have sprung mythologies, forms of
incantation, practices and organisations, which, being
afterwards (according to the same law of evolution)
developed for what they were worth in themselves,
sometimes preserved only faint traces of their origin.

Thereafter, when they are no longer upheld on
the ground of their first intention, by reason of the
too definite evolution of men's beliefs, these institutions
continue as social bonds : in this way evolution confers
upon them a character of prime importance. Hence-
forward, the religions of the world represent the con-
tinuity of social life ; and so there is, for individuals,
a special concern in reverencing them.

The general trait of religious evolution is seen in
the increasing preponderance of the moral element
over the ritual or propitiatory element, as well as in
the increasing elimination of those anthropomorphic
qualities which were originally attributed to the first
cause ; at bottom, this is the tendency to consider
dogmas as pure symbols, and to replace them by the
consciousness, at once indefinite and positive, of the
absolute.

SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE 95

II

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE DOCTRINE

Such is the substance of Herbert Spencer's teaching
on religion and its relations with science. What
significance has it ? Is this teaching, in view of his
work as a whole, merely an accessory part, or is it
the expression of profound ideas which are vitally
connected with his system ?

We are tempted to infer that speculation of this
kind is of no moment in comparison with the vast
synthesis of the sciences, which is Herbert Spencer's
particular achievement ; that, in short, its significance
is chiefly negative.

Doubtless one can easily find, in First Principles,
the materials of a theory of The Unknowable. But
it must be noted that Herbert Spencer did not,
originally, intend to preface First Principles by
speculations in regard to The Unknowable. It was
because of the fear that his general doctrine should
be interpreted in a sense unfavourable to religion,
it was in order to avert the reproach of atheism,
that Herbert Spencer, on reconsideration, added that
first part.

Moreover, this theory of The Unknowable, as its
very name indicates, informs us that God, the first
cause, and the special objects of religion, are entirely
inaccessible to our understanding. Their reality, no
doubt, is implied by the phenomena that we observe.
But what is an existence deprived of every kind of
being ? What is an absolute that has to be described
as absolutely unknowable ? Do we not find therein
(in spite of the philosopher's own denials) a mere

96 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

abstract term — the wholly negative expression of an
impossibility ?

So far as the doctrine relating to the historical
genesis of religion is concerned, we are, indeed,
presented with something that is precise, positive
and developed. But is not an abstraction based on
its scientific value (a value that is much contested
at the present time) the very negation of a really
objective foundation of religion ? Do we not see all
the components of the various religions reduced, in
this way, to a puerile and erroneous belief, viz. belief
in the reality and in the survival of those phantoms
which dreams suggest to us ? Does not religion thus
become, purely and simply, a chapter in the natural
history of man ?

In order that we may thoroughly grasp Herbert
Spencer's thought in regard to these different points,
we must apply to the interpretation of his doctrine
that method of internal criticism — of explaining the
argument by the argument itself — which Spinoza
wished to see applied equally to the Bible and to
Nature.

What are the considerations which have instigated
the theories of Herbert Spencer concerning religion ?
By examining the motives of his teaching, we are
more likely to understand its genuine meaning.

If we consult the philosopher's Autobiography —
so frank, so spontaneous, so spirited, so rich in details
as regards the inner working of his mind — we see
that these motives were as follows.

We note, first of all, the impression made upon him
by the Bible and by the sermons of those preachers
who expounded the sacred text. A thousand things,

SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE 97

in this so-called revelation, appeared to him ground
of offence. What an enormous injustice to punish
the disobedience of the one Adam by condemning the
whole of his innocent posterity ! And how can it be
right to make an exception in favour of a small
number of men, to whom is revealed a plan of
salvation which the rest of mankind have no means
of knowing ? How extraordinary is the assertion
about the Universal Cause from which have proceeded
thirty million of suns with their planets — that, on
one occasion, it took the form of a man, and made a
bargain with Abraham, promising to obtain territory
for him, in the event of his rendering loyal service !
How can God find pleasure in hearing us sing His
praises in our churches, or get angry with the
infinitely little beings of His own creation, because
they omit to speak to Him constantly about His
al mightiness ?

Such reflections appear frequently in Herbert
Spencer's record. What motive inspires them ? As
to this there can be no doubt. Herbert Spencer is
shocked by the disproportion that he discovers
between traditional beliefs about God, and that
character of infinity which his reason attributes to
the First Cause. Can we call this an irreligious
sentiment? Does it show indifference over matters
of religion? The very freshness and quality of his
diction manifest the serious and profoundly religious
aspiration which suggests to him these attacks on
religion.

This kind of criticism only concerns certain stories
and dogmas belonging to a particular religion. Let
us turn to criticism of another type, stated with
insistence in the Autobiography. I possessed, says

98 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Herbert Spencer, as innate in my mind, the conscious-
ness of natural causality. " It seems as though
I knew by intuition the necessity of equivalence
between cause and effect — perceived, without teach-
ing, the impossibility of an effect without a cause
appropriate to it, and the certainty that an effect,
relevant in kind and in quantity to a cause, must in
every case be produced." This mental disposition led
me to reject the ordinary idea of the supernatural ;
and I thus came to regard as impossible everything
called miraculous, i.e. everything conceived as contrary
to the causality of nature.

The earlier motive was drawn from special
doctrines, put forward officially as religious. The
latter has its source in the nature of science : a priori,
science excludes the supernatural.

Is there, in the principle of natural causality
which Herbert Spencer here invokes, an insuperable
hindrance to religious beliefs ? It is not likely ; for
there are abundant examples of philosophers, who, to
a very clear consciousness of the natural connection
of phenomena, have added a very deep sense of
religion. We can point to the Stoics, in bygone
days, and — among men of modern times — to a
Spinoza, to a Leibnitz, to a Kant. As a set-off
we may instance the Epicureans, who, admitting
solution of continuity in the thread of phenomena,
denied all interference of the gods in the occurrences
of this world.

What, then, is the consequence of the doctrine of
natural causality, looking at it from the religious
standpoint ? This doctrine forbids us to picture God
and Nature as two adversaries struggling in the lists
with a view to exterminating one another. It does

SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE 99

not allow us to think of the divine action as consisting
in a destruction of natural forces, or to regard the
action of created beings as a revolt against divine
power. But a conception of natural and supernatural,
wherein God and Nature are thus likened to two men
in conflict, is manifestly childish ; and it is not for
casting aside such notions that we can be charged
with irreligion. Besides, the doctrine of natural
causality is by no means exclusive : for many minds
it implies a universal principle of order, of unity,
of life and of adaptation — a principle which, as
regards the laws of nature, stands in a superior
relationship, like that of cause to effect, or that of
original to copy. Does the connection existing
between the different moments of a mathematical
demonstration exclude the existence of a mathe-
matician, whom we presume to be the author of
that demonstration ?

In order that natural causation may admit of such
an interpretation, a condition is, nevertheless, requisite.
Nature, in the scientific meaning of the word, must
not, herself, be considered as the absolute.

Now, this is just the position taken by Herbert
Spencer. He himself declares that our natural laws
(the world that is presented to us) are but symbols
of Keal Being, and that it would be contrary to all
philosophy to set them up as absolute. There is,
accordingly, room — beside his faith in natural
causality — for faith in a principle which is superior
to that causality : such a principle would be exactly
at one with the object of religion.

Further, let it be noted that Spencer does not
infer : I was bound to reject every idea of the
supernatural ; he makes the simple admission : I was

ioo SCIENCE AND RELIGION

led to reject that idea of the supernatural which
usually prevails. He classes himself with those who,
while they entirely disbelieve in miracle as violating
the laws of nature, consider themselves justified in
maintaining the genuinely supernatural principles of
religion — thinking, indeed, that they are, in their
disbelief, more religious than those who represent
God as a bad workman constantly engaged in amend-
ing his work.

But we cannot content ourselves with the examina-
tion of Herbert Spencer's own meaning : it is necessary
to consider in themselves his theory of The Unknow-
able and his theory of religious evolution. To several
expounders it appears that this latter, which is, in
short, the positive and scientific part of the doctrine,
does away with the objective value of the religious
idea, and that, in this way, it makes illusory and
purely verbal the former theory of an absolute yet
unknowable reality.

What, then, from the standpoint of scientific
philosophy, is religion, according to Herbert Spencer ?
It is the natural development, conformable to the
general law of evolution, of the delusion about the
double : the development, that is, of an elementary
fact, which, besides being natural in itself, is even
vulgar and insignificant.1

In order to measure the real consequences of this
argument, we must look at it from Herbert Spencer's
own standpoint.

Natural evolution, as he understands it, is no mere
mechanical phenomenon. Doubtless it is supplied
with materials in the shape of facts separated from
one another like atoms ; and it collects these materials

SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE

from the outside, grouping around an elementary fact
those connected facts which are furnished by the
surrounding medium. But it does not produce any
aggregates whatsoever. It engenders pliant, modi-
fiable beings, which are gradually adapted to one
another. In reality, it is immanent in each element
of nature as a tendency towards universal equilibrium
and correspondence.

It follows thence that all the definite and relatively
stable products of evolution have, in themselves, a
certain value and dignity ; for all represent a moment,
or mode (the only possible and proper one in a given
point of space and of time) of that universal mutual
adaptation which is the supreme law of nature. We
find here, it would seem, a principle familiar and dear
to Anglo-Saxon folk : existence, simply as such, when
it is sure and deep-rooted, when it is maintained and
defended energetically, manifests or confers a right.
And thus religious phenomena, in so far merely as
they are, as they continue, as they appear endowed
with generality and with vitality, give evidence,
according to Herbert Spencer's teaching, of their
conformity to the medium in which they subsist, of
their legitimacy, of their value.

These same phenomena, moreover, in virtue of
their existence and durability, are data or conditions
to which the other modes of existence must be
adapted. The opening part of First Principles is
not confined to explaining how religion is bound to
be reconciled with science. It shows, in like manner,
how science ought to reverence whatever is essential
in religion. While he condemns theology for making
light of the laws of nature, Herbert Spencer is no less
disparaging in regard to the pride of a science which

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

pretends to abolish mystery — that sure token of the
absolute.

Thus the very test of time, to which existing
religions have been submitted, is a pledge of their
value. But in what sense do these phenomena
have a value? Are they calculated to interest the
really religious consciousness, or must we see in
them mere superstitions devoid of meaning, sub-
sisting on the level of those mechanical forces or
blind instincts with which we meet in the course
of nature ?

Herbert Spencer would appear to see no value —
from the standpoint of religious consciousness — in the
earliest stage of religious development : viz. primitive
man's belief in the reality of the images presented to
him in dreams. Would not this childish origin cast
a slur upon the entire evolution ? Do not beliefs and
institutions which are only the development and
adaptation of a clumsy superstition, remain (even
while possessing some practical utility) imaginations
without rational significance ?

Perhaps this inference is less rigorous than it
seems at first glance. Could not evolution, in the
long run, transform this very origin, and change error
into truth ? That is not the reply, however, that
Herbert Spencer makes. His own way of refuting
the objection is to be found in that chapter of The
Principles of Sociology which is entitled " Keligious
Eetrospect and Prospect/' as well as in certain articles
contributed to The Nineteenth Century (1884). This
refutation is as follows :

The inference would be right, if the premises were
true. But, contrary to what, perhaps, most of my
readers imagine, there is, in the primitive notion out

SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE 103

of which religions spring, a germ of real knowledge.
There is suggested to us in the primitive conception,
be it ever so faintly, this truth — " that the Power
which manifests itself in consciousness is but a
differently conditioned form of the Power which
manifests itself beyond consciousness." Our first
impulse is to confound this Power with the image of
self that certain natural phenomena introduce to us.
Now this confusion is not an absolute mistake. For
it is very true that there is an energy within us, and
that this energy is one with the universal energy.
The evolution that our primitive hypothesis ought to
undergo in order to become a philosophical proposi-
tion, need not, therefore, be a complete transforma-
tion ; it is sufficient if we eliminate from this
hypothesis every anthropomorphic accompaniment.
Reaching the last stage in our refining process,
we recognise "that force as it exists beyond con-
sciousness cannot be like what we know as force
within consciousness " ; and that yet they must
be different modes of an existence which is one and
the same.

The doctrine of The Unknowable is thus connected
expressly, by Herbert Spencer himself, with the
theory of evolution. In view of this it matters little
that the philosopher did not, originally, have the
intention of writing a chapter on The Unknowable as
the foundation of his First Principles. The Unknow-
able may be termed the soul of evolution. For it is
because Being, at bottom, is One, that the beings of
nature find, in mutual adaptation, an end that is
realisable.

But will this doctrine of The Unknowable, which

104 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

is all that Herbert Spencer offers to souls thirsting
for religious knowledge, succeed in depriving us of
every religious outlook that is positive, real, intel-
ligible and efficacious ? Is it any better than a hollow
formula — a residuum drawn from the discussion of
antinomies ?

Is not this doctrine, on further examination, quite
as abstract and void as it appeared at first sight ?

According to Herbert Spencer, consciousness brings
us to The Unknowable — that consciousness which is
the persistent and necessary ground of all our
conceptions, of all our reasonings, of all our analyses,
of even our most radical negations. If this is really
so, it is likely that the system will be found to
contain some rudiments of a positive metaphysic.
And we actually meet with such rudiments in
examining it.

From the first we are aware of a pronounced
idealism piercing through our author's negations.
Let us turn to First Principles, and examine the
beginning of Part II. (" The Knowable "). We shall
see there that the starting-point of all our ideas (as
much those relating to the external world or non-ego,
as those relating to the internal world) is to be found
exclusively in our states of consciousness. It is
pointed out that these states of consciousness are of
two kinds : vivid states or perceptions, and faint
states such as the phenomena of reflection, of memory,
of imagination, of ideation. The first present indis-
soluble connections, and the unknown power which
they manifest we call non-ego ; the second present
dissoluble connections, and the power therein expressed
we call ego. On both sides we see that consciousness
is the sole origin of knowledge. Consciousness is the

SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE 105

channel through which the action of The Unknowable
has to pass in order to be manifested to us. When
Herbert Spencer shows that the phenomena of the
non-ego can modify the phenomena of the ego, and
that the converse is impossible, it is, with him, tanta-
mount to saying that one of the two modes of
consciousness can operate on the other.

In so far as it derives all our knowledge from
consciousness, this system is idealistic. In its method
of determining the relationship of the ego to the
Absolute, it reveals a pantheistic tendency. We
are informed, in the preface to The Principles of
Psychology (1870), that the ego which subsists
uninterruptedly in the subject of states of conscious-
ness is a portion of The Unknowable. Moreover,
speaking of the Eternal Energy from which all
things proceed, Herbert Spencer declares, "It is
the same Power which in ourselves wells up under
the form of consciousness." * The ego, then, if
it is not the Absolute-in-Itself, is the Absolute for
us, i.e. the most immediate expression of It that is
given us.

Herbert Spencer goes further still. As regards
that which is beyond consciousness, and which we
cannot reach — the Absolute-in-Itself, called by him
The Unknowable, does he regard It purely and
simply as unknowable? Will he say, for instance,
that we do not know in the least whether It is Spirit
or Matter, whether It is Personal or Impersonal ?
Herbert Spencer has put this question to himself,
and he offers the following reply to it in First
Principles :

1 Quoted by A. S. Mories in Haeckel'» Contribution, to Religion, «tc.
(London, 1904).

106 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

" This [i.e. Agnosticism], which to most will seem an essen-
tially irreligious position, is an essentially religious one — nay, is
the religious one, to which ... all others are but approxima-
tions. In the estimate it implies of the Ultimate Cause, it does
not fall short of the alternative position, but exceeds it. Those
who espouse this alternative position, assume that the choice is
between personality and something lower than personality ;
whereas the choice is rather between personality and something
that may be higher. Is it not possible that there is a mode
of being as much transcending Intelligence and Will, as these
transcend mechanical motion 1 "

Does not this conception of Herbert Spencer recall
to us how Pascal prescribed the threefold classification
of body, mind and love, in the celebrated saying :
" The infinite distance between body and mind typifies
the infinitely more infinite distance between mind
and love ? " And may we not say that the agnostic
philosopher's system betrays, at this point, a spiritual-
istic and mystical tendency ?

That Herbert Spencer regarded these ideas as
genuinely important, and actually set his heart upon
them, is what his whole life attests.

If he has been repelled by the formal aspect of
traditions, dogmas, rites, institutions, under which
religion was presented to him, he has, all along, been
on his guard against confusing form with essence ;
and it is in the name of religious truth itself that he
condemns superstitions and practices from which the
spirit has departed.

Throughout life, he admitted the legitimacy of
those beliefs which were based pre-eminently on feel-
ing, so long as they were moral and practical, rather
than theological, in character. He always alluded in

SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE 107

terms of the greatest respect to the belief in immor-
tality and future rewards. He speaks of " the truth,
ever to be remembered, that during a state of the
world in which many evils have to be suffered, the
belief in compensations to be hereafter received, serves
to reconcile men to that which they would otherwise
not bear." l

In proportion as his thought developed, Herbert
Spencer, far from becoming more indifferent, was
more attentive in regard to religious matters, more
impressed with their lofty import and their prepon-
derating authority in the life of man. This is the
way in which he introduces the notion of infinite
Space, while he is tracing the progress of philosophical
investigation : 2

" And then comes the thought of this universal matrix itself,
anteceding alike creation or evolution, whichever be assumed,
and infinitely transcending both, alike in extent and duration ;
since both, if conceived at all, must be conceived as having had
beginnings, while Space had no beginning. The thought of this
blank form of existence which, explored in all directions as far
as imagination can reach, has, beyond that, an unexplored
region compared with which the part which imagination has
traversed is but infinitesimal — the thought of a Space compared
with which our immeasurable sidereal system dwindles to a
point, is a thought too overwhelming to be dwelt upon. Of
late years the consciousness that without origin or cause infinite
Space has ever existed and must ever exist, produces in me a
feeling from which I shrink."

Reading this passage, do we not again revert to
Pascal in the recollection of some such thought as
this : "If our sight fails at this point, let us pass

1 Autobiography, vol. i. p. 68.
* Fads and Comments, 1902, pp. 204-5.

io8 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

beyond it by means of an imagination that will sooner
grow weary in conceiving, than nature in supplying.
The entire visible world is but an imperceptible speck
in the vast lap of nature. "

And not only was the religious spirit, under its
abstract and philosophical form, recognised by Herbert
Spencer with increasing clearness. He made no secret
of having become, in time, somewhat less severe in
his attitude towards dogmas and institutions, i.e.
towards the concrete and given form of religion.
This change of judgment possessed him to such
an extent that he was led to make it the subject
of his concluding remarks in the Autobiography.
These remarks may be summarised in the following
manner :

Three causes, he tells us, have been at work in
determining the important modification in my ideas
about religious institutions.

The first lay in my sociological studies. These
studies compelled me to recognise that, always and
everywhere, in real life " the control exercised over
men's conduct by theological beliefs and priestly
agency, has been indispensable." In fact, the neces-
sary subordination of individuals to society has been
maintained only through the help of ecclesiastical
institutions.

In the second place, I have learnt that it is neces-
sary to distinguish between the nominal creeds of
men and their real creeds. The former can remain
more or less stationary ; the latter, as a matter of
fact, change and are adapted insensibly to the fresh
needs of societies and individuals. Now, it is the
real creeds (far more than the nominal) that matter.
That is why I am now of opinion that it is wise to

SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE 109

respect, in a general way, the creeds of mankind,
" and, further, that sudden changes of religious insti-
tutions, as of political institutions, are certain to be
followed by reactions."

But, continues Herbert Spencer, "largely, if not chiefly,
this change of feeling towards religious creeds and their sustain-
ing institutions, has resulted from a deepening conviction that
the sphere occupied by them can never become an unfilled sphere,
but that there must continue to arise afresh the great questions
concerning ourselves and surrounding things ; and that, if not
positive answers, then modes of consciousness standing in place
of positive answers, must ever remain.

" We find, indeed, an unreflective mood general among both
cultured and uncultured, characterised by indifference to every-
thing beyond material interests and the superficial aspects of
things. There are the many millions of people who daily see sun-
rise and sunset without ever asking what the Sun is. There are
the university men, interested in linguistic criticism, to whom
inquiries concerning the origin and nature of living things seem
trivial. And even among men of science there are those who,
curiously examining the spectra of nebulae or calculating the
masses and motions of double-stars, never pause to contemplate
under other than physical aspects the immeasurably vast facts
they record. But in both cultured and uncultured there occur
lucid intervals. Some, at least, either fill the vacuum by
stereotyped answers, or become conscious of unanswered questions
of transcendent moment. By those who know much, more
than by those who know little, is there felt the need for
explanation."

At this point Herbert Spencer calls up the mysteries
inherent in life, in the evolution of living beings, in
consciousness, in human destiny — mysteries, says
he, that the very advance of science makes more
and more evident, exhibits as more and more pro-
found and impenetrable ; and then comes this final
passage :

no SCIENCE AND RELIGION

" Thus religious creeds, which in one way or other occupy the
sphere that rational interpretation seeks to occupy and fails, and
fails the more the more it seeks, I have come to regard with a
sympathy based on community of need : feeling that dissent
from them results from inability to accept the solutions offered,
joined with the wish that solutions could be found."

Ill

THE VALUE OP THE DOCTRINE

Such being the real meaning of Herbert Spencer's
doctrine, what shall we say as to its value ?

According to several contemporary philosophers,
belonging to the school of advanced positivism, it is
very certain that the philosophy of Herbert Spencer
reveals a decided religious tendency ; we are quite
justified in identifying his Unknowable with the
creating God or Providence of actual religions. But
that very fact indicates the weak side and obsolete
part of the system — the part which it is the critic's
special business to distinguish and eliminate.

In reality, say these philosophers, The Unknowable
of Herbert Spencer is not a scientific principle : it is
a residuum, a late survival of that imaginary entity
which, under the name of God or First Cause, has,
from time immemorial, formed the basis of religions
and of metaphysical theories. And it is not a
residuum that can be passed over. For, if maintained
in the way suggested, it upholds what was essential
in religion and metaphysics : viz., the inaccessible
presented as object for man's speculation and posses-
sion. In truth, even the reservations and negations
of Herbert Spencer are delusive. In so far as the
initial error is maintained, the entire philosophy is

SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE in

compromised. So long as the source of infection
continues, the disease only awaits the opportunity
of breaking out and pervading, yet again, the whole
organism. Accordingly, it is but too true that
Herbert Spencer remains a theologian. To this
extent he belongs to the past. His Unknowable
ought to bear company, in the realm of nothingness,
with all those phantoms which human reason has
cast out. For, the only unknowable is the unknown,
i.e. something that to-day we know not, but that
to-morrow we shall, perhaps, know.

This objection, which has its origin in the very
doctrine of evolution, was, of course, familiar to
Herbert Spencer's mind. He, as much as any man,
was accustomed to see the truth of yesterday become
the error of to-day. But he acknowledged limits in
the possible alteration of men's beliefs. According
to him, the sheer impossibility of imagining the
contrary of certain propositions imposes on the mind
— whatever this may involve — adhesion to those
propositions. We know, he has told us, that a
proposition presents the highest degree of certainty,
when its negation is inconceivable. Now, it is
precisely in regard to The Unknowable, that he
recognises such an inconceivability. Henceforward,
for him, The Unknowable is a datum, it is given
along with our mental constitution itself.

Is the impossibility thus felt by Herbert Spencer
a delusion of his fancy, an indolence of his mind,
a consequence of his individual temperament ? It
is remarkable that we find a similar attitude, a like
insurmountable resistance to negation, not only in
the experience of a Luther or of a Kant, but in the

ii2 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

experience of many a contemporary thinker. Let
us look, for instance, at the way in which Professor
William James closes his famous book, The Varieties
of Religious Experience :

"I can, of course, put myself into the sectarian scientist's
attitude, and imagine vividly that the world of sensations and
of scientific laws and objects may be all. But whenever I do
this, I hear that inward monitor of which W. K. Clifford once
wrote, whispering the word * bosh ! ' Humbug is humbug,
even though it bear the scientific name, and the total expression
of human experience, as I view it objectively, invincibly urges
me beyond the narrow ' scientific ' bounds. Assuredly, the real
world is of a different temperament, — more intricately built than
physical science allows. So my objective and my subjective
conscience both hold me to the over-belief which I express.
Who knows whether the faithfulness of individuals here below
to their own poor over-beliefs may not actually help God in
turn to be more effectively faithful to His own greater tasks 1 "

Herbert Spencer is by no means alone in realising
the impossibility of allowing either that science is
self-sufficient or that it is sufficient for us. But,
it may be said, we have to do, here, with a pheno-
menon which is explained psychologically — one to
which we cannot attribute any importance. It is
simply the application of a law which governs the
relations existing between reason and imagination.
A celebrated English moralist, Leslie Stephen, has
stated this law as follows : The imagination lags
behind the reason. When the reason has already
demonstrated the fallacy of an opinion, the imagina-
tion, i.e. the heart, enamoured of this opinion,
perseveres therein during a more or less lengthy
period. Their evolution, in fact, requires an amount
of mental labour which, though it has to be accom-
plished eventually, cannot be accomplished all at

SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE 113

once : for harmony of the mind with itself is the
supreme law, and, of the two powers thus brought
face to face, reason is that which will not change.

The non possumus of Kant or of Herbert Spencer
rests, such critics declare, on nothing but the law
enunciated by Leslie Stephen. Without doubt, it
is very real and very sincere; but, in view of the
progress of human reason, it is bound to. succumb.

Is this estimate really made good ?

In the first place we may ask ourselves if it
does not imply a vicious circle, if it does not take
for granted, in advance, the negative solution of the
very problem that Herbert Spencer raises. He
(Spencer) wonders if the condemnation of certain
traditional elements of religion involves the condem-
nation of their principle. The critics make reply :
Since the various religions offer the appearance (even
as regards their first principles) of hopelessly decaying
structures, they ought to be utterly demolished —
their very ruins should be cleared away and consigned
to oblivion. And, since every religious belief is
entirely empty and delusive, the constant effort to
find therein something good and true can only
come, it is evident, from the tardiness of imagina-
tion and feeling in following the lead of reason.
Such a reply is not a demonstration ; it is only an
argument put forward as the contrary of another
argument.

Moreover, is it true that the impossibility affirmed
by Herbert Spencer proceeds exclusively from feeling,
and has no sort of rational basis 1

There can be no doubt that Herbert Spencer has
given, in his philosophical doctrines— especially in those
which have a practical bearing, an important place to

ii4 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

feeling. With the majority of Englishmen, he saw
in reason, properly so called, an instrument rather
than a principle of action, and reserved to feeling
the power of instigating the soul. But it does not
follow that his theory of The Unknowable rests
exclusively on feeling.

The groundwork of the theory of knowledge taught
by Herbert Spencer is to be found in the radical
identity of the most precise knowledge and the ordinary
ideas of the multitude. As ordinary ideas disclose a
mingling of feeling and of reason, it cannot be doubted
that every kind of knowledge, for Herbert Spencer,
necessarily contains these two elements which are
only disunited through a logical abstraction. And
when the question is raised as to the final ground
of certainty, there is, for Herbert Spencer, only one
possible answer : — that, alike in the sphere of science
and in the sphere of metaphysics, certainty rests on
feeling, on feeling which is truly natural and not
to be coerced.

Our only course, apparently, is to join Herbert
Spencer in affirming that a radical separation of
reason and feeling cannot be upheld, unless we mean
to confine reason to dialectical reasoning alone, and
to re-establish that circumscription of the human
soul which modern psychology has taken so much
trouble to refute. Keason, as we know it in experi-
ence, determinate and efficacious, is not something
given once for all — an isolated attribute (eternal and
immutable) of the human soul. It is something that
becomes and grows, that is fashioned and trained.
It is cultivated through being supplied with truths,
as Descartes saw. It receives a twofold training
in science and life. It contrives, prescribes, con-

SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE 115

denses and determines relatively whatever tends to
make more real, more beneficial, more human, more
striking, the development of man's complete powers
— experience, feeling, imagination, desire, will. Thus
it ought to be our supreme guide in practice as also
in theory.

It is certainly to reason understood in this manner,
rather than to disconnected feeling conceived in the
blind and sluggish sense of an abstract rationalism,
that Herbert Spencer makes appeal, in order to learn
if it is possible for man to deny The Unknowable.
Even though, in his opinion, it would not be strictly
illogical to affirm that the phenomenal world is
sufficient — that science has the power and the right
to scatter all mysteries, such a contention would
be unreasonable, extravagant. Man would have to
renounce his highest faculties, those which, more
than all the rest, make him man, before he could be
brought to allow that what he knows or can know
is the sum-total of being and perfection.

It is, then, foolish to reproach Herbert Spencer
with having contradicted himself in maintaining a
supersensible reality as object of religion, over against
the given world as object of science ; foolish to have
recourse to the theory of residuary organs and
biological survivals in order to explain this so-called
contradiction. As soon as it is seen that Herbert
Spencer relies, not upon science pure and simple,
but upon science interpreted by reason, this contradic-
tion vanishes. For upon human reason itself, as it
has become in contact with things, is inscribed the
affirmation of an invisible reality — a reality which
surpasses all that can be given us in experience.

n6 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

But the supersensible of Herbert Spencer — re-
garded as transcendent and inaccessible — possesses this
kind of being, in the highest degree. Herbert Spencer
calls it The Unknowable. We are debarred from
realising it in thought. We fall, he is persuaded,
into insoluble contradictions — we can no longer see
our way, when we go beyond the simple affirmation
of the First Cause. Therein, perhaps, is to be found
the debatable side of his doctrine.

In fact, as we have several times had occasion to
remark, Herbert Spencer could not maintain that
absolute transcendence and unknowableness of the
fundamental Principle to which his inferences led
him. His Absolute is force, power, energy, the in-
finite, the source of consciousness, the common ground
of the ego and the non-ego, that which transcends
intelligence and personality. Having regard to such
terms, can it be claimed that this Absolute is entirely
unknowable ; and, if the predicates that Herbert
Spencer has fearlessly attributed to It are legitimate,
is it certain that these rudiments of knowledge are
incapable of progress and development ?

In order to estimate the value of Herbert Spencer's
agnosticism, we must examine its principle. That
principle is objectivism. Herbert Spencer is bent upon
the employment of an exclusively objective method
as the condition of all science, of all real knowledge.
He sees in facts the one source of knowing ; and we
are only justified in calling " fact " whatever is per-
ceived or perceptible as an external thing, placed
opposite the knowing subject : whatever can be
grasped as a complete entity — fixed and separate :
whatever is clearly expressible by a concept and by
a word.

SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE 117

When once this doctrine of knowledge has been
admitted, we are, of course, impelled towards the view
that the supersensible, if existent, is unknowable.
For it is evident that we cannot here assume one
fragment of being beside other fragments — an object,
in the meaning that adherents of objectivism give to
that word. Between it (the supersensible) and the
world of science thus conceived, there is no possibility
of transition. If the supersensible exists, it must
hover in vacuity, infinitely removed from all those
objects which are accessible to our means of know-
ing. For the objectivist, therefore, the Absolute
either is not, or is, literally, outside the world and
transcendent.

We have now to ask if absolute objectivism is a
possible and legitimate standpoint. Doubtless, the
possibility of such a standpoint is the postulate of
science : in virtue of it she sets herself to extract from
nature certain distinct and quite limited images which
she can arrange beside one another, compare, graduate,
put in opposition, assimilate. But, can it be said <
that science reaches that complete objectivity which
is her aim ? Must we not rather hold that she her-
self, like everything else human, furnishes an example
of compromise between the possible and the ideal ?
Does she ever obtain data entirely free from sub-
jective elements, or results in which the concrete
meaning implies no borrowing of feeling? Even if,
in the mathematico - physical sciences, the human
mind approaches perfect objectivity, and sometimes
delusively infers therefrom that the " perfection " has
been realised, does it follow that what succeeds in one
branch of knowledge is possible and adequate in all
the other branches? Why should all the sciences

n8 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

be constructed after the same pattern, and why
should the said pattern be necessarily physical ? Is
a single case, then, sufficient for the establishment
of an induction ? Why should science make exception
to this rule : that the human mind has to mould its
conceptions in accordance with realities, and must
not make realities depend on the shaping of its
conceptions ? Why, in science itself, should not
the method be adapted to the object ?

It is not clear that, in the physical sciences, all
employment of the subjective method is actually
eliminated, or that it ever can be eliminated. But
we see plainly that the sciences dealing with things
moral would be impoverished and perverted, if we
really sought to treat them according to a purely
objective method. How, in particular, could we
know by such a method what is specific and distinctive
in religious phenomena ? To consider these from the
outside would be to reduce them, in so far as they
concern the individual, to certain nervous phenomena ;
/while, on the social side, they would be merely a
I collection of dogmas, of rites and of institutions.
We should try to explain them by some elementary
phenomenon borrowed from every -day experience,
such an experience, for instance, as the naive belief
in the abiding reality of the double. But are there
only elements of this kind, i.e. phenomena that are
external, disconnected, definite and measurable, in
actual religions — in the whole series of the religions
which have been developed throughout the ages, in
religion as it prevails in our very midst ? Are we to
reckon as nothing the inward life of Buddhist or
Christian — a life of such intensity, such depth, such
fruitfulness ? Is not Mysticism a form of the religious

SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE 119

life ? Is Protestantism without interest ? And is it
not time, at this point, to bring forward once again
Shakespeare's famous lines :

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Eeligion would appear, then, to be essentially the
connecting link between the relative and that Absolute
— Infinite and Perfect — which Herbert Spencer con-
ceived. It is, at the same time, the endeavour to
develop, and bring nearer to perfection, subjective
life and knowledge : the conviction in regard to the
communion of a being that is external, particular,
limited, uncertain, with the common Source of all
existence — that Source which, according to Herbert
Spencer, wells up, and is, in some way, presented to
us in consciousness.

We cannot rest content with objectivism, because, \
in reality, subject and object are nowhere actually
separated. In order to grasp the object separately,
we have to abandon ourselves to an artificial considera-
tion of it, after the manner of a mathematician stating
the terms of a problem. As we find them given by
nature, in other words as they are, the object and the
subject make but one. In order to bring itself into
harmony with things, the human mind effects many an
abstraction, many a reduction of beings to concepts,
of which, for the most part, it can give no account.
Now, religion is the secret consciousness of the reality
of life, i.e. of the soul, and its connection with those
beings which, as perceived by our understanding,
seem to impinge on each other mechanically, like the
atoms of Democritus.

For this reason, religion cannot be made to consist

120 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

purely and simply in the mute recognition and adora-
tion of that which is Unknowable and Transcendent.
Herbert Spencer offers us too much or too little, and
the extreme naturalists not unreasonably reproach
him on that account. If the Humanity (Grand-Etre)
of Auguste Comte is an incomplete and unstable
conception, seeing that man is, in essence, a being
who goes beyond self, there is still greater reason
why we cannot, with Herbert Spencer, place men in
presence of the Being whence all things proceed, and
then tell them that they can neither understand nor
depend upon this Being in the smallest degree.

Let us call to mind the sentence already quoted :
"Is it not just possible that there is a mode of being
as much transcending intelligence and will as these
transcend mechanical motion ? "

In the act of stating such a proposition, we go
beyond it. How, if we imagine that such a mode of
being is possible, are we to refrain from wishing that
it may be, not only possible, but real ? How can we
refrain from seeking the means of converting this
possibility into reality ? What is reason, what is the
human will, if not the attempt to symbolise that
which is ideal, and to bring it within the limits of
our world and of our life ? Is not the natural and
necessary complement of Herbert Spencer's saying to
be found in that other saying : eXtfeVo) j] Pa<n\ela

<rov, ryevijOrfrco TO 6e\rjfjid <rovt o>9 ev ovpavw /cal eVl

yfy,1 in other words — Let us pray and do our utmost

that this divine kingdom of truth, of beauty and of

\ goodness which human reason comprehends so im-

i perfectly, may not be an ideal only ; that it may

come within our reach, that it may be realised, not

1 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in Heaven so on Earth.

SPENCER AND THE UNKNOWABLE 121

} simply in the Unknowable and in the transcendent
region of the Absolute, but in the world wherein we
live, wherein we love, wherein we suffer, wherein we
labour; not simply in Heaven, but on Earth — ical

« o

CHAPTER III

HAECKEL AND MONISM

I. THE DOCTRINE OF HAECKEL ON RELIGION IN ITS RELATIONS
WITH SCIENCE — The conflicts between religion and science —
Evolutionary Monism as a solution, both scientific and rational,
of the enigmas which are the raison d'etre of religions — The
religious need — The progressive advance of existing religions,
in so far as they possess utility, towards Evolutionary Monism
as religion.

II. THE VALUE OF THE DOCTRINE — (a) The idea of a scientific
philosophy : how does Haeckel pass from science to philo-
sophy ? (6) Scientific philosophy as the negation and
substitute of religions : how does Haeckel pass from Monism
as philosophy to Monism as religion ?

III. SCIENTIFIC PHILOSOPHY AND ETHICS AT THE PRESENT TIME —
Scientific philosophy : the obscurity or looseness'of this concept
— The ethics of solidarity : the ambiguity of this term —
Persistency of Dualism touching the relation between man and
things.

NEITHER the system of Auguste Comte nor that of
Herbert Spencer can be regarded as sufficing to obtain
for the mind a state of permanent equipoise. Man,
the king of nature, the organ and support of the Great
Being, finds himself ill provided with room in the
purely human universe of Auguste Comte. The
Unknowable of Herbert Spencer cannot remain in
the limbo to which he would consign it : if it exists,
it must seek to unveil itself and to put its mark

122

HAECKEL AND MONISM 123

upon the real world. Moreover, these systems are
thoroughly dualistic. Comte tends to consider man,
more and more, apart from nature, while, for Herbert
Spencer, the absolute is confronted by the relative.
Now, if it were found possible, at length, to overcome
this dualism completely, and to establish, once and
for all, the fundamental unity of all things, should we
not be able (taking this same unity as our starting-
point) to settle in a definitive manner the tormenting
question of the relations between religion and science ?

The position just indicated is that of Ernst
Haeckel.

The distinguished Professor of Zoology in the
University of Jena is not only the learned and
original author of the Generelle Morphologie der Or-
ganismen (1866), the creator of Phylogeny. In such
works as Naturliche Schb'pfungsgeschichte (1868),
which has been translated into a dozen languages ;
Der Monismus als Band zwischen Religion und
Wissenschaft (1893); Die Weltrdtsel (1899); Re-
ligion und Evolution (1906), he has given expression
to philosophical views which, beyond the value apper-
taining to them through the author's distinguished
personality, possess this interest — that they represent,
in a striking way, a state of mind very prevalent to-
day, especially in the scientific world.

THE DOCTRINE OF HAECKEL ON RELIGION IN ITS
RELATIONS WITH SCIENCE

It is time, so Haeckel believes, to have done with
this method of mutual watchfulness, of abstract and

i24 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

metaphysical controversy, which always leads, one way
or another, to our making a merely verbal reconcilia-
tion between the concept of science and the concept of
religion. We must, once for all, bring them face to
face : not science in itself and religion in itself — those
idle scholastic entities, but religion and science as
they are when, desirous of genuine meaning and
concrete reality, we look at the conclusions which
they both declare, the principles upon which they
rest. That, for instance, is what J. W. Draper has
done in a well-known book, entitled : The Conflict
between Religion and Science (1875) ; that is what
Haeckel intends to do, in his turn, when he comes to
determine with precision the conditions of the conflict,
and the method that ought to be followed in order to
bring it to an end.

Let us push aside, says he at the beginning of his
Riddle of the Universe, ultramontane Popery, as well
as the orthodox Protestant sects which come little
short of it in ignorance and gross superstition. Let
us repair to the church of a broad-minded Protestant
pastor who, thanks to a good average education and
an enlightened perception, can make room for the
claims of reason. Even here, amid moral precepts
and humanitarian sentiments that are in complete
harmony with our ideas, we hear expressed — on God,
on the world and on man — propositions thoroughly
inconsistent with scientific experience.1

Let us take a few examples of such inconsistencies.

Man, for our pastor, is the centre and goal of all
terrestrial life — indeed, ultimately, of the entire
universe.

1 Pi* Weltriitsel, chap. i.

HAECKEL AND MONISM 125

The existence and preservation of the world are
explained by what is termed Divine Creation and
Providence. This Creation resembles the perform-
ance of a mechanician, who, aware of his capacity,
thinks of putting it to some use, conceives the
idea of a more or less intricate machine, sketches
it in outline, and actually realises it through the
employment of suitable materials. Then he watches
it at work, and preserves it from wear and from
accident.

Since this God is fashioned after the human
pattern, it is quite easy to think of him as having,
himself, created man in his own image. Thence arises
a third dogma, which consummates the apotheosis of
the human organism : man's nature is twofold, he is
a compound of material body and spiritual soul — the
product of the divine breath. And his soul, endowed
with immortality, is but the temporary guest of his
perishable body.

These dogmas form the groundwork of the Mosaic
cosmogony. They are to be met with, as regards
their essential elements, in the various religions.
They consist, to put the matter shortly, in an
anthropomorphic conception of nature : of nature,
that is, regarded as only the artificial working of a
supernatural power. Nothing within nature can be
considered as proceeding from her. The transcendent
god rules over her, just as he has created and pre-
served her, and he does whatever he pleases with the
laws of her existence : those very laws are but the
arbitrary caprices of the creator.

The foundation of these dogmas is the tradition,
or transmission, through the ages, of notions relating
to a supernatural revelation.

126 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Such are the affirmations of religion : what has
science to say on these same matters ?

We must carefully decide upon the attitude which
the scientist ought to take, before we reply to this
question.

Metaphysicians are accustomed to say that these
matters with which we are now dealing are not the
concern of science — that they altogether go beyond
the range of its knowing powers. And a number of
scientists, happily at work in their laboratories, show
themselves indifferent to problems that cannot be
solved by the aid of instruments and calculations.
Our knowledge is confined to facts, say they, and so
it comes about that they cannot see the wood for the
trees. That is the origin of the misconception which
endures among men of intelligence. By reason of
this abstention on the part of professional scientists —
whether through timidity, contempt, or indifference,
theologians and metaphysicians continue to dogmatise
with impunity. It would seem that science and
religion do not move in the same world, that their
assertions never bring them into contact. This state
of things will subsist as long as science, limited to
empirical research, omits to treat of philosophical
problems. Science began with the study of details :
that was only fitting, and it is through such procedure
that she has obtained definitive results. But the
time has come for her to generalise, in her turn, and
to bring forward, with regard to those questions of
origin which exercise the human mind, the demon-
strations of experience and of reason against dogmas
that are based on sentiment and imagination. At
last the time has come to establish a scientific philo-
sophy or rational interpretation of the results of

HAECKEL AND MONISM 127

science, and to deal therein with the questions which,
up to now, have been left to theologians and meta-
physicians.

That is, in Haeckel's view, what follows from the
general state of modern science, as it is presented
in the works of such men as Lamarck, Goethe, and
Darwin. Thanks to the discoveries and speculations
of these great men, we are able, henceforward, to see
clearly what are the main laws of nature, and what
meaning is to be gathered from them.

The philosophy which is the outcome of science is
summed up in two words : Monism and Evolutionism.
On the one hand, being is one, and all modes of
existence are of one nature, so that every difference
between them is one of degree merely, i.e. quanti-
tative. On the other hand, being is not motionless,
but possesses a principle of change ; this change, in
itself purely mechanical and subject to immutable
laws, is the origin of the various kinds of existence,
and these are, accordingly, the result of an entirely
natural creation.

It is from the standpoint of this philosophy that
science, henceforward, ought to approach the questions
with which religion is occupied.

Now, starting in this way, science puts forward
conclusions which are absolutely hostile to religious
dogmas.

Man, according to scientific philosophy, cannot
be the centre and aim of the universe. Man is a link
in the chain of being, a link which is just as surely
connected with the rest of existence as worms are
connected with the protista, or fishes with worms.
His superiority is but an instance of the extra-
ordinary manner in which the vertebrates have got

128 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

ahead of their congeners in the course of universal
evolution.

In place of the world's artificial creation, science
maintains the theory of natural creation. Nature
contains in herself all the forces requisite for the
production of every kind of existence that is to be
found within her realm. The species are born from
one another, through transmutation, in accordance
with laws and with an order that can, hereafter, be
determined. And thus, for the myth of creation,
science substitutes the natural history of the world.

The dogma of the immortality of the soul is no
less contrary to science, which regards the human
individual as only a transitory combination of material
particles, analogous to all other combinations.

The general principle of religious dogmas is found
in anthropomorphism, artificial creation, and the super-
natural. Instead of these notions science suggests
those of naturalism, continuity, and natural creation.
There is nothing in nature which cannot be explained
by nature. She cannot be preceded by anything,
nor can anything go beyond her. For the man who
enters into the meaning of her laws, especially those
of Natural Selection and Evolution, nature is, herself,
the author of her existence and of her progress. In
this way science is to religion what Darwin is to
Moses.

This opposition of doctrines is in keeping with
that of the actual bases. Religion rests on revelation :
Science knows nothing beyond experience. No idea,
according to the scientific view, has value, unless it
is either the immediate expression of facts, or the
result of an inference determined by those natural laws
which govern the association of ideas.

HAECKEL AND MONISM 129

Religious delusion cannot, therefore, prevail in the
future, unless we deliberately blind ourselves. If we
consider actual science, as constituted by Lamarck
and Darwin, there is a direct contradiction, an
absolute incompatibility between the affirmations of
science and those of religion, as regards the funda-
mental problems of being and of knowing. It is,
then, impossible for an enlightened <and consistent
mind to approve both at the same time. The choice
must, necessarily, be made between them.

Now, the Monistic philosophy — the philosophy of
evolution, i.e. of science — which causes the conflict
to break out, furnishes at the same time the means of
deciding it.

According to that philosophy, wherever this
conflict springs up, no mind cast in a scientific mould
can hesitate. That belief of ours in revelation, in
faith — a belief which is really based upon the emotion
and feeling, not only of our subjective states of
consciousness, but of our very knowing faculty —
represents an inferior stage of intelligence that man
has already overpassed. Man, in the existing period
of his development, realises that knowledge is supplied
to him exclusively through experience and ratiocina-
tion, which together constitute what is called reason.
Reason, it is true, does not belong to all men in equal
degree, but is developed in the human mind by
means of educational progress; and, even to-day, a
man devoid of modern culture possesses about as much
reason as our near relatives among the mammalia —
apes, dogs, or elephants.

These principles once admitted, man cannot fail to
acquiesce in the conclusions of scientific philosophy.
For these conclusions, which, up to the time of

K

i3o SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Lamarck and Darwin, were mere guesswork, have
become, thanks to the labours of these two scientists,
actual truths of experience — as much so as the laws
of natural philosophy. The great achievement of
the nineteenth century, an achievement analogous to
that of Newton in the seventeenth, consisted in
referring biological phenomena to laws which were
clearly as mechanical and natural as those controlling
brute matter. To-day, by observation and experience
alone, we know for certain that the same great laws
— eternal and irreversible — operate in the vital
processes of animals and plants, in the growth of
crystals, and in the expanding power of vapour.

The universal naturalism that science substitutes
for the supernatural creationism of religions is no
longer a mere hypothesis agreeable to the scientific
mind — it is plain matter of fact.

This conclusion may appear over-bold to some.
From the fact of our now being able to explain
mechanically, i.e. scientifically, a number of phenomena
which formerly seemed to call for supernatural agents,
can we infer that all things will be, henceforward,
explained or even explainable in the same manner?
• Is it true that science has completely and once foi
all abolished mystery ? But if mystery remains, if i1
may conceivably remain, in any part of the universe
to all eternity, is there not still room for religion, foi
the emotions and the revelations belonging to it'
How comes it, after all, that the human mind L<
surrounded by impenetrable mysteries unless w<
allow a supposition of this kind ? Why does mai
appeal to revelation if not because it sets at res
certain questions which his reason cannot solve ?

HAECKEL AND MONISM 131

Now, says Haeckel (speaking as recently as 1880,
before the gathering held in honour of Leibnitz at the
Berlin Academy of Sciences), Professor Emil Dubois-
Keymond has made the assertion that the universe
involves seven enigmas, and that, of these, four at
least are absolutely insoluble, so far as we are
concerned. Ignorabimus ! That, he declared, was
to be the last word of science in regard to these
matters. The four transcendent enigmas were,
according to Dubois-Keymond : the essence of matter
and force, the origin of movement, the origin of
simple sensation, and free-will (unless, indeed, subjec-
tive freedom is to be considered as an illusion). The
three other enigmas, viz. the origin of life, the
apparent finality of nature, and the origin of thought
and language, could only, with extreme difficulty, be
stated in terms of scientific mechanism.

Such an assertion, in Haeckel's opinion, cannot be
too energetically combated ; for it means that every-
thing is called in question again. Once we allow
mystery to come in, there is nothing to prevent its
entry at all points. We must declare that science is,
from this time, justified in proclaiming unequivocally :
The world, from the standpoint of man, has no more
mysteries to offer.

The difficulties here suggested arise, in the first
instance, through our putting forward, under the term
matter, an indescribable something—amorphous and
inert — and then going on to ask how, from this
nothingness, such powers as force, movement and
sensation are able to spring. But the hypothesis
from which we thus start, is arbitrary and imaginary.
Such a substratum is neither given nor conceivable.
Science, in her knowledge of facts alone, cannot allow

132 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

a principle of this kind. That which is given irre-
ducibly, and which, in consequence, is of prime
importance for her, is not an indeterminate and
passive substance, incapable of entering upon move-
ment and action unless stirred and quickened from
without ; it is an essentially animated substance, at
once extension, i.e. matter, and energy, i.e. mind.

"We hold with Goethe," says Haeckel, "that
matter cannot exist and operate without mind, nor
mind without matter. And we approve the compre-
hensive monism of Spinoza : Matter, or infinitely
extended substance, and mind, or feeling and think-
ing substance, are the two fundamental attributes or
special qualities of the divine essence (universal
substance) which embraces all things." 1

These concepts have nothing mystical about them.
They rest : firstly, upon the laws of the persistence oi
matter and the persistence of force, conceived origin-
ally by Lavoisier, and afterwards established by
Mayer and Helmholtz ; secondly, upon the unity oi
these two laws, a unity which science is led to admit,
and which, in the last analysis, necessarily proceeds
from the very principle of causality. Goethe has
shown, in his Wahlverwandtschaften, how the
affinities in human experience are only those which,
in greater complexity, are found existing between the
molecules of the body : how the irresistible passioc
which drives Paris towards Helen, and which makes
him violate every rule of reason and of morality, is
the same unconscious power of attraction that impels
the spermatozoon to open for itself a passage intc
the ovum in order to realise fertilisation — the sann
impetuous movement which combines two atoms o:

1 Die Weltratsel, chap. i.

HAECKEL AND MONISM 133

hydrogen with an atom of oxygen in order to form a
molecule of water. Let us not, then, be afraid of
saying (like Empedocles of old) that Love and Hate
control the elements. This guess on the part of
genius has to-day become matter of experience.

And thus, in our view, it has been shown that the
atom itself is not without possessing a rudiment of
feeling and of inclination — the germ, in fact, of a
soul. The same argument applies, equally, to mole-
cules, which are composed of two or more atoms, as
well as to the compounds, more and more complex,
of these molecules.1

The mode of these combinations is purely mechani-
cal ; but, even by virtue of mechanism, the psychical
element of things is complicated and diversified with
their material elements.

Once in possession of these principles, science
solves — or, at any rate, knows that she is on the way
to solve — all problems.

First of all, opposite ponderable, inert matter, she
sets the ever-moving ether or imponderable matter :
at the same time premising, between the ether and
ponderable matter, eternal action and reaction. And
these two elements, representing the twofold division
of universal substance, suffice to explain the most
general phenomena of nature.

Science, however, labours in vain so long as she
fails to grapple with the greatest and most difficult
problem which the mind of man is called upon to
face — that relating to the origin and development of
things. Now, she can, henceforward, for the purpose
of solving this problem, make use of a magic word
that Lamarck and Darwin have taught her, viz.

1 Die Weltratscl, chap. xii.

134 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Evolution. By virtue of the laws of evolution, the
various forms of existence are connected with one
another through natural descent ; their development,
their creation is explained by the simple action
of uniform mechanism. And, though a thousand
problems still remain unsolved, we are able, in the
light of those which we have already succeeded in
overcoming, to realise that all partial questions bear-
ing on creation are linked together indivisibly, that
they represent a cosmical problem which is one and
all-inclusive, and that, therefore, the key to one
problem is necessarily the key to every other.

But what is the origin of evolution itself ? Must
we attribute it to the action of a supernatural
principle, and thus leave present in the whole that
very element of miracle which we have driven out of
the parts ?

We should be brought to this extremity if we
took for our principle a matter destitute of energy
and, on that account, incapable of evolving by itself.
But the animated substance that we have put for-
ward, has, within itself, a principle of change and
of creation. It does not exclude God, it is, itself,
God — a God intramundane and identical with Nature.
It ought to be understood that, if the scientist rejects
Theism, he no less rejects Atheism. For him, God
and the World are one. Pantheism is the scientific
conception of the Universe.

In this way vanish, before the search-light of
modern science, the so-called enigmas regarding the
origin of matter and force, of movement and of
sensation. As to the question of free-will, which
has kept the world busy for two thousand years, and
which has produced so many books that encumber

HAECKEL AND MONISM 135

our libraries and accumulate dust therein — this
question, also, is no more than a memory. Of what
value are vague suggestions based upon sentiment,
in comparison with scientific deductions ? The will,
indeed, is not an inert force. It is a power of auto-
matic and conscious reaction, which is regulative
and actively influential. But the inclinations that
are inseparable from life itself explain this attribute ;
and, as to the mode of action inherent in the will,
we only consider it free because, following the abstract
and dualistic method of metaphysicians, we isolate
this faculty from the conditions which determine it.
We have not, first of all, to consider the will separately,
and then to examine the circumstances wherein it
acts. The will as given is burdened with a thousand
determinations that heredity has settled upon it.
And each of its resolutions is an adaptation of its
pre-existing inclination to actual circumstances. The
strongest motive prevails mechanically, by virtue of
the laws which govern the statics of emotion. If,
then, the abstract and merely verbal will appears
free, the concrete will is determined like everything
else in the universe.

All the enigmas of Dubois-Reymond are, therefore,
solvable, or rather, from this time forward, they are
solved. The unknowable has no existence. The *
word stands for nothing but the unknown ; and it
is no longer the principles of things, but their details
only, of which, in future, we can remain in ignorance.
The philosopher is little concerned that the extent
of this ignorance is enormous, and must always
continue to be considerable.

Still, it would be a mistake to assert purely and
simply : there is no longer any enigma. One enigma

136 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

remains, and necessarily remains, viz. the problem
of substance. What is this prodigious energy that
the man of science calls — Nature or Universe, the
idealist — Substance or Cosmos, the believer — Creator
or God ? Can we affirm that, thanks to the wonderful
advances made in modern Cosmology, we have solved
the problem of substance, or that we are in sight of
its solution ?

In truth, the last foundation of Nature is as
unattainable by our minds as it was by the mind of
an Anaximander or an Empedocles, of a Spinoza or
a Newton, of a Kant or a Goethe. We must even
confess that this substance becomes, in its essential
constitution, the more mysterious and the more
enigmatical in proportion as we penetrate further
into the knowledge of its attributes and of its evolu-
tion. We do not know the " thing-in-itself " which
lies beneath knowable phenomena.

But why should we trouble ourselves over this
thing-in-itself, since we have not the means of studying
it, since we cannot even be sure whether it exists ?
Let us leave the barren task of brooding on this
unintelligible phantom to the metaphysician ; and let
us, like genuine scientists and realists, take pleasure
in the immense headway that has been made in our
science and in our philosophy.1

In short, the comparison between science and
religion leads to the recognition that they are contra-
dictory in their affirmations; and the philosophical
examination of their respective doctrines leaves no
room for the dogmas of religion in opposition to the
conclusions of science. Does it follow that we have

1 Die Weltratsel, Conclusion.

HAECKEL AND MONISM 137

only to consign religion to the past, among those
things which time has cut down and which are to
be traced merely in the pages of history ?

We are, perhaps, disposed to subscribe to that
opinion, if we regard religion and science as two
abstract doctrines — if we disengage them from that
human soul which is their common ground. But
religion has not been invented solely with a view to
the vanity of theologians : its real aim is to satisfy
certain primary needs of man ; and, so long as it
cannot be shown that these needs find elsewhere full
and entire satisfaction, religion will reappear — no
matter how thoroughly it has been suppressed — and
will reappear justifiably as an essential factor in
human life.

These demands are peculiar to the human mind,
and cannot be evaded ; one of them is concerned with
the explanation of the origin and nature of things.
To this demand science undoubtedly paid no attention,
so long as she confined herself to the mere record of
phenomena and to the study of particular laws. But
scientific philosophy is now able to bestow on science
her full width of range, and to infer, from her
experimental discoveries, the solution of the great
enigmas of the universe. Thus, on the side of theory,
the elimination of religion is already an accomplished
fact.

Now, man has not only theoretical needs, but
those, also, which practice brings to light. He has
to reckon with affection and sentiment as well as
reason ; and, since the emotional element of his
nature is not less real and essential, its wants, also,
ought to be met. Science will only have the right
to dimiss religion on the day when, more surely and

138 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

better than her rival, she shall have learnt to satisfy
man's heart, as well as his intellect.

The scientist who, through reflection, has become
a philosopher, and who has discovered the rational
secret of carrying the inductions begun by science to
the very end, feels no anxiety in this respect. The
practical range of science is not, in his eyes, less wide
than its theoretical range. He is ready to show that
science, through her doctrines on the universe and on
life, is capable (indeed, that she alone is capable) of
bringing emotional satisfaction to man.

But he cannot deny that these considerations are
still mainly theoretical. The practical achievement
of science is not to be realised, down to the veriest
detail, in a day. In her exposition there will remain,
for a long time to come, certain gaps of which the
various religions will make the most. And not only
will these religions be actually maintained so long as
science shall fail to perform all the tasks that she has
undertaken ; but their preservation, during that
period, ought to be regarded as salutary and good in
some respects.

It is not, then, sufficient to declare that, in principle,
religious beliefs have been abolished. They are, in
truth, still with us, and they have a service to
discharge for many a long day. Science ought,
therefore, to come to terms with them, and to find a
bond of union between Religion and Science.

Now this bond is furnished by that very philosophy
which ensures the exclusive ascendency of science in
the future, viz. Evolutionary Monism.

This philosophy, followed up to its practical
consequences, ends in the threefold cult of the
True, the Good and the Beautiful — a real Trinity

HAECKEL AND MONISM 139

offered in place of the Trinity that theologians have
imagined.1

In connection with this formula of a trinity, what
is to be the attitude of Monism towards that faith
which is generally regarded as the highest of all
religions — Christianity ?

As regards Truth, we ought not, according to the
Monistic view, to preserve anything in religious
Kevelation so called. This revelation teaches a
" beyond " which has no meaning for us, and it
lowers to the rank of unstable phenomenon, that
which we have come to consider as the only reality.

As regards Beauty, the contradiction is particularly
flagrant between Monism and Christianity. For
Christianity teaches us to despise nature, to withstand
her charms, to do our part in battling against the
inclinations that she inspires. It extols asceticism —
the emaciation and disfigurement of the human body.
It challenges the arts, seeing that their creations
always threaten to become, for man, idols capable of
serving as a substitute for God. In fact, what is
called Christian art has never been anything but the
protest of the imagination and of the senses against
the ultra -spirituality of the Christian standpoint.
How are we to reconcile the grandeur and beauty of
Gothic cathedrals with a religion that regards the
earth merely as a vale of tears ? Christian art is a
term involving contradiction. Monism, on the other
hand, is essentially naturalistic, and a friend of
Beauty, which it recognises as an end in itself. Con-
sequently it will oust Christianity from the domain
of art, no less than from the domain of science.

We have still to consider the cult of Goodness.

1 Der Moniamus ols Band, etc.

140 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Here Monistic religion agrees, for the most part, with
the Christian religion. We are now alluding, of
course, only to Christianity in the pure and primitive
form depicted for us in the Gospels and in the Pauline
Epistles. Most of the teachings of Christianity, as
therein presented, are precepts of charity and for-
bearance, of pity and comfort, and to all of them we
firmly adhere. These precepts, moreover, are not the
discoveries of Christianity : they can be traced much
further back. They have been carried out by
unbelievers, quite as much as they have been dis-
regarded by the faithful. Furthermore, as practised
among the adepts of revealed religion, they are not
without a touch of exaggeration, often exalting
altruism to the prejudice of self-reliance. The Monistic
philosophy, on the contrary, adjusts the balance
between these two tendencies, both equally natural to
man. But, if restricted to measuring the value of its
main principles, the Christian religion may become
an auxiliary of Monism and promote moral advance-
ment; and — understood in this sense — it ought to
be actually supported in the name of Monism itself.

Thus we find in Monism the connecting link
between religion and science after which we have
been groping.

The course to be taken will consist, shortly, in
making an intelligent use of religions, so as to get
rid of their unnecessary co-operation by degrees : just
as, in order to cross a river, we make use of a foot-
bridge, and have nothing more to do with it when
we have reached the other bank.

Adopting this method, we shall, first of all, bring
about the complete separation of Church and State,
in order to take away from the Church the factitious

HAECKEL AND MONISM 141

support of the State, and to make it dependent upon
its own resources alone.

The positive complement of this negative measure
is educational reform : such a complement is, indeed,
indispensable. Education is the most important
question of all for a society which is anxious to
extricate itself from religious beliefs. The object of
a genuine education is to shape man, i.e. man in his
entirety : to care for the emotional side of his being
as much as the intellectual side, for his religious soul
as much as his scientific mind.

Public education cannot allow any religious
formularies : she shuts out such formularies from the
school, abandoning them to home instruction. Public
education directs and makes use of the principles of
scientific morality, i.e. of the practical teaching which
proceeds from Evolutionary Monism. It does not
ignore existing religions, but it takes from them the
subject-matter of a new science — that of Comparative
Religion. The myths and legends of Christianity areN
considered therein, not as truths, but as poetical
fictions, analogous to Greek and Latin myths. The
ethical or aesthetical value that myths may contain
will not be lessened through being traced to their
real source in human imagination ; such value will be
thereby increased.

The man of a later day, in possessing science and
art, will possess religion : consequently, he will not
be obliged to shut himself within that walled portion
of space which is named a church. Everywhere
throughout the great world, besides the fierce struggle
for existence, he will discover signs of Goodness, of
Truth and of Beauty ; and in this way his church will
be the Universe.

i42 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

But there will always be men to whom retirement
into richly decorated temples, for the purpose of a
common cult, will appear desirable ; and we may,
therefore, expect that — in line with what took place
in the sixteenth century when a number of Catholic
churches fell into the hands of the Protestants — there
will, at some future time, be a still larger transference
of Christian churches to Monistic communities.1

II

THE VALUE OF THE DOCTRINE

The doctrine of Haeckel on the relations between
religion and science is very precise. According to
him, the uncertainty which prevails, even to-day,
upon this subject, has its origin in the antipathy of
scientists towards those speculations which outstrip
their own immediate and particular investigations.
Let science, seeing that she is quite ready for such
a course, adopt the r61e of philosophy, and she will
then be able, not only to refute, but to take the place
of existing religions.

This doctrine raises two main subjects of inquiry :
(1) The idea of a scientific philosophy; (2) Scientific
philosophy considered as the negation and substitute
of religions.

The idea of combining philosophy and science was
quite simple in the Greek world. Science, as then
defined, was keenly alive to the principles of order,
of harmony, of unity and of finality which were the
common foundation of reason and things : she was,

1 Die WeUrdtsel, chap, xviii.

HAECKEL AND MONISM 143

accordingly, metaphysical in essence. And philosophy
was the mind, recognising its own aesthetical and
rational principles in those of nature and of human
life.

For men of to-day the outlook is different. Science
has more and more got rid of everything connected
with metaphysics. She is (or wishes to be) entirely
positive : in other words, she intends to confine her
survey to facts, and to those inductions which are ex-
clusively determined by facts. A scientific philosophy
would, therefore, be a philosophy devoid of all meta-
physics— finding in facts its necessary and sufficient
ground. Is such a philosophy possible ?

Philosophy, according to Haeckel, is essentially
inquiry into the nature and origin of things. We
can distinguish it from science properly so called
through seeing that it is not satisfied with investi-
gating the peculiar nature of such and such a body,
or the approximate cause of such and such a class
of phenomena, but that, generalising problems, it
considers whether there are, indeed, common and
universal principles, capable of explaining both the
laws of nature collectively and the origin of all
existence. Now, if for a long time science has not
succeeded in supplying philosophy with data that
can be regarded as adequate for the examination of
these problems, the situation, according to Haeckel,
has become altogether different since the labours of
Laplace, Mayer and Helmholtz, of Lamarck and
Darwin. To-day, science — in the real sense of know-
ing facts — has made such ample progress in studying
the problems of essence and of origin, that philosophy
can accomplish her task through scientific co-operation
alone. We need only interpret, rationally, the great

144 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

discoveries of modern scientists — following, in this
respect, the example of such men as Lamarck, Goethe,
and Darwin.

What is the real gist of this line of thought, which
has to justify humanity in preserving philosophy,
while entirely repudiating metaphysics ?

Haeckel's purpose is, evidently, to conceive scientific
experience and philosophical interpretation as being
simply, at bottom, one and the same mental process.
After quoting those lines of Schiller wherein the poet
exhorts scientists and philosophers to become united
in effort instead of being divided, he declares that
the end of the nineteenth century saw a return to
the monistic attitude which the great poet of realism
— Goethe — had presciently adopted, at the beginning
of that same century, as the only one that was healthy
and permanent.

We are now wondering, perhaps, if Haeckel has
been able to carry out his intention in very truth.

Treating — in the first chapter of his work, Die
Weltrdtsel — of the philosophical methods through
which the riddles of the world may be solved, he
says that these methods are not actually different
from those used in purely scientific investigation.
They are (as in science) experience and inference.

Experience comes to us by way of the senses,
while inferences are the work of reason. We must
take care not to confuse these two modes of know-
ledge. Sense and reason are the functions of two
entirely distinct portions of the nervous system. As,
moreover, these two functions are equally natural to
man, the exercise of the second is no less legitimate
than the exercise of the first, provided that it take
place in conformity with the dictates of nature. If

HAECKEL AND MONISM 145

metaphysicians are wrong in isolating reason from
the senses, scientists err just as much in pretending
to eject reason. It is quite a mistake to declare that
philosophy has had its day, and has been replaced by
science. How are we to describe the cellular theory,
the dynamic theory of heat, the theory of evolution
and the law of substance, except as rational, i.e.
philosophical doctrines ?

The explanations given by Haeckel would seem
to throw hardly sufficient light upon this transition
from science to philosophy which, according to him,
ought to decide all problems. In order to justify
this transition, Haeckel draws attention to the joint
presence of reason and sense in those animals which
are beneath man in the scale of existence. He main-
tains that the reason differs from the senses through
having its seat in other parts of the nervous system ;
and he asks why we should be debarred from using
our reason in conformity with nature any more than
from using our senses. But how does all this prove
that, in reason, there is no principle of interpretation
apart from scientific inference properly so called, and
that, in viewing things from a standpoint other than
that of the scientist, the mind is unquestionably at
fault? In order to arrive at this conclusion, we
should have to be provided with a survey of the
contents of reason, and for such a survey we look to
Haeckel in vain.

Possibly, indeed, a precise theory of reason, what-
ever it were, would be embarrassing at this point?
Scientific philosophy, as it is conceived by Haeckel,
must differ, in some way, from science ; its conclusions
are bound to go beyond those of science pure and
simple, though connected therewith according to the

146 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

relationship of continuity. Now, if it be assumed
that there is, literally, nothing more in reason than
what the scientist turns to account, the philosopher,
notwithstanding all his efforts, will nowise be able to
outstrip science, unless, above a science that is exact
and true, he decides to place a science that is inaccu-
rate and false. In this hypothesis, only science is
legitimate ; and all philosophy is but science under
another name, or mere literary caprice. On the other
hand, if there are, in reason as naturally constituted,
certain principles besides those of which science makes
use, we must abandon the hope of establishing a
continuity between science and philosophy ; we must
acknowledge, between the two, a distinction, not only
of degree, but of kind.

But doubtless the very system that Haeckel has
constructed, reveals, by itself, the possibility oi
realising a purely scientific philosophy. If this
philosophy exists, and if its working proves that it
really possesses scientific certainty, though inexpli-
cable in terms of the scientific method pure and simple
why trouble ourselves because we cannot altogethei
see in theory how, from science, we are to derive t
philosophy which may or may not be science ?

This system is Evolutionary Monism. Accepting
the laws discovered by a Newton, a Lavoisier, i
Mayer, or a Darwin, Monism is not restricted t<
adopting, defending, determining and enlarging thes<
laws — in fresh cases — with originality, penetration
daring or recklessness : that would be merely to con
tinue a specifically scientific task, subject to control
to rectification, to modification — like every othe
theory of science. Monism sets up as dogmas th

HAECKEL AND MONISM 147

formulae that it has drawn out, announcing that the
conception of the world therein presented is enjoined
upon us once for all, as a logical necessity, by the
recent advances in our knowledge of nature. It would
claim for those very propositions which are deduced
scientifically, a certainty beyond that of science — a
truly metaphysical certainty.

A first characteristic to be attributed to its prin-
ciples, to its substance — one implied in its twofold
nature and in its law of evolution — is absolute deter-
mination, fixity, eternity. Now, we could not, by
the aid of merely scientific logic, definitely ascribe
eternity to even the most fundamental principles of
the sciences ; for, in science, fundamental principles
are functions of particular laws, and these laws can
never be considered as determined in an unalterable
manner.

Haeckel assigns universality as a second character-
istic to his principles. But he cannot call scientific,
or analogous to scientific induction, the generalisation
through which he extends to all possible kinds of
existence the properties that actual science claims for
those beings which have come under her observation.
The induction of which he here avails himself is that
inductio per enumerationem simplicem, destitute of
analysis and criticism, which in science is quite value-
less. The beings of our observation present, in a
portion of time, certain phenomena which cannot be
summed up in words about unity of constitution and
of evolution (words, moreover, which do nothing more
than express general ideas, admitting of very different
determinations) : existence is, therefore, one, and
subject, in the totality of its manifestations, to one
and the same law of evolution. We have to do here,

148 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

not with an induction, but a transmutation of the
particular into the universal.

Does the system, when all has been said, leave to
the words unity and evolution a scientific and experi-
mental sense ? It is difficult to grant this.

The One of Haeckel dominates ether and ponder-
able matter, brute matter and living matter, extension
and thought, the world and God. It is essentially
alive, sentient, capable of action, endowed with reason
in the deepest sense. As to evolution, on the one
hand, Haeckel pronounces it strictly mechanical,
though, apparently, it exceeds the forces known to
science (actual science at least) ; on the other hand,
he knows that, in spite of cases of reversion to lower
grades, advance towards perfection predominates,
though this, likewise, is something more than a
generalisation.

He describes his system * in terms of Pantheism,
thus indicating that God is not outside the world, but
at the very heart of it — that He works from within,
through force or energy.' The rational interpretation
of things, Haeckel declares, is the monistic conception
of the unity of God and the world.

Here again, the distinction between " within " and
" outside," between a transcendent force and an
immanent force, sets one thinking about metaphysics
much more than about science.

In fine, after having promised to reduce everything
unknowable to the unknown — to an unknown, similar,
in its essence, ^to the knowable — Haeckel brings us to
a law of substance which, according to him, becomes
increasingly mysterious as we penetrate further into
the knowledge of its attributes.

1 Die Weltrdtsel, chap. xv.

HAECKEL AND MONISM 149

It is, then, impossible to consider his philosophy
as a simple extension of science. We were told at
the start that it would have regard not only to the
senses, but to the reason : that it would really
illustrate the method of the philosopher, and not only
that of the scientist. Its method, most assuredly, is
philosophical as well as scientific ; but the philo-
sophical elements which it contains are clearly
borrowed from what in metaphysics is termed
dogmatism.

Does this philosophy, as we find it set forth,
perform the task which Haeckel assigns to it — the
task of refuting and replacing religion ?

In order to pave the way for a complete and
definitive refutation of religions, Haeckel under-
takes, in the first place, to exhibit their fundamental
principle. He finds this principle in Dualism. The
various religions have beheld on all sides, as the
outcome of a radical duality, a struggle of natural
forces and of supernatural forces. The innumerable
applications to which this idea has given rise, can be
summed up, according to Haeckel, in two main con-
tentions : the duality of God and the world expressed
in the doctrine of design, and the duality of man and
nature expressed in the doctrine of human freedom.

In his philosophy, Haeckel finds the process of
reasoning necessary for refuting these two erroneous
beliefs which lie at the root of all others.

Theology, says he, starts from the hypothesis
(based on superficial analogies) of a world that is
but an inert machine. Now, a machine calls for an
artificer, and a machine that is incomparably more
perfect than all human machines requires, in like

150 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

manner, an artificer infinitely superior to human
artificers.

This anthropomorphic reasoning breaks down as
soon as it is realised, in harmony with the teaching
of Monism, that the world is not a machine, but an
essentially living being.

Similarly, the delusion of free-will arises through
our failing to take note of the obscure impulses which
determine our acts, and through our believing in self-
activity simply because we do not perceive the forces
that are driving us : hence, theoretically, we isolate
action from the conditions of its exercise. Thus set
apart, our activity appears to us as indeterminate.
But Monism proves that a bare activity is an abstrac-
tion ; that, in reality, activity is simply one with
matter wherein lie the conditions of its exercise ; and
that, consequently, every given activity is entirely
determined.

In this way, declares Haeckel, the props of the
traditional religions — those very props which were
deemed so unshakable — collapse in presence of
Evolutionary Monism.

But is it quite certain that, in destroying the
Mosaic doctrine of the creation and the Scholastic
doctrine of the liberty of indifference, Haeckel has,
at the same time, destroyed everything that gives
support to religions ?

Haeckel knows but one kind of design, viz.
external and transcendent design as illustrated in the
altogether mechanical relation of the manufacturer to
his production. In showing that this conception of
design cannot be applied to the world, he imagines
that he has done away with every kind of teleology.
But this conception, which, after all, scarcely suggests

HAECKEL AND MONISM 151

the supernatural except in name (seeing that God is
thereinnftened to terrestrial beings), cannot be con-
sidered as representing the philosophical doctrine of
design in an adequate manner. From Aristotle to
Hegel, philosophy has conceived, more and more
clearly, a design that is not external, but internal ;
not mechanical, but dynamic ; not fixed, but living —
a design which does not consist in any sudden over-
throw of the natural order of things, but which,
inwardly developing life and the struggle for some-
thing better, is manifested in the actual laws of nature.

Again, the theory of freedom to be found in the
teaching of an Aristotle, of a Descartes, of a Leibnitz
or of a Kant, hardly resembles that which Haeckel
restricts himself to considering and refuting. Those
philosophers have professed the very doctrine that
Haeckel puts forward in opposition to them — the
doctrine concerning the unity behind freedom and its
conditions of action in the will as real arid given;
and, far from their having been satisfied with the
imaginative and mechanical conception of an artificer
making use of forces external to himself, the tendency
of their speculation has been towards conceiving this
unity, with growing confidence, as dynamic and
living.

In short, the conceptions of design and freedom
that we find among representative philosophical
thinkers, obviously tend, in their turn, towards a
doctrine of unity. In carrying out this aim, would
they have shown themselves at variance with the
religious disposition ? And would Haeckel have been
right in pronouncing such a disposition thoroughly
dualistic ?

Haeckel's assertion constitutes an expression of

i52 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

opinion rather than an authentication of facts.
Many religions rest precisely on the hypothesis
of an original unity embracing the human and the
divine. In religion we are to find the means of
translating this unity into life, and of re-establish-
ing it where it has been broken off. Far from
dualism being the essence of religion, unity is the
fundamental dogma which is revealed in the highest
examples, and there are plenty of passages to prove
this. One of the best-known and most significant is
the Stoic maxim taken over by Christianity : "In
Him we live, and move, and have our being."

Still, it is quite true that religions teach a dualism,
a separation of God and nature, while tending to
reunite them.

They teach an actual duality, when the unity
represents to them what is right and what ought to
become fact. " Thy kingdom come. Thy will be
done, as in heaven so on earth ! " This means : let
the separation which is actually found between
creatures and the Supreme Being come to an end,
and let the hidden unity underlying all things be
realised !

This conception of an actual duality, coexistent
with the essential unity of being, contains nothing,
in principle, which can give offence to Haeckel ; for
it is in this way that he himself apprehends the world
and human life. After having shown how substance
is, at bottom, necessarily one, Haeckel goes on to state
that it is manifested under two essential aspects
which are opposed to one another : vibratory ether
and inert matter. He is even of opinion that this
dualism might furnish a rational basis to religion.
It would be sufficient for this purpose, he says, to

HAECKEL AND MONISM 153

consider the universal vibratory ether as the creating
deity, and the inert ponderable mass as the matter of
creation.1 Similarly, human nature — fundamentally
one — is realised, according to Haeckel, under the
double form of emotion and reason, which are given
as opposite expressions. The search after truth, for
instance, is the concern of reason alone : we are therein
debarred altogether from feeling. Philosophical pro-
gress consists in accurately describing the dualism
of feeling and reason, and in completely separating
the latter from the former.

Speaking generally, Haeckel's turn of mind is
dualistic. All truth is for him on one side, all error
on the other. Human life is symbolised in the story
of Hercules, set between two opposite ways. Dualism
or monism, immanence or transcendence, science or
religion, reason or emotion, natural or supernatural,
liberty of indifference or absolute determinism, arti-
ficial purpose or thorough-going mechanism, — all is
presented, for Haeckel, under the form of an alterna-
tive which necessitates choice.

Dualism is, then, the actual standpoint from which
Haeckel views human life. His philosophy aims at
establishing unity therein through abolishing one of
two contraries.

If, therefore, the system of Haeckel is radically
opposed to traditional religions and crushes them
beneath the weight of its criticisms, this result is only
gained, in reality, by strangely limiting or even alter-
ing the meaning of these religions. It is their formal
confessions rather than their essence that Haeckel has
attacked, and these confessions he has taken in a
narrow and material sense that would be rejected by

1 Der Mo a i#inus} etc.

154 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

many religious minds. This refutation, then, has
really left standing more than one reconstructive
principle of religious doctrines.

There is no cause for astonishment at this.
Haeckel cannot mean to destroy everything that
upholds religions; for he himself believes that the
religious need, connected by him with feeling, is
a natural need of man, just as feeling is a distinct
and natural faculty; and he is of opinion that this
need must necessarily be met, no less than the
scientific need. His philosophy, in fact, is bound to
solve this practical problem. Does it succeed in
doing so ?

In order to face religion properly, science has
merely, according to Haeckel, to enlarge her compass
and to convert herself into philosophy. As a matter
of fact, Haeckel has only carried out this development
to the extent of presenting science with a certain
number of concepts borrowed from metaphysical
dogmatism. Now, it would appear that in order to
render this philosophy, in its turn, capable, not only
of refuting, but of replacing the various religions,
Haeckel would have been obliged, likewise, to furnish
it from the outside with embellishments that could
not have been obtained from its own resources.

He is fond of reiterating that what science and art
possess is equally the possession of religion. And
he terminates his confession of monistic faith by an
invocation to God as the common principle of Good-
ness, Beauty and Truth. In Truth, Goodness and
Beauty we have, he says, the three sublime aspects of
deity before which we may bend the knee in devotion.
It is in honour of this ideal — a God genuinely one

HAECKEL AND MONISM 155

and threefold — that the twentieth century will erect
its altars.

And in order to justify the ascription of such a
meaning to his philosophy, he invokes the authority
of Goethe, the greatest genius of Germany. It is
this very Goethe who has said :

Wer Wissenschaft und Kunst besitzt,
Hat auch Religion ;
Wer jene beiden nicht besitzt,
Der habe Religion ! 1

Now, what are we to gather from this saying ?

Art, with Goethe, stands for the ideal, in so far as
it is separated from the real. And this ideal is not
simply an effluence or reflection of the real, but its
principle. Upon it we must rely, from it we must
receive inspiration, if we would overpass ourselves.
Das Vollkommene muss uns erst stimmen und uns
nach und nach zu sich hinaufheben : 2 Perfection,
as if by prevenient grace, must, first of all, give us
the right disposition ere raising us by degrees toward
itself.

Thus, by adding Goethe's authority to that of
Spinoza just as he had already supplemented Darwin
by Spinoza, Haeckel thinks that he can satisfy, not
only philosophical requirements, but the specially
religious and ideal aspirations of humanity.

How is this new accession incorporated into his
system ? That, it must be admitted, is by no means
clear. Haeckel rests satisfied with saying : the man
of to-day, besides the fierce struggle for existence,
discovers everywhere traces of Truth, Beauty and

1 He, who possesses science and art, has religion also. He, who has
them not, may have religion.

2 Sine Eeise in die Schweiz, 1797.

156 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Goodness ; but what connection is there between
these two aspects of reality ? How comes it that,
while teaching us to regard the law of the struggle
for life as the fundamental law of nature, science is
able to persuade us that Truth, Beauty and Goodness
are everywhere present in the world, and ought to be
the aim of all our longings and endeavours ?

Evidently Haeckel, with a view to replacing
religions, has introduced at this point certain obli-
gatory concepts over and above experiential concepts,
or — what amounts to the same thing — has imparted
a value to the imperatives subjectively given in our
consciousness. But a subjective and imaginary in-
junction, thus set up as constituting real knowledge
and obligation, is nothing else than what we call
revelation. And so, through the introduction of an
alien principle, analogous to religious revelation,
Haeckel is able, in the end, to join with Goethe in
reaching out towards truth, goodness and beauty.

But once we are allowed to find room again in
philosophy for beauty, truth and goodness as ideals
to be pursued, what is there that we may not restore ?
How is the God of religious beliefs expressed if not
in the attempt to picture truth, beauty and goodness ?
These objects are not concepts of a fixed and calcul-
able kind, like the idea of a triangle or the notion
of a vertebrate. All the metaphysical and, religious
speculations of mankind have been suggested by the
strange nature of these three objects, which are not
materially given, but which the mind seeks, in end-
less progression, to bring within its range — rising, in
this effort, above itself, and striving to be at one with
what it calls God.

It would be difficult to say with precision to what

HAECKEL AND MONISM 157

ethical scheme, to what form of religion, the monism
of Haeckel would have led, if it had not, with sheer
inconclusiveness, drifted towards the ideal of Goethe.
So long as the philosophy of Haeckel was limited to
combating religions, it laid particular stress on the
fundamental unity of the various kinds of being, on
universal mechanism, on the fatality of the struggle
for existence, on the emptiness of our subjective con-
victions, on the absolute solidarity which links each
being with the totality of the universe. Can we,
from these principles, infer anything resembling what
we call freedom, personal worth, humanity, fraternity,
search after ideals ?

Just as there was for science (as Haeckel conceived
it) a paradoxical problem in connection with its
conversion into philosophy, so the conversion of this
same philosophy into religion is a change so slightly
indicated by the system's own principles that it
presents the appearance of the supernatural.

The only satisfactory explanation to be given is
that Haeckel has raised science to the rank of philo-
sophy in such a manner as to find in it the means of
overthrowing religions ; and that he has afterwards
brought his philosophy to the level of these same
religions, in such a manner as to render it capable of
replacing them. And the end, as a heterogeneous
principle, has created the means !

158 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

III

SCIENTIFIC PHILOSOPHY AND ETHICS AT THE
PRESENT TIME

We must distinguish, in Haeckel's system, between
idea and execution. The execution is characterised
by an eclecticism which is decidedly embarrassing
to criticism. Haeckel compares rather than unites
Darwin and Spinoza, Spinoza and Goethe. But the
idea is not necessarily affected by the objections that
execution suggests. Perhaps the eclecticism to which
Haeckel has recourse presents merely the same degree
of obscurity as any new idea that we cannot grasp
at once.

The idea which Haeckel has clearly conceived,
and which he has cleverly upheld, may be expressed
as follows. Man, henceforward, has one genuine
certainty, viz. Science ; and, the more he reflects on
the nature of this certainty, the more it becomes
clear to him that he does not possess — and, indeed,
cannot possess — any other. He would deceive him-
self, therefore, and build only crumbling structures,
if he sought, for any of his theories whatsoever, other
foundation than that of Science.

But, while moulding his thought in compliance
with things (as rational integrity demands), man is
not disposed and does not feel it right to renounce,
in any degree, what — according to his conviction,
according to an invincible feeling — links him veri-
tably with the nature of things, and constitutes
his nobility, his superiority, his self-reliance, his
happiness.

To all this, it will be said, science is indifferent.

HAECKEL AND MONISM 159

That is so, observes Haeckel, and at this point we
come upon his cardinal idea, that in science we can
find nothing else than science. Consider what is
involved in science — interpret, with the help of
reason, her principles, her methods, her results ; in
short, create, by means of the very faculties with
which science set out, a scientific philosophy ; and
science thus developed, thus extended, without
thereby changing her special nature, will furnish you
with all the theoretical knowledge, all the practical
teaching that a well-ordered mind demands, and that
a purely empirical science was impotent to procure.

In this manner the traditional religions will be-
come useless, being superseded. The religion of the
future will be the religion of science.

Defects of execution, then, have nowise compro-
mised Haeckel's idea. As a rule, it is not because
a principle is indifferently or badly applied, vehemently
contested and disproved a hundred times, that it falls
away and disappears ; it is because it is without any
real content, without vitality and without energy.
The idea that Haeckel upholds is one of those which
to-day rule the intellectual world.

Various attempts have been made to think out
this idea so as to avoid the defects that, in Haeckel's
case, seemed on the way to compromise it. Can it
be said that these attempts have ended in success ?

The philosophy called scientific is, just now, in
high favour. It seeks increasingly to deserve its name.
Now, the furtherance of the scientific method consists
in setting aside, more and more, every metaphysical
or subjective datum, in order to rely exclusively upon
fact understood in a certain way — fact as identical
for every observer, objective fact, scientific fact.

160 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Consequently, scientific philosophy is specially de-
sirous of being established apart from any metaphysical
hypothesis. She would like, literally, to have no
other foundation than science, no other organ than
reason, and to be strictly tied down to the logical
methods that science asks of her.

Scientific philosophy, then, without relinquishing
her hold on the problems which are more general and
more far-reaching than those with which science in
the strict sense deals, is bent on adhering, ever more
closely, to science ; she is minded to continue this
adherence even when she seems to be going beyond
the scientific limit.

This attitude leads — among those who take its
requisitions seriously — to the withdrawal of scientific
philosophy from speculative and, in particular, from
practical problems which are rightly the subject-
matter of religion. If religion is affected by studies
on such subjects as the nature of the scientific
hypothesis or the principles of physical chemistry,
that can only be very indirectly and in a slight
fashion. The biological sciences, it is true, seem
in themselves more akin to things moral and religious,
since they have to do with the conditions of existence,
of development, of competition, of adaptation, of
communities and of progress. But their method,
like that of all science, consists in reducing the higher
to the lower. Now, while allowing that the concepts
which are here in question have, in the natural
sciences, a practical meaning analogous to that of
our moral concepts, who would willingly resign him-
self to the spectacle of man shaping his conduct
exclusively in accordance with the life of creatures
beneath him in the scale of being, without seeking

HAECKEL AND MONISM 161

to provide satisfaction for the conscience and for
the aspirations that belong to man as such? If
animal society is the starting-point of human society,
does it follow that human associations cannot and
ought not to differ from animal associations ?

That is why, in general, professional scientists
say goodbye to methodical analysis and deduction,
as soon as they go beyond the philosophical problems
that are somehow included within the strictly scientific
sphere of knowledge, in order to enter upon those
wide generalisations called by the Germans Weltan-
schauungen, and to reach thereby the questions that
are of genuine interest to the moral and religious
consciousness. They do not state their views on
the religion of science in the same scientific manner
that is customary in stating a general law which is
evolved from the particular laws based on observation.
Nay rather, in set speeches, in prefaces, in conclusions
and in lectures, are they wont to celebrate with
eloquence the blessings of science : how great and
beautiful it is — how it calls forth and develops the
virtues of patience, of abnegation, of tenacity, of
sincerity, of sociability, of brotherhood, of devotion
to humanity ; and they wind up glowingly by
claiming for science the supreme dominion. Hence-
forward she alone is in possession of the moral
vigour needed to establish the dignity of human
personality and to organise future commonwealths.
It is science that will usher in the golden age of
universal equality and fraternity based on the sacred
law of toil.

The scientist thus offers us, in place of religion,
his own nobility of life and depth of thought, the
prestige of his personality and of his genius, rather

M

162 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

than definite doctrines scientifically established through
the discoveries of actual science.

Further, we are not to be content with the indis-
tinct conception of a scientific philosophy, intervening
between science and religion. Instead of contrasting
religion with a science defined as unifying principle
and as philosophy, many thoughtful people have
wondered if it were not possible to constitute a
determinate science, in harmony with the general
notion of scientific knowledge, but specially conceived
so as to fulfil, in human life, all the requisite or
useful functions that have hitherto been fulfilled by
religion.

The particular science which appeared capable
of being constituted in this way, was that of ethics ;
and on all sides the idea of a scientific morality was
extolled. This idea was not only embraced with
fervour; the attempt was made to realise it. One
of the most remarkable results of this effort is shown
in the ethics of solidarity.

< Solidarity is a scientific concept, unlike Christian

charity or Republican fraternity. Solidarity is a

law of nature — gravitation, for example. It is the

fcondition underlying the existence and prosperity

tof every human community. At the same time and

(on that very account, solidarity is desired, explicitly

4or implicitly, by every reasonable man for whom

the idea of living outside the conditions of existence

is impossible.

Hence solidarity constitutes just that convergence
of theory and practice, that natural transition froir
fact to activity, which it was necessary to discerr
before we could dispense with religion. Life, in the

HAECKEL AND MONISM 163

really human sense, is in need of a rule. So long
as science was incapable of furnishing this, we were
obliged to look for it in the region of sentiment.
Thanks to solidarisme, the deficiency has at last
been supplied : science appears under a new aspect
as coincident with life. Moreover, the principle
which this aspect of coincidence expresses, is sufficient.
Let us analyse all the obligations that an enlightened
judgment imposes on man: the obligations of justice,
of help, of self-improvement, of tolerance, of devotion
towards family, country, society, humanity — all are
explained and determined by the single scientific
notion of solidarity.

The ethics of solidarity, according to adepts, will
play the very part that Haeckel attributed to monism
regarded as religion. For the present, through the
tolerance that it recommends, as well as through the
analogies that it offers with what is reasonable in
the various religions, this ethical teaching will serve
to reconcile religion and science. But, by degrees,
along with the development of its applications and
with its growing acceptance, it will tend to replace
the old religions ; for it will perform, not only all
the useful tasks which they succeeded in carrying
out, but other tasks of a still wider and loftier kind,
obligatory for minds trained according to the methods
of scientific culture.

The solidaristes are confident that, in this way,
they have determined the exact concept necessary for
the establishment of scientific morality as genuinely
one and homogeneous — no longer merely the eclectic
combination of two heterogeneous courses of discipline.

The importance of a discovery like this is scarcely
to be exaggerated ! In the early stages of modern

1 64 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

science, Descartes found in extension — at once observ-
able and intelligible — the connecting link between
the material world and the mind. Can we, in the
same way, discover a connecting link between the
world of science and the world of action ? It is this
last-named link that solidarisme provides.
What is the real value of such a standpoint ?

Solidarity, it is said, is a scientific datum. Most
certainly science shows us how a concourse of beings,
of phenomena depend upon one another. It is even
part of its office to discover relations involving
I solidarity. The law of action and reaction is a law
I of solidarity. But science is not less desirous of
seeking and establishing relations of independence.
/ Pascal has written : " The parts of the world are
(so linked and interconnected, that we cannot, I believe,
'understand one without another or without the whole."
Perhaps this statement as to universal solidarity is
theoretically legitimate. But it is, at least, certain
that the practical admission of such a principle would
render science impossible. The work of science has
only been effectual through the belief that certain
parts of nature are sensibly independent of the rest.
What is called a law, a species, a body is a particular
solidarity which is relatively constant, i.e. relatively
independent as regards the rest of nature. The
discovery of Kepler's Laws and of the law of universal
attraction has only been possible because the solar
system was taken as forming, in some way, a whole
by itself. The very terms of Newton's law indicate
that the action of certain bodies on others can be
disregarded. It is through eliminating all the other
given circumstances that we have found how, in

HAECKEL AND MONISM 165

barometrical experience, to make the rise of the liquid
column depend on the pressure of the atmosphere
alone. Assuredly, science is on the look-out for
solidarities. But the problem that she undertakes is
to know what solidarities she ought to allow — what
apparent or conceivable solidarities she ought to
reject ; and she can only discover solidarities where
nature itself has presented certain connections of
phenomena sensibly independent of other phenomena.

It would, then, be very arbitrary to adhere to the
notion of solidarity without referring to the opposite
notion. A solidariste who really takes science as his
guide is not less anxious to dismiss solidarities that
are purely apparent and accidental, than to determine
those which are true and genuine. He labours at
establishing relations of independence and autonomy,
not less than those relations which imply solidarity
or mutual dependence.

But even though this parting of false and true
solidarities were realised, the solidariste would then
be only at the beginning of his task ; for he cannot
rest content with the solidarities that nature offers
him. He is compelled to look for the well-being, the
righteousness, the happiness of men. Is he, then,
going to restore the anthropomorphic dogma so vigor-
ously denounced by Haeckel, and to allow that, in
the solidarities of her own making, nature has actually
in view the satisfaction of the human conscience ?
It is evident that what the solidariste borrows from
science is simply a framework, the abstract form of
solidarity. Into this framework, he reserves to
himself the right of putting what will satisfy his
moral needs. He will preserve a considerable part of
what science offers him, but just in so far (to adopt

i66 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

the phrase of Descartes) as he may find it amenable
to reason.

Hence it would seem that the principle of the
solidaristes, though apparently one, is in reality two-
fold. A single word proves, in this case, to conceal
two ideas. On the one hand, we have physical
solidarity, i.e. solidarity as naturally given, indifferent
to righteousness, rudely out of keeping with the
humane point of view that is man's special prerogative ;
on the other hand, we are shown moral solidarity,
free and equitable — an idea which presents man with
an object worthy of his struggles, and which he will
realise (in harmony with the rest of his ideal experience)
through making proper use of the materials that he
finds in nature.

In other words, the connecting link between
science and practical life of which we are in search,
is not provided by the scheme of the solidariste.
This scheme embraces fact and idea after the manner
of eclectic doctrines, and, putting them under a single
name, it declares that they are one.

It is true that many are prepared with this reply :
It is wrong to discuss moral solidarity from the stand-
point of pure idea, and on that account to place it
opposite physical solidarity. It also is a fact, an
experimental datum, a scientific truth, for it has its
root in human instinct. It is simply the perception,
by consciousness, of a law peculiar to human nature,
analogous to physical laws. The human individual,
like the animals, is born and lives within a particular
association of certain beings. What is called moral
solidarity is merely the knowledge and theory of this
special solidarity.

The postulate of this explanation involves the

HAECKEL AND MONISM 167

likening of consciousness to a mirror which can only
give a passive reproduction of the objects placed
before it. A metaphor becomes a theory. But, inl
point of fact, man finds himself in presence of a greatl
multiplicity and variety of given solidarities. Be-j
tween these solidarities we have to make our choice q
here we ought to annul, there to maintain. It is
even a question of establishing solidarities that are
not given in any visible sense, e.g. solidarities based
on righteousness and happiness. Why these struggles
and endeavours, this generous and untiring fervour,
if we are only to take note of actual existence, and to
uphold it for what it may be worth ? Clearly, in
order to choose between given realities — in order to
get beyond them — we must possess or try to find a
criterion of truth and value distinguishable from these
realities themselves. Whence shall we procure this
criterion ?

The reply is made : From instinct, from conscience,
from the moral needs of human nature ; for these, also,
are facts.

The ambiguity underlying the theory becomes
evident at this point. It is forgotten that we have
to do with fact and fact. The suspension of the
mercury in the barometrical tube is a fact : the con-
sciousness of the idea of righteousness is likewise a
fact. But these two facts are very different in kind.
The first can be reduced to clearly defined, objective
elements which will be represented in all minds by
obviously identical ideas : the totality of such elements
is what we call a scientific fact. The second is the
representation of an ideal object. It contains, in very
truth, an objective element, viz. the existence, in the
knowing subject, of a certain idea — or rather of a

1 68 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

certain feeling. But it is not this element which
is here in question. There are in us a thousand other
feelings, to which we do not attribute the same
value : what we really want is to secure for this
feeling the pre-eminence over the rest. It is not,
therefore, to feeling, as such, that we make appeal :
it is to the issues which are involved in it — righteous-
ness, happiness, humanity, ideal solidarity. But
righteousness and happiness are not objective and
scientific facts. These are immediate, subjective
representations, which, being incapable of analysis,
cannot be described as scientific facts. They are crude
notions, really comparable with those that science
undertakes to criticise and to reduce, if it be possible,
to fixed and measurable elements. They are even
data which, if we believed in the verdict of conscious-
ness upon which they are assumed to rest, would be
irreducible to scientific facts, inasmuch as they express
the claim of the human mind to correct reality, and
to offer, for the investigation of future science, facts
that are beyond the purview of actual science.

After long and careful peregrinations, we discover
that we have been brought back to the point reached
by Haeckel. In order to satisfy both the scientific
demands and the moral demands of human nature,
Haeckel placed side by side Darwin and Goethe, the
struggle for life and the cult of Truth, Beauty and
Goodness ; and his system, in spite of its monistic
title, assumed a dualistic character. With a view to
obtaining the longed-for unity, we conceived, as a
synthesis of knowledge and action, the ethical doctrine
termed scientific ; and up to now we have hardly done
anything, by means of this formula, beyond securing
the juxtaposition of two words. If, following its

HAECKEL AND MONISM 169

guidance, we apply ourselves to science — to science
worthy of the name — we do not reach morality ; if,
again, we set out from the moral claims of man, we
are unable to rejoin science. The mere assumption
of a name does not entitle us to use it.

This dualism, into which we are continually relaps-
ing, be our endeavours to surmount it ever so great,
is, it would seem, inseparable from the very problem
to which we have devoted ourselves. The formula
indicating this problem has been expressed very well
by Haeckel : to satisfy, by the aid of scientific method,
the needs — no less practical than speculative — of
human nature.

Now, science is the knowledge and the organisation
of scientific facts in their entirety. The requirements
of human nature are only scientific in their physical
basis — not in their purport, with which we are
exclusively concerned at the moment. How, then,
should we know a priori that science is able to bring
man satisfaction ? Are we not debarred with good
reason, in the name of science, from all anthropo-
morphism, from every theory of pre-established
harmony between man and things? Do we not
constantly take up a defiant attitude toward con-
science, toward feeling and desire, all of which are
said to be out of harmony with objective reality?
The dualism in which we are landed originates merely
in the terms through which we have sought to
harmonise science and the needs of man.

Both the religion of science and scientific morality
demanded a critical estimate that these systems have
failed to supply : an estimate of the intellectual
and moral needs of the human spirit. Before en-
deavouring to satisfy these needs, it was necessary to

i;o SCIENCE AND RELIGION

inquire into their actual nature and value. If we
had been able to show that they, also, are only facts :
that everything in them which seems to be ideal or
superior to the given, is illusory, i.e. reducible to
this same "given" in accordance with natural laws,
then indeed there would have been for us nothing
but facts capable of being brought into line with other
facts — with facts of a scientific character. Under
such a view, all that recalls the supernatural, the
absolute, the unknowable, the ideal, would then be
definitively eliminated : science in the strict sense
would be, for us, the relatively adequate representa-
tion of all existence ; she herself would be our
supreme requirement, our absolute, our ideal.

CHAPTER IV

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY1

NATURE and natural phenomena : consideration of
religious phenomena substituted for that of the objects
of religion.

I. PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF RELIGIOUS PHENOMENA — Re-
ligious phenomena considered subjectively, objectively. The
historical evolution of the religious sentiment — Religious
phenomena explained by the laws of psychic life.

II. SOCIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF RELIGIOUS PHENOMENA — The
advantages of the sociological point of view — The essence of
religious phenomena : dogmas and rites — Insufficiency of the
psychological explanation ; religion as social duty.

III. CRITICISM OF PSYCHOLOGY AND OF SOCIOLOGY — The ambition of
these systems — Are the explanations that they supply really
scientific ? — Are the human ego and human society resolvable
into mechanical causes ? — Psychology powerless to explain the
feeling of religious obligation — Sociology, in its appeal to
society, not only real, but ideal.

In the different systems which have hitherto
occupied our attention, science and religion are set
opposite one another like two given things, and the
question raised is that of knowing to what extent and

1 The terms "Psychology" and "Sociology" are used, in this chapter,
with a special significance ; hence Monsieur Boutroux writes "Psychologwrae"
and " Sociologwrae." Our author is examining the respective claims of those
who systematically maintain that the psychological, or the sociological
explanation of religious phenomena, is adequate. — Translator s note.

171

172 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

how, without infringing the principle of contradiction,
the mind can allow their coexistence. This conception
of the problem is not the only one possible.

When, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
science was definitely established on the double basis
of mathematics and of experience, she asked herself
what attitude she ought to take in regard to such
entities as nature, life and the soul — these being
generally regarded as given realities, though very
different from the objects of experience and of
mathematical demonstration. After having hesitated
for a time, she thought of a distinction which seemed
to solve the difficulty once for all. Instead of con-
sidering nature, life and the soul as entities, science
adopted the notion of them as physical, biological and
psychical facts, given in experience ; and, as to the
universal essences of which these phenomena were
the manifestation, she decided on ignoring them.
The classic names of Physics, Biology and Psychology
have been preserved, but they have now come to
mean nothing more than the science of physical,
biological and psychical phenomena respectively.
With this change of standpoint, science has been
obliged to bring within her own sphere certain
realities which, as represented by tradition, seemed
of necessity to be permanently inaccessible.

Can we not realise, in regard to religion, an
analogous change of standpoint ? Whereas, in con-
sidering religion and its aims as a single and universal
entity, science appeared to be indefinitely restricted
to furnishing an illusory explanation, what would
happen if, in the place of religion, we put religious
phenomena? These phenomena, in short, are the
only thing that we find directly given. They can be

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 173

observed, analysed, classified — like other phenomena.
We are able, in respect of these phenomena, as in
respect of others, to find out if they admit of being
brought within the compass of experimental laws.
Why should not religion, thus envisaged, become an
object of science, as nature became on the day when
this word was used simply to indicate the totality of
physical phenomena ?

Would the reduction of religion to religious
phenomena involve the loss of any essential element ?
Only by the aid of such an element would it be
possible to maintain the belief that, outside natural
phenomena, i.e. physical objects, there is something
which answers to the name of nature, and which, in
some way, is capable of being grasped by us. In
fact, for every mind liberated from metaphysical
prejudices, if religious phenomena can be described
with precision, and reduced to positive laws analogous
to the laws of physics or of physiology, the problem
of the relations between religion and science is no
longer in existence : it re-enters into the general
problem of the connection between science and reality
— a problem that is, indeed, more verbal than real,
seeing that science, as henceforth constituted, is just
the fullest possible expression of reality.

When this method of regarding things is adopted,
what becomes of those imperious needs — whether
moral or religious — which human nature exhibits,
and which have, in the end, won the respect of an
Auguste Comte, of a Herbert Spencer, and of a
Haeckel ?

174 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

I

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF RELIGIOUS
PHENOMENA

Moral and religious needs are expressed in accord-
ance with principles that appear to consciousness as
evident and necessary. Such principles are those
relating to the dependence of the finite upon the
infinite, to the moral order of the universe, to duty,
to equitable compensation, to the triumph of right.
Now, an acute philosopher of the eighteenth century,
David Hume, has shown, with respect to the principle
of causality, how such a proposition, which seems to
be imposed upon the mind as an absolute truth, may
really be nothing more than the abstract interpretation
and intellectual projection of internal modifications
within the conscious subject. When I affirm a causal
connection between A and B, I seem to be applying a
principle given a priori, which I call the principle of
causality. But this principle, as soon as I come to
formulate it and to subject it to analysis, raises
insoluble difficulties. In reality I yield to a habit,
created in my imagination through the reiterated
perception of the sequence A B. By reason of this
habit, every time that A is presented, I expect to
see B appear. And it is this habit that my mind
expresses, in its own way, by the concept of causality.
There is nothing real in what I call the principle of
causality except the psychical disposition of which it
is the formula. Already, through analogous reason-
ing, Spinoza, in criticising the feeling of free-will, had
referred it to ignorance of the causes which determine
our actions, combined with the consciousness that we
have of those same actions.

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 175

In thus explaining certain ideas, no longer by
realities distinct from thought, but by phenomena
shut within consciousness, these philosophers inaugur-
ated a veritable revolution — the transformation of
Ontology into Psychology.

It is in accordance with this method that several
thinkers, even at the present time, seek to bring all
that concerns religion within the domain of the posi-
tive sciences.

The problem, so presented, consists primarily in
observing and analysing the religious phenomena
furnished by experience ; and, then, in seeking the
explanation of these phenomena in the general laws
of psychical phenomena.

It cannot be said that at present we find complete
doctrines, capable of being described as common to all
specialists, and of being established on a definitely
scientific basis. These investigations, still in the
early stage, give rise to great differences of opinion.
Accordingly, it is necessary to consider the methods,
the questions and the hypotheses suggested, rather
than the results that have been definitively obtained.

The starting-point of these investigations is the
verification of facts as they are presented in the
religious consciousness itself. Setting aside every
preconceived idea, every theory, every system, the
specialists analyse both past and present religions ;
and, from actual data, they deduce those psychical
states, practices and institutions which are character-
istic. The conception of religious phenomena reached
in thus adopting the very standpoint of the religious
consciousness, may be termed subjective.

The main inference to be drawn from the religious

176 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

phenomenon, in this sense, is that man learns thereby
to consider himself as having intercourse with a
superior and more or less mysterious being, to whom
he looks for the satisfaction of certain desires. This
initial conviction gives to all his emotions, to all his
experiences, their special aspect and significance.

For the man who experiences faith alone, and who
knows nothing of mystic feeling, union with God is
the object of thought, of desire and of action, but it
is not realised here and now, and can only be realised
very imperfectly in this world. The mystic, on the
contrary, is conscious of union with God as something
that is a natural constituent of the human soul, and
his task lies in the endeavour to keep it in mind and
to make it the foundation of his entire life. While
the simple believer proceeds from idea and action to
feeling in order to attain union with God, the mystic
starts from this very union and regards it as determin-
ing, first his feelings, then his ideas and actions.

The union with God which the mystic begins to
enjoy in this life, is completely realised in a special
experience called rapture or ecstasy. During this
state the soul is distinctly aware of being alive in
God and through God. Not that it acknowledges
annihilation. According to the doctrine of the great
mystics, it is, on the contrary, conscious of existing
in the fullest sense of the word. Its life is so much
the more intense through being in closer unison with
the source of all life.

Such is the appearance that religious phenomena
present when they are regarded from the stand-
point of the religious consciousness itself. It would,
doubtless, be very difficult — it might even appear

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 177

impossible — to discuss the value of the assertions
implied in these phenomena, if we were only able to
consider them from this wholly intuitive standpoint.
How can we prove to the man conscious of freedom
that he is not conscious of freedom ? How are we to
contest a man's right to declare his sense of com-
munion with God ?

In order to criticise the spontaneous judgment of
the mind, Hume (as we have seen) has conceived a
way of observing the psychical phenomenon other than
subjective intuition. He looks at the phenomenon
from without, objectively ; and he wants to know if
what man assumes as existent has actual existence
— if the object that he pictures as the cause of his
feeling exists apart from the feeling that pronounces
its existence ; or if that object is merely the interpre-
tation and imaginative projection of the psychical
phenomenon itself. Similarly, it is through studying
religious phenomena, no longer merely from the
subjective standpoint of the religious consciousness,
but from without and objectively, that the psycho-
logist can hope to strip them of their supernatural
semblances and to group them under the laws of
science.

In this manner, psychology effects the reduction
of religious phenomena in their entirety to three
main categories : beliefs, feelings properly so called,
and rites.

Beliefs are the representations of objects, of realities
conceived as external to man. Viewed from the
outside, they appear to have a close connection with
the ideas, the knowledge, the intellectual and moral
conditions of the period in which they are put forth,
as well as with the particular opinions or longings of

N

178 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

the individuals who profess them. In a general way,
man fashions his gods after his own likeness, as the
ancient Greek philosopher, Xenophanes, pointed out.
St. Teresa expects the Lord to dictate what she ought
to say from him to the bare-footed Carmelite Fathers.
Now, the four very explicit recommendations that
God orders to be put before them, are in such exact
conformity with the prepossessions of St. Teresa
herself, that we cannot escape the impression that
God is, in this instance, only the echo of her own
consciousness.

The study of religious feeling, as distinct from
beliefs, raises a multitude of questions. What are
the elements, of this feeling? We are able to dis-
tinguish therein : fear, love, longing for happiness,
the inclination towards fellowship with other men.
These elements, moreover, are mingled in very
different proportions, and present well-nigh innumer-
able aspects, according to the beliefs with which they
are associated.

The culminating point of inward religious life is
ecstasy, or the feeling of an immediate union with
God. Seen from outside, this state consists : firstly,
in concentrating the attention upon a single idea, or
upon a limited group of ideas ; secondly, in rapture, i.e.
in the abolition or transformation of the personality.
At the same time, the nervous system is in an
abnormal state, characterised by the more or less
complete suspension of sensibility and of movement.
Ecstasy is not, moreover, an isolated phenomenon :
it is that which sets the seal on a period of excite-
ment, which alternates with a period of depression.
Intense religious feeling is thus submitted to a more
or less regular rhythm. God draws nigh, and then

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 179

absents himself; phases of rapture are followed by
phases of emptiness, and vice versd. And we notice
that these phenomena coincide with the states of
excitement and of nervous depression.

Kites — which are the third element in religions —
appear as phenomena realisable by man and possessing
a virtue called supernatural, i.e. the special quality
of being (after some unknown and unknowable
fashion) the causes of other phenomena which are not
directly within man's reach.

For the mystics, rite is, not an instrument, but
a consequence. It originates in a certain state of the
soul. This state, experienced as union with the
divine omnipotence, engenders and determines, not
only other psychical phenomena such as the trans-
formation of the passions and of the character, but,
further, physical phenomena — actual deeds.

In a general way, the religious rite expresses the
idea of a causal relation between the physical and the
moral, between the moral and the physical : the how
of this relation is unfathomable by us.

It is such results as these that have been gained
through observing religious phenomena from the
objective standpoint. By adopting this same stand-
point, we are enabled to trace the historical evolution
of the religious sentiment.1

We may take as our starting-point, for example,
the predominance of fear and of imagination, whence
is derived the conception of divine beings especially
powerful and terrible. After this, love and joy are
gradually developed and gain the preponderance,
while intellect and reason regulate the conceptions of
the imagination. The deity is then incorporated,

1 Th. Ribot, La Psychologic des sentiments.

180 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

and, at the same time, becomes kind and gracious :
religion, metaphysics and ethics are knit together into
one rich and harmonious whole. It is the apex of
religious evolution. At last, in a third phase, the
intellectual element becomes, in its turn, preponderant,
the equilibrium is disturbed, and religion is gradually
supplanted by science — that science which is framed
exactly with a view to satisfying the intellect.

In proportion as they extend further and deeper, it
is clear that objective examination and analysis of
religious facts lead us towards that psychological
immanent explanation which the thorough - going
psychologist seeks to establish.

The question set for his consideration is as follows :
Should religious facts be explained (as the conscious-
ness of the believer insists) by supernatural and
mysterious interventions, or should the general laws
of human nature offer a sufficient account of them ?

Now, whatever phenomenon we consider, when
once we have strictly reduced it to its objective and
given content, when we have started definitely from
the fact that science ought to retain, and from the
manner in which this fact is represented in the sub-
jective consciousness of the believer, we find — following
the system which we may term psychology — that the
phenomenon contains nothing which cannot be ex-
plained through the laws of ordinary psychology.

The feelings to which the religious sentiment is
reduced — dread, attraction, self-absorption, desire of
fellowship — are feelings natural to man. The mono-
ideism and rapture which characterise ecstasy, together
with the rhythm of which they form part, are only
the exaggeration of the traits which belong to the

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 181

affective life in general. It is in the nature of passion
to concentrate on a single object all the energies
of the soul. And alternation of excitement and
depression constitutes the very law of the affective
life. Phenomena analogous or even similar to mystical
manifestations are easily recognised in certain nervous
affections. Religious obsessions, the conviction as to
the influence of God, of the Holy Virgin or of the
devil, the delirium resulting from scrupulosity, the
abiding notion of sacrilege, the mania of remorse and
of expiation, are natural accompaniments and exact
symptoms of definite hysterical states.

Intellectual or imaginative phenomena : beliefs,
ideas, visions, revelations are also explained by mere
psychical modifications of the subject, without our
finding it necessary to suppose any transcendent
reality whatsoever, of which they would be the effect
and representation.

Transcendent explanations originate through the
ignorance of the subject, and through the attempt of
the imagination, guided by tradition and custom, to
make up the deficiency. For the man who, thanks to
temperament, to acquired notions, to personal experi-
ence and to the condition of the subject, possesses
sufficient knowledge, the beliefs of this subject — the
revelations and the visions of which he is conscious
— no longer present anything new and miraculous.
It is simply from the recesses of his memory that,
unwittingly, man draws all the objects which appear
to him as supernatural. God, speaking to St. Teresa,
tells her what, unwittingly, she makes him say. Our
desires, our fears, our prepossessions, our knowledge,
our ignorance, our habits, our affections, our passions,
our needs, our aspirations, furnish the substance of

182 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

the beings that we bring down from on high to
enlighten us and to give us succour. We fling
ourselves forward — stronger, greater, better — in
order to augment our powers through union with
this other self. God is the self-aim that is here
indicated. The method adopted in thus creating
him, is unconscious. The ego, therefore, does not
recognise itself in its creation ; and if, perchance,
an abnormal state of the nervous system determine
within it a certain degree of exaltation, this creation
will be for it the object, not only of belief, but of
hallucination, of vision and of dread — quite on a
par with what happens to the rest of our perceptions
under certain conditions.

It is, then, no longer necessary to explain the
mutual action of feeling, of belief and of rites upon
one another, through the appeal to some supernatural
intervention.

We may allow that, feeling being the one funda-
mental phenomenon, ideas are only an intellectual
interpretation of it. There exists, at the present time,
a wide-spread theory which reduces the role of the
intellect to transforming into representations the feel-
ings— unthinkable in themselves — of which we are
conscious. To think a thing, is to explain it, i.e. to
refer it to a cause, to a model, to an end of which the
concept pre-exists in us. Our intellect, in order to
explain our feelings, seeks thus some suitable principle
which may be familiar to it. Since our activity is
that which is most familiar to us, it is a cause analo-
gous to our activity that the intellect first assumes.
Then, in proportion as we know more about things,
it draws in a curious manner from that treasury which
we call our memory, in order to present us with objects

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 183

and causes as proportioned as possible to the feelings
which stir within us.

If we deem that it is, rather, ideas which, in the
matter of religion, determine feelings, there is no
need — as Pascal used to think — of divine grace, in
order to bring down into the heart a truth recognised
by the intellect. Human feeling is not alien to the
intellect, it is only human in so far as — even under
its humblest forms — it already partakes of intellect
and idea. The endeavour to act on the feelings and
on the conduct of man through ideas, through reason,
is what we term philosophy. The very word reason
has, in its common acceptation, a value that is at
once theoretical and practical. Now, who would wish
to maintain that all philosophy, all belief in the
efficacy of idea and reason, is but scholarly prejudice ?
We experience every day how an idea, a doctrine, a
system moulds our feelings, our affections, our passions.
Is it not on actual record that the teaching of Kousseau
produced a new way of loving and feeling among a
large number of men? Are not our feelings to a
large extent literary ? The experiments of suggestion
reveal the constraining power latent in ideas.

And, if we see in rites the main phenomenon, it
is fruitless, in order to derive feelings and beliefs
from them, to look for a supernatural virtue inherent
in these observances : it is sufficient to invoke the
natural influence of deed on thought, so powerfully
indicated by Pascal in the famous saying : " Take
holy water, and have masses said : quite naturally,
that will enable you to believe, and will blunt your
wit."

Lastly, the regular evolution manifested, through-
out the ages, by the religious phenomenon (taking the

1 84 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

general effect of its development) is, in itself, proof
that we are not dealing here with the manifestation
of supernatural influences. The • discovery of one
general law of evolution controlling the history of
nature, has led to the elimination of theological
doctrines concerning the creation and the preservation
of the universe. An analogous conclusion is inevitable
with respect to religion, if its development is such that,
conformably to a law, each new moment is necessarily
linked with the preceding. And this is just what we
gather from the outline of religious evolution that
the psychologists have already succeeded in giving.

To sum up, the hypothesis of a supernatural and
mysterious cause of religious phenomena, such as
religious beliefs seem to demand, would doubtless
have to be maintained, at least provisionally, if the
application of the psychological method to the inter-
pretation of religious phenomena left an unexplained
residuum. But, though it be clear that we cannot,
in like manner, expect to know everything and to
understand everything, the inference to be drawn
from our knowledge of religious phenomena, as from
that of physical phenomena, is this : we know enough
about them to consider the scientific method as
sufficing to indicate the way in which the phenomena
have been produced. Keality will not offer us
anything that, by the help of our principles, cannot
be explained. There is for us an unknown — not an
unknowable; an unexplained — not an inexplicable.
For we explain psychologically, i.e. by the help of the
human soul's general laws, the religious phenomenon
understood in its essence ; and this same essence will
be found necessarily in every religious fact whatsoever.

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 185

II

THE SOCIOLOGICAL .EXPLANATION OF RELIGIOUS
PHENOMENA

It is in this way that certain psychologists expect
to find, in bare psychology based on physiology, the
means requisite to explain, finally and exhaustively,
all kinds of religious phenomena. Their success in this
respect is generally contested by the representatives
of an allied science, equally devoted to the positive
study of human facts, but envisaging these facts
under another aspect, viz. the sociologists.

According to the latter, psychology only incorporates
religion through impoverishing and mutilating it,
through suppressing that which is its peculiar and
essential element. Psychologists fasten on the sub-
jective side of the religious phenomenon, and are
fond of seeing in mysticism the religious manifestation
par excellence. But inward religion is, according to
distinguished representatives of sociology,1 only a
more or less vague and delusive echo of social religion
as it appears in the individual consciousness. The
mystic is an impassioned or meditative man, who
adapts religion to life and to philosophy in his own
special way. It is not in its derivative, perverted,
subjective and doubtful forms that we ought to
consider religion ; if we are really desirous of ex-
pressing it scientifically, we should have regard to
its reality as concrete, primary, general and objective.
It is not the dreamers, the exceptional beings, the
diseased, the philosophers, or the heretics that we
must consult : it is the orthodox, the representatives

1 V Annie sociologique, published under the editorship of E. Durkheim.

i86 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

of living, efficacious religion — of that religion which
has been, which still remains an essential and im-
portant factor in the destiny of nations and of
individuals.

Now, if we study, in this way, not the religious
sentiment, but religions, we find that one of the
essential notions belonging to them is that of the
obligatory, of the forbidden, of the holy. Every
religion is a moral power which imposes an obligation
on the individual, which rules him, which thrusts
upon him deeds or abstentions that are foreign to his
nature. How is it possible for psychology to under-
stand religious phenomena, seeing that she has only
individual life at her disposal? The representatives
of existing official religions — the men who form a true
estimate of what religion is — are right in protesting
against the feigned explanations of the psychologists.
These explanations are nothing else than the sophisms
natural to ignorance of the question. They emphasise
in religion that which is not religion in the true sense,
they pass by that which needs to be explained. Thus
persist, in reality, after the psychologist has finished
his task, those characteristics of religion which cause
it to be regarded as a supernatural institution, irre-
ducible to the data of science. And the philosophers
are right in maintaining, against psychology, the
principle of obligation and of prohibition — Kant's
Categorical Imperative, with its transcendental origin.
For the Kantian doctrine, on its negative side, very
properly condemns the mistake made in believing
that the idea of duty ought to be explained, as an
illusion, by the mere operation of the laws relating
to the individual conscience.

The reduction of religion to science, which the

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 187

physical sciences fail to realise, is beyond the special
powers of psychology ; and we should have to give
up all hope in this matter, if, above psychology, there
did not exist a supreme science in the light of which
the mystery of things is entirely dispelled : this
science is sociology.

In order to make ready for the elimination of
transcendental causes, and to explain all phenomena
by purely natural laws, psychology has wrought the
necessary change. For subjective observation, which
offers only phenomena to be explained, she has
substituted an observation that is objective. She
has set herself to study psychical phenomena from
without, just as the physicist studies physical
phenomena.

But this undertaking is easier to state than to
carry out, especially when religious phenomena are
in question. We are aware that the mystic raises
his voice strongly against the employment of this
method, which, according to him, is strictly debarred
from the religious province. The mystical phenomenon
is an experience, and an experience that is in-
expressible by concepts and words. Nobody under-
stands this experience unless he has undergone it
himself. Such an experience cannot be studied from
without. All the external signs through which we
claim to form an idea of it, are of no avail for its
interpretation.

Whatever may be the value of the mystic's objec-
tion, it is certain that the idea of a purely external
observation, in psychology, is far from being clear,
especially seeing that the psychologists have sub-
stituted, as primary datum of consciousness, the

i88 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

synthetic psychical activity for the phenomena 01
states of consciousness — external to one another —
that the associationist school assumes. In that very
way, the application to psychology of the scientific
determinism, by virtue of which the associationisl
theory had been conceived, became again arbitrary
vague and uncertain.

Sociology avoids these difficulties. She considers
the facts with a bent which makes possible the
application of a rigorously objective and deterministic
method. Indeed, in social phenomena, the conspicuous
and objectively cognisable element is no longer t
simple concomitant, a more or less accurate symbol
of the reality which it is sought to reach : it is itsel:
that reality, or else it is connected with it in ar
exactly assignable manner. What is called the sou"
of an individual is a reality, which differs, undeniably
from the phenomena which manifest it. But the
soul of a community is merely a metaphor, of whicl
the meaning does not go beyond the totality of those
social facts which are external and visible. Having
to deal with realities which are absolutely at one witt
their phenomenal manifestations, sociology admits oj
a precise and rigorous objectivity, which, for a long
time perhaps, will be unattainable by psychology.

At the same time, it is evident that the sphere
wherein she moves is much more extensive. Doubt
less, all the characteristics that humanity exhibits in
social life, ought to be found beforehand, actually 01
potentially, in the individual. But that which car
only be an indeterminate and indiscernible possibility
for the individual, is unfolded in communities, operates,
evolves, and is expressed through noteworthy pheno-
mena. The incredible richness of human nature, its

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 189

marvellous power of adaptation, its fecundity in
every sense, is only visible — only exists properly in
external and collective life.

Seeing that she has such an exact object under
her consideration, sociology ought to be able, in
much greater measure than psychology, to submit
human facts to scientific determination. Not without
purpose did the metaphysicians, seeking the means
of grouping facts under the idea of law, imagine
behind these facts certain entities which regulated
them. What guarantee have we that facts hold
together, are driven into one another, form into
systems, if there is no common principle underlying
them ? Ontology was nothing but a fictitious inter-
pretation of this reducibleness of phenomena to one
another that science postulates. It expressed by
a hierarchy of concepts the supposed moments of the
reduction. Ontology ought not to be set aside purely
and simply ; it should be replaced by a method which
realises, through experience, the systematisation that
it constructed more or less a priori. Now, psychology
lacks that principle of cohesion and of systematisation,
which is requisite for the sure determination of
phenomena. In the soul, the ego, conscious or sub-
conscious, we are presented with confused notions
which can do no more than base the vague relation of
substance on accident. On the other hand, a given
community is a distinct fact, and the determinism
which links with this community all the facts of
which it is composed (as the unconditioned with its
conditions), is not less scientific than that which
links together the phenomena of a given system in
the material world, such as the solar system. A
science of observation, sociology makes ready to

190 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

outstrip observation. It occupies — between History,
on which it is grounded, and Ontology which supplies
it with a raison d'etre — an intermediate position,
resembling in this respect every complete science
which, besides the facts that, in themselves, only
serve as materials, possesses a principle fitted to
uphold and guide the systematisation of those facts.

It is, then, to sociology that we must look for the
full explanation or scientific determination of religious
facts, as of every human fact.

It follows from the very definition of sociology as
a science that it does not undertake to study religion,
but religious phenomena, and not even the indefinite
totality of these phenomena, but the different class-
manifestations into which they can be distributed.
Like every science, it proceeds from the parts to the
whole, from analysis to synthesis. Still hardly
established, it is stronger in its studies of detail, its
monographs, its historical investigations, than in its
theories and generalisations. Having, meanwhile,
analysed as completely as possible some of the most
characteristic elements of religion — such as the notion
of the sacred, of sacrifice, of rite, of dogma, of myth —
sociology is now ready to point out the direction in
which we ought to move if we wish to obtain really
valuable scientific results.

And, in the first place, through her far-reaching
inquiries, her historical studies, her comparative tests
and analyses, sociology believes herself capable of
determining with precision the real essence of religious
phenomena. This essence is that which is found
in all religious manifestations, what analysis dis-

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 191

tinguishes therein as the primary element to which all
the others owe their existence and their character.

Now it is clear, in view of the labours of eminent
sociologists, that this primary element is not what we
call the religious sentiment ; this latter is often at
fault, and, where it actually exists, has the appearance
of a very complex and contingent ensemble of deri-
vative phenomena. Further, it is not belief, con-
sidered with respect to its object. Neither God nor
the supernatural, conceived as substantial realities, is
an essential element of religion, for they are often
absent just where the religious phenomenon un-
doubtedly exists.

Invariably and pre-eminently, in all religious "p/y
manifestations we find dogmas and rites ; dogmas
signify the sacred obligation of professing certain
fixed beliefs, while rites are an accumulation of
practices, similarly obligatory, having reference to
the objects of these beliefs.

What we have to regard as essential here is that
notion of the sacred, which is applied to certain
objects, and which entails certain prohibitions or
precepts. The thing regarded as sacred is a power
which operates inevitably in an adverse or salutary
sense, according as it is violated or reverenced. From
this notion spring dogmas and myths, or theories and
narrations relating to the nature and properties of
sacred things. Out of this same notion proceed rites,
or practices intended to overcome the hostile powers
and to conciliate the beneficent powers.

These dogmas and these rites are the cause of the
feelings and beliefs which are generated in souls.'
The sacred character of the object, together with the
authority which it implies, is an argument for belief

192 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

before which the intellect naturally bows. And the
sum-total of emotions, of inclinations, of acts and of
ideas, that instigates the relation with the sacred thing,
develops and determines that sentiment — so intense
and apparently special — which we call the religious
sentiment.

I In reality, there is no specifically religious senti-
ment, any more than a specifically religious belief.
Sentiment and belief are, in themselves, identical,
whether in religious life or in ordinary life. They
are simply determined after another manner. In the
religious life they assume a particular form, viz.
obligation, resulting from the sacred character which
is attributed to the object. This idea entirely
pervades the creed and sentiment of the believer. It
is his duty to believe ; and the object of his belief is
just the obligation of offering to the sacred thing the
worship which is due to it. His sentiment is a com-
bination of fear or of love with the idea of something
inviolable, and with the impressions that determine
in the soul the practice of obligatory rites. It consists
in piety, in reverence, in scrupulosity, in adoration
it is either possession, or rapture. In all thes*
psychical phenomena, we find merely the form, anc
not the substance of religion. Religious feelings anc
beliefs are ordinary beliefs and feelings, modified fron
without by the idea of the sacred or the obligatory.

That being so, we see clearly why psychology if
unable to find, in the general laws of the psychica
life, the unequivocal explanation of all the element
of religion.

Take, for example, the concept of obligation, th<
preponderating importance of which proceeds from th<

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 193

analyses of sociology. According to the psychologist,
this concept is traced back : (l) to an abstraction,
through which the natural and necessary bent of
human activity towards certain objects is considered in
its form only, being isolated as much from the acting
subject as from the object pursued ; (2) to an elabora-
tion of this abstraction effected by the understanding,
through its categories, with a view to practice. Thence
it follows that obligation is merely an illusion.

But Kant has very properly restored the special
character and supra -psychological origin of moral
obligation. Therein we find a reality which, inex-
plicable by psychology, is not on that account illusory,
but ought to be referred to an order of things superior
to the individual conscience. What Kant demonstrated
through his analysis of concepts, sociology proves
through the statement of facts. Not only is obliga-
tion the constant and fundamental phenomenon of
all religion ; but everywhere, if we consider actual
religions and not the artificial compromises or inven-
tions of philosophers and dreamers, it appears as
unrelated or even opposed to the natural leanings
of the individual. It is no mere fancy which has
been transformed into duty by the religions ; the
noblest and most salutary among them do not allow
the individual to be submitted to rules that he would
not freely recognise, or impose upon him acts which
more or less violate his nature.

Undoubtedly, the religious phenomenon, though
produced in the soul of the individual, surpasses it,
and cannot be explained by its faculties alone.

Does this mean that there is nothing for us but to
accept the transcendental system that religions profess
with regard to their own origin ? That system is,

0

i94 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

unquestionably, superior to the purely psychological
explanations, since it takes into account, at any rate,
the fact that has to be explained, instead of setting
it aside a priori and in an arbitrary manner. And,
for him who is not proficient in psychological studies,
this system, to some extent, represents the truth
provisionally. It is better, after all, to believe in
some hypothetical or erroneous explanation of an
existing law than to deny the law under pretext of
not being able to explain it. Of what real moment
is it that I see in duty a command of Jehovah, if,
at least, I believe in duty and carry it into practice ?

But the sociologist (and he alone) is not compelled
to explain obligation as due to a transcendent cause ;
for he can furnish a natural equivalent of this trans-
cendent cause — the ground, at once necessary and
sufficient, of the phenomenon.

This equivalent is the action of the community
upon its members.

A given community imposes naturally on its
members certain obligations or certain prohibitions,
the observance of which is regarded as the condition
of its existence and its continuance. Doubtless, this
society is only a collection of individuals. But, thus
united, these individuals set before themselves certain
ends that, as individuals, they ignore or reject. A
collective will has no relation to the algebraical sum
I of individual wills. A community is a new entity ;
jthe expression " social soul " denotes, metaphorically,
f a positive truth. And, like everything that truly is,
a given community tends to persevere in its being.

That is not all. Collective activity, once aroused,
will not be confined to the particular object toward
which it tends : it will exercise itself freely, without

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 195

definite aim, according to the general law of activity
which, of itself, pursues not only the necessary or
even the useful, but the possible.

Hence, for individuals, many an obligation, the
object of which will be found scarcely discernible, or
even such as will have no other object than that of
facilitating indeterminately the play of social activity.

Observation shows that religion is nothing else than
the community itself, enjoining upon its members the
beliefs and actions that its existence and development
require. Religion is a social function.

The essentially social character of religious action
explains, no less clearly than the Divine Transcendence
of the theologians or than the universality of the
Kantian Reason, the element of obligation inherent
in every religious phenomenon ; for the community
is, moreover, outside and above the individual. Still
further, the community is an observable and tangible
reality ; and so, it is through a fact, and not through
a concept or an imaginary existence, that sociology
explains the fact of obligation.

As to feeling and belief, they are, from the
sociological standpoint, the echo, in the individual
consciousness, of the compulsion exercised by the
community on its members. This compulsion, the
principle of which cannot be grasped by the individual
as such, is for him — quite logically — an object of faith,
of hope, or of love, and determines the infinite variety
of his religious emotions. Even for him who would
make clear to himself the social origin of religious
phenomena, these phenomena, in becoming purely
natural, lose nothing of their value ; since it remains
true, for the sociologist as for the average man, that
the individual, by himself, can neither impose his will

196 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

on the community, nor foretell the end and aim thereof.
In proportion as he learns, through observation, to con-
jecture what is implied in the evolution of the social
group wherein his lot is cast, he becomes, submissively
and without any thought of self, the instrument of
the preservation and well-being of that same group.

Ill

CRITICISM OF PSYCHOLOGY AND OF SOCIOLOGY

The importance of psychology and of sociology, if
these systems are well founded, is considerable. They
effect a radical change in the problem raised by the
relations between science and religion. Instead of
placing religion opposite science and inquiring if the
latter is in harmony or in disagreement with the
former, these systems actually bring religion within
the special sphere of the sciences : they put the science
of religions in the place of religion. Eeligion exists
— it is a given fact. Why, in our treatment of this
fact, should we isolate it from others ? How can we
dispute this course, and why are we afraid of it?
The true scientific attitude does not consist in assum-
ing a priori that some fact is strange — perhaps super-
natural— and in seeking to get rid of it : it consists
in analysing the fact as we do others, and in finding
room for it within the general system of natural facts.

It is also to be noted that, in the religious sphere,
this method, if it succeed, will lead, sooner or later,
to the abolition of the fact itself, while the dogmatic
criticism of religions has striven in vain, for centuries,
to obtain this result. Indeed, in the religious fact is
implied the idea of objects, of forces, of feelings, of

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 197

states which cannot be reduced to ordinary phenomena,
which cannot be explained according to the methods
of science. It is in so far as they ignore or reject
the scientific explicability of the elements of religion,
that men are religious ; and religion has only been
able to exist owing to the non-existence of a science
dealing with the natural causes of the religious
phenomenon. Contrary, then, to the other sciences,
which leave standing the things that they explain,
the one just mentioned has this remarkable property
of destroying its object in the act of describing it, and
of substituting itself for the facts in proportion as it
analyses them. Established in mind and conscience,
the science of religions will no longer treat of the past.
Is it certain, however, that psychology or sociology
furnishes the science of religions with all the data
which would be needed, in order that it should be
constituted a science properly so-called ?

We must distinguish between the scientific form
and science. Scholasticism possessed the form — not
the content of science. The ethical sciences, if we
reduce them to statistics and calculations, would have
the appearance, not the real value, of a mathematical
science. In order that a science may exist in a true
sense, the scientific form must be therein applied to
a content which, drawn from reality, lends itself,
unalterably, to receive that form. Is this the case
with the systems that we have been considering ?

The theory of genuine science has been framed by
Descartes in terms which, in a general way, still
harmonise with actual science. Science is a reduction
of the unknown to the known, of the inexplicable to
the explicable, of the obscure to the evident.

i98 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

The first step to be taken by science is that of
determining, somehow, the evident or the intelligible.
Now, we gain the standard of evidence through dis-
tinguishing, in our representations, two elements —
two poles as it were, viz. the subject and the object.
On the side of the subject, nothing else than the
intellectual activity which constructs science, but
assumes as given the standard of scientific intelligi-
bility, instead of furnishing it. It is on the side of
the object, stripped of every subjective element, that
we find our primary knowledge, with which all the
later stages ought to be compared or connected if we
wish them to be strictly scientific. This knowledge
is that of extension or dimension, together with the
various kinds of existence that are enchained therein,
i.e. mathematical objects in general. Thus we find
the first stage in knowledge, to which science has to
refer and submit all the rest, if possible.

The task of science can be stated, yet again, as
follows : to determine facts and laws. In order to be
understood, this formula should be compared with
the preceding. It is not facts and laws of any kind
whatsoever that science seeks, it is scientific facts
and laws, i.e. facts that are precise, measurable,
objective, really intelligible — in other words mathe-
matical, or reducible (whether directly or indirectly,
and by degrees) to mathematical facts.

Are psychology and sociology, considered as deal-
ing with religion, capable of exhibiting such facts and
such laws ?

The psychological method here in question is that
on which David Hume decided in his famous reduc-
tion of the principle of causality to a habit of the

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 199

imagination. Now, this method consists in regarding
the object as unintelligible, in so far as we consider it
in itself — setting aside the subject which imagines it.
It only becomes intelligible through being attributed
to an illusion of the subject in unconsciously project-
ing outside himself that which happens within. It
is of little consequence that the object is clearly
perceived. This clearness, which, moreover, is only
apparent, results from an artificial transformation
that the mind effects in its internal modifications for
the purpose of considering them from the outside —
this being the very condition of clear knowledge. In
short, Hume changes the meaning of the word to be
explained. It is no longer any question here of
referring the obscure to the clear, of comparing the
unknown with the known, but of seeking the origin
and real (i.e. immediately given) foundation of the
apparent and the derivative. The explanation is no
longer the reduction of the subjective to the objective :
it is the reduction of the objective to the subjective.

Notwithstanding what this involves, psychology,
when it wishes to be explanatory — i.e. when it is not
content with taking the inventory of the physical
and moral symptoms which are found in the religious
phenomenon — employs the method of Hume, refers
beliefs to states of consciousness, and dissolves objects
in order to leave standing the subject's modifications.
And so it turns its back on science properly so called.

If this psychology takes the name of science, it
must be pointed out that this word, as here used,
implies merely a very vague resemblance to the
physical and natural sciences. The task of psy-
chology, since it succumbed to associationism, has
been to explain psychical phenomena by the special

200 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

qualities of consciousness, regarded in its living reality.
But what is consciousness? Is it altogether in the
present; or, charged with the past, has it, at the
same time, an eye cast upon the future ? Can we no
longer hold that its function, par excellence, is to
seek, for the individual, ends which pass beyond him ;
to ask, in view of what he is, what he may yet be,
what he ought to be ; to convince him that his exist-
ence and his action have a value, are able to assume
one — admit of a r6le, a mission, a contribution to the
progress of humanity and of the universe ? But what
is all this if not the admission of religious impressions ;
and, in thus taking consciousness for principle, is not
the psychologist, perchance, finding room for religion
itself at the heart of his system ?

Sociology proceeds in a more genuinely objective
manner. Is it certain, however, that she herself is
concerned with facts and laws which are scientific in
the strict sense ? The physicist who has once found
the means of expressing the scale of heat sensations
by changes in the elevation of his liquid column, has
no longer any need of consulting his subjective
appreciation of heat. But the sociologist can make
use of his objective documents only through consider-
ing them as mere symbols of the subjective realities
with which he is ideally supplied by consciousness.
In reality, the distinction that he sets up between
sociology and psychology is delusive. Under all his
formulae, in all his explanations, a psychological
element — irreducible and indispensable — is concealed.
After all, it is men who form human communities,
and what we call the collective soul has real existence
in individuals alone. Are we, then, to regard these

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 201

individuals as composed of two separable fragments —
the individual ego on the one side, and a fraction of
the social ego on the other 1

Human society is not an object, it is a subject.
That which is therein real and living — which is the
motive and the characteristic adapted for explaining
the phenomena in so far as they are explicable — is
found, in the last analysis, to be the wants, the beliefs,
the passions, the aspirations, the illusions of the
human consciousness. Not only is society a subject ;
but, contrary to the individual consciousness, which
is, in some measure, a given subject, the collective
consciousness is an ideal subject. It is still further
than the individual subject from realising the idea
of scientific fact. Besides, it is not clear why the
reduction of a religious fact to the conditions of
existence and of improvement that underlie human
communities, should necessarily have the consequence
of naturalising religion.

Since religious precepts and rites have shaped
human communities properly so called ; since, as Prota-
goras taught, instruction concerning decency and
righteousness has engendered politics and tightened
the bonds of affection amongst men, the purely
natural (i.e. mechanical and inevitable) origin of
religious phenomena is not demonstrated in that way.
If the community itself, once somehow established,
gives instinctively and spontaneously to its institutions
a religious character in order that they may have
more prestige and more power, we may infer that the
community pursues an ideal not easily realisable by
the individual consciousness. May not, then, the
conception, the pursuit of this ideal be, itself, the
effect of a religious inspiration ?

202 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Like consciousness, human society is a sphere
revealing depths which it is difficult to fathom.
There is nothing to prove that religion does not play
therein the part of a principle instead of a mere
instrument

Why need we be troubled, some will object, as
soon as psychology and sociology demonstrate that
religious phenomena have nothing special in them,
and that they are, in every respect, reducible to the
fundamental phenomena of the psychological and
social life ? Let us admit that something of what
is called religion may be presupposed by consciousness
and by society. This element no longer suggests
anything extra-scientific, if it is equally present in all
human phenomena. Regarded as immanent and uni-
versal, how does it differ from nature pure and simple ?

We meet, here, with the arguments through which
psychology and sociology believe that they can deprive
the religious phenomenon of every special character-
istic. Of what value are these arguments ?

Psychology endeavours, first of all, to show that
the religious phenomenon is, literally, nothing but a
phenomenon, a state of consciousness. The trans-
cendent entities that religion invokes are delusive :
they are but the ego itself, externally projecting some
one of its determinations with a view to contemplation,
just as consciousness does in representing the outside
world, and as the special constitution of the human
ego demands. Whatever object it may have before
it, the ego is only concerned with self; and, if it
takes the projection of its subjective states for inde-
pendent realities, it is because the transformation of

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 203

an internal modification into an external object occurs
within it unconsciously.

Even if we allow this theory, does it hit the mark ?
It brings to naught, assuredly, a material Olympus
situated in some part of our terrestrial space, or a God
regarded as the celestial inhabitant of unknown
regions beyond the star-spangled vault. But the
religious consciousness is no longer concerned with
these material aspects of the divine.

If we understand by transcendence an existence
outside of man, in the spatial sense of the word, the
modern religious consciousness is foremost in declaring
that a transcendent God, in this sense, is a factitious
and purely imaginative concept. It is precisely with
respect to God that the words transcendence, exter-
nality, objectivity require to be apprehended as simple
metaphors. The progress of religion has consisted in
transferring the Divine from the outside to the inside
of things, from heaven to the human soul. " The
Kingdom of God is within you," says the Gospel.
Similarly Seneca has it : Non sunt ad caelum
elevandae manus . . . : prope est a te Deus, tecum
est, intus est"1 In other words, God is conceived,
not as external to the religious phenomenon, as pro-
ducing it or responding to it from without — all such
representations making of him a corporal being similar
to others; but as internally related to this phenomenon,
and as distinguishing himself from the human being
in a unique manner, without any natural analogy, at
all events without any resemblance to the spatial
distinction that the imagination sets forth under
the word transcendence. This is what is meant by

1 To raise the hands toward heaven is useless : God is nigh unto thee, he
is with thee, he is within thee.

204 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

spirituality, which the higher religions consider as the
special token of the Divine.

We have still to discover what the religious pheno-
menon is in itself. According to psychology, nothing
is found therein which really distinguishes it from
ordinary phenomena. The usual laws of psychology
give a sufficient account of it. Psycho-physiological
experimentation is able to illustrate religious pheno-
mena, particularly by means of certain nervously
affected subjects, just as it calls forth other psychical
manifestations.

Numerous and important are the studies conceived
after this method : it does not appear, however, that
they succeed in elucidating the exact point which is
here in question. It is not only that the determina-
tion of facts and of laws, in these matters, scarcely
admits of precision and closeness. We must ask if
the method followed is quite suitable for penetrat-
ing the essence and characteristic of the religious
phenomenon.

This method is or intends to be objective ; it aims
at being so to the utmost possible extent, in order to
reach really scientific results. What is this but to
say that it will only consider facts in those of
their elements which are referable to general facts?
Objective means representable ; and, for the human
mind, to represent a thing is to make it reappear
in a familiar framework. That is why objective
psychology sets herself to consider exclusively the
materials, the manifestations, the groundwork or
physiological circumstances — in a word, all the
outside appearances of the religious phenomenon.
These are, in fact, the elements which it has in
common with other phenomena. But, in this very

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 205

way, she will inevitably overlook what may well be
taken as the special mark of the religious phenomenon.
And it is certain that the believer will fail to
recognise what he experiences, what, for him, consti-
tutes religion, in the descriptions of the religious
phenomenon that are given from this standpoint.
He will reply to the scientist who delusively expects,
through objective examination, to comprehend the
elements of the religious life, what the Earth-Spirit
in Goethe's Faust replies to Faust himself:

Du gleichst dem Qeist, den du begreifst,
Nicht mir.1

Indeed, religion is just that entirely inward,
subjective content of consciousness, which scientific
psychology thrusts aside in order to attend solely
to the objective phenomena that are concomitant.
Its distinguishing characteristic is to surpass these
phenomena infinitely :

Erfiill davon dein Herz, so gross es 1st,

Und wenn du ganz in dem Gefiihle selig bist,

Nenn es dann wie du willst,

Nenn 's Gliick ! Herz ! Liebe ! Gott !

Ich habe keinen Namen

Dafiir ! Gefiihl 1st alles ;

Name 1st Scball und Eauch,

Umnebelnd Himmelsglut.2

But is there not illusion there, and may it not be
that this subjective element is interpret able by an

1 Thou art matched with the spirit that thou comprehendest — not with
mine.

8 Goethe, Faust : Fill thy heart with the invisible, great though it be.
And, when thou art wholly blest in the feeling, call it then what thou wilt
— Felicity ! Heart ! Love ! God ! I have no name for it. The feeling is
everything : the name but sound and smoke, a mist obscuring the light of
heaven.

206 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

objective phenomenon, as the sensation of heat is
expressible by the rise of an alcoholic column ?

So far as the psycho - physiological conditions of
the religious phenomenon are concerned, it is remark-
able that not a few sociologists agree with the believer
in denying that these can supply an exact account of
the contents of the religious consciousness. The
explanations that they furnish leave a residuum. Not
that one can point out a phenomenon which remains
independent and isolable in the depths of the religious
consciousness, like a refractory substance at the bottom
of a crucible. But the religious consciousness has a
certain tinge, a distinctive mark, a special mould,
that psychology overlooks, or that it regards merely
as delusive and as calling for denial. It comprehends
the idea of the sacred, of the obligatory, of something
required by a Being who is greater than the indi-
vidual, and on whom the latter depends. In truth,
the religious element is shown in these things, and,
as if from without, it bestows upon the concomitant
phenomena a character that, by themselves, they
would not acquire. If exaltation and melancholy
assume, with particular subjects, the religious form,
it is not because there is religious melancholy and
exaltation : it is because there exist in the world
religious ideas which the subject has realised, and
which are impressed upon his imagination.

With a considerable number of persons, religion is
simply imitation, it is not inwardly experienced in
their feelings or in their beliefs. These persons reflect
the sphere in which they live, the influences to which
they submit. Placed amid other conditions, they
could enjoy feelings and passions, psychologically
similar — the same way of believing, of loving, of

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 207

willing, and yet these phenomena would not have a
religious character. Religion, within those souls
which it really invades, is — one may say — a value
that is unique and infinite : attributed, not by the
imagination, but by consciousness properly so called,
to certain ideas, to certain feelings, to certain actions,
with a view to ends which surpass humanity. This
form of consciousness goes beyond all objective psycho-
physiological symbols. The individual, with an in-
ward horizon limited to these symbols, could only
consider the religious idea as a chimera and a
nonentity.

Perhaps, however, there may be, even adopting
the psychological standpoint, a way of attributing a
genuine value to the religious idea : we can, for
instance, regard consciousness as a communication
(conscious at one extreme, vague and quasi -uncon-
scious at the other) of the individual with universal
life and being. The religious sentiment would, then,
be the instinct or secret perception, so to speak, of
the dependence of the part upon the whole.

But it is clear that such a doctrine would not only
go beyond all objective psychology, but would be the
rehabilitation and glorification of subjective psycho-
logy, seeing that to this latter would be conceded the
power of probing, beyond the objectifiable part of the
soul, to the depths of infinite being.

Objective psychology can see, in religious obliga-
tion, and in the train of ideas which accompany it,
nothing else than illusions. But its arguments are
not convincing, and all that they succeed in establish-
ing is that, for the individual, the belief in obligation,
in duty, in the sacred, is a faith, an adhesion that is
contingent and disinterested. A faith, however, in

208 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

order to be approved by reason, should be founded
on intelligible motives. Where can the motives of
faith in duty be found? Sociology is prepared to
furnish them.

•

Social activity, which is a given reality, has certain
conditions of existence and of operation. We find
therein, contends the sociologist, necessities which
have their origin outside the individual, and which
are imposed upon him. The feeling of obligation is
nothing but the consciousness that the individual
gains in regard to these higher necessities. Accord-
ing to this conception, the individual is ruled, con-
strained, raised by religion as by a wholly external
power. The social and religious man is, in respect of
the natural man, like a higher kind of being who is
nearing the suppression of his former nature.

Is it right, however, to relegate, in this way, to
the lower plane (to consider, in short, as unimportant)
the subjective and individual element of religion?
Doubtless, the mysticism and inward life of the
believer do not offer, to the external observation oi
the sociologist, suitable material, like political oi
ecclesiastical institutions. Does it follow that they
are without importance ? Perhaps, if we considei
the most rudimentary manifestations of religion, w€
shall find this inward element, as seen therein, oj
very little significance and importance. But is il
enough, in order to find out what religion is, to look
for its historical starting-point, and indifferently tc
connect therewith the subsequent phenomena by £
continuity of fact ? How, in matters of this kind
can we argue from historical continuity to logica.
identity ? Such an element of religion, which wa*

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 209

first of all imperceptible, cannot have become con-
siderable and essential. A consciousness which seeks
self-apprehension, ends by discovering itself in ideas
and feelings to which at first it only gave a wandering
attention. An effect is able to detach itself from its
material cause, and to develop itself at will.

Now, it is a fact of experience that religion,
whatever its primitive form may have been, has
become, among civilised nations, more and more
personal and inward. Long ago the Greeks, with
their profound feeling in regard to the value and
power of man, transferred to the human consciousness
the moral and religious struggles, which, according to
the ancient legends, took place in a region beyond
man, and determined his destiny without regard to
his own effort.

The prophets of Israel and the teaching of Christ
have, in this connection, brought out the preponder-
ance of inward disposition ; affirming that religious
souls tend more and more to the belief that, just
where these dispositions are lacking, there is no
religion whatsoever. The difficult task, to-day, for
religious authorities, is that of maintaining belief in
the utility of religious externalities among minds for
whom religion is, pre-eminently, an affair of the
individual consciousness.

Far from implying the effacement of the individual,
religion — as presented to us to-day — stands for its
exaltation, at least if we have regard to that higher
form of individuality which is properly called person-
ality. The individual, through union with the object
of his worship, i.e. with the source of all being,
expects to become, in the truest sense, himself.
Thus, in the Christian Trinity, the three hypostases

p

210 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

are veritable and distinct persons, on the very ground
that, being inwardly united, they form but one single
God. It is this special, and, as it were, supernatural
relation that the ancient adage already indicated :

TTWS 8e pot ev Tt rot Travra corrai KCU XO>PIS l/cacrrov;

" How can all things form, at once, a single whole,
and have, each, a separate existence ? " Keligion
consists in believing that there is one being, God,
who realises this miracle through the beings that live
in him.

But, it will be said, nothing hinders the view that
this very development of a higher individualism,
revealing a natural trend towards the general well-
being, has its origin, on close examination, in the
necessities and in the activity of social life ; that, if
personality is apprehended by consciousness, not as
an instrument, but as an end, we are then supplied
with one case, among many others, of that transforma-
tion of means into ends which the human conscious-
ness effects naturally.

Nothing can be more certain than the religious
value and influence that is attributed by sociology,
in this way, to the social bond. And it is remarkable
that she finds herself, in this respect, at one with the
very ideas of Christianity. Thus, we read in the
First Epistle of St. John : " No man hath beheld God
at any time : if we love one another, God abideth in
us, and his love is perfected in us." The whole point
lies in knowing of which community we are speaking
when we explain by social influence the production,
amongst men, of religious ideas and feelings.

Are we speaking of any community whatsoever,
taken in its actual and observable reality? Is it

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 211

sufficient that a community exist in order that its
conditions of existence, of preservation and of develop-
ment, be interpreted, in the consciousness of its
members, by moral and religious obligations ?

We can quite easily conceive that, in their ignor-
ance and weakness, men allow certain necessities to
be imposed upon them as categorically binding,
which, in reality, are only hypothetical or problem-
atical But it is evident that, on the day when,
instructed by the sociologists, they shall discover the
mystification of which they are the object, they will
cease to have, for social institutions, that superstitious
reverence which previously possessed them. They
will be able to continue their appreciation of these
institutions as relatively stable and useful : they will
no longer regard them as sacred.

Often, indeed, the idea that political institutions
are derived, in a unique manner, from the conditions
of existence belonging to given society, arouses in
men the wish to modify them, much more than the
desire for their maintenance. For these very condi-
tions are not unalterable. They have changed, there-
fore they can still change. Now, man is so consti-
tuted that, for him to believe in the possibility of
change, is next door to desiring it. And here is the
remarkable thing : it is principally the religious spirit
which disposes the individual to pass judgment upon
institutions, to regard them as purely accidental or
human, to rebel against them. The higher religious
minds have assumed the attitude, with respect to
the community, of representing, in themselves alone,
right and truth, seeing that God was behind them ;
whereas, behind given communities, they saw only
man, nature; and circumstances. Far from the

2i2 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

religious consciousness consenting to be merged in
the social consciousness, it inclines man to put the
claims of God in opposition to those of Caesar —
personal dignity in opposition to public constraint.

How could real society pretend to satisfy the
consciousness of the believer? Does it, indeed, in
its actual presentment, offer justice, love, goodness,
knowledge, happiness, just as, for faith, these are
realised in God ?

Evidently, it is not of real and given society that
we are speaking, when we explain, by the sole action
of society, the religious attributes of the human soul ;
it is of ideal society, it is of society, in so far as it
strives after that justice, that happiness, that truth,
that superior harmony, of which religion is the expres-
sion. It is in so far as real communities already par-
take, in some measure, of that invisible community
and tend to be conformed thereto, that they inspire
reverence, that they justify the obligations which
they lay upon individuals.

The ideal community has, in truth, an intimate
connection with man's religious aspirations. The
religious consciousness is, itself, considered as an
instrument specially adapted for working towards its
realisation. But the ideal community is no longer
something definite and given which can be compared
with a physical fact ; to explain religion by the
exigencies of this community, is no longer to resolve
it into political or collective phenomena that can be
observed empirically.

The ideal community is conceived and pictured by
individuals — by the highest moral and religious minds
of a nation. It tends to endow the individual (whom
nature sacrifices) with his maximum of developmen-

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 213

and of value, at the same time forming, through the
union of individuals, a whole more truly one, more
harmonious, more beautiful than the combinations
created by mechanical forces, or by instinct and
tradition pure and simple. It tends to promote, to
the highest degree that human nature allows, rever-
ence for those spiritual things which are, one may say,
of no actual service : justice, truth, beauty. These
objects of thought, for which simple nature finds no
place and with which she has no concern, it fashions
into the supreme utility. In short, it assumes religion,
is inspired by religion (being very far from fabricating
it), and is, as it were, an appliance used for the
purpose of bending the individual to ends which are
repugnant to him. ^

At the root of all social progress is found an
idea sprung from the depths of the human soul, and
embraced as true, good, and realisable, while it repre-
sents a new thing, a chimera perhaps — a thing that is
not already verified or recognised as capable of endur-
ing. This idea is taken for object, because man sees
therein, or thinks that he sees therein, an expression
of the Ideal.

At the root of all social progress are found faith,
hope and love.

Human consciousness and human society furnish
science with the deepest principles that can be found
for explaining religion, because it is in these two
spheres that the religious principle is most clearly
manifested.

PAET II
THE SPIKITUALISTIC TENDENCY

CHAPTEE I

RITSCHL AND RADICAL DUALISM

KECOGNITION of the fact that religion must come to
terms with science.

I. RITSCHLIANISM — Ritschl : religious feeling and religious history —
Wilhelm Herrmann : distinction between the groundwork and
the content of faith — Auguste Sabatier : distinction between
faith and belief.

II. THE VALUE OP RITSCHLIANISM — The development of the specific-
ally religious element — The danger of anti-intellectualism : a
subjectivity without content — Chimerical pursuit of an internal
world unrelated to the external world.

Besides the systems in which the idea of science
predominates, and in which religion is only admitted
to the extent and in the sense of being capable of*
union with science, the philosophical history of our
time sets before us other systems in which, on the
contrary, the idea of religion prevails, and for which
the problem consists in maintaining, to the utmost,
religion in her integrity, notwithstanding that the
development of science cannot henceforth be ignored.
According to these systems, religion is placed by her-
self, and based on principles which are peculiar to her.
Now, recognising the claim of modern science to rule,
not only things, but minds and souls, religion can no
longer be satisfied with raising, between herself and

217

218 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

her rival, an insurmountable barrier. The age in
which we live is one of general investigation and
comparison. It is, therefore, in seeking to reconcile
her claims with those of science which are exactly
determined, in (if need be) adapting herself, without
change of principle, to the admittedly lawful demands
of science, that religion will manifest her vitality and
her power of development. Relying exclusively upon
her own formula, upon her certainty, and upon her
authority, without paying attention to current attacks,
she might delude herself for a time, but eventually
she would be condemned, in spite of all her efforts, to
wither away after the manner of plants deprived of
air.

Tendencies of this kind were already obvious
in a system, the historical beginnings of which can
be traced back to Kant and Schleiermacher ; but,
through the considerable influence which it possessed,
at the end of the last century, and which it still
enjoys to-day, this system re-enters the circle of con-
temporary ideas. Its original framer was Albrecht
Ritschl,1 the German theologian.

I

RITSCHLIANISM

The controlling idea of Ritschlianism, which we
may profitably consider here in its spirit and out-
line rather than in its special doctrines (palpably
diverse as set forth by various representatives), is
that religion, in order to be invulnerable and to be

1 His principal work: Die christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und
Versoehnung (3 vols.), appeared from 1870 to 1874.

RITSCHL AND RADICAL DUALISM 219

realised in a genuine manner, ought to be thoroughly
freed from everything that does not really belong to
it ; but that, on the other hand, it ought to comprise,
integrally, everything that is needed to develop it
positively, in all its originality and breadth.

As ordinarily professed, religion is mingled with
elements which are foreign to it, and which pervert it.

The first of these elements is philosophy, i.e. meta-
physics and natural theology. We must, first of all,
get rid of intellectualism, of scholasticism, which, after
being expelled by Luther from the religious conscious-
ness, was fraudulently reinstalled therein. Philosophy,
having to do merely with the abstract, and only
disposing of natural phenomena, cannot — as its very
definition implies — reach the religious element which
is life, being, supernatural activity. All theoretical
knowledge whatsoever is powerless to grasp the
object of religion ; for the faculty of knowing, as
it exists in man, is limited to comprehension of the
laws relating to matter, and we are concerned here
with purely spiritual things. Religion is made up of
belief alone — not of knowledge : to blend with it
philosophical or scientific elements is to corrupt it.

The second superfluous element that we must clear
away from religion, is human authority, which brings
it under the sway of Catholicism, and to which
considerable importance is still attached in certain
forms of Protestantism — Pietism in particular. The
Christian has but one master, Jesus Christ.

Still, it is not sufficient » to purify religion; we
must realise it to the fullest extent. Schleiermacher
enunciated a fundamental truth in declaring that
piety is neither knowledge nor action, but a determi-
nation of feeling or immediate consciousness. We

220 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

cannot, however, rest content with this very general
principle, for it would be incapable of founding that
systematic and specifically Christian theology, with
which religion could not dispense without division
into the various opinions of individuals. Feeling
ought to be supplied with religious truths of a
universal character. The special achievement of
Eitschl lay in opposing to philosophical reason and
authority, not religious feeling pure and simple, but
religious history, i.e. Revelation, as the objective study
of facts makes it known to us in the Gospel and
in the general history of humanity.

The essential rdle of inward disposition is, moreover,
by no means diminished under this view. It is,
assuredly, in spiritual life and experience that religion
is realised. Adopting the very theory of his disciple,
Wilhelm Herrmann,1 Eitschl ended by reducing the
difference between metaphysical judgments and
religious judgments to that between judgments of
existence and judgments of value, and admitted that,
if the Gospel is true, it is because, in the inmost
recesses of consciousness, it is deemed worthy of
being so : wert, wahr zu sein.

But, at the same time, in the Bible and in general
history, feeling finds and recognises, according to
Ritschl, the particular content with which it could not
dispense, and which it would never succeed in dis-
covering by itself alone. For example, the heart
experiences the feeling of sin and the desire of
blessedness. Now, to these sentiments correspond, in

1 See Wilhelm Herrmann et leprobleme religieux actuel, by Maurice Goguel,
Paris, 1905. On the notion of value is based the doctrine that Hoeffding
maintains in his recent work : Religionsphilosophie ; religion (it is therein
said) has to do, in its deepest essence, not with the content, but with the
estimate of existence. Of. Titius : Religion und Naturwissenschaft^ 1904.

RITSCHL AND RADICAL DUALISM 221

Revelation, on the one hand, a just and angry God,
on the other hand, a merciful God. In this God, the
religious consciousness finds the ground of impressions
that natural objects fail to explain. Thus seeking in
Holy Writ its meaning and its foundation, feeling
becomes increasingly clear, satisfying and constant;
it goes beyond the individual self, and can communi-
cate with the feelings of others in a church ; it actually
realises the idea of religion.

Upon this principle, Ritschl constructed, as a single
whole, his system of theology, which, while it upheld
the teaching of Dogmatics in all its essential parts
and in all its claims, separated it from all natural
science, from all philosophy, from every purely human
institution. This system was set forth expressly with
a view to an exact and logically co-ordinated state-
ment of all the ideas included in the primitive
Christian Revelation ; it was, essentially, the spiritual
and eternal content of the Gospel.

The manner in which Ritschl secured, in the
depths of the human soul, the development of the
genuinely religious life, while sheltering this life from
the attacks of science, satisfied the bent of many minds.

Kantianism had accustomed thinkers to supplement
the world of science, or nature properly so called, by
another world — that of freedom and of spiritual life,
considered as not interfering to any extent with the
world of the senses. And, accordingly, the progress
of the positive sciences, the materialistic and de-
terministic tendencies evinced by several of their
representatives, made thinking men wish to discover,
for the objects of religious belief, a resting-place
situated beyond the range of these sciences.

222 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Moreover, history, to which Kitschl was attached,
had become, during the nineteenth century, a science
of the first rank, forming in some way an appendix
to the sciences of nature ; and its special task, in
conformity with the Romantic spirit which had
furthered its progress, was that of seeking, no longer
chiefly for what is ordinarily human and identical, at
bottom, in the phenomena of different periods, but
what, on the contrary, is distinctive, particular,
characteristic and individual.

And this same Romanticism represented an exalta-
tion of feeling and inward life ; expressed and de-
veloped a disposition of mind which was especially in
harmony with the spiritual and mystical form of
religion.

Already the inward Christianity of Alexandre
Vinet, with its double and yet essentially single
foundation — human consciousness and the person of
Christ, — pointed in the direction that Ritschl was
bound to follow; and the profound impression left
by Vinet's teaching can be traced even to-day.

It is, therefore, natural that the Ritschlian tend-
ency, in its general traits, should again attract many
religious minds of our own day. In Germany, par-
ticularly, an entire school of theologians is grounded
on the thought of Ritschl, which is maintained in
principle while modified in its special determinations.

One of the most serious difficulties which Ritschl-
ianism has raised is that evoked by Wilhelm Herr-
mann, the famous disciple of the master. According
to Ritschl, the religious consciousness ought to re-
cognise and apprehend itself in the formulae of Holy
Writ. But the theological formulae that one finds in
St. Paul, for instance, represent religious experiences

RITSCHL AND RADICAL DUALISM 223

which are peculiar to him, and which we ourselves,
probably, have not enjoyed. How, then, can we
adopt these formulae ? As repeated by us, they will
constitute no longer an act of faith, but a mechanical
or hypocritical performance.

It would appear that, beneath this objection, we
again meet with the difficulty that the Reformation
itself bequeathed to its disciples. The Reformation
consisted, historically, in the contingent reconciliation
of two phenomena : the exaltation of inward faith,
following the development of mysticism in the Middle
Ages ; and the return to ancient texts and monuments,
regarded in their original purity, which occupied the
humanists of the Renaissance. How from these two
disparate principles, to frame a doctrine that should
be one, has vexed the Protestant's soul.

The solution that Herrmann proposes, consists in
separating two things which are, for Ritschl, closely
united : the groundwork and the content of faith.

The groundwork, i.e. faith properly so called, is
absolutely necessary, and is the same for all believers.
It is this part of Revelation which has only to be
accurately explained in order that every sincere soul
may have an immediate experience of it.

But the special content of faith, the definite form
of dogma, represents a more determinate experience,
which may vary with individuals. This content,
therefore, can be legitimately expressed in different
ways, in accordance with the various experiences.
For instance, the consideration of the inward life of
Jesus produces such an impression in the human soul
that, inevitably and by a moral necessity, it believes
in Jesus. But the special idea of a substitutionary
expiation realised by the death of Christ, is merely a

224 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

contingent expression of the restorative action of
Christ in us, and cannot be put on a level with the
religious experience of all minds.

In France, a leading theologian, Auguste Sabatier,
has adopted a standpoint which recalls that of
Kitschl.

Intent on escaping from all interference of the
physical sciences, and on securing the absolute inde-
pendence and autonomy of religion, while careful not
to ask for the least indulgence from science, Auguste
Sabatier seeks for religion a sanctuary that is most
familiar, and yet most remote from the visible and
tangible things extolled by science. Religion has its
origin, he thinks, in the feeling of anguish which
invades the heart of man when he considers the two-
fold nature — abject and sublime — which is in him,
and the ascendency that the worst part of himself
has over the best. From this anguish religion saves
us, not by procuring new knowledge, but by bringing
us into union, through an act of confidence or of
faith, with the all-powerful and perfect Principle from
which our being derives its existence.

What, then, is religion ? It is the heart's prayer,
it is redemption.

This redemption is a miracle, it is the miracle.
How is it produced? The Christian can dispense
with such knowledge. The laws of nature, in that
very immutability which science reveals to us, become,
for the Christian consciousness, the expression of the
Divine Will. In order to be able to live the religious
life, I need three things, and three only : the real
and active presence of God within me, the granting
of prayer, and the freedom of hope. These three

RITSCHL AND RADICAL DUALISM 225

things are not affected by actual science — indeed,
it would appear that they could not be so by any
science.

If now I wish (and how, giving heed to the sug-
gestions of my heart, can I refrain from wishing it ?)
to develop these primary ideas, and to realise religion
in myself to the utmost possible extent, I cannot,
however much they urge me to it, invoke philosophy
or authority. Philosophy — a building of abstractions
— counts for nothing in comparison with the intense
feeling which has spontaneously sprung up within me.
She could only offer purely intellectual systems which
would not influence me, and which would, probably,
set me at variance with science. On the other hand,
the authority of any power whatsoever, were it that
of an imposing Church, would fail to create in my soul
that for which it asks — a conversion at once inward,
free and personal.

What is needed for the development of religion
within me, is the example and the influence of religion
already realised. Now, I find both these desiderata
in the person of Christ as put before me in the Gospel.
Jesus was conscious of a filial relationship in regard
to God. A man himself, he teaches us, he shows us
that men are sons of God, and capable of being united
with him. Through this consciousness of Jesus, we
are enabled to communicate with the Universal Father.
Christianity is thus the absolute and definitive religion
of humanity.

Must we go further, and determine, in a precise
and obligatory manner, the dogmas which shall in-
terpret, for imagination and sense, these inexpressible
mysteries ? Catholicism tries to do this, and academic
Protestantism follows suit. But these material addi-

Q

226 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

tions occasion the conflicts that we see raised every
day between religion and science ; and, moreover, they
are of no use to piety, seeing that there is even danger
of their leading astray.

The Catholic religion comprehends three elements :
faith, dogma and authority. Protestantism, seeking
to restore Christianity in its original purity, has
suppressed authority as a simply material and political
principle, but has left dogma intact. It is quite time
to let even dogma decay, in so far as it is an object
of obligatory belief. Faith must be regarded as the
religious element par excellence. Wheresoever faith
exists, there is religion. What is called dogma is
merely a symbolical interpretation — always inadequate
and always modifiable — of the ineffable data of the
religious consciousness.

All religious knowledge is necessarily and purely
symbolical, seeing that mystery (as the word implies)
can only be expressed through symbols.

It is between faith and its object that we are
bound to distinguish. The first alone is essential, the
second is a consequence and a contingent expression of
the first.

II

THE VALUE OF RITSCHLIANISM

Whether under their precise form in the theo-
logical schools, or under their general aspect as a
phase of religious thought, the ideas of Kitschl and
of his disciples are very wide-spread even to-day. A
large number of thinking men are disposed to place
religion, exclusively or mainly, in feeling, in the
inward life, in the spiritual communion of the soul

RITSCHL AND RADICAL DUALISM 227

with God, and to put into the background, or even
to discard altogether, the doctrines which aim at
making it an object of theoretical knowledge, and
which, in that very way, risk bringing it into conflict
with knowledge of another order, i.e. with scientific
knowledge. The distinction between faith and creed,
similar to that between spirit and letter, between soul
and body, between thought and speech, between idea
and form, is widely approved at the present time.
It enables many intellectual people, who would set
aside religion if it were identified with dogmas that
were repulsive to them, to continue their adherence by
reason of what they regard as the principal religious
aspect.

And it cannot be denied that the standpoint of
Ritschl offers great advantages.

Setting aside a priori everything in the nature of
science, theory and knowledge, as foreign to religion,
the theologian no longer dreads that science will, at
some time, disturb his freedom. He has installed
himself in a domain which, by definition, has nothing
in common with the scientific domain : how could he
ever encounter science on the way of his choice ?
Science observes and links together the outward ap-
pearances of things : the pious man lives in God and
in the soul of his brethren. He feels the working of
God within him ; in virtue of this very working he
prays, he loves, he hopes. Science has no hold upon
these phenomena ; they are of an order other than
those which she studies. Science looks for theories,
and these phenomena are realities. How can theories
prevent realities from existing ?

If religion, understood in this rigorously spiritual-

228 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

istic sense, avoids all collision with science, it would
be unjustifiable, according to the theologians of whom
we are speaking, to maintain that this is effected
through her diminishing and becoming utterly insig-
nificant, so as to offer no resistance to her adversary.
For the scientist, who has only to do with material
realities, the purely spiritual may, perhaps, be a mere
naught ; but in this " naught " the religious man finds
everything :

In deinem Nichts hoff ' ich das All zu finden,1

said Faust to Mephistopheles.

And, firstly, he finds therein autonomy, independ-
ence, freedom. The Divine is but a word, if it is
conditioned by nature and by science. If it is to
be at all, it must indeed stand for origin, initiative,
creation. The doctrine of free and, to all appearance,
arbitrary grace, signifies in truth that the divine opera-
tion cannot be determined by things, since they only
exist through it, but that it is dependent on itself
alone, i.e. is perfectly free. It is not right to say
that religion, banished from the world of sense, is
confined within the heart — limited to those objects
which are the heart's special concern. Established
upon the very foundations of man's conscious and
moral life, she is all-powerful, quickening and
determining his entire existence.

And experience actually shows that the inward re-
ligious life — what is called Mysticism — is a singularly
rich and potent reality. Communion with God is not
only a source of emotions that are strong or tender,
secret or expansive. It makes men of faith and of
will, incapable of prostituting their convictions, ready

i In thy Naught I hope to find the All.

RITSCHL AND RADICAL DUALISM 229

to brave everything in order to accomplish what God
commands. Confidence in God involves confidence
in self.

The mystic, for whom things, as they are given,
represent merely scientific connection, sets his face
resolutely towards practical life and towards the
future. The falling back of the soul upon itself, the
endeavour to find God within the ego, is only, indeed,
the first moment of the mystical life. God is not an
abstraction : he is the principle of things as of souls.
He that is God-inspired will try to change the world,
so as to bring it nearer to its principle ; and under
the mystic will be revealed the man of action. Con-
sidering his resolution, his energy, his abnegation, his
enthusiasm, his indomitable perseverance, who would
wish to deny the reality of his feelings, and regard
his inward life as a worthless dream ?

Thus religion, understood in the Kitschlian sense,
will not only withstand the onslaughts of science, but
will be able to develop in accordance with its own
special genius, freely and effectually. Does this mean
that the Ritschlian standpoint yields complete intel-
lectual satisfaction ?

In the first place, it is impossible to ignore the
modifications which the progress of knowledge and of
reflection inevitably forced upon this standpoint even
within the Ritschlian school. The principle assumed
was, in reality, twofold. It was, on the one hand,
feeling, inward experience, consciousness of man's
relation with God ; on the other hand, it was history,
the Bible, Revelation. Without doubt, revealed truth
was not received in the sense of rational knowledge :

230 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

it was not and could not become knowledge, in the
strict meaning of the word. If the truths of Revela-
tion were able and, indeed, bound to be embodied in
one system, that was from a purely formal standpoint,
through an entirely logical method which defines,
which arranges, but which, by itself alone, does not
give actual proof. The reason for admitting the
truths of Kevelation remained wholly practical : it
was the harmony of these truths with the needs of
the religious consciousness, the value that they have
for man, the strength and joy with which they endow
the human soul. It continued not the less true that
this Kevelation was, and would necessarily remain, an
objective principle, capable of guiding and reconciling
individuals.

Now, thus understood, how was this position made
good ? If, objects Herrmann, my personal experience
ought to constitute for me the unique criterion of
truth, can I be restricted to believing in the deeds
which have been found possible by others (a St. Paul,
a St. Augustine, a Luther), but which I myself have
never experienced ?

That is not all. At the time of Ritschl's early
speculation, the argument in favour of the Scriptural
Canon was still tenable : it has since been demolished
through the progress of criticism. The Scriptures no
longer furnish faith with the sure foundation that we
formerly expected to find in them. And Auguste
Sabatier went so far as to say that, if an infallible
authority is necessary, Protestants ought no longer
to look for it in the uncertain and frigid letter of the
Bible, but, after the Catholic method, in the supple
and free intelligence of a living person.

Seeing that this solution clashed with the principle

RITSCHL AND RADICAL DUALISM 231

of Bitschlianism, the school inclined to sacrifice, more
and more, the objective element to the subjective
element, revelation to faith. Herrmann no longer
desired any other ground of faith than the impression
felt by the individual in contemplating the inward
life of Jesus. The angry God and the merciful God
of the Bible, corresponding to the twofold feeling of
sin and redemption, are no longer, for him, in any
sense realities in themselves, originating our soul-
states : our soul-states are the only certain realities,
divine justice and pity being simply more or less
subjective interpretations of them. Everything which
is not individual faith pure and simple is merely a
symbolical expression of that faith. The more dogmas,
the more Churches, in the traditional meaning of these
words. The individual can no longer get outside
himself. He sees in dogmas metaphors that can be
explained in accordance with his individual experience;
a Church is, for him, an association of men united in
the thought of rejecting every obligatory creed.

The weak point of this system is quite evident : it
is a subjectivity without content.

Pfleiderer reproaches Herrmann with making the
object of religion purely imaginary. To place God,
says he, quite outside the sphere of knowledge, is to
regard him as a mere object of aspiration. It is to
maintain the existence of God solely on the ground
that belief in God is salutary, comforting, inspiring,
without asking if that belief is not contradicted by
the teaching of science. Such a faith is incapable of
proving that it is not a purely subjective delusion.

And it is certain that when we carry out, more
and more, the refining method recommended by

232 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Kitschl, when we make it our aim to abstract from
the religious consciousness everything which does not
spring immediately from the subject himself, we
cannot help tending to deprive him of all that would
justify belief according to his own view ; for a justi-
fication is a reason which goes beyond the subjective
and crude fact in being characterised by universality
and necessity, i.e. by objectivity.

What, at any rate, is this faith, which, rising in
the face of dogmas and institutions, and scornfully
rejecting their support, exclaims : "In self alone I
find sufficiency " ? As its very definition indicates, it
is faith considered as absolutely bare and as devoid of
any assignable determination. Every expression of
this faith falls away under intellectual definition, and
language is, in this system, merely an effort of the
individual to represent and explain to himself what
he experiences in connecting it with the objects that
exist outside him.

But how can we see in faith, thus separated from
all intellectual content, anything else than an abstrac-
tion, an empty form, a word, a nonentity ? It is only
too easy to declare that we can believe, with the
same intensity and the same conviction, in things
lovely and in things hateful, and that, if pure and
simple faith sufficed to characterise religion, every
fanatic would be a religious man to the same extent
as a St. Paul or a St. Augustine. Moreover, are we
actually satisfied with faith ? It is assumed, more or
less tacitly, that this faith will be necessarily faith in
Jesus Christ. Consciousness is invoked, but we are
expected to add or to understand that Christian
consciousness is here in question. Notwithstanding
what may come of it, there is combined with faith an

RITSCHL AND RADICAL DUALISM 233

objective or intellectual element, with which, indeed,
we cannot dispense if we wish to obtain a positive
principle which shall have some meaning.

In fact, if we give full due to the religious con-
sciousness, to faith, to love, without slipping into
an abstract and empty subjectivism, we must not
make it undergo a negative purification, a limitless
mutilation and dissolution. On the contrary, we
ought to enrich the subject, to enlarge it, to raise it
as much as possible towards being and universality.
The method to be followed, in order to get beyond
the purely theoretical standpoint of the abstract
understanding, consists in making use of all the
resources of intellect combined with life, and not in
seeking a standpoint beyond the intellect's reach.
Rather than go, further and further, in search of a
refuge against the attacks of science and of reason,
we ought to be reconciled with this same science to
the utmost extent possible, to ensure for reason all
the development of which she is capable, and to
create, by means of all these data, instruments for
the realisation of ideal ends.

Is it really certain, moreover, that in confining
themselves, as they do, within the inward tribunal
of conscience, of the heart, of religious emotion,
Ritschl and his disciples are sheltering themselves
effectively from the incursions of science ?

They argue on the hypothesis of a science which
is only occupied with physical phenomena, and which
would not dream of establishing a connection between
these phenomena and moral phenomena. At least they
admit that there are certain phenomena, emotions,
impressions of the soul, which are not and cannot be

234 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

subverted by science. They speak freely about two
separate domains — the external world and the internal
world, things and consciousness. Herein we find,
definitely, the basis of their doctrines. They picture
consciousness as a sphere within which no natural
force can enter, and which science, confining her
attention to the outside of things, does not expect
to investigate any more than she possesses the means
thereto.

But the opposition of without and within, and the
conception of a soul-sphere impenetrable by science,
are simply metaphors, and metaphors which no longer
conform to the state of knowledge.

Science, it is true, for a long time claimed to
accommodate herself solely to the phenomena of the
material world. She left to metaphysics, or to litera-
ture, the phenomena of the moral order. But it is
quite another matter to-day. Having, since the time
of Descartes, more and more tested the efficiency of
order and method in scientific work, and the relations
between the different departments of knowledge,
science is henceforth prepared to begin the study of
all kinds of phenomena whatsoever. However far-off
an emotion of the soul may appear — however secret,
however hidden, however mysterious it may be for
the theologian — it is a real, given, observable thing :
therefore it is a phenomenon, connected necessarily,
according to law, with other phenomena. In vain
does the believer protest that his act of faith, his
prayer, and his sense of union with God, are to be
regarded as entirely spiritual, and as in no way
related to material things. Just because they fall
within consciousness, they are amenable to science ;
for the latter is, henceforward, specially concerned

RITSCHL AND RADICAL DUALISM 235

in explaining, amongst other things, the genesis of
states of consciousness, whatever they may be ; and
she possesses methods which enable her to bring
nearer and nearer the internal and the external, the
mysterious and the knowable, the subjective and the
objective.

In a word, it is impossible to discover a retreat
where we can feel sure of not being rejoined by
science, unless, first of all, we ask ourselves what
constitutes science, what is its range, and whether
it has limits. Therein we encounter a problem which
it is not sufficient to skim or to curtail by a few
philosophical generalities, but which ought to be
examined for its own sake, and from the standpoint
of science herself.

CHAPTER II

RELIGION AND THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE

THE dogmatic conception of science and the critical
conception.

I. APOLOGY OF RELIGION BASED ON THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE —
Experience as the unique principle of scientific knowledge —
Consequences : limits in the theoretical order, limits in the
practical order — Scientific laws, simple methods of research —
Limits and signification of the correspondence of scientific
knowledge with fact — The latitude that science, so understood,
leaves to religion for its development — Letter and spirit :
contingent and relative character of religious formulae.

II. THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE PRECEDING DOCTRINE — The polemic
raised by a word : " the failure of science " — In what sense
science confesses that she has limits — Precarious situation of
religion in this system.

III. SCIENCE CONSIDERED AS PREDISPOSED TOWARDS RELIGION —

Religious doctrines as outlined in science itself; the difficulty
of maintaining this point of view — The nature of the limits
imposed on science : they are not simply negative, but imply 8
supra - scientific "beyond" as condition of the very aim o)
science.

IV. REMAINING DIFFICULTIES — The autonomy of science and that oi

religion remain compromised — The insufficiency of a purelj
critical method.

Those who try to gain — in order to make of it the
sanctuary of religion — a nook infinitely removed from
visible realities, concealed in the innermost depths o:

236

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE 237

consciousness, give way particularly to the fear of
meeting science on a common ground, where the
latter, perhaps, would dispute their right to exist.
They are disposed rather to steal away from the
conflict than to risk being vanquished. Now, many
thinking men, even among the scientists, have begun
to ask if this fear is not exaggerated, if science, con-
sidered at close quarters and in its concrete form, is
not really more favourable to freedom of religious
development than certain theories — philosophically
rather than scientifically inspired — declare.

We must, in this connection, have regard to the
change which, during our own day, has been effected
in the idea of science. Only a short time ago, science
stood for absolute knowledge of the nature of things.
She laid claim to sure and definite knowledge in
contrast with variable and individual belief; and,
emboldened by the conquests gained through the
discovery of her true principles, she saw no limits to
her range and power. It was, in short, the old-time
metaphysic, with its ambition for perfect knowledge,
transferred to the world of experience. But— unlike
the sesthetico-rational systems of the Platos and of
the Aristotles — it was a metaphysic which eliminated
from the principle of things everything recalling
human intelligence and freedom, so as to admit
therein only material and mechanical elements.

Before such a science, it was natural that religion,
if she desired to remain unassailable, should fall back
upon a domain where all collision would be impossible.

But is it incorrect to say that this conception of
science, as absolute and limitless knowledge, is not
maintained, and that the science of to-day has become
accustomed to quite another idea of her meaning ?

238 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Henceforward, is there no cause to ask anew how fa
science is really adverse to the existence of religion ?

APOLOGY OF RELIGION BASED ON THE LIMITS
OF SCIENCE

X

After feeling her way for a long time, science he
at length determined her method by a kind of natun
selection. She has chosen to rest upon experienci
and upon experience alone. Doubtless, it is a questioi
after having verified the facts, of recapitulating then
of classifying them, of bringing them together and <
systematising them. But this logical operation itse
has need of experience to guide and to control it.

In adopting this mode of investigation, science h*
secured advantages that are infinitely precious. SI
can at length grasp the real, which she was nevi
sure of reaching so long as she restricted herself 1
analysing and combining concepts which represei
things in the mind of man. She obtains knowledge th*
is essentially useful in practice, experience furnishii)
man with the means of making nature repeat hersel
She escapes from the endless uncertainty and tl
infinite variety of opinions ; she forces herself upc
every intellect, and all her acquisitions are, in a sens
definitive.

But these benefits, it may be remarked, hav
as counterpart, a limitation of her range and <
her philosophical value, which has very importai
consequences.

The famous speech of Dubois-Reymond, concludir
with Ignorabimus, has never ceased, since 1880, 1

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE 239

haunt people's minds. Of the seven enigmas that
he specified, four at least — said he — were for ever
insoluble : viz. the essence of matter and of force, the
origin of movement, the origin of simple sensation,
and the freedom of the will.

It is because these four problems are outside the
range of experience. In fact, however great be the
extension claimed for it, experience can reach neither
first beginnings, nor final ends. Not only is it — and
must always be — incapable of comprehending, in time,
a first or a last phenomenon, which is undoubtedly
nothing else than a fiction, but there is always the
need of knowing to what extent the constant succes-
sions that it presents, suffice to explain the appearing
of phenomena. Existence only unfolds according to
laws because there is in it a certain nature. What
is this nature ? Is it unchangeable ? Why is it
determined in one manner and not in another ? With
what antecedent ought we to connect it in order to
explain it experimentally ? These questions imply,
for science, a vicious circle, and, in consequence, pass
beyond it irresistibly. Through experience we verify
laws, or relations that are relatively constant between
phenomena ; but we cannot discover thereby if these
laws are themselves merely facts, or if they proceed
from some immutable nature which governs facts.

Limited in her compass, science is equally limited
in depth. The phenomenon, as she apprehends it,
cannot be identified with being. She only succeeds in
stripping it of its subjective and individual elements
through resolving it into relations, into dimensions,
into laws. But, while the notion of law as the
connection between two phenomena, however strange
it may appear from the standpoint of reason, is at

240 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

least clear for the imagination, which easily pictures
two objects bound together by a thread, the hypothesis
of relations pre-existent with regard to their terms is
a non-representable conception, in which the human
intellect can see merely the symbol of a thing that it
does not understand. And if science tends, all the
more, to gain the unanimous adhesion of thinking
men through setting aside the notion of subject and
of element in order to fasten on that of relation, the
opinion is, at the same time, forced upon all minds,
that this science is not the adequate representation of
being, but a certain way of apprehending it, and that
there must be some principle of reality in the very
forms which she was obliged to discard, so as to reach
the kind of objectivity that she had in view.

Manifest in the theoretical order, the limits of
science are, in the practical order, still more evident.

The practical life of man, as a rational being, is
conditioned by ends that he proposes to himself
because they are deemed desirable, good, obligatory.
Now, it is impossible for science to offer man, with
reference to any end whatsoever, reasons that suffice
to make him go in search of it. Science teaches how,
through using such means, we are led to such a result.
This only interests me if I have decided to pursue that
result. Science informs me that many men consider
such an end as desirable, good, or obligatory. Does it
follow that I ought to think as they do ? Have we
never seen a man do well just in so far as his thought
differed from that of other people \ And do those
whom we admire as superior, owe this superiority
entirely to the acceptance of received opinions ?
Science establishes facts, presents as fact everything
that she teaches us. But, in order that I may act

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE 241

according to my reason, I must represent an object
to myself, not as a fact, but as an end, i.e. as a thing
which may, conceivably, not be, but which ought to
be. It is, therefore, characteristically human to sup-
pose that science is not everything ; to give to
the words — well-being, usefulness, longing, beauty,
obligation — a practical meaning that science ignores.

Does some one urge that science explains these
very concepts in reducing them to feelings, to habits,
to traditions, and, finally, to delusions of the imagina-
tion ? Such an explanation, if it is true, is nothing
else than the destruction of what we call practical
life in the rational and human sense. So long as
human life shall continue, it will amount to the
denial of this explanation. Practice, wherever found,
oversteps the limits of science.

Social life, in particular, cannot be satisfied with
the data of science. It needs, in order to reach a
high level and to be fruitful, the devotion of the
individual, his faith in human laws, in general well-
being and in justice, his fidelity to the past and his
zeal for the good of future generations. It claims
his obedience, his self-denial, if need be his life.
Now science, whatever may be said by those who
confuse her with the scientist, could never furnish the
individual with convincing reasons for self-surrender
and self-sacrifice. Even the example of animals —
on which many lay stress, but about which many
also are disagreed — cannot carry full conviction to a
reasoning man, because, thanks to his very intelli-
gence, he discusses the legitimacy of the rule that is
enjoined upon him, and succeeds only too well in
preventing the wrong which he does to the community
from rebounding upon himself. How will science,

R

242 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

knowing only fact, persuade an individual in whom
egoism prevails over self-sacrifice, that he ought to
reverse the relation, and devote himself to a good
that does not affect him ? Will she try to show that
the disposition towards self-sacrifice actually exists
in the mind of each individual, as an unconscious
echo of the influence of the community upon its
members ? But self-sacrifice, to be really genuine,
must be spontaneous. And, as long as men devote
themselves to the community, they will do it be-
cause they regard themselves as persons and not as
mechanical products of the social organisation.

It is in this way that modern experimental science,
just because it is based solely upon experience,
appears as limited in its range, whether on the side
of theory, or on the side of practice. Can science,
at least in her own sphere of competency, offer the
mind genuine certitude? Even that is contested; and
many people believe that, within this same sphere,
the value of science ought to be limited.

We ought to emphasise the change which has be«fc*
produced of late years in the strictly scientific attitude.
Science, until recently, was, or attempted to be,
dogmatic. In her most rigorous investigations, she
considered herself as definitely constituted ; in others,
she aimed at a like perfection. She sought, at every
point, to appear under the form of a system, which,
1 from universal principles, deduces the explanation of
particular things. As regards form, Scholasticism
was her ideal.

But no science at the present time — not even
mathematics — is content with the scholastic pattern.
Science, whatever form it may assume for the purpose

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE 243

of exposition or of teaching, is and remains, in itself,
an endlessly perfectible induction. It is a question
of knowing how this induction is effected.

We must be careful, here, to distinguish between
laws and principles which are the result of induction,
and the facts which underlie them.

According to the Baconian philosophy, which, for
a long time, prevailed among scientists, the laws of
nature imprinted themselves necessarily upon the
human mind, provided that the latter got rid of its
prejudices, and surrendered itself in a docile manner
to the influence of things. No active participation
of the subject in knowledge properly so called could
be traced. The subject was only manifested as such
in his feelings, which science was specially bent on
disregarding.

The study of the history of the sciences, combined
with the psychological analysis of the formation of
scientific concepts in the human mind, has led to an
entirely different theory.1

Scientific laws and principles have the appearance
of being directly drawn from nature, owing to our
formal way of stating them : " phosphorus melts at
44° C." ; " action is equal to reaction." But this
dogmatic form, however convenient it may be, only
reflects the precise result of scientific study.

Science has, in reality, occupied herself with the
search and discovery of hypothetical definitions which
enable her to interrogate nature. The property of
melting at 44° C. is part of the definition of phosphorus;
the so-called principle that action is equal to reaction
is part of the definition of force. Not one of the

1 V. Duhem, La Thtorie physique, 1906. E. Le Roy, Un Positivisms
nowvecnt. Revue de metaph. et de mor., 1901.

244 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

elements embraced in these formulae, is really given,
nor can it be given in the exact sense. And, further,
their combination is not given. But the mind,
compelled to seek, and to know what it seeks, forms
(through choosing and determining the data of ex-
perience in a suitable manner) certain definitions
which enable it to put exact and methodical questions
to nature.

These definitions, moreover, are not all on the
same plane. Some of them are particular and derived,
some are general and fundamental, as in the preceding
instances. The most general definitions are, naturally,
the most stable : hence the form of principles which
they assume in our speech, and which easily causes
them to be taken for absolute knowledge.

Lastly, there is a notion which appears more
necessary than all, inasmuch as it is necessary to
all, viz. the notion of science itself. This notion is
still a definition, fabricated like all the rest. I call
science the hypothesis of constant relations between
phenomena. Scientific study consists in the in-
terrogation of nature according to this hypothesis.
Similarly, a judge forms a conjecture before question-
ing the accused.

The affirmations which these definitions imply
being imagined in order to render interrogation
possible and useful, are, and can only be, hypotheses,
seeing that it is a question of examining, no longer a
determinate individual, able to appear as. a complete
whole, but Nature — infinite in every direction — whose
future manifestations, in particular, cannot be given
us. But, so long as the critical study of their origin
and their r61e has not been carried out, we confuse
these hypotheses with absolute principles : first of all

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE 245

because, having given them the form of the latter, we
are inclined to transfer the peculiarities of the form
to the content itself; then because certain of these
principles are presupposed by all the rest, and that
which is essential to our systems, seems essential in
itself.

This theory, which the study of the formation of
scientific concepts suggests, is forced upon the mind,
when we come to reflect that, experience being our sole
way of communicating with nature, exact formulae,
on a level with our principles, would constitute an
absurdity, if they had to be considered as drawn, just
as they are, from nature. From experience alone,
ever changing and unstable ,w we can but derive corre-
spondingly shifting impressions. A systematic inter-
vention of the mind can alone explain the transmuta-
tion that science makes experience undergo.

And the mind, in this operation, is so well aware
of instituting, through its definitions and its theories,
simple methods of research, that it does not hesitate
to admit, equally, theories that are different and even
contradictory in their fundamental hypotheses, when
these theories furnish equivalent conclusions, and are
all useful in studying various classes of phenomena.1
It could not be so, if the mind had to see, in the
ruling ideas of its theories, the absolute explanation
of things.

But, it will be said, whatever may be the origin of
science, it is a fact that she harmonises with things,
and that she enables us to make use of them. To be
able to act on things is to possess some of their own
methods of action. Doubtless, our knowledge will

1 See H. Poincare, La Science ei I'Hypotfose ; La Valeur de la science.

246 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

probably never succeed in being even with things ;
but it grips reality more and more closely ; even its
contrivances, its conventions and its fictions have no
other aim than to be adapted to it ; and the approxi-
mation, always increasing moreover, which it attains,
cannot be confused with a radical incapacity to reach
the truth. Besides, we must come to an understand-
ing over the word truth. Science no longer expects
to endow the mind with a close copy of external
things, which apparently, just as we suppose them,
do not exist. She discovers relations that experience
verifies through the senses. It is enough that she
may and must be called true, in the human meaning
of the word.

Our authors reply: What does this verifiability
prove ? It is natural that scientific laws should
succeed in experience, seeing that they have been
invented for the very purpose of enabling us to
anticipate the natural course of things. We have,
moreover, a convenient trick of conceiving them as
successful, even when, in point of fact, they do not
succeed. We imagine, in that case, other laws as
contradicting the action of those which are admitted.
And thus we multiply additions and corrections in
order to save the principle to which we are accustomed,
until at length, our theory becoming inextricably
complicated, we abandon a principle which is no more
than an occasion of difficulties, in order to make trial
of some other, for which, undoubtedly, the future has
a like fate in store.

The fact is, the alleged correspondence between our
concepts and experience is, somehow, wrongly defined.
We confuse the correspondence of mathematical or
scientific concepts among themselves (one that can be

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE 247

very precise) with the correspondence of those concepts
to experience. Now experience, if we isolate it from
the scientific concepts that are mingled with it, is no
more than a very vague perception. After all, we
only know a thing in so far as the theory concerning
it is borne out obviously in practice. But how are we
to determine the degree of truth that a hypothesis
ought to possess in order to be practically useful ? It
is a fact recognised in logic, that from false premisses
one can deduce a right conclusion. We experience
every day that a method may succeed perfectly
without having any intrinsic connection with reality.
Mnemotechnic processes may be instanced. Therein
we have what are called empirical receipts. Who can
prove that our science, with its empirical starting-
point, does not remain empirical in its results ? As
it is given us, scientific attainment implies, between
science and things, a certain correspondence — not an
identity ; and a correspondence which, indeed, is
only in the end a practical notion.

How, precisely, do our scientific theories present
this ill-defined correspondence which is to demonstrate
their truth ? Through experience, through facts. It
is admitted that facts are there, outside the mind,
and that the latter discovers the means of shaping its
conceptions in accordance with them ; and science is
called true because we believe that she represents,
more and more exactly, this external reality which
does not depend upon her.

But the whole of this imaginative construction is
artificial. In reality, the fact with which the scientist
is reconciled, is not something raw and independent of
the mind : it is the scientific fact ; and this latter, if
we look carefully into its formation, appears as having

248 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

been fashioned already, arranged, constructed in some
way, so as to be capable of corresponding with the
hypothetical laws that science has introduced into her
definitions.

We must distinguish scientific fact from raw fact.
The latter, whatever its origin, is only the stuff out
of which science carves, in her own way, what she
will call facts. A scientific fact is, indeed, the reply
In a book of questions ; and this question -book is
nothing else than the series of laws or hypotheses
already imagined by the mind in order to give an
account of phenomena that are similar. It is by
means of our theories, of our definitions, of an already
existent science, that we enunciate, that we determine,
that we perceive the facts which are to take the name
of science. These facts are no less handled with a
view to their being adapted to theories than the
theories are formed with a view to being adapted to
facts. The agreement of the theories with the facts
is, to an extent that it is impossible to fix, the agree-
ment of those theories with themselves.

This means, after all, that the human mind can
only operate according to intellectual rule. And its
mode of operation consists (being given certain forms
and categories) in finding out if it can be brought
into connection with the things which are laid before
it. It only knows, it only perceives, on condition of
possessing, previously, certain moulds of knowledge,
of perception. What is the primary origin of such
anterior knowledge ? How is it to be described ?
What is its value? Even in being stated, the
problem passes beyond the domain of scientific facts.
We are merely aware of this — that our knowledge,
our perception, can never be other than a rendering,

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE 249

in our speech, of the realities which are given us.
This holds good equally of facts and of laws ; and,
also, it must certainly be stated that facts are offered
us solely under the operation of certain laws, since
they can be perceived only through being related by
consciousness to types that pre-exist in it.

From this general condition of knowledge, science
cannot escape. Even scientific knowledge is and can
be no more than a language, by means of which the
mind grasps as relatively intelligible, i.e. as recog-
nisable and pliable, the greatest possible number of
the objects which are set before it. How has this
language been formed ? What portion of reality is
it capable of expressing ? With what degree of
fidelity? These questions are clearly embarrassing,
seeing that the mind can only approach them with
the aid and in the name of the very prejudices that
we desire to control. At all events, they carry us
beyond the domain of scientific experience no less
than that of common experience.

From these considerations it may be inferred that
science is not an impression stamped by things upon
a passive intelligence, but an ensemble of symbols
imagined by the mind in order to interpret things by
means of pre-existent notions (inexplicable as regards
their primary origin), and to gain, by such means,
the power of making them serve the realisation of its
purposes.

Such a doctrine is, it would seem, much more
likely than Eitschlian dualism, to solve, in a rational
manner, the problem of the relations between science
and religion.

Indeed, according to this doctrine, the living part

250 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

of science, the sum of positive knowledge symbolised
by its formulae, does not differ at bottom from the
kind of beliefs upon which our practical life rests.
Science could not, a priori, decree that simple belief
>ught to be banished from the human mind, since she
herself admits it, and retains it in her fundamental
notions. Keligious belief, i.e. faith, cannot therefore
be set aside on the mere ground that it is a belief.
Enough for us to realise that it may coexist with
science in the same intelligence, that it does not
run counter to the beliefs which have actually been
adopted on the authority of science.

But, in this respect, modern science allows religion
great latitude. She does not claim to bear sway over
all forms of being. She confines herself to those
sides of it which are amenable to the scientific
category, showing no inclination to deny that quite
other categories may conceivably encounter (in the
real or in the possible) a theme which corresponds to
them. The scientist asks : Do we find in things
constant relations ? Must we infer thence that the
wants of the religious consciousness are forbidden ?
Does there exist any power capable of making the
world better ?

Not that religion can, henceforward, ignore the
teaching of science. Every appeal to science is a
pledge of knowing and of reverencing her. It cannot
be denied that she subsists to-day upon a certain
number of ideas which interest religion, at least as
they are presented to us in their concrete reality.
The most important, perhaps, is the notion of evolution.

It is very difficult, and raises, doubtless, a meta-
physical rather than a scientific problem, to know
what, precisely, this evolution is, what it implies and

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE 251

signifies in its origin and in its nature. But it has
a phenomenal and scientific meaning about which
everybody is agreed, viz. that living creatures — and,
perhaps, things generally — change, or can change,
not only in certain of their manifestations, but in the
totality of their ways of being, and that we cannot,
a priori, limit the extent of this change. Possibly
transmutations take place in the germ, possibly they
result from the influence of environment, possibly
these two causes co-operate ; but it is invariably
maintained that there is no longer a fixed difference
between the nature of a being and its modifications,
and that what are called the essential peculiarities of
a species may, henceforward, be conceived as a mere
phase of evolution, become relatively stable.

Now there actually exists a whole school of theo-
logians who make it their special aim to bring the
external history of religion into agreement with these
theories.

They start from a distinction which every thinking
man is led to make at all times, and which is, in truth,
the basis of life and action as a whole : the distinction
between principle and application, between idea and
its realisation. We desire with our thought, we realise
with things. It follows that there is in any action, in
any realisation whatsoever, something besides thought,
viz. a material form, which, if external conditions
happen to be modified, will necessarily have to be
modified correspondingly, under pain of a change
in meaning, and of no longer expressing the same
thought. Why is it that our writers of the sixteenth
century require explanation at the present time, unless
it be that the language has changed ? In order to
say, nowadays, the same thing that they intended to

252 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

say, we are often obliged to use other words. All
action, all life implies this distinction, for life consists
in being established by means of the environment in
which we find ourselves ; and, when this environment
changes considerably, the living individual is offered
a choice of two things — either to evolve or to disappear.

Religion cannot escape from this law. She aims
necessarily at being effectual, and she can only be so
through speaking to man in his own words. She
only offers the mind a comprehensible meaning, if
she, in some way, conforms to the categories which
pre-exist in that mind and which constitute its
standard of intelligibility. There are, therefore, in
all genuine religion two parts, although the point at
which the one ends and at which the other begins
cannot be indicated exactly : there is religion properly
so called — life, will, action ; and there is the visible
realisation of religion, or the combination of religion
in the strict sense with the conditions of existence
inherent in a given community. The first element
is immutable, in the symbolical sense which this
word assumes when applied to a spiritual principle
that is essentially living. The second is, inevitably,
bound up with the evolution of things.

Not only, then, does the theologian of whom we
speak respect the data of science, and refrain from
insisting upon the maintenance of such and such a
belief under a form which to-day seems impossible ;
but he incorporates into theology itself the principles
that science has definitely established, in particular
the principle of evolution.

The creative and regulative conception, as originally
presented, remains ; but the interpretations which it
receives, the formulae through which it is made out-

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE 253

wardly communicable, the institutions which develop
its action in the world, are subject to evolution. On
the one hand, the causal link which connects the
succession of these forms with the primary conception,
and the close resemblance which they cannot help re-
taining (seeing that they are the expressions of one
and the same original), guarantee their spiritual unity ;
on the other hand, the manifestations of religion
share the law relating to all living things, in follow-
ing, as regards their evolution, the world of which they
form part.

Henceforward, these expressions which could,
originally, be understood in their literal and material
meaning, ought to-day, if we would have them pre-
served, to be understood in a metaphorical sense — thus
rendering them compatible, in the only way possible,
with the progress of knowledge. For instance, the
statements — " He descended into hell, he ascended
into heaven " — can only retain their value, if, setting
aside a material localisation that is inconceivable
to-day, we get behind the imaginary picture to the
spiritual meaning: the idea of the union of Christ's
soul with the righteous men of the ancient Law, and
the final glorification of his humanity.

Moreover, we could not regard this use of allegori-
cal interpretation as futile and chimerical, on the
ground that, at all times, threatened doctrines have
had recourse to it, and have misused it to a childish
extent. Metaphor is the language even of the full-
grown man ; and, if we look carefully into the matter,
we hardly ever use any word in its strict meaning.
What is called the life of words is nothing else than
the necessity whereby we come to evolve the meaning
of words in compliance with the change of ideas, if

254 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

we would preserve them, through this same change,
as social life requires. An idea cannot, immediately,
create its form ; for, in that case, it would not be
understood by anybody. It necessarily adopts — at
least for a time — the given form which constitutes
for existing society the standard of intelligibility ;
and, by means of this form which was not made for
it, it is expressed, through adding to the literal, or
substituting for it, a metaphorical meaning.

The existence and the development of religion are
then, according to what may be called the Progressive
School, nowise disturbed by modern science.

In the groundwork of religion are found the funda-
mental religious truths which, owing to their essentially
metaphysical character, escape from contact with a
science whose sole object is the phenomenal.

Keligion contains, in addition, several quasi-
immediate expressions of these fundamental truths :
dogmas and rites which, spiritual in a sense and lived
rather than formulated, scarcely admit of conflict
with science. Thus it is that Christianity calls God,
father ; men, sons of God and, as such, brethren one
with another ; in like manner it teaches the kingdom
of God, sin, salvation, redemption, the communion of
saints.

There remain particular dogmas and rites. In so
far as these contain elements borrowed from the
knowledge and from the institutions of a determinate
period, they may chance to be at variance with the
ideas and institutions of another period. That is of
no consequence, unless the science and the institu-
tions of yesterday contradict, in some measure, those
of to-day. Eeligion is not responsible for these
variations : she cannot be affected by them. She

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE 255

remains identical, while undergoing an external
evolution.

Moreover, two modes of evolution are conceivable.
Either religion will retain her formulae as the legacy
of a bygone science and civilisation, while disengaging,
from their literal and material meaning, any spiritual
meaning that can be recovered therefrom. Or, resum-
ing the proud tradition of St. Paul, of St. Athanasius,
of St. Augustine, of St. Thomas, of the great organisers
of Dogmatic Theology, she will not be afraid of
converting to her own use the philosophical and
scientific notions of the present age, in order to make
of them the symbol — always contingent, doubtless,
but directly intelligible for the actual generations — of
that religious life which is eternal and inexpressible.

II

THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE PRECEDING DOCTRINE

The system which grounds religion on criticism of
science, embraced by some with an ardour that is
occasionally combative, has raised, for others, strong
objections. Some years ago much angry discussion
raged around a formula which summed up this
system from a controversial standpoint : " the failure
of science."

From the eloquent protests which this war-cry
called forth, it is sometimes difficult to derive con-
clusive arguments. Thus, enthusiasm was shown in
enumerating the great discoveries of modern science,
and especially the marvellous applications of these
discoveries. But our precise endeavour is to know if
these advances, which have reference chiefly to the

256 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

material side of life, fully realise the promises which
the science of yesterday often made with respect, not
only to the material, but to the political and moral
life of humanity.

Others said : Science has not failed, since no
reasonable and genuine science has ever been able to
promise what you charge science with not having
bestowed. This reply contains the implication that
science is not the be-all and end-all of man.

Through these apologies of the modern scientist,
there runs, nevertheless, a leading idea, which science,
indeed, impresses more and more upon the mind :
that of the impossibility of assigning any limit to her
progress. No doubt there are immense differences
between the physical order and the moral order,
between animal communities and human communities.
But are we bound to infer that the distance which
separates inorganic matter from living matter, or
real movement from abstract mechanics, is insur-
mountable ? And, besides, continuity is shown, more
and more, between these apparently separate realms.
Why should we debar the future from thoroughly
establishing the coincidence of science with being,
under all its forms ?

It is urged that, of all the inventions which
science has given us, not one satisfies the moral needs
of human nature, and that the science of the future
will not prove more adequate in this respect, seeing
that such needs are extra-scientific.

But it is a mistake to lay too much stress on this
objection. The acquisition of certain truths has
created in the mind of the scientist a distinct feeling
of assurance and of competency. To this standard,
henceforward, he refers every intellectual activity :

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE 257

and, consequently, he regards as vain and illegiti-
mate those inquiries which do not conform to it.
It is true that he no longer ventures, as formerly, to
enunciate absolute results, unrelated to our means
of knowing ; he declares, indeed, that all science is
relative. But this expression must be taken in its true
sense. It does not mean that, outside the domain in
which science moves, there is another domain — that
of the absolute, in which it would be allowable for
other disciplines to have full play : on the contrary,
it warns human intelligence against venturing into
any region that would be inaccessible to science.
For, if a thing is unknowable for science, such an
object is, a fortiori, unknowable for every other
discipline. And, strong in the sense of a competency
which belongs to her alone, where she says — I know,
science means : here is knowledge for the human
mind ; and where she says — I do not know, she would
have us understand : here let no one claim to possess
knowledge !

It is, therefore, by no means clear that modern
science, notwithstanding her diffident mien, is more
favourable than dogmatic science to the free develop-
ment of religion. From the standpoint of science,
religion is merely a collection of arbitrary concep-
tions ; for she can only assume the form of science,
and — even then — not without risking her integrity,
as the example of Scholasticism shows. As to the
inward principle of religion, it cannot, obviously, be
compared with the truths of objective experience, to
which alone science gives heed. And it is not enough
to urge that what we wish to maintain, beyond the
limits of science, is not another science, but a belief.
A belief, from the scientific standpoint, has value

s

258 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

only if it is, at one and the same time, based on the
observation of facts and adjusted to a meaning that
science can accept.

Restricted to the domain that, apparently, science
has given up to it, religious belief cannot, even within
these limits, make sure of its independence and its
freedom of development. Every scientific advance
threatens it. The believer follows anxiously the
vicissitudes of the scientific explanation of things,
expecting to see, here a fissure disclosed, there a gap
filled up. He provokes, through his intemperate
zeal for adaptation and accommodation, a comparison
that is unfavourable to his own cause. For, in
contrast with the resolute and triumphant advance
of science, he can but offer the suspense and
timidity of belief; and religion seems no longer to
exist save as an honoured name, which once had a
great deal behind it, but which is to-day a mere
remembrance that the piety and imagination of the
faithful strive to embellish, still, with the colours
of reality.

Such are the dangers which threaten religion, if
she is limited to the search for those advantages which
may accrue to her through scientific gaps. According
to several philosophers and scientists, however, these
dangers are unreal. We threaten religion with them
because we persist in considering science as hostile ;
but, in this way, we yield to prejudice. Instead of
arguing so freely on science and her conditions, let
us examine some of her most important results ; and
we shall find that, even within her own limits, science
shows a religious tendency. We must examine this
way of looking at the matter.

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE 259

III

SCIENCE CONSIDERED AS PEEDISPOSED TOWARDS
RELIGION

Notwithstanding the reputation for Materialism
and Naturalism which often clings to science, there
are not a few philosophers and scientists by profession
who persist in denying that the methods and contents
of science are opposed to the principles of religion.
Some of them — not among the least influential — deem
it possible to maintain the Scholastic view of the two
ways, different with regard to their beginning, con-
vergent with regard to their direction, and find, in
modern scientific doctrines themselves, the rudiments
of religious dogmas.

It is thus that certain scientists discern, in actual
evolutionism, the indication of the religious dogmas
of the Divine Personality, of the Creation, of the Fall,
of the efficiency of Prayer and of the soul's Immor-
tality.1 A like eminent physicist2 gives, as the
outcome of modern science, the Lord's Prayer and
the essential points in the Creed of Christendom.

As a rule, however, it is in a less direct manner
that men of to-day seek in science an introduction to
religion. The point over which discussion prevails,
is the character and the exact significance of the limits
of science. Do these limits represent a pure negation,
an absolute negation, so that, beyond her own special
province, science forbids us, emphatically, to look for
anything, to imagine anything ? Or do they merely
offer a relative negation — what Aristotle calls a

1 Annand Sabatier, La, Philosophic de V effort.
2 Sir Oliver Lodge, The Substance of Faith.

26o SCIENCE AND RELIGION

privation, the want of a thing which is demanded,
required, implied by the very fact of our being aware
of it?

According to the thinkers with whom we are now
dealing, the limits of science represent, strictly, for
the human mind, the privation of a knowledge which
would be necessary in order to convert our science
into complete knowledge. Science knows enough to
realise that she is not self-sufficing. Her principles
are negative concepts, indeterminate as regards their
content. Now, it is impossible for the human mind
not to wonder what a thing is, when taught simply
that it is neither this nor that. It is, therefore,
quite clear that science herself (not some psychical
activity external to science) involves the possibility
of a knowledge superior to scientific knowledge.
" Keason's final move," said Pascal, " consists in re-
cognising that there are an infinity of things which
go beyond her."

And, in the first place, as regards her meaning and
general methods, why need we say that science wages
war against religion ? Science endeavours to submit
phenomena to laws, i.e. to regularity, to persistence
in change, to order, to logic, to correspondence. She
seeks simple and universal laws, to which she may
reduce the diversity and intricacy of the laws of
detail. In this very way she is disposed to see in
the world a process that is one and harmonious,
i.e. beautiful. And, certainly, a single space — our
Euclidean space — appears sufficient to explain all
the properties of real extension ; a sole law, that of
Newton, governs the phenomena of the astronomical
world. In physics we may, perhaps, be satisfied with

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE 261

two fundamental laws : the conservation of energy
and the principle of least action. Science tends
toward unity, discovers unity : do we, then, make
an arbitrary use of words in saying that she leads
Godward ?

But, at the same time, she admits that her aim
is unattainable. In fact, her principles are only
hypotheses obviously tolerated by experience. She
can say : no other hypothesis has, hitherto, so
successfully endured the verification of facts. She
cannot say : this hypothesis is the truth. The very
mode of her knowledge — the interrogation of Nature
by means of an hypothesis — allows her to find actu-
ally sufficient explanations, but not to convert her
sufficient explanations into necessary explanations.
And, nevertheless, the positive and absolute explana-
tion cannot fail to exist. Science convinces us of it,
even while she declares her inability to furnish it.

According to that philosophy which is named
mechanical,1 the properties of bodies are explained
by a clear and positive principle — that of Matter and
Motion. It must be noted that to-day, even among
those who maintain the legitimacy of employing the
mechanical standard to explain all phenomena, very
few presume to say that with sufficiently powerful
instruments it would be possible to perceive the
movements that they imagine. They make use of
motion as the most convenient symbol for the
purpose of discovering and expounding the laws of
phenomena.

But many physicists consider this very symbol
useless, or, at all events, liable to be discarded as a

1 Vide Lucien Poincare, La Physique modeme.

262 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

mere auxiliary, with which science has nothing more
to do when its role is fulfilled. According to them,
the attempt to reduce to movement the whole of
observable phenomena has failed, in spite of the
increasingly cunning and intricate contrivances of
modern mechanists. The method of real unification
has been set forth in Thermo -dynamics, become
Energetics. Now, this science is constituted through
setting aside the proper nature of things, in order to
consider simply their measurable manifestations. Is
what we measure extension or movement, or some-
thing quite different ? That is of little consequence.
By means of these measurements we can discover
laws, construct theories, elicit principles which enable
us to classify known phenomena, and, by way of
inference, to put fresh questions to Nature. What
more is wanted ? Energetics, in gathering all that
science contains of the strictly experimental and
scientific, and in rejecting every metaphysical and
unverifiable residuum, has realised the most perfect
form that physical science has yet known.

What, now, is the energy which this particular
science takes for her sole aim ? It is only a negative
idea. It is neither movement, nor any of the concrete
realities that we observe. It points to a knowledge
which we lack.

It appears possible to embrace, in Energetics, every
variety of the modes of change — not only local move-
ment, but physical movements properly so called,
i.e. changes of property and of composition : all that
Aristotle termed alteration, generation, and corrup-
tion. But this possibility can only be applied to
the form of phenomena. And this form, not having
in itself any physical property, the formulae which

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE 263

represent it would be useless, if phenomena were
not, in addition, classed according to their strictly
physical resemblances and differences, i.e. according
to their qualities. Thus the qualitative distinction
subsists for the mind of the scientist under the unity
and the identity of mathematical treatment.1 What
is this notion of quality? Clearly it is, from the
scientific standpoint, a mere negative notion : it is
the idea of a condition — irreducible to magnitude —
of the magnitudes that observation commits to
analysis. But it is, at the same time, the idea of a
reality, and is, therefore, not a pure negation. It is
the indication, given by science herself, of an aspect
of being which outstrips the experience of the senses
and the methods of science.

Analogous conclusions are to be drawn from
Biology. It is to-day the well-nigh general opinion
that, if life, in its maintenance, consumes no energy
which is peculiar to it, yet it cannot be referred, purely
and simply, to physico-chemical forces. This thesis
is even, at times, set forth in such precise and positive
terms that the domain of Biology would seem to be
less limited, as regards the knowledge of being,- than
that of Physics. In fact, not only are we assured
that life exists, and is no simple mechanism, but its
definition is given : it is a consensus, a hierarchy, a
solidarity of the parts and of the whole; the unification
of heterogeneous elements ; a creative and controlling
idea ; the effort to maintain a definite organisation
through making use of the resources and combating
the obstacles that the environment presents. All

1 See Duhem : La Th&orie physique, 1906. L' Evolution des theorist
physiqiies. Rev. des quest, scientifiques, Louvain, October 1896.

264 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

these definitions have a positive as well as a supra-
mechanical meaning ; and, when they are taken as
really scientific, it is easy to conclude that science,
of herself, introduces us into a world other than that
of properly external phenomena.

But we are deceived if we regard these formulae,
in so far as they are positive, as genuinely scientific
data. On this understanding, they are metaphors,
derived from the feelings which are bound up, in
our consciousness, with the exposition of life. They
serve the biologist as a sign, an indication, a formula
for specifying a certain class of phenomena, which he
calls vital, just as the words — force, mass, attrac-
tion, inertia, serve the physicist for specifying the
phenomena that he calls physical. But, while psychic
symbols were capable, with the physicist, of being
exactly converted into mathematical symbols, the
terms which define life have preserved, for the
biologist, a subjective meaning. That is why, from
the strictly scientific standpoint, their signification is
only negative. They indicate that the characteristic
phenomena of life are not reducible to physical
mechanism, are not mechanical under any aspect.

And yet, even the scientific idea of life is not a
negation pure and simple : it is the affirmation of an
unknown, comprehensible as regards its manifesta-
tions, but incapable, itself, of objective investigation.
It constitutes the reverse of a thing which necessarily
has an obverse. This negative concept which, scien-
tifically, is very efficacious, would disappear, and,
with it, the relative explanations that it furnishes, if
we considered the positive unknown, of which it is
the duplicate, as having no real existence.

The study of the problem relating to the origin of

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE 265

living species determined the development of a theory
which, to-day, seems to dominate science entirely, viz.
that of Evolution. The differences which distinguished
this theory from so-called orthodox beliefs, caused
people, first of all, to think that it was in every
way inconsistent with those beliefs, and that, since
religion implied Providence, Creation, Mind and
Freedom, the word evolution could only mean
mechanism, brute necessity, materialism.

Meanwhile, the criticism that science herself
offered with regard to this theory was not long in
showing that the idea of evolution was far from being
simple, clear and precise, as could be imagined in the
first stage ; that it admitted of various meanings ;
and, at all events, that it was by no means the pure
and simple negation of the ideas of Creation, Freedom
and Mind, which people had supposed. And, pointing
out that the theory of evolution introduced into the
world a unity, a continuity, a life, a fecundity, a
harmony, a common trend, which the theory relating
to fixity of species hardly corroborated, certain
scientists and philosophers arrived at the opinion
that, far from being opposed to religious ideas,
Evolutionism presented, with respect to the world
and its development, a conception far nobler and
more worthy of a Divine Creator than the traditional
dogma of the immutable multiplicity of fundamental
forms. This interpretation, sooth to say, goes beyond
the scientific meaning of the theory. But it is no
exaggeration to assert that the scientist's idea of
evolution — to an even greater extent than his ideas
of life and of energy — is, in itself, incomplete, and,
properly speaking, a negation which implies an
affirmation.

266 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

At the present time it appears to be established
that the form of existence to which we give the name
of species, is not immutable and enduring. The chief
objection which used to be urged against Darwin,
viz. that we see species disappear, but do not see
them appear, has now been removed. The experi-
mentalist, through quite sudden transmutation, creates
species. From one species may be produced several,
more or less divergent. Nothing, therefore, any
longer prevents us, in principle, from regarding the
totality of existing species as the outcome of
evolution.

What is the significance of this hypothesis ?

Evolutionism necessarily raises the question of the
origin of variations. It has not been able, so far,
to reach, with regard to that origin, solutions that
are universally admitted. It wavers between two
opinions, which are alike based upon a number of
facts and experiences, and which, for this reason,
certain scientists seek to reconcile and to combine.
According to one of these standpoints (recalling that
of Darwin) the initial transmutation takes place in
the germ. Certain of these transmutations are pre-
served, increase and become stable types. According
to the other standpoint (actually that of Lamarck)
the influence of the environment, and the struggle of
creatures to adapt themselves thereto, are the essential
causes of the transmutations. And the blending of
these two standpoints is quite conceivable. For the
idea of modification in the germ does not exclude
that of influence of the environment, any more than
the idea of influence of the environment excludes
that of modification in the germ. Adaptation to
the environment can be reflected in the process of the

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE 267

reproductive cells, as certain experiments show,1 and
a transmutation in the germ can be combined with
adaptation to the conditions of existence.

Can we say that the concepts employed in these
explanations are, in the scientific sense, positive
concepts ?

The doctrine of variations in the germ explains
these variations, either by a kind of spontaneous
creation, or by the development, under the influence
of some circumstance, of latent pre-existing character-
istics. Either creation, or innateness — such are the
suggested hypotheses.

The doctrine of reaction on the influence of
environment implies, in the living being, either the
property of acquiring and of displaying a determinate
tendency under the influence of the uniform action
put forth by an external cause, or the property
of modifying itself, so as to comply with external
conditions.

As to the relative fixity of the modifications, it is
likened to a habit that the being contracts, whether
of itself, or under the influence of a relatively
constant environment.

In spite of appearances, the concepts of creation,
of adaptation, of preservation, are far from having,
here, a positive sense — at least from the scientific
point of view. For, whatever is positive in the
content of these concepts is subjective, indefinable,
incapable of scientific exposition. These concepts
mean that we cannot compare the formation of living
species with the production of a chemical compound.
Indeed, they are much more remote from scientific
language than were the concepts implied in the

1 Bonnier, Le Monde vtgtial, p. 332.

268 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

theory of immutable species. In the latter, the living
world, like the inorganic world, was made up of
definite and unchanging elements, finite in number :
the sundry combinations of these elements constituted
the hierarchy of classes. On the other hand, living
and evolving, no longer merely in each of the indi-
viduals which compose it, but in its totality, the
vegetable or animal world resembles in appearance
only, a material collection — a finite number of fixed
and homogeneous unities. The change is therein
conceived as radical ; and the definite, the stable, on
which science is based, are no more than contingent
and provisional.

These concepts are, for science, only negations and
problem-statements, for they transcend the mechanical
standpoint. They suggest the idea of an explanation
analogous to that which consciousness takes in regard
to its own acts. The living being, according to the
adopted formulae, seeks to maintain and unfold its
life ; and, in order to accomplish this, it determines
itself and modifies itself in harmony with the circum-
stances which surround it.

Such explanations are usually called teleological.
According to an acute philosopher,1 in order to bring
them into conformity with the facts, it would be
necessary to conceive them as superior, not only to
mechanism, but to teleology. Teleology leads to our
ranking the vegetable world beneath the animal
world, instinct beneath intelligence, when we ought,
really, to see therein different developments of one
and the same activity. The rich and widely varied
process corresponds to the idea of spontaneous creation

1 Bergson, L'jfivolution crdatrice. Of. Rudolf Otto, Naturalistische und
religiose PTeltansicM, pp. 214-15.

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE 269

far better than to the idea of an end conceived in
advance and determining the story of the realisation.

Although these views may recall, in some measure,
the Spinozistic doctrine of life, it seems indisputable
that the positive content of fundamental biological
concepts is extra-scientific, and, consequently, that
these concepts are, scientifically speaking, merely
negative concepts.

It does not follow that science can set aside their
positive and subjective signification as useless, chimeri-
cal and purely verbal. For, in becoming simply
quantitative, exact and objective, these concepts
would lose all that characterises them, and renders
them helpful to the scientist in his researches and in
his syntheses. Kant used to say that, though devoid
of substantial value, in the sense that they do not
bring us any real knowledge, certain principles have
a regulative value, in so far as they enable us to class
phenomena and to organise experiences, as if they
truly represented the real methods of Nature. This
doctrine appears applicable to Biology even to-day.
But it shows us science suspended in a reality that
goes beyond her means of investigation.

After all, the moral sciences, are, in this respect,
especially significant.

These sciences are understood in two ways : either
as normative sciences, or as purely positive sciences.

Understood as normative sciences, they furnish
directly, by their special content, the guiding principles
of human life which we should vainly seek in the
physical sciences. They offer or prescribe for man
certain ends to be pursued : e.g. the development of
personality, duty, happiness, harmony between the

270 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

individual and the community, justice, general benefit,
solidarity, union of sentiment. Now it is clear that
such aims are not, in themselves, ultimate principles
adequately conceived, but that they represent prob-
lems of a particular nature — problems which cannot
be solved by the aid of experience alone.

According to some people, these aims are nothing
else than a vista opening towards the Infinite, towards
the Perfect, towards the Divine. If it were so, the
moral sciences, through their controlling ideas, would
indeed be a true introduction to religion.

Thinkers of another school affirm a much closer
analogy between the moral sciences and other sciences.
They aim at representing them as just the natural
science of man, considered in its moral and sociological
manifestations. The moral sciences study the actions
of men in their modes and in their causes, as the
biological sciences study animal functions and forms
of existence. As to practical rules, they are, under
this conception, applications of science, but are not
part of it. All science, in fact, by virtue of being
science, is theoretical : practice precedes it or follows
it, but does not, in any way, interfere with it.

So understood, the moral sciences would have a
sure way of breaking off every connection with
religion : viz. through becoming purely narrative.
They would be limited to showing that men have,
through the ages, spoken, in such and such sense, of
justice, of happiness, of duty, of right, of personality,
of solidarity, or of collective conscience, without
having to inquire into the origin and philosophical
significance of these notions — without considering
their value. But a science which is merely narrative,
is not, properly speaking, a science. In order to

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE 271

resemble the physical sciences, the science of moral
phenomena must become explanatory.

Moral science, at the present time, no longer
proposes, in general, to explain conscious life and
social life by purely physical causes. Psychology,
Ethics and Sociology, without breaking the bonds
which connect them with the material sciences, claim
their own special principles. We shall, therefore,
explain moral phenomena, not only by the physio-
logical and physical conditions of human life, but
also by strictly moral causes, such as : the conditions
of consciousness ; the properties of intelligence and of
will ; the influence of feelings, of inclinations, of ideas ;
the peculiar role of such ideas as those of individuality,
of happiness, of duty, of equality, of liberty, of tradi-
tion, of collective conscience, of solidarity, of humanity,
of justice, of harmony, of progress, of reason, etc.

What are these principles? Kegarded scientifically,
th ey are only negations. They are subj ective phantoms,
taking the place of objective causes, which our intellect
ignores and cannot apprehend in themselves. All
that is precise in the explanations drawn from such
principles, amounts to this : the phenomena in question
are not explained by the efficient causes which we have
at our disposal. By a logical trick — having brought
in ideas, ends, conscious life under its intelligible
aspect — we clothe these fluid things with formulae,
we treat them as beings and as mechanical forces of
a kind, and we make use of them as efficient causes.
We then imagine that we have given a scientific
explanation. But how are we to determine scientific-
ally the meaning and value of such explanations ?
Whence comes the moral life, the longing after pro-
gress, the wish to create anew and to improve Nature ?

272 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

What is it that we want ? Whither are we tending ?
To reduce all this possibility to necessity, all this
ideality to reality, all this contingent future to actual
data, is obviously to see in human consciousness
nothing but a mystifying power. And, in that case,
what becomes of the explanations furnished by it ?
They are no more than illusory explanations of
phenomena that are themselves illusory.

From the strictly scientific standpoint, these ideas
are merely negations — the denial that a mechanical
explanation is possible. But here again, and here
especially, it must be said that we have to do with
imperfect negations which are wrapped up with
corresponding affirmations. What use could the
scientist make of these concepts, if he were obliged
(like the mathematician) to be indifferent as regards
their subjective and practical meaning ? He gives
so little heed thereto that it is this very subjective
meaning which he decks with the name of scientific
notion. When the astronomer, following appearances,
argues on the assumption that the sun revolves round
the earth, he knows that he can argue also — and even
much more easily — on the hypothesis that it is the
earth which revolves round the sun. But the moralist
or the sociologist who should endeavour to interpret
the subjective appearances with which he is concerned,
in objective terms, would find himself transported to
the antipodes of the reality which interests him, and
would no longer be able to argue about it at all. In
order to speak of men, of their individuality, of their
personality, of their solidarity, of their individual or
collective conscience, we are obliged to assume that
these terms mean something — an assumption which,
from the standpoint of an objective science, is very

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE 273

debatable. The explanations of the phenomena by
moral and sociological concepts are nothing else than
an ill - disguised appeal to explanations which go
beyond the compass of a morality and a sociology
that claim to be scientific in the strict sense.

To sum up, according to the philosophers whom we
are now considering, the limits of science are not nega-
tions pure and simple. Much rather are they the indica-
tion of a reality, for us transcendent, without which
these very limits would be incomprehensible, and which
the scientist ought, more or less, to bear in mind if
he would succeed in giving to his concepts a concrete
meaning that renders them available. Science, there-
fore, is not absolutely neutral. She reveals a bent ;
and, if this bent remains very general, it is at least
directed towards the same ends that the religious
consciousness postulates.

Religion, henceforward, must no longer be presented
as an arbitrary conception, tolerated theoretically, per-
haps, by science, but unconnected with her : science
even seeks her, without knowing it. And thus, while
she freely develops in accordance with her own
principles, religion knows that her affirmations, in
their general principles, correspond to the postulates
of science. She is only too anxious to incorporate,
from science, all that can help forward her own work ;
and it is an observable fact that the thinkers of whom
we speak, far from dismissing science as an alien or a
rival, invoke her aid with the utmost vehemence, in
order to gain, on the historical and natural side, an
idea of religion that shall be the truest, most endur-
ing and most complete possible — therefore the most
worthy and the most efficacious.

274 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

IV

REMAINING DIFFICULTIES

And assuredly, this way of understanding, and of
contriving the reconciliation of religion with science,
is one of the strongest and most conclusive that can
be imagined. It is not certain, however, that it
thoroughly satisfies the convictions of the scientist
any more than the convictions of the religious man.

In spite of all his efforts to accept unconditionally
the teachings of science, without deferring to them
in any way, the spiritualistic thinker runs the risk of
being disavowed by the scientist, when he interprets
the limits of science in a sense that is favourable to
religion. If there is one contention upon which
science insists as fundamental, it is that she knows
not whither she is going. While acknowledging her
limits, she does not profess to know anything beyond
them ; and every attempt to interpret her ignorance,
as well as her certainty, arouses her suspicion. Science
is essentially jealous of her independence, of her auto-
nomy, of her right to ignore.

On her side, religion continues to wonder at being
obliged to ask science for permission to exist. She
has, indeed, no intention of raising her voice against
the results of scientific demonstration. She has no
difficulty in understanding that, between her and
science, there ought to be agreement, and that radical
heterogeneity is impossible ; since, if God exists, he
is the cause of the world which, by reason of its laws,
is the object of scientific study, and, between cause
and effect, there cannot fail to be some relation. But
she, on her side, claims autonomy and free develop-

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE 275

raent. Like every living thing, she wishes to be
herself, and to unfold from within all her powers.
But she is in danger of being restricted in a system
which, when all has been said, seems to subordinate
to scientific conceptions, religion's right to assert
herself.

Neither science, then, nor religion feels herself —
in this system based on the limits of science — fully in
possession of the autonomy which both alike demand.

It is true that the problem appears to defy the
keenest intellect. For it is necessary to discover a
way of conceiving religion, at one and the same time,
as free to develop herself according to her own prin-
ciples, and as connected with science through certain
intelligible relations. But, if this difficulty appears
disconcerting, may it not be because we still picture
religion and science as existing side by side in space,
and as contending for it after the manner of material
things ? We try to find out what room science gives
up to religion, and wonder if the spatial area occupied
by science implies, or does not imply, another space
which extends beyond. All these expressions are
only metaphors, transcripts of reality in the language
of spatial imagination. Can the relation between
religion and science be so simple, so closely analogous
to material relations? Must it not be, on the con-
trary, very difficult to grasp and to define ? Is it not
bound to be, in some way, unique in kind ?

But, if this is so, we must, in order to discover it,
employ another method — more metaphysical than that
which we have just been considering. The latter is
strictly critical. It consists in reflecting upon science
and upon religion, as they are given us; in asking what
are the conditions of existence enjoined on both, and

276 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

how, being subject to these conditions, they can be
reconciled. This method can only, in the end, place
religion and philosophy opposite one another, like two
powerful rivals who aim at mutual extermination.
Perhaps we should be able to discover a relation of a
more intimate and more supple kind, if, instead of
restricting ourselves to the consideration of religion
and science from without, and to the criticism of
principles, we sought to understand both of them in
their genesis — to give some account of their origin
and of the internal principle of their development.
For this purpose we should have to make our appeal,
no longer only to philosophical criticism, but to
philosophy properly so called, to a theory of the first
principles of intellectual life and of moral life. This
is what a certain number of very acute thinkers have
tried to do — thinkers who are as careful to respect
the freedom of science as they are jealous for the
liberty of religion.

CHAPTER III

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION

I. PRAGMATISM — The scientific concept as hypothetical imperative ;
the pragmatistic notion of truth.

II. THE IDEA OF A PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN ACTION — Science, the
creation of man's activity — Religion, the realisation of the
human soul's deepest want — Dogmas as purely practical
truths — Religion and Science correspond to the distinction
between the source and the means of action.

III. CRITICAL REMARKS — Difficulties inherent in the concept of pure
activity — Necessity of a strictly intellectual principle for
science and for religion itself.

To constitute a theory of the first principles of in-
tellectual and of moral life, had been the aim of
Descartes, and he believed that he could find in
reason the common source of all truths — not only
those relating to science, but those of a practical and
even religious nature. If his rationalism has been
shown inadequate, can we not, nevertheless, recover
his intention through substituting, for reason properly
so called (i.e. the specifically intellectual faculty),
activity, which philosophy since the time of Descartes
has, more and more, presented in its originality and
value ? Would not the Philosophy of Action enable
us to see religion and science derived, in the human
mind, from a common source ?

277

278 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

PRAGMATISM

It is an idea now grown familiar to scientists, that
the mind takes an active part in the production of
science. But, in saying this, they usually mean that
the discovery of truth calls upon the mind for effort
and inventiveness, for the intelligent use of all the
resources at its disposal. They are not prepared to
assert that science per se, science as constituted once
for all, is merely a mode of human activity. Justi-
fied by facts, an hypothesis becomes law. The way
in which the mind discovered this law has, hence-
forward, no more than an historical interest.

For the philosophers with whom we are now
dealing, on the contrary, the mind considered in its
activity is not only the agent of science : it is veri-
tably the subject and the substance thereof.

This point of view is found to-day — maintained
in an original manner — among the adherents of a
famous philosophical school styling itself Pragmatistic-

According to the Pragmatists,1 not only does
science assume an incessant contribution by the active
mind which looks at things from its own standpoint
and creates symbols adapted to its use; but she is
predisposed to action, and has no other aim than to
promote action. Go back to the origin of scientific
concepts : always you will find that they denote
methods to be followed in order to lead up to the

1 See William James, Pragmatism, New York, 1907 ; F. C. S. Schiller,
" The Definition of Pragmatism and Humanism," Mind, 1905 ; " Axioms as
Postulates," in Personal Idealism, edited by H. Sturt, London, 1902 ;
Studies in Humanism, 1907 ; The Review Leonardo, Florence, editor, G.
Papini.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION 279

appearance of such or such phenomenon, in order to
obtain such or such result. They are rules with
regard to action, hypothetical imperatives : outside
this signification, they have no real content. A
proposition which does not engender practical con-
sequences has no meaning. Two propositions which
do not lead to a difference in the way of acting,
present nothing but a verbal difference.

To say that the signification of scientific formulae
is purely practical, is to say that these formulae
refer, not to the past, but to the future. Science
considers the past merely with a view to the future.
She tells us what we must expect if we perform such
or such act ; what sensations will be produced within
us, if, actually, we experience such or such sensation.

In this way is reached the pragmatistic idea of
truth. Truth is not the agreement of our conceptions
with such or such part of a whole, given to us ready-
made, and answering to the name of world : it is,
purely and simply, the service that a conception can
render us, if we purpose such and such result. Truth
stands for verifiability, and verifiability means aptness
in guiding us through experience.

The truth of a conception, then, is never certain
till after the event. And a demonstrated truth can
only, even when it is direct, have unerring reference
to the past, not to the future.

That is not all. Science not only aims at action,
but is herself action, efficacious and creative power.
Is this future, the goal of her inductions, predeter-\
mined ? Is it our ignorance alone which hinders us J V
from predicting it infallibly ? The rationalists affirm j
this, i For them, "reality is ready-made and com-
plete from all eternity." According to a well-known

28o SCIENCE AND RELIGION

formula, the present is charged with the past and
big with the future. Quite different is the stand-

! point of the pragmatists. They believe that reality
is, in fact, " still in the making," and that the future
is not predetermined in the present. And, among the
causes which create the future, they put in the first
rank science herself, seeing that, free and human,
she enjoins on Nature effects which the latter, by
herself, would not produce.

Still further, the belief which, in our consciousness,
accompanies ideas, the faith in the realisation of an
event, is, itself, according to the pragmatists, a factor
in that realisation. Faith can create its own experi-
mental verification, and become true through its
very action.

And faith is not, in the human soul, a state that
is superadded from without, and withdrawn from the
influence of the will. Doubtless, it is not in our
power to adopt any belief whatsoever. But life lays
before us alternatives in which the choice, so far
from being prescribed by the intellect, would be
impossible if we were tied down to purely intellectual
reasons. Religious problems, taken in their essential
and practical meaning, illustrate this. Are human
society, the world, the universe something foreign
to me of which I speak as That; or, are they so
nearly related that I can address them as Thou1
My conduct will differ entirely, according as I shall
decide in the one or in the other sense ; and the
decision clearly depends upon my will. It rests with
me to believe or not to believe in my duty towards
others and towards the world, and, consequently, to
modify, or leave just as it is, the course of events.

Truth itself is, therefore, in a measure, something

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION 281

that cannot be defined — a human product, not only
because it is man who has created knowledge, but
because the very object of knowledge, viz. existence
(of which knowledge is, seemingly, only an effect or a
representation), far from being a thing ready-made \
from all eternity, is constantly being made by the •
action of the concrete beings which are its substance,
and, in particular, by human action, which is grounded
precisely on knowledge and on belief.

II

THE IDEA OP A PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN ACTION

It -would be difficult to arrive at a more penetrat-
ing and a more ingenious exposition as regards the
part of action in science, than that which the repre-
sentatives of pragmatism have given. But we must
ask if the character and significance of this same
action do not remain in this doctrine (at least when
it is considered apart) somewhat indeterminate : such
an inference would seem, already, to follow from the
great variety of thinkers who range themselves, or
are ranged by critics generally, under the name of
pragmatists.

An idea, a true belief, we are told, is a belief at
once verifiable, beneficial, efficacious — a belief which
pays. But the meaning of the word " pay " varies to
an unlimited extent. One man accepts payment in
hard cash alone. A Newton desires to be paid in
generalisations which shall reduce to unity the laws
of the universe. The former demands of science
material enjoyment. The latter expects from her
the pride of knowing and the supreme joy of

282 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

penetrating the structure of things. Another man
calls beneficial that which favours peace of mind, or
moral power, or harmony of ideas, or the expansion
and development of existence, or the realisation of a
society, at once united and free, cherishing the ideal
aims of humanity. Not one of these views is ex-
cluded by pragmatism : not one is logically enjoined
by it. It is a method rather than a doctrine; a
determination as regards the relation of theory to
practice, rather than a theory of practice itself.
Hence pragmatism, as such, does not exhaust the
idea of the Philosophy of Action.

Anxious to arrive at a more complete realisation,
a certain number of thinkers endeavour to show,
lying at the root of science, not only a general
predisposition towards efficacy and practice, but
action in the full sense of the word — action with
the positive marks which distinguish it from simple
intervention in the course of phenomena, and which
alone constitute it veritable action.

The doctrines which spring from this thought are,
it must be confessed, very divergent, and, in order to
understand them in their precision, we must study
them separately. They have, at least, one common
tendency which it is not impossible to make clear.

So far as it relates to science, this tendency is as
follows :

When we argue, say the representatives of a
philosophy widely circulated in recent years,1 that
the postulates, principles and definitions of science
are mere agreements, the outcome of an arbitrary
choice, we mean that — occasioned, suggested perhaps

1 See Poincare, Milhaud, Duhem, Le Roy, Hoeffding, etc.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION 283

by experience — they neither are nor can be prescribed
by it. Between experience and the concepts that we
employ with a view to its scientific interpretation,
there is solution of continuity. But it does not
follow that these concepts are artificial inventions.
The determination which is only furnished very
incompletely by things, has its final reason in the
mind itself which imagines hypotheses, which con-
structs definitions. It is not chance, it is not any
casual activity, which effects scientific method : it is
a definite activity, capable of being specified.

In the first place, the ideas by means of which
science is framed, are genuine inventions. They are
not merely contingent : they are well founded, they
are fruitful, they have that intrinsic value which
distinguishes the creations of genius from the caprices
of imagination. And these inventions are produced
throughout with a richness, a variety, an inex-
haustible novelty. Each of them struggles for
continuance, becomes modified, is adapted to the
progress of knowledge, and only succumbs in order
to call forth new inventions. Through such indica-
tions we recognise the action of a real being which
strives to establish itself, to subsist, to develop itself,
to obtrude itself. What is the nature of this being ?
It is shown in the end, with respect to which all these
creations are conceived.

The endeavour of the mind to adapt its ideas to
the facts yielded by experience, is set forth with
insistence, and rightly so. Modern science aims at
taking possession of the real world, being dissatisfied
with the sterile contemplation of an imaginary world.
But we should deceive ourselves if, adopting this
standpoint, we believed that we could eliminate the

284 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

human philosophy of the Platos and of the Aristotles
which seeks to fashion the sensible world, wherein our
intellect cannot recognise itself, into a world that
shall be intelligible.

Scientific hypotheses tend, in a general way, to
; put into the world unity, or simplicity, or continuity.
These distinctive marks are not facts of observation :
they appear, at first, as the opposite of reality. They
are even difficult to reconcile among themselves.
For, since we are given the infinite multiplicity of
the parts composing our world, the search for unity
implies that all these parts act and react upon one
another : such an assumption seems, of necessity, to
involve an inextricable complexity. Similarly, in
seeking continuity, we find ourselves discarding a
simplicity that is far better ensured by a plurality of
categories radically distinct from one another.

What, then, are these ends which science pursues,
if not laws that the mind enjoins on things, because,
being moulded in a certain way, it cannot assimilate
them as they are presented by brute experience ?

But unity, simplicity, continuity, constitute what
we term intelligibility. It is not, therefore, any
chance life of mentality which is manifested in
scientific invention : it is the special life of an
intelligence, of a reason, which has in it a certain
standard of intelligibility.

Is this all that can be said ; and is reason merely
the drudge of science ? Has the labour that she
accomplishes, any aim external to herself? Is she
solely bent on practice, using the word in its utili-
tarian sense ?

It would seem difficult to deny the existence, in
humanity, of a disinterested science, or — if the

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION 285

statement be preferred — of a science whose supreme
interest lies in scientific research. Numerous, even
to-day, are the scientists (inheritors of Greek thought)
who would say, with Aristotle, science for the sake of
science : " All occupations are more necessary than
that of the scientist, but not one of them is better."

It will be objected that these thinkers convert the
means into an end. That may be so. But this
transposition, which is regarded as erroneous, is a
great law of nature, and one of the sources of its
fecundity. Although matter may be means with
reference to life, nature displays it as if it were an
end in itself. Animal instinct, which serves man as
means only, is, for the animal, an end. The richness
of human development is due to the fact that each
individual, through a peculiar estimate of his me'tier,
believes that this me'tier is the highest and noblest
end of all. What is beauty, save certain aspects of
things, set aside and developed for their own sake ?
What is play, save the pure and simple exercise of
our faculties, considered as an end in itself? What
does it matter, after all, if we consider a thing, in
origin and according to historical evolution, as end or
as means ? The appreciation of the value attaching
to things does not depend upon their teleological
role. If man intends to place science above what is
useful, or to decree that science is, itself, the supreme
utility, how can we show him that he is wrong ? In
considering the practical judgments of men, we must
admit that they love to unsettle, in this way, the
given order of means and of ends, and to establish as
the supreme thing that which, originally, was only a
secondary and inferior object. And nearly everything
that is new and great begins thus.

286 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Science, moreover, detached from utility properly
so called, is not, by virtue of that alone, transformed
into an absolute end. It furnishes the means requisite
for the development of reason ; and reason — as Des-
cartes taught — in order to exist, to develop and to be
determined according to its nature, must be fed on
truths. Like everything that exists, reason is to be
found only as operating, as growing through her own
method even ; and it is by the aid of science (her
most perfect intellectual method) that she puts forth
the intellectual powers which lie within her.

Accordingly, science is not a work of nature, merely
providing a field for consciousness ; it is not, further,
a simple provision of receipts, indicating utility as the
sole ground of existence. It is a determinate activity
— the specifically human activity in so far as it is
reasonable and intelligent. And what has been said
about science applies equally to languages. As M.
Bre*al l has ingeniously demonstrated, languages do
not exist in the sense of having their principle of
existence and of evolution outside the human mind.
We recognise in the human mind, in the intelligence
and the will, the only true cause of language ; and
language cannot be detached therefrom, because there
is no life in it other than that which it derives from
"this same mind.

While certain scientists thus exhibit science as
immanent in the intelligent activity of man, a corre-
sponding doctrine has been put forward in regard to
religion.2

Keligion is often presented as a system of beliefs

1 Essai sur la stmantique, Paris, 1897.
2 Vide Maurice Blondel, L' Action, Paris, 1893.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION 287

and of precepts imposed on man from without. It is
shown, more or less rationally, that such an authority
has genuine grounds, that it enjoins the profession of
a particular creed, and the fulfilment of particular
practices ; moreover, religion is made to consist
entirely in obedience to this authority.

But — say the philosophers with whom we are here
concerned — while admitting that these demonstrations
are forcible, and that the articles of faith, thus imposed,
offer the mind a sufficiently clear meaning, seeing that
belief has to do with ideas rather than with words,
how can we be sure that these beliefs and these rites
will constitute for man a religion, in the sense given
by conscience (Christian conscience and tradition in
particular) to that word? Religion abides within i
the soul : it is a supernatural life. There are not two
existences — the one beside the other, and independent
of one another — for that would mean two distinct
persons : it is the individual himself, preserving his
identity when the manner of his life is infinitely
raised. How could beliefs have such an effect, if
they had no intrinsic connection with the nature of
the subject ? It is not inconceivable that a belief of
this kind — even logically based — concerns man's heart
and conscience as little as belief in the principle of
Archimedes, or in universal gravitation. If religious
beliefs were only logical l^j^fs, the acts that we term
religious would be, for mdH Bfcely external movements
in which his soul would KaM ^kshare.

But, we may contend, m^pBiiite, fallible, inclined
to evil ; and religion ought to Hoe the action of God
working within him for his transformation. How are
we to find in Nature herself a religious tendency ?
For the finite being there is only one fitting attitude

288 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

in the presence of the Infinite, viz. obedience. Or,
forsooth, do we desire that the finite, of itself, should
comprehend and include the Infinite ? That would
only be rendered possible through identity. In
maintaining such a view, we fall into the abyss of
Pantheism.

This way of reasoning, reply the philosophers of
action, would be plausible if man were nothing but
understanding. For the understanding, indeed, the
relations of things are replaced by those of their con-
cepts ; and it is very true that, after all, concepts
only admit relations of inclusion or of exclusion.
From the intellectualist's standpoint, if God and man
are not identical, they must necessarily be external to
one another. And on this supposition, the moment
that Pantheism is set aside, religion can only be, for
man, a compulsion imposed from without.

But man is not only understanding : he is yet
again — and more immediately — activity, or rather
action, i.e. constant movement towards an object
which he desires to possess as calculated to support
and enlarge his being. Now, does it not seem that
we could find, in the conditions of properly human
action, this special immanence of the supernatural
in the natural — union without absorption — which
religion claims, and which the understanding is unable
to prove ?

The action which is here in question is, properly
speaking, the action of the will, or action par
excellence.

According to the new Philosophy of Action, if only
man wills explicitly that which he wills implicitly, i.e.
if he gets a clear idea of the end whither his will
naturally tends, and if he is seriously determined to

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION 289

realise that end, he will understand that he has need
of God, of the Supernatural, in order to accomplish
his own will.

What is action ? Shall we say that a man acts,
that he acts in his capacity as man, just in so far as
he displays vigour, and seeks to convert external
objects to his own use ? For action an end is needful ;
and this end, in order to exist, in order to lead to a
veritable action, must be something else than what
Nature is able to realise with her mechanical laws.
He who acts, looks forward and upward. The laws
and the knowledge of given conditions he regards as
merely instruments for the realisation of something
new and better than what Nature would effect.

What does man really wish ? What is the initial
will that gives the impetus to his entire moral and
intellectual being ? It is in the determination of this
initial will that lies the main problem of human life.

Action aims at the realisation of a purpose. Perfect
action will be that wherein the power shall appear as
equal to the wish. But let us consider the various
modes of human — purely human — action : scientific
activity, individual action, social action, action that is
purely and simply moral. Not one of them admits
of that equality which we are seeking.

Science implies a determinism which only conceives
itself as posited freely by a mind which dominates it.
Self, society, humanity, certainly offer man aims which
respond to the leanings of his will. But it is
impossible for him to pursue these aims reflectively
without wishing to transcend them, without declaring
that they lead him, whatever may come of it, to seek
something beyond.

And thus action reveals to man the presence within

u

290 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

him of an initial will, superior to every will that is
limited to the things of this world.

Thenceforward an alternative is laid down for his
conscience. If he merely acquiesces in willing that
which is given him by experience, his will necessarily
remains unsatisfied and impotent. But if, disengag-
ing his actual will from objects which cannot satisfy,
he regulates it by that ideal will which surpasses it
no less than the whole of nature, we then perceive
that he may be able to obtain that equilibrium of will
and power which is the utmost limit of his aspiration.
Either will without power, or power through renounc-
ing, in a sense, his will : such is the alternative.
It raises in his mind the idea of a being at once
transcendent and immanent in regard to man : im-
manent, seeing that it is his will and his first impulse ;
transcendent, seeing that it is not given, and cannot
be given, in the objective world wherein his under-
standing confines him. Here is to be found the veri-
table supernatural : life, power, being, required by
human action — something, moreover, that human
action, by itself, is incapable of realising.

Between the two terms of this alternative, choice is
necessary, inevitable. All action, indeed, implies it.
And this choice, the terms of the problem being
given, can only be an act of faith, of hope and of
love, i.e. the very act which forms the basis of
religious life.

In this manner the strictly religious need is re-
ferred to the essential conditions of human action.
It is no longer a mere subjective datum, which
analysis, perhaps, may be able to dissolve and to
deprive of its prestige : it is, besides being the con-
dition of human action, the condition of all knowledge,

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION 291

of all consciousness — therefore, in the long run, of all
facts, in so far as we relate them to existence and
apprehend them as realities.

But religions do not consist solely in this secret
revelation of the self: they are presented under the
form of dogmas, which set before the mind precise
and special objects of belief, whence proceed determin-
ate rites. What is the origin and significance of these
dogmas ? l

If they had to be considered as knowledge, in the
full and scientific meaning of the word, they would
not take precedence of reason, in particular of modern
science and thought.

A dogma, in the strictly theoretical sense, is a
proposition which gives itself out as undemonstrable.
Now, the theoretical reason only allows that which is
demonstrated or demonstrable to some extent. Shall
we say that dogmas are demonstrated according to the
method of authority ? But does not modern science
make a special point of repudiating the method of
authority ?

A dogma is, in the second place, a proposition
that is incapable, even as regards statement, of being
placed on a level with clear and distinct conception.
Certainly, its titles and definitions are determinate,
settled, fixed ; and it is this which presents to the
mind the illusion of knowledge. But who can express,
in really intelligible terms, what he means by the
Divine Personality, by the action of grace within the
human soul ? Who can say, so as to satisfy his own
intelligence, what he means by God ?

i Vide Edouard Le Roy, Dogme et critique, Paris, 1907. Cf. George
Tyrrell, Fogazzaro.

292 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Magst Priester oder Weise fragen,
Und ihre Antwort scheint nur Spott
XTber den Frager zu sein.1

Lastly, if we must accept dogmas literally, why
shut our eyes to evidence? They are, taken thus,
formally irreconcilable with science.

For all these reasons, the question henceforward
resolves itself into these terms : either dogmas will
decay, or they will be understood in a sense other than
the strictly theoretical sense.

"Does the search for a dogmatic significance which
may not be essentially theoretical, constitute a daring
enterprise — the substitution of a new standpoint for
that which tradition has bequeathed ?

According to our authors, it is proved by the
actual analysis of dogmas, and by the study of their
history, that they do not give themselves out as
knowledge, above all as positive and adequate know-
ledge. Their signification is, pre-eminently, nega-
tive : " Non hoc a me, Fratres, expectatis" says St.
Augustine, " ut explicem vobis quomodo cognoscat
Deus. Hoc solum dico : Non sic cognoscit ut homo."

How are we to take, as positive, clear and distinct,
the concept of the Divine Personality ? The combina-
tion of these two words throws the mind into an abyss
of difficulties. This dogma says clearly that God
cannot be conceived as a thing, as analogous to those
objects which we know through the senses. Adopting
the statement of St. Thomas — whose faith, after all,
was cramped within Scholastic formalism — dogmas
describe divine things negatively, via remotionis :
setting aside those determinations which are unfitting.

1 Goethe, Faust : Thou canst ask priest and sage : their answer seems
but a mockery to the questioner.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION 293

Does this mean that being is therein simply con-
ceived as tantamount to nothingness — a conception
which would only give rise to an abstract affirmation,
devoid of real import ? The vague and the indefinable,
taught Leibnitz, do not signify nullity ; and it is
perfectly legitimate to suppose that we have some
effective idea of a thing, although we may not be able
to grasp it distinctly in thought — especially when we
have to do with objects which, in essence, exceed the
framework of our concepts. We live, in fact, by con-
cepts that we only understand dimly. They precede
and guide both action and scientific investigation
itself ; the latter, after all, is nothing else than an
endeavour to reduce them to distinct ideas.

Considered from the practical and moral standpoint,
dogmas become, once again, clear and positive. What
is the Divine Personality ? Having regard to the
understanding, I can make no answer. But I can
grasp immediately such a precept as this : Behave in
your relations with God as in your relations with a
person.1

If a dogma is, before all else, a practical precept,
it does not follow that the theoretical forms under
which dogmas are usually presented to men, are
contemptible or indifferent.

These forms are necessary : human action is not
cut off from thought, any more than true thought is
separable from action. The action which is the cause
of dogma is thought-action, i.e. action united to an
idea which, by reason of being vague (as it inevitably
must be, through the disproportion of its object to our
understanding), is no less an outline of intellectual
intuition, an incentive to thought, a source of con-

1 Le Roy, Dogme tt critique, p. 25.

294 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

ceptions and representations. Dogma is not, therefore,
an exclusively practical proposition : it contains a
theoretical element. Even within man's spirit, the
letter has power.

Now, it is natural and expedient that the letter be
brought out and developed.

Pure intuition, stripped of all representation, is
imperceptible for consciousness, and incommunicable.
Language with its infinite efflorescence, science with
its system of symbols, our external world itself with
the various relations of which it is composed, are only
signs adopted by man for the purpose of noting his
impressions and communicating them to his fellows.
And all thought leads to expression, all activity is
productive of forms.

Thus, from dogma itself radiate forms calculated
to fix it before the mind, and to furnish man with
the means of making it a subject of discussion.

And, in accordance with the fundamental law of
knowledge, these forms, in order to realise the intelli-
gibility and communicability of which they ought
to be the instruments, are adapted to the categories
actually present in the minds which receive them.
We may say of the mind what we say of the body :
it is fed only upon substances which can become its
own substance.

That is why, in the speculative theories with which
dogmas are enveloped in order to become imaginable
and intelligible, one recognises, from age to age, the
scientific and philosophical ideas which represent the
successive states of human wisdom. How can we
reproach man with consecrating to the service of God
the choicest productions of which his intelligence is
capable ?

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION 295

The history of dogmas, nevertheless, serves to
remind him that the divine law is essentially practical,
and that the meaning concealed within it transcends
absolutely all the illustrations and explanations that
man may attempt to offer. Intellectual study which,
in its very essence, is relative to the conditions of
intelligibility in a given society, can do no more,
with respect to religious dogmas, than furnish symbols,
i.e. a language always useful, always perfectible and
provisional.

In this manner have been constituted, in our day,
by parallel paths rather than by common consent,
a philosophy of science and a philosophy of religion —
both of them founded upon the conditions of human
action. If we compare these two philosophies, we
find that their agreement is sufficient to admit of
their being combined into one whole under the title
of the Philosophy of Action.

On two sides the notion of life is considered as
fundamental. On two sides life, becoming conscious
of itself, is expressed through symbols which the
understanding creates — forms at once stable and
variable, analogous to the provisionally fixed types
which mark the stages of evolution in Nature.

It is, moreover, a single life, human life in so far
as it is special and superior, which is, on either side,
the end to be realised. The Philosophy of Action is
thus, as it were, the common stem from which branch
off science and religion. Their distinction is explained,
accordingly, as well as their connection. For human
activity properly so called has two essential forms :
the activity of the intellect and the activity of the
will. Science is the expansion of the first ; religion,

296 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

the full realisation of the second. However incom-
mensurable may be the world (the object of science)
and God (the object of religion), they are reunited in
man, whose nature, in its unity, partakes of both.

This philosophy — so its representatives think —
enables us to conceive the relation between religion
and science in a more inward and spiritual way than
was possible for the adherents of intellectualism.

Science furnishes man with the means of external
action. Through her, he can translate his will into
movements more and more adapted to impose it upon
th$ material world.

But it is natural that human activity, endowed
with such a power, should inquire into its own
principle and end. It is through the raising of this
question that a way is opened into the religious
sphere. Eeligion is that higher wisdom which offers
an end worthy of such an activity, and which com-
municates to it the secret power requisite for willing
this end adequately and efficaciously.

In developing the idea of science and the idea of
religion, the mind sees them, thereby, come together.

The last word of science is the reduction of Nature
to intelligible symbols, which place her at man's
disposal. But, however exalted be the objects
through which the universe is explained, they are
conceived by man — they do not embrace man. Man,
if he reflects, asks himself what they are worth —
whether he ought to be absorbed in them or to make
use of them. Man, particularly modern man, who
has become keenly aware of the immensity of life,
and, especially, of the splendours of moral and
religious life, uses his intellect to examine the claims
of the intellect itself. In the name of that secret

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION 297

import of truth which constitutes the ultimate ground
of reason, he asks if the intellect, as it is realised in
science, is sufficient in itself and satisfies his human
sentiment. Now, to put such a question, is already
to imagine the possibility of religion.

On her side, religion would have man be a co-
worker with God. She does not, therefore, despise
human faculties. She expects the human mind to
apply its own language — the whole of the signs and
forms at its disposal — to the expression, as profound,
true and adequate as possible, of that which, in itself,
altogether surpasses human language. More than
this : religion has, evidently, not the sole intention
of urging upon individuals a confined and solitary
life. God has not withdrawn from the world : he
carries on his work therein. Religion, therefore, calls
upon man, by means of that science which brings
him material power, to do his share in labouring for
the coming of the Kingdom of God.

Thus understood, the relation between religion
and science combines, according to the thinkers with .
whom we are dealing, two conditions which, contrary
in appearance, are no less equally necessary : funda- \
mental unity and respective independence.

That which constitutes the unity of science and
of religion is human action, from which they both
spriDg, and which finds in them the means of realising
itself in all its fulness.

That which guarantees their independence is the
general property, inherent in life, of allowing, simul-
taneously, different developments, which would appear
incompatible if we judged them solely by the concepts
which represent them. The contradictions which
the analyst finds in the human heart, seem to him

298 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

inexplicable. They are only contradictions from the
logician's abstract point of view. In reality they are
different manifestations of life. Life is bounteous,
and tends to bring into existence all that is capable
of being. It would even appear that she delights in
presenting the coexistence of extremes — what we
call opposites.

Science and religion are two moments of human
life. The one is that life in its expansion towards
the external world; the other is that same life,
turned, on the contrary, towards its own principle —
towards the principle of all life, and drawing thence
the power of reaching infinitely beyond itself. The
difference between these two developments is such
that they cannot in any way contradict one another.
Each of them can, practically, be conceived as
independent and autonomous.

Science and religion, it is true, necessarily meet
on a common ground — that of the forms and concepts
which correspond to natural facts. But, according to
the Philosophy of Action, neither for religion nor yet
for science, do these concepts constitute adequate
expressions of the truth. Two systems with more or
less different symbols are not an offence for the
human mind, which accommodates itself to them, up
to a certain point, even in science ; and inquiry into
the agreement of the symbols of religion with those
of science can, in imitation of bygone times, be prose-
cuted again nowadays without religion having to
sacrifice anything ; j ust as the thought of an ancient
author need not be modified in order to be given
us translated into present speech, when the current
translations have become unintelligible.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION 299
III

CRITICAL REMARKS

The Philosophy of Action is an effort well worthy
of attention. It is an endeavour to find in conscious-
ness, in being, as it is immediately given us, a principle
more profound than the intellect, capable of removing
the contrasts which the intellect leaves standing, and
of procuring, in this way, the fundamental unity of
the soul's various powers with their free and full
development. This philosophy, still in its infancy,
though it may have germinated under cover of the
great classical systems, is destined, perhaps, to make
much further progress. And, maybe, it will increas-
ingly bring satisfaction to minds eager for knowledge
as well as for wide, overflowing and generous life.
Under its present form, it would seem to be only
partially successful in solving the difficulties which
have to be faced.

And, we may begin by asking, is the agreement
which it establishes between science and religion, as
real, as clearly defined, as would appear at first sight ?

Activity, we are told, is the common origin of
both. What activity is here in question ?

Is it a bare and indeterminate activity? Then
several questions are involved. Of what value is an
indeterminate activity ? How is such an activity to
be distinguished from a mere power of change, or
even from mechanical forces which produce aimless
movements ? The fact that a movement is accompanied
by consciousness, does not suffice to constitute it a
thing of supreme worth, capable of establishing both

300 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

science and religion. If consciousness is, with respect
to this activity, only a passive sensation and an
epiphenomenon, its presence has a merely speculative
interest.

We may, indeed, shun this difficulty through taking
as our principle, no longer .an indeterminate activity,
but human activity as such, i.e. the determinate
action that man ought to accomplish in order to be
truly man, in order to carry out his human metier to
the fullest extent. But then it would seem that we
are only avoiding one obstacle to encounter another.

Human activity, we are told, has two determina-
tions, two directions, viz. intellect and will. Through
its development as intellect it produces science ;
through its realisation as will it leads to religion.
The relation between religion and science is thus
reduced to the relation between intellect and will.
But, in that case, the difficulty is only changed. For
the question of the relations between intellect and
will — even when we consider both, not as ready-made
faculties, but as real spiritual activities — remains
obscure and subject to various solutions. And the
dualism that we expected to surmount through trans-
ferring the problem from the sphere of concepts to
that of action, may reappear with all its difficulties.

Whatever be the way in which the Philosophy of
Action reconciles religion and science, can we say
that this philosophy furnishes, henceforward, a true
theory of each of them, taken apart ?

The Philosophy of Action multiplies, in vain,
analyses and clever arguments : it finds difficulty in
persuading the scientists that science not only invents
all the concepts, all the standards by which she

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION 301

encompasses phenomena, but fabricates phenomena
themselves. Desirous, henceforth, of showing that
all our knowledge is and must continue insuperably
relative, science, on her part, readily multiplies the
proofs of man's contingent intervention in all scientific
achievement. But if the attempt is made to carry
this demonstration to its furthest limit, and to infer
that fact itself exists through human invention, she
protests. It is just because fact, in some way, is
within us, while, at the same time, incommensurable
with our definite standards, that we are compelled to
put forth so much mental effort to determine it, and
that the results obtained by us are never more than
approximations, imperfect and provisional acquisitions.

On the other hand, as regards the work accom-
plished by the mind for the purpose of creating
scientific symbols, the scientist is bound to admit
that we have only to do, here, with purely arbitrary
operations which, in the end, are merely conventional.
These operations are determined by certain intellectual
principles ; they tend to bring within our knowledge
things that are intelligible; they correspond to an
ideal that we set before ourselves. They imply, in
short, what we call reason, the sense of being, of
order, of harmony.

That is why scientific pragmatism, when it comes
to be developed, has ill success in maintaining its
initial statements, but returns more or less to the
affirmation of being, of reason, which formed the
basis of the classic theory of science.

Still, it may be urged, who knows if objective
reality itself may not be pure action, may not be
fluid and essentially unstable continuity ?

Modern evolutionary science is ready to face a

302 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

reality of this kind. She will not, by way of
discipline, renounce her idea of being, of fact and
of objectivity. But she will strive, continuously, to
verify and note the given state of things, then to
bind together these successive states, according to
laws. Unquestionably, experimental success is the
sole criterion. But the scientist does not conclude
thence that the future is partly indeterminate, and
that he can himself, in reality, create the fact which
will verify his conceptions. On the very ground of
faith in the number of antecedents requisite for the
production of the phenomenon, he maintains his
deterministic standpoint, because he considers this
faith, itself, as the outcome of laws.

What is this but to say that science, in proportion
as she becomes more aware of her own conditions and
activity, deviates from radical pragmatism and from
the philosophy which places action before intellect
instead of making it end there ?

At all events, does religion, as the Philosophy of
Action develops it, remain unchanged in essence ?

It is assumed, at the outset, that everything which
appeals to the understanding is an expression, a
symbol, a vehicle of religion, but is not religion itself.
According to this view, the religious sphere would be
composed exclusively of practice, of life.

But, in reality, all feeling, all religious action
involves ideas, concepts, theoretical knowledge.
What will be left, when, from religion as it is given
us, we shall have, actually, eliminated every intel-
lectual element 1

This argument is overlooked, however, and prag-
matists demonstrate the existence, within the mind,

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION 303

of a principle distinct from thought, even as Diogenes
demonstrated movement by the fact. Man acts, and
action is irreducible to concept.

But what is this same action ? For we must
certainly have some idea of it, in order that we may
discover therein the foundation of religion.

It is, acute philosophers tell us, human action in
its widest meaning. It is not the particular operation
of such or such faculty : it is man in his entirety,
uniting all his powers in order to reach out towards
his end. Truths that we have begun by making, in
a sense, our life, through aiming at full self-realisa-
tion, become — discerned and elaborated by the under-
standing— doctrines and objects of belief.

Assuredly, it is the task of man to bring together
and combine, in this way, all the powers which he
has at command, in order to labour towards the
fulfilment of his destiny. But the intellect, in this
total operation, has no less share than the other
faculties ; and its r61e will necessarily consist in
checking, by means of its concepts, the operation of
the other faculties. We are no longer obliged, under
this view, to regard practice as independent of theory.

Are we to infer, then, that the special operation of
the will is meant ? But the will requires an end ; and
can it be said that an intelligible formula is offered
the mind in the suggestion of a will which takes
itself for end — which has no object other than its
own principle ?

Throughout these ingenious theories, search is
made for action as self-sufficing, and as not dependent
upon any of the concepts by which we may endeavour
to explain it or to justify it ; pure action, action in
itself — that is the aim.

304 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

What is this but to maintain that, whether we
will or no, an indeterminate pragmatism again con-
fronts us ? We can speak of human pragmatism, if
human action, taken in itself, be the supreme rule ;
of divine pragmatism, if divine action, conceived as
outside all intellectual determination, is to be made
the basis of human action.

Action existing solely for and through action ;
pure practice producing, maybe, concepts, but not
depending, itself, upon any concept, — does such an
abstract pragmatism still deserve the name of religion ?
And are we not involving ourselves in an endless
process, when we try to find in practice, apart from
theory, the essence and the only true principle of
religious life ?

Is it not when we connect a deed with a particular
belief that we use the phrase : religious deed ? Surely,
what we call a symbol and a vehicle is, in some way,
an integral part of religion ?

CHAPTER IV

WILLIAM JAMES AND RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

I. DOCTRINE OP W. JAMES ON RELIGION — His point of view :
religion as personal and inward life — Method : radical em-
piricism— The psycho-physiological soil in which religious
feeling begins to grow — Mysticism — Religious experience
properly so called ; elementary belief — The value of religious
experience — The pragmatistic point of view — The theory of
the subliminal self as a scientific basis — Over-beliefs. j

II. DOCTRINE OF W. JAMES ON THE RELATION BETWEEN RELIGION
AND SCIENCE — Science and religion, two keys with which to
opgn nature's treasuries — The psychology of the range of
consciousness, replaced by the psychology of states of conscious-
ness— Religion and science differ as concrete and abstract.

III. CRITICAL REMARKS — Remarkable reinstatement of religion in
human nature, and its strong position with respect to science —
Difficulty : Has religious experience objective value ? — Uni-
versal subjectivism would not be a solution — Faith, the
integral element of all experience — The essential role of
symbols — The value of the social side of religion.

WHILE theologians, scientists and philosophers —
eager for definitions, for arguments, for proofs —
wasted their energies in trying to establish the logical
possibility of religion, of science, and of their harmony,
there have always been found men for whom all this
subtle investigation was superfluous, inasmuch as they
lived by a conviction grounded on a principle that
outweighs in value all argument, viz. experience.

305 x

3o6 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Such souls are called mystics. For them the objects
of religion are given, and quite as immediately certain
as are, for the scientist, the facts which he seeks to
conform to laws.

The spirit of the mystical method is to be found
once again in certain contemporary doctrines, exempt
from ecclesiastical prejudice, but especially constituted
so as to agree with living reality. The finest illustra-
tion of this tendency may be seen in the doctrine of
Eeligious Experience as expounded by the psycho-
logical specialist, William James — that profound and
delicate thinker whose literary style is so captivating.1

THE DOCTRINE OF W. JAMES ON RELIGION

What standpoint ought we to adopt, if we would
realise that which, in religion, is characteristic and
essential ? According to William James, of the two
aspects under which religion is presented, the external
aspect and the internal aspect, the second is the
superior. It is of no consequence that, chronologically,
the various religions may have appeared as institutions
before being displayed as personal life : at bottom,
they are the creations of those religious geniuses who
founded the institutions. At all events, personal
religion has, in the course of ages, repelled institutions,
and, henceforward, they will only continue if they are
upheld by believing and pious souls.

It is not, therefore, simply because psychology is
his special study, it is because he sees in personal

1 William James, The Will to Believe, 1897 ; The Varieties of Eeligious
Experience, 1902.

WILLIAM JAMES 307

religion the groundwork of religion, that William
James sets himself to examine religious phenomena
from the single standpoint of psychology.

The method employed by him is that which he
regards as in conformity with psychology properly
so called : what may be named radical empiricism.
This phrase, ordinarily used to designate a system,
can be retained, even by those who reject the system,
for the purpose of characterising a method. Imputing
to psychology the atomic hypothesis, we have sought
too long — in the data of consciousness — so-called
simple facts or psychical atoms, in order to establish
between them connections analogous to those which
are formulated by physical laws. Such elements
neither are, nor can be, given. They are inventions
of the systematic mind. That which is given, in
psychology, is always a certain field of consciousness,
embracing a multiplicity and a diversity shifting and
incessant. It is under this figure, the only true one,
that we may hope to understand religious phenomena.

We must, in the first place, consider the psycho-
physiological totality of which they form part ;
then gradually distinguish concomitant and kindred
phenomena, and push forward, in this way, to the
determination of the strictly religious element.

This task accomplished, another is enjoined : that
of determining the value of the fact thus revealed by
analysis.

(a) The Nature of Religious Experience

It was formerly possible to imagine that religious
facts were unique of their kind, and for a long time
they were treated as such. But absolutely singular

3o8 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

facts would be doubtful facts, the progress of know*
ledge leading us generally to discover continuity just
where superficial observation has made us believe in
unbridgeable gaps. To this law of continuity religious
phenomena offer no exception. They belong to a
class of phenomena ever more clearly defined, that of
the modifications of personality.

""The study of these phenomena among the subjects
in whom they are produced with most intensity —
such as those who suffer from nervous disorder or are
temperamentally disposed towards mysticism — makes
us recognise, as belonging to human nature in general,
the characteristics which are, so to speak, the soil
from which the religious consciousness springs.

The hallucinations of certain subjects, for instance,
are specially remarkable : instead of attaining their
full development, which is made manifest by the
appearance, in the imagination of the subject, of a
concrete object similar to those that carry meaning
for us, they stop at a stage wherein the subject has a
sense of presence and of reality, without any definite
image (or even any image whatsoever) appearing to
him. And this bare presence produces faith, and
this faith determines action. In like manner, the
moral imperatives of Kant, without being, in any
way, objects of sensible representation or of theoretical
knowledge, determine in the soul a practical and
efficacious faith.

Now, certain mystics experience analogous states.
An object which they conceive as the Divine Being,
but of which they have no representation, is given
them as real, and affects their heart and their will ;
and the sense of this reality and of this action is,
for them, all the stronger in that they conceive

WILLIAM JAMES 309

the object as pure reality, stripped of every sensible
image.

This sense of presence, apart from every object
of perception, has never, says William James, been
properly explained by Eationalism. It outlives, for
the subject who experiences it, all arguments which
are given him with a view to proving it illusory :
belief in the reality of sense-objects, for example.
But pathological cases only differ, apparently, in
degree from the phenomena of normal life. There •
is, therefore, every reason for allowing that man
possesses a sense of reality other than that which is
comprised in the working of his ordinary senses.

Another indication of the religious consciousness is
inherent optimism or pessimism, and a remarkable
development of this is seen in certain neuropaths.

We may divide men into two categories : those
who, in order to be happy, have only to be born
once, and those who, congenitally unhappy, need
a new birth: "once-born" and "twice-born" char-
acters.

The first are naturally and instinctively optimists.
They see the world governed by beneficent powers,
who are bent on deriving good from evil itself. And
this optimistic faith is wonderfully effective in over-
coming evil and in obtaining happiness.

Opposite the born optimists Nature sets the pessi-
mistic temperaments. The latter are haunted by the
sense of an irremediable misery. All performance, all
existence, seems to them to end in failure. They
cannot reflect upon the objects of our desire without
seeing futility in them — upon the causes of our joy
without piercing through them to emptiness. But
chiefly, reflection upon their own deeds, upon their

3io SCIENCE AND RELIGION

thoughts, upon their inmost wants, afflicts them
throughout with a cruel malady : scrupulosity. Worry,
anxiety, persistency in fretting — this secret ill follows
them everywhere. How can they be freed from it ?
The melancholiac has a distinct feeling that the charm
of life is a free gift, that the elect alone are entitled
to taste it. If healing is possible, it can only come
through a supernatural intervention.

Certain neuropaths present a remarkable particu-
larity— what may be called the divided self. There
are within them two selves : the one pessimistic,
the other optimistic; the one mediocre, the other
well endowed. And they are impotent to recon-
cile these two characters. We are reminded of the
duality which St. Paul found within him, and which
he expressed in the familiar passage : " What I would,
that do I not ; but what I hate, that do I."

Lastly, the conversions — sometimes instantaneous
— of individuals, the revivals which take sudden
possession of an entire multitude, are connected with
a phenomenon classed among neuro-psychical affec-
tions : the substitution, more or less abrupt and
complete, of one personality for another within the
same consciousness.

Thus religious manifestations are not, for man,
adventitious and foreign expressions : they form part
of a group of manifestations which result from human
nature itself.

This is not tantamount to saying that religious
phenomena may be identified with the pathological
states which resemble them. Even genius, in an
altogether superior way, has for condition a rupture
of equilibrium in the organism, and is accompanied

WILLIAM JAMES 311

by abnormal manifestations. Concentration of energyj
upon one faculty means the withdrawal of that faculty;
from others : superiority in a particular domain in-i
volves almost feebleness and insufficiency in others.
Keligion, in proportion as it is the more mingled with
enthusiasm, must therefore be a rupture of equilibrium,
a frenzy.

It cannot be defined through organic conditions
which, so far as we are able to judge, may be sensibly
identical for phenomena that are absolutely different
as regards their role in our life. It ought to be
considered in itself, according to the immediate feeling
of consciousness.

This feeling is indescribable. Viewed from without, )
it enters — like all that is viewed from without — into ]
such or such category of the understanding : to see \
from without is to assimilate. But, for the subject,
it is unique — possessing originality, richness, fulness
in the highest degree ; no one can speak about it,
except he who has experienced it.

As far as it is possible to suggest the idea through
words, it is a feeling of intimate and perfect harmony,
of peace, of joy ; it is the feeling that all is well with-
out us and within us. It is not a passive and inert
feeling. It is the consciousness of sharing in a power
greater than our own, and the longing to cooperate,
with that power, in works of love, of concord and of
peace. It is, in short, the exaltation of life — of life
as creative energy, and of life as harmoniousness
and joy.

Sometimes, as with those whom we have called
the once-born men, this feeling is, from the start,
installed within the soul : religion is then a constant
impression of order, of love, of power, of confidence,

3i2 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

of security ; it is a spontaneous and unalterable
optimism. With those, on the contrary, who, in
order to be at peace with themselves, need to be
regenerated, the desire for religion is made manifest
by anxiety, dissatisfaction with self and with things ;
and the second birth is signalised by what is felt to
be a shifting of the seat of personal energy. Instead
of saying no! to everything that happens to him,
the regenerate man will say yes ! Instead of falling
back upon himself, he will seek out others with affec-
tion and with devotion, urged by a sense of genuine
brotherhood. Henceforward he looks at everything
in a new light, he reacts, after another manner, in
response to all actions that affect him. And those
who, in this way, obtain good through overcoming
evil, have probably a wider career before them, and
can reach a higher perfection than those who, from
birth, find their lot an easy one. Every victory is,
for the twice-born man — for the man who strives and
who knows the cost of the struggle, — the prelude of a
fresh victory.

From these observations it follows that religion is
essentially a matter of personal concern. In reality
there are as many forms of religious experience as
there are religious individuals. Eeligion is bound
up with life; and everybody lives according to his
own temperament and bent of genius.

Several traits of the religious consciousness are
brought out in strong relief through the consideration
of certain phenomena or of certain subjects,

Prayer, that religious act par excellence, implies
the conviction that, thanks to the action of a Being
who transcends our self and our world in their
finitude, events can be realised, either within us or

WILLIAM JAMES 313

without us, which this world could not have brought
about.

Conversion is accompanied by the sense of a
supernatural action which, abruptly or progressively,
transforms our being in a profound and definitive
fashion.

In mystical states, the subject recognises his
union with God, as well as the shifting of his centre
of personal energy which results from this union.
Mystical states could otherwise be mistaken for
aberrations of the religious sentiment : they are the
extreme form of that consciousness of the individual's
exaltation through fusion with a greater than self,
which is inherent in religious life, i.e. in religion.

The study of such phenomena as prayer and the
mystical state makes clear this fact — that, although
religion may be at first mere feeling, intellectual
elements, beliefs, ideas, are always more or less involved
therein. Prayer makes prominent the faith or initial
belief which appears inseparable from religious emotion.
The religious man considers himself as related to a
superior being, with whom he can come into the closest
union, and who will grant him a self-harmony, a joy, a
power, that, of himself alone, he could never secure.

This belief comprises all the intellectualism that
can be found in elementary religious experience. But
human imagination and intellect, eager to fashion
models of things and to arrive at an explanation of
them, formulate additional beliefs and theories which
are increasingly determinate and intellectual, and
which, by degrees, transform religion properly so
called into theology and philosophy : an efflorescence
in some degree natural, seeing that it follows from the
tendencies of human nature ; yet adventitious, for it

3i4 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

does not form part of the simple development of
religious experience, but exists as the combination of
that experience with the various acquisitions of the
intellect.

(b) The Value of Religious Experience

Such are religious facts, regarded from a purely
descriptive standpoint. It would not be permissible
to rest content with this study, and to set aside, as
out of date, the question of estimating the religious
consciousness, and of learning to what extent its
beliefs are rationally justifiable.

William James approaches this second task from
the Pragmatistical standpoint.

There are, says he, two kinds of judgments :
existential judgments concerning origin, and spiritual
judgments relating to value. The second kind of
judgment has nothing to do with the first. Whence-
soever an idea or a feeling may come, if the idea is
verified by fact, if the feeling is fruitful and bene-
ficial, this idea, this feeling, have all the perfection
that the word value can represent.

The determination of value ought, moreover, to be
made, as well as the determination of the fact itself,
according to an entirely empirical method. An idea,
a belief, a feeling, possess value if experience confirms
them, i.e. if the event corresponds to the expectation
that they contain.

This being so, for him who would know the value
of religion, consideration of its existential conditions,
of its origins, of its genesis, is beside the mark. It is
valuable in so far as it is productive.

It is, therefore, exclusively by its fruits (adopting

WILLIAM JAMES 315

the Gospel phrase) that William James will judge the
tree. He will try to discover what, in truth, are the
effects of religious emotion — if these effects are good
and desirable, and if they can be obtained in any
other way than that of religion.

The fruits of the religious life are to be found in
Saintliness. It is possible that the manifestations of
saintliness : devotion, charity, strength of soul, purity,
austerity, obedience, poverty, humility, may some-
times be exaggerated and of doubtful value. It is
no less certain that, where it is inspired by the
religious principle properly so called, saintliness in-
creases, in the world, the sum of moral energy, of
kindness, of harmony and of happiness. Doubtless,
the ascetic does not always make the best use of his
strength of soul : he readily attributes an excessive
importance to the life of the body. But he manifests
the capabilities of will. He creates energy and power.
Now, it is a mistake to suppose that man can exist
without struggle, and that heroism, henceforward,
must be regarded as a thing of the past. Nature has
not formed man, he obtrudes himself upon her. He
only lives and grows through maintaining and in-
creasing human energy. His very existence depends
on continual self-renewal and re-creation. The saints,
with their ideal of love and peace, may be ill adapted
to the community wherein they live. What are we
to infer from this ? Does the saint, does the mendi-
cant, personify the human ideal ? If the saint is at
variance with his time, it is because, in advance, he
strives to fit himself for a more perfect society ; and,
in thinking of it as already existing, he contributes
towards its realisation.

3i6 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

The efficacy of religion is not only moral. The
Gospel tells us that Jesus came to heal the sick,
without distinguishing between sickness of body and
sickness of soul. His word gave health of soul to
fishermen, sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, life
to the dead. In other words, purity of heart and
faith in the beneficent almightiness of the Creator,
influence even man's physical condition to an extent
that we cannot measure.

Das Wunder 1st dea Glaubens liebstes Kind.1

That is not all : among the effects that faith
produces there are some for which it is a condition,
not only sufficient, but necessary. Neither indi-
viduals nor communities have yet discovered else-
where an equal source of disinterestedness, of energy
and of perseverance. Just where man believes that
he can act through material means, he adds thereto,
knowingly or unknowingly, what is to-day called
" suggestion " ; and frequently it is suggestion that
proves effective rather than the material means. In
this way are cures wrought by the doctor, who,
indeed, frankly allows that all treatment of disease is
partially suggestive. Now, whether for the patient,
or for the doctor, the suggestion that is here in
question implies faith in the healing power of nature
and in the efficacy of faith itself; such a belief is
analogous to religious belief.

Eeligion is useful, and, in certain cases, irreplace-
able : what more do we need in order to call it true ?
If truth is, in the last analysis, that which is, that
which continues, and that which engenders, religion

1 Goethe, Faust : Miracle is the beloved child of faith.

WILLIAM JAMES 317

is quite as true as our belief in natural beings and
forces.

In given religions, however, are involved special
beliefs which cannot be connected directly with
observable facts. Of what value are these beliefs ?

Two ways of proving their legitimacy have been
attempted, viz. that of Mysticism, and that of
Philosophy.

According to the mystics, there should be —
particularly in certain subjects — a perception of God
and divine things, similar to perception of the
material world. Not that the subject can define
and describe that which appears to him. But he
has, in certain privileged moments, the irresistible
impression that his feeling is knowledge, that he
sees with the heart. And, although our concepts
and our words may be insufficient for interpreting
this singular intuition, the imagination seems able
to combine them so as to cause, in the soul that
has had the experience, a reawakening of these
supernatural states. Perhaps music also has at
command similar accents, direct and spiritual in a
sense, which our spatial and traditional language fails
to express.

It is, no doubt, true that mystics are powerless to
prove the truth of their intuitions and the value of
their experiences. Still, it has to be allowed that
mysticism, through the suprasensible significance
which it adds to the ordinary data of consciousness,
strengthens and makes more efficacious the religious
sentiment. If it does not furnish the knowledge
that we are led to expect, it brings, at least, fresh

318 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

arguments for maintaining, against Kationalism, the
original reality and power of religious emotion.

For their part, certain thinkers believe that they
are on the way to prove, in a rational manner, the
objective truth of religious conceptions : they are
philosophers proper. According to William James,
all the philosophico-theological arguments which have
in view the demonstration of God's existence, and
the determination of his attributes, are illusory. In
fact, only those notions have a real content which are
interpreted by the differences in practical conduct.
But all these speculative constructions have no
bearing upon life.

Does this mean that every attempt to connect the
religious sentiment with the nature of things, and to
determine its objective significance, is necessarily
barren ?

As a matter of fact, in the religious senti-
ment itself, however strictly we limit it, there is
implied a faith which claims to be objective in its
range : faith in the existence of a Being, greater
and better than ourselves, who, in communicating
with our consciousness, shifts the centre of our
personality.

Can we regard this faith as legitimate, or is it,
indeed, merely the metaphorical expression of a
subjective somewhat that we cannot hope to under-
stand in the least ?

On this fundamental question William James
thinks that new light has been cast through a dis-
covery which only dates from 1886, but which
appears destined to have a brilliant future — that
of subconscious psychical states, or (following the

WILLIAM JAMES 319

terminology which Myers l has made current) of the
Subliminal Self.

Long ago Leibnitz loved to repeat that there are
far more things in the soul than those which conscious-
ness perceives ; that innumerable lesser perceptions
are to be found therein, exerting an influence greater
than we imagine ; that, through these subconscious
perceptions, man is brought into communication with
the Universe, so that nothing happens in it without
some echo being produced in each one of us. These
lesser perceptions were, for Leibnitz, the very
substance of feelings. And if, from the standpoint
of knowledge, feeling was very inferior to thought,
from the standpoint of being, it realised a participation
of the individual in the life and in the harmony of
the Whole, infinitely greater than that which our
distinct perception could claim.

The theory set forth by Myers is an experimental
transposition of these views of Leibnitz.

According to Myers, we may consider human
personality as composed of three concentric circles :
(1) the seat or central part; (2) the margin, which
extends round the centre to a limit marked by the
disappearance (at least seemingly) of consciousness ;
but (3), beyond the very limit of this marginal self,
Myers believes that he has demonstrated experi-
mentally the existence of another self, in comparison
with which the preceding two — differing only in
degree — make but one : the self situated beneath the
threshold of consciousness, the subconscious or sub-
liminal self. We encounter here a kind of second
consciousness, which, in ordinary life, is unknown to
consciousness properly so called. For certain subjects,

1 Myers, Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death, 1903.

320 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

in certain circumstances, the existence and efficacy of
this subconsciousness are made manifest in a direct
and sure fashion. This is what Myers tries to prove
in his account of various more or less exceptional
observations.

Even in man as normally constituted we find
many facts which seem inexplicable ; now this theory
accounts for them very well. Thus, man verifies
within him the presence of faculties which do not
conduce to the preservation of the species, and which,
consequently, cannot be developed under the sole
influence of the law of natural selection. The pro-
ductions of genius are like revelations of a world
other than our own. In a general way, man's ideal
aspirations are disproportionate to his actual condition.

These facts are explained if we admit that, on the
side of his being which transcends his conscious self,
man is related to another world than that which
comes within the reach of his senses — to beings whom,
for this reason, we may call spiritual. Accordingly,
this theory gives a very satisfactory interpretation of
the most characteristic religious phenomena.

Conversion, for instance, would be regarded as the
more or less sudden introduction, in the field of
normal consciousness, of dispositions which have been
formed and accumulated secretly within the sub-
liminal self.

In a similar manner, mystical states would be
the consequence of an interpenetration — realisable by
certain subjects — of the subliminal region and of the
supraliminal region. The subliminal self communi-
cating, in fact, with a world inaccessible to the
ordinary self, the latter, confronted by realities ex-
ceeding its power of apprehension and of expression,

WILLIAM JAMES 321

would remain dumfounded, or would endeavour to
obtain some representation of the supernatural visi-
tant proportioned to its normal condition.

Lastly, prayer would be nothing else than an
appeal from the ordinary self to powers with whom
the subconscious self, underlying the ordinary self, is
able to enter into communion.

And thus the doctrine of the subliminal self would
secure an objective foundation and a scientific value
for the elementary belief immediately involved in
religious fact. That belief consists in affirming the
existence of an external power whose action the
religious man experiences. Now, according to the
doctrine of the divided self, the determinations of the
subliminal self which enter into the ordinary self are
not explained by the history of that self; they take
objective form, following the general law of its per-
ceptions, and give the subject the impression that he
is dominated by a foreign influence. As, moreover,
the subliminal self contains faculties higher and more
powerful than those of the ordinary self, the latter is
justified in connecting the inspirations derived there-
from with a Being, not only external, but superior
to it.

It may, therefore, be said that, in affirming its
relation to a greater-than-self whence proceed salva-
tion, power and joy, the religious consciousness
expresses a genuine fact, and that, in this way, the
reality of the object of religious experience is given
in that same experience.

It is otherwise with the special beliefs relating
to the exact nature of the mysterious realities with
which our subliminal self communicates. These are

Y

322 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

undemonstrable for the theory of the subliminal self,
as well as for mysticism and for philosophy. They
are over-beliefs, i.e. beliefs added by the imagination,
by the intellectual and moral temperament of com-
munities and of individuals.

Undemonstrable, they are not, on that account,
to be deemed valueless. We must remember that
religion is an essentially personal matter. It ought,
in its effect upon the individual, to shift the centre
of his personality, to transport him from the region
of egoistic and material emotions into that of spiritual
emotions. Now, if this phenomenon implies, before
all else, an action originating beyond the conscious
self and producing a change in it, the explanations,
ideas and beliefs which the understanding intercalates
between the cause and the effect, are themselves
capable of exercising an influence upon the disposi-
tions of the conscious self, upon its readiness to
receive the inspirations of the higher self. And the
conditions of the religious impression necessarily vary
with periods and circumstances, with the knowledge
and growth of individuals. It is, therefore, not only
tolerable, it is desirable that every one shall view the
religious phenomenon in the way which is, for him,
the most efficacious.

William James, for his part, without pretending
to attribute to his own over-beliefs the same value
as to the fundamental belief immediately involved
in the religious phenomenon, adopts, with regard to
several important points, the affirmations of positive
religion.

The invisible world, he holds, is not merely ideal :
it produces effects in our world. It is, accordingly,
very natural to conceive it as a reality corresponding

WILLIAM JAMES 323

to what religion calls God. Similarly, it is well to
believe that "we and God have business with each
other," and that, "in opening ourselves to his influ-
ence, our deepest destiny is fulfilled."

Besides, as man's destiny is clearly linked with that
of other beings, the religious person, in order to gain
confidence in things and the inward pea'ce for which
he longs, must needs believe that the same God to
whom he is related, supports and governs the entire
world, in such a way as to be not only our God, but
the God of the Universe.

Lastly — and here William James, without any
dissimulation, deserts the camp of the scientists to
range himself on the side of popular opinion — since
every fact is, after all, particular, since universals are
but Scholastic abstractions without reality, we must
attribute to God no mere general and transcendent
providence : he is not the God of the religious con-
sciousness if he is incapable of giving ear to our
prayers, and of attending to our individual wants.
The practical God in whom we believe has then
the power of intervening directly in the course of
phenomena, and of working what are called miracles.

As to belief in immortality, there is really nothing
to show that it is unfounded : it has not been proved,
and it seems unprovable, that the actual body is the
adequate cause, and not a purely contingent condition,
of our spiritual life. But this question is, indeed,
secondary. If we are convinced that the pursuit of
those ideal ends which are dear to us is guaranteed in
eternity, I do not see, says William James, why we
should not be willing, after having accomplished our
task, to leave the care of furthering the divine work
in other hands than ours.

324 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

II

THE DOCTRINE OF WILLIAM JAMES ON THE RELATION
BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE

In this way, taking religious experience as the
starting-point, is developed the theory of religion.
William James does not fail to inquire into the position
of this theory with reference to science.

Experimental like science, why should not religion
claim our adhesion to an equal extent ?

According to certain critics, such an assimilation
would be impossible. For religion does not mean
experience in the same sense as science : she means
it in an anti-scientific sense. Experience, as science
conceives it, is the depersonalisation of phenomena,
i.e. the elimination of all that which, in given phe-
nomena, is relative to the particular subject who
observes them. Everything in the nature of final
cause, prepossession of utility, of value — in a word
everything that expresses a feeling of the subject, is
outside scientific fact ; or, if these elements become,
themselves, objects of science, that will be through
our success in considering them, not per se, but in
some special condition or observable substitute for
internal feeling. Keligion, on the contrary, rests
upon facts taken in their subjective and individual
elements. She has to do with man in so far as he is
a person, and she personalises all that affects him.
She cares little for the necessary universality and
unity of natural laws : the salvation of an individual
is more important, in her eyes, than the entire order
of Nature. That is why there is fundamental incom-
patibility between the standpoint of religion and

WILLIAM JAMES 325

that of science. The relative persistence of religion
amounts to no more than a survivial, destined to
disappear before real experience — before impersonal
and scientific experience.

These objections, in William James's opinion, are
not conclusive. It is not clear why the circumstance
that a succession of states seems purely subjective,
should suffice to prevent these states from constitut-
ing an experience. Let the subjects be deluded in
believing themselves sick, in believing themselves
healed, and in attributing their healing to a super-
natural intervention : what matter, if we have to
admit in all this a series of facts which follow one
another in accordance with a law ? Now, it is a
fact that certain painful and injurious feelings are
cancelled by certain beliefs, and do not seem curable
by other means. Are you going to refuse religious
aids to the miserable whom they can save, on the
plea that to heal by means of religion is to heal
against rule ? The production, by faith, of the object
of faith, is not only an experience for the subject, it
is an experience.

Why should there be merely one way of handling
Nature and of modifying the course of her phenomena?
Is it not conceivable that, vast and multifarious as
she is, she ought to be approached and treated after
various methods, if we would make the largest pos-
sible use of her resources ?

Science fastens upon a particular element of
Nature, such as mechanical movement, and, in this
way, arrives at the phenomena which are dependent
thereon. Keligion, through other means which
equally affect our world, realises both similar
phenomena, and phenomena of another kind.

326 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

" Science gives to all of us telegraphy, electric
lighting, and diagnosis, and succeeds in preventing
and curing a certain amount of disease. Religion in
the shape of mind-cure gives to some of us serenity,
moral poise and happiness, and prevents certain
forms of disease as well as science does, or even
better in a certain class of persons. Evidently, then,
the science and the religion are both of them genuine
keys for unlocking the world's treasure-house to him
who can use either of them practically. Just as
evidently neither is exhaustive or exclusive of the
other's simultaneous use. And why, after all, may
not the world be so complex as to consist of many
interpenetrating spheres of reality, which we can thus
approach in alternation by using different conceptions
and assuming different attitudes, just as mathe-
maticians handle the same numerical and spatial facts
by geometry, by analytical geometry, by algebra, by
the calculus, or by quaternions, and each time come
out right? On this view religion and science, each
verified in its own way from hour to hour and from
life to life, would be coeternal."1

But, it may be said, all these considerations are
exclusively practical, and the scientific point of view
consists properly in distinguishing between Practice,
which is quite other than knowledge — is, indeed, one
of the very objects that Nature offers for our investi-
gation, and Theory, or the determination of the
elements and relations of things, according as they
are capable of being proved and acknowledged real
by every intellect. That is why science, in regard-
ing those experiences which the religious apologist

1 William James, The Varieties, etc. pp. 122-3.

WILLIAM JAMES 327

invokes, separates them into two parts : the one
subjective and foreign to science, the other objective
and scientific, but destitute of all religious significance.

We know that this radical distinction between
theory and practice is expressly rejected by William
James, whose pragmatism reduces to purely practical
criteria the very principles on which rationalism relies.

As regards the relation between religion and
science, William James brings forward considerations
which outstrip mere pragmatism.

All our knowledge, says he, starts from conscious-
ness. That is, henceforward, an established truth.
Now, a revolution was made in psychology, and
consequently in the philosophy of science, on the day
when it came to be understood that the psychological
datum is not, as Locke believed, a certain number of
simple elements : sensations, images, ideas, feelings,
comparable with letters or with atoms, which we
should have to relate externally in order to make of
them the representation of a distinct and transcendent
reality ; such a datum was found to be, in truth, what
is now termed the "field of consciousness/' i.e. the
state of total consciousness which, at any particular
time, exists in a thinking subject.

The distinctive character of this new datum lies in
this : instead of being clearly defined and circum-
scribed, like a collection of atomic elements, it has a
range to which we cannot assign exact limits, or,
rather, in which limits are undiscoverable. The state
of consciousness, in fact, involves both a centre and a
margin, but the periphery is more or less floating and
indeterminate.

We may now learn that this margin itself is
connected, in a continuous fashion, with a third

328 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

region, which, unsuspected by our consciousness — even
hidden — cannot, in any degree, be measured by us
with respect to its range and to its depth. Hence,
that which is really given, that which is the necessary
starting-point of all speculation as of all practice, is
not the imaginary sum of our states of consciousness,
but this illimitable field, wherein the seat of clear
knowledge — already so complex, and undoubtedly
irreducible to a determinate number of conceptual
elements — is only a point, ceaselessly modified, more-
over, through its relations with the media to which
it is bound.

If such are the primordial data over which the
activity of the human mind is exercised, what use do
religion and science respectively make of them ?

Eeligion is the fullest possible realisation of the
human self. It is the human person, marvellously
raised through his close communion with other persons.
It is, in some measure, an apprehension of being as it
is constituted before having been limited, arranged,
distributed in categories by our understanding, so as
to comply with the conditions of our physical existence
and of our knowledge.

Science, on the contrary, is the selection and the
classification of all that which, at any time and for
any mind, can be the object of clear and distinct
knowledge. The sum total of these elements is what
we call the objective world. So long as we consider
them apart, as happens in the clearly conscious per-
ception from which scientific knowledge proceeds, we
do not find within us their ground of existence, and,
therefore, we represent them to ourselves as pictures
of things that exist independently of us. We shape
these images, we label them, we observe the order of

WILLIAM JAMES 329

their usual presentment, we create formulas which
help us to anticipate their return ; and by means of
these formulas we obtain any states of consciousness
that we may desire.

If such is the respective origin of religion and of
science, how could the latter ever take the place of
the former ? Religion takes as her starting-point a
concrete bit of experience, a full fact, comprising
thought, feeling, and, perhaps, the faint sense of parti-
cipation in the life of the universe. The starting-point
of science is an abstraction, i.e. an element extracted
from the given fact and considered separately. We
cannot expect man to be satisfied with the abstract,
when the concrete is at his disposal. That would be
" something like offering a printed bill of fare as the
equivalent for a solid meal." Man uses science, but
he lives religion. The part cannot replace the whole ;
the symbol cannot suppress reality.

Not only is science unable to replace religion, but
she cannot dispense with the subjective reality upon
which the latter is grounded. It is pure Scholastic
realism to imagine that the objective and the im-
personal can suffice, apart from the subjective, in our
experience. Between the subjective and the objective
no demarcation is given which justifies, from the
philosophical standpoint, the divisions which science
imagines for her own convenience. Continuity is
the irreducible law of Nature. And our so-called
impersonal concepts need to be constantly revivi-
fied through contact with reality, i.e. with the sub-
jective, in order that they may not degenerate into
inert dogmas, at variance with scientific progress.
Personality is not, compared with impersonality, a
kind of initial disorder of which nothing would

330 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

remain, once everything were put straight. It is the
wondrously rich and ever-renewed source from which
science must borrow without intermission, if she would
not sink into unprofitable routine.

The relation between religion and science has this
appearance when we bring them into opposition. But
such an opposition is the result of our defining both
science and religion in an artificial manner. On the
one hand, we identify science with the physical
sciences. On the other hand, we make religion consist
in dogmas which symbolise it. But if science is, above
all, knowledge of facts, of data, there exists a psycho-
logical science as legitimate as physical science, and
there is no reason why the characteristics of the
latter should be imposed upon the former. And, if
religion is essentially an experience — something felt
and lived — it need not, a priori, be contrary to a
science which, itself, only leads up to a certain inter-
pretation of experience.

Now, it is found that a like fact, the continuous
extension of the conscious self into a subconscious
self, on the one hand is recognised by psychologists,
while, on the other hand, it offers a satisfactory
account of what is essential in religious experience.
The relation between the conscious self and the un-
conscious self serves, therefore, to connect religion
with science. It is, in short, the common starting-
point of scientific activity and of religious activity :
the latter tending to enrich consciousness by means
of subconsciousness, the former to reduce invasions
from the subconscious region to the forms and to the
laws of consciousness.

The fundamental affirmations of the theologian,
and his general method in the establishment of

WILLIAM JAMES 331

religious beliefs find, moreover, a justification even
in science, so regarded.

The theologian would have man brought into
relationship with One greater than himself, distinct
from himself. Now, the subconscious is distinguished
from the conscious in consciousness ; and the psycho-
logist has every reason to suppose that, in the sub-
conscious region, the human soul communicates with
beings that are — some of them at least — greater than
itself.

The theologian affirms the reality of the beings
which appear to be given in religious experience.
This belief is like that of the scientist, who imagines
a permanent world of forms and of laws as the pledge
of a universal and never-ceasing possibility of uniform
perception.

Last of all, we come to the great religious concep-
tions around which crystallise the systems of theology.
These conceptions are not formed otherwise than are
the principles on which scientists base their theories.
They are hypotheses, arranged so as to group facts and
to represent their connections in a manner agreeable
to the intellect and to the imagination. Science
could not find fault with theology for imitating her
method.

One reservation only is enjoined on the theologian.
Imaginative theories and symbols are not the essence
of religion ; they aim at expressing religion in human
language. Now, it is clear that the actual sciences
share, to an ever-increasing extent, in this language.
Doctrines ought, therefore, to be unceasingly recon-
ciled, as regards their formulas, with the essential
results of science, just as these latter, in their broad
hypotheses, evolve with the whole of human experi-

332 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

ence, and with reason which is the living witness of
that experience.

To sum up, according to William James, religious
experience is as useful and real as scientific experi-
ence. It is even more immediate, concrete, expansive
and profound. Further still, it is presupposed by
scientific experience. It can, moreover, from this ;
time forward — thanks to the psychological theory of
the subconscious — look to science herself for support.

It is developed in the same way as science, and is
in harmony therewith. There is, then, no ground for
believing that it is only a survival of the past, and no
longer an essential element of human nature.

Ill

CRITICAL REMARKS

This doctrine is not a logical construction which is
made up of materials taken here and there, shaped so
as to fit into one another, and collected from without
according to a plan. Much rather would it appear
to be the religious life itself, understood, as far as
possible, in its given complexity, and elucidated by
sympathetic and penetrating reflection. Hence the
special character of William James's works, wherein,
expecting to see an author, we find a man.

Eich and varied as it is, this doctrine has a central
point — a focus from which light is shed upon the
whole. This centre is the theory of the field of
consciousness, regarded as the basis of psychology.
To apply this theory to religion, and, thereby, to
bring religious phenomena within the normal life of

WILLIAM JAMES 333

man : that is the task which William James has
given himself.

From this standpoint he maintains that religion is
essentially an experience — something that we feel and
live : it is the sense of spontaneous and re-established
harmony of man with himself, i.e. of the actual man
with the ideal man ; it is, at the same time, the sense
of man's communion with a Being greater than
himself — a Being who produces this harmony and is
revealed as an inexhaustible source of energy and of
power. This twofold sense becomes, in the religious
person, the very mainspring of conscious life.

Furthermore, and still adopting this same stand-
point, religion is an essentially real and personal
affair. Keligion in itself, one and immutable, is but
a shadowy Scholastic entity. We must look only for
religious persons, for religious lives, and we shall then
find that there are as many religions as individuals.
It is not without purpose that William James entitles
his work : The Varieties of Religious Experience.

These views are of the greatest interest.

They actually eliminate from the essence of religion
all that is chiefly objective, intellectual, or practical
in the material sense, and that can be transferred,
indifferently, from individual to individual : for
instance, dogmas, rites, traditions. They put in the
foreground the emotional and volitional element,
which is embedded in personality and cannot be
separated from it.

Consequently, they find the religious type par
excellence in Mysticism, disengaged from visions and
ecstasies which are not essential to it, and referred
to its principle — the intensity and widening of the
inward life. And they set up, as examples of the

334 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

religious life, the great originators for whom religion
was primarily a life, a personal experimentation, an
extension of human nobility and power : men like
St. Paul, St. Augustine, Luther, Pascal.

Such a religion is no organised affair ; we cannot
enumerate and class its elements, observe and describe
its evolution, or foretell its destiny. It is a living
thing, creating and re-creating itself continuously,
which would only cease to exist if the energy and
will of its representatives died away.

Such a religion is not, moreover, a passive mysti-
cism ingulfed in contemplation : it is an enlargement
of activity, pursuing ever loftier ends, and appropriat-
ing to itself the forms necessary for their realisation.
At the same time, far from being a plea in favour of
ruling men and of enjoining upon them uniform
beliefs, it is, for every one, the duty, not only of
reverencing, but of cherishing what, in another's
religion, is peculiar and personal ; since only that
which is connected with the person exists and is
efficacious, and persons are and ought to be different
from one another.

And, while preserving its own character, viz.
relation to that which is, for us, supernatural, religion
— as William James interprets it — is expressly rein-
stated in human nature. Just as he linked mystical
experience with normal religious experience through
exhibiting, in the former, faith become intuition, so
he makes religious experience re-enter ordinary
experience through seeing therein the development,
conformable to general psychological laws, of elements
which are present, though usually unperceived, in
every working of immediate consciousness.

Religion, then, forms part of man's normal life ;

WILLIAM JAMES 335

and since, besides, it contributes to the preservation,
to the integrity and to the prosperity of that life,
even reason combines with instinct and tradition in
favouring its continuance.

Not less strong is the position that William James's
doctrine secures for religion, in comparing it with
science. No conflict is conceivable between them,
seeing that religion lies altogether in changes of the
feeling which forms the centre of our personality,
while science has to do only with represented pheno-
mena, and is limited to observing and noting their
usual course.

On the other hand, science and religion are inter-
connected. They have one and the same end — the
happiness and power of man ; one and the same
method — experience, induction and hypothesis ; one
and the same field — human consciousness, of which
religion is the whole, science a part.

• •••••

However brilliant and clever may be this doctrine,
is it proof against every objection that can be urged
either by scientists or by religious men ?

As regards the scientists, their opposition was only
to be expected. They deny that the mode of know-
ledge invoked by William James corresponds to what
they call experience.

Scientific experience ends in affirming — not only
does such a thing appear to me, but it is. And the
statement that it is, means this : it is capable of being
perceived by everybody endowed with normal sense
and intellect, who observes the phenomenon in those
conditions wherein it is offered to me now.

But the descriptions that William James puts

336 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

forward, usually borrowing them from the subjects
themselves, reveal to us merely subjective impressions.
They tell us that some person, more or less abnormal,
had the feeling of an objective presence, either of the
unreal, or of communion with supernatural beings.
They make known to us the circumstances, the changes
of this feeling. They carry us back, apparently, to
the subjective descriptions of hallucination and of
psychical disturbance. And William James himself,
from the very first, hardly seems to attribute to them
any other significance. By degrees, however, in
proportion as he studies the higher forms of the
feeling of possession, and particularly the emotions
of the great mystics, he comes, almost, to regard this
feeling as denoting, by itself, the real and objective
existence of a spiritual being, distinct from man,
with whom his consciousness may enter into com-
munication. t

Doubtless, William James confidently sets aside,
as pure fictions of the imagination and of the under-
standing, all detailed and precise descriptions concern-
ing the nature of these myterious beings, and their
relations with our world. But of the intellectual
element which is usually associated with the emotions,
he retains something in the end : viz. the affirmation
of a higher intervention that is given, in some way,
with feeling itself. Similarly it would seem, the
metaphysical psychologist Maine de Biran taught that
a special feeling — the feeling of effort — contained
within it and revealed to us the action of an external
force, operating conjointly with our will. But Biran
could not successfully establish his point ; and it is
not clear how William James can show that the
proposition — " I feel within me the divine action,"

WILLIAM JAMES 337

is identical with this other proposition — " The divine
action is exerted upon me."

Must we, with certain writers,1 interpret the
doctrine in a strictly idealistic sense, and maintain
that, from beginning to end, it is merely concerned
with feelings, with emotions, with beliefs, considered
from the purely subjective standpoint ? After all,
that which saves us, is not a God separated from our
belief, but our belief in God.

It is certain that William James adopts the stand-
point of radical empiricism, and that, in the objects
existing outside us, he can only see fictions of the
imagination and artificial contractions of the under-
standing. Between hallucination and perception,
he clearly allows only a difference of degree, and,
consequently, he is able to begin his analyses with
the study of cases which evidently illustrate nothing
but a morbid hallucination.

But it does not seem that this recourse to a
universal subjectivism suffices to remove the difficulty.
In order that even a subjective experience may be
called experience, in the philosophical as well as in
the practical meaning of the word, we must be able
to distinguish — at least ideally — between the given
subject who feels certain emotions, and a knowing
subject, who verifies impersonally the existence of
these emotions. Otherwise, it is a question of being,
of reality — not of knowledge. A tree is not an
experience.

Now, the state of the subject, in the religious
phenomenon, appears to be especially incompatible
with the duplication here necessary. The subject,
wholly absorbed in the feeling of communion with the

1 Of. Flournoy, Rev. Philos., Sept. 1902.

Z

338 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Infinite, no longer distinguishes between the real and
the imaginary. Are his very emotions true, under
such conditions ; or are they only those simulated
factitious emotions (objectively insincere in spite of
their intensity and of their evidence) which are
described in the forcible English phrase : sham
emotions ? Far from a mystical state being able to
constitute an experience, it is necessary to ask,
further, if it is a state of consciousness, since mystical
absorption actually tends to annul consciousness.

Here we encounter the real problem which is at the
heart of this discussion : is there no other experience
than that which the duality of a subject and an object
implies ? May not this experience, belonging to
distinct consciousness and to science, be derivative
and artificial, in comparison with that primary and
genuine experience which is truly one with life and
reality ? Such a doctrine, in fact, appears to follow
from the substitution of the field of consciousness for
states of consciousness in William James's psychology.1
The primary datum, according to this doctrine, is an
infinite continuity of impression and living experience,
from which our clear perceptions only emerge in an
elaborated and altered shape, calculated to assist us
in the pursuit of certain practical ends.

Upon this matter opinion is divided. Some are
inclined to see in the subliminal self an enlargement,
an enrichment of consciousness, while others declare
that they can only see therein an impoverishment, a
contraction, a vestige, a residuum. In regarding it
closely, say these latter, we find nothing in this so-
called higher consciousness which was not previously

1 Of, the theory, similar in certain respects, of H. Bergson : Introduction
a la metaphysique. Rev. de Met. et de Mor., 1903.

WILLIAM JAMES 339

in the ordinary perceptive consciousness. The super-
natural aspirations of the mystics are reminiscences ;
such purely spiritual creations are forgotten states of
consciousness which, according to ordinary psycho-
logical laws, have been mechanically combined with
other states of consciousness, thus engendering a
psychical organism which consciousness does not
recognise. This "unknown" cannot escape the fate
of all mysteries that have been opposed to science :
the progress of observation and of analysis will bring
it into the region of the known and the natural.

However evident such a refutation may appear, it
must be noted that it admits and takes for granted
the said psychology of states of consciousness, i.e.
atomic psychology : in other words, it adopts the
very standpoint that William James considers fac-
titious and inadmissible. It may be, therefore, that
this refutation is merely a petitio principii.

Most certainly, science assimilates an increasing
variety of phenomena. But it is not through pre-
serving, purely and simply, her ancient forms — after
the manner of shallow minds, of William James's old
fogies — that she obtains this result : it is through
enlarging them, through adapting them, and, in case
of need, through transforming them. In fact, none
of her forms — not even those which support all the
rest, viz. mathematical and logical forms — are really
immutable. When it can be shown that there exist
phenomena irreducible to the classic psychological
types, psychology will do what physics and chemistry
do in a like case : she will seek other principles.

In truth, how is it possible, in the present state of
our knowledge, to prove that everything presented to
the mind — inventions, contrivances, ideas, objects to

340 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

be defined, ends to be sought and to be realised — is
only what we have already observed? Did not the
already-observed itself begin by being observed in
some way ? Do we know precisely what is meant
by observing, and where the limit of our observation
is reached ?

The possibility of an experience, wider than, and
even different from, that of the five senses which we
have actually at command, seems, indeed, scarcely
contestable. But, in order that he may claim to have
in view a genuine experience, and not a mere feeling,
there must assuredly be, in the notion conceived by
the subject, something which corresponds to what
is called objectivity. To believe in God is, in some
way, to believe that God exists independently of our
belief in him. Now, no subjective particularity of
experience — not even a sense of overplus, of beyond,
of illimitableness — can, by itself, guarantee the objec-
tivity, the reality of that experience. William James
himself appears to admit this fully, when, analysing
the immediate data of the religious consciousness,
he tries to discover therein, not an indication or a
testimony, but the very reality — immediately given
— of a relation between the soul and some higher
being.

How are we to understand this transition from the
subjective to the objective ?

Even the theory of the subconscious is insufficient
to justify it, for the subconscious itself only becomes
real for consciousness through entering therein, i.e.
through taking the subjective form.

The essential phenomenon is, here, the act of faith
by which, experiencing certain emotions, consciousness
declares that these emotions are real and come to it

WILLIAM JAMES 341

from God. Religious experience neither is nor can
be, by itself and separated from the subject, objective.
But the subject gives it an objective import by means
of the belief which he inserts in it.

Thus mingled with faith, does religious experience
cease, on that account, to be an experience? This
can scarcely be the opinion -of William James. For
certainly, in his thought, the very idea of objectivity,
characteristic of sensible experience and of scientific
experience, contains necessarily a portion of irre-
ducible belief. The category of positive existence,
independent of every subjective element, is, after
all, a belief. Belief or faith is at the heart of all
knowledge.

Just as some have questioned if William James's
religious experience is an experience in the scientific
meaning of the word, so others have wondered how
far it deserves to be called religious.

The subject, says William James, knows that the
religious mystery is wrought within him, when — in
response to his cry of distress : " Help ! " — he hears a
voice saying : " Take courage ! Thy faith hath saved
thee." The human self is naturally in a divided and
failing state. If harmony is re-established, if strength
beyond its own resources is given, it is through the
assistance of a greater than itself.

But, according to Hoeffding,1 the truth of the
matter would seem to be that these phenomena
themselves are insufficient to characterise an experi-
ence as religious, if there is not combined therewith
an appreciation of the value attaching to the harmony

1 Hoeffding, Moderne Philosophic, 1905. Cf. the same writer's Religions-
philosophic.

342 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

and to the power which the subject sees thus bestowed
upon him. Conceived as purely analogous to natural
things, this harmony and this power call for no divine
intervention. But if the psychical phenomenon is
interpreted by the subject as the restoration of union
between God and man, between the ideal and the real,
or — adopting Hceffding's precise doctrine — between
values and reality, then the subject will attribute the
appearance of this harmony and power to the action
of God as the source of values ; and experience will,
in that way, present a religious character.

And, truly, it is concept or belief combined with
feeling, which, alone, effects such a characterisation.
In order that an emotion may be religious, it must be
regarded as having in God — himself understood re-
ligiously— its principle and its end. It is, there-
fore, faith, involved in religious experience, which
characterises it both as experience and as religious.

The importance of faith is, here, all the greater,
because, according to William James himself, it does
not only accompany emotion, but has a real influence
upon it, and can, in certain cases, actually produce it.
Religious faith, which, maybe, manifests God within
it, is not an abstract idea : it heals, it consoles, it
creates its object. Even in the midst of his painful
search, Pascal hears the Saviour say : "Be comforted :
thou wouldst not seek me, if thou hadst not found
me!"

But, if this is really so, religious experience is not
that principle, completely independent of concepts, of
doctrines, of rites, of traditions and of institutions,
which the analysis of William James seemed to dis-
engage and to indicate. For these external con-
ditions are, in some way, elements of faith. As they

WILLIAM JAMES 343

assume it, so they react upon it, and determine its
content. In the religious experience of a given
individual, if we analyse it, we shall always find —
incorporated in his faith — a multitude of ideas and of
feelings bound up with the formulas and practices
which are familiar to him. Of religious faith, indeed,
it must be said that it is, in part, a translation of
action into belief.

It appears, then, permissible to inquire, with
Hceffding, if the very fact of religious experience
would survive the disappearance of all the intellectual
elements — external and traditional — of religion.

Have these elements, moreover, no other value
than that which they derive from their connection
with the religious consciousness of individuals ? Is
personal religion, by itself, the one essential of
religion ?

Doubtless the social role of religion, however
considerable history shows it, does not suffice to prove
that religion is, originally and essentially, a social
phenomenon. It may be that religion was, indeed,
born within the souls of individual enthusiasts, and
that, spreading through imitation, through contagion,
it took, by degrees, the form of doctrines and of
institutions — as happens when beliefs are needed to
secure the preservation and the power of a given
society. But, even though the social aspect of
religion were an effect, and not a cause, it would not
follow that purely personal religion is, at the present
day, the only important and deep-rooted form of
religion.

The individual, in so far as he strives after
religious perfection on his own account, already shows

344 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

that he cannot confine himself to a solitary holiness.
No one can work out his salvation quite alone. For
human personality only develops, only realises itself,
only exists, through the effort that men make to
understand one another, to become united, to enjoy
life together. And thus, common things, acts,
beliefs, symbols, institutions, are an essential part of
religion, even in its personal form.

But the individual person is not alone in having
a religious value. A community, also, is a kind of
person, capable of exhibiting its own virtues — justice,
harmony, and humanity, which exceed the limits of
individual life. In bygone days the control of the
material and moral destinies of the community rested
with religion. If to-day it no longer exercises
political authority, can it not still claim to show the
nations their ideal ends, and to develop in them the
faith, the love, the enthusiasm, the spirit of brother-
hood and of self-devotion, the ardour and the
constancy, that are required in order to work for the
carrying out of such ends ?

A common task surpasses a purely personal
religion. It implies, among the members of a given
community, collective reverence for traditions, beliefs,
and ideas, which tend to the fulfilment of its mission
and to the realisation of its ideal.

If feeling is the soul of religion, beliefs and
institutions are its body ; and there is only life, in
this world, for souls united with bodies.

CONCLUSION

345

CONCLUSION

THE inevitable encounter. The conflict is properly
between the scientific spirit and the religious spirit.

I. RELATIONS BETWEEN THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT AND THE RELIGIOUS
SPIRIT — (a) The scientific spirit — How are facts, laws, theories,
established ? — Evolutionism — The experimental dogmatist —
(6) The religious spirit — Is it compatible with the scientific
spirit ? — Distinction between science and reason — Science and
man : continuity between the two — The postulates of life
they coincide with the principles of religion.

II. RELIGION — Morality and religion : what the second adds to the
first — Vitality and flexibility of religion as a positive spiritual
principle — The value of the intellectual and objective element
— The r61e of vague ideas in human life — Dogmas — Rites —
The transformation of tolerance into love.

The question of the relations between religion and
science, considered historically, is one of those which
provoke the utmost astonishment. Briefly, in spite
of compromises again and again renewed, in spite of
the determined efforts of the greatest thinkers to
solve the problem in a rational manner, it appears
that religion and science have always been on the
war-path, and that they have never left off struggling,
not only for the mastery, but for the destruction of
one another.

For all that, the two principles are still standing.
It was in vain that theology pretended to enslave

347

348 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

science : the latter shook off the yoke of theology.
Since then, it has been possible to imagine a reversal
of idles, and science has frequently announced the
end of religion; but religion endures, and the very
violence of the struggle attests her vitality.

When we consider the doctrines in which actual
/ ideas concerning the relation of religion to science
are embodied and defined, we see that they part into
two divisions, representing what may be called the
Naturalistic tendency and the Spiritualistic tendency
respectively.

In the first of these divisions we found it possible
to range as typical : the Positivism of Auguste Comte,
I or the Religion of Humanity ; the Evolutionism of
Herbert Spencer, with its theory of The Unknowable ;
the Monism of Haeckel, which leads to the Religion
of Science ; lastly, Psychology and Sociology, which
reduce religious phenomena to the natural manifesta-
tions of psychical or social activity.

In the second division we decided to place : the
Radical Dualism of Ritschl, ending in the distinction
between Faith and Belief ; the doctrine of the Limits
of Science ; the Philosophy of Action, connecting
science and religion with one common principle ; and
the doctrine of Religious Experience, as it is expounded
by William James.

To this list of doctrines a full survey would add
many others. These examples, however, suffice to
show with what strenuousness, perseverance, and
resources on either side the struggle is conducted.

To foretell the result of this struggle in the name
of logic alone would be a rash enterprise ; for the
champions of both causes have long been engaged in
a dialectical onslaught without reaching any satisfying

CONCLUSION 349

success. It is a question, here, not of two concepts,
but of two actually existing things — each of them,
according to the Spinozistic definition of existence,
tending to persevere in its being. Between two living
persons, victory does not always fall to him who can
best arrange his arguments in syllogisms, but to him
whose vitality is the stronger. Further, we are now
considering the dispute between knowledge, under
its most exact form, and something which is given,
more or less, as dissimilar to knowledge. There is,
necessarily, between these two terms a kind of logical
incommensurability.

To settle the question through crowning, a priori,
the empirical arch of evolution, which we trace or
think that we trace in history, is likewise too simple
a method. It is not always sufficient that a thing is
old in order to reach its end. The life of ideas, of
feelings, of morals, does not necessarily resemble the
life of individuals. Moreover, when these things are
dead they can be born anew — especially if they
have been forgotten through the lapse of time. In
this way are brought about revolutions, which are all
the more effective in that they spring from the oldest
principles. When Rousseau wished to renovate the
world, he appealed to Nature as prior to all customs.
Again, if history offers us evolutions of an apparently
determinate type, it also shows us rhythmical move-
ments, wherein the very development of one period
leads to its opposite in another. The course of
human affairs is too complicated to allow of our
going back, from a given evolution, to the elementary
mechanical causes which determine it, and which we
must know before we can give any really scientific
forecast whatsoever.

350 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

If it is true that religion and science can be
likened to living things, how are we to measure
their vitality, the reserves of power, the possibilities
of renewal that they may conceal ? Do we not
see, even to-day, certain naturalists explaining the
sudden transmutations that natural species occasion-
ally present by qualities, hitherto latent, which
some favourable circumstance unexpectedly brings
to light ?

Instead of venturing, as regards the future of
religion and of science, upon predictions that are
easier to make than to verify, it may be interesting
to consider the actual state of both, and to determine,
in accordance with this study, the manner of con-
ceiving their relations which, following Aristotle's
formula, appears both possible and suitable.

Now, it would seem that the two powers which
actually face one another may be, far less religion and
science as doctrines, than the Religious Spirit and the
Scientific Spirit. It is of small consequence to the
scientist, after all, that religion does not affirm any-
thing in her dogmas which is in harmony with the
results of science. These propositions are presented
by religion as dogmas, as objects of faith ; they
unite intellect and conscience, they express, in short,
man's connection with an order of things inaccessible
to our natural knowledge : that suffices to make the
scientist reject, not, perhaps, the actual propositions,
but the mode of adhesion that the believer gives to
them. And the latter, in his turn, if he sees all his
beliefs, all his feelings, all his practices explained and
even justified by science, is farther than ever from
being satisfied, since, thus explained, these phenomena
lose the whole of their religious character.

CONCLUSION 351

We should, therefore, be committed to a rather
immaterial task in seeking to discern a certain agree-
ment between the doctrines of religion and the con-
clusions of science. Several thinkers on the scientific
side are inclined to discard religion in principle and
a priori, on account of that which is implied in her
way of thinking, of feeling, of affirming, and of willing.
The religious man, they maintain, uses his faculties in
a manner that no longer tends to the progress of
human culture. The scientific spirit is not only
other than the religious spirit — it is, properly speaking,
its negation. It originates through the reaction of
reason against this spirit. Its triumph and the
disappearance of the religious spirit are simply one
and the same thing.

It is, then, less science and religion strictly so-
called, than the scientific spirit and the religious spirit,
that we have to bring face to face with one another.

We must further remark that the easy " separate-
compartment " system, so much in vogue last century,
is no longer implied in the present conditions. If the
struggle is not only between two doctrines, but
between two mental dispositions, it is quite impos-
sible for a man who would be a person (i.e. a conscious
being, one and rational) to allow equally, without
comparing them together, the two principles over
which there is so much wrangling in cultivated
circles. And that which is inconceivable for the
individual, is so, with greater reason, for the com-
munity— itself, also, a kind of conscious being ; for
its judgment depends less than that of the individual
upon accidental circumstances. More than ever the
question of the relations between religion and science
is paramount and unavoidable.

352 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

RELATIONS BETWEEN THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT AND
THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT

Formerly it was possible to deem the preliminary
consideration of religion or of science a matter of
indifference. This attitude can no longer be main-
tained to-day. Science has — to employ a current
expression — become emancipated. While, in old
days, her only certainty was that which particular
metaphysical principles bestowed in enabling her to
labour at the co-ordination of natural phenomena, she
has since found in experience an appropriate and
immanent principle, from which she derives, without
other assistance than ordinary intellectual activity,
both facts which are her working materials, and laws
by the aid of which she arranges facts. It follows
therefrom that, practically, in her origin and in her
development, science is self-sufficing, and that the
special mark of the scientific spirit is now shown in
unwillingness to admit any starting-point for research,
any source of knowledge, other than experience. To
the scientist, therefore, science appears as something
of primary and absolute importance, and it is useless
to ask her to be reconciled with anything. She has
vowed to be reconciled with facts and with them
alone. If we wish to obtain a hearing we must
accept her own standpoint.

Moreover, it is she especially who, in these days,
takes the offensive. The human mind, there can be
no doubt, is henceforward given over to science,
whose certainty is imposed by an irresistible evidence.
The problem of the relations between the religious

CONCLUSION 353

spirit and the scientific spirit is presented to-day
under the following form : Does the scientific spirit
which, with some of its representatives, signifies the
negation of the religious spirit, exclude it in reality ;
or does it, in spite 'of certain appearances, leave us
the possibility of that spirit ?

What, therefore, is the scientific spirit at bottom,
and what are the consequences of its development in
humanity ?

(a) The Scientific Spirit

Descartes, and especially Kant, regarded the scien-
tific spirit as determined, in an immutable manner,
by the logical conditions of science, and by the nature
of the human mind. It was, with Descartes, a
foregone conclusion to consider all things from a bias
which allowed of their being reduced, directly or
indirectly, to mathematical elements ; with Kant, it
was the affirmation, a priori, of a necessary inter-
connection of phenomena in space and in time.
Armed with these principles, the mind advanced,
with fresh ardour, towards the discovery of the Laws
of Nature ; and the success which it obtained easily
led to the belief that it was, from that time, in
possession of the eternal and absolute form of truth.
But this opinion was necessarily modified, when
men came to examine more closely the methods of
science, the conditions of her development and of her
certainty.

To-day it seems to be quite established that the
scientific spirit is not, any more than the principles
of science, ready-made and given ; but that it is
actually formed in proportion as science develops and

2 A

354 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

progresses. On the one hand, it is the intellect
which makes science, and the latter is not extracted
from things in the same way as an element is extracted
from a chemical compound. On the other hand, the
product reacts upon the producer ; and what we call
the categories of the understanding are only the
totality of habits which the mind has contracted in
striving to assimilate phenomena. It adapts them to
its ends, and it is adapted to their nature. It is
through a compromise that harmony is reached. And
so the scientific spirit is no longer, henceforward, a
bed of Procrustes, in which phenomena are supposed
to be kept in order. We see the intellect, living
and flexible, expanding and growing — not unlike
the organs of the body — through the very exercise
and effort that the task to be accomplished exacts
from it.

Two ideas, brought into prominence at the time of
the Renaissance, appear to have contributed to set
the scientific spirit in the direction that it was
thenceforward to take : on the one hand, desire to
possess, at length, positive knowledge, capable of
enduring and of increasing; on the other hand,
ambition to influence Nature. Science believes
that she can attain this twofold object through
accepting experience as an inviolable and unique
principle.

The scientific spirit is, essentially, the sense of fact
as source, rule, measure, and control of all knowledge.
Now, what science calls a fact is not merely a given
reality : it is a verified or verifiable reality. The
scientist who intends to resolve a fact, places himseli
outside that fact, and observes it just as every other
thinking man, equally impelled by the sole desire oi

CONCLUSION 355

knowing, would do. In this way he sets himself to
discern, to fix, to note, to express it by means of
known symbols, and, if possible, to gauge it. In
£ach of these operations the mind has an indispens-
able part ; but this part consists in elaborating the
datum so that it may be, as far as possible, admissible
for all minds. While the primordial datum was
hardly an impression, an individual feeling, the work
of art which the scientific mind substitutes for it is
a definite object existing for everybody — a stone that
can be used in the building of impersonal science.

In this way is adapted to things, and scientifically
defined by slow degrees, the ancient aspiration of the
philosophical mind to know being in itself and the
permanent substance of things.

Meanwhile the mind, reflecting on experience,
asks if the latter only furnishes facts, and if it would
not be possible, under the sole direction of this same
experience, to pass beyond fact properly so-called,
and to reach what is termed Law. Formerly laws
were conceived as dictated by the intelligence in
matter : it is a question, now, of inferring them from
the simple facts. Not that they are found therein
ready-made, and that we have only to extract them.
But, in the same way as scientific fact is constructed
by the mutual action and reaction of mind and of
knowledge, so, perhaps, facts themselves are capable,
through elaboration, of becoming laws.

One circumstance which, seemingly, we could not
fail to encounter, has justified this ambition. If all
the phenomena of Nature acted and reacted equally
upon one another, they would form a totality of
such complication and variableness that it would be,
undoubtedly, for ever impossible to extricate laws

356 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

therefrom. But it is found that, among the things
which fall under our experience, certain combinations
and certain connections, though still very complex,
have a relative stability, and are obviously inde-
pendent of the rest of the Universe. This circum-
stance has made possible the experimental induction,
by means of which the mind — isolating two phenomena
from the totality of things — determines a solidarity
between them.

Thus is the once-metaphysical notion of Causality
defined scientifically, through being adapted to given
things.

That is not all : the mind, impelled by a third
idea — that of Unity — has tried to discover if, from
this very idea, it could not form a scheme applicable
to experimental science.

Immediate knowledge of physical laws is piece-
meal. A law is two phenomena interconnected, but
isolated from other phenomena. By analogy and
assimilation, the mind brings laws gradually together,
through distinguishing them as particular and as
general. And so it reunites after having separated ;
and it is able to conceive, as an ideal, the reduction
of all laws to a single law.

The Unity of the metaphysicians has thus become
the scientific systematisation of phenomena.

It is by the aid of symbols, sometimes even of
artifices, that man simplifies Nature in this manner ;
but is not scientific fact itself (the starting-point of
all these inventions) already a constructed symbol,
an imaginary objective equivalent of the original
fact?

The scientific spirit is aware of the consequences
that the increasing boldness of its ambitions involves.

CONCLUSION 357

Its object is always the same : to create in the human
intellect a representation, as faithful and serviceable
as possible, of the conditions of phenomenal appear-
ance. But, in proportion as it recedes farther from
concrete and particular phenomena, in order to con-
sider or imagine general phenomena which offer
remote consequences as alone verifiable, it acknow-
ledges that its explanations, though they may be
sufficient, are not on that account necessary ; and it
only attributes to these vast conceptions the value of
experimental hypotheses.

Experience, more and more extensive and profound,
has not only assimilated the philosophical concepts of
substance, of causality, and of unity. It has re-
covered from bygone thinkers a concept that dog-
matic metaphysics and science had hoped to eliminate
for good and all : the concept of radical change, of
Evolution — partial or even universal. This was one
of the great principles which the Greek physicists
sought to estimate. Now, whether in our means of
knowing, of noting, of representing, of arranging
things, or in Nature itself, science, at the present
time, no longer sees anything quite stable and
definitive. Not only is a purely experimental science,
by definition, always approximative, provisional, and
modifiable ; but, according to the results of science
herself, there is nothing to guarantee the absolute
stability of even the most general laws that man
has been able to discover. Nature evolves, perhaps
even fundamentally.

In conjunction with things, the scientific spirit is
henceforth itself subject to evolution. It is, in this
sense, a spirit of relativity. It considers every ex-
planation as necessarily relative, both to the number

358 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

of known phenomena, and to the state (maybe a
transient one) in which it actually finds itself. This
relativity, moreover, does not impair its value, and
in no way hinders that continuous addition of know-
ledge which is the first article of its method. For,
although evolution be radical, it is not conceived, on
that ground, as arbitrary and as scientifically un-
knowable. If the remotest principles of things are
transformed, that very transformation must obey
laws which are analogous to immediately observable
laws, to experimental laws.

A further trait, linked with the preceding, char-
acterises the scientific spirit as we now see it. It is,
undoubtedly, no longer dogmatic, in the meaning
which a metaphysician would give to that word.
But it is, and tends to persevere in its being, after
the manner of a living thing in which are accumu-
lated countless natural forces. It regards itself as
the supreme example of judgment and of reasoning.
If, then, it continues to repel all metaphysical
dogmatism, it re-establishes for its own use a kind of
relative dogmatism actually based on experience.
It believes in its power of unlimited expansion, and
in its indefinitely increasing value. Consequently,
whatever problem may be in question, it refuses to
conclude with Dubois-Keymond : Ignordbimus. No
one is justified in declaring, with regard to that of
which we are ignorant to-day, that we shall always
be ignorant of it. Moreover, do we not reach a
decision which is to some extent positive, when we
recognise that, what we do not know — even if we
must always be ignorant thereof — is, in itself, know-
able according to the general principles of our
scientific knowledge ? The history of science proves

CONCLUSION 359

that we are right in affirming a continuity between
what we know and what we do not know.

That is why the expression " scientifically in-
explicable," is, henceforward, devoid of meaning. A
mysterious force, a miraculous fact, when we admit
that the fact exists, is nothing else than a pheno-
menon which we do not succeed in explaining by
the aid of laws that we know. If this impossibility
is averred, science will be rid of it in order to seek
other laws.

If, therefore, the laws which science propounds are,
and continue, not absolute affirmations, but questions
which the experimentalist puts to Nature, and which
he is ready to state in modified terms if Nature
refuses to be adapted to them, it is no less certain
that the scientific spirit has a practically unbounded
confidence in the postulate which all these questions
imply ; this postulate is nothing else than the legiti-
macy and the universality of the scientific principle
itself.

If such is the scientific spirit, can room be found,
in human consciousness, for the religious spirit ?

(b) The Religious Spirit

One very simple way of settling the question
would be to maintain that the scientific spirit is, by
itself, the one essential of human reason — that all the
ideas or tendencies by means of which the latter has
succeeded in manifesting itself throughout the ages,
have, from this time, their only verified and legiti-
mate expression in the principles of science. This
would mean that everything outside science would
be, on that very account, outside reason ; and, as

360 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

religion is necessarily other than science, it would be,
a priori, relegated among those raw materials of
experience which it is the special aim of science to
transform into objective symbols capable of furnish-
ing truth.

In order that the scientific spirit may admit the
legitimacy of a standpoint in regard to things other
than its own, it must not deem itself adequate to
actual reason, it must recognise the claims of a more
general reason. Of this latter it is, doubtless, the
most definite form, but it does not exhaust its
content. Is it clear, however, that the scientific
reason has now taken the place, unconditionally, of
that ineffable reason which men have, from all time,
regarded as the special prerogative of their race ?

The scientific reason is reason in so far as it is
formed and determined by scientific culture. Reason,
taken in its fullest sense, is that outlook upon things
which determines, in the human soul, the whole of
its relations with them. It is the mode of judging
that the mind assumes, in contact both with science
and with life, as it gathers and welds together all the
luminous and fruitful conceptions which spring from
human genius.

Now, when we adopt, in this way, no longer the
exclusively scientific standpoint, but the more general
standpoint of human reason, we are able to inquire
into the relations between the scientific spirit and
the religious spirit without deciding the question in
advance.

If science is, practically, self-sufficing, if she has,
in experience, a kind of absolute and primary
principle, does it follow that in the estimation of
reason (no longer merely scientific, but human) she

CONCLUSION 361

can be considered absolute ? It is quite conceivable
that a thing which, taken in itself, seems to be a
whole, may, nevertheless, be in reality only a part of
some vaster whole. All progress is made through
developing, for its own sake, a part which, in fact,
only exists by means of the whole to which it belongs.
Science is within her right in not recognising any
other being, any other reality, but that which she
comprises within her formulas. But must we infer
that reason, henceforward, can make no distinction
between being as it is known by science, and being
as it is ?

Science consists in substituting for things, symbols
which express a certain aspect of them — the aspect
that can be denoted by relatively precise relations,
intelligible and available for all men. She is based
upon a duplication of being into reality pure and
simple, and into distinct or objective representation.
However determined she may be in pursuing the real
into its smallest recesses, she remains an onlooker
contemplating and objectifying things ; she cannot,
without contradiction, become identified with reality
itself. Universality, necessity, and objectivity — the
conditions of knowledge — are categories. To identify
categories with being is to ascribe to their character
of immovable exactness the absolute value which
metaphysical systems attribute to being a priori.
In real science the categories of thought are them-
selves mutable, seeing that they have to be adapted
to facts regarded as a reality which is, a priori,
distinct and unknowable.

To this irreducible duality science herself bears
witness. For the two principles of the real — -things
and mind — are, for her, data which she cannot

362 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

resolve. When she considers them objectively from
her own standpoint, it seems to her, not only that
she assimilates them, but that she is able to reduce
them to one and the same reality. But this very
operation she can only effect if its conditions are
furnished to her ; and these conditions are and
remain : firstly, things with which she cannot
provide herself; secondly, a mind, distinct from
these things, which shall consider them objectively,
and transform them so as to make them intelligible.
Things and mind — whatever else be their intrinsic
affinity or opposition — are together, for science, the
very being from which she gains distinction, and
which she cannot ignore if she analyses herself
philosophically, since she is only fashioned out of
the elements that she borrows from them continually.

Can we, at any rate, elaborate these elements, so
that they may become exactly conformable to the
exigencies of scientific thought ?

The scientific data which represent things, take from
their origin a character which does not seem assimilable
with science for the very reason that science desires
to regard being from an opposite standpoint. This
character is heterogeneous continuity, multiplicity
as a whole, which, in order to become an object, is
first of all translated by the senses and by the under-
standing into qualitative discontinuity and numerical
multiplicity. Science starts from this heterogeneous
multiplicity, which, for her, represents brute matter,
and applies herself to the task of reducing it to a
homogeneous continuum. She effects this reduction
through expressing qualities by quantities. Now, the
expression must, necessarily, preserve a relation to the
thing expressed ; otherwise it would be worthless.

CONCLUSION 363

Even though all trace of the discontinuity and of
the heterogeneity of things should disappear in our
formulae considered apart, we could not be exempted
from recollecting the relation of the formulae to reality,
and from referring to that relation when we had to
apply these formulae, and to appreciate, by means of
them, the objects of concrete experience.

As to approaching the contrary problem, and
proposing no longer to reduce the given diversity
to unity, but, starting from unity, to extract diversity
from it — that problem may be historical and meta-
physical, but it is only in appearance approached
by science ; in reality, it is not scientific. A purely
experimental science assimilates, reduces, unifies, but
neither expands nor diversifies. That is why the
trace of given diversity which continues in the
reductions of science is itself irreducible.

Similarly, the strictly scientific mind — the subject
of science, leaves standing, beyond itself, mind in
general. In vain does science claim to reduce the
mind to the r61e of a mere instrument, of a passive
assistant : the mind works on its own account, trying
to discover if there is in Nature order, simplicity, and
harmony — distinctive marks that are clearly much
more calculated to bring satisfaction to itself than to
express the intrinsic properties of phenomena. And
these notions, which direct the investigations of
science, are not, in truth, purely intellectual notions :
taken in their entirety, they constitute feelings,
aesthetic and moral needs. Thus, feeling itself is
linked with the scientific spirit, as exemplified among
the scientists in its living and actual reality.

It follows from what we have just said, that, if
science takes possession, in her own way, of things

364 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

and of the human mind, she, nevertheless, does not
lay hold of them altogether. Inevitably the being
of things overflows the being which science assimilates,
and the human mind outstrips the intellectual faculties
for which she finds use. Why, then, should not man
have the right to develop, for their own sake, those of
his faculties which science only uses in an accessory
manner, or even leaves more or less unemployed?

The impossibility of marking out an exact frontier
between science and being, between the objective and
the subjective, between abstract intellect and feeling,
the necessary persistence of a middle zone in which
these two principles are indistinguishable, establishes
a continuity between the scientific world, in which
being is reduced to empty and universal relations,
and the living, thinking individual who attributes an
existence and a value to his own being. Seen from
afar, through the concepts that we substitute for
them so as to enable us to dogmatise on their nature,
abstract intelligibility (the special mark of science)
and human feeling are opposed to one another. But
in reality this separation does not exist ; and, if science
is a system of formulae, in which individual reality
ought no longer to have any place, it is, nevertheless,
only created, developed, and maintained in individual
minds, elaborating, in an endless progress, their im-
pressions and individual ideas. And as, in fact, that
which exists is not precisely science — an abstraction
which only denotes an aim, an unconditioned, there-
fore an idea — but scientific study, which is always in
the state of becoming real science, is not separable
from the scientists ; and shifting, subjective life will
ever remain an integral part of it.

CONCLUSION 365

The individual, in science, seeks to systematise
things from an impersonal standpoint. How could
science, which is his working method, forbid him to
seek, likewise, to systematise them from the stand-
point of the individual himself? This kind of
systematisation, indeed, would not admit of objective
value, in the meaning that science gives to that
phrase ; but, if it satisfied feeling, it would respond
to human needs which are no less real than the need
of bringing things into conformity with one another.

Moreover, we must conceive different degrees in
the systematisation effected from the standpoint of
the individual. The lowest degree is the consideration
of all things in their relation to a single self, taken as
world-centre. Now, above this extreme individualism
there is quite a ladder of systematisations in which
things are related, not to a single individual, but to
the several individuals who, in their totality, form a
group, a company, a nation, humanity. Subjective
systematisation can thus imitate, in its way, the
universality of science. The latter disengages the
universal from the particular, through abstraction and
through reduction. An analogy to the universal can
be drawn, in the subjective order, from the agreement
of individuals, from the harmony which, out of their
diversity, forms a sort of unity.

It is a systematisation of this kind that religion
represents. She attributes a value to the individual,
and considers him as an end in himself. But she
does not allow him any other way of fulfilling his
destiny than that of treating other individuals as, also,
ends in themselves ; accordingly, she exhorts him to
live for others and in others. It is not the personality
of a single person, but of all persons — each one being

366 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

regarded as an end, and as, at the same time, sharing
in a common life — which is the central idea to which
all things ought to be referred.

It is only right, it would seem, to recognise that
such a systematisation, at once subjective and concrete,
is nowise excluded by the scientific spirit. Following
the statement of La Bruyere, we have to do, here, with
things that are different — not incompatible. Some-
thing more is still needed. It is not enough that
a conception is possible, admissible without contra-
diction, to make us believe that we ought to adopt
it. We must have, besides, some positive reason for
considering it true. Can we, on behalf of religion,
maintain a reason of this kind ?

Man ought to be allowed to consider the conditions,
not only of scientific knowledge, but of his own life.
Now, if there is, for human life as we observe and
conceive it, a necessary foundation, it is belief in the
reality and in the value of the individual.

Each of my acts, of my least words or thoughts,
signifies that I attribute some reality, some worth
to my individual existence, to its preservation, to
its part in the world. Concerning the objective
value of this judgment I know absolutely nothing ;
there is no need for it to be shown me. If, per-
chance, I reflect thereon, I find that this opinion is,
in truth, only the expression of my instinct, of my
habits and prejudices — whether personal or inherited.
In compliance with these prejudices, I am ready to
assume a tendency to persevere in my own being ; to
deem myself capable of something ; to regard my ideas
as serious, original, useful ; tg labour for their diffusion
and adoption. All this would have no chance of

CONCLUSION 367

withstanding an examination that was ever so little
scientific. But without these illusions I could not
live — at least in the human sense of living ; and,
thanks to these untruths, I am able to relieve
distress, to encourage some of my fellows to support
and to love existence, to love it myself, and to aim
at making a tolerable use of it.

What is true as regards individual life holds
good equally as regards social life. It rests on the
opinion — scientifically futile — that family, society,
country, and humanity are individuals which tend to
be and to continue, and that it is possible and right
to strive for the maintenance and development of
those individuals.

However devoted to science we may be, the
legitimacy and the dignity of Art lay hold of our
imagination. But Art attributes to things properties
that are inconsistent with those which science verifies.
Art takes from reality any object whatsoever — a tree,
a cauldron, a human form, the sky or the sea, and
into that being of fancy it infuses a soul, a super-
natural soul, the offspring of the artist's genius ; and,
by means of this transfiguration, it snatches away
from time and oblivion that contingent and unstable
form to which the laws of Nature only conceded a
shadow of momentary existence.

Morality claims that one thing is better than
another ; that there are within us lower activities
and higher activities ; that we are able, at will, to
exercise the latter or the former; that we ought to
trust the instigations of a faculty (ill- defined and
irreducible, moreover, to the purely scientific faculties)
which she calls Keason ; %and that, through following
her advice and obeying her commands, we shall

368 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

transform our natural personality into an ideal person-
ality. Of what value are all these phrases if science
is the sole judge ?

But even science herself, considered, not in the
theorems that schoolboys learn by heart, but in the
soul of the scientist, presupposes an activity irre-
ducible to scientific activity. Why should we cultivate
science ? Why should we set ourselves tasks that
become daily more arduous ? Must we maintain that
science is necessary for living, when we regard life as
good and real ? Are we quite certain that science will
obtain for us a life more agreeable, more tranquil,
more consonant with our natural liking for comfort
and for least effort? Will it not, rather, be a life
higher, nobler, more difficult ; rich in struggles, in
new feelings and ambitions ; specially devoted to
science, i.e. to disinterested research, to the pure
knowledge of truth ? What are the intense and
superior joys of initiation in research, still more
those of discovery, if not the triumph of a mind
which succeeds in penetrating apparently inexplicable
Secrets, and which enjoys its victorious labour, after
the manner of the artist ? How can science be duly
estimated save through the free decision of a mind
which, dominating the scientific mind itself, rises
towards an aesthetic and moral ideal ?

Thus, whatever manifestation of life we consider,
the moment that it is a question of conscious and
intelligent human life, and not simply of a life purely
instinctive and unaware of itself, we see implied other
postulates than those which preside over the sciences.
In a general way, while the postulate of science is
this proposition : everything happens as if all
phenomena were only the repetition of a single

CONCLUSION 369

phenomenon, the postulate of life may be expressed as
follows : act as if, amidst the infinity of combinations
(altogether uniform from the scientific standpoint)
which Nature produces or can produce, some
possessed a peculiar value, and were able to acquire
a tendency fitting them to be and to continue.

The mental operations which the use of this postu-
late implies can, it would seem, be determined.

In the first place, faith has to be specified. Not a
blind faith. We have to consider the faith that is
guided by reason, by instinct, by the sense of life, by
example, by tradition ; but we do not find in any of
these solicitations the scientific motive which would
enable us to say : it is. As, clearly, it is a question
of diverting her intelligence from the mechanical
resultant of things, science cannot suffice here. The
saying of St. Augustine, which made such an impres-
sion on Pascal, remains true : We labour for what is
uncertain. For the thinking man, life is a wager.
We do not see how it could be otherwise.

From this first condition a second follows. Faith,
indeed, is not necessarily the passive acceptance of
that which is. On the contrary, it is capable of
taking for its object that which is not yet, that which
does not seem bound to be, that which, perhaps,
would be impossible without this very faith. That is
why faith — with men in general, and especially with
men of a superior mould — engenders an object of
thought that is more or less new, an original intel-
lectual representation, upon which it fixes its gaze.
The man who would act, in his capacity as man, sets
an end before himself. According to the daring and
power of faith, this end is an ideal more or less lofty,

2 B

370 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

more or less distinct from the real. At first, faith
only sees its object dimly, far away and in the clouds.
But it strives to fix its meaning in conformity with
the need of the intellect and of the will. In fact, it
determines the object gradually, in proportion as it
strives to realise it.

Lastly, from creative faith, and from the object
which it sets before itself, proceeds a third condition
of action : love. The will, indeed, becomes enamoured
of its ideal object in proportion as, under the com-
bined influence of faith and intellect, that object is
depicted in more beautiful and more vivid colours.

Faith, representation of an ideal, and enthusiasm —
these are the three conditions of human action. But
are they not, precisely, the three moments in the
development of the religious spirit? Do not these
three words express accurately the form that will,
intellect, and feeling take under religious influence ?

Human life, therefore, on the side of its ideal
ambitions, partakes naturally of religion. As, un-
doubtedly, on the side of its correspondence with
Nature, it partakes of science — seeing that it depends
on science for the means of attaining its ends, we are
apparently justified in regarding life as the connecting
link between science and religion.

But does not the sense of life, combined with
science, suffice, exactly, to guide man's conduct,
without his needing to add thereto religion properly
so-called ? Clearly, science, by herself, only furnishes
the means of action, and remains silent about ends.
But, in order to determine these latter, as reason
demands, we have, it would seem, in the bosom of
actual Nature, two standards more trustworthy than

CONCLUSION 371

all those which could be enjoined upon us by
authorities said to be superior : instinct and the
social conscience.

Instinct is a fact, a precise and positive datum.
Whatever be its origin, it represents the tendency and
the interest of species. To follow it, is, evidently, the
chief obligation of anyone, who, according to the dictates
of reason, desires to keep in harmony with Nature.

Besides being an individual belonging to a natural
species, every man is member of a human community.
This, again, is a fact ; for man is only man, a rational
and free being, through having a share in that com-
munity. He ought, therefore, to comply with the
conditions underlying the community's existence.
And as, for each given community, at each given
period, the conditions of existence are expressed by
a totality of traditions, laws, ideas, feelings, which
constitute a kind of social conscience, there is, for the
individual who would be good for something, who
would be himself in an objective and true sense, a
second obligation to obey the rules of the community
in which he lives, to be a submissive and active organ
of that community.

What more does man need for the guidance of his
life ? We are too much given to wrangling about
ends. For a right-minded man they are plain, inas-
much as they are given. It is the means with which
we are specially concerned, and science is ready to
furnish them.

A rational doctrine, surely, and one which, followed
conscientiously, would also be a singularly lofty one :

'il? -)(api>€V eV0' avBpunros, orav avdpviros y.1 What a

worthy being is man, when he is truly man !

1 Menander.

372 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

But can it be affirmed that this doctrine yields
complete satisfaction to human reason? The latter
asks not only for the rational, but for the best,
whenever it is possible. And she calls upon us to
make it possible.

Now, are we sure that the instinct which we find
within us is a perfection that we cannot overstep?
It could appear so, when we deemed it primary,
immutable, sprung immediately from eternal Nature
or from Divine Wisdom. But to-day, whatever be
its origin and genesis, we regard it as acquired, con-
tingent, modifiable. It is, for man, a fact doubtless,
and relatively stable, but one that is, in the end, like
other facts. Evolutionism no longer recognises any
fact as sacred. Man, moreover, has learnt from
science herself how to make use of Nature so as to
outstrip her ; how, through obedience, he may obtain
the mastery over her. Why should he not make use
of his instinct, instead of remaining subject to it?
And then, where will he put the end, with respect to
which instinct will be treated as means ?

The social conscience is, also, the outcome of an
evolution. Moral laws are no longer eternal. They
are no longer divine revelations. They show us what
results from the struggles of innovators against the
laws and customs of their country and of their time.
They are scarcely able, to-day, to maintain their
authority. Be they ever so ancient, we cannot allow
that they are still suitable for a society in which so
many things have changed. Old things have only
one right — that of disappearing, and of making clear
room for new things. Are they recent ? What
power can be claimed for an institution which time
has not proved, and which everybody recognises as

CONCLUSION 373

having originated through accident, through calcula-
tion, through lies, through impulses and passing
circumstances ? However worthy of respect may be
the ideas and laws of our own day, why should they
restrain our conscience to a greater extent than the
laws and the ideas of bygone periods bound the
conscience of our forefathers ? What is progress,
that lever of the modern mind, save the right of the
future over the present ? And what is genius save —
athwart the totality of ideas that link the individual
necessarily with his age — a vision, as it were, of new
ideas, which, most frequently, outstrip the mental
capacity of contemporaries ?

Certainly, every reasonable man reverences the
laws, customs, ideas, and feelings of his community
and of his time, just as he conforms to the instinct
of his kind ; but he can see, neither in the one nor
in the other of these two motives, ultimate rules
beyond which he has not the right to conceive any-
thing. He finds, on the contrary, in his very reason
— with its indefinite search after what is better — an
incitement to make instinct and the social conscience
themselves subservient to the pursuit of higher ends.

Doubtless man could live without giving himself
any other end than life, but he is not so disposed.
He could limit himself to acting according to his own
pleasure, or to that of others ; but, if he reflects
thereon, this does not satisfy him. Nothing compels
him to go beyond himself, to seek, to will, to be.
He chooses to try his luck, to run a risk, to enter
upon a struggle. But Plato's saying remains true :
The struggle is noble, and the hope is great — /ca\bv

TO aO\ov Kal r) e'XTrl? fj,6yd\rj.

We cannot disguise from ourselves that, to strive

374 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

to surpass our nature is to believe ourselves free, and
to be bent on acting as if we were so. And, as
freedom does not consist in acting without reason,
but, on the contrary, in acting according to that same
reason, to suppose ourselves free is to believe that we
can find in reason motives of action that are not mere
physical laws, mechanically determinative. Is it
really true that reason, and not a sort of aesthetic
craving for the unknown and for heroism, invites us
to enter upon the struggle of which Plato speaks;
and through what combination of ideas are we induced
to fling ourselves into a course, without being able,
apparently, to see whither it will lead us ?

Practice implies : firstly, faith ; secondly, an object
offered to that faith; thirdly, love of the object and
desire to realise it. What do we find beneath these
three elements, if we try to form a more or less
distinct idea of them ?

If we ask ourselves, in the first place, how this
faith — necessarily involved in every conscious action
— is fixed and justified, we find that it rests, wittingly
or unwittingly, upon the idea and the feeling of duty.
To believe, i.e. to affirm, not idly but resolutely,
anything else than what we see or what we know, en-
joins on reason an effort. This effort needs a motive.
Reason finds that motive in the idea of duty.

Duty is a faith. It is trivial to declare that it is
no longer duty if its fulfilment is proved inevitable
or even desirable for reasons established by material
evidence. Duty is faith par excellence. For every
other belief we may allege the support of sensible
reasons : utility, the example of other men, the
affirmation of competent authority, custom, mode,
tradition. Duty is quite compact in itself: it does

CONCLUSION 375

not give any other reason than its incorruptible dis-
interestedness.

And, in spite of all the arguments by which clever
people try to win her over, reason persists in feeling
within her an affinity for this mysterious law. We
do not succeed either in depriving duty of its supra-
sensible character, or in eliminating it from human
life. Every time that a man, before acting, examines
himself thoroughly with respect to the reasons which
ought to determine his action, he encounters, sooner
or later, the question of duty, and he is only satisfied
if he can respond to it. And, before any authority
whatsoever can be admitted, there must hover above
it the universal, sovereign law of duty. The faith
which presides over human life is nothing else, in
short, than faith in duty.

This faith is no mere abstract notion : it is a living
and productive power. Under the operation of duty
the intellect conceives and engenders. It projects,
before the eye of consciousness, forms which translate,
into an imaginative and communicable language, the
content of the idea of duty — in itself indefinable.
Where the intellect has no other end than to know,
the forms which it fashions are the representation of
the influence exercised upon the senses of man by the
action of external objects. We may suppose that,
indirectly, these forms proceed from the objects
themselves. But, if it is a question of some practical
idea, some representation of an act, not necessary,
but possible and convenient, the object can no longer
be a simple image of given reality : it is a sort of
invention. The mind, certainly, makes use of the
resources which the external world and science offer ;
it adopts the language of the medium in which it

376 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

lives. Nevertheless, its operation is not a simple
epiphenomenon, or a mechanical resultant of given
phenomena ; it is an effective agency. Let us look
at the artist in the act of creating : he starts from an
idea that is, first of all, confused and remote ; and
this idea by degrees comes nearer and stands out,
thanks to the very effort that he makes to lay hold of
it, and to realise it. Similarly, the writer seeks the
idea by means of the form, while he bends the form
to the expression of the idea. Vivified by faith, the
understanding constructs, at first, a dim representa-
tion of the ideal ; and, gradually, it renders this
notion more distinct through adapting thereto all
that which, amid the resources at its disposal, seems
fitted to translate and develop it.

The object which the intellect lays down as the
expression and the foundation of the idea of duty is,
necessarily, the grandest and most perfect that can
be conceived : such it is bound to be, in order to
explain the peculiar worth of this idea. This object,
which springs from the depths of consciousness, tran-
scends it infinitely : thus its appearance in the field of
consciousness is a revelation. And this character cannot
vanish, because, the object becoming ever greater and
more exalted, in proportion as man strives to conceive
it more adequately, the inequality between the real
and the ideal continues to increase with the progress
of reflection and of will, instead of becoming less.

The third condition of life is man's love for the
ideal which he pictures to himself. Now, as with
faith and with the ideal, so with love : when we
examine it thoroughly, it carries us beyond Nature
properly so-called. It is, between two distinct
persons, a blending of existence which defies analysis.

CONCLUSION 377

There is, undoubtedly, a form of love, in which the
individual only considers self, and has in view merely
his own enjoyment. And love of this kind is little
more than instinctive perception. But from this
love, which, organised by the intellect, becomes
egoism, man — in proportion as he rose towards
humanity — learnt to distinguish, more and more
clearly, another love, which we may call self-sacrific-
ing love ; inspired by this latter, he would live, not
only for himself, but for another, in another. It is
love in the higher sense which Victor Hugo feels
when he writes : " Madman, to believe that thou art
not thyself 1 " Love makes of two beings a single
being, while allowing personality to each one of
them ; far more, while enlarging, while realising in
all its power the personality of the one and of the
other. Love is not an external bond, like a combina-
tion of interests ; it is not, moreover, the absorption
of one personality by another : it is the participation
of being in being, and, with the creation of a common
existence, the completion of the being of those
individuals who form that community.

If this is so, man's love for the ideal and perfect
being that his reason anticipates, is already a sense
of union with that ideal. It is the desire for a closer
participation in its existence and in its perfection.
It is that very perfection, in so far as it draws us
towards itself. Self-sacrificing love, or the giving of
self to ideal things (the " Eternal -Womanly " as
Goethe called it), is a divine power which comes
down to us, and which draws us upward towards
the heights :

Das Ewig-Weibliche
Zieht uns hinau.

378 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Thus, for him who seeks the hidden resort of faith,
that resort is discovered in the idea and in the sense
of duty as a thing altogether sacred. For him who
fathoms the idea of progress (an object of faith), that
idea implies the conception of ideal and infinite being.
And the love of this ideal is, at bottom, the sense of
a kinship with it, of an initial participation in its
existence.

What does this mean, but that, at the root of
human life, as such, lies what is called Religion ?

To rise to the creative principle of life is not a
necessity. We can live by mere instinct, or by
routine, or by imitation ; we can live, perhaps, by
the abstract intellect or by knowledge. Religion
offers man a richer and deeper life than purely
spontaneous or even intellectual life : she constitutes,
so to speak, a synthesis — or, rather, a close and
spiritual union — of instinct and intellect, in which
each of the two, merged with the other, and, thereby
even, transfigured and exalted, possesses a fulness
and a creative power which separate action could not
yield.

II

RELIGION

It is true that many will dispute the position thus
given to religion in human life. Only yesterday,
they will say, it was allowable for religion to labour
for the progress of humanity, because morality was
more or less involved therein. But this solidarity was
only a contingent and transitory fact. Historically,
religion and morality originated and developed separ-
ately. And it is the very progress of morality which

CONCLUSION 379

has compelled religion to adapt herself to it, and to
make it her own. But just as, originally, they were
independent of one another, so, at the present time,
they are dissevered ; and morality, henceforward
emancipated and become like other sciences, suffices,
alone, for the guidance of humanity.

The question of the relations between morality and
religion is, perhaps, too easily decided in theories
of this kind. The psychological origins of morality
are difficult to determine : Socrates was a profoundly
religious man. From the fact that two living
forms appear independent just when their history
begins for us, it does not follow that they have
separate origins : otherwise, the transmutation of
the naturalists would be nonsense. And that which
interests us for the ordering of our life is less identity
or diversity of empirical origin than the harmony
which is established between the ideas in human
reason, as this latter advances towards perfection.
What does it matter that religion formerly taught
hatred, if now she teaches love ? What does it
matter that morality, at first, condemned the religion
of the theologians, if, seeking support in conscience,
she afterwards rejoined and embraced the religion of
the spirit ? Morality is not the negation of religion :
between the precepts of the one and the commands of
the other there is often but a difference of expression.

Religion, nevertheless, even where she coincides
with morality, is distinguishable from it in many
respects.

And, firstly, if the real precepts are, in great part,
identical on both sides, a difference as regards founda-
tion is made manifest. Many thoughtful people
deem this difference unimportant. But the question

380 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

of foundation, which may be secondary for a writer
on ethics, is of great moment from the religious
point of view, seeing that religion is, above all,
practice, life, realisation, and that the foundation is
the principle of the realisation. What religion aims
at obtaining is, in the first place, effectual means, not
only with a view to knowledge, but with a view to
the real performance of duty. She believes that
pure ideas, however clear they may be, do not suffice
to move the will ; that what produces being is being ;
and she offers human virtue the support of divine
perfection, in order to help it to exist and to increase.

Eeligion, in the second place, as fully developed,
is the communion of the individual, no longer merely
with the members of his clan, of his family, or of his
nation, but with God as the Father of the Universe,
i.e. in God, with all that is or can be. Religion is,
henceforward, essentially universal. She teaches the
radical equality and brotherhood of all human beings ;
and she offers, as motive for the actions of the indi-
vidual, the conviction that, however humble he may
be, he can labour effectively for the coming of the
Kingdom of God, in other words for Justice and for
Goodness.

Lastly, religion purposes to train man through an
inward and substantial operation. It is not merely
external acts, habits, customs that she would reach —
it is the man himself, in the deepest source of his
feelings and thoughts, of his longings and desires.
Moralists declare readily that we do not love as we
wish, but as we are able. But religion enjoins love
itself ; and she gives the power of loving.

It is true that the cold reason hesitates, regarding
these ideas as nothing else than exaggerations or

CONCLUSION 381

paradoxes. But it is remarkable that, in spite, or
because, of her paradoxical appearance, religion has
ever been one of the most powerful forces which
have affected humanity. Religion has united and
divided men, she has made and unmade empires, she
has occasioned terrible wars, she has opposed spirit
as an insurmountable hindrance to material might.
In the sphere of individual conscience she has raised
contests as dramatic as the wars between nations.
She has braved and subdued nature, she has made
man happy in wretchedness, miserable in prosperity.
Whence proceeds this strange sovereignty, if not from
a faith stronger than knowledge ; from a conviction
that God is with us, more effectual than all human
aid ; from a love stronger that all arguments ?

Is humanity getting ready to repudiate religion,
in order to seek, through wide-spread experiences,
some new guide ? That is possible ; for, if we cannot
affirm that, in this world, even the most elementary
forms are preserved without diminution, how is it
certain that the higher forms and values will con-
tinue ? There is nothing to prevent these values, not
only from being transformed, but from being lost, or
to prevent religion from sharing in the general fate.
But it is also possible that, even among the most
liberal and enlightened thinkers, religion will be main-
tained. For, hitherto, her vitality and her power of
adaptation have exceeded all that we could imagine.
And, in the moral order, we never know if a form of
existence is definitively abolished, since, as a rule,
human revolutions consist precisely in resuscitating
dead things.

The life of religions, however, is not exempted

382 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

from the general law, according to which a living
thing, if it would endure, must comply with the
conditions of its existence. Vitality and flexibility
are directly related. Buddhism in Japan is not the
Buddhism of India ; again, the Christianity of the
Middle Ages was adapted to the philosophy of Aris-
totle and to the Roman idea of Empire. Probably,
there will be the same adaptations in the future as in
the past. Religion will subsist, if, while manifesting
an intense faith, she remains in a relation of action
and reaction with the ideas, the feelings, the institu-
tions, and the life of human communities.

What, in existing communities, are the data which
cannot be set aside ?

In the first place, science, in its general conclusions,
and especially in its outlook, has become imperative
for human reason.

Similarly, if the morality of the philosophers is
diverse in its principles, in its demonstrations, in its
theories, it is not less true that there is, in our midst,
a living and active morality, which, though still
imperfectly defined, cannot be assailed. This morality,
indeed, is derived less from reasoned doctrines than
from traditions, customs, and religious beliefs ; from
the teaching and example of superior men ; from
habits which are created by life and by institutions,
as well as by the influence of physical, intellectual,
and moral conditions. It represents the experience
of humanity.

Lastly, the form of social life in different countries
is a third condition with which religions are obliged
to reckon. Formerly they were essentially national.
But a religion seems to us, now, all the nobler for
soaring above the differences which divide humanity.

CONCLUSION 383

The coexistence of the spirit of universality with the
necessary maintenance of the traditions and the
feelings, of the mind and the life adapted to each
nationality, is one of the problems which trouble the
modern mind. On the other hand, the democratic
regime, become general in modern nations, sometimes
presents a hostile attitude towards the very principle
of religion.

There is no apparent reason why religion should
not be adapted to the above-mentioned conditions.

Either by evolution, or by the action of the media
which she has traversed, religion — at one time so
overburdened with rites, with dogmas, and with
institutions — has, more and more, disengaged from
this material envelope the spirit which is her essence.
Christianity, in particular, the last of the great
religious creations which the story of humanity shows,
has, so to speak, neither dogmas nor rites as it is
taught by Christ. It calls on man to worship God in
spirit and in truth. This spiritual character has
dominated all the forms which it has assumed. And
even to-day, after the attempts to imprison it, either
in political forms, or in texts, it continues, amongst
the most cultivated peoples, an irreducible affirmation
of the reality and of the inviolability of spirit.

Let religion display herself thus in the world,
according to her own nature, as an altogether spiritual
activity, aspiring to transform men and things from
within, and not from without, by persuasion, by
example, by love, by prayer, by fellowship of souls,
and not by compulsion or by statecraft ; and it is
certain that she has nothing to fear from the progress
of science, from morality, or from institutions.

Freed from the yoke of an immutable and dumb

384 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

letter, or from an authority which is not purely moral
and spiritual, and brought back to herself, she
becomes, once more, entirely living and flexible;
capable of reconciliation with the whole of existence ;
everywhere at home, since, in all that is, she discerns
an aspect Godward. What may appear to be at
variance with modern ideas or institutions, is such
and such external form, such and such dogmatic
expression of religion — the trace of the life and the
science of bygone generations ; it is not the religious
spirit, as we see it circulating through the great
religions. For this spirit is nothing else than faith
in duty, the search after well-being and universal
love, those secret channels of every high and benefi-
cent activity.

But, it will be asked, is the religious spirit, quite
alone, without any visible form of manifestation, still
religion — is it still a reality ?

A distinction is here necessary. If the spiritual
principle is conceived as obtained and determined,
according to a purely objective method, by the
elimination of all the material and definable elements
of which the religious phenomena given in experience
are composed, it is evident that, in this principle,
there is no longer anything real, and that it is merely
a word by which an imaginary residuum is designated.
What is the personality of a man, if I claim to find
it in what remains, after I have taken away from that
man, regarded as an external phenomenon, all the
elements which belong to him in common with other
beings ? That is why Kant's Categorical Imperative
is only an empty abstraction for the critics who,
instead of penetrating the philosopher's thought,
understand his doctrine in an entirely objective and

CONCLUSION 385

dogmatic sense. To seek spirit in matter, is to render
its discovery impossible.

But, assuredly, the idea of duty is an active and
potent idea, which bestows on the object in which
we embody it an incomparable authority. And all
the forces which prompt human activity, all the main
causes of great historical movements, are thus " im-
ponderables," which we picture through symbolical
explanations, but which we shall never be able to
comprise in formulae.

The power of words has often been noted with
amazement. And, in truth, the passionate glow and
acquiescence, which could not be obtained from men
through teaching them a clear and consistent doctrine,
are created, straightway, through flinging them some
such words as : liberty, country, empire, justice, the
Will of God ! God with us ! Does this mean that,
cleverer than the scientists, ordinary folk invest these
words with clear ideas ? And must we suppose that
the concepts suggested by these words are identical
in all minds ? Much rather ought we to allow that
these words are signals, which, whenever they appear,
rouse and stir up, in people, a confused and floating
mass of feelings, of ideas, of aspirations, of passions,
which spread from individual to individual through
a sort of contagion. There is thus created a power
which will enrapture multitudes : this power is a
tendency, an aspiration, a common spirit — it is not
a clear and definite concept.

In this way there are principles, which, while they
are essentially formal, are, at the same time, very
positive and effectual ; and it may be imagined that
Kant could readily consider the notion of duty as a
principle of this kind. But Kant only attributed

2 c

386 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

such a value to the notion of duty because he
deemed it superior to empirical objectivity. He did
not admit that it was a fact, in the sense in which
the fall of a body is a fact : he saw therein a dictate
of reason, i.e. of the purely free will.

Similarly, nothing hinders us from allowing that
the religious spirit — so largely effective, and yet
in itself so incomprehensible and indefinable — is a
principle at once formal and positive, like the great
impelling forces of history, like feeling, like life.

Must we say, however, that religion is, exclusively,
spirit and life, and that it neither can nor should be
manifested in concepts and in material expressions ?
What is, exactly, in point of religion, the relation of
spirit to letter ?

A philosopher who applied himself, above all, to
develop the spiritualistic principle, viz. Fichte, wrote
as follows : Die Formel ist die grosste Woltat fur
den Menschen, Formal expression is, for man, the
greatest of benefits. For man, soul and body are
necessary. Mind cannot be realised without being
incarnated in matter. Thus, even the Light, pro-
tested Mephistopheles, ought not to despise bodies.

... da es, so viel es strebt,
Verhaftet und den Korpern klebt.
Yon Korpern stromt's, die Korper macht es schon,
Ein Korper hemmt's auf seinem Gange.1

Expel from religion every objective element, and you
reduce her to an unintelligibility which will be con-
founded with the imaginations of the individual, and

1 For, strive as it may, it continues fettered to bodies. It streams from
bodies, it beautifies bodies ; a body impedes it on its way.

CONCLUSION 387

which will not even be characterised any longer as
religion.

In fact, it is inadmissible that, in the inspiration
which transforms a life, in the feeling which raises
men above themselves, in what is called the soul of a
nation, in the religious spirit which History shows us
operating continuously, there are merely elements of
a subjective and non-intellectual kind. It is only in
certain old text-books of psychology that the soul's
faculties are described as absolutely shut off from one
another. The real soul is one ; and, in each of its
manifestations, it is quite whole — with its intellect
and its imagination, as well as with its will and its
spiritual activity.

Hence the concentration of the religious spirit,
which is expressed by the idea of a religion without
symbols, does not signify more than a phase : it is
simply the condition of a fresh impulse.

In a general way, the mind only abandons one
form in order to look for another. It leaves a form
which has become false to it so as to assume one
which, adapted to its internal progress and to its new
conditions, will represent it more truly. It is in this
sense that Kant shows the practical reason freeing
itself, first of all, from the empirical laws which
enslave it ; then, in the second place, positing, as the
immediate expression of its will, the notion of duty ;
lastly, seeking, in the third place, the means of
effecting, out of human life in its entirety, the
realisation of this notion.

The religious principle is not merged in the forms
by which it was expressed in the past. Otherwise it
would have a thousand contradictory aspects, and
would be unthinkable. It is more and more revealed

388 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

as the affirmation of the reality, the sublimity, and
the creative power of spirit.

Its seat is, henceforward, conscience. No longer
an external and material thing, it has become inward
life.

It is an activity of the soul, whether of the soul
of an individual, or of those ever- widening collective
souls which it is able, itself, to create through indi-
vidual souls. This evolution, due especially to the
action of mystics, is now secured. But mysticism
itself is subdivided into passive mysticism and active
mysticism. The former is satisfied with retiring from
the world, and with contemplating G-od ; the latter,
from the bosom of God, loves, wills, and shines.
Now, in order to realise itself outwardly it must
think and act. That is why the two elements of
belief and practice, which, from earliest times,
religion has added to feeling, are quite inseparable
from it.

How are we to explain the moulds of thought or
categories, by means of which the intellect perceives
and receives phenomena? When we say that they
originate from the double action of the mind and of
phenomena, it is clear that we are giving, not an
explanation of the fact, but merely a metaphorical
representation of it. Similarly, and a fortiori, the
inventions of genius, which not only outstrip facts,
but dominate them, modify them, create them —
setting up models which are, for them, unrealisable,
are something else than the mechanical resultants of
given phenomena. Accordingly, they appear to the
human mind as revelations, as the effects of com-
munion with a higher reality.

CONCLUSION 389

Whence came, asks Schiller, the mysterious
maiden, who, each spring, transformed Nature and
the hearts of men ?

Sie war nicht in dem Tal geboren,
Man wusste nicht woher sie kam.1

In like manner, religious inspiration is interpreted
by conceptions which, for us, necessarily outrun
experience, in that, relating to the very source of
being and of life, they are presented as revelations.
The conscious self regards them in this light : they
will only operate within it, they will only exist,
through being thus referred to a supernatural origin.

These conceptions, like all intellectual representa-
tion of an object, must be defined, determined in a
formula, i.e. briefly, in an image. This image can
only be a symbol. It has, in fact, been the prolonged
endeavour of the religious spirit to dissolve the
solidarity which linked it with things as actually
given, and with the science of these things, in order
to cherish aims that surpass them — aims that cannot
be realised by Nature alone. If, now, the categories
and preformed notions which we apply to things with
a view to perceiving them, can only be irreducible
symbols, if scientific knowledge itself remains invin-
cibly symbolical, how would religion, which aims at
representing the non-representable, escape from this
law of the intelligence ? It would even seem that
religious symbolism ought to constitute, somehow, a
symbolism of the second grade ; for religion cannot,
when her expressions clash with the affirmations of
science, vie with her rival in the ability to enrich our
knowledge. Eeligion has an object other than that

1 She was not born in the valley. We knew not whence she came.

390 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

of science; she is not — she is not for us — in any
way the explanation of phenomena. She cannot be
affected by the discoveries of science, which relate to
the objective nature and origin of things. Phenomena,
from the religious point of view, are estimated accord-
ing to their moral significance, to the feelings which
they suggest, to the inner life which they express and
which they rouse ; and no scientific explanation can
remove this character from them.

Not that the objective elements of religion : beliefs,
traditions, dogmas, ought to be emptied of all intel-
lectual content, and limited to a purely practical
value. Kant attempted this radical separation of
practice from knowledge — a kind of wager, to which
he himself was unable to adhere. Deprived of every
theoretical notion, practice would no longer have any
value, whether religious or even human ; and the
mind does not permit the realisation of such a division.
But there are, undoubtedly, in the mind two modes
of knowledge : distinct knowledge, and vague, or,
more particularly, symbolical knowledge. The idea
which directs the studies of an artist, of a poet, of an
inventor, of a scientist even, is a vague idea, which,
perhaps, will never be completely resolved and made
clear ; nevertheless, it is a positive, active, efficacious
idea. The human will and intellect are chiefly
moved by such ideas. The mathematician, by his
analyses, strives to overtake imaginative intuition,
which presents itself to his thought as a revelation,
and which is fixed and determined in proportion
as he seeks to convert it into conceptual demonstra-
tion. The mind does not evolve truth : it posits it,
it assumes it, in a necessarily vague manner ; then it
puts its hypotheses to the proof, and, through this

CONCLUSION 391

very operation, renders them more and more distinct.
Truth, for man, is hypothesis, sensibly verified and
specified by fact.

Eeligious knowledge, which takes for its object,
not what is, but what ought to be, cannot be deter-
mined after the manner of scientific knowledge ; but
if, independently of its practical value, it offers a
symbolical meaning with which reason can be satisfied,
inasmuch as the experience of science and of life has
effected it, we are justified in saying that it possesses
a veritable and legitimate intellectual content.

Such is the foundation of what are called dogmas,
an integral element in all real religion.

The fundamental dogmas of religion are two in
number : firstly, the existence of God, of a living,
perfect, almighty God ; secondly, the relationship, at
once living and concrete, of this God with man.

It would be little consonant with facts to say that
the idea of God is, at the present time, abandoned
by human reason. Keason has withdrawn, more and
more, from the idea of an external and material deity,
who would only be a magnified substitute for natural
beings. But, on the other hand, she applies herself,
more and more, to notions which — brought together,
defined and thoroughly examined — correspond quite
surely with what the religious consciousness adores
under the name of God.

Visible Nature is, throughout, dissociation, disper-
sion, dissolution, degradation, destruction. Now, we
dream of universal preservation, concentration, con-
ciliation and harmony. The development of one
individual, according to the natural course of things,
presupposes the destruction of certain others. The

392 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Over-man of Nietzsche requires useful slaves. Evil
is, in our world, a condition of Good — a condition
which appears to be indispensable. Who created
this world ? Shall we say the Good, or the Evil ;
God, or the Devil ? To God, virtue, love, perfection,
may be ascribed the saints, the meek, the just, the
self-sacrificing men. But the devil has put into the
world hunger, suffering, hatred, envy, lust, falsehood,
crime, war ; and, thereby, he has awakened the
activity of man and instigated his progress. Science,
industry, social organisation, justice, art, religion,
poetry, education — all these marvels are only, in a
sense, the means invented by man for the purpose of
overcoming and forgetting the ills which surround
him. Suppress the evil, and the good relapses into
nonentity. IIoXeyLto? Trdvrwv fiev Trarrfp eart TTCLVTCOV 8e

But it is precisely against this law of Nature that
human reason protests. She would like to be able to
fashion the good through the good, and not through
the evil ; she resolves that the liberty, the well-being,
the virtue of some shall not be the misery, the bondage,
the depravation of others. She attributes to all that
is, to all that has something positive and living in it,
an ideal form, a value, a right to exist and to develop.
She bestows an existence, even upon the Past which
is no longer, even upon the Future which, perhaps,
will not be. She would maintain the free and natural
development of all forms of activity : science, art,
religion, private virtues, public virtues, industry,
national life, social life ; communion with Nature,
with the Ideal, with Humanity.

Yet more, reason plans, among so many elements

1 Strife is the father and king of all things.

CONCLUSION 393

which seem disparate, the introduction of unity, of
harmony, of solidarity. She demands that every single
thing shall be all that it is capable of being, in the
ideal meaning of the word ; that it shall realise the
maximum of perfection possible to it, and, at the
same time, that it be one with the whole, and live by
that very communion.

Is the realisation of such an aim possible \

It must be clearly recognised that it exceeds the
plan of Nature, whose passivity is indifferent to the
intrinsic value of beings, if so be that, for Nature,
there are beings. In like manner, it goes beyond
the logic of our understanding, which, reducing things
to concepts, can only identify them, or declare them
incompatible. It would be especially inconceivable,
if, with the dogmatic systems of theology, we only
made appeal to the categories of eternity, of im-
mutability, of static quality and unity.

But actual Nature — regarded from the standpoint
of reason, if not from that of bare science — is not,
perhaps, a mere immutable mechanism. Is it certain
that, in her living reality, she contains only being,
and not beings ? Life, if we consider it under its
proper aspects, and if we look upon it as a reality,
offers us the outline of a harmonious and relatively
persistent union of substances and of properties, which
mechanical forces, left to themselves, would never
have formed.

By analogy with life, we are able to conceive a
Being, in whom all that is positive, all that is a
possible form of existence and of perfection, coalesces
and subsists ; a Being who is one and multiple — not
like a material whole, made up of elements placed
side by side, but like the continuous and moving

394 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

infinity of a mind, of a person. If this idea, which
transcends experience, is not mechanically enjoined
upon the understanding, it is, nevertheless, in complete
harmony with human reason, as both the traditions
of races and the reflections of thinkers testify. The
Being which this idea represents is what the various
religions call God.

The second fundamental dogma of religion is the
living communion of God with man. This com-
munion is thus defined by the Christian religion :
" No man hath beheld God at any time ; if we love
one another, God abideth in us." In other words,
God is love, and love is communion — the power
of living in another. To love is to imitate God, it is
to be God in a sense, it is to live in him and through
him.

These ideas, which are at the heart of Christianity,
convey nothing but what is very conformable to the
aspirations of reason. The Being, in whom every-
thing that deserves existence ought to be reconciled,
merged and fixed harmoniously, is naturally conceived,
both as a model that the intellect seeks to copy in
the objects which it fashions, and as a source of moral
energy, whence the will, striving after the best, can
ceaselessly acquire renewed strength. To believe in
God — to believe in the eternal union of all those
perfections which the spatial and temporal world
exhibits as incompatible, is, at one and the same
time, to believe that this incompatibility is only ap-
parent, and that a power exists through which the
Good can become, in very truth, the condition and
the means of the Good.

When we contemplate God as the union of per-
fection and of existence, as Love, Father, Creator, and

CONCLUSION 395

Providence, we recognise ideas which correspond to
the aspirations of reason. These ideas, however, are
not clear and distinct, and we do not see how they
can become so. They are vague and symbolical ideas,
very real, nevertheless, and very potent.

We must regard, as still more symbolical, the
expressions by which the intellect seeks to render
these notions more and more concrete, and, thereby
even, more and more comprehensible for all, more
and more fitted to determine the will. But these
developments are justified, when they are conceived
so as to become reconciled, in the living reason, with
the essential conditions of our science and of our life.
Do we not see that science, as the pure search for
truth, and life, which seeks a reason for living, are
themselves suspended in this Being, in whom alone
existence gains a value and perfection a reality ?

We have, further, to distinguish as essential
elements of religion, besides feeling and dogmas,
rites and deeds — whether public or private.

It is impossible to consider deeds as a purely
adventitious element of religion. Where do we find,
in the human soul, that substance termed pure being,
whose action, without any regulative effect, would be
only a ray or an emanation ? We make use, here, of
a metaphor drawn from sensible images. Far from
our being able to regard deeds as thus, with man,
a mere result, eminent psychologists maintain that
feeling, inward disposition — what we call being, is
only, in truth, the effect and psychical translation of
exterior and motor activity. In any case, it is im-
possible for us to know if a given feeling is absolutely
spontaneous, or if it owes something to the influence

396 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

of our actions upon our being. This influence, if it
is not, by itself, creative, is indeed very deep. It is,
therefore, quite reasonable that deeds and rites have,
from the earliest times, been considered a part of
religion. However spiritual the world's religions may
become, they will never be able to separate being from
doing, without detracting from the laws of human
nature. As long as religion shall endure, it will
comprise — as essential elements — practices, rites,
active and external manifestations.

Practices presuppose authority and obedience. It
is inconceivable how these principles can be struck off
from religion, any more, in fact, than from life in
general. But the religious authority is obviously
spirit, and spirit alone. Every other authority is
but an organ through which the authority of spirit is
manifested. Exclusively moral, the religious authority
can only be understood and obeyed by free consciences.

Eeligious rites do not constitute the end, but the
means. They ought to be adapted to further the
realisation of religious ends. Now these latter are :
purity of heart, self-renunciation, the establishment
of a community wherein each member shall exist for
the whole, as the whole for each member — wherein,
following the language of St. John, they all shall be
one, even as, in God, the Father and the Son are one.

Keligion will thus preserve her ancient character
as the tutelary genius of human communities. She
requires the union of all consciences, therefore of all
men ; she aims at effecting between them a bond of
love, as the support, as the principle of the material
bond. In this way she will carefully preserve the
rites, which, handed down by so many ages and
peoples, are the incomparable symbols of the per-

CONCLUSION 397

manence and breadth of the human family. She will
maintain them through infusing into them an ever
deeper, more universal, more spiritual thought. To
act, to feel, to vibrate together, during the accomplish-
ment of a common task, is, according to reason herself,
the secret of union. Ta KOIVO, a-weei, said Aristotle.1

We should make religion an incomplete and still
abstract idea if we were to confine it to beliefs and
practices. Just as it starts from feeling, so it ends
therein, for the object of dogmas and rites is both to
express feeling and to determine it. The develop-
ment of feeling is like a circle which only recedes
from its starting-point in order to return thereto. It
is not without significance that the psychologist and
the moralist consider mysticism an essential element,
and, perhaps, the foundation of religion. All intense
religious life is mystical ; and mysticism is the life-
source from which religions, threatened by a formal
and scholastic spirit, derive fresh vigour.

But there is an abstract and barren form of mysti-
cism, as well as a positive and fruitful form. The
first is that which endeavours to live entirely by
feeling, believing itself freed from the tyranny of
dogmas and practices. In isolating itself from the
intellect and from activity, feeling is not raised, it
becomes enfeebled. On the other hand, guided and
enriched by thought and by action, feeling can,
indeed, expand and display its creative property ; it
is then the active mysticism, so incomparably effi-
cacious, which we find at the heart of all the great
religious, moral, political, and social movements of
humanity.

1 Things that are common to all serve as a link.

398 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Keligious feeling, thus regulated and determined
by belief and practice, may be described — in com-
parison with purely natural and philosophical virtue
— as the transformation of tolerance into love.

Philosophers and politicians have found reasons
for teaching men to tolerate one another. How could
I rightly claim for myself a liberty that I refused to
my fellows ? But such reasoning is more formal than
real. Have we proved that the liberty of others is as
good as our own ? Yes, perhaps, if by liberty we
mean the bare ability to will, or not to will. But a
liberty of this kind is an academic abstraction. All
genuine liberty is bound up with the ideas, the
opinions, the inclinations, the habits, which determine
it. And that liberty is really better than another,
which operates according to higher principles. How,
then, can all forms of liberty claim the same right ?
Has error the same right as truth, vice as virtue,
ignorance as knowledge \ And do not all branches
of learning to-day, moral as well as physical, claim an
equal scientific certainty ? If truth ought to tolerate
error, it could only be for a time, during the delay
granted to the latter for her instruction and correction.

In short, the principle of tolerance is an ill-gotten
notion, the expression of a scornful condescension, the
mental denial of what we seem to allow. It is not
clear how tolerance would be justifiable, unless we
admitted, in all things, another point of view than
that of positive science.

But religion actually vindicates, beside the stand-
point of science, the standpoint of feeling and of faith.
For her, the value of liberty is not gauged in pro-
portion to scientific knowledge. Individuality, as
such — be it that of ignoramus or of scientist, of

CONCLUSION 399

criminal or of honest man — has a special value. A
world in which prevail personality, freedom to err
and to do amiss, variety and harmony, is, for the
religious man, better, loftier, more like divine per-
fection, than a world in which everything would
be merely the mechanical application of a single
immutable rule. The only way for the finite to
imitate the Infinite is through endless diversification.

That is why, in his experience of other men, the
religious man appreciates most of all, not the points
wherein they resemble him, but the points wherein
they differ from him. He does not simply tolerate
these differences. They are, in his eyes, bits of the
universal harmony, they are the being of other men ;
and, thereby even, they are the condition attaching
to the development of his own personality.

" Consider," said the shoemaker Jacob Boehme,
" the birds of our forests ; they praise God, each one
after its fashion, in all keys and in sundry ways.
Do we find that God is offended by this diversity,
and that he silences these discordant voices ? All
forms of existence are dear to the Infinite Being."

Keligion commands us to love others, and to love
them for themselves. Bolder than philosophy, she
makes love a duty — the duty par excellence. She
calls upon men to love one another in God, i.e. to
ascend to the common source of being and of love.
Mutual love is natural between brethren.
.

In spite of their relations, science and religion
remain, and must remain, distinct. If there were no
other way of establishing a rational order between
things than that of reducing the many to the one,
either by assimilation or by elimination, the destiny

400 SCIENCE AND RELIGION

of religion would appear doubtful. But the struggles
which contrasts engender admit of solutions other
than those which science and logic offer. When two
powers contend, both of them equally endowed with
vitality and with fertility, they develop and grow by
that very conflict. And, the value and the inde-
structibility of each becoming more and more evident,
reason strives to bring them together through their
conflicts, and to fashion, from their union, a being
richer and more harmonious than either of them
taken apart.

Thus is it with religion and science. Strife
tempers them both alike ; and, if reason prevails,
from their two distinct principles — become, at once,
wider, stronger, and more flexible — will spring a form
of life ever ampler, richer, deeper, freer, as well as
more beautiful and more intelligible. But these two
autonomous powers can only advance towards peace,
harmony, and concord, without ever claiming to reach
the goal ; for such is the human condition.

THE END

Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.

RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT

202 Main Library

LOAN PERIOD 1
HOME USE

2

3

4 RENEWALS AND REC
LOAN PERIODS ARE
RENEWALS: CALL (4

f&RGES MAY BE MADE 4 DA'
1-MONTH, 3-MONTHS. AND 1-
5) 642-3405

gf RIOR TO DUE DAT*.
fEAR.

ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS

1 -month loans may be renewed by calling 642-3405

6-month loans may be recharged by bringing books to Circulation Desk

Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date

DUE AS STAMPED BELOW

DEC CIRC JAN § «

86

p o i rays

fti rrn DlS^'

JUN * 1MC

T~l J"

1

Gt8r'" ^

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
FORM NO. DD6, 60m, 12/80 BERKELEY, CA 94720

re

GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY

8000^3^030

umvERsn-v OF CAUFORNIA UBRARy