Through Nature to God Part 6

But first let me observe in pa.s.sing that in the English-speaking world there has never been any such divorce between rationalism and religion as in France, and among the glories of English literature are such deeply reverent and profoundly philosophical writings as those of Hooker and Chillingworth, of Bishop Butler and Jonathan Edwards, and in our own time of Dr. Martineau. Nowhere in history, perhaps, have faith and reason been more harmoniously wedded together than in the history of English Protestantism. But the disturbance that affected France in the age of Voltaire now affects the whole Christian world, and every question connected with religion has been probed to depths of which the existence was scarcely suspected a century ago. One seldom, indeed, hears the frivolous mockery in which the old French writers dealt so freely; that was an ebullition of temper called forth by a tyranny that had come to be a social nuisance. The scepticism of our day is rather sad than frivolous; it drags people from long cherished notions in spite of themselves; it spares but few that are active-minded; it invades the church, and does not stop in the pews to listen but ascends the pulpit and preaches. There is no refuge anywhere from this doubting and testing spirit Of the age. In the att.i.tude of civilized men towards the world in which we live, the change of front has been stupendous; the old cosmology has been overthrown in headlong ruin, attacks upon doctrines have multiplied, and rituals, creeds, and Scriptures are overhauled and criticised, until a young generation grows up knowing nothing of the st.u.r.dy faith of its grandfathers save by hearsay; for it sees everything in heaven and earth called upon to show its credentials.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

II

_The Reign of Law, and the Greek Idea of G.o.d_

The general effect of this intellectual movement has been to discredit more than ever before the Latin idea of G.o.d as a power outside of the course of nature and occasionally interfering with it. In all directions the process of evolution has been discovered, working after similar methods, and this has forced upon us the belief in the Unity of Nature.

We are thus driven to the Greek conception of G.o.d as the power working in and through nature, without interference or infraction of law. The element of chance, which some atheists formerly admitted into their scheme of things, is expelled. n.o.body would now waste his time in theorizing about a fortuitous concourse of atoms. We have so far spelled out the history of creation as to see that all has been done in strict accordance with law. The method has been the method of evolution, and the more we study it the more do we discern in it intelligible coherence. One part of the story never gives the lie to another part.

So beautiful is all this orderly coherence, so satisfying to some of our intellectual needs, that many minds are inclined to doubt if anything more can be said of the universe than that it is a Reign of Law, an endless aggregate of coexistences and sequences. When we say that one star attracts another star, we do not really know that there is any pulling in the case; all we know is that a piece of cosmical matter in the presence of another piece of matter alters its s.p.a.ce-relations in a certain specified way. Among the coexistences and sequences there is an order which we can detect, and a few thinkers are inclined to maintain that this is the whole story. Such a state of mind, which rests satisfied with the mere content of observed facts, without seeking to trace their ultimate implications, is the characteristic of what Auguste Comte called Positivism. It is a more refined phase of atheism than that of the guests at Baron d'Holbach's, but its adherents are few; for the impetus of modern scientific thought tends with overwhelming force towards the conception of a single First Cause, or Prime Mover, perpetually manifested from moment to moment in all the Protean changes that make up the universe. As I have elsewhere sought to show, this is practically identical with the Athanasian conception of the immanent Deity.[3] Modern men of science often call this view of things Monism, but if questioned narrowly concerning the immanent First Cause, they reply with a general disclaimer of knowledge, and thus ent.i.tle themselves to be called by Huxley's term "Agnostics." Thirty-five years ago Spencer, taking a hint from Sir William Hamilton, used the phrase "The Unknowable" as an equivalent for the immanent Deity considered _per se_; but I always avoid that phrase, for in practice it invariably leads to wrong conceptions, and naturally, since it only expresses one side of the truth. If on the one hand it is impossible for the finite Mind to fathom the Infinite, on the other hand it is practically misleading to apply the term Unknowable to the Deity that is revealed in every pulsation of the wondrously rich and beautiful life of the Universe. For most persons no amount of explanation will prevent the use of the word Unknowable from seeming to remove Deity to an unapproachable distance, whereas the Deity revealed in the process of evolution is the ever-present G.o.d without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground, and whose voice is heard in each whisper of conscience, even while his splendour dwells in the white ray from yonder star that began its earthward flight while Abraham's shepherds watched their flocks. It is clear that many persons have derived from Spencer's use of the word Unknowable an impression that he intends by means of metaphysics to refine G.o.d away into nothing; whereas he no more cherishes any such intention than did St. Paul, when he asked, "Who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor?"--no more than Isaiah did when he declared that even as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are Jehovah's ways higher than our ways and his thoughts than our thoughts.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] _The Idea of G.o.d as affected by Modern Knowledge_, Boston, 1885.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

III

_Weakness of Materialism_

Just here comes along the materialist and asks us some questions, tries to serve on us a kind of metaphysical writ of _quo warranto_. If modern physics leads us inevitably to the conception of a single infinite Power manifested in all the phenomena of the knowable Universe, by what authority do we identify that Power with the indwelling Deity as conceived by St. Athanasius? The Athanasian Deity is to some extent fas.h.i.+oned in Man's image; he is, to say the least, like the psychical part of ourselves. After making all possible allowances for the gulf which separates that which is Infinite and Absolute from that which is Finite and Relative, an essential kins.h.i.+p is a.s.serted between G.o.d and the Human Soul. By what authority, our materialist will ask, do we a.s.sert any such kins.h.i.+p between the Human Soul and the Power which modern physics reveals as active throughout the universe? Is it not going far beyond our knowledge to a.s.sert any such kins.h.i.+p? And would it not be more modest and becoming in us to simply designate this ever active universal Power by some purely scientific term, such as Force?

This argument is to-day a very familiar one, and it wears a plausible aspect; it is couched in a spirit of scientific reserve, which wins for it respectful consideration. The modest and cautious spirit of science has done so much for us, that it is always wise to give due heed to its warnings. Let us beware of going beyond our knowledge, says the materialist. We know nothing but phenomena as manifestations of an indwelling force; nor have we any ground for supposing that there is anything psychical, or even quasi-psychical, in the universe outside of the individual minds of men and other animals. Moreover, continues the materialist, the psychical phenomena of which we are conscious--reason, memory, emotion, volition--are but peculiarly conditioned manifestations of the same indwelling force which under other conditions appears as light or heat or electricity. All such manifestations are fleeting, and beyond this world of fleeting phenomena we have no warrant, either in science or in common sense, for supposing that anything whatever exists.

This world that is cognizable through the senses is all that there is, and the story of it that we can decipher by the aid of terrestrial experience is the whole story; the Unseen World is a mere figment inherited from the untutored fancy of primeval man. Such is the general view of things which Materialism urges upon us with the plea of scientific sobriety and caution; and to many minds, as already observed, it wears a plausible aspect.

Nevertheless, when subjected to criticism, this theory of things soon loses its sober and plausible appearance and is seen to be eminently rash and shallow. In the first place, there is no such correlation or equivalence as is alleged between physical forces and the phenomena of consciousness. The correlations between different modes of motion have been proved by actual quant.i.tative measurement, and never could have been proved in any other way. We know, for example, that heat is a mode of motion; the heat that will raise the temperature of a pound of water by one degree of Fahrenheit is exactly equivalent to the motion of 772 pounds falling through a distance of one foot. In similar wise we know that light, electricity, and magnetism are modes of motion, transferable one into another; and, although precise measurements have not been accomplished, there is no reason for doubting that the changes in brain tissue, which accompany each thought and feeling, are also modes of motion, transferable into the other physical modes. But thought and feeling themselves, which can neither be weighed nor measured, do not admit of being resolved into modes of motion. They do not enter into the closed circuit of physical transformations, but stand forever outside of it, and concentric with that segment of the circuit which pa.s.ses through the brain. It may be that thought and feeling could not continue to exist if that physical segment of the circuit were taken away. It may be that they could. To a.s.sume that they could not is surely the height of rash presumption. The correlation of forces exhibits Mind as in nowise a product of Matter, but as something in its growth and manifestations outside and parallel. It is incompatible with the theory that the relation of the human soul to the body is like that of music to the harp; but it is quite compatible with the time-honoured theory of the human soul as indwelling in the body and escaping from it at death.

In the second place, when we come to the denial of all kins.h.i.+p between the human soul and the Infinite Power that is revealed in all phenomena, the materialistic theory raises difficulties as great as those which it seeks to avoid. The difficulties which it wishes to avoid are those which inevitably enc.u.mber the attempt to conceive of Deity as Personality exerting volition and cheris.h.i.+ng intelligent purpose. Such difficulties are undeniably great; nay, they are insuperable. When we speak of Intelligence and Will and Personality, we must use these words with the meanings in which experience has clothed them, or we shall soon find ourselves talking nonsense. The only intelligence we know is strictly serial in its nature, and is limited by the existence of independent objects of cognition. What flight of a.n.a.logy can bear us across the gulf that divides such finite intelligence from that unlimited Knowledge to which all things past and future are ever present? Volition, as we know it, implies alternative courses of action, antecedent motives, and resulting effort. Like intelligence, its operations are serial. What, then, do we really mean, if we speak of omnipresent Volition achieving at one and the same moment an infinite variety of ends? So, too, with Personality: when we speak of personality that is not circ.u.mscribed by limits, are we not using language from which all the meaning has evaporated?

Such difficulties are insurmountable. Words which have gained their meanings from finite experience of finite objects of thought must inevitably falter and fail when we seek to apply them to that which is Infinite. But we do not mend matters by emptying terms taken from the inorganic world rather than from human personality. To designate the universal Power by some scientific term, such as Force, does not help us in the least. All our experience of force is an experience of finite forces antagonized by other forces. We can frame no conception whatever of Infinite Force comprising within itself all the myriad antagonistic attractions and repulsions in which the dynamic universe consists. We go beyond our knowledge when we speak of Infinite Force quite as much as we do when we speak of Infinite Personality. Indeed, no word or phrase which we seek to apply to Deity can be other than an extremely inadequate and unsatisfactory symbol. From the very nature of the case it must always be so, and if we once understand the reason why, it need not vex or puzzle us.

It is not only when we try to speculate about Deity that we find ourselves encompa.s.sed with difficulties and are made to realize how very short is our mental tether in some directions. This world, in its commonest aspects, presents many baffling problems, of which it is sometimes wholesome that we should be reminded. If you look at a piece of iron, it seems solid; it looks as if its particles must be everywhere in contact with one another. And yet, by hammering, or by great pressure, or by intense cold, the piece of iron may be compressed, so that it will occupy less s.p.a.ce than before. Evidently, then, its particles are not in contact, but are separated from one another by unoccupied tracts of enveloping s.p.a.ce. In point of fact, these particles are atoms arranged after a complicated fas.h.i.+on in cl.u.s.ters known as molecules. The word _atom_ means something that cannot be cut. Now, are these iron atoms divisible or indivisible? If they are divisible, then what of the parts into which each one can be divided; are they also divisible? and so on forever. But if these iron atoms are indivisible, how can we conceive such a thing? Can we imagine two sides so close together that no plane of cleavage could pa.s.s between them? Can we imagine cohesive tenacity too great to be overcome by any a.s.signable disruptive force, and therefore infinite? Suppose, now, we heat this piece of iron to a white heat. Scientific inquiry has revealed the fact that its atom-cl.u.s.ters are floating in an ocean of ether, in which are also floating the atom-cl.u.s.ters of other bodies and of the air about us. The heating is the increase of wave motion in this ether, until presently a secondary series of intensely rapid waves appear as white light. Now this ether would seem to be of infinite rarity, since it does not affect the weight of bodies, and yet its wave-motions imply an elasticity far greater than that of coiled steel. How can we imagine such powerful resilience combined with such extreme tenuity?

These are a few of the difficulties of conception in which the study of physical science abounds, and I cite them because it is wholesome for us to bear in mind that such difficulties are not confined to theological subjects. They serve to show how our powers of conceiving ideas are strictly limited by the nature of our experience. The ill.u.s.tration just cited from the luminiferous ether simply shows how during the past century the study of radiant forces has introduced us to a mode of material existence quite different from anything that had formerly been known or suspected. In this mode of matter we find attributes united which all previous experience had taught us to regard as contradictory and incompatible. Yet the facts cannot be denied; hard as we may find it to frame the conception, this light-bearing substance is at the same time almost infinitely rare and almost infinitely resilient. If such difficulties confront us upon the occasion of a fresh extension of our knowledge of the physical world, what must we expect when we come to speculate upon the nature and modes of existence of G.o.d? Bearing this in mind, let us proceed to consider the a.s.sumption that the Infinite Power which is manifested in the universe is essentially psychical in its nature; in other words, that between G.o.d and the Human Soul there is real kins.h.i.+p, although we may be unable to render any scientific account of it. Let us consider this a.s.sumption historically, and in the light of our general knowledge of Evolution.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

IV

_Religion's First Postulate: the Quasi-Human G.o.d_

It is with purpose that I use the word _a.s.sumption_. As a matter of history, the existence of a quasi-human G.o.d has always been an a.s.sumption or postulate. It is something which men have all along taken for granted. It probably never occurred to anybody to try to prove the existence of such a G.o.d until it was doubted, and doubts on that subject are very modern. Omitting from the account a few score of ingenious philosophers, it may be said that all mankind, the wisest and the simplest, have taken for granted the existence of a Deity, or deities, of a psychical nature more or less similar to that of Humanity. Such a postulate has formed a part of all human thinking from primitive ages down to the present time. The forms in which it has appeared have been myriad in number, but all have been included in this same fundamental a.s.sumption. The earliest forms were those which we call fetis.h.i.+sm and animism. In fetis.h.i.+sm the wind that blows a tree down is endowed with personality and supposed to exert conscious effort; in animism some ghost of a dead man is animating that gust of wind. In either case a conscious volition similar to our own, but outside of us, is supposed to be at work. There has been some discussion as to whether fetis.h.i.+sm or animism is the more primitive, and some writers would regard fetis.h.i.+sm as a special case of animism; but it is not necessary to my present purpose that such questions should be settled. The main point is this, that in the earliest phases of theism each operation of Nature was supposed to have some quasi-human personality behind it. Such phases we find among contemporary savages, and there is abundant evidence of their former existence among peoples now civilized. In the course of ages there was a good deal of generalizing done. Poseidon could shake the land and preside over the sea, angry Apollo could shoot arrows tipped with pestilence, mischievous Hermes could play pranks in the summer breezes, while as lord over all, though with somewhat fitful sway, stood Zeus on the summit of Olympus, gathering the rain-clouds and wielding the thunderbolt. Nothing but increasing knowledge of nature was needed to convert such Polytheism into Monotheism, even into the strict Monotheism of our own time, in which the whole universe is the multiform manifestation of a single Deity that is still regarded as in some real and true sense quasi-human. As the notion of Deity has thus been gradually generalized, from a thousand local G.o.ds to one omnipresent G.o.d, it has been gradually stripped of its grosser anthropomorphic vestments. The tutelar Deity of a savage clan is supposed to share with his devout wors.h.i.+ppers in the cannibal banquet; the G.o.ds of Olympus made war and love, and were moved to fits of inextinguishable laughter.

From our modern Monotheism such accidents of humanity are eliminated, but the notion of a kins.h.i.+p between G.o.d and man remains, and is rightly felt to be essential to theism. Take away from our notion of G.o.d the human element, and the theism instantly vanishes; it ceases to be a notion of G.o.d. We may retain an abstract symbol to which we apply some such epithet as Force, or Energy, or Power, but there is nothing theistic in this. Some ingenious philosopher may try to persuade us to the contrary, but the Human Soul knows better; it knows at least what it wants; it has asked for Theology, not for Dynamics, and it resents all such attempts to palm off upon it stones for bread.

Our philosopher will here perhaps lift up his hands in dismay and cry, "Hold! what matters it what the Human Soul wants? Are cravings, forsooth, to be made to do duty as reasons?" It is proper to reply that we are trying to deal with this whole subject after the manner of the naturalist, which is to describe things as they exist and account for them as best we may. I say, then, that mankind have framed, and for long ages maintained, a notion of G.o.d into which there enters a human element. Now if it should ever be possible to abolish that human element, it would not be possible to cheat mankind into accepting the non-human remnant of the notion as an equivalent of the full notion of which they had been deprived. Take away from our symbolic conception of G.o.d the human element, and that aspect of theism which has from the outset chiefly interested mankind is gone.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

V

_Religions Second Postulate: the undying Human Soul_

That supremely interesting aspect of theism belongs to it as part and parcel of the general belief in an Unseen World, in which human beings have an interest. The belief in the personal continuance of the individual human soul after death is a very ancient one. The savage custom of burying utensils and trinkets for the use of the deceased enables us to trace it back into the Glacial Period. We may safely say that for much more than a hundred thousand years mankind have regarded themselves as personally interested in two worlds, the physical world which daily greets our waking senses, and another world, comparatively dim and vaguely outlined, with which the psychical side of humanity is more closely connected. The belief in the Unseen World seems to be coextensive with theism; the animism of the lowest savages includes both. No race or tribe of men has ever been found dest.i.tute of the belief in a ghost-world. Now, a ghost-world implies the personal continuance of human beings after death, and it also implies ident.i.ty of nature between the ghosts of man and the indwelling spirits of sun, wind, and flood. It is chiefly because these ideas are so closely interwoven in savage thought that it is often so difficult to discriminate between fetis.h.i.+sm and animism. These savage ideas are of course extremely crude in their symbolism. With the gradual civilization of human thinking, the refinement in the conception of the Deity is paralleled by the refinement in the conception of the Other World. From Valhalla to Dante's Paradise, what an immeasurable distance the human mind has travelled! In our modern Monotheism the a.s.sumption of kins.h.i.+p between G.o.d and the Human Soul is the a.s.sumption that there is in Man a psychical element identical in nature with that which is eternal. Belief in a quasi-human G.o.d and belief in the Soul's immortality thus appear in their origin and development, as in their ultimate significance, to be inseparably connected. They are part and parcel of one and the same efflorescence of the human mind. Mankind has always entertained them in common, and so entertains them now; and were it possible (which it is not) for science to disprove the Soul's immortality, a theism deprived of this element would surely never be accepted as an equivalent for the theism entertained before. The Positivist argument that the only worthy immortality is survival in the grateful remembrance of one's fellow creatures would hardly be regarded as anything but a travesty and trick.

If the world's long cherished beliefs are to fall, in G.o.d's name let them fall, but save us from the intellectual hypocrisy that goes about pretending we are none the poorer!

[Ill.u.s.tration]

VI

_Religions Third Postulate: the Ethical Significance of the Unseen World_