Thoughts on Religion Part 5

[42] [On the whole I have thought it best to omit the names.--ED.]

[43] [The MS. note here continues: 'Here introduce all that I say on the subject in my Burney Prize.' I have not, however, introduced any quotation into the text because (1) I think Romanes makes his meaning plain in the text as it stands; (2) I cannot find in the essay in question any exactly appropriate pa.s.sage of reasonable length to quote.

The greater part of the essay is, however, directed to meet the scientific objection to the doctrine that prayer is answered in the physical region, by showing that this objection consists in an argument from the known to the unknown, i.e. from the known sphere of invariable physical laws to the unknown sphere of G.o.d's relation to all such laws; and is, therefore, weak in proportion as the unknown sphere is remote from possible experience of a scientific kind, and admits of an indefinite number of possibilities, more or less conceivable to our imagination, which would or might prevent the scientific argument from having legitimate application to the question in hand.--ED.]

[44] _Fortnightly Review_, Feb. 1894.

[45] [Some such phrase is necessary to complete the sentence.--ED.]

[46] _First Principles_, Part I, ch. 1.

-- 3. CAUSALITY.

Only because we are so familiar with the great phenomenon of causality do we take it for granted, and think that we reach an ultimate explanation of anything when we have succeeded in finding the 'cause'

thereof: when, in point of fact, we have only succeeded in merging it in the mystery of mysteries. I often wish we could have come into the world, like the young of some other mammals, with all the powers of intellect that we shall ever subsequently attain already developed, but without any individual experience, and so without any of the blunting effects of custom. Could we have done so, surely nothing in the world would more acutely excite our intelligent astonishment than the one universal fact of causation. That everything which happens should have a cause, that this should invariably be proportioned to its effect, so that, no matter how complex the interaction of causes, the same interaction should always produce the same result; that this rigidly exact system of energizing should be found to present all the appearances of universality and of eternity, so that, e.g., the motion of the solar system in s.p.a.ce is being determined by some causes beyond human ken, and that we are indebted to billions of cellular unions, each involving billions of separate causes, for our hereditary pa.s.sage from an invertebrate ancestry,--that such things should be, would surely strike us as the most wonderful fact in this wonderful universe.

Now, although familiarity with this fact has made us forget its wonder to the extent of virtually a.s.suming that we know all about it, philosophical enquiry shows that, besides empirically knowing it to be a fact, we only know one other thing about it, viz.--that our knowledge of it is derived from our own activity when we ourselves are causes. No result of psychological a.n.a.lysis seems to me more certain than this[47].

If it were not for our own volitions, we should be ignorant of what we can now not doubt, on pain of suicidal scepticism, to be the most general fact of nature. Such, at least, seems to me by far the most reasonable theory of our idea of causality, and is the one now most generally entertained by philosophers of every school.

Now, to the plain man it will always seem that if our very notion of causality is derived from our own volition--as our very notion of energy is derived from our sense of effort in overcoming resistance by our volition--presumably the truest notion we can form of that in which causation objectively consists is the notion derived from that known mode of existence which alone gives us the notion of causality at all.

Hence the plain man will always infer that all energy is of the nature of will-energy, and all objective causation of the nature of subjective.

Nor is this inference confined to the plain man; the deepest philosophical thinkers have arrived at substantially the same opinion, e.g. Hegel, Schopenhauer. So that the direct and most natural interpretation of causality in external nature which is drawn by primitive thought in savages and young children, seems destined to become also the ultimate deliverance of human thought in the highest levels of its culture[48].

But, be this as it may, we are not concerned with any such questions of abstract philosophical speculation. As pure agnostics they lie beyond our sphere. Therefore, I allude to them only for the sake of showing that there is nothing either in the science or philosophy of mankind inimical to the theory of natural causation being the energizing of a will objective to us. And we can plainly see that if such be the case, and if that will be self-consistent, its operations, as revealed in natural causation, must appear to us when considered _en bloc_ (or not piece-meal as by savages), non-volitional, or mechanical.

Of all philosophical theories of causality the most repugnant to reason must be those of Hume, Kant and Mill, which while differing from one another agree in this--that they attribute the principle of causality to a creation of our own minds, or in other words deny that there is anything objective in the relation of cause and effect--i.e. in the very thing which all physical science is engaged in discovering in particular cases of it.

The conflict of Science and Religion has always arisen from one common ground of agreement, or fundamental postulate of both parties--without which, indeed, it would plainly have been impossible that any conflict could have arisen, inasmuch as there would then have been no field for battle. Every thesis must rest on some hypothesis; therefore, in cases where two or more rival theses rest on a common hypothesis, the disputes must needs collapse so soon as the common hypothesis is proved erroneous. And proportionably, in whatever degree the previously common hypothesis is shown to be dubious, in that degree are the disputations shown to be possibly unreal. Now, it is one of the main objects of this treatise to show that the common hypothesis on which all the disputes between Science and Religion have arisen, is highly dubious. And not only so, but that quite apart from modern science all the difficulties on the side of intellect (or reason) which religious belief has ever encountered in the past, or can ever encounter in the future, whether in the individual or the race, arise, and arise exclusively, from the self-same ground of this highly dubious hypothesis.

The hypothesis, or fundamental postulate, in question is, _If there be a personal G.o.d, He is not immediately concerned with natural causation_.

It is a.s.sumed that _qua_ 'first cause,' He can in no way be concerned with 'second causes,' further than by having started them in the first instance as a great machinery of 'natural causation,' working under 'general laws.' True the theory of Deism, which entertains more or less expressly this hypothesis of 'Deus ex machina,' has during the present century been more and more superseded by that of Theism, which entertains also in some indefinable measure the doctrine of 'immanence'; as well as by that of Pantheism, which expressly holds this doctrine to the exclusion _in toto_ of its rival. But Theism has never yet entertained it sufficiently or up to the degree required by the pure logic of the case, while Pantheism has but rarely considered the rival doctrine of personality--or the possible union of immanence with personality.[49]

Now it is the object of this book to go much further than any one has. .h.i.therto gone in proving the possibility of this union. For I purpose to show that, provided only we lay aside all prejudice, sentiment, &c., and follow to its logical termination the guidance of pure reason, there are no other conclusions to be reached than these. Namely, (_A_) That if there be a personal G.o.d, no reason can be a.s.signed why He should not be immanent in nature, or why all causation should not be the immediate expression of His will. (_B_) That every available reason points to the inference that He probably is so. (_C_) That if He is so, and if His will is self-consistent, all natural causation must needs appear to us 'mechanical.' Therefore (_D_) that it is no argument against the divine origin of a thing, event, &c., to prove it due to natural causation.

After having dealt briefly with (_A_), (_B_) and (_C_), I would show that (_D_) is the most practically important of these four conclusions.

For the fundamental hypothesis which I began by mentioning is just the opposite of this. Whether tacitly or expressly, it has always been a.s.sumed by both sides in the controversy between Science and Religion, that as soon as this that and the other phenomenon has been explained by means of natural causation, it has thereupon ceased to be ascribable [directly] to G.o.d. The distinction between the natural and the supernatural has always been regarded by both sides as indisputably sound, and this fundamental agreement as to ground of battle has furnished the only possible condition to fighting. It has also furnished the condition of all the past, and may possibly furnish the condition of all the future, discomfitures of religion. True religion is indeed learning her lesson that something is wrong in her method of fighting, and many of her soldiers are now waking up to the fact that it is here that her error lies--as in past times they woke up to see the error of denying the movement of the earth, the antiquity of the earth, the origin of species by evolution, &c. But no one, even of her captains and generals, has so far followed up their advantage to its ultimate consequences. And this is what I want to do. The logical advantage is clearly on their side; and it is their own fault if they do not gain the ultimate victory,--not only as against science, but as against intellectual dogmatism in every form. This can be routed all along the line. For science is only the organized study of natural causation, and the experience of every human being, in so far as it leads to dogmatism on purely intellectual grounds, does so on account of entertaining the fundamental postulate in question. The influence of custom and want of imagination is here very great. But the answer always should be to move the ulterior question--what is the nature of natural causation?

Now I propose to push to its full logical conclusion the consequence of this answer. For no one, even the most orthodox, has as yet learnt this lesson of religion to anything like fullness. G.o.d is still grudged His own universe, so to speak, as far and as often as He can possibly be. As examples we may take the natural growth of Christianity out of previous religions; the natural spread of it; the natural conversion of St. Paul, or of anybody else. It is still a.s.sumed on both sides that there must be something inexplicable or miraculous about a phenomenon in order to its being divine.

What else have science and religion ever had to fight about save on the basis of this common hypothesis, and hence as to whether the causation of such and such a phenomenon has been 'natural' or 'super-natural.' For even the disputes as to science contradicting scripture, ultimately turn on the a.s.sumption of inspiration (supposing it genuine) being 'super-natural' as to its causation. Once grant that it is 'natural' and all possible ground of dispute is removed.

I can well understand why infidelity should make the basal a.s.sumption in question, because its whole case must rest thereon. But surely it is time for theists to abandon this a.s.sumption.

The a.s.sumed distinction between causation as natural and super-natural no doubt began in superst.i.tion in prehistoric time, and throughout the historical period has continued from a vague feeling that the action of G.o.d must be mysterious, and hence that the province of religion must be within the super-sensuous. Now, it is true enough that the finite cannot comprehend the infinite, and hence the feeling in question is logically sound. But under the influence of this feeling, men have always committed the fallacy of concluding that if a phenomenon has been explained in terms of natural causation, it has thereby been explained _in toto_--forgetting that it has only been explained up to the point where such causation is concerned, and that the real question of ultimate causation has merely been thus postponed. And a.s.suredly beyond this point there is an infinitude of mystery sufficient to satisfy the most exacting mystic. For even Herbert Spencer allows that in ultimate a.n.a.lysis all natural causation is inexplicable.

Logically regarded the advance of science, far from having weakened religion, has immeasurably strengthened it. For it has proved the uniformity of natural causation. The so-called natural sphere has increased at the expense of the 'super-natural.' Unquestionably. But although to lower grades of culture this always seems a fact inimical to religion, we may now perceive it is quite the reverse, since it merely goes to abolish the primitive or uncultured distinction in question.

It is indeed most extraordinary how long this distinction has held sway, or how it is the ablest men of all generations have quietly a.s.sumed that when once we know the natural causation of any phenomenon, we therefore know all about it--or, as it were, have removed it from the sphere of mystery altogether, when, in point of fact, we have only merged it in a much greater mystery than ever.

But the answer to our astonishment how this distinction has managed to survive so long lies in the extraordinary effect of custom, which here seems to slay reason altogether; and the more a man busies himself with natural causes (e.g. in scientific research) the greater does this slavery to custom become, till at last he seems positively unable to perceive the real state of the case--regarding any rational thinking thereon as chimerical, so that the term 'meta-physical,' even in its etymological sense as super-sensuous or beyond physical causation, becomes a term of rational reproach. Obviously such a man has written himself down, if not an a.s.s, at all events a creature wholly incapable of rationally treating any of the highest problems presented either by nature or by man.

On any logical theory of Theism there can be no such distinction between 'natural' and 'supernatural' as is usually drawn, since on that theory all causation is but the action of the Divine Will. And if we draw any distinction between such action as 'immediate' or 'mediate,' we can only mean this as valid in relation to mankind--i.e. in relation to our experience. For, obviously, it would be wholly incompatible with pure agnosticism to suppose that we are capable of drawing any such distinction in relation to the Divine activity itself. Even apart from the theory of Theism, pure agnosticism must take it that the real distinction is not between natural and supernatural, but between the explicable and the inexplicable--meaning by those terms that which is and that which is not accountable by such causes as fall within the range of human observation. Or, in other words, the distinction is really between the observable and the un.o.bservable causal processes of the universe.

Although science is essentially engaged in explaining, her work is necessarily confined to the sphere of natural causation; beyond that sphere (i.e. the sensuous) she can explain nothing. In other words, even if she were able to explain the natural causation of everything, she would be unable to a.s.sign the ultimate _raison d'etre_ of anything.

It is not my intention to write an essay on the nature of causality, or even to attempt a survey of the sundry theories which have been propounded on this subject by philosophers. Indeed, to attempt this would be little less than to write a history of philosophy itself.

Nevertheless it is necessary for my purpose to make a few remarks touching the main branches of thought upon the matter[50].

_The remarkable nature of the facts._ These are remarkable, since they are common to all human experience. Everything that _happens_ has a cause. The same happening has always the same cause--or the same consequent the same antecedent. It is only familiarity with this great fact that prevents universal wonder at it, for, notwithstanding all the theories upon it, no one has ever really shown why it is so. That the same causes always produce the same effects is a proposition which expresses a fundamental fact of our knowledge, but the knowledge of this fact is purely empirical; we can show no reason why it should be a fact.

Doubtless, if it were not a fact, there could be no so-called 'Order of Nature,' and consequently no science, no philosophy, or perhaps (if the irregularity were sufficiently frequent) no possibility of human experience. But although this is easy enough to show, it in no wise tends to show why the same causes should always produce the same effects.

So manifest is it that our knowledge of the fact in question is only empirical, that some of our ablest thinkers, such as Hume and Mill, have failed to perceive even so much as the intellectual necessity of looking beyond our empirical knowledge of the fact to gain any explanation of the fact itself. Therefore they give to the world the wholly vacuous, or merely tautological theory of causation--viz. that of constancy of sequence within human observation[51].

If it be said of my argument touching causality, that it is naturalizing or materializing the super-natural or spiritual (as most orthodox persons will feel), my reply is that deeper thought will show it to be at least as susceptible of the opposite view--viz. that it is subsuming the natural into the super-natural, or spiritualizing the material: and a pure agnostic, least of all, should have anything to say as against either of these alternative points of view. Or we may state the matter thus: in as far as pure reason can have anything to say in the matter, she ought to incline towards the view of my doctrine spiritualizing the material, because it is pretty certain that we could know nothing about natural causation--even so much as its existence--but for our own volitions.

_Free Will_[52].

Having read all that is said to be worth reading on the Free Will controversy, it appears to me that the main issues and their logical conclusions admit of being summed up in a very few words, thus:--

1. A writer, before he undertakes to deal with this subject at all, should be conscious of fully perceiving the fundamental distinction between responsibility as merely legal and as also moral; otherwise he cannot but miss the very essence of the question in debate. No one questions the patent fact of responsibility as legal; the only question is touching responsibility as moral. Yet the princ.i.p.al bulk of literature on Free Will and Necessity arises from disputants on both sides failing to perceive this basal distinction. Even such able writers as Spencer, Huxley and Clifford are in this position.

2. The root question is as to whether the will is caused or un-caused.

For however much this root-question may be obscured by its own abundant foliage, the latter can have no existence but that which it derives from the former.

3. Consequently, if libertarians grant causality as appertaining to the will, however much they may beat about the bush, they are surrendering their position all along the line, unless they fall back upon the more ultimate question as to the nature of natural causation. Now it can be proved that this more ultimate question is [scientifically]

unanswerable. Therefore both sides may denominate natural causation _x_--an unknown quant.i.ty.

4. Hence the whole controversy ought to be seen by both sides to resolve itself into this--is or is not the will determined by _x_? And, if this seems but a barren question to debate, I do not undertake to deny the fact. At the same time there is clearly this real issue remaining--viz.

Is the will self-determining, or is it determined--i.e. _from without_?

5. If determined from without, is there any room for freedom, in the sense required for saving the doctrine of moral responsibility? And I think the answer to this must be an unconditional negative.

6. But, observe, it is not one and the same thing to ask, Is the will entirely determined from without? and Is the will entirely determined by natural causation (_x_)? For the unknown quant.i.ty _x_ may very well include _x'_, if by _x'_ we understand all the unknown ingredients of personality.

7. Hence, determinists gain no advantage over their adversaries by any possible proof (at present impossible) that all acts of will are due to natural causation, unless they can show the nature of the latter, and that it is of such a nature as supports their conclusion. For aught we at present know, the will may very well be free in the sense required, even though all its acts are due to _x_.

8. In particular, for aught we know to the contrary, all may be due to _x'_, i.e. all causation may be of the nature of will (as, indeed, many systems of philosophy maintain), with the result that every human will is of the nature of a First Cause. In support of which possibility it may be remarked that most philosophies are led to the theory of a _causa causarum_ as regards _x_.

9. To the obvious objection that with a plurality of first causes--each the _fons et origo_ of a new and never-ending stream of causality--the cosmos must sooner or later become a chaos by c.u.mulative intersection of the streams, the answer is to be found in the theory of monism[53].

10. Nevertheless, the ultimate difficulty remains which is depicted in my essay on the 'World as an Eject[54].' But this, again, is merged in the mystery of Personality, which is only known as an inexplicable, and seemingly ultimate, fact.