Thoughts on Religion Part 4

it may be the highest 'good gift from above' as yet given to man.

My present object, then, like that of Socrates, is not to impart any philosophical system, or even positive knowledge, but a frame of mind, what I may term, pure agnosticism, as distinguished from what is commonly so called.

FOOTNOTES:

[34] The first edition, which was published in 1878, was rapidly exhausted, but, as my object in publis.h.i.+ng was solely that of soliciting criticism for my own benefit, I arranged with the publishers not to issue any further edition. The work has therefore been out of print for many years.

[This 'arrangement' was however not actually made, or at least was unknown to the present publis.h.i.+ng firm of Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Thus a new edition of the book was published in 1892, to the author's surprise.--ED.]

[35] [Or rather it was intended that it should appear under the pseudonym of 'Metaphysicus.'--ED.]

[36] [Words in square brackets have been added by me. But I have not introduced the brackets when I have simply inserted single unimportant words obviously necessary for the sense.--ED.]

[37] [See p. 29, quotation from Preface of 'Physicus.' The state of mind expressed in the above Note is a return to the earlier frame of mind of the Burney Essay, e.g. p. 20. That essay was full of the thought that Christian evidences are very manifold and largely 'extra-scientific.'--ED.]

-- 2. DEFINITION OF TERMS AND PURPOSE OF THIS TREATISE.

[To understand George Romanes' mind close attention must be paid to the following section. Also to the fact, not explicitly noticed by him, that he uses the word 'reason' (see p. 112) in a sense closely resembling that in which Mr. Kidd has recently used it in his _Social Evolution_.

He uses it, that is, in a restricted sense as equivalent to _the process of scientific ratiocination_. His main position is therefore this: Scientific ratiocination cannot find adequate grounds for belief in G.o.d.

But the pure agnostic must recognize that G.o.d may have revealed Himself by other means than that of scientific ratiocination. As religion is for the whole man, so all human faculties may be required to seek after G.o.d and find Him--emotions and experiences of an extra-'rational' kind. The 'pure agnostic' must be prepared to welcome evidence of all sorts.--ED.]

It is desirable to be clear at the outset as to the meaning which I shall throughout attach to certain terms and phrases.

_Theism._

It will frequently be said, 'on the theory of Theism,' 'supposing Theism true,' &c. By such phrase my meaning will always be equivalent to--'supposing, for the sake of argument, that the nearest approach which the human mind can make to a true notion of the _ens realissimum_, is that of an inconceivably magnified image of itself at its best.'

_Christianity._

Similarly, when it is said, 'supposing Christianity true,' what will be meant is--'supposing for the sake of argument, that the Christian system as a whole, from its earliest dawn in Judaism, to the phase of its development at the present time, is the highest revelation of Himself which a personal Deity has vouchsafed to mankind.' This I intend to signify an att.i.tude of pure agnosticism as regards any particular dogma of Christianity--even that of the Incarnation.

Should it be said that by holding in suspense any distinctive dogma of Christianity, I am not considering Christianity at all, I reply, Not so; I am not writing a theological, but a philosophical treatise, and shall consider Christianity merely as one of many religions, though, of course, the latest, &c. Thus considered, Christianity takes its place as the highest manifestation of evolution in this department of the human mind; but I am not concerned even with so important an ecclesiastical dogma as that of the Incarnation of G.o.d in Christ. As far as this treatise has to go, that dogma may or may not be true. The important question for us is, Has G.o.d spoken through the medium of our religious instincts? And although this will necessarily involve the question whether or how far in the case of Christianity there is objective evidence of His having spoken by the mouth of holy men [of the Old Testament] which have been since the world began, such will be the case only because it is a question of objective evidence whether or how far the religious instincts of these men, or this race of men, have been so much superior to those of other men, or races of men, as to have enabled them to predict future events of a religious character. And whether or not in these latter days G.o.d has spoken by His own Son is not a question for us, further than to investigate the higher cla.s.s of religious phenomena which unquestionably have been present in the advent and person of Jesus. The question whether Jesus was the Son of G.o.d, is, logically speaking, a question of ontology, which, _qua_ pure agnostics, we are logically forbidden to touch.

But elsewhere I ought to show that, from my point of view as to the fundamental question being whether G.o.d has spoken at all through the religious instincts of mankind, it may very well be that Christ was not G.o.d, and yet that He gave the highest revelation of G.o.d. If the 'first Man' was allegorical, why not the 'second'? It is, indeed, an historical fact that the 'second Man' existed, but so likewise may the 'first.'

And, as regards the 'personal claims' of Christ, all that He said is not incompatible with His having been Gabriel, and His Holy Ghost, Michael[38]. Or He may have been a man deceived as to His own personality, and yet the vehicle of highest inspiration.

_Religion._

By the term 'religion,' I shall mean any theory of personal agency in the universe, belief in which is strong enough in any degree to influence conduct. No term has been used more loosely of late years, or in a greater variety of meanings. Of course anybody may use it in any sense he pleases, provided he defines exactly in what sense he does so.

The above seems to be most in accordance with traditional usage.

_Agnosticism 'pure' and 'impure'._

The modern and highly convenient term 'Agnosticism,' is used in two very different senses. By its originator, Professor Huxley, it was coined to signify an att.i.tude of reasoned ignorance touching everything that lies beyond the sphere of sense-perception--a professed inability to found valid belief on any other basis. It is in this its original sense--and also, in my opinion, its only philosophically justifiable sense--that I shall understand the term. But the other, and perhaps more popular sense in which the word is now employed, is as the correlative of Mr. H.

Spencer's doctrine of the Unknowable.

This latter term is philosophically erroneous, implying important negative knowledge that if there be a G.o.d we know this much about Him--that He _cannot_ reveal Himself to man[39]. _Pure_ agnosticism is as defined by Huxley.

Of all the many scientific men whom I have known, the most pure in his agnosticism--not only in profession but in spirit and conduct--was Darwin. (What he says in his autobiography about Christianity[40] shows no profundity of thought in the direction of philosophy or religion. His mind was too purely inductive for this. But, on this very account, it is the more remarkable that his rejection of Christianity was due, not to any _a priori_ bias against the creed on grounds of reason as absurd, but solely on the ground of an apparent moral objection _a posteriori_[41].) Faraday and many other first-rate originators in science were like Darwin.

As an ill.u.s.tration of impure agnosticism take Hume's _a priori_ argument against miracles, leading on to the a.n.a.logous case of the att.i.tude of scientific men towards modern spiritualism. Notwithstanding that they have the close a.n.a.logy of mesmerism as an object-lesson to warn them, scientific men as a cla.s.s are here quite as dogmatic as the straightest sect of theologians. I may give examples which can cause no offence, inasmuch as the men in question have themselves made the facts public, viz. ---- refusing to go to [a famous spiritualist]; ---- refusing to try ---- in thought-reading[42]. These men all _professed_ to be agnostics at the very time when thus so egregiously violating their philosophy by their conduct.

Of course I do not mean to say that, even to a pure agnostic, reason should not be guided in part by antecedent presumption--e.g. in ordinary life, the _prima facie_ case, motive, &c., counts for evidence in a court of law--and where there is a strong antecedent improbability a proportionately greater weight of evidence _a posteriori_ is needed to counterbalance it: so that, e.g. better evidence would be needed to convict the Archbishop of Canterbury than a vagabond of pocket-picking.

And so it is with speculative philosophy. But in both cases our only guide is known a.n.a.logy; therefore, the further we are removed from possible experience--i.e. the more remote from experience the sphere contemplated--the less value attaches to antecedent presumptions[43].

_Maximum_ remoteness from possible experience is reached in the sphere of the final mystery of things with which religion has to do; so that here all presumption has faded away into a vanis.h.i.+ng point, and pure agnosticism is our only rational att.i.tude. In other words, here we should all alike be pure agnostics as far as reason is concerned; and, if any of us are to attain to any information, it can only be by means of some super-added faculty of our minds. The questions as to whether there are any such super-added faculties; if so, whether they ever appear to have been acted upon from without; if they have, in what manner they have; what is their report; how far they are trustworthy in that report, and so on--these are the questions with which this treatise is to be mainly concerned.

My own att.i.tude may be here stated. I do not claim any [religious]

certainty of an intuitive kind myself; but am nevertheless able to investigate the abstract logic of the matter. And, although this may seem but barren dialectic, it may, I hope, be of practical service if it secures a fair hearing to the reports given by the vast majority of mankind who unquestionably believe them to emanate from some such super-added faculties--numerous and diverse though their religions be.

Besides, in my youth I published an essay (the _Candid Examination_) which excited a good deal of interest at the time, and has been long out of print. In that treatise I have since come to see that I was wrong touching what I const.i.tuted the basal argument for my negative conclusion. Therefore I now feel it obligatory on me to publish the following results of my maturer thought, from the same stand-point of pure reason. Even though I have obtained no further light from the side of intuition, I have from that of intellect. So that, if there be in truth any such intuition, I occupy with regard to the organ of it the same position as that of the blind lecturer on optics. But on this very account I cannot be accused of partiality towards it.

It is generally a.s.sumed that when a man has clearly perceived agnosticism to be the only legitimate att.i.tude of reason to rest in with regard to religion (as I will subsequently show that it is), he has thereby finished with the matter; he can go no further. The main object of this treatise is to show that such is by no means the case. He has then only begun his enquiry into the grounds and justification of religious belief. For reason is not the only attribute of man, nor is it the only faculty which he habitually employs for the ascertainment of truth. Moral and spiritual faculties are of no less importance in their respective spheres even of everyday life; faith, trust, taste, &c., are as needful in ascertaining truth as to character, beauty, &c., as is reason. Indeed we may take it that reason is concerned in ascertaining truth only where _causation_ is concerned; the appropriate organs for its ascertainment where anything else is concerned belong to the moral and spiritual region.

As Herbert Spencer says, 'men of science may be divided into two cla.s.ses, of which the one, well exemplified by Faraday, keeping their religion and their science absolutely separate, are unperplexed by any incongruities between them, and the other of which, occupying themselves exclusively with the facts of science, never ask what implications they have. Be it trilobite or be it double star, their thought about it is much like the thought of Peter Bell about the primrose[44].' Now, both these cla.s.ses are logical, since both, as to their religion, adopt an att.i.tude of pure agnosticism, not only in theory, but also in practice.

What, however, have we to say of the third cla.s.s, which Spencer does not mention, although it is, I think, the largest, viz. of those scientific men who expressly abstain from drawing a line of division between science and religion [and then judge of religion purely on the principles and by the method of science[45]]?

There are two opposite casts of mind--the mechanical (scientific, &c.) and the spiritual (artistic, religious, &c.). These may alternate even in the same individual. An 'agnostic' has no hesitation--even though he himself keenly experience the latter--that the former only is worthy of trust. But a _pure_ agnostic must know better, as he will perceive that there is nothing to choose between the two in point of trustworthiness.

Indeed, if choice has to be made the mystic might claim higher authority for his direct intuitions.

Mr. Herbert Spencer has well said, in the opening section of his Synthetic Philosophy, that wherever human thought appears to be radically divided, [there must be truth on both sides and that the]

'reconciliation' of opposing views is to be found by emphasizing that ultimate element of truth which on each side underlies manifold differences. More than is generally supposed depends on points of view, especially where first principles of a subject are in dispute. Opposite sides of the same s.h.i.+eld may present wholly different aspects[46].

Spencer alludes to this with special reference to the conflict between science and religion; and it is in this same connexion that I also allude to it. For it seems to me, after many years of thought upon the subject, that the 'reconciliation' admits of being carried much further than it has been by him. For he effects this reconciliation only to the extent of showing that religion arises from the recognition of fundamental mystery--which it may be proved that science also recognizes in all her fundamental ideas. This, however, is after all little more than a plat.i.tude. That our ultimate scientific ideas (i.e. ultimate grounds of experience) are inexplicable, is a proposition which is self-evident since the dawn of human thought. My aim is to carry the 'reconciliation' into much more detail and yet without quitting the grounds of pure reason. I intend to take science and religion in their present highly developed states as such, and show that on a systematic examination of the latter by the methods of the former, the 'conflict'

between the two may be not merely 'reconciled' as regards the highest generalities of each, but entirely abolished in all matters of detail which can be regarded as of any great importance.

In any methodical enquiry the first object should be to ascertain the fundamental principles with which the enquiry is concerned. In actual research, however, it is by no means always the case that the enquirer knows, or is able at first to ascertain what those principles are. In fact, it is often only at the end of a research, that they are discovered to be the fundamental principles. Such has been my own experience with regard to the subject of the present enquiry. Although all my thinking life has been concerned, off and on, in contemplating the problem of our religious instincts, the sundry attempts which have been made by mankind for securing their gratification, and the important question as to their objective justification, it is only in advanced years that I have clearly perceived wherein the first principles of such a research must consist. And I doubt whether any one has. .h.i.therto clearly defined this point. The principles in question are the nature of causation and the nature of faith.

My objects then in this treatise are, mainly, three: 1st, to purify agnosticism; 2nd, to consider more fully than heretofore, and from the stand-point of pure agnosticism, the nature of natural causation, or, more correctly, the relation of what we know on the subject of such causation to the question of Theism; and, 3rd, again starting from the same stand-point, to consider the religious consciousnesses of men as phenomena of experience (i.e. as regarded by us from without), and especially in their highest phase of development as exhibited in Christianity.

FOOTNOTES:

[38] [I.e. supernatural but not strictly Divine Persons. Surely, however, the proposition is not maintainable.--ED.]

[39] [This is another instance of recurrence to an earlier thought; see Burney Essay, p. 25, and cf. _Mind and Motion and Monism_, p. 117, note 1.--ED.]

[40] _Life and Letters of Charles Darwin_, i. 308.

[41] [See further, p. 182.--ED.]