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THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 NEWTON H. MARSHALL, M.A., Ph.D. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13 & 14 FLEET STREET 
 
 1906 
 
TO MY WIFE 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. Our Problem and Method 
 
 What is Religious Truth ? — Interest and Com- 
 plexity of Theology — Philosophy and Theology 
 — Place of Epistemology — Methods of Classi- 
 fication : cL priori Relational and Natural — The 
 Three Types — Changes in Theology — Timidity 
 of Thought in England 9 
 
 II. The Epistemological Basis of Naturalism : 
 Huxley 
 
 Objective Standpoint in Philosophy — Natural 
 Science and Naturalism — Agnosticism — 
 Huxley's Criterion of Truth — Materialism — 
 The Failure of Naturalistic Psychology — 
 The Paradox of Naturalism .... 36 
 
 III. The Epistemological Basis of Naturalism : 
 
 Spencer 
 
 Spencer and Huxley — Spencer's Doctrine of 
 Conception — His Criterion of Truth — Con- 
 ceivability — The Origin of Truth — Spencer 
 and Kant — The Criterion of Consistency — 
 Relativity — The Spencerian Paradox — The 
 Absolute 54 
 
 IV. Naturalism and Religion 
 
 Huxley — Spencer and the Mystery of Existence — 
 The Purification of Religion and Science — 
 Religious Truth not Valid — The Anthropo- 
 logical Study of Religion — ^The Positivists — 
 Borderland Philosophies : J. G. Romanes and 
 Henry Druramond 76 
 
vi CONTENTS 
 
 V. The Epistemological Basis of Objective 
 Idealism 
 
 Naturalistic Dualism — ^The Monistic Reaction — 
 Mr. F. H. Bradley's Negative Doctrine : the 
 Rejection of Phenomenalism — His Positive 
 Doctrine : the Discovery of Reality — The 
 Criterion of Reality — The Absolute of Idealism 
 compared with that of Naturalism — Degrees 
 of Reality — Criterion of Truth : its Meta- 
 physical Nature — Mr. D'Arcy's Doctrine — The 
 Idealist and Naturalist Criteria ... 91 
 
 VI. Objective Idealism and Religion 
 
 Two Types, Spinoza and Hegel — Mr. Bradley 
 and the Cairds — Mr. Bradley's Definition of 
 Religion — Religion as Appearance — " The 
 Evolution of Religion " — The Science of 
 Religion — Evolution and the Subject-Object 
 Relation — Objective Religion — Subjective 
 Religion : Buddhism, Greek Thought, Judaism 
 — Absolute Religion : Christianity — Professor 
 Caird a Pantheist — Dr. John Caird — Border- 
 land Philosophies: Max Miiller and Professor 
 A. Seth 116 
 
 VII. The Epistemological Basis of Free-Will 
 Idealism 
 
 The Determinism of Naturalism and Objective 
 Idealism — Naturalism and Freedom — Objec- 
 tive Idealism and Freedom — T. H. Green's 
 Doctrine — The Rejection of Determinism by 
 Free-will Idealism — Epistemological Basis of 
 the Same : the Double Criterion of Truth — 
 James Martineau — Dr. Fraser — The Theo- 
 logians and Faith — Mysticism — Mr. Benjamin 
 Kidd 147 
 
 VIII. Free-will Idealism and Religion 
 
 Professor C. B. Upton's Position — Religious 
 Insight — Pluralism and Monism : the Paradox 
 of Free-will Idealism — The Rational Criterion : 
 God as Cause — The Intuitive Criterion : God 
 as Love 178 
 
CONTENTS vii 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 IX. Theological Idealism 
 
 Theology and Philosophy — The Philosophical 
 Value of Christianity — Theological Method — 
 Its Justification — The Double Criterion in 
 Theology — ^The Theological World-view . 194 
 
 X. Recent Changes in Theology 
 
 Influence of Naturalism — General Character of 
 the Changes — Recognition of the Rights of 
 Science — Biblical Criticism — Inspiration — 
 Eschatology — Miracles — Sphere in which 
 Theology is Autonomous — ^Truth or Faith ? . aio 
 
 XI. The Three Paradoxes 
 
 Paradox of Naturalism — Of Objective Idealism — 
 Of Free-will Idealism — Common Element in 
 These — Paradox due to Metaphysical Method 835 
 
 XII. Historical Survey of Metaphysical Method 
 
 Rise of Western Metaphysics — Thales — Hera- 
 clitus — Parmenides — Democritus — Plato — 
 Aristotle — The Imposition of the Ideal upon 
 the Real — Scholasticism — Descartes — Spinoza 
 — Mr. Bradley 247 
 
 XIII. The Metaphysical Method and the Ideals 
 
 Issue between Science and Metaphysics one of 
 Method — Astronomy — History — Subject- 
 matter and Method — The Assertion of Meta- 
 physics — Truth and the Ideal — The Logical 
 Ideal : Consistency — The ^Esthetic Ideal : 
 Beauty — The Moral Ideal : Goodness — The 
 Religious Ideal : God — Faith and the Ideal . 365 
 
 XIV. Theology and Truth 
 
 Scientific and Religious Theology — Religious 
 Truth — The Religious Historical Method — 
 Comparative Religion and Faith — Biblical 
 Criticism and Faith — The Autonomy of Faith a8i 
 
THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 OUR PROBLEM AND METHOD 
 
 The main object of this book is to bring those 
 interested in religion and its varied problems (and 
 their number surely includes all thoughtful men and 
 women) face to face with what seems to its writer to 
 be the most far-reaching of all the questions put by 
 religion to human understanding. This question is, 
 What is the nature of religious truth? It is of 
 peculiar importance to the philosopher, and until the 
 theologian has come to some definite answer to this 
 question he had better not regard his systematic and 
 apologetic labours as well founded. For, as we shall 
 see directly, fundamental to the scepticism and theo- 
 logical unrest of the present day lies uncertainty as 
 to the nature of religious truth and its relation to 
 scientific truth. 
 
 This book, therefore, will attempt to deal with what 
 is, after all, the deepest of human concerns — a concern 
 so pressing and radical that it has in the past been 
 fruitful of intellectual strife and physical wars 
 innumerable. Indeed, even in this age of toleration 
 
10 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 the critics of theology are fond of remarking upon 
 the acrimony of theological disputes and upon the 
 passion which characterises the propaganda of religious 
 sects. The self-restraint and placidity of the historian, 
 the unruffled aspect of the chemist, the imperturba- 
 bility of the astronomer, are compared with the 
 vehemence and the excitability of the theologian, 
 much to the disadvantage of the latter. But just 
 why these considerations should minister to the self- 
 complacency of the historian, the chemist, and the 
 astronomer, it is difficult to divine. The assertion ie 
 not that theology has a monopoly of personal 
 jealousies — for the natural scientist is of the same 
 human stuff as the theologian — but that it is occupied 
 with ideas and purposes which seem to stir the blood 
 of the men who love it, and to rouse them to rhetorical 
 utterance or even to passionate invective. Obviously, 
 then, there is that in theology which has great power 
 over the mind of man — naturally enough, for after all 
 it is religion which gives to human life its chief 
 fascination ; it is religion which ascribes a meaning to 
 the stars, which lends a dignity to chemical formulae, 
 and which sees in history a divine, instead of a purely 
 natural, process. And have not the problems of 
 theology a grandeur calculated to stir the human 
 soul .' The questions which thinkers in other realms 
 seek to answer always lead to further questions still. 
 From the simple and material the mind passes inevit- 
 ably towards the complex and the spiritual, until at 
 last the special and departmental inquiries of the 
 physical sciences are swallowed up in the ultimate 
 
OUR PROBLEM AND METHOD ii 
 
 problems of God and destiny. And these are just 
 the problems with which the theologian has to do. 
 Indeed, one may regard all other knowledge as 
 propaedeutic in a certain sense to the science of 
 theology. What does the layman in the last resort 
 care for the theories of natural science except inas- 
 much as they make either for his own well-being or 
 for the criticism or defence of theology? What is 
 the underlying attraction of social statistics but their 
 curious relation to the ways of Providence .' The 
 discoveries of archaeologists arouse but a languid 
 interest until it is seen that they modify our views of 
 Biblical inspiration, and radium had proved as little 
 able to move the general imagination as argon had it 
 not seemed to give hints concerning the origin of life 
 and the breaking up of matter. 
 
 The odium theologicum itself, then, is an indication 
 of the intense interest which religion gives to life, and 
 suggests the magnitude of the task with which the 
 theologian and the philosopher of religion have to 
 deal. 
 
 What is this task .' Up to a certain point it is the 
 same for the philosopher as for the theologian. In 
 general each faculty seeks to describe and classify the 
 facts of religion. Where the philosopher of religion 
 and the theologian part company is the realm of their 
 respective relations to particular religions. For the 
 philosopher has to deal with religion as such, religion 
 in the abstract, religion considered in such a way that 
 the various positive or historic religions are but par- 
 ticular examples or instances of religion in general. 
 
12 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 The theologian, on the other hand, treats in the first 
 place of only one religion — the religion which he 
 regards as true or valid. He defends it against 
 external criticism, and elaborates into a system its 
 various internal parts. This distinction between the 
 two faculties — philosophy of religion and theology — 
 will suffice for the present. But it is well very clearly 
 to point out that we must not exclude negative or 
 critical students of religion from the ranks of the 
 philosophers of religion merely because the result of 
 their investigations is not to confirm any particular 
 religion in its faith. We must not refuse to call the 
 most radical sceptic a philosopher of religion if he 
 uses the philosophic method. Bearing this in mind, 
 we notice that a definition of the philosophy of 
 religion as "the proving of religious belief by 
 reason, the reference of religious belief to its 
 primary factors or grounds, whether in reason or 
 outside it," * seems to exclude much naturalistic 
 philosophy of religion, and leads Dr. Caldecott 
 to propose the terms " natural theology " and 
 " theism " t as alternatives to the term " philosophy 
 of religion." This restriction we cannot admit. 
 " Natural theology " and " theism " are, after all, 
 very distinct departments of theology, and have a 
 distinct reference to some definitely chosen religion 
 which is regarded as absolute ; that is, they are 
 apologetic. The philosophy of religion, however, 
 should never be apologetic in the theological sense. 
 
 • '■ The Philosophy of Religion" (A. Caldecott), p. xv. 
 t Ibid., p. 3. 
 
OUR PROBLEM AND METHOD 13 
 
 Its results may in the hands of one writer furnish 
 materials for Christian defence ; in the hands of 
 another they may tend to universal scepticism ; but 
 in either case, if the thinker seeks to give in general 
 terms an explanation of religion as such, his faculty 
 is the philosophy of religion. 
 
 This then is the view which will be adopted in these 
 pages. The philosophy of religion and theology are 
 two disciplines which have religious phenomena as 
 their subject-matter. But while the first of these deals 
 with its subject-matter without preconception as to the 
 truth of any given religion, the theologian has definitely 
 in view the display and defence of a particular set of 
 religious doctrines. It must, however, be admitted 
 that most writers do not strictly observe this distinction, 
 but pass easily from the one faculty to the other, the 
 religious philosopher tending to become a theologian, 
 and the theologian often prefacing his work with 
 studies in the philosophy of religion. 
 
 It is natural to conclude that, if religion is a theme 
 of such deep interest as is represented above, the 
 task of the philosopher and the theologian in dealing 
 with it is by no means light. For religion has played 
 a most varied and intricate part in the history of the 
 human race. Its place in the intellectual, aesthetic, 
 and social development of man has been of an import- 
 ance which it is hard to exaggerate, and its ramifica- 
 tions are entangled with the roots of every social 
 problem of modern times. Nor is any individual able 
 to live a healthy and peaceful intellectual life who 
 does not in some way meet the imperious demands of 
 
14 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 religion upon his own attention. The most majestic 
 abstractions and the most trivial of concrete expe- 
 riences alike fall within the scope of religious claims 
 upon thought and practice ; while the varieties of 
 theological systems, often comprised within the limits 
 of a single historical religion, furnish a bewildering 
 complexity of subject-matter comparable with that of 
 the tremendous range of phenomena which natural 
 science investigates. 
 
 The importance and the complexity then of religion, 
 and consequently of those sciences which deal with it, 
 make it a matter of the first moment that a point of 
 view should be adopted by every one who studies 
 religion, from which he may contemplate all these 
 varied facts in proper perspective, and from which he 
 will be able to see a road likely to lead him safely 
 through the difficulties of the journey he proposes to 
 undertake. It is the object of the present volume to 
 furnish such a point of view, and this will be attempted, 
 as already indicated, by following up as well as may 
 be the line of thought suggested by the question 
 " What is the nature of religious truth ? " We do 
 not, however, propdse to discuss this question in a 
 purely abstract or formal way. On the contrary, we 
 have a definite object before us, as will be seen, for we 
 believe that this discussion of religious truth is of 
 importance to theology in an even higher degree than 
 to philosophy. Indeed, it is a discussion which ought 
 properly to precede any and all investigations of a 
 technical theological character. No theologian ought 
 to proceed to the systematic enumeration of religious 
 
OUR PROBLEM AND METHOD 15 
 
 truths until he has first of all come to a clear and 
 tenable conclusion as to what he means when he says 
 that any of the propositions of religion (or rather of 
 theology) are " true." 
 
 So, having a practical object in view, and an object 
 which is practical now, at the beginning of the twen- 
 tieth century, we shall pursue this object by describing 
 and classifying and appraising those various views of 
 religious truth which have been recently promulgated 
 by philosophers of religion in England, and are 
 effective in our midst to-day. In this review of 
 current philosophies of religion we shall proceed upon 
 the following lines. 
 
 Every philosophy of religion is a department of a 
 world-view or philosophy in general. It is part of 
 a universal system of thought. Now every such world- 
 view is fundamentally different from others according 
 to its epistemological* characteristics, according to 
 its theory of knowledge or of truth. Every philosophy 
 has its own theory of knowledge, either implicit or 
 explicit, and that theory conditions its whole world- 
 view. Not that the epistemology is the first element 
 
 • At this point it would be well to define the science of episte- 
 mology, or the theory of knowledge, as it is variously called. 
 Epistemology is the science of the principles or laws of knowledge, 
 and of the significance of general ideas which thought has framed. It 
 is not the science of knowing, or of the processes of knowledge — that 
 is a department of psychology — but, as Kant puts it, of the/on« of 
 knowledge. Nor has it to do with the structure of ideas and chains 
 of reasoning, which is the province of logic. The science of 
 epistemology was founded by Locke, and carried forward by Hume 
 and Kant. Through their influence it has largely displaced 
 metaphysics as the ultimate analysis of human experience. 
 
i6 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 which a philosophy elaborates, for, indeed, it often 
 happens that the theory of knowledge is never defi- 
 nitely worked out at all. But it is always there, and 
 always has logical priority. In other words, every 
 philosopher seeks to state a series of true propositions 
 about the universe, and what those propositions are, 
 as well as the order and method in which they are 
 related, is ultimately determined by the thinker's 
 criterion of truth, by his theory of what valid know- 
 ledge is. The critical question of all philosophy is 
 " What is truth ? " and the differences displayed in 
 answers to this question are characteristic of the 
 differences between the various philosophic systems. 
 
 The first question then which we shall ask of any 
 religious philosopher will be " What is your doctrine as 
 to knowledge ? " and when that has been answered 
 we shall be at liberty to pass on and say, " This being 
 your theory of truth, what are you able to say about 
 the truths of religion ? What is your philosophy of 
 religion .' " 
 
 Of course it will not be possible to put these ques- 
 tions to all the philosophers of the past fifty years. 
 We must be content to make some classification of 
 the various writers which will enable us to select 
 individuals for examination in a representative capa- 
 city. Such a classification is bound to be open to 
 some criticism, on whatever principle it may be based, 
 for it is generally impossible without some violence to 
 force any one thinker (if he have sufficient originality 
 to make him interesting) to serve as a type of many. 
 However, we must make the best attempt we can. 
 
OUR PROBLEM AND METHOD 17 
 
 Now there are three methods of classification which 
 might, with considerable success, be followed. The 
 first is that by which classes are formed according 
 to some «/rio;7' philosophical principle. The classical 
 example of this method is that of Comte, who taught 
 that every world-view or philosophy belonged to one 
 or other of the three periods through which human 
 thought passed during its evolution : first, the theo- 
 logical period, in which all realities were pictured 
 under the figure of personal powers or beings ; second, 
 the metaphysical period, in which abstract powers, or 
 principles, took the place of gods ; and third, the 
 scientific period, in which both gods and metaphysical 
 concepts were abandoned and things were appre- 
 hended positively, or as they in themselves were. 
 These three periods Comte described as respec- 
 tively the childhood, youth, and maturity of human 
 thought. 
 
 The second method of classification is one in which 
 the systems dealt with are grouped according to their 
 attitude to some one problem or philosophic idea. 
 Thus it is common to classify philosophies according 
 to their attitude toward the idea of God, as when, for 
 apologetic purposes, theories of the universe are 
 classed as theistic and anti-theistic, or when, with a 
 more systematic object in view, they are divided as 
 atheistic, agnostic, theistic. and pantheistic. 
 
 The third method is that in which the attempt is 
 made to follow the example of natural science and 
 adopt a " natural " classification ; that is, groups are 
 formed and marked off frojn one another according 
 
1 8 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 to their likeness and unlikeness to certain mutually 
 exclusive types. It is this last method that we 
 shall seek to follow in our examination of present- 
 day philosophies of religion, and we shall do it by 
 distinguishing between three well marked groups of 
 possible world-views : Naturalism, Objective Idealism, 
 and Freewill Idealism.* 
 
 It is not necessary to do more than briefly indicate 
 at this point the characteristics of these three types. A 
 fuller acquaintance with them, alike in their resem- 
 blances and differences, will be gained as we proceed 
 with the discussion of our theme. Meanwhile it may 
 be said (i) that Naturalism is that type of philosophy 
 which takes its standard of reality from the outer or 
 material world, which regards the spiritual as a sort 
 of "interpolation in the main text of the physical 
 world," and so which ultimately finds the roots of 
 knowledge in the physical world itself; (2) that 
 Objective Idealism is a metaphysical system which 
 takes its standard of reality from a spiritual principle 
 behind physical and psychical phenomena alike, and 
 which finds knowledge to reside in a proper apprehen- 
 sion of that principle rather than in a description 
 of phenomena ; (3) that Free-will Idealism is a 
 system constructed about the subjective conscious- 
 ness of volition, to which is ascribed a reality 
 at least equal to that claimed for the material 
 universe, so that knowledge is of two sorts according 
 
 * These three names are taken from Professor Dilthey's writings. 
 The three classes are also distinguished as mutually exclusive by 
 Dr. Campbell Fraser, as we shall see later on. 
 
OUR PROBLEM AND METHOD 19 
 
 as it has to do with the description of phenomena 
 or the expression of personality. 
 
 As we proceed to examine these three types of 
 philosophy more closely we shall notice that they are 
 all three in a sort of " unstable equilibrium," and 
 many members of the various classes do, either 
 logically or actually, pass over from one class to 
 another. There is a sort of borderland separating 
 and yet joining the three groups, much as the sides 
 of a triangle hold apart, and yet unite, its angles. 
 This will prove a not uninteresting element in our 
 discussion of the various philosophies, and will 
 suggest that there is some inherent defect in each 
 one of these typical systems of thought, which makes 
 it impossible for the human mind to find complete 
 satisfaction in any one of them. 
 
 In dealing with these three classes of philosophy 
 we shall have to consider (more especially in the case 
 of the Freewill Idealists) the works of many theo- 
 logians. This will bring us more closely into touch 
 with what is after all the main purpose of this study : 
 the introduction of the theologian to the fundamental 
 problem of his science. And in order to make the 
 clearer the bearing upon theology of the epistemo- 
 logical inquiry, we shall proceed to examine one of 
 the most notable features of our present civilisation, 
 the changes that have been produced in theology 
 pari passu with changes which have taken place in the 
 general world-view of the time. These changes are 
 of the greatest importance to the philosopher. They 
 give him an opportunity of looking into the movement 
 
 B 2 
 
20 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 of religious life that had otherwise been hardly 
 possible. But they are infinitely more important to 
 the theologian. For he has not merely to treat them 
 as interesting historical phenomena. They are a 
 matter of life and death to him. He must take sides 
 in the struggle they represent and express. He is 
 not a mere observer. He must exhibit what he con- 
 siders the true nature of his religion, and defend his 
 exposition from the criticisms of rivals with a piece 
 of his own soul. 
 
 It is obvious that the theologian requires very con- 
 siderable training for his work quite apart from that 
 technical education which enables him to read his 
 sacred books and understand the history of his 
 Church. Above all things, it is important for him to 
 know the state of thought among his contemporaries 
 concerning religion. He must be acquainted with the 
 various explanations which men give of religion. He 
 must be versed, that is, in the philosophy of religion. 
 But he must also have his own explanations, his own 
 philosophy of religion, and he must be able, by the 
 help of that philosophy of religion, to explain, not 
 only that form of theology which he adopts, but 
 also the fact that theology in general presents not 
 merely a series of systems, but a series varying 
 from generation to generation. He must be able to 
 account, not only for theology, but for its changes. 
 Now when we inquire as to the cause of the recent 
 changes in theology, we are met by a great variety of 
 answers. One answer is that natural science has 
 forced these changes upon theology. The triumphant 
 
OUR PROBLEM AND METHOD 21 
 
 polemics of such a thinker as Huxley, especially in 
 respect of the doctrine of evolution, have driven 
 theologians to restate their arguments and to modify 
 their conclusions. Another answer is that literary 
 and archaeological criticism have overthrown the 
 teaching of the Church respecting the sources of its 
 faith, especially the Bible. Older notions of inspiration 
 have been done away with, and, these affording the 
 foundation of orthodox theology, that structure has 
 been shaken from its ancient basis. Not natural 
 science, but the higher criticism, is said to be the 
 main occasion of change in theology. A third 
 answer is that the veiy possibility of revelation has 
 been assailed by the students of comparative religion. 
 It has been asserted that every doctrine of Christian 
 theology may be traced to a pagan, or to a barbarous, 
 or even to an immoral, root, down in the mysterious 
 soil of an age when men were but just emerging from 
 brute life, and it has been maintained that no one 
 religion can claim to be much better than any other, 
 for all emerge from the grossest beginnings. Religion 
 indeed, acccording to these teachers, is not of super- 
 human, but rather of subhuman, origin. It is a sort of 
 " fungoid growth upon civilisation." 
 
 Each of these three explanations of recent theo- 
 logical change has much of truth in it, but the very 
 fact that there are so many plausible explanations 
 suggests that we must look deeper for one which will 
 bring all three causes into line. This deeper cause 
 lies in confusion as to what is meant by "truth." 
 Theologians have nearly always assumed that when 
 
22 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 they defended their propositions as " true " they 
 meant just what a scientist means who defends some 
 principle which he has discovered. They have not 
 examined very closely into the nature of religious 
 truth, and the various assailants of orthodoxy have 
 been able to cause dismay to many mainly because 
 of the confusion which exists as to the nature of 
 truth. Natural science, higher criticism, compara- 
 tive religion and the rest, all challenge the truth of 
 religion. And the dilemma of the theologian arises 
 because of his neglect of a proper theory of knowledge. 
 
 We saw just now that every philosophy is ultimately 
 determined by its theory of knowledge. We have 
 now seen that the epistemological problem underlies 
 the recent changes in theology. We may expect 
 then the results which we shall have obtained in our 
 discussion of the epistemological problem, to be of 
 service to us when we turn to the theological problem 
 presented by recent changes in doctrine. 
 
 We must now cast a glance at the details of our 
 proposed inquiry into recent English philosophies of 
 religion. In dealing with the various types, we shall 
 take one or two standard representatives of each 
 class. In the first place, we shall examine their teach- 
 ing with a view to the discovery of their theory of 
 knowledge, their criterion of truth. We shall then 
 pass on to a discussion of their teaching with regard 
 to religion, and shall see how the epistemology in each 
 case conditions the philosophy of religion. As 
 opportunity offers, after the selected representatives 
 of the class in question have been exhibited, the 
 
OUR PROBLEM AND METHOD 23 
 
 writings of others will be briefly dealt with, especially 
 the writings of some whose place is properly upon 
 the "borderland" referred to above. 
 
 The selection of representative thinkers offers, of 
 course, certain difficulties, and among these is the 
 question. Within what period shall the inquiry be 
 confined? This difficulty becomes really acute only 
 in the case of the Naturalists, and some will perhaps 
 wonder why a beginning should be made with Herbert 
 Spencer, and the Mills and Bentham should not be 
 dealt with. To this it may be replied that, while 
 Spencer is certainly closely related to these writers 
 through his utilitarianism, he is separated from them 
 by that great gulf which the adoption of the principle 
 of evolution has once and for all fixed between present- 
 day thinkers and an earlier generation. It is hard to 
 exaggerate the variety and intensity of the differences 
 which this one new principle has introduced, and it 
 may well be regarded as indicating the boundary line 
 between the newer and the older schools. 
 
 One further remark must be made before we pro- 
 ceed to the work for which this chapter prepares the 
 ground, a remark which has to do with the general posi- 
 tion of philosophical thought in England. It concerns 
 a state of things which is not without importance in 
 view of the theological changes to which reference has 
 already been made. In his ingenious work " Appear- 
 ance and Reality," Mr. Bradley speaks with some 
 discontent of that characteristically practical mental 
 attitude of Englishmen which, as might be expected, 
 is so averse to all metaphysical or other purely abstract 
 
24 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 discussion. " We have but little notion in England," 
 he says, "of freedom either in art or in science. 
 Irrelevant appeals to practical results are allowed to 
 make themselves heard. And in certain regions of 
 art and science this sin brings its own punishment, 
 for we fail through timidity and through want of 
 singleness and sincerity. That a man should treat of 
 God and religion in order merely to understand them, 
 and apart from the influence of some other considera- 
 tion and inducement, is to many of us in part 
 unintelligible and in part also shocking. And hence 
 English thought on these subjects, where it has not 
 studied in a foreign school, is theoretically worthless."* 
 That there is truth in this criticism cannot be denied. 
 Hardly a work on the philosophy of religion appears 
 in England which does not bear it out either by the 
 pronounced apologetic tone with which the author 
 addresses his readers, or by the way in which every 
 departure from traditional theological orthodoxy 
 has to be counterbalanced, and made less objection- 
 able — by means of a rhetorical affirmation of respect 
 for, and, indeed, homage to, morality. Thus in the 
 opening chapter of "Anthropological Religion" Pro- 
 fessor Max Miiller felt it necessary to defend the free 
 discussion of religion and to exhort Christians to be 
 mutually tolerant in respect of their differences of 
 theological opinion ; and even such bold freethinkers 
 as Professor Huxley and Mr. Herbert Spencer found it 
 necessary to assert that, despite their anti-theological 
 opinions, they still believed in the highest morality. 
 * O^. «<.,p. 450. 
 
OUR PROBLEM AND METHOD 25 
 
 However, since Mr. Bradley wrote things seem to 
 have altered somewhat in the direction of his own 
 desires. But it is also to be remembered that this 
 practical way of judging scientific work, this continual 
 questioning of the reader — What use is it ? How does 
 it affect morality ? — although it may sometimes not 
 inconsiderably embarrass the philosopher, yet is not 
 without its justification. Indeed, one is inclined to 
 say that the greatest honour which can be paid to a 
 thinker is that people should take him so seriously 
 that they feel they must consult their consciences on 
 his account. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL BASIS OF NATURALISM: 
 HUXLEY 
 
 Spinoza used to say that philosophy was for 
 the wise and religion for fools, meaning that religion 
 sets forth in a symbolic way, suitable to the lower type 
 of minds, the same series of truths which philosophy 
 formulates in exact and abstract terms. Schopen- 
 hauer took a somewhat similar view of the relations of 
 these supremely important things. In one of his more 
 famous essays he traces both philosophy and religion 
 to that capacity for wonder which is the peculiar 
 characteristic of humanity. This wonder makes the 
 ordinary sensualistic or natural explanation of things 
 inadequate. There must be something mysterious 
 and awful behind nature in order that nature may be 
 so beautiful and so grim I " Man in fact," says Schopen- 
 hauer, " is a metaphysical animal. Stirred by feeling, 
 he is impelled to peer beyond the merely natural. 
 He has a metaphysical need or craving, perennial, 
 insatiable, undaunted by a thousand failures. And 
 this metaphysical need is satisfied by some in one 
 way, by others in another, according to their intellectual 
 make. The two ways are respectively reason and 
 faith, free research and authority, philosophy and 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 27 
 
 religion, the one for the thinkers, the other for the 
 simple."* 
 
 Schopenhauer also teaches that this metaphysical 
 craving has a long history and evolution. While 
 always imperative and relentless, it was not always 
 as comprehensive in its demand as it is in the present 
 age. To-day, indeed, we feel that our religion or 
 philosophy must be capable of universal application, 
 and must be in harmony with all human experience. 
 Our system of thought must have room within its 
 categories for all that may be observed or hoped or 
 imagined, and the discovery of a fact which cannot 
 be accounted for according to accepted principles is 
 the signal for a radical review and criticism of those 
 principles. And in religious thought it is much the 
 same. While it is true that accommodation to 
 discovery is somewhat slower in the world of theology 
 than in that of pure science, it is nevertheless true 
 that the modern mind insists that theological prin- 
 ciples, if they are ultimately to command assent, 
 must be in accord with all human experience. But 
 Schopenhauer maintains that originally it was only 
 the unexpected, the unusual, and the terrifying 
 incidents of life that called the metaphysical faculty 
 into operation, or excited the metaphysical craving. 
 For at the basis of this craving was, and is, the 
 feeling of wonder, and with primitive man customary 
 and often-repeated happenings did not stir this feeling 
 at all. Such facts did not seem to require explanation, 
 
 * " Ueber das Metaphysische Bediirfniss " in " Die Welt als Wille 
 und Vorstellung,' Book II. 
 
28 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 "The evolution, then, of the scope of metaphysical 
 thought is," says Schopenhauer, " the evolution of the 
 human faculty for wonder." Slowly the list of things 
 exciting wonder was enlarged. Mystery was found 
 to lurk even in matters other than the unusual, and 
 as man grew more delicate in his powers of perception 
 and more subtle in his reasoning, curiosity and inquiry 
 were roused even by the commonplace. 
 
 If we eliminate from this conception of meta- 
 physical thinking the idea of growth, Schopenhauer's 
 view may be expressed by saying that at all times 
 and in all places the scope of the metaphysical 
 craving is directly proportional to man's sense of the 
 mystery of the world and his wonder at it, and so 
 to the delicacy and responsiveness of his spiritual 
 powers. To a low type of mind the world is for 
 the most part accepted without question ; it explains 
 itself Higher types, however, see the wonderful even 
 in their simplest experiences. 
 
 " Earth's crammed with heaven, 
 And every common bush afire with God : 
 But only he who sees takes off his shoes ; 
 The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries." 
 
 This evolution of the metaphysical craving seems 
 now to have reached its final stage. To the cultured 
 mind of the present generation the universe has 
 become mysterious throughout, and even those who 
 have themselves little capacity for wonder are ready 
 to admit that the commonest occurrences, not less 
 than the unusual, are things that hide the unknown. 
 The greater our knowledge of individual facts revealed 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 29 
 
 by history and research, the more we marvel. And so 
 the last touch of paradox is put to this picture of human 
 thought and nature's grandeur by the discovery of 
 thinkers, with a larger acquaintance with facts than 
 any other age could boast, that the universe must 
 finally be regarded not merely as mysterious and 
 awful, but as actually unknowable. 
 
 Now, whatever value may attach to these con- 
 siderations as explaining the origin of philosophy 
 and religion, the development which Schopenhauer 
 describes has undoubtedly played an important part 
 in the history of at least one type of philosophy, 
 that which in these pages we call "Naturalism." 
 Undoubtedly the attention of primitive man was early 
 arrested by the vaster and more dangerous objects 
 and processes of the physical world. " On a rough 
 general view of the facts of history," says Professor 
 E. Caird,* " it might seem that in the earliest stages 
 of man's life on earth he was hardly to be called 
 self-conscious. . . . The savage, like the boy, seems 
 to live almost entirely outside of himself. . . . He 
 seems incapable of rising above a sense of dependence 
 on what is external." His whole existence seemed 
 to depend upon certain huge things or beings, as he 
 variously represented them to himself: the sun that 
 ripened his crops, and the hail that devastated his 
 fields ; the ocean that bore his light canoe when he 
 went a-fishing, and the storm that threatened to over- 
 whelm it ; fertility that added to his flocks and herds, 
 and deadly sickness that ravaged his tribe. By-and-by, 
 * " Evolution of Religion," Vol. I., p. 178. 
 
30 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 however, the huge things were seen to be com- 
 posed of parts, and the parts were not altogether 
 foreign to the quieter incidents of day by day. So at 
 last all objects of experience were drawn into the net 
 of curiosity and became the objects of human inquiry. 
 Modern science, with its elaborate mechanism and 
 ubiquitous ramifications, is simply the latest form 
 which this inquiry has adopted. Mankind has learnt 
 the value of method, and now pursues its investiga- 
 tions with deliberation and set purpose instead of in 
 a casual and vague fashion. Among the many who 
 are engaged in the effort to understand nature are 
 the naturalistic philosophers, and of them it is true 
 that their investigations culminate in the acknowledg- 
 ment that existence, as it absolutely is, is finally 
 incomprehensible. The last word of the teaching 
 of those to whom the outer world is the supremely 
 important object of attention, is the doctrine of the 
 unknowable. 
 
 It should be observed, however, that in this 
 concentration of attention upon the natural and 
 external world there is involved a definite attitude 
 toward the internal or subjective world, an attitude 
 which tends to produce a philosophy of the cosmos 
 instead of a mere philosophy of nature. There comes 
 a time in the history of thought both of an individual 
 and of the race — and at what period in development 
 this time comes is not here important — when it is 
 realised that over against nature there stands the 
 thinker. The question is, therefore, forced into 
 prominence, What is the relation between the thinker 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 31 
 
 and the nature he seeks to explain ? That mode of 
 thought, which ultimately reaches the doctrine of 
 the unknowable, must declare itself on this point if 
 it is to be acceptable as a philosophy, and not as 
 a mere empiric. What part does man play in the 
 scheme of things ? Is he merely one among these 
 ultimately unknowable incidents ? Is his conscious- 
 ness to be classed simply with them ? 
 
 Now prominent among the discoveries which have 
 resulted from a study of nature is that of natural 
 law. Indeed, this discovery is of such prominence 
 that it may be said actually to dominate the thought 
 of the present day in a fashion little short of a 
 tyranny. Men have acquired a notable belief in 
 "law." Gradually it has come to be felt that even 
 those events which are apparently most capricious 
 are in reality as completely " obedient " to law as are 
 the least significant changes of commonplace material 
 objects. This tremendous empire of law, of that im- 
 palpable entity which stretches out an arm far longer 
 than that of any imagined " coincidence," has had a 
 stupendous effect upon man's valuation of himself as 
 an element in nature. He has come to feel himself 
 in the presence of a something greater than himself, 
 able to produce results which cannot be modified. 
 Nay more, he has largely come to regard himself 
 but as a being swayed and determined by law, just 
 as a dead leaf or the orbit of a planet is swayed by the 
 wind, determined by gravitation. As man apprehends 
 this overtowering superiority of natural law to his own 
 whims and purposes, his awe for nature is increased. 
 
32 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 and, perhaps, receives an added touch of melancholy. 
 Every new discovery in the realms of astronomy, 
 geology, biology, and the rest of the sciences, shows 
 how entirely indifferent nature is to his thinking, will- 
 ing, and feeling,and how calmly the course of evolution 
 proceeds, utterly unconscious of the man as man. 
 And so at last many men have come to look upon 
 themselves and their fellows as little more than cogs 
 in a vast machinery of cosmos, and to feel that man 
 can get to know himself best by disregarding his own 
 insignificant fancies and aspirations and attending 
 solely to that monstrous mechanism about him which 
 seems to condition every incident of his own life, in- 
 timate and personal as at first he thought that life to 
 be. "Seems"! Tomany there is no longer a "seems" 
 in their theorising. Man is once and for all seen to be 
 completely under the dominion of an incomprehen- 
 sible mechanism, without the permission of which 
 nothing can be done, nay, without the impulse of 
 which nothing can be even attempted. 
 
 This line of thought, the central idea of which is 
 the supremacy of the " objective " world over against 
 human personality, strengthened, as it is said to be, by 
 every new victory of triumphant physical science, has 
 always been pursued by some thinkers ; and its advo- 
 cates to-day claim for it the adhesion of all thinking 
 men acquainted with facts. This it is that gives 
 its vigour to positive naturalistic philosophy-— a 
 philosophy that claims as its own glory the prestige 
 acquired by victorious modern science. 
 
 It would however be a mistake to suppose that this 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 33 
 
 philosophy or world-view is in any properly exclusive 
 way the philosophy of scientific men. Indeed, there is 
 no type of philosophy which scientists as such inevitably 
 accept or towards which they must be driven by the 
 logic of their own studies. Still it is not surprising 
 that with notable advances on the part of natural 
 science there occurs usually, if not always, a revival of 
 the naturalistic temper. This stands out very clearly 
 in the history of philosophy in England. So definitely 
 is this the case, indeed, that the word "' science " 
 is popularly regarded as implying a certain clear 
 opposition both to idealistic philosophy and to religion, 
 and some popular apologists of theology have even 
 been known to stigmatise modern science as anti- 
 Christian. Even Professor James Orr, one of the most 
 learned of present-day theologians, adopts a classifica- 
 tion of world-views ( WdtMischauungen) which seems 
 to suggest an opposition between religious and scien- 
 tific methods. " Three main types of world-view," he 
 asserts,* "may be here distinguished, answering to three 
 standpoints of the human spirit, from each of which 
 a Weltanschauung necessarily results. These are — 
 (i) the 'scientific,' in which the standpoint of the 
 observer is in the objective world, and things are 
 viewed, as it were, wholly from without ; . . . (2) the 
 ' philosophical,' which precisely inverts this rela- 
 tion. The standpoint is here the thinking Ego ; . . . 
 (3) the ' religious,' which views everything from the 
 standpoint of the consciousness of dependence upon 
 
 * "The Christian View of God and the World," Note B, 
 pp.368/. 
 
 T. C 
 
34 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 God, and refers all back to God." According to this 
 writer (as is obvious throughout the book from which 
 the above quotation is made), the religious view is 
 utterly incompatible with the " scientific " view. 
 
 Another factor which has helped to associate natural 
 science with the naturalistic philosophy in the mind 
 of the public is the fact that the representatives of 
 Naturalism in England have, in the main, been 
 students of natural science. One may cite Huxley, 
 Tyndall, Grant Allen (an amateur), and Professor Karl 
 Pearson, who have been reinforced recently by the 
 translation into English of the writings of Haeckel. 
 
 Yet while the strict association of natural science 
 with Naturalism is to be deprecated, there is a 
 logical relation between them which must not be 
 overlooked or depreciated. This relation consists in 
 the fact that the epistemology of Naturalism is founded 
 upon that very principle which has been used with 
 such dazzling success in the furtherance of natural 
 science. Huxley, for half a century the popular cham- 
 pion of Naturalism in England, gave this principle the 
 name of Agnosticism — a name which seems, after all, 
 to be but a modern substitute for the better known 
 title of scepticism.* Huxley wished to distinguish 
 his position from that of the Positivists, although 
 these also represent philosophical Naturalism. We 
 
 * For instance, in his essay on Agnosticism in the Nineteenth 
 Century (February, 1889), Huxley repeatedly used the word 
 " agnostic " as a synonym for "sceptic " or "sceptical " ; e.g., " Our 
 forefathers were quite confident about the existence of Romulus 
 and Remus. . . . Most of us have become agnostic in regard to the 
 realities of these worthies." 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 35 
 
 shall have occasion later on to notice certain differences 
 between the Positivist and the Agnostic doctrines, but 
 they are at least alike in this, that when questioned as 
 to what they mean by " knowledge " they both give 
 the same answer. And since we are here occupied 
 with different interpretations of knowledge, different 
 epistemological doctrines, for our purposes Positivism 
 and Agnosticism belong to the same class. They are 
 both types of Naturalism. 
 
 Proceeding, then, to inquire into the naturalistic 
 theory of knowledge, we come directly upon Huxley's 
 own definition of his position given in an oft-cited 
 essay on Agnosticism : — " Agnosticism is not a creed, 
 but a method, the essence of which lies in the 
 rigorous application of a single principle. . . . Posi- 
 tively the principle may be expressed : In matters of 
 the intellect follow your reason as far as it will take 
 you without regard to any other consideration. And 
 negatively : In matters of the intellect do not pretend 
 that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated 
 or demonstrable." 
 
 Obviously, this " single principle " is intended to 
 be of great generality, embracing both science and 
 philosophy in the phrase "matters of the intellect." 
 The principle is a canon of thought in all its ramifi- 
 cations, but for all practical purposes it has simply 
 science and philosophy in view, and it implies a 
 definite correlation of their functions. The function 
 of science is clearly " to demonstrate conclusions," 
 each branch of science dealing with its special sub- 
 ject-matter. But, on the other hand, these special 
 
 C 2 
 
36 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 conclusions cannot remain in isolation. They must be 
 co-ordinated in order that a compact and well articu- 
 lated body of knowledge may be gradually elaborated. 
 This is the work of philosophy, and the result of the 
 work will ultimately be the evolution in thought of a 
 cosmos where now is chaos, the subjection of the 
 universe to human reason, the rationalising of 
 experience. But while reason thus, through science 
 and philosophy, busies itself with the elements of 
 experience and completes our knowledge of the 
 universe, the thinker must always be on his guard 
 against the intrusion of foreign elements into the 
 activity of thought. Huxley gives a warning to this 
 effect when he says, " Follow your reason as far as it 
 will take you without regard to any other consideration" 
 The immediate object of this warning had, of course, 
 to do with the particular discussion in which our 
 militant Agnostic was engaged. He was anxious to 
 exclude all metaphysical or theological prejudice, and 
 all considerations based upon the supposed interest 
 of morals, from the agnostic method of thought. 
 However, Huxley continually treated this principle as 
 a canon of philosophical method, and so we may 
 disregard his immediate polemical purpose — a purpose 
 which is theoretically superfluous, for of course the 
 very idea of philosophic thought is repugnant to 
 prejudice, of what sort soever it may be. 
 
 We shall proceed, then, to attempt to unravel the 
 meaning of this canon of Agnosticism in the abstract. 
 And, in the first place, we may say that it proposes to 
 exclude from consideration all concepts which cannot 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 37 
 
 be ultimately traced to empirical evidence. Every 
 generalisation must be able to attest its validity by 
 showing that it rests upon a " demonstrable " basis. 
 That is to say, no foreign concept must be brought in 
 to " explain " any fact whatsoever ; the fact must, as 
 it were, be judged by its peers. Physical observations 
 must alone be used in order to support generalisations 
 as to physical occurrences. Metaphysical ideas, ideas 
 which owe their origin to the hopes, aspirations, or 
 imaginings of men, must never be allowed to intrude 
 into philosophy as means of explaining the physical 
 order. Never is Huxley more emphatic than when 
 he rejects, even with scorn, all such metaphysical 
 notions. Take, for instance, the idea of necessity, the 
 discussion of which, in respect both of its origin and 
 import, has been a continual and even wearisome 
 occupation of philosophers of all schools. This our 
 Agnostic would banish for ever from all philosophy, 
 and so, incidentally, very much simplify the philosophic 
 task. What right, he asks, have we to speak about 
 what must happen ? We only know what has 
 happened and what does happen, and we are only 
 justified in taking one further step and speaking of 
 what will happen. Beyond this point we cannot pass 
 at all, for here the agnostic principle cries, " Halt ! " * 
 
 * One is not sure that it does not cry, " Halt ! " a trifle too late, for 
 has not the idea of necessity slipped past the sentinel with that 
 insignificant little word "will" ? The notion of necessity is not a 
 matter of language after all, else we might get over the point by 
 simply talking German. It is to be doubted whether decrees of 
 banishment pronounced by eminent biologists will ever rid the 
 human mind of any of its structural elements. Indeed, Huxley is 
 
38 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 " For my part," says Huxley, " I utterly repudiate 
 and anathematise the intruder. Fact I know, and 
 law I know ; but what is this necessity, save an 
 empty shadow of my own mind's throwing ? " * 
 
 Next, besides denying the validity of metaphysical 
 ideas, this agnostic principle excludes the use of i 
 priori hypotheses. No theory as to relations must 
 be accepted unless those relations can actually be 
 demonstrated to exist, can, indeed, actually be 
 observed in operation. The classical instance of this 
 is the agnostic refusal to accept explicitly any theory 
 as to the relation between matter and mind. I say 
 " explicitly," because it is possible to show that the 
 logical tendency of the agnostic world-view (if indeed 
 it is not a contradiction in terms to speak of a world- 
 view as agnostic) ultimately results in, or implicitly 
 presupposes, the practical acceptance of a materialistic 
 explanation of the facts of consciousness. Indeed, 
 as has often been pointed out. Naturalism may be 
 
 hardly true to his anti-metaphysical doctrine here, for does he not 
 wish, instead of meeting such an idea as that of necessity with a 
 painstaking analysis of observations in the field of the human 
 mind, to deal with it by means of objurgations foreign to scientific 
 method ? Whatever rhetorical phrases may be hurled at the idea of 
 necessity, that idea or experience must first of all be recognised as 
 something given, something which we cannot do without, and which 
 we ought not to ignore. This, however, Huxley never understood, 
 though he might have learnt the lesson, not only from Kant, whom 
 he surely never properly read, but also, and even better, from his 
 favourite author Hume ("Treatise," Book I., Part III., § 14; cj. 
 Riehl, " Kriticismus," Bd. I., chap, ii., § 5). It is not the function 
 of critical philosophy to "ban" ideas as "intruders," but to 
 discover and exhibit their value. 
 • " Collected Essays," p. 161. 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 39 
 
 regarded, despite its own vigorous protests, as merely 
 a philosophical formulation of Materialism. Not that 
 the Agnostic would for a moment consent to be termed 
 a Materialist, for Huxley is especially warm in his 
 repudiation of this metaphysical heresy. According 
 to him, the core of Materialism is the doctrine that 
 matter and force are the only known realities,* 
 whereas the Agnostic insists on a third reality, con- 
 sciousness. Indeed, Huxley maintains that, if he had 
 to determine which of these three had logical and 
 actual priority, he would have to do so in favour of 
 that very reality which Materialism refuses to recog- 
 nise, consciousness. "Our certain knowledge," says 
 Huxley, " does not go beyond our states of con- 
 sciousness. . . . Our one certainty is the existence 
 of the mental world, and that of Kraft and Staff 
 falls into the rank of, at best, a highly probable 
 hypothesis." 
 
 It should here be noted that in classing force with 
 matter and consciousness as a third form of reality 
 Huxley is doing exactly the thing that he blames so 
 hotly in other thinkers ; for in so doing he hypostatises, 
 he ascribes a meaning to phenomena which mere 
 experience cannot warrant. For the notion of force 
 is completely abstract. Experience, concrete instances, 
 never give us force. What they do give us is matter 
 in certain definite relations of time and space. But, 
 waiving this point, we have to notice that the agnostic 
 principle does not, after all, admit of the classification 
 
 "^ "Science and Morals," Fortnightly Review, November, 
 1886. 
 
40 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 of these three realities in the order suggested by 
 Huxley ; for although consciousness has episte- 
 mological priority over matter and force, the doc- 
 trine of demonstrability cannot give any sanction to 
 that priority. For that doctrine insists that philo- 
 sophy must busy itself only with those particulars 
 which are " demonstrated or demonstrable," and the 
 reality of consciousness does not admit of demonstra- 
 tion. The methods of natural science cannot be applied 
 to the " proof " or exhibition of consciousness. For 
 consciousness is immediately or intuitively known ; or, 
 better still, consciousness is actually that which knows, 
 and therefore cannot be known. Hence it must be 
 excluded from all agnostic philosophical considera- 
 tion, except in as far as it can be treated indirectly 
 through the medium of matter and force. That 
 is to say, the agnostic method only admits of a 
 study of consciousness which is, so to speak, second- 
 hand — a study which deals with consciousness wholly 
 through the medium of physical metaphor. 
 
 This fact is worthy of a somewhat close atten- 
 tion, for in it we may find a clue as to the strangely 
 unsatisfactory results of the science of psychology. 
 Compared with the advance made in every other 
 branch of science, that made by psychologists in the 
 examination and description of the actual facts of 
 mental and spiritual experience is very meagre, and 
 of no great value. Why is it that methods, which 
 when applied to material phenomena are immediately 
 successful, seem to fail when applied to psychic 
 states ? The answer is that methods properly applied 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 41 
 
 in the one case are not really valid when applied in 
 the other. 
 
 Of course this answer seems flat heresy to most 
 moderns. We are, generally speaking, very proud of our 
 twentieth century civilisation, and above all proud of 
 the achievements of science. The comfort of our 
 generation has been incalculably increased, and our 
 power over natural forces has been demonstrated in a 
 marvellous way, and both these things — comfort and 
 physical supremacy — are rightly ascribed to our 
 careful study of nature by means of a certain definite 
 method. Our sense of the importance of scientific 
 method, however, has led us unconsciously to assume 
 that the method successful in dealing with the subject- 
 matter of physical science must necessarily be suc- 
 cessful if applied to any other subject-matter, that, for 
 instance, of the psychic world. In other words, the 
 assumption has been made that the method adopted 
 for the study of physics is the absolute method, its 
 validity being quite independent of its subject-matter. 
 Hence our psychologists, from Hobbes to Spencer, 
 have maintained that the explanation of psychic 
 phenomena is to be sought by the application of 
 those principles which have proved their validity when 
 applied to the phenomena of the material world. 
 To them the propriety of this procedure seems self- 
 evident. They do not appear to have fully discussed 
 the suggestion that for the study of the psychic world 
 a radically different method might be necessary. If 
 " demonstrability " means truth in the one sphere, 
 only the "demonstrable" must be believed in the 
 
42 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 other too. Of course it is not in its purely abstract 
 stage that this assumption hinders the progress of 
 psychology, but rather in the fact that it encourages 
 the application to the psychic subject-matter of laws 
 or principles derived from physical science. It is 
 felt that there must be continuity through all science, 
 that ideas which have proved their validity in the 
 one department must also have a certain application 
 in the other. The psychologist generally comes to 
 his task obsessed by the notion of natural laws in 
 the physical world, whereas he should come to the 
 extremely subtle and intangible subject-matters of 
 the mental world with an utterly unprejudiced power 
 of observation. Indeed, it would be an exceedingly 
 valuable experiment to train an apt scholar from 
 early youth in all arts and crafts, and in the method 
 of observation, but leaving out all definite natural 
 science, and set him, when at maturity, to study and 
 report upon the psychological problem. He would 
 undoubtedly, if a man of abilities, describe things in 
 a fashion quite different from the descriptions of 
 our empirical psychologists ; at any rate, he would 
 not make the error of imposing upon psychic expe- 
 riences laws framed upon the analogies offered by 
 physics. For the fact is that, unconsciously or con- 
 sciously, our psychologists continually try to explain 
 spiritual phenomena by means of mechanical laws. 
 Unless a mechanical explanation can be found, they 
 seem to say, there arises a break in the continuity of 
 the universe ; and such a break is surely impossible ! 
 So a mechanical theory is found, and a mechanical 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 43 
 
 terminology is adopted, and the adequacy of the 
 mechanical theory for the explanation of all human 
 experience is triumphantly assured.* 
 
 The fact is that those who have applied the methods 
 of physical science to psychology have failed to under- 
 stand that the subject-matter of physics and the 
 subject-matter of psychology are things which differ 
 in kind, and not merely in degree ; they are incom- 
 mensurables as presented to us. This statement is 
 in no sense intended to have a metaphysical bearing- 
 It does not decide any question as to the ultimate 
 reality in some transcendental world of this difference 
 of kind. It merely asserts that, as presented, the two 
 continua of phenomena are incommensurable. And 
 it is their failure to recognise this that has vitiated all 
 the labours and magnificent edifices of the modern 
 psychologists from Hobbes onwards. 
 
 We will illustrate the foregoing as follows : — 
 I. The fundamental error we have seen to be in 
 the fact that the method of physical science has been 
 imposed upon the psychical subject-matter without any 
 
 * It would of course be folly to deny the great services which the 
 old school of empirical psychologists have rendered. Psychology 
 was at one time the slave of metaphysics, and she owes her liberty 
 from that slavery to the empiricists. But she has not yet become 
 autonomous. She is under the protection of physical science, and 
 is not allowed to make her own laws. Nevertheless freedom from 
 the foreign tyranny is the first step towards autonomy, and this 
 step was certainly taken under the tutelage of the English 
 empiricists. Well may Ribot say of the English that " no people 
 has done so much for psychology considered independently of 
 metaphysics " (" La Psychologie Anglaise Contemporaine, " p. 54. 
 C/. Dilthey, " Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften," p. 478). 
 
44 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 previous examination of that subject-matter to test its 
 likeness to physical phenomena. The fitness of the 
 method is assumed apparently, at least in some cases, 
 merely on the verbal ground that psychology is a 
 science and must therefore be amenable to "scientific" 
 method. " On whatever ground," says Huxley,* " we 
 term physiology science, psychology is entitled to 
 the same appellation ; and the method of investigation 
 which elucidates the true relations of one set of pheno- 
 mena will discover those of the other." But, the 
 one set of phenomena being radically different from 
 the other, it is not surprising that in the one case, 
 where the methods arise out of a study of the pheno- 
 mena themselves, investigation is fruitful ; while in 
 the other, where the methods are blindly imposed 
 upon the phenomena, investigation is barren. 
 
 2. This fundamental error, the error of making 
 psychology dependent upon physics for its method, 
 is naturally accompanied by the kindred disaster of a 
 terminology which not only fails to describe the 
 phenomena accurately, but also prejudices the investi- 
 gator by introducing to him, almost unconsciously, a 
 series of improper explanations. For the terminology 
 is borrowed, like the method, from the physical 
 sciences, and therefore suggests conclusions which 
 have never been properly reached. The radical 
 defect of this terminology is that it attempts, often 
 with admirable ingenuity, to describe spiritual pro- 
 cesses in language which implies that those processes 
 are spatial. Of course it is very difficult to find terms 
 * Hume, p. 51. 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 45 
 
 which would not be open to this criticism. But no 
 attempt is made to meet this difficulty, because it is 
 not thoroughly realised that terms implying bulk are 
 unsuited to the description of psychical facts. And 
 further, to the extent to which psychological terms 
 imply material properties, just to that extent is the 
 whole psychological system dominated by a material- 
 istic prepossession, and consequently in danger of an 
 enslavement to a materialistic metaphysic not less real 
 because more subtle than that enslavement from which 
 the empiricists have once liberated it. 
 
 Our whole psychological terminology suffers in this 
 respect. We imply spatial relations when we say, 
 e.g., that psychical processes " have their seat " in the 
 brain or in the nervous system, when we speak of 
 " psychical impressions " or " the principles of union 
 or cohesion among our simple ideas."* A still better 
 example of this vicious terminology is to be found 
 in Hume's doctrine f that the difference between 
 perception and imagination is to be found in the 
 strength or liveliness with which ideas strike the 
 mind. 
 
 3. Very closely connected with the fallacy of a 
 materialistic terminology is the fallacy of metaphorical 
 hypotheses. It has been the practice of the empirical 
 psychologists to frame hypotheses either in language 
 which is entirely metaphorical, or by simply imi- 
 tating accepted theories of natural science. As an 
 
 • Hume, " Treatise on Human Nature," Book I., p. 29 (Tait and 
 Black, 1826). 
 
 t 0/. cit., Book I., Part I., p. i. 
 
46 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 example of the first class the sentence of Hume * will 
 serve, " What we call mind is nothing but a heap or 
 collection of different perceptions united by certain 
 relations," or, again, Spencer's description of willing, 
 which reduces that process to something partly 
 biological and partly mechanical : " When, after the 
 reception of one of the more complex impressions, the 
 appropriate motor changes become nascent, but are 
 prevented from passing into immediate action by the 
 antagonism of certain other motor changes appropriate 
 to some other nearly allied impression, there is con- 
 stituted a state of consciousness which, when it finally 
 issues in action, displays what we call volition." 
 
 As an instance of the second class of fallacious 
 hypotheses, the utilitarian theory, that the difference 
 between various emotions is quantitative, will serve, t 
 Perhaps the most complete example, however, of 
 hypotheses framed in mere imitation of the theories 
 of natural science, is to be found in the so-called law 
 of the association of ideas, a law admittedly formulated 
 to correspond with the law of gravitation.! 
 
 While it is easy to point out these grave hindrances 
 to the development of a proper psychological method, 
 it is by no means easy to frame that proper method. 
 It may, however, be remarked that a first step towards 
 a valid method would be a rigorous examination of 
 psychological terminology with a view to exhibiting 
 
 * ''Treatise," Book 11., p. 268. 
 
 t C/. the epigram said to have been uttered by Bentham, 
 "Pushpin is as good as poetry, provided it be as pleasant." 
 I Cf. Dilthey, " Einleitung," p. 480, and Ribot, " La Psychologie," 
 
 etc., p. 424. 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 47 
 
 to what extent it has been taken over from the 
 natural sciences, to what extent it consists of pure 
 metaphor, and to what extent its names and hypo- 
 theses have a meaning which is not based upon 
 analogy with material phenomena. It is not im- 
 probable that, when this had once been accomplished, 
 the conclusion would force itself upon philosophers, 
 that without a materialistic terminology psychology 
 is impossible, and from this might grow the convic- 
 tion, already shared by not a few, that a valid and 
 autonomous psychology can, in the nature of things, 
 never be elaborated. 
 
 Meanwhile a new discipline is developing which 
 may lead to important changes both in terminology 
 and in general method. This discipline is the study of 
 those phenomena which lie on the borderland between 
 the physical and psychical worlds, and is generally 
 termed "psychophysics." Those, however, who believe 
 that this science will provide a substitute for psycho- 
 logy properly so called, are likely to be disappointed. 
 Indeed, it is not improbable that the devotees of the 
 new investigations will have soon to make up their 
 mind whether it would not be better to proclaim 
 themselves physiologists or physicists, and to give up 
 all pretence of explaining psychological facts as such. 
 In fine, psychophysics notwithstanding, all that 
 psychology can do just now is to maintain itself in 
 distracted fashion waiting for some psychological 
 Copernicus* who shall be able to replace our 
 physicocentric method by one which shall be truly 
 * James, " Principles of Psychology," Vol. I., p. 183. 
 
48 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 psychocentric, or else some liberator who will demon- 
 strate once and for all that psychology can never be 
 more than a pseudo-science. 
 
 But Naturalists as such neither expect nor desire 
 such a change in psychological method as either of 
 those here suggested. They are engaged in elaborat- 
 ing a doctrine for the explanation of psychical 
 phenomena analogous to the atomic theory in the 
 physical world.* According to this teaching, any 
 given spiritual state can be regarded as made up of 
 various factors, to which it can, of course, be reduced 
 by analysis. This psychical atomic theory, together 
 with the psychical law of gravitation (association of 
 ideas), forms the groundwork of an explanation of all 
 psychical phenomena acccording to the " push and 
 pull " of physics. 
 
 Now, one result of this naturalistic psychological 
 method is very notable. It is the work of the special 
 sciences to furnish philosophy with data by the help 
 of which a complete world-view can be built up. The 
 physical sciences are able to furnish their data readily 
 enough. But not only that, when once the methods 
 of physical science have been imposed upon psychical 
 phenomena, or, to put it a little differently, when once 
 it has been agreed that all the data of psychological 
 phenomena must be expressed in forms borrowed 
 from the physical sciences, it is obvious that the 
 utmost that psychology can do is to reaffirm the data 
 already derived from the physical sciences. In point 
 of fact, this is exactly what psychology has done. 
 * James, " Principles of Psychology." Vol. I., p. 196. 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 49 
 
 Naturalistic psychology has furnished philosophy 
 with no new principles or data for the framing of 
 a world-view. All the data of the naturalistic 
 philosopher are ultimately the data of the physical 
 sciences. Hence agnosticism is bound to express its 
 world-view (as far as it can make so large an expres- 
 sion) in materialistic language ; that is, it uses the data 
 of the physical sciences only, and not the data of the 
 spiritual world. That this is the case (but not its 
 explanation here given) is admitted by Huxley in the 
 fullest fashion. In his essay " On the physical basis 
 of life" he says that, although he constantly uses 
 materialistic terms, he does so not because he desires 
 to take up a philosophically materialistic position, but 
 because such terms best serve his purpose. The ter- 
 minology of the agnostic philosopher must be material- 
 istic because physics alone can offer a consistent 
 terminology. The "laws" of psychology do not really 
 furnish independent matter. Yet it must always be 
 borne in mind that this terminology of the Naturalist 
 is, he asserts, nothing more than a terminology, and 
 makes no claim to metaphysical validity. In another 
 place, Huxley goes so far as to say, " What we know 
 of the material world is only known to us under the 
 forms of the ideal world .... if I say that thought 
 is a property of matter, all that I can mean is, that 
 the consciousness of extension and of resistance 
 accompany all other sorts of consciousness." * Or we 
 may put it in another way. Naturalism, says Huxley, 
 is neither more nor less than a sort of " Shorthand 
 • "Collected Essays," Vol. I., p. 194. 
 T. D 
 
so thp:ology and truth 
 
 Idealism." But at the same time it must be asserted 
 with equal emphasis, that he recognises in practice no 
 " longhand " Idealism which can be brought into 
 harmony with the principles of Agnosticism. 
 
 But although Huxley asserts that the facts of con- 
 sciousness can only be exhibited by means of the 
 methods of physics, it must be said that he does 
 not appear altogether clear as to the implications 
 and exact bearings of his epistemological doctrine. 
 Nevertheless he is aware (and to have expressed this 
 is the most valuable element in all his polemical 
 activity) that some epistemology is necessary if we 
 are to have a satisfactory philosophy ; but the exact 
 nature of the science of epistemology seems always 
 to have eluded his grasp. In his essay on Hume, for 
 instance, he rightly asserts that his hero's chief service 
 lies in his endeavour to determine the limits of know- 
 ledge. But Huxley entirely misses the intention of 
 Hume when he describes the great treatise, not as 
 an investigation into the nature of knowledge, but as 
 an inquiry as to its processes — that is, when he 
 treats Hume's work as psychological instead of 
 epistemological . * 
 
 But although Huxley is not quite sure of the 
 technicalities of his argument, it is evident that 
 Agnosticism does involve a definite epistemological 
 doctrine which we have seen to have, as a main pro- 
 position, the assertion that the data of consciousness 
 can only be exhibited by the methods and forms of 
 physical science. And what is this but giving names 
 
 • "Hume," Part II., chap. i. 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 51 
 
 to things and yet at the same time declaring that 
 there is no real connection between those names, 
 despite all their connotation, and the nature of the 
 objects to which they are applied ? That " nature " 
 the Agnostic asserts to be indescribable — ultimately 
 mysterious. For instance, Huxley calls an object 
 " matter," but he asserts that this name, with all its 
 significant connotation, is to be applied merely for 
 practical purposes. The object is not " matter " — but 
 it must be so called, and, in undertaking research, it 
 must be treated as though the connotation of the term 
 properly belonged to the object. 
 
 The situation reminds one somewhat of the rela- 
 tions between Korea and Japan. Japan guarantees 
 the integrity of Korea and maintains its emperor 
 upon the throne, even firing imperial salutes in his 
 honour. But all the laws and regulations of both the 
 external and the internal affairs of Korea are deter- 
 mined by the interests of Japan and for the mainten- 
 ance of her dominion. So the Agnostic does ceremonial 
 honour to consciousness, but goes about regulating 
 everything as though the only realities were matter 
 and force. He will even consent to salute the flag of 
 " consciousness " as supreme, provided he is allowed 
 to act in the interests of the unconscious ! 
 
 Can this method of name-giving, however, be per- 
 sisted in without serious evils arising? Does it not 
 implicitly posit definite metaphysical attributes to 
 the things to which the names are attached ? We 
 have already seen how gravely the science of 
 psychology has been injured by the fact that its 
 
 D 2 
 
52 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 terminology is built in such a way as to admit the 
 implication that all psychic phenomena can be 
 brought under the laws of physics : for thereby it 
 is suggested that psychic phenomena, being suscep- 
 tible of explanation analogous to that of physical 
 laws alone, are ultimately identical with physical 
 phenomena. And may not a similar and broader 
 injury be done to science as a whole, if a materialistic 
 nomenclature is everywhere adopted despite the fact 
 that consciousness is admittedly not matter, but is 
 rather the logical prius of matter ? Does not iWdeed 
 this agnostic opposition between names and objects 
 cast a serious reflection upon the accuracy of that 
 science which conducts its operations with the help of 
 a terminology and of laws fundamentally inadequate 
 to the entities with which it has to deal? Surely 
 violence is somewhere done to the facts, and we are 
 justified in asking. Where ? 
 
 But however the Naturalist may meet the question, 
 these considerations at least make the agnostic posi- 
 tion, with regard to the relations between spirit and 
 matter, clear. While the Agnostic insists on the 
 reality of spirit he at the same time maintains that it 
 is only possible for us to treat spirit as though it were 
 matter. We must speak of it in the language of 
 materialism, we must call it matter. And this being 
 the case Agnosticism is unable to offer any theory as 
 to the relation between spirit and matter. In fact, 
 Huxley does not need any such theory, for, according 
 to his view, the facts of the spirit (so far as it is 
 possible for us to investigate them with any strictness) 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 53 
 
 can only be fitly treated when regarded as material. 
 The problem never emerges into the view of the 
 practical man. 
 
 At this point we find ourselves face to face with the 
 first of the three paradoxes with which we will have 
 to deal in our inquiry — the paradox of Naturalism- 
 It is in the writings of Huxley that it finds its clearest 
 expression, but it underlies every other form of 
 Naturalism also. In the case of Huxley the paradox 
 appears thus : We can only understand spirit when 
 we treat it as matter, and yet it is the gravest error to 
 deny that the only entity of the reality of which we 
 are certain, is not matter, but spirit. Both matter and 
 spirit exist, and exist in the closest relation, but what 
 that relation is we cannot explain, for we can only 
 conceive of spirit in terms of matter. And yet the 
 ultimate existence of matter is open to question, for 
 we can only perceive it indirectly, through the medium 
 of spirit — it is at best but " a very probable hypo- 
 thesis." In short, we must remain agnostic about 
 spirit because we conceive it as matter, apd agnos- 
 tic about matter because we perceive it through 
 spirit. 
 
 This it is then to which the agnostic episte- 
 mology of Huxley leads us. His criterion of truth 
 is that of demonstrability, involving him in the 
 naturalistic paradox of the incommensurability of 
 reality and thought, of perception and conception, 
 of matter and spirit. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL BASIS OF NATURALISM: 
 SPENCER 
 
 We now turn to Herbert Spencer, the greatest of 
 the modern English Naturalists. We shall find in his 
 doctrine, as in Huxley's, an epistemological dualism 
 — the naturalistic paradox. Nevertheless, Spencer's 
 teaching is by no means a replica of that of his 
 colleague ; indeed, the two expositions of Naturalism 
 are marked by considerable differences. These 
 differences, however, are of form rather than of 
 content, and are easily understood when the ulilike 
 conditions, under which their philosophic works were 
 respectively produced, are borne in mind. In the 
 case of Huxley it may be said that, with the doubtful 
 exception of his little book on Hume, all his philoso- 
 phical writings were published in the stress and hurry 
 of popular controversy. His essays appeared from 
 time to time in the great quarterlies and reviews, and 
 display a veritable lust of battle and vivacious eager- 
 ness in debate, which his constant sense of the 
 necessity of restraint cannot for a moment disguise ; 
 and although it would not be difficult to trace the 
 same general principles in all his varied writings, it 
 was never definitely Huxley's purpose, either to 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 55 
 
 display those principles and their logical consequences 
 in detail, or to elaborate a scheme of their mutual 
 relations. 
 
 With Spencer it was different. At the very- 
 beginning of his career he formed the tremendous 
 project of elaborating a complete system of philosophy 
 from the point of view of the naturalistic theory of 
 evolution. This gigantic work was to embrace the 
 whole field of human knowledge, and to display the 
 universe as a whole composed of interdependent 
 parts. And so it happened that Spencer — although 
 during fifty years he also took active part in the 
 philosophico-religious pamphleteering war in which 
 his friend Huxley was so prominent a champion — 
 worked unbrokenly and in a systematic fashion. He 
 remained true to his purpose, and ultimately had the 
 satisfaction of seeing it carried out. He was therefore 
 forced to face certain questions which Huxley found 
 it easy to pass unnoticed, and felt the limitations and 
 difficulties of the naturalistic paradox more keenly 
 and practically than did his more volatile colleague. 
 Indeed, Spencer, although himself, like Huxley, very 
 shy of that bete noire of the scientist, metaphysics, 
 was driven by the very pressure and magnitude of 
 his theme to take up positions which can only be 
 called metaphysical.* For Spencer's purpose was 
 to expound his theory of knowledge as a part of 
 
 • Professor Upton regards the fact that Spencer makes concessions 
 in his defence of Agnosticism which almost lead to Theism, as a 
 practical refutation of the theory of Comte that increasing culture 
 must result in the elimination of all metaphysics and theology from 
 human thought. 
 
S6 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 a complete world-view, which should make it possible 
 to express the whole round of human experience by 
 means of certain duly defined terms. It is easy to 
 be dogmatic and sweeping as Huxley was in the 
 fleeting pages of a magazine ; but when a synthetic 
 philosophy comes to be written, dogmas must be 
 supported by a sufficiency of argument. And in the 
 case of Spencer this argument is not free from 
 metaphysical elements. 
 
 Any reader, who is familiar with epistemo- 
 logical problems, will have at once observed in our 
 discussion of Huxley's doctrine how unsatisfactory, 
 at least in point of form, is his statement of the 
 criterion of truth : " In matters of the intellect do not 
 pretend that conclusions are certain which are not 
 demonstrated or demonstrable." In the first place 
 it is obvious that the use of the word " demonstrable " 
 really begs the question at issue. When may a 
 proposition be regarded as demonstrated .' It is 
 exactly the fundamental principle of demonstration 
 which the theory of knowledge wishes to ascertain, 
 and on this point Spencer's teaching is at first sight 
 much clearer, although closer examination shows that 
 it also is open to grave question. 
 
 The criterion of truth which Spencer adopts is in 
 close connection with his discussion of the nature of 
 concepts.* There are two sorts of concepts, he says 
 — those which are complete, and others which are 
 
 * Spencer's term is "conception." We use concept in order to 
 leave " conception " free to denote the process of forming a 
 concept. 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 57 
 
 more or less symbolic* A concept is complete when 
 all the attributes of its object are represented in 
 consciousness at the same time ; and it is clear that 
 the simpler a concept is the more complete it is, and 
 the more complex it is the more incomplete (other 
 things being equal) it is likely to be. As the object 
 becomes more complex it has to be more sym- 
 bolically represented. When a symbolic concept 
 stands unrelated to other concepts and claims to take 
 its place among the complete concepts, it is untrue-^ 
 deceptive. Symbolic concepts are only reliable and 
 valid when they are recognised as symbolical, and 
 "we can assure ourselves by some cumulative or 
 indirect process of thought, or the fulfilment of 
 predictions based upon them, that they stand for 
 actualities." When such an assurance is not possible, 
 symbolical concepts are " altogether vicious and 
 illusive, and in no way distinguishable from pure 
 fiction." 
 
 As already suggested, the principle here defined 
 appears at first glance to be more profound in meaning 
 than Huxley's criterion of demonstrability. And yet 
 it is not less open to criticism. Just as Huxley's 
 criterion really consists in the mere introduction 
 of a new term — "demonstrability" — so is Spencer's 
 criterion — "the assurance" that a concept "stands 
 for actualities " — though it seems to mark an advance, 
 really nothing more than the adoption of another new 
 and less concise expression. In fact, this second 
 criterion is much less useful than Huxley's obscure 
 • " First Principles," § 9. 
 
58 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 phrase ; for while the word " truth " and the technical 
 term " demonstrability " both point to some objective 
 standard, Spencer's method of " assuring ourselves " 
 can only claim a subjective validity. 
 
 But perhaps it might still be possible to win for this 
 phrase a more determinate meaning were we to 
 transfer its centre of gravity from the word " assur- 
 ance " to the idea of " actualities." It is certain that 
 Huxley regarded a proposition as true in proportion 
 to its correspondence with the facts of the outer 
 world. This notion of truth is the same as that to be 
 found among the ancients, who believed our ideas to 
 be reproductions or copies of things — as, for instance, 
 the Democritan theory of the etSmXa. A proposition 
 is true, according to Huxley, when we are in a position 
 to test and confirm it experimentally. This testing 
 gives us assurance as to the truth or falsehood of the 
 proposition. And this is just what Spencer means. 
 There are certain permanent elements of reality by 
 means of which we may test our judgment, and it is 
 through them that we are able to assure ourselves 
 that our concepts stand for actualities. 
 
 But there is yet another question which we must 
 put to Spencer before this criterion can be accepted, 
 and that is, What is the nature of these " actualities " ? 
 Is there any process by which we can veritably come 
 into touch with these permanent elements of reality ? 
 And in answer to this question he gives an emphatic 
 negative. It is not possible to come directly to these 
 actualities. We must move entirely within the limits 
 of our concepts. We can only assure ourselves that 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 59 
 
 concepts " stand for actualities " by comparing them 
 with other concepts. We have to adopt a logical, in 
 place of an experimental, method. 
 
 Let us now see if we can find some explanation of 
 this in Spencer's own method of argument When he 
 actually wishes to solve some problem which comes 
 before him in his discussion of these first principles, he 
 makes use of a criterion of truth which we have not 
 as yet noticed. This is the criterion of conceivability. 
 The truth or falsehood of a concept depends upon its 
 conceivability or inconceivability. As an example of 
 the application of this standard let us take the instance 
 which he gives us in his discussion of time and space. 
 Here he rejects the view that these are subjective on 
 the simple ground that such a subjectivity is incon- 
 ceivable. Our belief in the objectivity of time and 
 space is insurmountable, hence the contradictory of 
 this belief {i.e., the subjectivity of time and space) 
 cannot be true.* Again, in discussing three possible 
 theories as to the duration of the Universe (viz., that 
 it is (i) self-existent, (2) self-created, (3) created), he 
 maintains that these three must all be false because 
 they are all unthinkable. " It is not a question of 
 probability or credibility, but of conceivability." 
 
 Now there is a connection between these two 
 criteria — this of conceivability, and that other which 
 we have been discussing, of " assurance " or " demon- 
 strability." Spencer calls a concept false when we 
 cannot assure ourselves that it stands for an actuality. 
 But his principle of conceivability probes the matter 
 * " First Principles," § 15. 
 
6o THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 still further, and asks : Is the concept itself possible ? 
 And in order to an explanation let us bring this 
 criterion into connection with what we have already 
 noticed about Spencer's doctrine of " complete con- 
 ceptions," for if we are to take his argument seriously 
 we must give his terms the same significance wherever 
 used. Interpreting the criterion of conceivability in 
 the light of this doctrine, we must take it that when 
 Spencer says, e.g., that the concept of the subjectivity 
 of space is inconceivable, he means that the idea of 
 the subjectivity of space, when analysed, turns out to 
 be incomplete, that is, symbolic, as we saw above. 
 And, according to his first criterion of truth, such a 
 concept must be rejected, for we are unable to assure 
 ourselves that it stands for an actuality. 
 
 But Spencer, not content with this logical defence 
 of his criterion of conceivability, further supports it 
 by means of certain psychological considerations, 
 though here it assumes a slightly different form, 
 making its appearance as " the inconceivability of the 
 opposite." This principle (the Universal Postulate,* 
 as he calls it) serves, according to Spencer, as a test 
 of all possible judgments, be they the simplest of per- 
 ceptions or the most complicated chains of reflection. 
 When I put my hand in the fire I know that it is hot : 
 unless I am mad I cannot possibly assure myself that 
 it is not hot — the opposite of the judgment "it is 
 hot" is inconceivable. And it is just the same with 
 an abstract judgment — it is true when its opposite is 
 inconceivable. 
 
 * " Principles of Psychology," Vol. II., chap. xi. 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 6i 
 
 To these logical and psychological explanations 
 of his criterion Spencer adds a third — the psycho- 
 genetic. Truth is always a proper understanding 
 of the relation between the individual and the 
 outer world. "What we call truth, guiding us 
 to successful action and consequently to the main- 
 tenance of life, is simply the accurate correspond- 
 ence of subject and object relations ; while error, 
 leading to failure and therefore towards death, 
 is the absence of such accurate correspondence." * 
 That is, we regard that as true which, when put 
 into operation, promotes life. Of course Spencer 
 does not wish by this to set up a new criterion 
 of truth — he does not intend, for instance, that 
 scientific propositions should be called true because 
 they show themselves to be of practical value. 
 It is simply that mark which has historically 
 resulted in certain propositions being regarded as 
 truth. The artless wisdom which is embodied in 
 popular proverbs is an illustration of this, and such 
 an old saw as that " a bird in the hand is worth two 
 In the bush," is in this sense a " truth." But to 
 recognise that what has come to be accepted as 
 a valuable maxim in practical life has a right to be 
 considered true, and to find in this serviceableness of 
 certain statements as compared with others a psycho- 
 genetic explanation of truth, does not provide us 
 with a criterion of truth which is universally applic- 
 able, and may be handled so that propositions of 
 what origin soever may be determined true or false. 
 
 • " First Principles," § 25. 
 
62 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 Let us sum up what we have so far arrived at. 
 Spencer's doctrine is as follows : — 
 
 (i) The psychological mark of truth is assurance. 
 
 (2) This assurance is logically expressed by the 
 statement that the opposite of a true proposition is 
 inconceivable. 
 
 (3) This assurance of the inconceivability of the 
 opposite may be psychogenetically explained by the 
 identification of the true with the useful, and by 
 the assertion that the will to know is the expression 
 or outcome of the will to live. The compulsion of the 
 struggle for existence has resulted in the evolution of 
 natural science, logic, and epistemology alike. 
 
 It seems then that Spencer has never really got 
 beyond the point of view of Hume. For he maintains 
 that truth, after all, springs from utility ; he allows the 
 problem of the theory of knowledge to be confused 
 with the problem of psychology — to such an extent, 
 indeed, that his epistemology is in themain psychology; 
 and he overlooks quite fatally the spontaneity of the 
 mind in perception and pure thought alike. Spencer, 
 therefore, never really defines, or has to do with, objec- 
 tive truth. The advance which Kant made beyond 
 the epistemology of Hume was just this — Kant 
 substituted an activity of the spirit, working according 
 to definite principles, for the accidental sensationalism 
 by which Hume sought to explain knowledge. Ac- 
 cording to Hume, knowledge had no objective validity, 
 because the human spirit was never able to escape from 
 the circle of sensations which it passively received, and 
 so was never able to arrive at reality. Causation was 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 63 
 
 merely something derived from the succession of sen- 
 sations. But Kant was able to ascribe to knowledge 
 an objective validity by showing that it is not only 
 determined by an unknowable object, but also by the 
 spirit which is itself active and which co-operates in 
 the production of experience. That is, for Kant know- 
 ledge arises according to a principle which is the 
 knowable presupposition or condition of all expe- 
 rience. Hence knowledge has an objective validity. 
 This advance of Kant upon Hume, however, Spencer 
 never made. He remains entirely upon empiricist 
 ground. He can therefore never speak of objective 
 knowledge, but only of a relative validity of thought 
 for practical purposes. Thus it is that he can never 
 persuade himself that he has positive knowledge. He 
 must remain an Agnostic. 
 
 We have not yet, however, answered the question 
 that was asked above, What are Spencer's actualities ? 
 Spencer maintains that we cannot escape from the 
 circle of our own concepts or ideas. It follows, therefore, 
 that the correspondence of a concept with an actuality 
 can only be indicated by the relation of one concept to 
 another. The relation has already been given its 
 psychogenetical explanation — it is such as to promote 
 life. Are we then to come to the conclusion that 
 Spencer is a pure relativist ? At any rate, his teach- 
 ing is not in every respect relativism, for with the 
 epistemological relativism which we have been discuss- 
 ing, he combines an extreme logical realism. And 
 here we come to a fact which deserves closer attention. 
 
 Spencer's predecessors, Whewell and J. S. Mill, had 
 
64 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 already represented a very definitely material doctrine 
 as to the nature of the logical judgment. Mill had 
 defined Logic as " the science of the operations of the 
 understanding which are subservient to the estima- 
 tion of evidence," * and in discussing the import of 
 the judgment, he had said : " We have to inquire, 
 then, on the present occasion, not into Judgment, but 
 judgments ; not into the act of believing, but into the 
 thing believed. What is the immediate object of 
 belief in a proposition ? What is the matter of fact 
 signified by it ? " t Spencer's view is, however, still 
 more radical. He expressly lays down the principle 
 that logic formulates the most general laws of correla- 
 tion between realities objectively considered. " The 
 propositions of Logic primarily express necessary 
 dependencies of things, and not necessary depen- 
 dencies of thought." I Viewed from this standpoint 
 the question as to Spencer's actualities becomes still 
 more difficult to answer. For how can this logical 
 principle agree with the criterion of conceivability ? 
 
 A further consideration of the criterion of conceiv- 
 ability will suggest to us, that it may be better in- 
 terpreted in connection with Spencer's doctrine of the 
 relativity of knowledge, — indeed, the one must surely 
 be complementary to the other. For nothing, accord- 
 ing to this doctrine, is either conceivable or inconceiv- 
 able taken by itself. Conception is impossible as an 
 isolated act. An idea is only possible by apperception, 
 
 • "Logic," Introd., § 4. 
 
 t "Logic," Book I., chap, v., § i, 
 
 J " Principles of Psychology," Book II., § 302. 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 65 
 
 and is only conceivable or inconceivable by virtue 
 of its relation to other ideas. Hence conceivability 
 may be reduced to consistency : that is conceivable 
 which is consistent, and receives the support of the 
 other ideas which make up its logical world. Now it is 
 in this doctrine that we really find the principle or 
 criterion of truth which, although not easy to reconcile 
 with Spencer's explicit logical position, underlies his 
 theory of knowledge. 
 
 The principle is not that of demonstrability — veri- 
 fication by reference to a constant cosmos of actuali- 
 ties ; nor is it that utilitarian standard which consists in 
 the measure of the power of promoting pleasure and 
 pain, or, as Spencer puts it, life and death ; and, finally, 
 it is not the merely subjective psychological principle 
 of conceivability. It is in fact none of these, but, 
 although partially bodied forth by each one of them, 
 as already pointed out, it finds its complete expression 
 in that canon of consistency* which itself conditions 
 the conceivability of all ideas. Nothing can be true of 
 itself, whether conceivable or not ; it only acquires its 
 title to be regarded as true when it has taken its place 
 in the system of ideas, and has won significance by its 
 relation to other members of that system, and to that 
 system as a whole. The accurate formulation of 
 this criterion of consistency, however, Spencer never 
 
 * This naturalistic criterion of truth is very clearly expressed by 
 Locke, who is in many respects to be regarded as a Naturalist, 
 indeed, a typical one. " Knowledge," he says, " seems to me to be 
 nothing but the perception of the connection of and agreement, or 
 disagreement and repugnancy, of any of our ideas " (Essay, 
 Book IV., chap, i., § i). 
 
 T. E 
 
66 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 accomplished. He never faced the problem of the 
 criterion in all its commanding importance, and conse- 
 quently was never driven to take this final step, which 
 is the logical outcome of his general position. So true 
 is this that one may say that the further Spencer 
 passed from the direct discussion of epistemological 
 questions, the more vigorously did he emphasise, as we 
 have noticed in his logical doctrine, the objective 
 aspect of our experience, without taking sufficiently 
 into consideration the relation between the objective 
 and the subjective. Thus it is that Spencer has a 
 great deal to say about "actualities" and "things" and 
 yet cannot give them any real place in his epistemo- 
 logical system. He maintains that judgments are true 
 which correspond with " actualities," but in place of 
 these he can when pressed only offer us mere concepts 
 with which we are to compare other concepts. And 
 here we come upon that Spencerian paradox which 
 we shall shortly more closely examine — the paradox 
 which, in another form, we found to be involved in 
 Huxley's theory of knowledge, and which must, in the 
 very nature of things, discover itself in every exposi- 
 tion of Naturalism, namely, the irreconcilable dualism 
 between thought and being. But before we discuss 
 this dualism it will be well to look more closely at 
 Spencer's doctrine of the relativity of knowledge. 
 
 This doctrine of the relativity of knowledge, 
 and its resultant doctrine of the phenomenality of 
 the universe, are closely bound up with the principle of 
 consistency which we have seen to be the criterion of 
 truth underlying Spencer's theory of knowledge. The 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 67 
 
 whole group of ideas is implicit in Naturalism. Epis- 
 temology seeks to solve this problem, Within what 
 limits are those concepts true the validity of which is 
 asserted by the criterion of truth ? If the Spencerian 
 criterion of conceivability be adopted, this problem is 
 easy of solution. According to that criterion, ideas 
 are to be arranged into a sort of hierarchy according 
 as they are complete or symbolic, simple or complex, 
 near to or remote from an actual experience. The 
 nearer an idea stands to perception (the more " proxi- 
 mate" it is) the simpler it is, and the less symbolic in its 
 character. As the idea is further and further removed 
 from the concrete perception, it becomes gradually 
 more symbolic, and ultimately completely so. 
 
 We have already noticed Spencer's discussion of time 
 and space. These, he says, can be conceived neither 
 as subjective nor objective; both interpretations are 
 altogether inconceivable. In the same way he shows 
 that there are a number of similar antinomies. For 
 instance, we can conceive matter neither as infinitely 
 divisible nor as composed of ultimate atoms, neither 
 as extended nor yet as unextended. Again, in the 
 calculations of astronomy and physics we are forced to 
 deal with absolute motion, and yet absolute motion is 
 inconceivable. In the same way it is equally impossible 
 to form any concept of force, or of its mode of doing 
 work, or of the law of its variation in motion. And 
 the case is similar in the so-called inner world. We 
 are just as incapable of conceiving consciousness to 
 be of finite as of infinite duration ; and indeed, 
 although every one is conscious of personality, there 
 
 E 2 
 
68 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 is no one who can conceive this strange entity. 
 Thus it is with all the ultimate ideas of science. " The 
 scientist knows that in its ultimate essence nothing 
 can be known."* It is only proximate ideas that we 
 are able to understand, and these only by virtue of 
 their relations to ideas that have been previously 
 built up. Thus we have a chain of ideas leading 
 from proximate ideas infinitely close to percepts, to a 
 more or less remote final link beyond which is some- 
 thing that, though a possible object of thought, is 
 quite out of relation with ideas, and impossible of being 
 understood. This is the absolute, the unrelated object 
 of thought, something utterly beyond conception. + 
 Every name we apply to it must be purely symbolic. 
 Now we can fairly approach the fundamental 
 paradox of Spencer's theory of knowledge, or rather 
 the Spencerian form of the naturalistic epistemological 
 paradox. By means of the canon of cOnceivability 
 Spencer arrives at these propositions : (i) All that is 
 known stands in relation to other objects of knowledge ; 
 (2) There is an absolute which, since it is uncondi- 
 tioned, and consequently out of relation to all objects 
 of knowledge, cannot be known. These two pro- 
 positions are actually exhibited in " First Principles " J 
 as complementary and of mutual support : " The 
 relativity of our knowledge is inferable in three ways. 
 
 * "First Principles," § 21. 
 
 t Rev. Aubrey Moore ("Lux Mundi,"' p. 77) points out that the 
 proof by which Spencer demonstrates the existence of the absolute 
 is nothing less than our old friend the proof d contingentia of the 
 being of God. 
 
 X p. 8z. 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 69 
 
 A thought involves relation, difference, likeness. 
 Whatever does not present each of these does not 
 admit of cognition. And hence we may say that the 
 unconditioned, as presenting none of them, is trebly 
 unthinkable." The natural result of this seems to be 
 that knowledge can only give us co-existences and 
 sequences, never what things actually are in them- 
 selves. On this very ground Hamilton and Mansel, 
 from whom Spencer derives his teaching as to the 
 unconditioned, had already maintained that we could 
 only have a knowledge of phenomena, and conse- 
 quently held that such terms as " absolute " and 
 " infinite " were mere negations. With this, however, 
 Spencer will not agree, for, " besides the definite con- 
 sciousness of which logic formulates the laws, there 
 is an indefinite consciousness which cannot be 
 formulated." We have already seen how Spencer 
 regards the incomprehensibility of the unconditioned 
 as to be inferred from the doctrine of relativity. We 
 see now the obverse of this — his argument that the 
 grounds from which the doctrine of relativity of know- 
 ledge is deduced themselves postulate or imply the 
 doctrine of the unconditioned. 
 
 This Spencerian paradox of knowledge is obviously 
 the same as that of Huxley, though differently 
 expressed. We have already seen how Huxley 
 describes mind or consciousness as a reality of the 
 same order as matter (or even of a higher order), but 
 at the same time asserts that we can only know 
 matter (and force), being merely aware of a con- 
 sciousness whose being we cannot prove. So with 
 
70 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 Spencer. We know those things which approximate, 
 or may be reduced, to perception ; of the uncondi- 
 tioned we have but " an indefinite consciousness." 
 When we examine this " absolute," Spencer maintains, 
 all that we can do is to try to think away the condi- 
 tions and boundaries of the relative. The idea of the 
 absolute is, therefore, not merely negative, as Hamilton 
 and Mansel argued : it is " a denial of negatives." The 
 momentum of thought inevitably carries us beyond 
 conditioned existence to unconditioned existence. 
 Indeed, "our consciousness of the unconditioned is 
 literally the unconditioned consciousness, or raw 
 material of thought to which in thinking we give 
 definite terms." Now this is an important element 
 in the Spencerian epistemology. What is its real 
 meaning.? How can it be brought into clear relation 
 with the rest of his teaching ? We have already seen 
 that Spencer regards all chains of ideas as passing into 
 such concepts as are altogether symbolic, and there- 
 fore incomprehensible. The more "proximate" an 
 idea is, the more fully is it comprehensible, because it 
 stands more closely related to consciousness itself. 
 There is, therefore, a gradation between a complete con- 
 cept, in which all the attributes of an object are given 
 in consciousness, and the ultimate symbolic concept 
 already described. And yet there is a certain division 
 of consciousness, almost two sorts of consciousness. 
 First, there is the " raw material of thought," that is, 
 " unconditioned consciousness," and, in the second 
 place, the concepts of which we are conscious, elements 
 "of the raw material of thought to which we give 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 71 
 
 definite terms." This explanation of consciousness 
 describes it as an " incoherent, indefinite homogeneity " 
 which, in harmony with Spencer's famous definition 
 of evolution, passes by the process of thought into a 
 " definite, coherent heterogeneity."* But if " our con- 
 sciousness of the unconditioned is literally the uncon- 
 ditioned consciousness," may it not be justly and 
 simply regarded as the mere possibility of thought? 
 And is not each idea, differentiated from this indefinite 
 possibility by the process described, after all the uncon- 
 ditioned consciousness brought into conditions and 
 related to other ideas, and so made comprehensible? 
 But to answer this question in the affirmative would 
 be to bring the unconditioned into relation with 
 the conditioned and would involve a contradictio in 
 adjecto. It would break down the Spencerian theory 
 of knowledge once and for all. 
 
 And yet those very statements of Spencer's, which 
 endeavour to show that the unconditioned cannot 
 possibly be related to the conditioned, themselves 
 clearly imply such a relation. The qualities of that 
 "raw material of thought to which in thinking we 
 give definite terms " assuredly seem to stand in 
 some way related to those "definite terms." And 
 although Spencer will not admit this in his purely 
 epistemological discussions, he finds himself at one 
 time or another forced to apply " definite terms " to 
 his own incomprehensible absolute. One of these 
 " definite terms " is that of permanent reality. Spencer 
 seems to regard his absolute at times with a sort of 
 * " First Principles," p. 396. 
 
72 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 religious devotion. And his attitude is characteristic, 
 in a more or less marked fashion, of all Naturalists. 
 Indeed, Huxley and Spencer reproduce in its main 
 principles the Eleatic doctrine that the universe is a 
 definite, changeless whole, a totality in which the flux of 
 phenomena is but appearance. While our knowledge 
 is relative, conditioned, incomplete, there is behind it 
 an absolute, unconditioned universe of objective dura- 
 tion. This noumenal cosmos we can never know, but 
 we can know that it is. In this Spencer and all his 
 fellow Naturalists agree, however widely they may 
 diverge on other details of the epistemological 
 problem, and at this point we are forced to remark that 
 the problem becomes dangerously like those meta- 
 physical discussions for which the Naturalists feel 
 such repugnance. Let us note what the most anti- 
 metaphysical of them all, Huxley, has to say in 
 support of this Eleatic principle of a permanent and 
 real absolute: "The student of nature who starts 
 from the axiom of the universality of the law of causa- 
 tion cannot refuse to admit an eternal existence ; if 
 he admits the conservation of energy, he cannot deny 
 the possibility of an eternal energy ; if he admits the 
 existence of immaterial phenomena in the form of 
 consciousness, he must admit the possibility at any 
 rate of an eternal series of such phenomena; and if 
 his studies have not been barren of the best fruit of 
 the investigation of nature, he will have enough sense 
 to see that when Spinoza says, ^ Per Deum intelligo 
 ens absolute infinitum, hoc est substantiam constantem 
 infinitis attributisi the God so conceived is one that 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 73 
 
 only a very great fool would deny, even in his 
 heart."* Spencer's doctrine is also able to predicate 
 of this Eleatic absolute something more than perma- 
 nent reality, though of course very little. But the 
 following propositions t may be enumerated : (i) this 
 absolute is given immediately in consciousness ; (2) it 
 is of the nature of force ; (3) since limitation cannot be 
 ascribed to it, it may rightly be termed omnipotent ; 
 (4) it may most properly be conceived under the 
 symbol of personality, but of a personality other than 
 human, not in that it expresses a lower, but a higher 
 form of existence than human personality ; (s) and, 
 finally, since it expresses a higher form of existence 
 than human personality and at the same time is 
 unconditioned and unlimited, it is not only unknown, 
 but actually unknowable, and can only be imagined 
 by means of certain symbols, which, however, we 
 must never fail to regard as false, for they do not give 
 true knowledge. 
 
 If we adhere rigorously to Spencer's own theory 
 of knowledge, we must pronounce the above pro- 
 positions with respect to the absolute to be quite 
 void of philosophical validity. Indeed, it is not impos- 
 sible to suppose that Spencer himself might have 
 regarded them rather as religious than as scientific in 
 their significance. If they are to be regarded as 
 scientific, it is obvious that Spencer has transgressed 
 
 * Fortnightly Review, November, i886, p. 799. 
 
 t See " First Principles," § 26 ; " Ecclesiastical Institutions," 
 §§ 659, 660 ; Nineteenth Century, January, 1884, article on 
 Religion. 
 
74 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 those boundaries of knowledge which he has himself 
 so carefully drawn, and yet, as we shall see later, they 
 must either be re^id in a scientific sense or else be 
 wholly rejected. And Spencer does in fact intend 
 them to be taken scientifically, and not in a religious 
 sense. How is it then that he feels himself driven 
 to enunciate them ? We must follow the clue sug- 
 gested above. Spencer has not distinguished with 
 sufficient completeness between epistemology and 
 metaphysics. He selects his ideas upon epistemo- 
 logical grounds, and by-and-by uses them in a meta- 
 physical sense. The teaching of Kant, which with 
 such ponderous iteration insisted on this distinction, 
 he never understood, and probably never studied. 
 What traces of acquaintance with Kant are to be 
 found clearly betray the fact that the teaching of the 
 German thinker has been transmitted to him through 
 Hamilton and Mansel. Had he himself understood 
 Kant, he would never have fallen into the confusion 
 which surrounds his doctrine of the absolute, for his 
 absolute is nothing but the hypostasised Ding-an- 
 sich of Kant. 
 
 The naturalistic paradox we have now seen to 
 be as vivid in the case of Spencer as in that of 
 Huxley. Just as Huxley says that we must think 
 in terms of matter, though only spirit certainly exists, 
 so Spencer says that the unknowable absolute only 
 exists, although we can only think by means of sym- 
 bols which refer to conditioned actualities. Both then 
 agree that what really is, is unknowable ; and truth is 
 a sort of logical device for relating delusive incidents 
 
THE BASIS OF NATURALISM 75 
 
 within our own minds. And to what is this paradox 
 of the incommensurability of reality and thought due? 
 To the fact that the Naturalist has not remained true 
 to his own anti-metaphysical principle. Had he 
 remained loyal to his own doctrine, he would not have 
 been led to the expression of this paradox. But since 
 (as we have seen in the cases of Spencer and Huxley 
 alike) he will endow mere epistemological ideas with 
 metaphysical functions, he is driven irresistibly upon 
 problems which his own theory is unable to solve. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE TEACHING OF NATURALISM AS TO RELIGION 
 
 The naturalistic epistemology involves a theory of 
 faith as well as a theory of knowledge. Of this its 
 exponents were well aware, and it is this which has 
 lent such piquancy to their polemics. It was the 
 sense that his teaching was momentous for religion 
 that stirred the general public, so indifferent as a rule 
 to abstract controversies, to show such lively interest 
 in Huxley's pronouncements. They felt, as did 
 Huxlej' himself, that this was part of a dispute on 
 which the greatest issues hung. The nature of the 
 dispute itself, however, has been variously represented. 
 Sometimes it has appeared as a dispute between 
 philosophy and religion, sometimes as a struggle 
 between science and devotion, and again as the 
 antagonism of principles which form a duality in 
 man himself — the antagonism of primitive tendencies 
 of human life, religion and reason.* By Huxley himself 
 it was regarded as a contest between Naturalism and 
 Supernaturalism, that is, between two points of view 
 one of which is knowledge, and the other superstition. 
 Hence for Huxley this dispute could have but one 
 result — namely, the complete rejection of the claims 
 
 • Benjamin Kidd, " Social Evolution." 
 
NATURALISM AND RELIGION yy 
 
 to truth raised on behalf of the propositions of religion. 
 For truth is, according to his doctrine, the private 
 property of the scientific method. Science monopolises 
 knowledge, and knowledge monopolises truth. Not 
 that Huxley intended to condemn religion as such, 
 but merely religion as expressed in doctrine, as formu- 
 lated by theologians. If you care by religion to mean 
 the moral life, Huxley is quite ready to admit its 
 utility, although it is difficult to see on what basis 
 that admission is made. The pretensions of theology, 
 however, to state any truth which is not susceptible 
 of scientific proof, he regards as utterly incompatible 
 with a sound theory of knowledge. There is only one 
 mode of "truth" practically available for thought, 
 and that is " truth " attested by the canon of demon- 
 strability. And so Huxley's answer to the question, 
 What is the nature of religious truth? is entirely 
 destructive. It is a denial that any " religious truth " 
 in the ordinary sense exists at all. 
 
 Turning to Spencer's teaching as to religion we find 
 our task not so simple as in the case of Huxley. 
 Just as his theory of knowledge is more searching 
 than that of his colleague, so is his understanding of 
 religion more profound. In the first place, Spencer is 
 very sensible of the proper existence of religion as 
 something not to be confounded with bald morality. 
 He sees that the emotions of wonder, fear, and reverence 
 have a definite part to play in healthy human expe- 
 rience, and so does not hesitate to affirm that religion 
 has a peculiar and useful function. It is, he maintains, 
 the guardian of a certain definite truth, and this truth 
 
78 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 it has, in all its forms and at all times, insisted upon 
 without dismay, and defended with the greatest zeal. 
 Beneath all the innumerable and grotesque super- 
 stitions — which religious teachers have generally 
 regarded as the most important elements in their 
 beliefs — there has been the permanent conviction 
 "that the existence of the world, with all it contains 
 and all which surrounds it, is a mystery."* No 
 criticism has ever been able to weaken this conviction, 
 which, since it is common to all forms of religion, 
 Spencer regards as the essential element in religion. But 
 what generally passes for religion — some so-called posi- 
 tive religious system — does always display irreligious 
 tendencies, inasmuch as it claims to have some know- 
 ledge of this absolutely unknowable mystery. This 
 " knowledge " consists in untenable doctrines which 
 obscure the central truth of real religion (the mystery), 
 and has so completely dominated the minds of pro- 
 fessors of religion, that the mystery which should 
 have been jealously guarded has only been partially 
 believed in. Thus it is that popular religion " betrays 
 a lurking doubt whether the incomprehensible cause 
 of which it is conscious is really incomprehensible." t 
 This central principle of religious faith gains the 
 support of science as well as of religion, and thus its 
 truth is doubly attested. But it is only on this one 
 point that religion, as commonly held, and science 
 thoroughly agree. For the rest, the tendencies of 
 science and religion are opposite in direction and 
 aim. For while it is the tendency of religion to 
 
 • " First Principles," § 14. f Il>'^: § 28. 
 
NATURALISM AND RELIGION 79 
 
 elaborate dogmas which have for their object the 
 description of the unknowable, and so in practice 
 to set at nought its own essential principle, it is 
 the progressive tendency of science to criticise this 
 tendency of religion, and so to establish this mystery 
 still more securely. The outcome of this criticism 
 of religion by science is of great importance so 
 far as a theory of knowledge is concerned. It 
 confirms philosophy in its position that, despite 
 the dogmas of religion, our knowledge cannot lay 
 any claim to absolute truth, but must be content 
 to found its validity upon a utilitarian basis ; the 
 validity is practical, not speculative. Thus science 
 puts a check upon religion, and seeks to destroy the 
 erroneous doctrines at which religion so persistently 
 and irreligiously labours. Spencer calls this process 
 the purification of religion. But he also speaks of 
 another form of purification, and that is a purification 
 of science. This consists in the maintenance of the 
 epistemological principle that knowledge acquired by 
 science is merely relative, and cannot claim absolute 
 validity. The double process of purification is thus 
 described by Spencer : " As knowledge approaches 
 its culmination, every unaccountable and seemingly 
 supernatural fact is brought into the category of facts 
 that are accountable or natural," and at the same time 
 "all accountable or natural facts are proved to be 
 in their ultimate genesis unaccountable and super- 
 natural Our consciousness of nature under 
 
 one aspect is science, under the other, religion." 
 Thus we discover a double function in religion: in 
 
8o THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 the first place, it contemplates the unknowable with 
 reverence and devotion ; secondly, it adopts a critical 
 attitude towards science, insisting that scientific 
 discovery gives no real explanation of the riddle of 
 existence, but merely a utilitarian classification of 
 phenomena. These two functions are obviously but 
 the positive and negative recognition of what Spencer 
 regards as the great religious truth of the mystery of 
 existence. 
 
 But if we resolve the function of religion into the 
 positive and negative guardianship of the doctrine 
 of the mystery of existence, what are we to say of 
 those propositions which Spencer himself has set out 
 with regard to the absolute ? Are they to be regarded 
 as religious or scientific ? At first sight they seem to 
 be both religious and scientific, for Spencer speaks of 
 the scientific explanation of the absolute as forced 
 upon religion, and as at the same time offering a sure 
 basis for the construction of religious doctrine. But 
 when we remember that Spencer's theory of know- 
 ledge only admits of one process for the establishing 
 of truths, and only one test of truth (the philosophical 
 or scientific), it appears quite superfluous to speak of 
 these propositions as religious. According to this 
 theory, the only function of religion in its relation to 
 knowledge is, not to set forth propositions as true in 
 a scientific sense, but to check science from arrogating 
 more than a relative validity to those doctrines which 
 embody its d iscoveries. The only knowledge of the abso- 
 lute which Spencer's theory allows religion to possess 
 is that which religion holds by the consent of science, 
 
NATURALISM AND RELIGION 8i 
 
 and which consists in the principle that the ultimate 
 nature of the universe is unknowable. If religion makes 
 any further propositions of a positive character it goes 
 beyond its own field, and contradicts its own essential 
 idea. The one proposition which religion is at liberty 
 to affirm is, then, ultimately, a scientific proposition. 
 
 On the other hand, the great mass of doctrines 
 which the various historical religions have laboriously 
 collected through many centuries are, according 
 to the Spencerian theory, altogether deprived of 
 validity, except such as may be independently 
 guaranteed by the various scientific disciplines. In 
 other words, Spencer's epistemology cannot in any 
 sense allow validity to any fragment of religious 
 doctrine as such. It will not admit that any principle 
 (such as that of authority) can give to any religious 
 proposition a claim to truth which cannot be subjected 
 to scientific criticism. For Spencer, therefore, as for 
 Huxley, there is only one form of truth, and that is 
 scientific truth. All truths which claim validity 
 apart from science, except in as far as they put in 
 check any pretension on the part of science itself to 
 absolute truth — that is to say, all religious doctrines 
 as such — are to be rejected in toto as false. 
 
 We see at once how thoroughly this agrees with 
 the naturalistic epistemological doctrine. The ex- 
 position of truth is, whether the criterion of demon- 
 strability or that of consistency be adopted, the 
 prerogative of science ; religion therefore can offer 
 no truth or series of truths apart from the sanction 
 of science. Theology has no foothold among the 
 
 T. F 
 
82 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 sciences at all. It is a pseudo-science. And, further, 
 the naturalistic paradox finds expression in the 
 naturalistic philosophy of religion. What really is, 
 cannot be known ; it is a sort of unknowable raw 
 material of consciousness of which we are in sonae 
 way vaguely aware, but about which we cannot 
 properly express judgments. So, too, religion, though 
 it has a real function and serves a useful purpose 
 as a guardian of truth, cannot pass into actual 
 doctrine or be the basis of a theology. It must 
 always remain a persistently dumb and blind 
 emotion, checking the arrogance of science. 
 
 But the naturalistic theory of religion does not 
 limit itself to this negative attitude towards the 
 validity of religious doctrine. It also includes a 
 positive element which consists in the scientific 
 explanation of the phenomena of religion. This 
 scientific explanation is, in the last resort, the re- 
 duction of religious phenomena to terms of matter 
 and motion, although, in accordance with the theory 
 of knowledge already described, it has to be borne 
 continuously in mind that the reality itself is not 
 matter and motion. It is one of the objects of the 
 synthetic philosophy to show that religion is only one 
 of the many things which the mechanism of nature 
 has produced. To this end it has to be demonstrated 
 that, given matter and motion and the evolutionary 
 principle, it is possible to construct in thought the 
 development from these elements of all chemical, 
 biological, psychological, and sociological phenomena. 
 Now religion, according to Spencer's scheme, belongs 
 
NATURALISM AND RELIGION 83 
 
 to this last group, and it is the task of the true 
 philosopher of religion, given psychological and 
 sociological laws, to trace the development of the 
 various religious systems. Grant Allen, one of 
 Spencer's closest followers, formulates this problem 
 of the naturalistic philosopher as follows : " We 
 have before us a vast and pervasive group of human 
 opinions, true or false, which have exercised and still 
 exercise an immense influence upon the development 
 of mankind and of civilisation. The question arises. 
 Why did human beings ever come to hold these 
 opinions at all, and how did they arrive at them .' 
 .... I set aside from the outset, as foreign to my 
 purpose, any kind of inquiry into the objective 
 validity of any one among the religious beliefs thus 
 set before us as subject-matter." * That is to say, 
 the naturalistic philosopher regards the philosophy of 
 religion as merely a branch of anthropology. 
 
 It is not our purpose here to discuss at any 
 length the remarkable and instructive develop- 
 ment of this anthropological study of religion. 
 But it is worth noting that the scientific study of 
 religion by the method of origins is not by any 
 means the monopoly of naturalistic thinkers, for it is 
 
 * "The Evolution of the Idea of God" (1897), chap. i. In 
 another place, however, and, it must be confessed, indirectly in this 
 very volume, Grant Allen makes no secret of his views as to the 
 validity of religious thought. In an article in the Pall Mall 
 Gazette, April, 1890, he speaks of the highest forms of religion as 
 "grotesque fungoid growth " clustered about ancestor worship. 
 Of course Grant Allen, true to the principles of Natur9.1ism, must 
 deny the possibility of the objective validity he speaks of. 
 
 F 2 
 
84 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 a discipline independent of any particular philoso- 
 phical outlook. Men of every shade of opinion with 
 regard to religion have contributed to the rich store 
 of knowledge which its study has accumulated. The 
 names of Tylor, Frazer, Max Miiller, Grant Allen, 
 Robertson Smith, and Duff Macdonald are sufficient 
 illustration of this fact. And in spite of the epigram 
 of Mr. Aubrey Moore that " prehistoric history is the 
 monopoly of those who have a theory to defend," * 
 in few fields of scientific research have more en- 
 couraging results been met with of recent years 
 than in this. We shall here, however, content 
 ourselves with the enumeration of a few of the chief 
 theories which have been set forth with a view to 
 explaining the origins of religion. Spencer himself 
 represents the well-known theory that all religion 
 springs from ancestor worship : " Using the phrase 
 ' ancestor worship' in its broadest sense as comprehend- 
 ing all worship of the dead, be they of the same 
 blood or not, we conclude that ancestor worship is the 
 root of every religion." + Max Miiller (whose stand- 
 point is rather philological than anthropological) and 
 Mr. Andrew Lang belong to the mythological school ; 
 J. G. Frazer is the chief champion of Animism ; and 
 Grant Allen, in the book already referred to, attempts 
 to reconcile Spencer's Humanism with Frazer's 
 Animism by means of a theory framed to reduce all 
 religions to a primitive worship of " the dead man." 
 The theories, it will be seen, are too various for 
 
 • " Lux Mundi," p. 47. 
 
 f ' ' Principles of Sociology," p. 440. 
 
NATURALISM AND RELIGION 85 
 
 any definite deductions to be yet made from the vast 
 masses of facts whicli have been brought to light. As 
 Professor Flint remarks, "the present state of our know- 
 ledge does not warrant our holding any view regarding 
 the nature of primeval religion as established."* 
 
 There are, however. Naturalists who do not 
 regard the two principles which we have seen to be 
 involved in Naturalism proper, namely, that valid 
 religion must regard the worship of the unknowable 
 as its sole function, and that all religious systems of 
 thought and practice are but a curious and deceptive 
 mass of epiphenomena accompanying various arrange- 
 ments of matter and force, as offering a satisfactory 
 explanation of religion. Among these are the little 
 group of active propagandists led by Mr. Frederic 
 Harrison, who have adopted that part of Comte's 
 teaching which most of his followers have rejected, 
 and endeavour to construct a positive cult of humanity. 
 With le grand itre as their god, they seek to encour- 
 age a religious life by adopting a calendar of great 
 men as their saints. They have also taken over from 
 catholic ritual whatever seems to harmonise with the 
 practice of the worship thus defined. For these 
 Positivists, so called, see clearly enough that the wor- 
 ship of an unknowable is impossible; its mere state- 
 ment involves a contradiction in terms. Indeed, they 
 reject the very fundamentals of the Spencerian 
 doctrine as to religion, affirming that the notion of 
 an unknowable is a metaphysical fiction. And yet 
 they are true Spencerians epistemologically, being 
 * Encyclopadta Britannica, article on Theism. 
 
86 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 thoroughly agnostic in respect of God, or indeed of 
 any individual being of higher order than man. The 
 only object of worship which they find in their 
 positivist cosmogony — and worship they feel to be 
 a necessity — is ideal humanity. Mr. Harrison becomes 
 the opponent of Spencer,* not because the synthetic 
 philosopher is a Naturalist, but because he is a meta- 
 physician, and in his doctrine of the absolute has 
 allowed metaphysical fictions to become entangled 
 with his epistemological orthodoxy. Mr. Harrison 
 rejects the absolute, and in its place sets up an object 
 of worship which, instead of having an inherent claim 
 upon human worship, holds its position at the com- 
 mand of that worship. It must be admitted that 
 this positivist doctrine, paradoxical as it probably 
 appears to all earnest religious persons, is easier to 
 defend than that Spencerian teaching which main- 
 tains that the only true function of religion is the 
 rigorous rejection of its own content. 
 
 Whatever part the Positivists have played in the 
 past has been due to their brilliant leader, and they 
 cannot, as a group, be regarded as significant in respect 
 of the future. However, they are by no means unim- 
 portant for the purposes of the present investigation. 
 For the positivist teaching affords a weighty testi- 
 mony to the impracticability of the naturalistic 
 paradox of the incommensurability of thought and 
 being, and although the Positivists have not achieved 
 great things, they have at least attempted a revision 
 
 * See the controversy between Spencer and Mr. Harrison in the 
 Nineteenth Century, 1884. 
 
NATURALISM AND RELIGION 87 
 
 and amendment of Agnosticism in that they have 
 treated the religious needs of mankind, as well as 
 their religious beliefs, as deserving serious scientific 
 treatment. However, they have not themselves been 
 quite able to avoid the naturalistic paradox, since 
 even their epistemology is not altogether free from 
 metaphysical elements. But they endeavour gallantly 
 to escape from the consequences of their own theory. 
 Their doctrine is comparable with that of Toland,* 
 who taught that science alone was in a position to 
 discover and exhibit true natural religion, and who 
 set up the great heroes of humanity as the proper 
 objects of worship. He, like all Humanists, felt the 
 claims of religion despite his rejection of all historic 
 religions as lies and shams. And it is much the same 
 with the English Positivists. These seek a valid form 
 of religion, and, driven by the desire to break down 
 the paradox of Naturalism, pass far beyond the naive 
 religious teaching of Naturalism, though they adhere 
 tenaciously to its epistemology. 
 
 We must now turn to two other writers who 
 witness to this centrifugal force (if one may put it so) 
 of the naturalistic paradox. Both adhere in principle 
 to the naturalistic theory of knowledge, but both feel 
 that the naturalistic theory of religion is unsatisfactory. 
 The first of these is J. G. Romanes, a famous biologist, 
 who, after having for the greater part of his life zeal- 
 ously espoused Spencerian Naturalism, wrote a book, f 
 
 * " Pantheisticon" (1710). 
 
 t " Thoughts on Religion, " published by Bishop (then Canoa) 
 Gore after the author's death. 
 
88 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 in which he maintained (a) that Spencer's Agnosticism 
 (as against that of Huxley and Darwin) is "impure," 
 " pure Agnosticism " being " an attitude of reasoned 
 ignorance touching everything beyond the sphere of 
 sense perception " * ; {b) that it is the function of reason 
 to determine what is the truth only in such cases as 
 involve causality ; beyond this area reason has no 
 jurisdiction, and therefore the " pure Agnostic," when 
 matters have to be dealt with in which causality plays 
 no part, turns to the moral and spiritual functions for 
 guidance, t The little book is not free from contradic- 
 tions, and it is only by virtue of vigorous inconsistency 
 that Romanes is able to assert {c) that causality is of the 
 nature of will, and therefore that it is perfectly reason- 
 able to maintain that God is immediately active in all 
 natural causation.! Thus we see that Romanes first 
 marks off the sphere of science from that of religion, and 
 says that each sphere must have its own criterion of 
 truth, and then goes on to say that these spheres are 
 after all one and the same, seeing that causality and 
 will are of the same nature. This brings Romanes 
 very near to the position held by Free-will Idealists. 
 He never was able, however, to shake quite free from 
 the naturalistic theory of knowledge. As a religious 
 and psychological document his book is of great 
 interest. From the point of view of pure philosophy, 
 however, it cannot be ascribed any considerable value. 
 The last writer we shall consider in this con- 
 nection is Henry Drummond, who, like Huxley and 
 Romanes, was a distinguished biologist with a liking 
 * P. no. t P- 117. X P- 118/. 
 
NATURALISM AND RELIGION 89 
 
 for the philosophy of religion. In his well-known 
 work, " Natural Law in the Spiritual World," he seeks 
 to show that it is possible to state religious truth, " or 
 at all events certain of the largest facts of the spiritual 
 life, .... in terms of the rest of our knowledge."* 
 He stands entirely at Spencer's standpoint except for 
 the fact that he considers it possible to place religion 
 on as firm a basis as science by extending natural 
 law to the sphere of religion. In order to prove 
 that natural law can thus be extended in its applic- 
 ability he makes use of the law of continuity, 
 which he calls "the law of laws," and maintains in 
 detail that all theological laws are simply disguised 
 natural laws. In the spiritual world there are no laws 
 to which the world of matter and movement is foreign. 
 Drummond is of opinion that by this method he 
 justifies theology and the belief in a spiritual world. 
 As a matter of fact, however, his book has exactly 
 the opposite tendency. It may be that the author 
 himself was still able to believe, after his argument 
 was completed, that "the whole function of the 
 material world lies here. It is not a thing that is ; it 
 is not. It is a thing that teaches." But what he has 
 actually demonstrated — if he has demonstrated any- 
 thing — is that there is in reality but one world, and 
 that the material world, t Drummond's book, how- 
 ever, like that of Romanes, shows how unsatisfactory 
 the naturalistic theory of religion is in the eyes of a 
 religious man. His standpoint necessitates, if logically 
 
 • Of. cit„ Introduction, p. 24. 
 
 t See Alex. Hill, " Introduction to Science " (Dent, 1899), p. 14. 
 
90 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 adopted, a movement towards that Objective Idealism 
 which we shall shortly examine, for he advocates a 
 monism, and evidently believes in the priority of the 
 spirit. But before we pass on to the study of this 
 Objective Idealism let us briefly summarise the essen- 
 tial elements of the naturalistic theory of religion : 
 
 1 . The only valid note of truth is that conviction 
 which arises as a result of the application of the 
 scientific method. Hence the only religious truth is 
 the rejection of all religious doctrine. 
 
 2. This religious truth, like all truth, has only a 
 relative validity, and no validity at all beyond the 
 limits of empirical experience. 
 
 3. Hence there is no rational basis for religion. 
 We have seen, however, that, since man is, after all, a 
 religious being, there arises, even within the ranks of 
 the Naturalists, a movement which seeks to establish 
 the validity of religion. This movement takes place 
 along two lines. First, by setting up a second 
 criterion of truth beyond the limits of empirical 
 experience (Romanes), it passes on towards Free-will 
 Idealism ; and, second, by modifying the criterion of 
 truth so that thought and being, matter and mind, may 
 be identified in one spiritual principle (Drummond), it 
 moves in the direction of Objective Idealism. These 
 are the two thought movements in the " borderlands " 
 between Naturalism and our other types of philosophy. 
 The motive power, so to speak, which drives them 
 away from Naturalism is that paradox of the incom- 
 mensurability of being and truth which is inherent in 
 Naturalism. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL BASIS OF OBJECTIVE 
 IDEALISM 
 
 In discussing the naturalistic theory of knowledge 
 we have discovered a radical dualism between the 
 phenomenal and knowable world, on the one hand, 
 and the unconditioned, which is unknowable, on the 
 other. To the Naturalist, experience is made up of 
 imperfect and fragmentary elements which are closely 
 related to the human mind, and so can be appre- 
 hended : but beyond experience there is an eternal 
 and changeless absolute, never susceptible of explana- 
 tion in the categories of knowledge. It is mere self- 
 deception to fancy that anything can be known about 
 this unconditioned absolute. Indeed, the very fact 
 that we persistently attempt the description of the 
 absolute by means of symbols is a proof that we can 
 never really understand it. What is our experience, 
 then, according to Naturalism, but, metaphysically 
 considered, a web of lies, every phenomenon a deceit, 
 every pretended approximation to reality but a new 
 way of reducing our errors to a system ? On the face 
 of it, this view would appear to prove nothing so 
 completely as the futility of every attempt at proof — 
 a very nihilism of thought. And yet there are none 
 
92 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 who insist more strongly on the value and duty of 
 clear thought and tireless resea,rch than do philosophers 
 of this school. The explanation of this apparent con- 
 tradiction is to be found in the thoroughness with 
 which the Naturalists carry out their distinction 
 between the phenomenal world and whatever absolute 
 reality may lie behind it. To the Agnostic, loss of 
 faith in the reality of objects of metaphysical and 
 religious " knowledge " seems no real loss. Indeed, 
 the new importance which the limitation of his field 
 of knowledge adds to the phenomena within that 
 field seems to him an adequate compensation for the 
 resignation of claim to know the absolute.* For 
 when once the mind is free from care as to what is 
 beyond phenomena, it is possible to direct all its 
 powers and attention upon that world of facts which, 
 while devoid of metaphysical significance, is never- 
 theless the only real world for us. For a world can 
 only have value for us to the extent of its actual 
 presence with us. Indeed, the very fact that our 
 knowledge is merely relative urges us to an unre- 
 mitting effort to increase it. For it is its relation to 
 us that makes it the object of our interest, and not its 
 unconditioned or absolute nature, or its relation to an 
 unknowable or a Deity. An absolute, existing out 
 of all knowable relation to the human subject, can 
 have no sort of real interest for that subject, and the 
 fact that we are quite incapable of understanding or 
 knowing such an absolute is only a fresh instance of 
 the great natural law of parsimony. 
 
 * See Prof. J. Ward, "Naturalism and Agnosticism," chap. i. 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM 93 
 
 But while the Naturalist is thus not only ready, but 
 even content, to acknowledge a thorough dualism 
 between appearance and reality, the relative and the 
 absolute, there are many thinkers to whom it is 
 impossible to regard the antithesis as irreconcilable. 
 To these thinkers the problem of philosophy, nay, of 
 all thought, is actually this : the harmonising of 
 seeming contradictories, the rationalising of expe- 
 rience. These are the Objective Idealists, whose first 
 principle insists that there is a metaphysical unity 
 underlying all phenomena, and that the process of 
 thought is one which passes through the phenomenal 
 to the absolute, and by successive stages does actually 
 know that absolute. For the Objective Idealist to 
 satisfy himself with the humble claims of the Naturalist 
 would be for him to deny to human thought that 
 which he regards as its vital and characteristic func- 
 tion. To him philosophy is not merely the discussion 
 of the relative ; it is the discovery of the absolute. It 
 does not merely seek appearances ; it expects to find 
 reality.* 
 
 At the very outset of his researches, therefore, the 
 Objective Idealist denies the naturalistic «o« /<?jj«;««j, 
 and rejects that world-view which regards the possi- 
 bility of final and objectively valid knowledge as 
 a self-contradiction. He describes Spencer's position 
 to his absolute as " the apotheosis of ignorance,"t and 
 maintains that ignorance of which we are conscious 
 cannot be such as we are unable to escape. 
 
 * See Dr. John Caird, " An Introduction to the Philosophy of 
 Religion," chap. i. t -fWd. 
 
94 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 What solution, then, does Objective Idealism 
 offer of the naturalistic paradox ? Does it deny the 
 antinomies which force Spencer to his doctrine of 
 the unknowable ? What criterion of truth does it 
 find more satisfactory than the Huxleian principle 
 of demonstrability ? In the discussion of the episte- 
 mology of Objective Idealism, we shall find it con- 
 venient to put the question of the criterion of truth 
 on one side for the present. An investigation .of the 
 solution of the problem of the naturalistic dualism 
 between appearance and reality will enable us to 
 approach the problem of the criterion of truth from 
 another and more advantageous point of view. 
 
 No representative of this school of thought has 
 dealt with this problem with more thoroughness and 
 insight than Mr. F. H. Bradley in his chief work, 
 " Appearance and Reality," and we shall turn to his 
 exposition for an account of the doctrine of Objective 
 Idealism. The book referred to is composed of two 
 parts, one of which deals with " Appearance," and the 
 other with "Reality." The first part is essentially 
 negative. It discusses a number of ways in which 
 "reality" has been characterised, and shows that 
 each is vitiated by some inner contradiction. In 
 the first place, Mr. Bradley deals with the attempt 
 to purify our conception of " reality " from error 
 by means of the distinction between primary and 
 secondary qualities (Locke), and of the acceptance of 
 the primary qualities as alone being real. Mr. Bradley 
 brings four arguments to bear upon this teaching : — 
 
 I. Even if it were admitted that the primary quality 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM 95 
 
 of extension explained the secondary qualities, it 
 would not thereupon follow that extension itself would 
 not need an explanation. But such an explanation 
 is impossible, because the idea of extension is itself 
 incomprehensible. For Space must be considered 
 either as composite or as simple. In the first case 
 there must be a relation between its parts ; in the 
 second space itself must be a relation between parts 
 which do not exist (for the parts are infinitely dis- 
 crete). That is, space must either be composed of 
 parts (which need to be related, the relation itself not 
 being space itself), or it must be a relation between 
 parts which have no real existence. In each case the 
 notion of space is ultimately untenable. 
 
 2. This doctrine leaves the relation between primary 
 and secondary qualities unintelligible. 
 
 3. The same train of reasoning, which proves 
 secondary qualities unreal, may be applied to primary 
 qualities with equal cogency. 
 
 4. Extension without secondary qualities remains 
 for ever a mere metaphysical figment — a totally 
 unintelligible concept. 
 
 In accordance with these reasons, then, Mr. Bradley 
 considers that the distinction between primary and 
 secondary qualities (out of which Materialism has 
 been blindly evolved) does not bring the thinker any 
 nearer reality. So he passes from this to discuss 
 that doctrine which seeks to solve the problem by 
 dividing the facts of experience into two classes : 
 thing and quality. This theory is shown to be 
 inadequate in that it leaves the relation between the 
 
96 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 thing and its qualities altogether unintelligible. The 
 problem of " inherence " arises and makes uncertainty 
 still less certain. For, on the one hand, the thing is 
 proprietor, so to speak, of various qualities ; while, on 
 the other hand, it appears as a mere relation, which 
 brings these qualities to one another and holds them 
 together. The problem then becomes a question as 
 to the nature of quality and relation, and is insoluble. 
 For qualities either with or without relations are 
 unintelligible, and relations with or without qualities 
 are no less so. Mr. Bradley sees in the problem of 
 time and space but a particular case of the larger 
 problem of relation and quality. These offer an 
 insoluble antinomy, or, indeed, a number of such 
 antinomies. Time and space must be relations, and 
 yet they cannot ; they must be either qualities or 
 substances, and yet both alternatives are alike impos- 
 sible. Hence time and space, seeing that they cannot 
 be intelligently conceived, are appearance, and not 
 reality. 
 
 In much the same way, Mr. Bradley proceeds to 
 deal with other ancient problems, always with the 
 same result : everything that experience presents, all 
 concepts by means of which philosophy has sought 
 to solve the riddle of existence, are vitiated by 
 immanent contradictions, and must be classed as 
 mere appearance. Motion and change assert a unity 
 which is at the same time a succession, that is, a 
 plurality. Their idea is, therefore, unintelligible, and 
 they cannot be ultimately real. Causation must be 
 a continuity, for if it ceased for one moment to be 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM 97 
 
 operative, it must cease altogether. But causation 
 cannot be a continuity, for in that case every cause 
 would be timeless — i.e., it would be without existence. 
 In the same way the concept of activity is self- 
 contradictory. A thing cannot become active without 
 occasion ; hence it must be passive in relation to its 
 occasion, and not active, although the activity of the 
 thing is the proper expression of its essence. The 
 same thing is, therefore, at the same time active and 
 passive, and the idea of activity is quite unthinkable. 
 
 And how about things themselves? Much the 
 same. The thing must be identical with itself: i.e., it 
 must have a history, and must also itself exhibit a 
 relation between its own stages of development ; 
 indeed, it must at the same time be those stages and 
 also their relation. It must therefore be both unity 
 and plurality ; it consequently remains incomprehen- 
 sible, and must in its turn be reckoned mere appearance. 
 
 And, finally, Mr. Bradley asserts that even those who 
 think they have a firm base of operations in the self 
 must admit that this too is but appearance. There is 
 no thoroughly self-consistent meaning to be given to 
 the self. It is impossible to determine precisely what 
 is self and what is other. The self also shows that 
 it is both unity and plurality. It cannot therefore 
 represent reality, since it is incomprehensible. It is 
 mere appearance. 
 
 Thus Mr. Bradley comes to the conclusion that the 
 complex content of our world cannot be reduced to a 
 unity by means of any of the principles of classifica- 
 tion which have been suggested. Further, he not 
 
 T. G 
 
98 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 only fails to find in this way any unity among phe- 
 nomena, but also is driven with increasing rigour to 
 localise appearance and reality in two distinct 
 hemispheres, of which the one is unknown to us, though 
 real, and the other is known to us, but is unreal, mere 
 appearance, obviously the conclusion to which the 
 Naturalists had already arrived. 
 
 This is not, however, the final result of his analysis. 
 For hitherto he has only been considering experience 
 in the light of principles laid down by other thinkers. 
 Having come to this sceptical result, however, by this 
 road, he is forced to try to get near enough to the 
 problem to be able to solve it by something more 
 satisfactory than the naturalistic doctrine of Pheno- 
 menalism. For Mr. Bradley has not the slightest 
 hesitation in rejecting the naturalistic epistemology 
 upon the following grounds. Naturalism recognises 
 two objects of human knowledge : (i) phenomena 
 themselves (in the last analysis, sensations) ; (2) laws, 
 or definite relations of co-existence and sequence of 
 phenomena, which are to be ascertained by observa- 
 tion. In other words, sensations and the principles 
 of their succession. This classification of experience, 
 however, Mr. Bradley regards as inadequate, since it 
 gives no place to human thought. Is the theory of a 
 philosopher as to phenomena itself a phenomenon, or 
 is it a law ? As a matter of fact, it is neither of these. 
 " Phenomenalism has to meet this fatal objection. 
 Air the ways of thinking," says Mr. Bradley, " which 
 introduce a unity into things . . . are of course 
 illusory. But, none the less, they are facts entirely 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM 99 
 
 undeniable. . , . How, on the principles of Phenome- 
 nalism, is their existence possible ? How, for example, 
 with only such elements and their laws, is the theory 
 of Phenomenalism itself a possible fact ? The theory 
 itself seems a unity which, if it were true, would be 
 impossible. . . . But I am not going to ask how 
 Phenomenalism is prepared to reply; I will simply 
 say that this one objection, to those who understand, 
 makes an end of the business." 
 
 Mr. Bradley does, however, draw attention to certain 
 other contradictions in the phenomenalistic theory. 
 There is the problem of the elements of experience 
 and their relations. Here again are both unity and 
 plurality. Are the relations themselves elements ? If 
 so, what is it holds the elements together .' If not, they 
 must be another kind of phenomena, but what kind ? 
 Simply calling relations "the coexistence of the 
 elements " is no solution to the problem. Next there 
 is the question as to the relation of past and future 
 events to the present, and then the question of identity. 
 Phenomenalism cannot deny identity ; but it cannot 
 admit the identity of various phenomena. Are then 
 the laws of phenomena alone permanent and identical 
 with themselves ? In that case nothing could have 
 less right than phenomena to be called the reeds of 
 experience. So Mr. Bradley finally sums all up in the 
 following judgment : " As a working point of view, 
 directed and confined to some special branch of truth, 
 Phenomenalism is . . . quite necessary. . . . But 
 when Phenomenalism loses its head, and . . . steps 
 forward as a theory of first principles, then it is really 
 
 G 2 
 
loo THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 not respectable. The best that can be said for its 
 pretentions is that they are ridiculous."* 
 
 Nevertheless, the simple assertion that it is un- 
 satisfactory to regard phenomena as devoid of reality, 
 and reality as altogether removed from the sphere of 
 human knowledge, does not finally refute Phenome- 
 nalism. In fact, unless some better positive explana- 
 tion could be substituted for Phenomenalism, this 
 latter would still have to be regarded as holding the 
 field. For it does not, after all, claim to be " satis- 
 factory," but merely a working theory of knowledge, 
 an absolute theory being in the very nature of the 
 case impossible. The Phenomenalist indeed actually 
 insists that it is impossible to rationalise the whole of 
 the universe. He maintains that we must be content 
 with the knowledge that all our ideas are ultimately, 
 so far as the metaphysical point of view is concerned, 
 unalterably false, and yet that they have a certain 
 practical validity, because they help us to appropriate 
 the maximum of happiness from that wonderful 
 manifold of deceptions which we term the universe. 
 He says in effect that the universe is confused, and 
 that no complete and rational explanation of it can be 
 given. He regards it as a mere confirmation of his 
 theory of knowledge when his opponent points out 
 that that theory is itself incomplete and unable to 
 afford a rational explanation of the universe. It is 
 not the aim of the naturalistic epistemology to afford 
 such an explanation. Thus, says Mr. Bradley, 
 Naturalism is in a position by the help of its apparent 
 • P. 126. 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM lOi 
 
 simplicity and modesty, as well as by means of its 
 harmony with the methods of natural science, to 
 conduct its campaign with much plausibility, and to 
 win for itself a considerable popularity ; and the only 
 way in which it can be met is by such a denial as is 
 backed by a positive knowledge. As Mr. Bradley 
 himself says, " our denial must rest on positive know- 
 ledge. ... To deny, except on a basis of positive 
 assumption, is impossible."* 
 
 And this positive something, of which the Ob- 
 jective Idealist is in search, is any definite reality. 
 The Objective Idealist does not begin with a theory 
 of knowledge ; on the contrary, he considers that 
 epistemological doctrine is the last fruit to grow upon 
 the tree of knowledge, and that we are only in a 
 position to determine the limits of thought when we 
 have made our universe intelligible to thought. 
 Spencer's method was, as we have seen, the exact 
 opposite of this. He began in his " First Principles " to 
 draw the boundaries of human knowledge : no reality 
 can be known. Then he proceeded to rationalise the 
 phenomenal universe, fully aware of its unreality. 
 He posited two principles as necessary to the appre- 
 hension of the universe, the first applicable to 
 phenomena and accessible to thought (according to 
 the empirical criterion of truth), the other applicable to 
 the unknowable noumenal world and consequently 
 altogether inaccessible. The philosophy of Naturalism 
 has thenr a continual insistence on epistemological 
 dualism as one of its integral parts. Objective Idealism 
 
 * Pp- 241. 243- 
 
102 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 denies this dualism at the outset, and regards the unity 
 of reality as in no permanent sense foreign to human 
 thought. " Reality has a positive character which 
 rejects mere appearance and is incompatible with 
 discord. On the other hand, it cannot be a something 
 apart, a position qualified in no way save as negative 
 of Phenomenalism. For that leaves phenomena 
 contradictory, while it contains in its essence the 
 contradiction of a something which actually is 
 nothing. The Reality, therefore, must be One, not 
 as excluding diversity, but as somehow including it 
 in such a way as to transform its character. There 
 is plainly not anything which can fall outside of 
 the Real." * 
 
 But although nothing "can fall outside of the Real," 
 one is driven to assume that there are differences 
 in respect of reality between various elements of 
 experience. All things are not possessed of the same 
 measure of reality. But what standard can be applied 
 to any given element of experience in order to discover 
 its degree of reality ? Mr. Bradley reminds us that 
 in the critical part of his book he analysed certain 
 phenomena and rejected them as not being real in the 
 fullest sense. That is to say, in those analyses and 
 rejections he has made use of a criterion, not of truth, 
 but of reality, and this criterion is such that all 
 "self-contradictory"' elements of thought were con- 
 demned as unreal. This criterion of self-consistency 
 Mr. Bradley regards as absolute, and equally appli- 
 cable to every form of existence, phenomenal and 
 • Chap. XX. 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM 103 
 
 noumenal alike, whether belonging to that world of 
 relative values of which the Naturalist maintains we 
 have knowledge, or that world of the absolute in which 
 he asserts only the unknowable resides, " Ultimate 
 reality is such that it does not contradict itself ; here 
 is an absolute criterion. And it is proved absolute by 
 the fact that either in endeavouring to deny it, or 
 even in attempting to doubt it, we tacitly assume its 
 validity."* 
 
 This criterion has two sides. In the first place, it 
 asserts that reality must exclude all contradiction ; in 
 the second place, since everything that appears in 
 some sense is, and nothing that in any sense is, can 
 " fall outside of the Real," the ultimate reality must 
 include in itself all that is phenomenal in a harmonious 
 form. Further, Mr. Bradley maintains that all that 
 is real must be one — there can be no plurality of reals. 
 For such a plurality would be self-contradictory, for 
 it would include the two mutually destructive ideas 
 (i) that there are more than one real being ; (2) that 
 these real beings are all absolute. But such reals 
 must either stand related to each other, or not. And 
 since plurality has no meaning when the units of 
 which it is composed cannot somehow or other be 
 taken together, they must, in order that there may be 
 a plurality, be related. But if they are in relation 
 they cannot be absolute. So we come to this as 
 the result of Mr. Bradley's testing of the nature 
 of reality — 
 
 I. All that is phenomenal is somehow real. 
 • P. 136 
 
104 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 2. The absolute must have at least as rich a signifi- 
 cance as the relative. 
 
 3. All the varieties of the universe exist harmoni- 
 ously within the limits of a unity without which 
 nothing exists. 
 
 Up to this point the discussion of reality has 
 been obviously purely formal and abstract. Now it 
 is one of the most attractive characteristics of 
 Naturalism that it claims once and for all to relegate 
 metaphysical abstractions, and such ideas as are not 
 directly useful for the description of actualities, to 
 the realm of the unknowable, although, as we have 
 seen, our English Naturalists have not been able 
 consistently to substantiate this claim. In this way 
 Naturalism seems to simplify the task of the philo- 
 sopher in a very marked fashion. And if, in the face 
 of this, Objective Idealism is unable to give concrete 
 content to the conclusions which we have seen it so 
 far to have drawn, it must inevitably suffer by 
 comparison with its rival. 
 
 And so Mr. Bradley proceeds. The absolute is no 
 mere form or schema, no empty outline. The sketch 
 above, made in abstract terms, is filled in with the 
 matter of experience. " Sentient experience, in short, 
 is reality ; and what is not this is not real. We may 
 say, in other words, that there is no being of fact 
 outside of that which is commonly called psychical 
 experience. Feeling, thought, and volition (any 
 groups under which we class psychical phenomena) 
 are all the material of existence. And there is no 
 other material actual or possible." That is, everything 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM 105 
 
 that Mr. Bradley rejected in the first part of his 
 work he now proposes to take up again into his 
 absolute. But how can he do that .■' Obviously he 
 cannot without some explanation put on one side 
 all his previous reasoning. He must, on the contrary, 
 show in detail how this resumption of experience 
 can be made to agree with his criterion of reality. 
 This he tries to do by showing how various elements 
 of experience, although apparently self-contradictory, 
 are still able to find a place in reality, e.g., error, pain, 
 moral evil. The way in which this is done is significant, 
 and, in order thoroughly to understand it, we will 
 examine his procedure in the case of moral evil.* 
 The train of reasoning proceeds from two assump- 
 tions : I. In agreement with the criterion of self- 
 consistency, reality must be regarded as a harmonious 
 unity. (This, by the way, begs the whole question.) 
 2. On empirical grounds, moral evil must be regarded 
 as actually existent. 
 
 Mr. Bradley begins by asserting that it is possible 
 for moral evil to be a necessary condition of good. 
 In this case the peculiar nature of evil would be 
 eliminated in the absolute. It would no longer be an 
 independent variety. Next, since the criterion of 
 reality demands unconditionally that evil should be 
 resolved in the unity of the absolute, evil must be ulti- 
 mately capable of union with good. Hence the 
 reality of the evaporation in the absolute, so to speak, 
 of the moral nature of moral evil, is proved," " for what 
 may be, if it also must be, assuredly is."t Here the 
 * P. 201. t c/. pp. 196, 199, 240, etc. 
 
io6 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 metaphysical method of our Objective Idealist comes 
 to clearest expression. His object is, not to discover 
 the nature of what is given in experience by an 
 analysis of experience, but to force experience, by the 
 imposition of a logical ideal, to fit into a schema 
 which he has already framed. 
 
 Well, then, Mr. Bradley's position is that all that is 
 one-sided and fragmentary in experience must be 
 regarded as only partially real. Hence no element of 
 experience is in itself real, but only achieves reality as 
 related to the absolute. The absolute itself is alone 
 perfect, and perfectly real. 
 
 It is here that we find the explanation of what 
 was said above, viz., that, although nothing "can 
 fall outside of the real," there must, nevertheless, 
 be degrees of reality. These degrees of reality must 
 not be conceived as indicating the presence of any- 
 thing unreal in experience, but simply as marking 
 the obvious fact that in no given experience whatever 
 is the fulness of reality to be found. Only in experi- 
 ence as a whole, that is, in the absolute itself, can 
 complete reality be discovered, and yet each individual 
 element of experience partakes of this reality. But 
 since it only partakes of this reality, it has for us more 
 or less the appearance of the unreal. Here we have 
 to do with the most difficult of all the problems which 
 the Objective Idealist has to solve. How can there be 
 degrees of reality } How can a thing be partly real, 
 partly unreal ? Are both existence and non-existence 
 real ? Can a thing partly exist and partly not exist ? 
 What do we mean when we say that the real becomes 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM 107 
 
 what it previously was not ? We shall deal with this 
 problem directly. 
 
 In discussing Mr. Bradley's teaching, we have so 
 far been dealing with his criterion of reality, and not 
 his criterion of truth. As a matter of fact, the problem 
 is dealt with throughout in a metaphysical, and not in 
 an epistemological, fashion. This is only natural, for 
 it must be borne in mind that, for the Objective 
 Idealist, "sentient experience" and being are regarded 
 as identical. For since thought is a part of " sentient 
 experience," a proper science of knowledge will be at 
 the same time a proper science of being ; or, better, 
 a true science of being furnishes immediately the 
 science of knowledge. And for Mr. Bradley meta- 
 physics is, of course, the science of being — indeed, the 
 crowning . science, although, as shown above, it 
 actually consists in the imposition of an ideal, and 
 not in the investigation of the real — and so includes in 
 its doctrine the science of truth. Since then a true 
 science of being includes the science of knowledge 
 and more beyond this, truth and reality are not the 
 same thing. This, of course, is a conclusion to which 
 Naturalism also leads us, but Mr. Bradley's theory of 
 the relation of thought and being is quite other than 
 the naturalistic theory. For while the Naturalist 
 regards truth and being as incommensurable, and 
 therefore mutually exclusive, the Objective Idealist 
 regards truth as identical with, although not covering 
 the whole of, being. That is, all thought is, though it 
 is not all that is. Thought is reality, but it is not the 
 whole of reality, and is not the absolute. For there 
 
io8 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 are other elements of reality apart from thought, and 
 reality is the totality of being. And since only the 
 totality of being is perfectly real, Mr. Bradley regards 
 truth as mere appearance, as one of those imperfect 
 realities which are unable to stand the test of his 
 criterion of reality. 
 
 In discussing the problem of the degrees of truth 
 and reality, Mr. Bradley observes that although the 
 absolute has, of course, no degrees, yet there are 
 degrees of reality or existence. A thing may exist 
 more or less : " It may usurp ground by its direct 
 presence, but, again, further by its influence and 
 relative importance."* But truth is one of the 
 things (appearances) which more or less exist : 
 " Truth belongs to existence, but it does not as such 
 exist." t For truth is the effort to seize reality by 
 means of a judgment. Truth continually tries to 
 rearrange phenomena, so that they may be free from 
 self-contradiction. But it never can do this without 
 either causing a new self-contradiction, or else giving 
 up its function of rearranging the elements of experi- 
 ence. This may be put thus : In order to the expres- 
 sion of a true judgment, there must be a difference 
 between subject and predicate. But so long as this 
 difference remains the judgment {i.e., truth) cannot 
 pass over into reality. "Truth," says Mr. Bradley, 
 "should mean what it stands for, and should stand 
 for what it means ; but these two aspects in the end 
 prove incompatible. There is still a difference, unre- 
 moved, between the subject and the predicate, a 
 • P. 360. t P- 167. 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM 109 
 
 difference which, while it persists, shows a failure in 
 thought, but which, if removed, would wholly destroy 
 the special essence of thinking." Here we have that 
 element in the teaching of the Objective Idealist, 
 which corresponds to the epistemology of Kant. 
 Kant describes knowledge as consisting of two 
 elements, which together make a unity — the thing-in- 
 itself and the Ego. This duality he displays as 
 overcome through the transcendental unity of apper- 
 ception, and so translated into a unified knowledge. 
 Mr. Bradley speaks of subject and predicate as both 
 being necessary elements of knowledge ; but whereas 
 Kant is content with a scientific examination, descrip- 
 tion, and typical illustration of experience, in order 
 to found and build up a science of knowledge in the 
 strict sense of the term, Mr. Bradley proceeds to 
 apply his metaphysical principle to this experimental 
 analysis. Thus he discovers (since experience as 
 given is not self-consistent, and hence, according to 
 the criterion of reality, must show itself to be appear- 
 ance, only " more or less " real) that all thought 
 involves a dualism. But this is contrary to the 
 criterion, and so the result of the epistemological 
 analysis is to declare that truth is appearance, though 
 possessing a certain degree of reality. 
 
 Again, according to Mr. Bradley's view of truth, the 
 predicate of every judgment must be more or less 
 untrue as applied to the subject, otherwise the predicate 
 and subject would be identical, and there would be 
 no judgment. That is, truth is always relative and 
 varying in degree. Hence the conclusion is reached 
 
no THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 that, in comparison with the absolute, no truth can be 
 fully true, and no error wholly false. But while the 
 judgment can never fully attain to truth, it may, 
 nevertheless, have more or less validity, that is, not 
 mere utility for serving certain ends, but it may have 
 a real part in the nature of absolute reality and 
 absolute truth.* 
 
 So we reach Mr. Bradley's criterion of truth : 
 " Truths are true according as it would take more or 
 less to convert them into reality."! That is, truth is 
 proportional to the degree of reality which may be 
 ascribed to a phenomenon. And since some, though 
 not complete, reality may be ascribed to all phenomena, 
 and since all truths are phenomena, every phenomenon 
 is true inasmuch as it is real, and in the world of 
 appearance truth and reality are synonymous. 
 " Hence to be more or less true, and to be more or 
 less real, is to be separated by an interval smaller or 
 greater from all-inclusiveness or self-consistency." t 
 That is to say, within the limits of the phenomenal 
 world the criterion of truth is identical with the 
 criterion of reality. 
 
 In our discussion of Naturalism, we found that its 
 doctrine involved a paradox — that of the incommen- 
 surability of thought and being, truth and reality, 
 or, as Spencer expressed it, the unknowability of the 
 absolute. We also noticed among Naturalists them- 
 selves a movement which sought to bridge over the 
 gulf between these incommensurables, and estab- 
 lish the absolute validity of the theoretic principles 
 
 • p. 362. t P. 363. I Ibid. 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM in 
 
 of Naturalism in all departments of reality. This 
 movement, which received actual illustration in 
 Drummond's writings, properly culminates in Objective 
 Idealism ; and, now that we have seen the conclusions 
 to which Objective Idealism leads, we are in a position 
 to ask whether, in overcoming the paradox of Natural- 
 ism, a new paradox has not been introduced into 
 philosophy. And to this question we must make 
 answer that Objective Idealism has avoided the 
 naturalistic paradox only at the cost of involving itself 
 in another. We have seen that Objective Idealism 
 maintains that, within the limits of our experience, 
 reality and truth are identical — that is, all that is 
 real in experience must be suspectible of exhibition as 
 true ; and all that in experience, which is not wholly 
 true, is only real in proportion to its truth. There are 
 degrees of reality therefore corresponding to degrees 
 of truth. But how is it possible for there to be degrees 
 of reality ? Mr. Bradley never properly answers this 
 question. He simply states the assumption in one 
 way or another from time to time. Every fact, he 
 says, " has more or less " of reality. And yet nothing 
 can be which is not real. All exists, and falls within 
 the realm of reality so far as it exists. These and similar 
 phrasings are all vitiated by the same paradox. They 
 are meirely figurative ways of saying the same thing. 
 Dr. Edward Caird tries to get over the difficulty of this 
 paradox, which is inherent in every statement of the 
 Objective Idealist's position, by assuming an evolution 
 and saying, "Reahty is not; it is becoming." But this 
 by no means solves the difficulty. Whether the 
 
112 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 graduation of reality is purely ideal {i.e. logical) or 
 temporal {i.e. historical) is of little importance. The 
 difficulty may be put thus : In what does the differ- 
 ence between the various grades of reality consist ? 
 How is it possible that such a difference can be 
 conceived ? 
 
 Mr. D'Arcy* gives a very attractive account of the 
 doctrine of degrees of reality, not indeed regarding 
 it as a paradox, but as that concept which enables 
 Idealism triumphantly to complete its system. To 
 him the doctrine gives the intensest reality, not to the 
 abstract, but to the concrete. " The more abstract any 
 element in the universe is the less of reality it 
 possesses. The concrete thing in nature is more real 
 than its abstract qualities." This of course is a per- 
 fectly harmless statement, and if the matter were left 
 at that we should of course agree, making, however, 
 the passing comment that here reality meant nothing 
 more than wealth of content in any given concept. 
 If a concept be limited merely to the quality of a 
 thing, it naturally has a more limited content than if 
 it be extended to grasp the thing as a concrete experi- 
 mental whole. So, speaking figuratively, it might be 
 said that the quality is less real than the thing. But 
 it is not after all in this sense that Mr. D'Arcy writes, 
 and he very soon passes away from this idea of degrees 
 of reality to the more thoroughly Bradleian. " Now 
 this whole movement," he says, "is a process of unifi- 
 cation. . . . Finally, the ultimate concrete totality 
 unifies the multiplicity of all experiences, that is, of all 
 * Idealism and Theology, p. 229. 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM 113 
 
 persons." That is to say, the highest reality does not 
 reside after all in the most concrete (though thus Mr. 
 D'Arcy would have us understand him), but in the 
 most abstract. For ultimate totality is a pure 
 abstraction answering to which we have no concrete 
 experience. Indeed, it is not experience, or pure 
 reason even, to which the Objective Idealist finally 
 trusts in stating his doctrine of degrees of reality, 
 but audacity and faith. " Philosophy . . . must not 
 dare ... to deny that there is a final synthesis. . . . 
 The faith that there is in the end a perfect harmony 
 ... is the pole-star by which intelligence has been 
 guided." 
 
 This helps us to see clearly how the paradox of 
 " degrees " has arisen. The metaphysical position of 
 the Objective Idealist insists that all that is real is a 
 possible object of thought, and must finally have its 
 home in a rational harmony. But at the same time the 
 nature of reality is "sentient experience" (Mr. Bradley) 
 or " the concrete " (Mr. D'Arcy). How are we then to 
 get from the sentient experience which is ours to the 
 " absolute " or " totality " which metaphysics postu- 
 lates as the ultimately real ? By a bridge of "degrees." 
 If concrete experiences are real, the ultimate reality 
 must be still more real ; there is therefore in that 
 which we begin with as real an element of unreality 
 according as it is removed from " the absolute." And 
 this bridge the philosopher crosses, not because it has 
 been erected by pure reason, but because he does not 
 " dare " remain with the phenomena which Naturalists 
 assert can alone offer a basis of truth. And this act 
 
 T. H 
 
114 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 of daring is paradoxical. By it the absolute (abstract, 
 and yet with the highest degree of reality) is brought 
 into relation to the relative, both being gripped in the 
 category of" degree of reality." And at the same time 
 what reality the relative possesses it holds by virtue of 
 its inclusion in the absolute — that is, the relative is real 
 in proportion to its absoluteness ! Thus, while according 
 to Naturalism true knowledge is limited to phenomena, 
 according to Objective Idealism it is only obtained 
 when its object is the absolute itself. 
 
 We saw in a previous chapter that there lay implicit 
 in Spencer's doctrine of truth the canon of consistency 
 — that concept is true which is consistent with all 
 other concepts ; or, as he himself put it, that is true 
 which agrees with " actualities." With this doctrine, 
 of course, the Objective Idealist cannot be content, 
 because it does not enable him to pass on to the 
 absolute. He is not concerned, after all, so much 
 with what is as with what must be. Indeed, Mr. Bradley 
 defines that which is, as that which both may be and 
 must be.* That is to say, truth is to be determined 
 by the imposition of an ideal upon experience, and 
 the answer to the question. What is truth ? is. That 
 which is consistent with the ideal. It is this thrust of 
 the ideal which induces the " daring " and " faith " 
 resulting in the doctrine of the absolute and the 
 daring assumption of degrees of reality. 
 
 If, then, we compare the two theories of knowledge 
 which we have so far examined, we come to these 
 conclusions : The Naturalist is epistemologically a 
 
 * Pp. 196, 199, 201, 202, 240. 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM 115 
 
 dualist, regarding the real world as altogether beyond 
 human ken, so that man can only deal with deceptive 
 appearances, and must guide his life according to the 
 empirical maxims of common sense or prudence. The 
 Objective Idealist, on the other hand, is a monist, for 
 whom the world is entirely knowable, so that, although 
 experience is only made up of phenomena, a valid 
 knowledge of reality may be won. The naturalistic 
 criterion of truth is that of demonstrability or con- 
 ceivability, and is wholly limited to the phenomenal 
 world. The criterion of truth of Objective Idealism is 
 self-consistency, and leads, with every step forward, 
 to a more complete knowledge of reality itself. For 
 the Naturalist, experience, be it never so manifold 
 and practically useful, must be deceptive so far as 
 any absolute reality is concerned ; indeed, the larger 
 the " knowledge," the less truly must it represent 
 " things in themselves " : while, for the Objective 
 Idealist, the increase of knowledge of any depart- 
 ment of experience is an increase in acquaintance 
 with reality, for the more comprehensive the expe- 
 rience known, the more of reality is in it. And, 
 finally, while Naturalism insists on knowledge being 
 expressed in the terminology of the various individual 
 objective sciences. Objective Idealism regards all truth 
 as residing in sentient experience, and asserts that 
 only sentient experience can properly be considered 
 real ; it is, therefore, something towards which the 
 various sciences approximate, what measure of truth 
 they possess accruing from sentient experience itself 
 by " degrees of reality." 
 
 H 2 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 OBJECTIVE IDEALISM AND RELIGION 
 
 We found the exhibition of the naturalistic view 
 of religion a comparatively simple matter, for, with 
 few exceptions, thinkers of this school make no 
 pretence of defending any form of theism, and so can 
 set forth their teaching without attempting to bring 
 philosophy and theology into harmony. In fact, they 
 in general regard the task which theology sets itself 
 as logically impossible. A doctrine of God could only 
 be a guess at the unknowable ; it could not in any 
 true sense claim to be scientific. 
 
 The case of the Objective Idealists is of course 
 widely different. Their attitude towards theology is 
 of crucial importance. This is well illustrated by the 
 way in which the two greatest modern systems of 
 Objective Idealism, those of Spinoza and Hegel, were 
 received by their contemporaries. Spinoza, who 
 attacked in the most radical fashion the theology 
 popular in his time, was forced to live in the poorest 
 circumstances, and, with but few friends, earned his 
 living by grinding optical glasses. A professorship 
 which was offered him seemed to be but a bribe to 
 greater complacency towards ruling opinions, and 
 so he was driven to refuse it, and although he ma<le 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM AND RELIGION 117 
 
 every sacrifice in order that he might work at his 
 science undisturbed, he could not escape the attacks 
 both of the Cartesians and of the orthodox theologians. 
 The intrigues of his enemies prevented him from 
 publishing his " Ethics " during his lifetime,* and even 
 after his death the publication of his " Opera Post- 
 huma " was forbidden in Holland and West Friesland. 
 For many years his masterpiece remained unnoticed, 
 or at best attacked, and Spinoza himself was branded 
 Atheist. 
 
 Its different attitude towards theology largely 
 accounts for the very different reception which was 
 accorded to Hegel's philosophy. That teacher's 
 works were eagerly studied, and his lectures were 
 attended by crowds of scholars^ His followers 
 saluted him as the perfecter of philosophy, indeed, 
 as the man in whom the universe arrived for the first 
 time at self-consciousness ! The Church acclaimed 
 him as her champion, contemporary preachers and 
 theologians saw in him the greatest of apologists, 
 and although his influence has since sunk to a very 
 low ebb in his fatherland, his doctrine still is a great 
 theological force in England and in America. 
 
 In each case it was the relation of the philosophical 
 doctrine to theology that determined the reception 
 given the thinker. Spinoza regarded religion purely 
 from the abstract standpoint of the philosopher. He 
 was in reality no Atheist. The term "God-intoxi- 
 cated " is far more appropriately applied to him. He 
 was not irreligious, for none but a man of deepest piety 
 • C/. Pollock, " Spinoza," pp. 33, 40. 
 
ii8 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 could have lived as he lived and written as he 
 wrote. But he was no apologist. He did not feel 
 it to be his duty to go to the help of the orthodox 
 theology. 
 
 Hegel, on the contrary, despite his zeal for abstract 
 philosophy, was at pains to show, not only that his 
 system of thought was compatible with Christianity, 
 but also that it offered the only standpoint from which 
 Christian theology could be satisfactorily defended. 
 With marvellous skill he managed at least to take up 
 the terms of that theology into his philosophy, and 
 so for a long time his popularity was as great as the 
 neglect into which he afterwards fell. 
 
 Spinoza and Hegel, then, display two distinct types 
 of Objective Idealism, and we find each of these 
 types admirably represented in modern English philo- 
 sophy. Certainly the one type does not enjoy the wide- 
 spread and enthusiastic admiration which was the lot 
 of Hegel, nor does the other suffer persecution compar- 
 able with that of Spinoza, for the English thinkers 
 can hardly be ranked, like their predecessors, among 
 the greater geniuses, though in any case one may 
 suppose that, in this age of transition and of relative 
 toleration, it would be highly improbable that any 
 writer would be as badly treated as was the great 
 akosmist. Nevertheless, Mr. Bradley may very 
 properly be compared with Spinoza, and the two 
 Cairds furnish a British counterpart to Hegel. For 
 Mr. Bradley, as already indicated, takes up that 
 very rigid philosophic attitude which characterised 
 Spinoza, while the Scottish thinkers have never, in 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM AND RELIGION 119 
 
 any of their books, been able to put altogether aside 
 the theological mode of writing ; nor, indeed, have 
 they desired to do so. In their more popular works, 
 in point of fact, they have adopted a completely 
 apologetic method. The " Evolution of Religion " 
 (Edward Caird) and the " Introduction to the Philo- 
 sophy of Religion " (John Caird) are both written from 
 the Christian standpoint, and both endeavour to show 
 that Christianity is the only form of religion which 
 harmonises with the highest philosophical thought. 
 
 In our examination of this type of theory of 
 religion we shall deal first with Mr. Bradley's doctrine, 
 and then with that of the brothers Caird. 
 
 We have already seen that Mr. Bradley regards 
 self-consistency as the mark of reality. The dis- 
 covery that anything is not consistent with itself is 
 the discovery of its unreality. Before we see how 
 this canon of reality affects religion we must see how 
 it affects morality. Mr. Bradley starts out by saying 
 that morality is a " good " in that it realises in exist- 
 ence, or tends to make real, some desirable ideal.* 
 But to what extent does morality actually achieve this 
 end and become real ? The measure of its failure is, 
 of course, the measure of its unreality, or, in other 
 words, in as far as it does not become real it is incon- 
 sistent with itself. To what extent, then, is the ideal 
 content of goodness fixed in reality by morals ? In 
 answering this question Mr. Bradley notes that it is 
 the constant and insistent demand of morality that 
 the good shall always and everywhere be triumphant 
 * ■' Appearance and Reality," p. 402. 
 
120 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 and beat down what is bad and hold it in subjection. 
 Morality will admit of no exceptions to this rule ; it 
 stakes its very existence on the complete victory of 
 its ideal. There must be no vestige of doubt as to 
 what does ultimately triumph, and what triumphs is 
 the reality ; it must always be recognisable as good. 
 The mistakes and contradictions must be removed 
 from every self and be replaced by a complete 
 harmony. Everything evil must be overpowered and 
 converted into what is good. But how is this possible ? 
 And, if it were possible, would it not result in the 
 actual destruction of the very idea of morality .' For if 
 errors and contradictions are to be removed, they must, 
 in the first place, actually be there as unquestion- 
 able realities ; and if there is evil which must be 
 changed into good, that good cannot be universal. 
 Is not the claim of morality after all an impossible 
 claim? Goodness itself is unthinkable without its 
 opposite, and what morality demands is a quite 
 unattainable unity of the elements of experience. 
 That is to say, morality involves a self-contradiction, 
 and consequently cannot be wholly real. 
 
 But if this really is so, then morality must lead to 
 something beyond, and superior to, itself, to a higher 
 form of good, such a form as will be in a position to set 
 aside the contradiction inherent in morality, and to 
 introduce to life a perfect harmony. This higher form 
 of goodness is religion. 
 
 If we call this Mr. Bradley's account of the origin 
 of religion, we see that it is very different from the 
 sort of account which the Naturalist would give. It 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM AND RELIGION 121 
 
 describes, so to speak, the dialectic of the soul ; it has 
 nothing to do with the historic origins and develop- 
 ments of positive religions. Indeed, Mr. Bradley 
 does not consider the discussion of origins as of great 
 importance to the philosopher of religion. To him 
 the assumption that religion has everywhere had the 
 same origin, is fundamentally false. But, even if that 
 were not so, the important inquiry is not as to the 
 roots, but rather as to the significance, of religion. 
 What does religion mean for us here and now ? 
 
 Most definitions of religion agree in one particular, 
 however much they may be at variance in other 
 matters. They agree in asserting that religion is a 
 relation of man to a certain relatively noble object, to 
 another world, to a supreme Being, to many high 
 beings, to the supernatural in general.* 
 
 It is possible, however, to define religion by refer- 
 ence to the relation, and not to its object : to say that 
 it is the specific type of relation which is essential, and 
 not the specific type of object. In this case it is 
 immaterial what the object be ; indeed, it need not by 
 any means be foreign to the world of sense. This 
 view was held by J. S. Mill, and is adopted by Mr. 
 Bradley. Religion, says he, is "a fixed feeling of 
 fear, resignation, admiration, or approval, no matter 
 what may be the object, provided only that this feel- 
 ing may reach a certain strength, and is qualified by 
 
 * E.g., Robertson Smith (' ■ The Religion of the Semites "), Religion 
 is "that part of conduct determined by relations to God" ; Max 
 Miiller ("Physical Religion," p. 296), " a perception oi theinfinite"; 
 also Martineau ("A Study of Religion," p. i) and Professor Upton 
 C'Hibbert lectures," p. 18). 
 
122 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 a certain degree of reflection." The only sense, 
 then, in which the object of this religious feeling 
 need be divine is that it shall inspire certain feel- 
 ings. In particular cases such feelings as filial or 
 sexual love, or even lower things still, are able to 
 call religion into being. It is worth noting, however, 
 that in his actual discussion of religion Mr. Bradley 
 neglects these lower forms, and only seems to deal 
 with that type of religion which conforms to the 
 definition of religion he criticises as well as with 
 his own. 
 
 Having thus described the logical origin of 
 religion as the outcome of the failure of morality, 
 and defined his general conception of religion as a 
 certain type of spiritual relation to any object capable 
 of inspiring it, Mr. Bradley goes on to apply his 
 metaphysical test to religion itself. He continually 
 moves in the same direction, applying the same 
 criterion, and asking, Can religion, in which the soul 
 seeks that satisfaction which she could not find in 
 morality, lay claim to reality .' Is it free from self- 
 contradiction .' And the answer to these questions 
 must be the same as in every other case. In religion 
 too there is contradiction, discord ; indeed, it only 
 maintains itself by virtue of a sort of oscillation and 
 continual compromise between contradictories. For 
 religion asserts with imperturbable reiteration that 
 everything is the creation and expression of a perfect 
 will, and consequently is good. That is, religion 
 denies the existence of evil. But its very existence 
 implies the power and compulsion of evil, for it is 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM AND RELIGION 123 
 
 only in order to meet the problem which evil supplies 
 that religion comes into existence. Hence religion 
 too, though an appearance of the absolute, is but 
 appearance, and not reality. The chief factor in 
 religion is belief, or rather make-believe, for the two 
 things are the same ! It consists in the assertion of 
 the existence of perfection, although it is evil which 
 has called religion into being. It wavers between 
 two abysses : the moral duty to rise above morality, 
 seeking refuge in religion, and the religious duty 
 to remain by morality and assert its imperative 
 claims. 
 
 Thus morality has led to the denial of evil — that 
 is, it has invented a new duty, the religious duty, or 
 "the moral duty of not being moral."* With what 
 result? Contradiction, self-««consistency, as every- 
 where else, contradiction which becomes as difficult of 
 solution in theology as in metaphysics. For consider 
 the God postulated by theology. In order to enter into 
 relation with the worshipper He must be limited, for 
 all relation implies limitation ! But theology can on 
 no account agree to that, for God is infinite. And 
 yet He must be capable of entering into relations, for 
 as soon as He is allowed to pass over into the limitless 
 philosophic absolute He loses all religious value, and 
 religion itself comes to an end. And yet, if religion 
 should successfully assert its point of view on behalf 
 of relation, God must logically be regarded as a mere 
 private person. So Mr. Bradley comes to the con- 
 clusion that the God of religion is but an aspect of 
 
 • " Appearance and Reality," p. 442. 
 
124 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 the absolute, that is, is mere appearance, and religion 
 itself is but appearance. 
 
 And yet, though our Objective Idealist will not 
 allow to religion a full measure of reality, he asserts 
 that there is no other phenomenon which can claim a 
 higher degree of reality than religion. Philosophy or 
 metaphysics is regarded also as but appearance. Not 
 that Mr. Bradley would treat these two entities as 
 complementary to one another, or as making good 
 each other's deficiencies. He rather regards them both 
 as finding their completion only in the absolute itself. 
 
 Beyond this it is impossible for this type of Objective 
 Idealism to lead the inquirer. For it, all that we know, 
 every phase of our varied life, is, as for Naturalism 
 (though in a different sense), a deception. But while 
 the Naturalist regards religion as that to which least 
 of all reality may be ascribed (for it is but the name 
 which we give to a hardly justifiable worship of the 
 unknowable), the Objective Idealist claims for it the 
 highest reality to which any phenomenon may attain. 
 It is, so to speak, but one step removed from the 
 absolute itself, and must always be the object of the 
 most reverent and earnest thought. 
 
 A few years before the publication of Mr. Bradley's 
 "Appearance and Reality" Professor Edward Caird's 
 volumes, entitled " The Evolution of Religion," were 
 published, the Gifford Lectures for 1890, 1892. The 
 book is admirable for many reasons. The beauty 
 of its style and largeness of its views and learning 
 would give it a place of importance even apart from 
 the noteworthy philosophical argument which it sets 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM AND RELIGION 125 
 
 forth. The work speedily took its place as a classic 
 amongst the more recent philosophical publications, 
 and it is for many reasons deserving of the closest 
 attention for the object we have in view. The 
 epistemological basis of the lectures is, in the main, 
 similar to that of Mr. Bradley's work. Professor Caird, 
 however, has so manipulated his philosophic method 
 that he is not only able to give to religion generally 
 its due place as a most important element in human 
 life, but also to select from the many positive historic 
 religions one which, for philosophic reasons, he regards 
 as superior to all others. And inasmuch as Professor 
 Caird does this, inasmuch as he compares the 
 relative values of different theologies, he ceases to be 
 a mere philosopher, and passes over into the company 
 of the theologians. 
 
 Professor Edward Caird begins his work with the 
 assumption that it is the aim and goal of science to 
 discover laws of reason where originally only the 
 accidental and irrational has been observed, and so to 
 set up a connected system of ideas as reality. Among 
 the objects of such a scientific investigation religion 
 has its proper place. But he finds that there are two 
 peculiar difficulties in the way of a thorough scientific 
 treatment of religion. The first of these is that 
 religion is itself the human consciousness, both of 
 itself and of the world, in its most concentrated 
 form, and the second, that the forms in which religion 
 expresses itself are in the highest degree manifold 
 and complex. And yet, great as these difficulties are, 
 he maintains that it must not be assumed that religion 
 
126 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 lies apart from, or outside of, the general develop- 
 ment of reason. It must be possible to discover 
 principles which may be applied to religion in such 
 fashion as will enable the elaboration of a science of 
 religion. These principles Professor Caird goes on to 
 exhibit. He discovers them to be just those which 
 have come to light in the development of all modern 
 scientific investigation, namely, (i) the recognition of 
 the organic unity of the human race, and (2) the 
 fact that this unity shows itself in the process of evolu- 
 tion.* It is with these two principles before him that 
 Professor Caird goes on to investigate the nature of 
 religion. In seeking a definition of religion he endea- 
 vours to avoid both a too abstract formulation, and 
 also such a one as consists in the treatment of what- 
 ever elements seem to be common to all forms of 
 religion as the essence of religion. He finally finds 
 a principle in harmony with the doctrine of evolution. 
 This is " a germative principle, the principle of the 
 genesis of religion." Not that Professor Caird would 
 explain religion by reference to its supposed origins — 
 such an explanation, acceptable enough to the 
 Naturalists, he, along with Mr. Bradley and Professor 
 John Caird, finds wholly unsatisfactory — but rather 
 he would find a principle which could be shown 
 always to determine the development of religion at 
 any given stage of that development. This " germative 
 principle '' is stated thus : " The whole process [of 
 religion] turns upon the changing relations between 
 two constant terms, God and man, each of which is 
 
 • "Evolution of Religion," Vol. II., p. 76. 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM AND RELIGION 127 
 
 conceived as essentially distinguished from, and 
 essentially related to, the other."* 
 
 In order then to the discovery of the real nature 
 and proper function of religion, or, as Professor Caird 
 himself says, " in order that we may once for all 
 determine the extent and nature of the validity " of the 
 religious consciousness, the following problem must 
 be discussed : " What is the ground in our rational 
 nature of a consciousness which grows as religious 
 consciousness has actually grown, and which finally 
 takes the form which it has now actually taken ?"t 
 That is, we must inquire after the root or basis of 
 religion in our rational nature. 
 
 Having thus defined the leading idea in a fruitful 
 examination of the religious consciousness. Professor 
 Caird proceeds to define and analyse our conscious life 
 by reference to the three ideas of object (or not-self), 
 subject (self), and the idea of the unity of these two, 
 t.e., God. The third of these ideas is arrived at by 
 our being logically forced to set the other two over 
 against each other, and yet to bring them together in 
 one concept. This idea of absolute unity is the first 
 condition or postulate of our consciousness. 
 
 From these three factors, then. Professor Caird 
 deduces the religious evolution of man by certain 
 definite stages. They represent three periods in 
 religious speculation : the first, that in which man 
 regards the world as something merely external ; the 
 second, that in which he discovers the inner universe of 
 the self ; and the third, that in which he finally rises to 
 
 • " Evolntion of Religion," Vol. I., p. 55. f Ibid,, p. 59. 
 
128 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 the higher unity of the all-comprehending God. Of 
 course it is not pretended that man's consciousness 
 is ever directed exclusively to one of these three 
 factors of consciousness, for each one of them must 
 always to some extent be influencing the mind. But 
 in the first stage of religion it is the not-self that is 
 the dominating factor, in the second the self, and 
 in the third God. " The human consciousness cannot 
 exist without some dawning of reverence, ... of a 
 subjection which elevates, . . . and which is the 
 essence of religion and the source of all man's higher 
 life." The evolution of religion is the history of the 
 changing attitude of the religious consciousness in 
 respect of the various possible objects of this reverence. 
 This attitude, at any given stage of the evolution, 
 gives unity to the life of the individual, and enables 
 him to stand in some definite relation to his own 
 experience, and it is the function of religion, wherever 
 and whenever found, to give this unity. And so 
 Professor E. Caird comes to the following description 
 of religion : " Religion is simply a higher form of 
 the tendency which in science leads us to seek the 
 universal beyond the particular, the one beyond the 
 many." * It is a higher science in that its universe is 
 larger. 
 
 We will stop for a moment to sum up Pro- 
 fessor Caird's doctrine so far as we have proceeded 
 with it : 
 
 I. The unity and rationality of all reality makes both 
 the science of religion, and also metaphysics, possible. 
 
 • " Evolution of Religion," Vol. I., p. iii. 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM AND RELIGION 129 
 
 2. In order to the proper foundation of such a 
 science, a " germative principle " must be found which 
 shall explain the process of evolution. 
 
 3. Such a "germative principle" is actually dis- 
 covered as we contemplate the passage of the human 
 spirit from the objective to the subjective, and from 
 the subjective to the absolute, consciousness. 
 
 4. And, finally, the absolute is identified with the 
 God of religion, and religion itself is described as 
 a part of that world-movement through which the 
 individual learns to know God. 
 
 But although the absolute is thus identified with 
 God, Professor Caird energetically refuses to be 
 termed a Pantheist. Pantheism he regards as the 
 final stage of that type of religion which is found 
 among men of the primitive or objective conscious- 
 ness. It is overcome as man passes to the second 
 stage, viz., to the subjective consciousness. 
 
 When we consider Professor Caird's doctrine of 
 the absolute, we see a very considerable difference 
 emerge between it and the absolute of Mr. Bradley. 
 The latter applies to the subject-object relation 
 (which pretends to exhaust the world of reality) his 
 criterion of self-consistency, and finds in it a self- 
 contradiction. True, Professor Caird also regards 
 the subject-object relation as insufficient to a com- 
 plete analysis of reality, when he says that the mind 
 is driven from it to the consciousness of the absolute. 
 But whereas Mr. Bradley, consistently with his 
 criterion of reality, consequently treats this relation 
 as mere appearance, and not reality at all, and both 
 
 T. I 
 
130 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 the subjective and the objective as mere incomplete 
 forms of expression of the absolute, Professor Caird 
 seems to group subject, object, and absolute together 
 as three factors, not only of the world of conscious- 
 ness, but of the world of reality. And in this 
 Professor Caird is really inconsistent. A thorough 
 adhesion to his own epistemological basis would not 
 permit of his repudiation of Pantheism in favour of 
 a sort of Transcendentalism. He is, according to the 
 logic of his own principles, a Pantheist, and will and self- 
 hood must ultimately be lost in an absolute will and self 
 along with the not-self. But this he will not admit. 
 He clings to the reality of the subject, though it is 
 only in a verbal and, at bottom, unconvincing fashion. 
 
 We now return to a consideration of Professor 
 Caird's philosophy of religion. 
 
 Having established his right to attempt a science 
 of religion by proving that such a science is possible, 
 he turns to the task of demonstrating that the historic 
 development of religion has actually been according 
 to the " germative principle " he has discovered. 
 For Professor Edward Caird maintains that this 
 principle is no mere abstract idea, but of rich con- 
 crete meaning, always susceptible of actual historic 
 illustration. Every form of religion belongs to one 
 or other of the three states of human consciousness 
 which this principle exposes. Each positive religion 
 must be either objective, subjective, or absolute. He 
 does not mean that each religion must coincide with 
 a characteristic religion of its type, and have no 
 elements in it which were better referable to one 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM AND RELIGION 131 
 
 of the other two forms of religion. For no religion 
 is absolutely true to a given form, since the human 
 consciousness is at no given epoch purely objective, 
 subjective, or absolute. But he asserts that every 
 religion must in the first stage of its development be 
 mainly conscious of the objective world ; it must then 
 proceed with such a development as throws its con- 
 sciousness pre-eminently upon the subjective world ; 
 and finally, if it proceed with its normal evolution 
 it must rise to a consciousness of the absolute. That 
 is, the tendency or direction of the development is 
 always the same — away from the objective, through 
 the subjective, toward the absolute. The first 
 beginning of this process is to be seen in Fetishism : 
 " In the earliest stage the picture reflected back from 
 the world to man is one which has no distinction or 
 articulation in it. . . . River, tree, animal, and man are 
 not yet recognised as having any essential difference 
 of nature." * Mere Fetishism, however, he refuses to 
 regard as a true religion, since it is brought into 
 being by purely self-regarding motives, and so is 
 incapable of raising man above himself into the 
 greater unity of nature. It is but a dim shadow 
 accompanying religion, and must be touched and 
 beautified by imagination and elevated into a 
 mythology before it can claim itself to be a religion. 
 This imagination is one of the chief factors inciting 
 the human spirit to strive away from the objective 
 toward the absolute, and especially that type of 
 imagination which expresses itself in poetry and the 
 
 * "The Evolution of Religion," Vol. I., p. 214. 
 
 I 2 
 
132 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 plastic arts. Another factor of the same kind is 
 the moral sense or the ethical ideal. Religion, 
 indeed, without morality sinks to a mere superstition ; 
 and since morality consists in the subordination of 
 the individual Ego to that which may be termed the 
 social Ego, religion which has arrived at this moral 
 stage may be said to have as its god the soul of 
 society. As social relations become more complex, 
 objective religion, having passed upwards from a 
 mythology to a morality, becomes correspondingly 
 complex and assumes a polytheistic form.* But the 
 struggle which always goes on among the various 
 factors of complex social relations corresponds with 
 a similar warfare of the gods of a Polytheism, and 
 there results from this warfare either a monarchic or 
 hierarchic ranking of the gods under some leader 
 or idea. The final issue of this process is Pantheism, 
 which Professor Caird characterises as " the fatal gulf 
 that must ultimately swallow up all merely objective 
 religions." t 
 
 The transition from objective to subjective religion 
 is next dealt with. Professor Caird illustrates it by 
 reference to that religious movement among the 
 Aryans which produced the Vedas, the Upanishads, 
 Brahmanism, and, finally. Buddhism, which he regards 
 as the zenith of Eastern subjective religion. This 
 Aryan development is from the highest point of 
 objective religion (Pantheism) to the highest point of 
 subjective religion. 
 
 • Cf. Pfleiderer's " Religionsphilosophie," passim. 
 t " Evolution of Religion," Vol. I., p. 251). 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM AND RELIGION 133 
 
 Buddha's teaching is that all evil is the necessary 
 result of desire, and desire the necessary result of that 
 illusion which is the inevitable consequence of any effort 
 the soul may make to get a view of what is beyond 
 itself. From all evil desire and illusion each one must 
 deliver himself. Redemption can come from no god. 
 The inward springs of desire must be purposely and 
 deliberately destroyed by the man himself. Only in 
 this way can consciousness be freed from its tyrannical 
 illusions.* 
 
 Another notable type of subjective religion Pro- 
 fessor Caird finds in the philosophic religion of later 
 Greece. In Greek religious life a double move- 
 ment may easily be discerned. In the first place, 
 there is the evolution of the objective religion of early 
 Greece, which passes over into subjective religion by 
 means of anthropomorphism. The transition is 
 achieved either by humanising the powers of nature 
 (first of all making the nature-power concrete and indi- 
 vidual and then, as in the case of Zeus, breaking the 
 connection of the figure so formed with nature), or by 
 substituting a relation to man for a relation to nature. 
 At the same time there goes on in the Greek pantheon 
 of gods formed out of natural forces a tendency 
 to unity, both in that fate is set above the indivi- 
 dual gods, and in that the monotheistic idea is slowly 
 introduced. This tendency reaches its culmination 
 in the works of Euripides, who substitutes for belief 
 in an external God faith in a God within the soul, and 
 so passes on to the subjective attitude in religion. 
 * " gvplutipn of Religion," p. J5j. 
 
134 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 In the second place, there is an evolution along the 
 lines of philosophic thought. The subjective religion 
 which is thus reached is of a higher type than that of 
 Buddhism, because it is a recoil from a higher type of 
 objective religion than that of the Orient. It began 
 with the saying of Anaxagoras, " All things were in 
 chaos till reason came and arranged them." Socrates 
 set up this reason as the proper guide of man in 
 matters of conduct, and his teaching was carried 
 forward by Plato and Aristotle, although these two 
 thinkers partially restored the objective view in that 
 they considered reason never able perfectly to assimilate 
 and absorb the material upon which it works. After 
 these teachers the Greek philosophy became purely 
 individualistic and subjective, morality and religion 
 being no longer knit up with the consciousness of the 
 externalities of life, but almost entirely occupied with, 
 and consisting in, the consciousness of the self The 
 movement reached its climax in Stoicism. 
 
 In all the forms of subjective religion which Professor 
 Caird cites, he points out that there are constantly 
 repeated these two notes : (i) the resignation of the 
 external world ; (2) appeal to an inner voice. 
 
 Kant's famous saying, " We ought ; therefore we 
 can," is a good expression of the subject consciousness 
 dealing with the problem of morals. Kant carries the 
 same " subjective " principle into the religious sphere 
 when he argues as follows : If we abstract from 
 outward experience and free our mind from all those 
 impulses which are occasioned by our nature as object 
 and our relations to other objects, we always find in 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM AND RELIGION 135 
 
 us, as moral entities bound up with our practical self- 
 consciousness, the ideas of the world, the soul, and 
 God, ideas which possess a higher veracity than all 
 our empirical knowledge. In this train of thought, the 
 inner logic of all subjective religion, from Buddhism 
 to modern Protestantism, is lucidly exposed. It is 
 also worth while noticing that Professor Caird's descrip- 
 tion of what he calls subjective religion very closely 
 resembles what is called in this present work Free-will 
 Idealism. Subjective religion, however, differs fronj^ 
 Free-will Idealism in that it does not necessarily include 
 in its definition the idea of the freedom of the 
 individual as against the absolute. 
 
 The most perfect example of subjective religion is 
 not, however, either Buddhism or Greek religious 
 thought. It is Judaism, although this includes, on the 
 one hand, that prophetic movement which is the con- 
 sistent denial of the natural and the affirmation of the 
 spiritual, and, on the other hand, that priestly religion 
 which is in reality a representative of objective religion. 
 This very inconsistency in Judaism is of value, for by 
 reason of it we are able to find a full exemplification 
 of the logic of the subjective religion, for it shows 
 side by side the typical form of that religion and a 
 concrete example of its incompleteness. Here we 
 have clearly displayed the fact that in subjective 
 religion there is an inward conflict, a continual struggle 
 between the inner and the outer world, a struggle 
 from which the soul must seek to escape, either by 
 passing toward a more perfect form of religion, or by 
 falling back into Pantheism, if not the actual self- 
 
136 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 renunciation of Buddhism. This regression from sub- 
 jective religion Professor Caird calls the reductio ad 
 absurdum of that type. 
 
 Professor Caird will not admit that Judaism ever 
 escapes the limits of subjectivity, but he asserts that 
 it makes a great advance toward the final stage of 
 religious evolution. In its Messianic hopes, which 
 postpone the promised blessedness beyond the period 
 of the life of the individual, Judaism very largely gives 
 up its empirical character, and the limitations which 
 that character necessarily involved ; and it was no 
 great step to pass from this postponement of blessed- 
 ness to such a view of goodness as should change it 
 altogether from the idea of an earthly Messianic king- 
 dom to a general life hidden in God. And in point 
 of fact the dialectic of the evolution of religious thought 
 does actually enable Judaism to catch a glimpse of 
 this promised land, and yet only to catch a glimpse. 
 For Judaism never regarded the last harmony of out- 
 ward reality and inward ideal as attainable, except by 
 means of miracle. Hence that development which is 
 really to effect this final harmony had to leave Judaism 
 behind in its onward march. In short, in Judaism we 
 have the purest theism — a theism without any trace 
 of that Pantheism which Monotheism has generally 
 regarded as its bitterest enemy, and yet which Mono- 
 theism itself cannot altogether do without, if it is to 
 reach the last and highest stage of religious develop- 
 ment.* 
 
 It remained for the religion of Jesus to take the 
 
 ' " Evolution of Religion," Vol. II., p. 63. 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM AND RELIGION 137 
 
 third step in the religious progress, and so to pass 
 beyond the subjective as well as from the objective 
 standpoint. The unique character of Christianity 
 consisted in its power of responding to the demand 
 of the moral consciousness when unable to reconcile 
 what is with what ought to be.* Jesus resolved the 
 dualism of Judaism by giving in exchange for a mere 
 hope of future revelation an assurance of present 
 divinity. For Him " even sin, as it is possible only 
 through the self-ignorance of a lower stage of develop- 
 ment, must be, if not the means of a higher good, yet 
 at least the condition through the negation of which it 
 [that higher good] is attained." The present triumph 
 of evil is necessary in order to the final triumph of 
 good. This, which Professor Caird considers to be 
 the mode by which Christianity overcomes the dualism 
 between the demands of morality and the facts of life, 
 gives in place of the Jewish negation " elevation of the 
 divine subject above all objects," the positive idea of 
 God as a spiritual principle manifested in the organic 
 unity of the world, and making for the reconciliation 
 of all differences and antagonisms. All that troubles 
 the moral consciousness is in Christianity lost in the 
 vision of God. All that is of positive value in 
 experience gains its significance from God. And yet 
 Christianity is not a Pantheism. For Pantheism {e.g., 
 the Indian philosophy and the teaching of Spinoza, to 
 which we may add that of Mr. Bradley) reaches unity 
 
 * " Evolution of Religion," Vol. II., p. 86. Mr. Bradley, as we 
 have seen, regards this reconciliation as unattainable except to a 
 consciousness freed from all limitations, 
 
138 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 by denying the finite, while the absolute religion, which 
 Christianity proves itself to be, sees the finite pass into, 
 and gain its true individual being by virtue of, God. 
 
 Here we may be allowed to observe that Pro- 
 fessor E. Caird, notwithstanding his earnest efforts 
 to avoid the title and his repeated protestations, 
 cannot be classed otherwise than as a Pantheist him- 
 self. Spinoza denied the finite neither more nor less 
 than his critic. The modern Objective Idealist believes 
 that he has found a path midway between the extremes 
 of Deism and Pantheism, and along this he seeks to 
 move. But it is impossible for us to discover in 
 which important particular he differs from Spinoza, 
 Hegel, and Mr. Bradley. True, he will not himself 
 adopt the name which he insists on bestowing upon 
 his co-thinkers, but his readers surely will bestow it 
 upon him. For, as Professor Upton well points out,* 
 Professor Edward Caird holds — 
 
 (1) The theory of absolute being ; 
 
 (2) That all phenomena are to be reduced to, and 
 referred for explanation to, the same ground and cause 
 as our own existence t ; 
 
 * " Hibbert Lectures," chap. viii. 
 
 •f- " Whereas pantheism regards all finite things as merely aspects 
 ... of one eternal self-existent being — all material objects and all 
 particular minds as necessarily derived from a single infinite sub- 
 stance, — and thus combines in its conception of the Divine, monism 
 and determinism, theism as monotheism, while accepting monism, 
 rejects determinism, and attributes to the Divine all that is essen- 
 tially implied in free personal existence and agency." (Professor 
 R. Flint, Encyclopadia Britannica.) However, is it possible for theism 
 to accept monism and reject determinism ? Does not the one involve 
 the other ? 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM AND RELIGION 139 
 
 (3) That religion and science are two forms of the 
 same spiritual movement; and 
 
 (4) That matter is simply "spirit in its lowest mode 
 of manifestation." 
 
 In fact, for Professor E. Caird there is but one 
 reality — one substance, which is spirit, and which 
 is the absolute cause — and this reality is that 
 deeper self which we find at the core of our own 
 self-consciousness. That is to say, our own self-con- 
 sciousness, though it may give us a clue as to the 
 nature of absolute, can itself claim no ultimate 
 reality. 
 
 We will then describe the philosophy of religion 
 which we have been discussing as a spiritual Pan- 
 theism. It operates by means of the two principles 
 of organic unity and of evolution. It discovers in the 
 history of human thought, more particularly of religion, 
 a movement tending to bring harmony and rest to the 
 human consciousness, and to reconcile thought with 
 reality. Finally, it discovers the consummation of 
 this movement in Christianity, which it maintains has 
 brought human consciousness once for all into touch 
 and unity with the absolute consciousness. But this 
 doctrine has neglected its own fundamental principles 
 to the extent that it (i) regards the subject-object 
 relation as something real, instead of being merely 
 phenomenal, and (2) consequently attempts to avoid 
 the odium of Pantheism in order that it may serve 
 as an apology for Christian theology. Even if we 
 failed to draw attention to the inconsistency of 
 Professor E. Caird's method, we should have to point 
 
I40 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 out that as an apology that method has not proved of 
 great value to Christianity, which indeed is not sur- 
 prising, for the Hegelian movement (supplying as it 
 does the dynamic of modern Objective Idealism) 
 cannot defend Christianity without transforming it 
 out of all recognition. German apologists have long 
 since made this discovery, and their British colleagues 
 seem already to be following in their steps. 
 
 Another important work belonging to this same 
 group epistemologically is Dr. John Caird's " Intro- 
 duction to the Philosophy of Religion." This volume 
 shows more traces of the direct influence of Hegel 
 than does the work we have been discussing. It 
 shows less of the tendency to return to Kant. The 
 " Introduction " maintains that the basis of religion 
 lies in the rational nature of man, without, however, 
 being purely intellectual. Nevertheless the central 
 principle of all spiritual life is thought, and although 
 religion contains an element of feeling, this feeling 
 must be due to, or supported by, objective truth. 
 This truth is conceived "representatively," either by 
 means of material objects (e.g., Fetishism), or by means 
 of historic events (e.g., Christianity, in which " the 
 events of the life of Christ are for the Christian con- 
 sciousness the outward representation of a spiritual 
 content "). The universal principle in the worship of 
 either of these representations is not in any conscious 
 way separated from the material object, or what not, 
 but it is nevertheless not a mere subjective feeling ; it is 
 knowledge. The fundamentally important thing about 
 any religion is th^ ideas which it epibodies, 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM AND RELIGION 141 
 
 As progress takes place in religion and in philosophy, 
 the fact that the objects of worship are representative 
 or symbolic is recognised, and a more strictly scientific 
 form for the expression of religious ideas is sought. 
 It is recognised that religion is inadequate in propor- 
 tion as it is symbolic, because concrete embodiments 
 of religious ideas are not suited to the final solution 
 of the problems of the spiritual life. It is at this 
 point that the philosophy of religion comes forward, 
 its function being to provide such an explanation of 
 religion as shall be generally valid. The great obstacle 
 in the way is the contradictions involved in any great 
 religious idea, and so, in order to eiifect its purpose, 
 the philosophy of religion seeks a standpoint from 
 which every idea will be seen to be a unity composed 
 of diverse parts. But how is this to be found .' 
 Only by means of an examination of the essence of 
 objects, so that their inner dialectic, that congeries of 
 ideas which logically exhausts their being, may be 
 discovered and expressed. This inner dialectic, Dr. 
 Caird goes on to show in true Hegelian fashion, is 
 a process which includes " perpetual affirmation, per- 
 petual negation, solved in reaffirmation." It is an 
 affirmation not only of what is, but of what is not. It 
 is ideal or organic universality, and may be illustrated 
 by the statement that in religion the idea of God 
 includes both the notion of infinity and the notion of 
 limit. The " inner dialectic " of the idea enables us 
 to affirm infinity perpetually and finiteness perpetually, 
 and to grip the two together both by affirmation and 
 negation in the idea of God. 
 
142 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 Like his brother, Dr. John Caird modifies the 
 stringent doctrine of Objective Idealism (as, for 
 instance, exemplified by Mr. Bradley) in such a way 
 as to make 1^ it, at least apparently, compatible with 
 Christian dogma. This exposes him to criticisms 
 similar to those which the " Evolution of Religion " 
 has to meet, 
 
 A different example of Objective Idealism is 
 to be found in the works of Max Miiller. This 
 thinker, who comes to results very similar to those 
 of the brothers Caird, has developed, in the four 
 volumes of his Gifford Lectures, an elaborate account 
 of his theory of the three stages of the evolution of 
 religion. These stages he terms respectively physical, 
 anthropological, and psychological religion. He 
 defines religion in general as "a perception of the 
 infinite under such manifestations as are able to 
 influence the moral conduct of man."* The mani- 
 festations differ in their nature, and the three stages 
 are determined by reference to the various types of 
 manifestation. In the first stage (physical) the mani- 
 festations are natural (sun, stars, etc.) ; in the second 
 they are elements of man's own nature, but represented 
 to the worshipper as an objective divinity ; and in the 
 third (e.g. the Vedanta doctrine of the Tat ivam asi) the 
 manifestations are the actual union of the individual 
 with the absolute. 
 
 A remarkable feature of this classification (which is 
 obviously very similar to that of Professor E. Caird), 
 is the place which Max Miiller gives to Mysticism. 
 * "Physical Religion," p. 296. 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM AND RELIGION 143 
 
 The representatives of his highest type of religion 
 whom he most loves to quote are the mystics : the 
 Vedantists, Neo-Platonists, Alexandrian Christians, 
 St. Bernard, Tauler, Eckhart, Suso, Cusanus, etc. 
 In this particular he comes to some extent into 
 opposition to the purely rationalistic Objective Idealists. 
 The " perception of the infinite," which he regards as 
 the essence of religion, is an immediate contemplation 
 which is arrived at rather by "a wise passivity," as 
 Professor Knight puts it, than an effort of the reason. 
 Here Max Miiller comes almost into touch with those 
 mystical Free-will Idealists who, by ranking the 
 rational criterion of truth below the intuitive, tend 
 to pass over into Objective Idealism. Mysticism, 
 indeed, may be regarded as a sort of bridge between 
 the two Idealisms, the Objective and Free-will. So 
 that in Max Miiller's writings we find ourselves once 
 again in a " borderland." This time, however, we are 
 between Objective Idealism and Free-will Idealism, 
 moving towards the latter. 
 
 Max Mailer's method differs, as has been remarked, 
 from that of Professor E. Caird, for it is philological, 
 and not purely speculative, like that of his brother 
 philosopher. To him speech is the great treasure- 
 house of universal history, and he maintains that an 
 analysis of speech is the most certain method of 
 obtaining trustworthy knowledge of the history of the 
 human mind. One may perhaps be permitted to say 
 that while his writings are full of valuable results of 
 profound study, and offer a rich mine which may be 
 profitably worked by a properly equipped scholar. 
 
144 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 they are themselves marked by a certain haste, and 
 perhaps carelessness, so far as their purely meta- 
 physical elements are concerned, which diminishes 
 their utility from the point of view of the philosophy 
 of religion. 
 
 A more valuable contribution to this subject is 
 found in the writings of Professor Andrew Seth, who, 
 more fully than any other, has understood and dis- 
 played the paradox of Objective Idealism. In his 
 book entitled "The Development from Kant to 
 Hegel," he himself treated the nature of knowledge 
 and religion along the lines of the Objective Idealist. 
 As a thorough and acute student of both the German 
 and the Scottish schools of thought, he at first allied 
 himself with the Hegelian doctrines, only, however, 
 afterwards to reject them as no longer defensible. 
 His criticism of Objective Idealism is best set forth in 
 his " Hegelianism and Personality," published five 
 years after the "Development." We will notice 
 the most important elements of this criticism. 
 
 1. The Objective Idealists, while they imagine 
 themselves to have passed beyond Kant and his 
 epistemological doctrine, have never properly met his 
 arguments against metaphysical speculation, and have 
 misunderstood some of the main elements of his 
 teaching. They mistake his technical terms, some- 
 times giving to epistemological language a psycho- 
 logical, and sometimes a metaphysical, meaning. 
 
 2. In this way out of Kant's notion of the 
 " Bewusstsein iiberhaupt," which is purely epistemo- 
 logical, they manufacture the idea of a spiritual 
 
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM AND RELIGION 145 
 
 principle of the nature of a substance, which they 
 {fi.g., Green) set over against the empirical individual 
 as the only reality. Thus to them (as they think, 
 upon a Kantian basis, in reality, as against Kant) the 
 personality of the individual is unreal — a mere ap- 
 pearance, having a certain degree of reality, and not 
 reality in itself. The monism of the Objective Idealists 
 forces them to assert that there is but one self-con- 
 sciousness, and but one self. This, says Professor 
 Seth, is the "radical error" of the school which he 
 has left* 
 
 3. Finally, in this way Professor Seth is forced to 
 the conclusion — forced by what we have termed the 
 paradox of Objective Idealism — that a philosophy 
 which shall be epistemologically tenable must main- 
 tain the freedom and reality of every individual 
 capable of an act of will. " I have a centre of my 
 own," he says, "a will of my own, which no one 
 shares with me or can share — a centre which I main- 
 tain even in my dealings with God Himself." t 
 
 Thus Professor Andrew Seth, like Max Miiller, but 
 in a much more radical fashion, forms a connecting 
 link between Objective Idealism and the Idealism of 
 free-will. He is not a " borderland " thinker, but one 
 whom we see pass through the borderland. In his 
 philosophic development we see the dynamic of 
 thought at work ; we see how impossible it is for an 
 alert mind to find complete rest in Objective Idealism 
 in face of the paradox peculiar to that school of 
 
 * " Hegelianism and Personality," p. 215. 
 t lUi., p. 217. 
 
 T. K 
 
146 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 thought. In the same way we have seen how 
 Romanes illustrated the driving power that sends 
 a thinker from Naturalism into Free-will Idealism. 
 And now we are in a position to follow these two 
 and to investigate for ourselves this third type of 
 the philosophy of religion. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL BASIS OF FREE-WILL 
 IDEALISM 
 
 The doctrine of " degrees of reality," a necessary 
 element in Objective Idealism, involves ultimately, 
 as we have already seen, the denial of the reality of 
 personality. It maintains that personality has merely 
 that degree of reality which ensures for it a place in 
 the absolute. But at the same time it asserts that in 
 the absolute personality loses its characteristics as 
 known to us ; and this assertion is tantamount to the 
 denial of the reality of personality, for the word 
 " personality " has been robbed of all its meaning 
 when its characteristics as known to us are no longer 
 allowed to it. For personality is simply that aspect 
 of existence intimately known to the individual in his 
 own consciousness. 
 
 Now the denial of personality carries with it the 
 denial of free-will. Determinism is the inevitable 
 mark of consistent Objective Idealism, and in this 
 particular Objective Idealism and Naturalism occupy 
 common ground. It is hardly necessary to insist 
 upon the Determinism of Naturalism, but it will be 
 well to notice how these two radically different types 
 of thought severally state their mutual antagonism to 
 
 K 2 
 
148 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 free-will. We shall find that the Determinism of the 
 Naturalist is based upon considerations quite other 
 than those which urge his Idealist colleague to the 
 same doctrine. 
 
 The Naturalist, as we have already observed, 
 regards the universe as consisting of three elements : 
 matter, force, and consciousness. Science has been 
 successful in describing with some completeness two 
 of these elements, matter and force, so that a con- 
 siderable portion of the empirical world has been 
 " explained " by the reduction of material phenomena 
 to certain general descriptive principles. This process 
 of explanation scientists aim at bringing to comple- 
 tion, so that the phenomenal world may be entirely 
 comprehensible to human thought. Meanwhile the 
 first two elements are generally regarded as reducible 
 to but one. Whether, however, that one be matter or 
 force or some third unknown element is a question 
 which is being constantly discussed. 
 
 The important fact is that it is the ideal of the 
 Naturalist to arrive at a complete and consistent de- 
 scription of the universe as a mechanism, so that each 
 factor of its structure may be satisfactorily explained 
 by reference to the laws of matter and motion. This 
 ideal is set forth by Laplace in parabolic fashion 
 much as follows : Let it be assumed that a stupendous 
 mind existed, capable of transcending all the limits 
 which prevent the human mind from being omniscient. 
 Such a mind would be able to frame a mathematical 
 formula by which at any moment the actual place, 
 direction of movement, and relative stress upon, any 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM 149 
 
 portion of the material universe would be at once 
 calculable. 
 
 This ideal, however, of a universe capable of com- 
 plete mechanical explanation gives no proper place to 
 consciousness. And yet Naturalism acknowledges, as 
 we have seen, that consciousness has its own place 
 assured for it at least on equal terms with matter and 
 motion. Even Laplace's symbol has at the very 
 outset to postulate a certain type of mind. But in 
 order to claim attention as a serious philosophy the 
 Naturalist must give some more detailed account of 
 consciousness. To leave it with a phrase acknowledg- 
 ing its great importance in the world of reality is but 
 to invite the rejection of the Naturalist theory. And 
 so the Naturalist inclines to account for consciousness 
 by calling it epiphenomenal to matter and motion — an 
 appearance of uncertain value and duration which 
 accompanies the solid and permanent factors of which 
 natural science makes so minute and careful a survey. 
 Huxley illustrates this theory by reference to the 
 Cartesian doctrine that all animals, with the exception 
 of man, are automata.* He seems to hold that it was 
 a mere lack of daring and thoroughness which pre- 
 vented Descartes from applying this teaching to men 
 as well as to beasts. Huxley is prevented by no 
 such timidity, but maintains that man too is an 
 automaton, though,of course, a conscious automaton.t 
 Human acts, from the smallest and least significant 
 
 * " Collected Essays," Vol. I., p. 250. 
 
 t One may be permitted to remark how curious it is that, if man 
 is a conscious automaton, he is not consciously automatic. 
 
ISO THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 to the greatest and most important, are all determined 
 by material changes or movements, and man is only 
 to be distinguished from the brutes (and probably not 
 from all of them) by the fact that he is aware of some 
 of these changes. But, further, man is not only aware 
 of certain changes — or rather of their results — but 
 also labours under the remarkable illusion that he 
 himself — i.e., apart from his physical structure — in 
 certain cases occasions these changes, and is able to 
 determine which of a given number of possible 
 changes shall take place. "We are conscious auto- 
 mata," says Huxley, " endowed with free-will in the 
 only intelligible sense of that much-abused term, 
 inasmuch as we are able to do as we like, but none 
 the less parts of the great series of causes and 
 effects which, in unbroken continuity, composes that 
 which is and has been and shall be — the sum of 
 existence." 
 
 Thus we see directly that Determinism is the only 
 possible doctrine for the Naturalist. The interference 
 of such an element as free-will would immediately 
 overthrow the whole mechanical theory, and make 
 the famous formula of Laplace at once unreliable. 
 
 Obviously, it is not on such grounds as these that 
 Objective Idealism founds its resistance to the doctrine 
 of free-will. Its representatives, however, are in many 
 cases as outspoken in their repudiation of free-will as 
 was Huxley, and even in other cases where Deter- 
 minism is not openly welcomed, freedom, in any 
 sense other than metaphorical, cannot be accepted. 
 Professor James Ward maintains that freedom can 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM iji 
 
 only be treated as a real principle if not regarded as 
 the power of the individual to do what it chooses, 
 by virtue of some mysterious faculty, itself to do. It 
 must be regarded simply as conformity with the 
 ideal : " Real freedom consists in conformity with what 
 ought to be." * T. H. Green says,t " The proposi- 
 tion . . . that a man's action is the joint result of his 
 character and circumstances is true enough in a 
 certain sense, and, in that sense, is quite compatible 
 with an assertion of. human freedom. It is not so 
 compatible if character and circumstances are con- 
 sidered reducible, directly or indirectly, to combina- 
 tions and sequences of natural events. It is so 
 compatible if a ' free cause,' consisting of a subject 
 which is its own object, a self-distinguishing and self- 
 seeking subject, is recognised as making both character 
 and circumstances what they are. ... A man's possi- 
 bilities of doing and becoming at any moment of his 
 life are as thoroughly conditioned as those of an 
 animal or a plant, but the conditions are different." 
 " To a will free in a sense of unmotived we can attach 
 no meaning whatever." | Mr. Bradley expresses the 
 position of Objective Idealism with much greater 
 energy and less finesse. He will not play with the 
 word "free-will" at all. It is nothing short of the 
 ridiculous and the superstitious. " Considered either 
 theoretically or practically," he says, " ' free-will ' is, in 
 short, a mere lingering chimera. Certainly no writer 
 
 • " Naturalism and Agnosticism," Vol. II., p. 271. 
 t " Prolegomena to Ethics," p. 109/. 
 % Ibid., p. 100. 
 
IS2 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 who respects himself can be called any longer to treat 
 it seriously." * 
 
 This general agreement of the advocates of Objective 
 Idealism to repudiate, even if with reluctance, the idea 
 of freedom in volition, is not to be ascribed so much 
 to the conviction that each act of will is the result or 
 consequent of its psychic conditions, as to that 
 monistic principle which is fundamental to their 
 philosophy. According to this principle, all appear- 
 ances, all elements in experience isolated from the 
 absolute, must be regarded as but partially real, since 
 their reality is limited according to the degree of self- 
 contradiction present to each phenomenon ; and some 
 degree is universally present. Now the feeling of 
 freedom which is common to human consciousness is 
 not only incompatible with the idea that the reality of 
 every being depends upon its relation to the absolute, 
 but it must be further regarded as deceptive because, 
 according to the epistemological principles upon 
 which Objective Idealism is founded, the very idea of 
 the self must be rejected as self-contradictory, as mere 
 appearance and unreality. The only reality in man 
 is the absolute in him. " Man is free," says Professor 
 Edward Caird.t " in so far as he is free, because he 
 partakes of the divine nature." 
 
 What really is, is one, and this is the absolute 
 experience of which the experience of every indi- 
 vidual is but an element, and such an element as is 
 not determined by the man's own free choice, but by 
 
 * " Appearance and Reality," p. 435, note. 
 t " Evolution of Religion," Vol. I., p. 168. 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM 153 
 
 that reality, quite independent of himself, the invasion 
 of which into the individual is constantly obscured by 
 the unreality of appearance. "The self," says Mr. 
 Bradley, " is no doubt the highest form of experience 
 which we have, but, for all that, is not a true form. 
 It does not give us the facts as they are in reality ; 
 and as it gives them they are appearance, appearance 
 and error." * 
 
 It is true that many Objective Idealists seem 
 anxious to preserve, at least formally, some place for 
 freedom in their account of the soul. T. H. Green, 
 for instance, exerts himself most strenuously to avoid 
 Determinism. To this end he labours to modify the 
 meaning of certain terms generally used in ethics. 
 He maintains, for instance, that necessity only exists 
 where it is something outside of the self that deter- 
 mines the action of the self. Thus freedom is allowed 
 to exist in those many cases — in every case where the 
 man acts by virtue of his non-animal nature — when 
 action is induced by motives lying within the soul 
 itself. Green develops a characteristic theory as to 
 what a motive is. What is usually called a motive 
 he names a " solicitation of desire," and this only 
 becomes a motive when it is intentionally brought 
 into relation with the self, when it is consciously 
 desired in full recognition of the fact that the self is 
 concerned in choice. " Now," says Green, " the ' self 
 here considered is the man's own character, and it is 
 into connection with this that a ' solicitation of desire ' 
 must be brought in order that it may become truly a 
 * Appearance and Reality, p. 119. 
 
154 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 motive." From this standpoint it is maintained 
 that the agent determines his own action and is not 
 determined from without ; that is, he is free. 
 
 Can we, however, admit that this theory may pro- 
 perly be regarded as an establishment of free-will ? 
 Does Green understand by his idea of freedom the 
 expression of a real, effective, and immediately given 
 factor which is entitled to a place alongside of the 
 absolute and is capable of adding an ultimate prin- 
 ciple to those other ultimate principles of his 
 philosophy? Or does he regard free-will as susceptible 
 of resolution into terms more general and real than 
 itself? Certainly many* of Green's followers do 
 regard their teacher as a real defender of a free-will 
 philosophy. In support of this the two following 
 doctrines are selected as fundamental to Green's 
 position : — 
 
 1. Man's action is determined by the forces and 
 relations of nature, but not in the same way as all 
 else in nature. Natural objects are adequately ex- 
 plained by reference to the forces of nature. But 
 man is not to be so explained. 
 
 2. As explained above, man is only indirectly 
 dependent upon nature, and may properly be regarded 
 as himself active and efficient in nature. 
 
 Nevertheless we are driven to regard Green as an 
 Objective Idealist despite the fact that he applies the 
 adjective " free " to the human will. The important 
 point is in what sense this adjective is used and what 
 we are to understand by a will that is " free." Now 
 * E.g., Mr. Fairbrother. 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM 155 
 
 Green's fundamental doctrine is not that man is to be 
 regarded as an efficient agent in nature, but something 
 altogether different from, and incompatible with, that 
 statement. It is that one and the same principle, a 
 "single active self-conscious principle, by whatever 
 name it may be called," * underlies both nature and 
 knowledge. The interdependence of all parts of real 
 existence is complete, and that causation which is to 
 be found in nature has a similar place in conscious- 
 ness. The term " free " then must be used, if at all, 
 in harmony with this doctrine of the universal sway 
 of that causation which science discovers everywhere 
 in nature. This term then must not be used in the 
 sense that is suggested by our immediate sentient 
 experience of choice, but only as indicating that 
 the will is able to find its place in the sphere of 
 the general or absolute rational will by itself freely 
 assenting to motives which it regards as noble, and 
 yet which are truly causative and irresistible. The 
 philosophy of Green entirely excludes the notion of 
 freedom as held by the Free-will Idealists. In their 
 sense he will no more admit freedom than will Huxley, 
 and we are therefore justified in regarding the teaching 
 of Green, at least so far as its terminology is con- 
 cerned, as inconsistent. Not that his metaphysic as 
 such is self-contradictory, but that he uses the word 
 freedom in a purely metaphorical sense, apparently in 
 order that his ethical opinions may be brought into 
 harmony with the rest of his monistic philosophy, in 
 order that his doctrine of responsibility may have a 
 
 * " Prolegomena to Ethics," p. 40. 
 
IS6 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 speculative foundation. Green himself was a man of 
 fundamentally religious nature, and so was unable, 
 despite a perfect philosophic clarity of purpose, to 
 keep the simplicity and consistency of his Objective 
 Idealism free from an effort to save an ethical principle 
 of incalculable importance by setting up some sort of 
 " freedom " of the soul. This inconsistency, due to 
 his predominant interest in morals, is by no means 
 uncommon among the adherents of this school of 
 thought. Mr. Bradley, however, is the foremost writer 
 of a group of Objective Idealists who reject, as we have 
 seen, the idea of freedom both vigorously and con- 
 sistently. One of this group, Professor Alexander, a 
 pupil of Green's, leaves his master on this very question, 
 maintaining that the so-called human freedom only 
 differs in degree from all other changes of condition 
 incident in the evolution of life and is to be ascribed 
 to the gradual perfecting of the spiritual apparatus.* 
 He, like Mr. Bradley, regards the feeling of self-deter- 
 mination as purely phenomenal. Thus in this particular 
 he and Mr. Bradley represent Objective Idealism with 
 a consistency comparable with that of Spinoza, who re- 
 jected remorse and all other feelings which pre-suppose 
 responsibility as founded upon falsehood and incom- 
 patible with the purely rational life. In fact, as Pro- 
 fessor Uptont observes, Mr. Bradley reminds his reader 
 of Spinoza in every particular, save that the intellectualis 
 amor Dei of the fifth book of the " Ethics " is missing. 
 And yet, although Naturalism, which is properly 
 
 * " Moral Order and Progress," p. 337. 
 t " Hibbert Lectures," 1893, chap. viii. 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM 157 
 
 a philosophic formulation of Materialism (for in these 
 days a dogmatic Materialism, resolutely shutting its 
 eyes to the fact of consciousness, is no longer 
 possible), and Objective Idealism, which is the 
 categorical repudiation of every form of Materialism, 
 both refuse to admit the existence of freedom of 
 the will, there survives and thrives to-day a by no 
 means insignificant group of thinkers to whom the 
 assumption of human freedom in some real form or 
 other seems the surest basis upon which to erect a 
 philosophy.* For them the living experience of the 
 process of willing is the most real thing conceivable, 
 and if this thing, which has persuaded the whole 
 human race to think and act as though it were a 
 reality, to make their laws and write their poetry and 
 teach morality in the belief that man can choose his 
 acts — if this is to be held at last as a mere chimera, 
 these thinkers can only say that the future has in 
 store for mankind nothing but mental confusion. 
 Mr. A. J. Balfour in his "Foundations of Belief" (in- 
 tended as an introduction to the " Study of Theology ") 
 puts it thus: "Those who ask us to reject the conviction 
 entertained by each one of us that he does actually 
 and effectually intervene in the material world may 
 have good grounds for objection to theology, but 
 should certainly not include among them the reproach 
 that it asks them to believe the incredible." t 
 
 *Cf. Dr. Fraser " Locke's Essay, ' ' Vol. I., p. 326, note 4 : " The idea 
 of a free power to act for which the agent is accountable" is "the 
 turning point between Materialism or Naturalism and a spiritual 
 philosophy of the universe." 
 
 t Op. lit., p. 312. 
 
IS8 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 We have to ask ourselves then, seeing that the antago- 
 nistic theories of knowledge formulated by Naturalism 
 and by Objective Idealism agree in disallowing free- 
 will — we have to ask, What is the epistemological basis 
 upon which those thinkers build who are able to put this 
 doctrine of freedom in the very forefront of their philo- 
 sophy ? We have seen that the naturalistic criterion 
 of truth is " demonstrability" when the subject-matters 
 of the various individual sciences are concerned. And 
 we have seen that when lifted to the rank of a general 
 epistemological principle, as in the case of Spencer, 
 this criterion becomes a standard for the testing of 
 utilitarian validity (absolute truth being unknowable), 
 and may be termed the criterion of relative consistency 
 
 We have further seen that the criterion of truth of 
 Objective Idealism is that of self-consistency, a cri- 
 terion which allows truth to be predicated of nothing 
 in which there is any implicit contradiction. When 
 once adopted this criterion forces the thinker by its 
 logical momentum to distinguish between the indi- 
 vidual and the absolute intelligence, ascribing to the 
 individual but a partial reality, and describing it as a 
 mere appearance, behind which the absolute mind or 
 spirit is the only true or noumenal reality. 
 
 Neither of these theories as to truth is acceptable 
 to the Free-will Idealist. To the Naturalist he replies 
 that Phenomenalism is wholly unsatisfactory, since it 
 insists on denying the reality of free-will on the ground 
 that the idea of freedom is inconsistent with the 
 demonstrated facts of matter and motion. Physical 
 law is independent of human choice. To the Free-will 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM 159 
 
 Idealist this is an unjustifiable inversion of the true 
 order of thought. A philosophy which can find no real 
 place for personality (and the essence of personality 
 is will) is no philosophy at all, for personality is the 
 one great fact of experience,* and, according to the 
 admission of the Naturalists themselves, it is only by 
 virtue of personality that we can arrive at any know- 
 ledge of phenomena whatsoever. The only knowledge 
 which is and must be relative is this knowledge of 
 phenomena, which Naturalism exalts — a knowledge 
 always due to a relation subsisting between pheno- 
 mena and the personality. And yet the knowledge 
 of the will itself perhaps does not come under the 
 category of relative knowledge at all ! 
 
 In a similar fashion Free-will Idealism attacks the 
 epistemology of the Objective Idealists. To Free-will 
 Idealism the pantheistic notion of the identity of 
 the human and divine will is a mere speculation. It 
 is selfhood + that is real, and not mere appearance, for 
 it is primarily only through the self that there can come 
 any idea of the absolute. Why must reality, says the 
 Free-will Idealist, be defined as that which the intellect 
 feels able to declare self-consistent ? Thought after 
 all only follows in the footsteps of experience, and 
 reality is this experience itself, while our thought is 
 the effort we make to bring this real experience into 
 intelligible order. " Man lives first and thinks after- 
 wards." t The consciousness of will is actually man's 
 
 * Cf. Professor Knight, " Aspects of Theism," chap, xiv., and 
 Mr. J. R. Illingworth, "Personality, Human and Divine," chap. U. 
 
 j Professor Upton, " Hibbert Lectures," chap. i. 
 
 \ Mr. Illingworth, " Personality, Human and Divine." 
 
i6o THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 consciousness of the reality of his own existence. 
 Only from the point of view of his own selfhood can 
 faith in the selfhood of an absolute or a God be 
 obtained. And yet the Objective Idealist refuses to 
 apply this idea of reality, which has been arrived at 
 solely through his experience of his own personality, 
 to anything but that derivative idea of the absolute 
 which of itself could never afford him even the faintest 
 sensation of reality ! Thus the epistemology of Objec- 
 tive Idealism is rejected, and despite Mr. Bradley's 
 daring claim — in view of the facts, it might surely be 
 termed presumptuous — that belief in free-will was 
 now for ever impossible to thinking men, a remarkable 
 number of capable men have championed Free-will 
 Idealism in England during recent years. At their 
 head stands James Martineau, and near him his 
 favourite scholar and successor. Professor C. B. Upton. 
 Professors Eraser, Illingworth, and Knight and Mr. 
 A. J. Balfour are prominent, and the great majority 
 of theological apologists naturally represent the same 
 point of view. These last, however, we will consider 
 more fully in a subsequent chapter. 
 
 What then are the principles upon which this 
 faith in free-will is based, a faith which defies and 
 challenges all the arguments of the Determinists, even 
 when, as must be admitted, some of these arguments 
 cannot in detail be refuted ? Or is this faith but a 
 stubborn adherence to a traditional error, simply 
 because the removal of the erroneous doctrine would 
 prove dangerous to society ? Is the adoption of this 
 doctrine merely a perverse, though perhaps excusable, 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM i6i 
 
 effort to uphold some tottering system of religion, 
 or does there underlie it a real epistemological 
 principle which enables a serious and thorough 
 philosopher to defend free-will without wavering ? If 
 one were to believe such writers as Mr. Bradley, one 
 would have grave doubts as to the possibility of this 
 last explanation. And yet it is the right one. The 
 criteria of truth adopted by the Objective Idealists 
 and the Naturalists, however much they may differ 
 in other respects, agree in this : All true propositions 
 have the same marks. That is, the advocates of 
 these two rival theories of knowledge agree that the 
 criterion of truth adopted must be applicable to all 
 true propositions, whatever may be their origin or the 
 psychological process by which they have arisen. Both 
 Naturalism and Objective Idealism are epistemologi- 
 cally monistic. There is only one type of truth and 
 only one criterion of truth. This, however, Free-will 
 Idealism denies. We shall find that its criterion of 
 truth is double, that one class of propositions have to 
 be tested as to their truth by one criterion, and another 
 class by a second criterion. Free-will Idealism is epi- 
 stemologically dualistic. The particular way in which 
 this double criterion of truth is handled and exhibited 
 differs very much according to the particular stand- 
 point of individual thinkers, but the various forms of 
 statement may be reduced to one type. Free-will 
 Idealism maintains that there is one criterion by which 
 knowledge pertaining to the phenomenal or objective 
 world may be tested, and another applicable to know- 
 ledge pertaining to the noumenal or subjective world. 
 T. L 
 
i62 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 We can best make the epistemological principles 
 of this school clear to ourselves by briefly examin- 
 ing the position of their greatest representative, 
 James Martineau. In his chief work, " A Study of 
 Religion," he endeavours to make good the proposition 
 that religion is "belief in a divine mind and will 
 ruling the universe and holding moral relations with 
 mankind."* He recognises at once that the chief 
 difficulty he has to face is epistemological. His 
 definition of religion involves a definition of know- 
 ledge, and in his theory of knowledge there must be 
 some recognition of ethics. If the relations sub- 
 sisting between God and men are moral, the postulates 
 of morality must somehow or other be susceptible of 
 confirmation as true. If we are to maintain that our 
 moral consciousness really makes intercourse between 
 our soul and God possible, we must be in a position 
 to establish the validity of the moral " ought " by 
 reference to our doctrine of what is true. And so 
 Martineau opens his " Study of Religion " with an 
 epistemological investigation. His first care is to 
 come to an understanding with Kant, whose teaching, 
 with certain modifications of no great importance 
 so far as our present purpose is concerned, he adopts. 
 That is, he agrees with Kant as to the distinction 
 between analytic and synthetic judgments, and as 
 to the origin of the ideas of time and space. But to 
 these two original forms of thought, Martineau adds 
 causality as a third. He further regards himself as 
 
 * Of. cit., p. I. 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM 163 
 
 differing from Kant* in respect of all these three — 
 time, space, and causality — in that he maintains that 
 they, although properly treated as d priori forms of 
 the understanding, must not therefore be reduced to 
 the rank of illusions or merely subjective appearances, 
 but must be held to justify us in believing that they, 
 at least to a very high degree of probability, represent 
 the reality of things in themselves. 
 
 In adopting this attitude toward Kant, Martineau 
 rejects the theory of Objective Idealism, that the mind 
 makes nature, just as vigorously as the materialistic 
 idea, that nature makes the mind. It is not because 
 he can find any phenomenon to contradict it that he 
 will not accept the former theory, but principally 
 because he can, among all the reasons advanced by 
 the Objective Idealists, find none which should justify 
 us in refusing to credit the evidence of our own 
 powers of perception. In the same sense, when 
 Martineau is discussing the doctrine of the relativity 
 of knowledge, he admits that the very nature of the 
 case, of the facts under consideration, is such that no 
 proof can be brought forward to show that our 
 capacity for knowing fits into, so to speak, and is 
 able to bring to our consciousness, what really exists. 
 Nevertheless, he adheres to the assertion that we 
 have a knowledge, not only of phenomena, but also 
 of noumena. That is to say, he will trust his under- 
 standing, and listen to no invitation which would 
 
 * Martineau does not seem to do justice to Kant, to whom purely 
 subjective treatment of the forms of Time and Space is in reality 
 repugnant. 
 
 L 2 
 
i64 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 have him think in any other than the way in which 
 it has been given him to think. " If knowledge is 
 to be so defined," he says, " as to include only 
 the phenomenal or objective term, then of course 
 noumena are unknown except as phenomena cog- 
 nisable in our personality. . . . But none the less 
 I shall rest and move with assured certainty upon 
 them ; and if you will not let me say ' I know them,' 
 I will be content to say ' I trust them.' . . . The 
 distinction between ' knowledge ' in the one case and 
 ' trust ' in the other marks no distinction of certainty, 
 but simply the outer and the inner side of one 
 indivisible act of the intellect." And finally, after 
 he has discussed Spencer's theory of the unknowable, 
 he says that the leading principle of his philosophical 
 thinking will be throughout his work to take both 
 intuition and reason as his guides. "To avail our- 
 selves of the empirical psychology to the limits of its 
 honest analysis of combinations, and beyond these 
 limits to trust, as valid intuitions, the residual belief 
 inherent in our mental constitution," 
 
 Here, then, there is set forth for the first time in 
 our examination of English thinkers a double criterion 
 of truth. Some judgments Martineau proposes to 
 test by reference to the principles of empirical 
 philosophy. But there are others the validity of 
 which this philosophy refuses to recognise, and con- 
 cerning which Martineau himself says we cannot 
 possibly have knowledge in the strictest sense of that 
 word. Nevertheless, if these stand the test of his 
 second criterion of truth, he will regard them also 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM 165 
 
 as true. What, then, exactly is this second criterion ? 
 It demands that the judgments to which it is applied 
 shall embody " valid intuitions," that they can be 
 reduced to the " residual belief inherent in our mental 
 constitution." Along these lines Martineau arrives 
 at an epistemological sanction for the moral " ought " 
 and for belief in the existence of God. 
 
 The human mind, then, is seen to arrive at truth 
 by two roads. First, by means of thought, by the 
 application of the canons of demonstrability, or rather 
 of consistency, it reaches a number of empirical or 
 scientific truths. Next, there is another set of truths, 
 which Martineau knows lack the sanction of the 
 empirical criterion, but of which he is nevertheless 
 intuitively certain. This second set of truths can 
 never be verified by those rules which are the proper 
 test of the other class of judgments. And yet they 
 have a validity at least as high as, if not higher than, 
 theirs. To this class of intuitive truths faith in the 
 freedom of the will must be reckoned. Martineau 
 freely admits that the empiricists are perfectly right 
 in denying the possibility of this freedom, if once 
 their doctrine of causation, that the cause of any 
 given phenomenon is found in another, is accepted. 
 But this doctrine he refuses to accept. He maintains 
 that it is a doctrine at which, even if true, empirical 
 knowledge could never of itself arrive. All that 
 empirical knowledge is able to tell us is that events 
 are either successive or co-existent. Yet we are 
 amply justified in the belief that more than this 
 succession or co-existence is real, because we have 
 
i66 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 immediate knowledge of this " something else." We 
 do not know that causation is something apart from 
 phenomena by direct inspection, or by the test of an 
 empirical criterion of truth, but because we experience 
 the act of causation in our own consciousness — the 
 will. All idea of causation is derived from the 
 experience of will power. " Power is postulated by 
 the understanding as the condition of any and all 
 change, but to determine into existence this change 
 rather than that . . . needs a phenomenon. ... It 
 is to determinative occurrences in time that we 
 prevailingly apply the word cause, giving it to them 
 not in consideration of their serial order, but as 
 nature's vehicles of power on its passage through 
 time. . . . The dynamic idea clings to causality 
 throughout, yet does not complete it. The sup- 
 plementary condition must be sought for in its 
 phenomenal application."* Here is very clearly to 
 be seen the double criterion of truth at work, so to 
 speak : (a) According to the empirical criterion 
 causality becomes nothing more than a rule as to 
 succession and co-existence in time ; (d) according 
 to the intuitive criterion it is a noumenal entity, and 
 is in reality of the nature of will. 
 
 But Martineau himself is reluctant to formulate the 
 double criterion as two criteria. He is careful to state 
 that the two are but varying aspects of one and the 
 same " act of the intellect." He regards them as at 
 bottom but one criterion. And this, the real criterion, 
 
 * op. cit., Vol. I., p. 177. Cf., Dr. Campbell Eraser in "The 
 Philosophy of Theism," Second Series. 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM 167 
 
 is the certainty which attaches to such judgments as 
 are certified to be true by either the empirical or the 
 intuitive criterion. The criterion itself is the feeling of 
 certainty. The two principles which we have so far 
 called criteria, are but formulations of the logical pro- 
 cesses by which this feeling of certainty comes into 
 being. Can this position be maintained ? Against it 
 must be set the consideration that the feeling of cer- 
 tainty* is only the result of the application of the 
 empirical criterion, and it is only with the intuitive 
 criterion that it can be properly identified. As a 
 matter of fact the attempt is always made to verify a 
 proposition in the first place by means of the empirical 
 criterion. We resort to the intuitive criterion when 
 the other has failed to induce certainty. But further, 
 not only is it illegitimate to identify certainty with 
 both criteria, but it is very obvious that in most 
 cases certainty is actually associated with the false. 
 The history of human knowledge is the history of the 
 abandonment of fallacious certitudes. To regard 
 certainty as the criterion of truth is to make truth 
 wholly subjective and to ennoble every base-born 
 superstition of the past. It seems impossible then to 
 regard certainty as a sufficient criterion of truth, and 
 the force of Martineau's logic really brings us to the 
 position that there are two wholly distinct criteria of 
 truth, each applicable to a certain set of possible 
 judgments. 
 
 We sum up Martineau's epistemology therefore 
 thus : We have knowledge both of noumena and of 
 * op. at., Vol. I., p. 130. 
 
i68 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 phenomena — knowledge of noumena is intuitive. 
 Knowing our self to be non-empirical, we may, 
 judging by analogy, draw conclusions from our 
 knowledge of ourself (intuitive) and apply them to 
 other non-empirical realities, e.g. causality. The 
 two criteria are mutually complementary, and in 
 the last analysis Martineau regards them as aspects 
 of the same. 
 
 We find a still more definite epistemological dualism 
 in the works of Dr. Campbell Fraser * than in the 
 teaching of Martineau, for in his case there is no effort 
 made to rescue the monistic position. Dr. Fraser dis- 
 tinguishes as we do between three types of theory of 
 knowledge. The first (our Naturalism) he calls a 
 thorough Agnosticism, which has no hope of ever 
 arriving at a perfect knowledge of the universe ; the 
 second (our Objective Idealism) he displays as a 
 thorough Gnosticism — a speculative system which at 
 the same time contains the germ of a general scep- 
 ticism t ; the third (our Free-will Idealism) he himself 
 represents and commends, maintaining that there is a 
 philosophic faith which is able to supplement the 
 fragmentary knowledge of man. This faith he de- 
 fines as "the rational trust that nothing can happen in 
 the temporal evolution which can finally put to confu- 
 sion the principles of moral reason that are latent in 
 man."J This is exactly Martineau's intuitive criterion 
 
 * " The Philosophy of Theism," First and Second Series, 
 t One has only to think of Mr. Bradley's teaching to see how 
 well this description hits off the facts. 
 % Second Series, Sect. v. 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM 169 
 
 — trust in moral insight. " Faith, trust, authority, are 
 words not unfit to designate the final relation of the 
 human spirit to the universe of reality." The ground 
 on which this criterion is adopted is in the last analysis 
 practical and not theoretic. The proof of its validity is 
 not demonstrative, but it is sufficient for those who 
 desire to live a good life.* Thus Fraser, like Martineau, 
 attempts, by giving to Free-will Idealism a firm basis 
 in a doctrine of knowledge, to make an optimistic 
 view of the universe possible — i.e. he really intro- 
 duces a religious factor as supplementary to rigorous 
 philosophy. 
 
 Obviously there is here an element which must 
 prove unsatisfactory to the philosopher proper — to 
 him who would embrace the universe in pure thought. 
 A naked epistemological dualism, without even that 
 modicum of a garment in which Martineau sought to 
 clothe it (the generic criterion of certainty), can only 
 be tolerated at a certain intellectual sacrifice. In it the 
 opposition between the real and the ideal, between 
 knowledge and faith, comes to very harsh expression. 
 That truth should be one thing in one connection and 
 a different thing in another is too paradoxical a doc- 
 trine to be accepted without demur. Indeed, it is in 
 this dualism that we find the characteristic paradox of 
 Free-will Idealism — a paradox comparablewith that of 
 Naturalism (the incommensurability of Thought and 
 Reality) and that of Objective Idealism (the doctrine of 
 degrees of Reality). It is to Dr. Campbell Fraser's 
 
 * Lecture VII. Cf. Locke, " Our business here is not to know 
 all things, but those which concern our conduct." 
 
170 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 credit that he states this dualism clearly and recognises 
 it freely. We shall soon have to consider how the Free- 
 will Idealist erects his philosophy of religion upon the 
 basis afforded by this dualistic epistemology, and we 
 shall also have to notice some of the consequences of 
 the same as the characteristic paradox of this type of 
 thought ; but meanwhile we willj as briefly as may be, 
 notice the special form which Free-will Idealism adopts, 
 on its epistemological side, when advocated by pure 
 theologians. 
 
 There is no doubt that the Objective Idealism 
 of Hegel, especially as represented in England by the 
 brothers Caird, has had a very considerable influence 
 upon English orthodox theologians. Nevertheless 
 the Hegelian dominance is already on the wane, and 
 can never be said to have altogether swayed our 
 apologists. Free-will Idealism is becoming more and 
 more daring, as the proper philosophic formulation of 
 Christianity, and, especially under the encouragement 
 of Ritschlianism, is likely soon to have completely 
 ousted its rival. Theologians generally, however, are 
 by no means careful of epistemological theory. Their 
 attention is naturally directed with more intensity upon 
 problems removed from the dust of philosophy, and 
 when they deal with those great questions which in 
 this volume, and in the opinion of philosophers, are 
 regarded as fundamental, they do so in a cursory and 
 hasty fashion — so much so that their work has not 
 that thorough character in dealing with the problems 
 of knowledge, as such, which marks it as it passes on 
 to systematic theology. 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM 171 
 
 A praiseworthy attempt at dealing with the epistemo- 
 logical problem is to be found in the article entitled 
 " Faith," by Canon Scott-Holland, in " Lux Mundi." 
 This essay must be reckoned as a contribution in the 
 sense of Free-will Idealism. According to its author, 
 thought, will, and feeling are all forms in which one 
 fundamental activity of the soul shows itself: they 
 presuppose this activity in all their phases. This 
 " elemental energy of the soul " is the basal fabric, so 
 to speak, the spiritual substance, and it is by virtue of 
 it alone that intuitive knowledge, and conscious life of 
 any sort, are possible. It conditions scientific know- 
 ledge just as truly as it conditions will and emotion. 
 It stands behind all life, secular as well as religious. 
 It is a ■' struggling and fluctuating effort in man to 
 win for himself a valid hold upon things that exist 
 under the conditions of eternity." It makes a relation 
 between God and man possible. 
 
 Though this postulation of faith as implicit in every 
 form of knowledge suggests Objective Idealism with 
 the monistic criterion of truth characteristic of a 
 certain type of mysticism, it does not in fact and in 
 practice deny that there is a source of knowledge in 
 which this faith is altogether subordinate to a logical 
 process — or perhaps better, acts by means of a logical 
 process. Certain truths. Canon Scott-Holland admits, 
 have their validity guaranteed " by methods of 
 empirical observation." Others, however, among 
 which are prominent the elements of self-knowledge, are 
 won quite apart from these methods, and in their case 
 faith " verifies itself only in actions." Obviously then 
 
i;2 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 we have here, at least from the point of view of episte- 
 mology, the dualism of Martineau and Dr. Campbell 
 Fraser less clearly expressed because of the theological 
 interests which it is the essayist's desire to serve. 
 
 If this doctrine of "Lux Mundi" is near to Mysticism, 
 there are other theologians who pass over the boundary 
 altogether. Indeed, Mysticism has been a growing 
 force in England during the past thirty years, a 
 steady reaction against the clear, dry reasoning and 
 complacent Positivism of such writers as Bentham 
 and Mill. Among the moderate Mystics Professor 
 William Knight, whose doctrine is set forth in his 
 " Aspects of Theism," claims a considerable place. 
 
 This type of Mysticism is to be distinguished 
 epistemologically from that of the Free-will Idealism so 
 far reviewed, by the fact that it exaggerates the part 
 played by intuition in arriving at valid knowledge. 
 This exaggeration may eventually grow to such an 
 extent that it leads to the complete denial of the 
 validity of empirical knowledge, and so passes over 
 into a form of Objective Idealism. Professor Knight 
 does not go to this extreme, although he maintains that 
 a true insight into the last reality of being is only to be 
 reached by a certain repression of the understanding. 
 "The proofs of Theism," he says, "are not philosophically 
 recondite . . . they require cessation of the strictly 
 philosophic struggle with problems and the exercise 
 of . . . wise passivity." The organon by which these 
 real proofs are reached is intuition, an " intellectual 
 and moral second sight." It is worth noting that this 
 second sight, this special faculty for the perception of 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM 173 
 
 spiritual truths, is not merely intellectual. Like 
 Martineau, Professor Knight gives a prominent place 
 to the ethical principle as an organ of certainty, of 
 knowledge. Religious truths, the final propositions 
 concerning God and the soul, cannot be apprehended 
 without a moral as well as a mental training. Morality, 
 however, is not set up as in opposition to pure reason 
 in this faculty of knowing : it is rather regarded as the 
 second of two aspects of the one organ, by means of 
 which religious truth is attained. Thus does Professor 
 Knight revive the teaching of Neo-Platonists, German 
 Mystics, and Cambridge philosophers, even to the 
 extent of asserting that in " ecstasy " truth may be 
 reached, the mind of man becoming one with the 
 Infinite. 
 
 Were Professor Knight, however, a thorough-going 
 Mystic he could not be content with a double criterion 
 of truth. He would feel the paradox of Free-will 
 Idealism as too great a burden, and would be driven, 
 as hinted above, to a monistic theory of knowledge. 
 The true Mystic indeed is a sceptic. He feels that 
 thought alone must not be regarded as a reliable 
 source of truth in any region. It is incapable of 
 realising Reality, God. So, in the case of Plotinus, we 
 find the One raised above the grasp of the mind (voSs), 
 and a vigorous protest against Aristotle's glorification 
 of deiapia, intellectual contemplation, with its com- 
 mendation of the virtues of prudence. And so, too, in 
 the case of Eckhardt, to attain to a knowledge of God 
 the soul must really abandon knowledge and seek to 
 ^^God! 
 
174 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 Indeed, a thoroughly logical Mysticism refuses to 
 discuss a theory of knowledge, occupies itself with a 
 belief in reality, and maintains that true knowledge is 
 really the identification of the soul with the object of 
 its desire. It relinquishes the dualism of Free-will 
 Idealism, easily denies the individuality of the human 
 personality, and affirms that reality of being which, as 
 Mr. Bradley has already shown, is beyond the grip of 
 thought. Consistent Mysticism, then, is a form of 
 Objective Idealism, but it differs from those forms 
 which we have already discussed in that it regards truth 
 as reached by intuition and not by ratiocination at all. 
 
 At this point we may pause for a moment to 
 notice the theory concerning religion and reason 
 which has been advanced by Mr. Benjamin Kidd in 
 his "Social Evolution." Though this book rapidly 
 passed through many editions it cannot be described 
 as a very valuable contribution to modern thought. It 
 illustrates, however, a certain possible development of 
 the epistemological dualism of Free-will Idealism, and 
 it is only on that ground that it is here cited. Mr. 
 Kidd does not belong to any one of the three types 
 of philosophy which we are discussing, mainly because 
 he does not approach his subject-matter from a purely 
 philosophic standpoint, and never busies himself with 
 a definite discussion of the theory of knowledge. 
 Nevertheless he elaborates a theory of religion with 
 much originality and acumen, which may be briefly 
 summarised as follows : Of all animals there is but 
 one, namely, man, which has made definite and 
 unbroken progress. This progress was made possible 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM 17S 
 
 by "natural selection," and natural selection has 
 demanded the continual increase of mankind beyond 
 the limits of comfortable existence. Life has, there- 
 fore, been a perpetual struggle for existence. But it 
 is obviously the interest of the individual to with- 
 draw from this struggle. And man has learnt this, 
 for part of his characteristic development is the 
 growth of an understanding which enables him with 
 steadily increasing success to achieve his own happi- 
 ness. Now Mr. Kidd describes this understanding, 
 or rather, human reason, by means of which the 
 individual may pursue his own happiness, as a 
 perfectly egoistic faculty. It always inevitably prompts 
 the individual to escape from toil and want and all 
 discomfort. It must therefore ultimately lead man to 
 refuse to multiply beyond the limits of comfort. But 
 such a refusal would result in the degeneration of 
 man. And yet there has been, instead of degenera- 
 tion, a progress which has continued with constantly 
 increasing acceleration. Here is a contradiction 
 between fact and theory which needs an explanation, 
 and Mr. Kidd finds that explanation in the fact that 
 man is guided not merely by reason, but also by 
 religion. 
 
 By religion Mr. Kidd means, then, something which 
 holds the exercise of the reason in check. It is itself 
 irrational, prompts to irrational actions, and is in 
 general a counterbalance to the understanding. But 
 though irrational, the function of religion is of vast 
 importance, being nothing less than the means of the 
 prevention of the degeneration of mankind. 
 
176 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 This doctrine might almost be regarded as a redtictio 
 ad absurdum of that epistemological dualism which 
 sets religious knowledge over against empirical know- 
 ledge as an "intellectual and moral second-sight." 
 But in Mr. Kidd's work the " intellectual " element in 
 religion is altogether dropped — religion becames a sort 
 of "moral second-sight," which tricks the man into 
 progress despite his own reason. Here religious 
 knowledge is utterly out of touch with truth, and it is 
 for this reason that Mr. Kidd's teaching has a certain 
 importance for our purpose. For that teaching, 
 despite its curious apology for religion, and therefore 
 for religious, propositions and statements of belief, is 
 quite in harmony with the naturalistic doctrine that 
 positive religion cannot contain any real truth, but 
 must be irrational, and should endeavour to purge 
 itself altogether from attempting any formulation of 
 itself in a creed, limiting its activities to a humble 
 worship of the unknowable. Thus Mr. Kidd, operating 
 with the most vivid enunciation of that epistemological 
 dualism characteristic of Free-will Idealism, really 
 passes away from Idealism altogether and is seen to 
 be a Naturalist. He affords us a second example of 
 the expulsive power of the paradox involved in this 
 type of epistemology. In him we see the passage 
 from Free-will Idealism into Naturalism, as in mystic- 
 ism we saw Free-will Idealism passing into Objective 
 Idealism. 
 
 We may distinguish, then, three forms of the theory 
 of knowledge of Free-will Idealism. I. The philoso- 
 phers in the strict sense maintain a dual criterion of 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM 177 
 
 truth, the one giving valid propositions by intuition, 
 the other equally valid propositions by empirical 
 observation. 2. The theologians identify intuition 
 with faith, and so give a philosophic support to 
 revelation. 3. And, finally, there is a type of 
 Mysticism, oscillating on the borders of Objective 
 Idealism, which regards ecstasy itself as a source of 
 truth, and is inclined to lay less and less stress on 
 thought as compared with reality. This last type is 
 really a " borderland " type, as is Mr. Kidd's theory 
 of the opposition between religion and reason. In 
 the case of Mysticism the movement is from Free- 
 will Idealism toward Objective Idealism, while in the 
 case of Mr. Kidd it is from Free-will Idealism toward 
 Naturalism. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 FREE-WILL IDEALISM AND RELIGION 
 
 In discussing the teaching of Free-will Idealism 
 as to religion by reference to its epistemological 
 position, it will be convenient to take Professor C. B. 
 Upton as our guide rather than Martineau, because, 
 although in most matters of importance he shares 
 Martineau's views, he has been able, to some extent, 
 to avoid the metaphysical dualism of his master, 
 largely through the influence of Lotze. He is also, 
 perhaps, a little less definitely an apologist than is 
 Martineau. At the commencement of his Hibbert 
 Lectures he says that it is the object of his work " to 
 examine what ground there is for maintaining that " 
 the various religious "beliefs contain within them 
 some elements of permanent truth." 
 
 It is further of interest to examine his version of 
 
 Free-will Idealism because in many particulars he 
 
 stands very near* to the Objective position, so that the 
 
 • So near, in fact, that, despite his protest, he too, like Green, 
 has been dubbed a Pantheist. Professor Banks, for instance, main- 
 tains that, although he condemns Pantheism, Professor Upton's own 
 teaching leads logically to Pantheism, and that it is only his fear of 
 the moral consequences that prevents him from accepting monism. 
 It seems to the writer, however, that Professor Upton's insistence 
 upon freedom is so central to all his teaching, that it is impossible 
 to convict him of a view which inevitably involves Determinism. 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM AND RELIGION 179 
 
 radical difference between that and the Free-will view 
 of religion is displayed with the greater vividness. In 
 Mr. Bradley, Martineau, and Professor Upton, we have 
 three typical relations of epistemology to metaphysics. 
 Mr. Bradley, who regards the notion of self as an illu- 
 sion, a mere appearance, is both epistemologically and 
 metaphysically a monist, and so the consistent and 
 characteristic representative of Objective Idealism. 
 Martineau, on the other hand, is both epistemologically 
 and metaphysically a dualist, and maintains that the 
 Pantheist, even according to his own canon of know- 
 ledge, has no firm ground beneath his feet : " You 
 cannot even declare yourself a Pantheist without self- 
 contradiction," * Professor Upton endeavours to take 
 up a middle position in that he is an epistemological 
 dualist, but a metaphysical monist. In all essentials 
 his theory of knowledge is the same as Martineau's. 
 
 Man, says Professor Upton, is, by virtue of a 
 natural religious potence, capable of being a conscious 
 self over against the Eternal. As an independent 
 self he can enter into moral and spiritual intercourse 
 with the Eternal. His selfhood, though relatively 
 restricted and feeble, is as real as that of God, and 
 comparable in nature with the divine. Man, then, 
 does not gain his knowledge of the infinite by the 
 process of mere external observance, as when he gains 
 scientific knowledge, but rather by the process of 
 
 As he himself says, the recognition or denial of the identity of the 
 human with the divine will involves the difference between 
 Pantheism and Theism. 
 • '■ A Study of Religion," Vol. II., p. 177. 
 
 M 2 
 
i8o THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 self-consciousness, by the unfolding to the view of his 
 own soul the reality immanent in the soul itself. 
 This process Professor Upton calls insight, and has the 
 double form characteristic of the Free-will Idealist's 
 second type of knowing. On the one side it is 
 intellectual ; on the other it is moral and aesthetic, 
 that is to say, it is guided by the emotional-voluntary 
 elements of the mind. If these emotional-voluntary 
 elements are refused their proper place in religious 
 experience, the purely intellectual alone determines 
 belief, and Pantheism is the result. In a properly 
 pantheistic system of religion, belief is not to be 
 distinguished from scientific knowledge, and the 
 mind denies to itself the exercise of its real religious 
 function. If, on the other hand, the moral and 
 aesthetic gains the exclusive dominance of the mind 
 in religious thought (and this Professor Upton 
 believes to be the case with Schleiermacher), Mysticism 
 is the result, a one-sided form of religion, in its own 
 way as unsatisfactory as Pantheism. Religious 
 insight, then, is an activity of the whole man. All 
 his faculties are called into play. God reveals 
 Himself in the man's own reason, conscience, and 
 affections. 
 
 The element of will is so obviously powerful in 
 "religious insight," so described, that our Free-will 
 Idealist concludes that this insight must not be called 
 knowledge. It is properly faith. Faith then is, 
 according to Professor Upton, the proper organ of 
 religion. If mere knowledge is to guide, we shall be 
 led into Pantheism. And thus the will is maintained 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM AND RELIGION i8i 
 
 to be the decisive factor in determining his position. 
 It is emphasis on will which drives the Free-will 
 Idealist away from monism and Pantheism. 
 
 But, on this basis, how does Professor Upton 
 escape metaphysical dualism ? He is careful to 
 describe the human will as individual in relation to 
 the divine will. The two are not identical, nor is the 
 circumscribed and feeble will of man a mere element 
 in the will of God. He will not agree with the 
 Objective Idealist, who asserts indeed that there is a 
 difference between the two wills, but that it is only a 
 difference in appearance, not in reality. Professor 
 Upton resolutely maintains his position that the 
 selfhood of man is as true and radical a selfhood as 
 that of the absolute. 
 
 Now this is more than dualism : it is pluralism. 
 Each self must be a distinct and isolated substance, 
 capable of intercourse with, but not of absorption in, 
 other similar substances, among which God must 
 be reckoned as one. Nevertheless Professor Upton 
 endeavours to escape from this conclusion by adopt- 
 ing the doctrine of Lotze that alongside of a real 
 pluralism a monism may be afifirmed. This is given 
 a somewhat paradoxical turn by the addition of the 
 adjective " deeper " : pluralism is to be held together 
 with a " deeper " monism. The fact that the individual 
 is capable of entering into relations with the absolute 
 is proof that below the surface, so to speak, the 
 absolute and the individual are one. " Otherness '' 
 makes '' oneness " necessary, or rather presupposes 
 it. " The pluralism with Mrhich our view of the world 
 
i82 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 began has to give place to a monism, through which 
 the transcendent operation, always unintelligible, 
 passes into an 'immanent' operation." The problem 
 is hardly cleared up by this and other similar state- 
 ments. The assertion that the pluralism is real is 
 with difficulty maintained in the face of the avowal 
 of monism, and it almost seems as though his system 
 would be made more consistent, and so more accept- 
 able, were Professor Upton to take that further step 
 which, as he admits, would lead him to Pantheism 
 viz., the step which would lead him to the denial of 
 the reality of pluralism. If things are " at bottom," 
 " fundamentally," one, how can the philosopher 
 refrain from adding that they are really one and only 
 apparently many ? And here comes clearly to view 
 more clearly than in other writers of the same school 
 the paradox of Free-will Idealism. In the case of 
 Martineau this paradox was veiled somewhat by the 
 linking together of the two criteria of truth through 
 their common characteristic of assurance, an assur- 
 ance which Naturalism only regards as valid when 
 produced by the use of the scientific method of 
 demonstration, but which Martineau and Free-will 
 Idealists generally consider valid also when the 
 result of intuition. Even in the case of Martineau, 
 however, this paradox made its appearance with his 
 declaration for metaphysical dualism. Had Professor 
 Upton followed up the dualism of his theory of know- 
 ledge to its legitimate consequences, it is hard to see 
 how he could have maintained his " deeper monism." 
 And yet, were he asked how he could hold to 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM AND RELIGION 183 
 
 pluralism and monism at the same time, he would 
 probably answer that both were demanded by his 
 epistemological premisses. To assert monism to the 
 exclusion of pluralism could only result from giving 
 heed to the claims of the understanding, or logical 
 side of the mind, and failing to give its proper weight 
 to that unfolding of the consciousness which gives us 
 truths of unsurpassed importance. If the reason 
 claims a monism, and intuitive insight a pluralism, 
 both must be regarded as real ; each must be treated 
 as true. But oscillation between the two ideas is 
 ultimately intolerable, even for our Free-will Idealist, 
 and the concession of the "deeper monism," though 
 Professor Upton will not admit it, is either meaning- 
 less or the surrender of the position. 
 
 Obviously, the basis of the inconsistency is the 
 desire to maintain the independence of the individual 
 will, in order to leave ample space for the exercise of 
 responsibility. Without responsibility there can be 
 no morality, and without morality experience is 
 robbed of all meaning and interest. Philosophy has 
 other functions besides the mere registry of facts ; in 
 the last resort, and chiefly, it has for its object the 
 discovery of the significance of experience. If, how- 
 ever. Professor Upton had merely had this upon his 
 heart, the establishment of responsibility, he could 
 have realised his object by adopting pluralism. But 
 he wished to give to morality a supreme object 
 and the sublimest possible source, and so passed 
 on to monism. Otherwise expressed, although 
 morality is necessary in order to give meaning to 
 
1 84 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 experience, morality itself demands a goal, an ethical 
 object, a God. And so free-will can only be accepted 
 along with a theodicy, and the one of these is 
 pluralistic, while the other is monistic. 
 
 Parallel to the paradox of Naturalism and that of 
 Objective Idealism, then, we have the paradox of Free- 
 will Idealism, and the attempt that was seen first in 
 the case of Romanes to shake free from the paradox of 
 Naturalism is only successful in introducing the thinker 
 to a new paradox. While the paradox of Naturalism 
 consisted in the ascription of a merely empirical validity 
 to truth, and that of Objective Idealism made truth to 
 vary in reality according to the degree of the absolute 
 which it displayed, the paradox of Free-will Idealism 
 consists in its recognition of truth of two types, one in 
 one sphere of experience and one in another, the two 
 types being equally valid and yet incommensurable. 
 
 Having explained his doctrine of the reality of 
 the individual soul and its relation to the absolute, 
 Professor Upton proceeds to that task which he 
 regards as the special and peculiar object of the 
 philosophy of religion, namely, the development of 
 the content of our consciousness of God. In con- 
 formity with his theory of knowledge, he regards a 
 valid doctrine of God as perfectly justifiable, a living 
 and continuously progressive doctrine obtained by 
 the synthesis of those elements which are given in 
 the understanding and in the moral consciousness. 
 This doctrine of God he terms " Christian Theism," 
 and he begins his discussion of it by dealing with the 
 idea of God as given in the understanding. 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM AND RELIGION 185 
 
 Just as the ancient Greeks believe that there 
 must be one physical element from which the whole 
 cosmos was developed — fire, water, air — so it used to 
 be assumed that religion had its origin from one 
 particular human faculty, or one definite original act 
 of revelation. So, as noted in an earlier chapter, 
 Schopenhauer traced religion back to the wondering 
 fear of man, and so many of the orthodox Christian 
 teachers have regarded religion, even in its debased 
 forms, to be indirectly at least traceable to the inter- 
 course in Eden between Adam and God. Professor 
 Upton, moved by this irresistible tendency of thought 
 to find the origin of religion, observes that, instead of 
 one, there are many influences which awaken religious 
 faith. One of the most important of these is the 
 search for a satisfactory First Cause of all phenomena. 
 Among the many forms of belief resulting from this 
 search — some of them generally termed philosophies, 
 and some religions or theologies — is one, very frequent 
 among primitive peoples, in which a Spirit, like to that 
 of man himself, is assum.ed to be behind phenomena 
 and so to explain them. It is just in this way, says 
 Professor Upton, that many men of high culture con- 
 ceive of God : He is a Spirit just like themselves. But 
 this is an unsatisfactory and superficial conception, 
 and it is in opposition to this that our author sets 
 up his doctrine of the unfolding of the idea of God 
 from the religious consciousness of man. For this 
 unfolding of the religious consciousness cannot be a 
 mere postulationof humanity to God, since there is at 
 least one element in the human spirit which can have 
 
1 86 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 absolutely no counterpart in the absolute, and that 
 is the feeling of dependence. The absolute exists in 
 and of itself, depending upon no other than itself. 
 This element then, and any similarly " human " 
 characteristics, must not be used in our endeavour to 
 unfold the knowledge of God from our religious con- 
 sciousness. We must limit the process to those 
 elements which are universal. We are indeed justi- 
 fied in saying that in the human spirit there is this 
 universal, which is therefore shared with the absolute. 
 And the universal is simply this : Man is conscious 
 that he himself is a cause. Professor Upton knows 
 of course that it may be questioned whether this is 
 after all shared with the absolute, and that it may be 
 asserted that the consciousness of causation is a purely 
 human thing. But he warns us to bear in mind 
 the fact that there are two types of causality which 
 are very generally confused, namely, (i) that with 
 which natural science deals as the condition of change 
 in time and space; (2) that with which philosophy 
 has to do as the cause sufficient to itself, which calls 
 into being those very temporal and spatial sequences 
 which science endeavours to describe. It is the fallacy 
 of the cosmological proof of the being of God that it 
 confuses these two types of causality, and makes God 
 but the first of a series of causes in the scientific sense. 
 Professor Upton maintains that it is only by reference 
 to our own inward sense of causation, our conscious- 
 ness of freedom, that we can conceive of a First Cause 
 at all. The analogy of physical " causation " is wholly 
 misleading. It is misleading indeed even to think of 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM AND RELIGION 187 
 
 the " First Cause" as first in order of time. It must 
 rather be conceived as the one permanent dynamical 
 ground of being. 
 
 But not only have philosophers by their cosmo- 
 logical proof confused the two types of cause : 
 theologians have attempted to describe the Being with 
 whom religion enables men to enter into communion 
 in similar terms. Originally God is described by 
 religious men in strong, concrete, vivid terms expres- 
 sive of the emotions which they experience in His 
 presence. Such terms as these are the proper "unfold- 
 ing " of the consciousness of God. The terms after- 
 ward invented to rationalise this description of God, a 
 description often grotesque, always anthropomorphic, 
 and never abstract, are of a very different character. 
 The theologians who use them probably feel that the 
 passage from " Jehovah " to " First Cause " is an 
 advance. As a matter of fact, it is an effort to identify 
 a religious content with a scientific concept. The 
 religious content is akin to the will which all men 
 experience — ^that is. Professor Upton's second class 
 of causality — while the scientific concept is an abstrac- 
 tion from observed nature. Professor Upton's first 
 class of causality. Here it is then that the cosmo- 
 logical proof breaks down. This proof undertakes a 
 regressus along the chain of causation in order to 
 come to the first element in that chain. But such a 
 regressus can never come to an end. It passes on to 
 infinity. The creation of the world by God would 
 be but one link in the chain, and God Himself could 
 never be proved in this sense to be the First Cause. 
 
i88 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 Indeed, the cosmological proof may be termed a 
 scientific proof of the existence of a First Cause, which 
 First Cause, however, would be a negation of the 
 scientific notion of causation. That is, the chain of 
 scientific causality, treated as an infinite regressus, 
 requires the absolute philosophic cause (Professor 
 Upton's second type) for its own explanation.* 
 
 True to his metaphysical monism. Professor Upton 
 will not separate these two kinds of causation except 
 in thought. The dualism is only epistemological. 
 Causation is really a single or unified principle. "The 
 cause which the man who is in a religious mood 
 is thinking about, and yearning to be in complete 
 harmony with, is a present cause," and must be the 
 same in nature as in the heart, or the man is divided 
 against himself. That is to say, all causation is 
 ultimately the same, and is in nature not the abstract 
 causation of science, but the vivid reality of conscious- 
 ness. " The Theist's God is the cause of all causes, 
 the soul of all souls." We have already seen how 
 Martineau describes causation as being of the nature 
 of will. This is Professor Upton's doctrine also. 
 " The tendency of modern science," he says, " is to 
 regard the cosmos as the manifested effects of the 
 
 • Cf. Dr. Fraser's edition of Locke's Essay, Book II., chap, xxi., 
 p. 372, note: "The infinite succession of antecedents, to wliich 
 all natural explanations conduct, is ultimately as mysterious as the 
 mystery of origination or creation of His own volitions by a moral 
 Agent. The caused causes of science and the power superior to 
 but in harmony with them, presupposed in a moral Agent, are both 
 mysteries." This, though stated in metaphysical terms, implies 
 the epistemology of Free-will Idealism. 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM AND RELIGION 189 
 
 constant activity of innumerable dynamic agencies, 
 which reciprocally affect each other's movements, 
 and thus change the visible forms of bodies." The 
 inner side, so to speak, of these changes cannot of 
 course be noted by science, but seems to be "essentially 
 the same as the human self — will." God then is the 
 immediate ground and cause of all being, except 
 the ethical decisions of men in which another will 
 than God's is being exercised. 
 
 This notion of God presupposes and explains that 
 feeling of personal relation between the finite and 
 the infinite spirit which is the heart of all true 
 religion, and thus our Free-will Idealist reaches his 
 conclusion that, judged by the empirical criterion of 
 truth, the understanding, reflecting upon the idea of 
 God, says that God is the cause of all. 
 
 Professor Upton then proceeds to discuss the 
 problem of the being of God viewed in the light of 
 the ethical side of man's nature. He is never tired 
 of insisting that the neglect of this cannot result in a 
 high type of religion {e.g., in Greek and Hindoo 
 worship), and finally must lead to Pantheism. 
 Religion passes to a higher form capable of higher 
 thought concerning God, where, as pre-eminently in 
 the case of the Semites, the moral consciousness is 
 assumed to give the norm of religious truth. Each of 
 these types is one-sided. Though the one form leads to 
 Pantheism and the undervaluing of the human soul, the 
 other, neglecting the rational or natural ideals, results 
 in indifference to the cosmos and consequent failure 
 to make any advance in either philosophy or science. 
 
190 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 The proper method then, the method which Professor 
 Upton himself adopts, is to pay equal attention to both 
 the rational and the moral elements in human con- 
 sciousness as giving guidance in the search after 
 God. He therefore regards the ideal of duty as of 
 the highest importance — an ideal at least as imperative 
 as the ideal of logic or consistent thought. Is this 
 ideal, which plays so conspicuous a part in human 
 consciousness, capable of resolution into any other 
 element of consciousness ? No. To trace the rise 
 of the present sense of duty from less significant 
 or elaborate ethical beginnings affords no proper 
 explanation. Sociological considerations and refer- 
 ence to heredity and environment are equally unsatis- 
 factory. Nor will Professor Upton accept the Comtist 
 theory that the idea of duty is a mere attribute of 
 humanity, quite foreign to the cosmos as a whole. 
 The peculiar character of the moral ideal, he maintains, 
 is explicable along theological lines alone. That 
 feeling of reverence and homage which is called 
 forth by the contemplation of noble moral types of 
 humanity must be more than an illusion, even more 
 than an illusion operating for the evolution of a higher 
 type of man. It testifies to the reality of the ideal. 
 
 Professor Upton makes his position the more pro- 
 nounced by repudiating the Kantian doctrine that 
 the moral law is the categorical imperative of our 
 own nature, instead of the categorical imperative of 
 God or ultimate reality. Not that he would identify 
 religion with, or replace it by, ethics, but that he 
 regards the two as standing in very close relation, 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM AND RELIGION 191 
 
 the one being explicable only in conjunction with the 
 other. Ethics, he says,* "is simply the growing insight 
 into and the effort to actualise in society that sense 
 of fundamental kinship and identity of substance in 
 all men, while religion is the emotion and the devotion 
 which attend the realisation in our self-consciousness 
 of an inmost spiritual relationship arising out of the 
 unity of substance which constitutes man the true son 
 of the Eternal Father." 
 
 This view, implying as it does a theological account 
 of ethics, can of course only be justified by the assump- 
 tion of that dualistic theory of knowledge which gives 
 a high place to " ethical insight." A merely natural- 
 istic or consistently Objective Idealist monistic 
 epistemology must reduce the moral sense either 
 to the insignificant position of an epiphenomenon, 
 or to the untrustworthy position of subjective appear-, 
 ance. Neither of these theories can regard conscience 
 as real. 
 
 Having gained this point, which gives to conscience 
 the last word in enunciating religious truth. Professor 
 Upton concludes by insisting that the moral ideal at 
 its highest gives to love the place of greatest worth 
 and reverence. Thus, in the process of unfolding the 
 human consciousness in order to arrive at the idea of 
 God, the part that moral insight plays is to declare 
 that God is a moral Being, and ultimately is love. 
 
 This declaration, it must be clearly remembered, is 
 impossible without the ethical, and therefore the dual, 
 criterion of truth. A mere rationalising of experience 
 • 0/. dt., p. 26a. 
 
192 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 does not justify it. By inductive examination of 
 nature and history no such result can be obtained. 
 Where it seems to be obtained a vicious circle is in 
 reality made, the idea of a God who is love being 
 among the premisses from which the conclusion is 
 drawn. But if, says Professor Upton, belief in God 
 as love is based upon that principle, which every 
 religious spirit confirms for himself, that the highest 
 ethical ideals are realised when conduct is freely 
 determined by a rational and yet self-denying love, 
 the moral criterion of truth is justified in maintaining 
 as proven the doctrine that God is not only cause, 
 but also love. This conclusion must be observed 
 in complete simplicity. It is not that one of the 
 two — cause or love — in any way nullifies the other, 
 or is subordinate to the other, but it is that each 
 of them must be given an independent and unchal- 
 lenged place, in order that the unfolding of the 
 human consciousness of God may be complete and 
 unbiassed. 
 
 Finally, Professor Upton maintains that this rational 
 statement of religion is to be discovered in the teaching 
 of Jesus. Not necessarily in Christianity, for " Christi- 
 anity " comprises, as represented by the great variety 
 of nations and civilisations which profess it, many 
 one-sided or corrupt forms. But in the personality 
 of Jesus this true and final religion is adequately 
 expressed. 
 
 As a further illustration of the application of the dual 
 criterion of truth we may glance briefly at Professor 
 Upton's discussion of the problem of immortality. 
 
FREE-WILL IDEALISM AND RELIGION 193 
 
 Is there a future life ? Science cannot demonstrate 
 either one way or the other. It cannot even assert 
 the impossibility of another body being attainable by 
 the dead ; indeed, it seems rather to favour such a 
 possibility. There is no certainty obtainable one way 
 or the other, negative or positive. For the Theist 
 this uncertainty is quite justifiable. " If earth is really 
 to be a place for the growth of disinterested goodness 
 and virtue, then scientifically demonstrable knowledge 
 as to the eternal consequences of moral conduct must 
 be withheld." A faith then in immortality is possible, 
 though no certainty. Indeed, morality insists upon 
 it ; ethical insight encourages the natural hope of man 
 that death is no extinction of his being. Man feels 
 that the divinity immanent in his own consciousness 
 would be baffled if this life were all, and so he believes, 
 and rightly believes, in a hereafter. 
 
 In this case we see that the rational criterion of 
 truth cannot be applied. Applied to God, it resulted 
 in the idea of causation ; applied to immortality, it 
 remains silent. But the moral criterion, which gives 
 the idea of love in reference to God, gives belief in 
 immortality in reference to death. And so in this 
 case, where only one principle of knowledge is appli- 
 cable, the Free-will Idealist can only talk of faith — a 
 mode of certainty somewhat lower than that which is 
 guaranteed where both the principles of knowledge 
 — reason and moral insight — may be called into play. 
 
 N 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 
 
 It is but a step to pass from Professor Upton's 
 Free-will Idealism to the more rigidly representative 
 exposition of the Christian world-view as set forth by 
 the " orthodox " theologians. Not that we would set 
 philosophy and theology in any radical opposition, 
 for in a very real sense theology is a department of 
 philosophy (though it is also more than this) ; and 
 the modern apologist must make use of weapons 
 common to all philosophers if he would defend Chris- 
 tianity from scepticism, or victoriously attack rival 
 explanations of the universe and theories concerning 
 God.* 
 
 • In that most suggestive and illuminating volume " The Soul of 
 a Christian" (p. 17), Professor Granger thus formulates the relation 
 between theology and the philosophy of religion : " The philosophy 
 of religion deals with its subject as related to human experience 
 generally, whereas theology tends to confine itself within the limits 
 laid down by tradition, whether the tradition take the form of 
 certain documents, or certain institutions, or both of these together." 
 While there is obviously much truth in this statement, it seems to 
 be open to two radical criticisms. First, to say that the subject- 
 matter of theology is limited by tradition is not to distinguish 
 theology from the philosophy of religion, for the subject-matter of 
 philosophy, and even of natural science, is equally traditional. In 
 each of these three disciplines tradition supplies a point of view for 
 the examination and judgment of what is given actually in present 
 
THEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 195 
 
 A typical exposition of the Christian world-view 
 is to be found in Professor James Orr's volume " The 
 Christian View of God and the World." There are, 
 of course, many whose works might be cited, and 
 who, though differing very greatly theologically, 
 nevertheless represent through theology the point 
 of view of Free-will Idealism. * 
 
 These thinkers claim for Christianity not merely 
 a religious, but also a philosophical, value inasmuch 
 as Christianity witnesses to the reality of the super- 
 natural as well as the supernatural character of the 
 real. We have already seen how Huxley is of the 
 opinion that the intellectual battle of the age is being 
 fought out between Naturalism and Supernaturalism. 
 On this point the theologians agree with the Agnostics, 
 
 experience. In the second place, the subject-matter of theology is 
 to be distinguished from that of philosophy on epistemological 
 grounds. Theology has ultimately to do with articles of faith, 
 while philosophy, like science, is in the last analysis concerned 
 with elements of knowledge. Even when dealing with the articles 
 of faith of theology, philosophy has to treat them as objects of 
 possible knowledge. But it is the function of theology to test, 
 describe, and reorganise the mutual relations of articles of faith in 
 order that they may form d. setting for the doctrine of God appro- 
 priate to the given epoch. The exposition of articles of faith is a 
 function quite foreign to philosophy. Their restatement, however, 
 in a modern terminology is an exercise of the same dialectic which 
 philosophy makes use of. In short, theology is peculiar in that 
 it pronounces value-judgments, but is similar to philosophy in 
 systematising those value judgments once made. It is right to 
 observe that in Chap. I. of his book Professor Granger properly 
 draws out this very distinction. It should be recognised, however, 
 as fundamental. 
 
 * A few may be named : A. B. Bruce ; the essayist R. H. Hutton ; 
 Professors Fairbairn, lUingworth, Denney, Tymms, and Adeney ; 
 Revs. H. Scott Holland, C. Gore, and Aubrey Moore. 
 
 N 2 
 
196 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 and set Christianity over against all other views of 
 the world which do not agree that only upon the 
 assumption of the supernatural can the natural be 
 explained. Thus Professor Orr says : " The issue we 
 have to face is totally misconceived when it is turned 
 into a question of belief in this or that particular miracle, 
 or of miracles in general, regarded as mere external 
 appendages to Christianity. The question is . . . 
 about the whole conception of Christianity — what it 
 is, and whether the supernatural does not enter into 
 the very essence of it. It is the general question of 
 a supernatural or a non-supernatural conception of 
 the universe. Is there a supernatural Being, God ? 
 Is there a supernatural government of the world ? Is 
 there a supernatural relation of man and God, so that 
 God and man may have communion with one another ? 
 Is there a supernatural revelation .' Has that revela- 
 tion culminated in a supernatural Person, Christ ? " * 
 So far as this is philosophical rather than specifically 
 theological, it may be summed up in a phrase of 
 Principal Fairbairn's : " Theology is the interpretation 
 of the universe through the idea of God,"t that is, 
 through the idea of a supernatural Being. In this 
 particular, then, the aim of theology is exactly that 
 of philosophy : it endeavours to explain or to describe 
 the universe. But its method is different from the 
 method of philosophy. 
 
 The method of philosophy is to proceed from 
 the smallest possible number of assumptions, and 
 
 • " The Christian View," p. lo. 
 t " Religion in History," p. ga. 
 
THEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 197 
 
 from these by deduction to elaborate a system which 
 will describe experience. Thus Descartes begins with 
 the axiom, apparently so very simple, "Cogito sum," 
 and upon this slight basis rears his doctrine of man, 
 of nature, and of God. Thus Kant, starting with the 
 new principle that mind supplies the form in which 
 experience is apprehended, concludes that this form 
 has logical priority to the experience as present, but 
 is unable to furnish us with any knowledge of reality 
 beyond the limits of experience, and then, having 
 thus defined the sphere of knowledge, sets up by 
 means of the categorical imperative a possible faith 
 in God, the soul, and a future state, a faith which is 
 beyond the criticism of pure reason. And thus, too, 
 Spencer erects his synthetic philosophy, culminating 
 as it does in the doctrine of the unknowable God, 
 upon the. two principles of relativity and evolution. 
 
 It is at once apparent that each one of these 
 thinkers has his definite doctrine concerning God, but 
 this doctrine is logically one of the last results, if not 
 actually the last result, of his train of philosophical 
 deduction. In the case of theology the doctrine of 
 God occupies the entirely opposite position. Instead 
 of being the final result, it is the earliest assumption. 
 Theology assumes that as given the existence of 
 which philosophy endeavours to prove, and starts out 
 to explain the universe with that idea of God which 
 contemplation of the universe alone ultimately justifies 
 philosophy in receiving. The philosophic idea of God 
 is not given at all ; it is deduced, and is consequently 
 abstract, formal, and in some cases even empty. The 
 
198 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 religious idea of God, on the contrary, is concrete, full 
 of character, living, given (or, expressed theologically, 
 revealed) in certain documents, institutions, and 
 experiences. 
 
 The theological method is criticised from two 
 points of view. i. Those who think it the proper 
 function of theology to explain the universe declare 
 this method logically vicious because guilty of 
 the fallacy of ignotum per ignotius. 2. It is often 
 asserted that the theological method is radically 
 tainted with the ancient error of anthropomorphism. 
 
 With regard to the first criticism, it may be said 
 that the criticism itself implies a complete misappre- 
 hension of the intention of theology. It is not the 
 work of theology to explain " the universe " in the 
 sense of that natural order which the sciences describe. 
 The work of the theologian is, in its most general 
 statement, the description of the religious life as given 
 (of course, then, some definite religion, as Christianity). 
 The subject-matter of the theologian (the religious 
 life) includes God. The theologian accepts God as 
 given, just as the chemist accepts oxygen, or the 
 physicist matter. God is given, and nature is given, 
 and man is given. The theologian seeks to interpret 
 all the elements of his " world " in terms mutually 
 harmonious, and so he has to explain the universe, 
 in the narrower sense, by reference to God, just as 
 no description of God which he could make would 
 be satisfactory unless its terms were properly related 
 to nature and man. 
 
 In regard to thecharge of anthropomorphism, three 
 
THEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 199 
 
 observations should be made. First, when it is a 
 man who thinks, thought must be always more or less 
 anthropomorphic. Human thought can only cease to 
 be anthropomorphic when it ceases to be human. 
 Man cannot run away from his own shadow, or jump 
 out of his own skin. So there is an anthropomorphism 
 which is legitimate because necessary. But there is 
 also an illegitimate anthropomorphism, one in which 
 metaphors derived from human functions or qualities 
 are applied as literally appropriate to either super- 
 human or subhuman objects, as, for instance, when the 
 physicist [ff. Erasmus Darwin's " Loves of Plants ") 
 speaks of atoms as bound together by love, or 
 when the theologian ascribes his own weaknesses 
 to God. 
 
 In the second place, always providing that the 
 theological anthropomorphism is legitimate in the 
 sense just described, this anthropomorphism cannot 
 properly be found guilty of the fallacy of explaining 
 the unknown by the still less known. For the theo- 
 logian, relying upon his dual criterion of truth, 
 maintains that the one thing which we are in a 
 position to know thoroughly is the self. He regards, 
 for instance, the explanation of causation by reference 
 to the human will as far less suspicious than the 
 explanation of the human will by reference to what 
 we can observe of physical causation ! As a matter of 
 fact, it is the will which is the better known of the two. 
 And so too with the interpretation of the universe 
 through the idea of God. The idea of God is arrived 
 at by the unfolding of what has been called the human 
 
200 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 " God-consciousness." That is, it is in the most 
 intimate elements of man's personal experience that 
 the notion, or rather the fact, of God is given. The 
 immediate is chosen to supply the explanation of that 
 which is only indirectly known. 
 
 In the third place, we should remember the im- 
 portant distinction to which notice has already been 
 drawn. The theological explanation of the universe 
 in no sense rivals the scientific explanation. For 
 science deals with sequences and co-existences — 
 mere description ; whereas theology handles religion, 
 which deals exclusively with values, with significance. 
 And significance can only be discovered in what is 
 outside the soul by the anthropomorphic method. 
 
 Along with the idea of God theology, like philo- 
 sophy, must operate with an idea of man and an 
 idea of nature. These two ideas are naturally to 
 some extent modified by the idea of God ; that is, the 
 unfolding of " consciousness of God " given in religion 
 involves certain consequences for the theological view 
 of man and nature. Not that theology discards or 
 refuses to take into consideration non-theological 
 anthropology and cosmology, but that to the data of 
 these branches of science it adds the data which 
 religion affords. Theology regards all its subject- 
 matter as given. Some, however, is given by obser- 
 vation or demonstration, and some is given by 
 revelation. 
 
 Thus theology maintains that there are two 
 sources of knowledge. The first is reason, or nature 
 (according as the process or the object is taken into 
 
THEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 201 
 
 account), and the second revelation or the super- 
 natural. We cannot here inquire into the marks by 
 which revelation is to be recognised. That is a 
 distinctly theological problem. It is sufficient to our 
 purpose to draw attention to this theological dual 
 criterion of truth, and to point out that it is in reality 
 homologous with the epistemological dualism of 
 Free-will Idealism, the " natural " truth of theology 
 representing the empirical truth of Free-will Idealism, 
 and ■' revelation " representing intuitive knowledge. 
 
 It is on this basis that a double theology has 
 arisen, the natural and the revealed, though theo- 
 logians hesitate to speak of revealed theology, 
 contenting themselves with the phrase "revealed 
 religion." Dualism of epistemology results in dualism 
 of theology.* 
 
 Hence it is that some theologians lay greater weight 
 
 * It is not here implied that all theologians consciously and in 
 so many words accept the dual criterion of truth. What is meant 
 is, that their practice really involves this dualism. Many theologians 
 are at pains to repudiate the double standard, though generally 
 having in view the mediaeval doctrine of the twofold way, as 
 represented, for instance, by Thomas Aquinas in his " Summa contra 
 Gentiles." But some deliberately attack all epistemological dualism. 
 A typical instance is to be found in Professor Denney's " Studies in 
 Theology." "The separation," he says, " of the religious and the 
 scientific means in the end the separation of the religious and the 
 true." Nevertheless he himself implies the dual criterion when he 
 adds that " the apprehension of religious truth is conditioned in a 
 way in which the apprehension of the truths of physical science is 
 not." He brings in the moral factor in much the same way, and 
 with the same ultimate epistemological result, as do Martineau and 
 Professor Upton. Cf. Mr. lUingworth, " Personality, Human and 
 Divine, " chap. v. ; Rev. Aubrey Moore in " Lux Mundi " ; Professor 
 Orr in " Ritschlian Theology," chap. viii. 
 
202 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 upon the natural, others upon the revealed, theology, 
 according as they incline to view religion from its 
 rational or its mystical side. Naturally the tempera- 
 ment of the particular theologian will play a con- 
 siderable part in this variation, and what may be 
 called " fashions in thinking " will also not be without 
 their influence. In times when natural science bulks 
 large in the popular mind great efforts will be made 
 to show that its data are readily taken up in the 
 theological system, as toward the end of the nine- 
 teenth century. In times when a speculative 
 rationalism sways the public mind the part played 
 by revelation is made little of, and the harmony of 
 theological tenets with common-sense will be dis- 
 played with elaborate care, as during the early 
 eighteenth century. It is not unlikely that in the era 
 now commencing, when the insufficiency of Positivism 
 is very generally felt, the dependence of the theologian 
 upon revelation for his truth will be admitted with 
 greater freedom and less apology. 
 
 Though it is not our intention here to deal 
 largely with purely theological matters, some account 
 of the teaching of Christian dogma relative to God, 
 man, and nature should be given, it being remembered 
 that theology regards these elements as given to the 
 thinker just as any other scientist treats his subject- 
 matter as given. 
 
 I. Christian Theism. 
 
 Natural Theism has been practically given up. The 
 basis upon which belief in God rests is ultimately 
 revelation, God being regarded as standing in personal 
 
THEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 203 
 
 and moral relation to man, and so making Himself 
 known to man by an immediate appeal to the 
 totality of man's spiritual nature, his moral and 
 aesthetic sense as well as his reason. Not that by 
 any analysis of the processes of faith it is believed that 
 the means of revelation can be finally explained. It 
 is the will of God that man should know Him, and 
 this alone explains the fact that man does know Him. 
 But for this will of God, resulting in revelation, 
 man by exercising all his reason upon nature and 
 upon himself could never prove the existence of 
 God, let alone discover His attributes. That is to 
 say, the so-called proofs of the being of God are 
 rejected as proofs, being merely retained in order 
 to refute the charge of antagonism to reason often 
 brought against theology.* 
 
 Divine revelation is of a very complicated character, 
 embracing as it does the whole field of human ex- 
 perience. It has been transmitted to man, so far 
 as the higher types of mankind are concerned (for 
 it is only among such types that theology is pro- 
 perly possible), primarily by inspired personalities, 
 innumerable prophets and teachers, but chiefly, 
 and finally, Jesus Christ; secondarily by means of 
 documents which still exist, and which have been 
 written by, or under the influence of, the inspired 
 
 • " There can be no proofs, in the strict sense of the word, of the 
 existence of God": Mr. Aubrey Moore in "Lux Mundi." Cf. 
 Professor Denney, " Studies in Theology," Lecture I. ; Professor 
 Knight, "Aspects of Theism," chaps, iv. and v.; Professor Orr, 
 " The Christian View," p. 94. 
 
204 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 personalities ; and thirdly by means of an organisa- 
 tion, or a group of related organisations, which has, 
 by the principles of its foundation and the personality 
 of its leaders, had the benefit of divine guidance. 
 
 But while these three are regarded as the definite 
 historical channels of revelation — inspired persons, 
 inspired literature (the Bible), and inspired society 
 (the Church) — it is generally, though for the 
 most part tacitly, believed that revelation may be 
 directly imparted to the believer at the present day. 
 But all these forms are ultimately to be reduced to 
 the one : inspiration. 
 
 Inspiration, then — direct intercourse between God 
 and the human soul — that is the sole and fundamental 
 form of revelation. Thus the doctrine of revelation 
 involves the doctrine of a certain kinship between 
 God and the human soul. This view of man and 
 God as in communion due to kinship is the root 
 principle of every true religion, either explicitly or 
 implicitly. It binds theology of necessity to supra- 
 naturalism, and its tendency is to move toward 
 Mysticism. Indeed, it may be said that all theology 
 has a considerable element of Mysticism. When this 
 becomes dominant, the thought passes from Free-will 
 towards Objective Idealism. 
 
 Before passing away from the Christian doctrine of 
 God, we must notice its characteristic peculiarity, 
 namely the doctrine of the Trinity. In its philoso- 
 phical aspect this is of great significance. While 
 distinctly derived from revelation, it is nevertheless to 
 be regarded as in harmony with all that is given by 
 
THEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 205 
 
 experience, not only in relation to God, but also in 
 the Christian view of nature and man. Theologians 
 insist upon it, not merely because of Christian tradi- 
 tion, but because it satisfies certain intellectual 
 demands. Thus it is maintained that the doctrine of 
 the Trinity is " the only safeguard in reason for a 
 permanent theistic belief";* and that it embodies the 
 truth of all alternative views of reality without one- 
 sidedness, being the " synthesis of all the separate 
 elements of truth found in Agnosticism, Pantheism, 
 and Deism." + 
 
 It is true that some of the most influential of 
 Christian writers on the philosophy of religion reject 
 the doctrine of the Trinity,! but it is nevertheless 
 retained and very carefully defended by the great 
 majority of modern English theologians. 
 
 2. The Christian cosmology affirms " that all 
 things, visible and invisible, have originated from 
 God by a free act of creation." This position may 
 readily be expounded in such a way as to set forth 
 a metaphysical monism. Thus such an Objective 
 Idealist as Green would regard creation as involving 
 the necessary unfolding of the universe out of the 
 absolute, or as implying that the universe is indeed 
 one with, though not, so to speak, co-terminous with, 
 the absolute. Those who reject metaphysical monism, 
 however, regard the human will as rendered indepen- 
 dent of the Creator by the very act of its creation. 
 
 • " Lux Mundi," II., § 7. 
 
 f Professor J. Orr. 
 
 X E^^ Martineau and Professor Upton. 
 
2o6 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 Some are not content with marking off the free human 
 will from the substance of God, but go further and 
 treat matter itself as existing in some way or other as 
 eternally separate from God, regarding it much as 
 Aristotle did his v\ri* These writers reject meta- 
 physical monism chiefly on the ground that it is 
 incompatible with the freedom of the individual. 
 
 The investigation of nature is left by theology 
 wholly to natural science. Theology as such has no 
 power of discovering or describing what is in the 
 natural world. It makes the general affirmation that 
 nature (i) is not God, (2) is not self-created, (3) is 
 created by God. These are all affirmations which 
 science cannot check or properly criticise, and they 
 are independent of scientific verification. They are 
 derived from revelation, or, philosophically expressed, 
 they are intuitively known. 
 
 3. Christian anthropology. 
 
 Man may be regarded on the one side as an 
 element of nature, and so a part of that which God 
 has created. But he is more than an element of 
 nature : he is the highest element in nature, and may 
 be described as the goal at which nature realises its 
 highest possibilities. Adopting teleological language, 
 it may be said that the production of man is the pur- 
 pose of nature. There are various lower purposes, such 
 as the happiness of sentient creatures, and there are 
 undoubtedly divine purposes infinitely higher in the 
 supernatural world, but, so far as nature is concerned, 
 
 * Thus Martineau, "A Study of Religiorij" pp. 403 — 408 ; "The 
 Seat of Authority in Religion," pp. 32, 33. 
 
THEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 207 
 
 man is its crown and supreme purpose. But Qiristian 
 theology regards man as also belonging himself to 
 the supernatural world, for he is spirit as well as 
 body, will as well as matter, and so is able to enter 
 into communion with God as well as with nature. 
 His spirit is " in the image of God," * because he is 
 rational and moral. There is then a certain divinity 
 about man, a potential infinity in his nature. He is 
 a cause himself by virtue of free-will, much as God is 
 the First Cause. Thus he is able to rise above the 
 merely phenomenal and to conceive infinity. It is 
 characteristic of Christian anthropology then to 
 assert the freedom of man within the limits imposed 
 by his relations to nature, his fellows, and God, and 
 his kinship with the divine as a rational and moral 
 being, that is, by reason of his relations to nature, 
 his fellows, and God. 
 
 The significance of this anthropology of theological 
 Free-will Idealism is more clearly seen when compared 
 with the other doctrines of man. Thus : — 
 
 1. Naturalism explains man by reference to the 
 idea of nature. Man, like the physical order of which 
 he is regarded as an integral part, is wholly determined 
 by natural law, and his consciousness is epipheno- 
 menal, a mere accompaniment of mechanism. 
 
 2. Objective Idealism explains man by reference 
 to the idea of the absolute. Nature is a congeries of 
 phenomena dependent upon a spiritual noumenal 
 principle, and consciousness is of the same category, 
 though endowed with a greater degree of reality ; 
 
 * C/, Professor Laidlaw, " Bible Doctrine of Man," Lecture IV. 
 
2o8 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 while free-will is an illusion, seeing there is but one 
 real will, that of the absolute, which determines man 
 and nature alike. 
 
 3. Free-will Idealism explains man by reference to 
 his own subjective experience. The highest reality 
 directly known to him is his own consciousness, from 
 which he is able to unfold whatever knowledge of 
 God he possesses ; his will, which is central to his own 
 consciousness, is itself a cause determining within 
 certain limits his own experience. Of this Free-will 
 Idealism Christian theology is a variant, explaining 
 all by reference to that idea of God which has been 
 derived from revelation to the soul itself (counter- 
 part of the process of " unfolding the consciousness of 
 God " ), regarding the soul as divine in essence and 
 potentially infinite (counterpart of the philosophic 
 doctrine of will as a free cause), and nature as 
 subservient to the soul (counterpart of the view of 
 nature as the sphere in which spiritual causation 
 operates). Thus theology expresses the teaching of 
 Free-will Idealism in its own technical terms. 
 
 The answer then which theologians give to the ques- 
 tion, "What is the nature of religious truth?" is not 
 without ambiguity. They do not actually teach duality 
 of knowledge. Knowledge is one ; truth is one. Scien- 
 tific truth and religious truth are really alike both in 
 nature and validity. Nevertheless, though repudiating 
 any fundamental distinction between religious and 
 scientific truth, they assert that religious truth comes 
 through other channels than scientific truth, and is to 
 be recognised by different marks. Theologians are 
 
THEOLOGICAL IDEALISM 209 
 
 not quite certain as to the terms upon which scientific 
 knowledge is to be admitted into theological systems, 
 nor do they very rigorously classify elements of 
 knowledge included in dogma as of scientific or 
 religious origin or nature. The truths of theology 
 are regarded as all of equal validity whatever may be 
 their sphere of origin — very close scrutiny into the 
 propriety of the claim of individual doctrines to be 
 revealed, or the result of inspiration, is not general. 
 In short, the epistemological dualism of theology is 
 implicit, and not pronounced. It will be the work of 
 theologians in the future to come to a clearer appre- 
 hension of the epistemology which is thus implicit 
 in their science. Our next chapter will both show 
 the need of such an apprehension and indicate a 
 movement inevitably tending to produce it. 
 
 T, O 
 
CHAPTER X 
 RECENT CHANGES IN THEOLOGY 
 
 An intelligent study of Christian theology in its 
 relation to modern thought will very clearly show 
 that theological doctrine has undergone considerable 
 modification during recent years. It was Herbert 
 Spencer's notion that changes were forced upon 
 religion by science to the great profit and purification 
 of religion itself. One of the functions of science 
 was to prevent religion from becoming irreligious, 
 that is, from professing to know the unknowable. 
 " The beliefs which science has forced upon religion 
 have been intrinsically more religious than those they 
 have supplanted."* Spencer pictured science as 
 compelling religion little by little to admit that the 
 things it once thought it knew about God, it did not 
 really know, and he maintained that this process 
 would go on until religion and science would be 
 completely agreed, first, that nothing is knowable, 
 and, secondly, that all (or rather, the unknowable) 
 should be worshipped. 
 
 Huxley enjoyed a similar optimism, although it 
 must be admitted that he expected the finally 
 purified religion to have a larger content than that 
 
 * " First Principles," p. 104. 
 
RECENT CHANGES IN THEOLOGY 211 
 
 which Spencer would allow it. It was the notion 
 of the supernatural rather than that of the knowable 
 which Huxley expected science to chase from the 
 world. Huxley would be content with a religion 
 willing to regard the All as mechanical, without con- 
 sciousness or freedom. When once this cheerful view 
 had become general he believed that his own ideal 
 of religion would be realised, an ideal which he 
 described when he said, " I think it ought to mean 
 simply the reverence and love for the ethical ideal, 
 and the desire to realise that ideal in life." * It has 
 been difficult, however, for mere philosophers and 
 theologians to understand how he could expect even 
 his own ethical ideal, let alone reverence and love 
 for it, to survive " the banishment from all regions 
 of human thought of what we call spirit and 
 spontaneity." t 
 
 Theologians cannot, of course, deny the great 
 influence which science has exerted upon religious 
 doctrine. Nor need they in any way desire to 
 minimise that influence or the magnitude of the 
 changes which it has brought about. For it is in 
 complete harmony with the basis of theology that 
 as new facts concerning man and nature come to 
 light, new material is given to the theologian, 
 necessitating a revision of his opinions. In our 
 discussion of Free-will Idealism in its theological 
 form we saw that theologians regard the results of 
 science, as well as the facts of revelation, as data 
 
 * Nineteenth Century, February 1889. 
 
 t Essay " On the Physical Basis of Life." 
 
 O 2 
 
212 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 from which the doctrines of man and nature are 
 to be elaborated. The very fact that Naturalism 
 professes complete " agnosticism " regarding God, 
 should prevent its adherents from expecting Christian 
 Theism to be modified directly by evidence concerning 
 God, which science might bring forward. Theologians, 
 then, though gladly welcoming any data which 
 natural science may adduce, in no sense anticipate 
 the fulfilment of expectations such as those of 
 Spencer and Huxley. Changes in theology are 
 expected sometimes, it must be admitted, with a 
 touch of chagrin, and, when the nature of theology is 
 not so well understood, not without the threat of 
 desperate resistance. 
 
 In his "Christ in Modern Theology" Principal 
 Fairbairn gives a striking illustration of the general 
 change which theology has recently undergone. He 
 compares the library of a minister of religion of 1830 
 with one of 1 890, and notices a great difference in the 
 class of books upon the two sets of shelves. In the 
 earlier library are the works of the apologists of 
 the old school — Butler and Paley, Chalmers and 
 Whewell — with their proofs of the existence of God 
 and their refutation of the scepticism of Voltaire and 
 Hume. Then there are the works of such exegetes 
 as Michaelis, Grotius, Alexander Smith, Gesenius, 
 and Eichhorn, and volumes of dogmatic theology, 
 dealing mainly with the controversy between the 
 Calvinists and the Arminians, besides Harmonies 
 of the Gospels and carefully elaborated treatises on 
 miracles. In the modern library scarcely one of 
 
RECENT CHANGES IN THEOLOGY 213 
 
 those volumes will be found. In their places are 
 books dealing with the literary and historical criticism 
 of the Bible ; lives of Christ and the Apostles, 
 written by men of every type of thought ; every- 
 where historical criticism as vigorous as orthodox 
 apology, and very much more in evidence than 
 dogmatic theology. 
 
 What is the significance of this change ? Well, it 
 illustrates the transition from predominantly dogmatic 
 to the mainly scientific method in theology. It shows 
 that the theologian arms himself to-day with weapons 
 forged for him by the scientist. But this does not 
 at all mean that theology's occupation is gone, that 
 it can no longer render useful service. On the 
 contrary, these newer weapons are the promise of 
 a more vigorous offensive movement in the future, 
 and of greater success in defending hard won 
 positions. So far from science having destroyed 
 theology, it may be said to have greatly revived 
 what is after all a sister discipline. The modern 
 theologian, taking stock of all the changes in detail 
 which have been made in his dogmatic equipment, 
 is by no means disturbed or uneasiy. He knows that 
 religion in general, and Christianity in particular, are 
 independent of any particular dogmatic positions. 
 Religion is a life, and theology the description or 
 explanation of that life ; and changes in theology are 
 due in the main to a more abundant, and a better 
 understood, religious life. The increase of knowledge 
 naturally brings about changes in theology, and 
 accompanies the strengthening of religion. Stagnation 
 
214 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 in theology, not change, should occasion alarm ; for 
 change may properly be taken as an indication of 
 vitality. Religion is not dependent upon the intellect 
 for its life, but always expresses and defends itself by 
 means of such intellectual forms as are to hand. The 
 theories and knowledge of any given age provide 
 religion with the principles on which it will elaborate 
 its theology. A change in theology, then, is the 
 adaptation of religion to meet the changes in its 
 environment. It is the choice of such a language 
 in which to bear its witness, as will be most readily 
 understood. 
 
 Changes in theology, then, are in no sense denied 
 by theologians, and may be said to testify to the 
 vitality and growth of theology rather than to its 
 gradual attenuation under the criticism of science. 
 We will try to sketch, as briefly as possible, the 
 changes that are now taking place, in order that 
 their epistemological significance may be observed. 
 But since theological variations are constantly appear- 
 ing in every direction, in order that the importance 
 of the changes to which we shall attend may be 
 apparent, we must pause for a moment that we may 
 note what are the fundamental doctrines of Christian 
 theology. Their discovery will not be easy, for in 
 England there is no authoritative body of doctrine, 
 or institution, generally regarded as orthodox. The 
 Church of Rome, claiming infallibility with the assent 
 of a very large proportion of Christians in other lands, 
 has no pre-eminent status in England. Probably 
 less than half the British population is even nominally 
 
RECENT CHANGES IN THEOLOGY 215 
 
 attached to the Established Church ; and the greater 
 Free Churches, to one or other of which many of the 
 most eminent theologians belong, have no really- 
 authoritative standard of belief, some of them {e.g., 
 the Baptist denomination) having consistently refused 
 to adopt, not only the great historic Confessions, but 
 even any creed of their own making. We must, there- 
 fore, refuse to be drawn aside to the definition even 
 of those central theological themes round which 
 discussion generally moves, and refrain from any 
 elaboration of doctrine, either as professed at an 
 earlier date, or as held under more modern conditions 
 of thought. We shall have to restrict ourselves to 
 indicating the direction in which the change in 
 formulation of Christian doctrine generally is tending, 
 rather than fixing either the point at which the 
 change commenced, or the actual goal at which it 
 has arrived. 
 
 We have above considered at some length the 
 philosophic grounds upon which any given theological 
 doctrine is said to be true, and we have found 
 that those grounds are two — reason and intuition. 
 Intuition, however, is the abstract philosophical term, 
 and when we come to deal with particular doctrines 
 and the arguments advanced by apologists in their 
 support, we find that other and more concrete bases 
 of belief are assumed. Instead of dealing with the 
 abstract account of the way in which propositions 
 are apprehended, theologians appeal to the historical 
 sources of propositions, and inquire after the authority 
 of those sources. Authority takes the place of 
 
2i6 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 intuition. Now, among Catholics — Roman and 
 Anglican alike — authority resides in the Church 
 (or Christian tradition) and the Bible ; and since one 
 of the functions of the Church is to declare the true 
 content of the Bible in doctrines that become a part 
 of the Church tradition, it may be said that all 
 Catholic doctrine bases its claim to truth upon the 
 authority of the Church. 
 
 Among Protestants, however, the authority of the 
 Church is very vague, and at its clearest an inopera- 
 tive theory. In general it may be said that for 
 Protestant theology the Bible is the sole seat of 
 authority, being the sole valid formulation of revealed 
 truth apart from that which inspires the individual 
 with noble impulses and high ideals. It is properly 
 argued by many that the authority of the Bible is 
 derivative only, depending upon Christ for its ultimate 
 sanction. This view, however, we must here treat as 
 a particular case of that generally maintained by 
 Protestants. 
 
 It is obvious then that the doctrine relative to the 
 Bible and its inspiration is of profound importance to 
 the theologian, and anything which affects that 
 doctrine is bound to affect the whole system of 
 theology more or less. And so it is that the greatest 
 event in the theological world is a change which has, 
 during the last fifty years, come over the doctrine of 
 the Scriptures. Until the middle of last century, the 
 common and conclusive test of orthodoxy was the 
 letter of the Bible, for the Bible was regarded as 
 inspired in such a sense that its every statement was 
 
RECENT CHANGES IN THEOLOGY 217 
 
 absolutely true. The controversies of theologians 
 were mainly competitive catalogues of texts. But 
 during these two generations a new method of hand- 
 ling the Bible has become general.* To exegesis 
 has been added criticism. Previously the Bible had 
 been regarded as of so peculiarly supernatural an origin 
 that the ordinary canons of art and history were 
 inapplicable to it. It was a book sui generis. Alone 
 among the world's literature it could not err. Now, 
 however, all the methods of modern science, all the 
 discoveries of comparative religion, archaeology, 
 textual criticism and philological subtlety are made 
 use of to test the accuracy, and discover the true 
 meaning, of the sacred documents. The Bible is 
 treated as any other ancient document. The evidence 
 it supplies is compared with the evidence supplied by 
 other monuments. Its account of individual facts is 
 questioned in every conceivable way. The chief 
 results of this new way of treating the Bible have 
 been notable, and can no longer be called into ques- 
 tion by any man acquainted with Biblical scholar- 
 ship. Among them the following are of particular 
 importancet : — 
 
 1. The traditional account of the authorship and 
 date of many of the Biblical documents has been 
 proved mistaken. 
 
 2. Many of the beliefs of the Biblical authors, both 
 
 * C/. Canon Hensley Henson, "The Value of the Bible," 
 pp. 26 f. 
 
 t Cf. Drs. Kirkpatrick and Driver, "The Higher Criticism," 
 pp. 5-6, 17-25. 
 
2i8 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 as to the facts of nature and as to historical events, 
 are seen to be due to lack of knowledge and confidence 
 in an untrustworthy tradition. 
 
 3. Within the limits of the books of Scripture 
 themselves, discrepancies and contradictions are to be 
 found, and accounts of events in the past have been 
 coloured by conditions prevailing in the author's own 
 times. 
 
 4. More important than all, it is seen that the Bible 
 does not give a consistent and unbroken statement 
 of theological doctrine, nor even two distinct sets of 
 doctrine belonging to two distinct divine dispensations, 
 but rather embraces within its limits a great variety 
 of doctrinal teaching — a variety forming a well- 
 marked development from relatively crude and 
 material beginnings to a more and more spiritual 
 and absolute theology. This development is found, 
 not or\ly in the Old Testament, the compilation of 
 which presupposes a growth of centuries, but also in the 
 New Testament, all the books of which were written 
 within the limits of a comparatively brief period. 
 
 In consequence of these and other results of 
 Biblical criticism, a change of great moment is taking 
 place in the doctrine of inspiration.* It has not yet 
 run its course, but must irrevocably proceed. Some 
 voices have naturally been raised calling for the 
 
 * "We can no longer accept the theory of "verbal" or of 
 "plenary" inspiration, because we have discovered that the facts 
 about the Bible are not as they were supposed to be when the 
 theory was constructed." Dr. Rashdall, " Doctrine and Develop- 
 ment," p. 8. 
 
RECENT CHANGES IN THEOLOGY 219 
 
 complete abandonment of any doctrine of inspiration. 
 These, however, have been in general disregarded. 
 British theologians are as firm as ever in their faith 
 in the authority of the Bible, but the doctrine of 
 inspiration is now being formulated in a different 
 fashion from that of fifty years ago. In the first place, 
 the right of science to examine and criticise the Bible 
 in all particulars is now unhesitatingly recognised. The 
 historian has a right to test the " Chronicles " of the 
 Old Testament as rigorously as those of Froissart. 
 The physicist has a right to set up his account of the 
 origin of life and compare it with what is asserted in 
 Genesis. The literary critic has the right to apply to 
 the Pastoral epistles just those canons of authenticity 
 which he applied to "Ossian."* 
 
 But having once granted the right of the scientist 
 to test the accuracy of Scriptural statements, the 
 theologian has given hostages pledging him to accept 
 scientific conclusions when properly arrived at. He 
 has had therefore to admit that in many particulars 
 the Bible errs, and also that, so far as any elements 
 of the Bible are statements relative to the subject- 
 matter of any given science — history, astronomy, 
 geology, etc. — the only authority able to vouch for 
 the accuracy of those statements is the science in 
 question. In what sense, then, can the doctrine of 
 inspiration be maintained ? If the authority of the 
 Bible is under license, so to speak, of science, how 
 
 • See Bruce, "Apologetics"; Professor G. A. Smith, "Modern 
 Criticism," /assJwt; Professor Driver, "Introduction" (Preface); 
 Professor Kirkpatrick, " The Higher Criticism," p. 3, etc. 
 
220 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 can it claim any more to be revelation and to afford 
 a knowledge of truth ? The answer of theology to 
 this is, that the truths of Scripture, like the truths 
 embodied in theology generally, are of two orders, as 
 they are guaranteed by the criterion of the under- 
 standing or the criterion of intuition. The criticism 
 of the Bible has, for the first time, systematically 
 discriminated between these two classes of truths, 
 giving each class to be tested by its proper criterion. 
 The proper field of inspiration, upon the basis of the 
 theory of knowledge adopted by theology, is intuitive 
 knowledge, and has to do with such propositions as 
 cannot be arrived at by empirical observation, or 
 science. On the other h^nd, all propositions which 
 can be formulated and tested by science, fall outside 
 the field of inspiration. Criticism, therefore, is seen 
 to be of the greatest value to theology in that it marks 
 off two spheres in each of which its own criterion of 
 truth is to be made use of Two illustrations of this 
 may be noticed. Bishop Gore in " Lux Mundi " 
 speaks of the essence of inspiration as consisting in a 
 point of view. All possible materials — rigidly accurate 
 history, loose tradition, and myth alike — may be dealt 
 with either from this point of view or from some 
 other. It is not the subject-matter that determines 
 inspiration, but the outlook of the writer — his con- 
 sciousness of God. That is to say, the Bible is 
 inspired by virtue of its being written from a religious 
 and not from a scientific standpoint. Its very in- 
 accuracy in respect of scientific matters sets its 
 religious significance in a more vivid light. Thus, 
 
RECENT CHANGES IN THEOLOGY 321 
 
 too, Professor Adeney* asserts that the authority of 
 the New Testament is restricted to religion. Theology 
 claims for the Bible no right of repudiating scientific 
 conclusions, but at the same time it asserts its own 
 exclusive right to deal with religious truths. 
 
 It is obvious that a very grave problem is thus 
 called into being — the problem of deciding to what 
 extent and in what sense the two spheres of truths 
 are related and kept separate. This problem is now, 
 and is likely to become in still greater measure, the 
 subject of controversy. But the facing of the problem 
 indicates that the older view of inspiration has been 
 given up once and for all. 
 
 The principle which underlies this change in the 
 treatment of the Bible has naturally been operative 
 in other directions as well. Indeed, every element of 
 theological doctrine has been affected. The tendency 
 is to distinguish more and more carefully between the 
 formulation of doctrine, in which elements susceptible 
 of scientific criticism and verification are possible, and 
 the significance of the doctrine ; between the sphere 
 of empirical observation and the sphere of intuitive 
 revelation. We must content ourselves with a few 
 examples of this tendency. Take the doctrine of the 
 Incarnation.! Traditionally this has a physiological 
 element upon which very great stress has been laid, so 
 much so, that to many minds the test of Trinitarianism 
 is the acceptance of this physiological element. But 
 the tendency of the principle which discriminates 
 
 • " Faith and Criticism," p. 85. 
 t C/. " Faith and Criticism," p. 97. 
 
222 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 between two spheres or kinds of truth, is effecting 
 the separation of the physiological from the strictly 
 religious element in the doctrine. The physiological 
 has to be tested by the methods of science, i.e., by 
 physiological principles. The evidence for the virgin 
 birth has to be laid before a tribunal properly equipped 
 for the testing of physiological evidence. The religious 
 element of the doctrine, on the other hand, with which 
 physiology and all other scientific disciplines have 
 nothing to do, can be dealt with by theology alone. 
 
 Again, take Christian eschatology. Heaven and 
 Hell are now hardly ever referred to, except rhetori- 
 cally, in terms of space.* Belief in a district of the 
 physical universe — some system of planets or appro- 
 priate interstellar space — set apart for the home of 
 the blessed dead, has been finally given up. It is 
 felt that the existence of such a place can only be 
 demonstrated by the particular sciences concerned — 
 astronomy, physics, etc. — and that the results of the 
 investigations of those sciences are final. It may be 
 added that dogmatic teaching concerning the future 
 life is not by any means as prominent as it once was, 
 and in some theological works of the first importance 
 is hardly given any place.! In place of a physical, 
 eschatological doctrine, when elaborated at all, receives 
 a religious explanation. Heaven and Hell are regarded, 
 not as spatial, but as spiritual designations. 
 
 Again, the doctrine of the second coming of Christ 
 
 * C/. Professor Salmond's " Christian Doctrine of Immortality," 
 in which the whole question is treated as one of spiritual states, 
 t E.g., Lux Mundi, 
 
RECENT CHANGES IN THEOLOGY 223 
 
 is no longer so framed as to lay stress upon an actual 
 event expected to occur at a distinct date, accompanied 
 by a variety of miraculous physical happenings. It is 
 felt that the state of our knowledge of nature and physi- 
 cal change is such that we must look elsewhere for the 
 significance of the doctrine. Accordingly theologians, 
 by virtue of the dual criterion of truth, seek in the 
 doctrine a religious import, and find it in the promise 
 of a spiritual change in the general life of the world, a 
 change which shall result in the universal dominance 
 of Christ in national as well as individual relations.* 
 
 In teaching with regard to prayer the same 
 tendency may be observed. Emphasis is laid upon 
 the educative influence of prayer, and upon the fact 
 that "prayer is often its own answer," and, although 
 the belief that prayer may actually be successful in 
 altering the course of physical events has not by any 
 means been given up, the results of a scientific exami- 
 nation of the phenomena of " telepathy," " hypnotism," 
 and the occult generally, are eagerly seized upon as 
 giving a justification for the practice of certain forms 
 of prayer which mere theological assertion could not 
 afford. 
 
 And so with miracles in general. It is felt that each 
 individual miracle stands or falls by the evidence that 
 can be brought to support it, even the Biblical miracles 
 not being exempt from this test, which is, in fact, the 
 test of historical science. 
 
 The facts we have been referring to are not 
 infrequently regarded as justifying the position that 
 "• Cf, Dr. Orr, " The Christian View," p. 334. 
 
224 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 science stands in opposition to theology, and that 
 in the contest between the two systems science is 
 victorious. This is sometimes expressed by saying 
 with Spencer that the recent changes in theology 
 have been "forced" upon its professors by science. 
 Such expressions betray a complete failure to under- 
 stand the way in which human thought moves, and 
 the way in which departments of human thought are 
 related. While it is possible for individual scientists 
 and theologians to be opposed to one another, and 
 even to lose their tempers in controversy, it is just as 
 impossible for theology to be opposed to science, 
 or vice versa, as it is for either of these systems of 
 thought to lose its temper. The fact is that progress 
 takes place in every department of thought under 
 similar conditions. The human mind has happily a 
 conservative as well as a progressive tendency, whether 
 occupied with the problems of physics or with those 
 of theology, and it would be possible to make out 
 a good case for the statement that innovations were 
 " forced " upon science by its pioneers, just as they 
 are said to be " forced " upon theology by its pioneers. 
 But it is nearer the truth to observe that movements 
 of thought in any given age are not restricted to 
 specialists in philosophy or in natural science, but are 
 common to all men of that age, and achieve their 
 result in any given field of thought by means of 
 scholars engaged in that field. Thus, while it is 
 possible that in some instances a movement resulting 
 in theological change owes its initiation to natural 
 scientists or to philosophers (instances which the 
 
RECENT CHANGES IN THEOLOGY 225 
 
 writer believes to be extremely rare), it is certain 
 that the carrying out of the changes themselves must 
 always be the work of theologians, and theologians 
 only. Even when one not a professional theologian 
 does work for the reconstruction of theology, he is in 
 respect of that work of course a theologian. Theo- 
 logians in their own department of thought have 
 every claim to the name of " scientists," and should 
 be credited, even when dispute becomes keen, with 
 that regard for truth which they, too, should be ever 
 ready to ascribe to other scientists who differ from 
 them. Since, then, the work of the theologian 
 of the future will be of such vast importance, 
 having as one of its functions the statement of 
 theological doctrine in accordance with a rigorous 
 modern epistemology, and will involve most subtle 
 problems, it will be well to look a little more closely 
 at the type of question to which he will have to give 
 an answer. 
 
 Whatever modifications of the epistemology of Free- 
 will Idealism the theologian may ultimately adopt 
 there can be no doubt that the dualism which we 
 have been considering has rendered a very consider- 
 able service to all thinkers, and especially to all 
 religious teachers, in that it has drawn attention to 
 the peculiar character of the subject-matter of 
 theology, and marked it off as distinct from all 
 those objects of knowledge which natural science 
 examines and describes. Take, for instance, the 
 characteristic theological proposition, " God is love." 
 Here is a statement with which natural science can 
 
 T. p 
 
226 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 do nothing. No experiments can be made which 
 will demonstrate its truth or error. No investigation 
 of history will supply data by which it may be tested. 
 There is no logical criterion of truth which can be 
 properly applied to it. The principles of demonstra- 
 bility, conceivability and consistency, are alike out of 
 place in contact with it. And the reason is that it 
 belongs to a world of thought other than that in which 
 ordinary scientific principles have play. Nor must it 
 be supposed that the case is better if we approach 
 this theological proposition from the standpoint of 
 the Objective Idealist. For the theological idea of 
 God is in no sense identical with the absolute of his 
 system, nor is it adequately explained by reference to 
 the First Cause of the cosmologist. Indeed, the very 
 terms of the doctrine are foreign to the systems both of 
 Objective Idealism and of Naturalism. In the case of 
 the former we have already seen that the God of the 
 theologian and the emotion called " love " are, strictly 
 speaking, mere appearance, while in the case of 
 Naturalism it is difiScult to know what could be said 
 either of the subject or the predicate. In the case of 
 " love " natural science can only say that it is psycho- 
 logical accompaniment to certain physiological pro- 
 cesses in human life, which may be reduced, perhaps, 
 to still simpler terms, and concerning the evolution of 
 which it is possible to speculate. As for the " God " of 
 religion, He no more exists for natural science than 
 does the law of gravitation exist for theology. And 
 if these two belong to a group of ideas quite foreign to 
 the subject-matter of the natural sciences, it is obvious 
 
RECENT CHANGES IN THEOLOGY 227 
 
 that a proposition which brings the two together in 
 the simple statement, " God is love," is, for natural 
 science, mere nonsense, a meaningless collocation of 
 words. On the other hand, take such a proposition as 
 " Water is H2O." Invite natural science to deal with 
 this, and you immediately have fruitful results. The 
 statement is referred to the physicist and the chemist. 
 The physicist will describe water in terms which 
 identify it with the fluid with which every man is 
 acquainted; the chemist will define H and O, and 
 will show that when they are related in one mole- 
 cule according to the formula H2O they do actually 
 constitute a substance which, at certain pres- 
 sure and temperature, may be recognised as the 
 water of the physicist. Thus not only the terms 
 of the proposition, but also the proposition itself, 
 are immediately seen to be relevant to natural 
 science. 
 
 But when these two propositions are submitted to 
 the theologian the case is very different. 
 
 Take " God is love " first. Each element in the 
 phrase fills the religious mind with meaning. God ! 
 We humble ourselves before Him. He is our Lord : to 
 Him we have given our life: He claims our allegiance, 
 He dominates our desires. Love I A thrill of noble 
 passion, an agony of adoration sweeps over our soul 
 as we remember the love that has been given to us for 
 mother, father, wife, child. And God is love ! Here 
 is a miracle ! Here is the supreme wonder of life 1 It 
 cannot be understood merely as words, but when the 
 words have been spoken they rouse a vision in the 
 
 P 2 
 
228 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 religious soul — the vision of a rocky mound thronging 
 with soldiers and crowded priests, and timid mourners : 
 three crosses, and on one of them Jesus the Car- 
 penter : a vision of thorns, of bruises, and of bloody 
 wounds : the echo of the cry " Father, forgive 
 them ! " God was in Christ, reconciling the world 
 unto Himself, not reckoning unto them their tres- 
 passes. Ah yes, what was nonsense to the mind 
 of mere science becomes the ineffable glory of 
 eternity to religion. 
 
 Then take the other proposition. Water is H2O. 
 
 These terms have to the theologian no meaning. 
 Their religious value is nil. They are indifferent to 
 all doctrines or principles of theology whatsoever. 
 And the proposition in which they are joined is 
 irrelevant to the theological system. When there- 
 fore the theologian speaks of religious or theo- 
 logical truth he refers to a system of propositions 
 to which the scientific criterion of truth is in- 
 applicable. And when he speaks of natural 
 science he refers to a system of thought dealing 
 with a subject-matter quite other than his own, 
 with which the principles of theology have nothing 
 to do. 
 
 We may here recall the phrase of Huxley's main- 
 taining that the result of perfected knowledge would 
 be to banish all " spirit and spontaneity " from the 
 world. Although the Free-will Idealist looks upon this 
 statement as a misleading half-truth, he nevertheless 
 finds in it a \iiiM-truth, though one which by no means 
 disturbs him. For he admits that knowledge in the 
 
RECENT CHANGES IN THEOLOGY 229 
 
 strict sense — i.e. science — has only to do with certain 
 abstractions from the world of fact, and abstractions 
 in the sense that they are, either really or in ideal, 
 susceptible of reduction to mathematical expression. 
 Now spirit and spontaneity — free-will — are just that 
 which it is impossible to reduce to mathematical 
 expression, and Huxley's statement is a half-truth in 
 that it agrees to the division of experience into at 
 least two parts, one which may be strictly known and 
 one to which the ordinary criterion of scientific truth 
 cannot be applied. Of this latter part of experience 
 science naturally cannot take official cognisance. To 
 the theologian, however, Huxley's statement becomes 
 false in its implication that the spirit and spontaneity 
 with which science cannot deal can be properly ruled 
 out of existence. The fallacy of the Naturalist 
 is the inverted fallacy of the Christian Scientist who 
 says, "There is no such thing as evil. Therefore 
 anaesthetics are absurd." 
 
 This may be put in another way. It is the function 
 of science, strictly so-called, to discover causal rela- 
 tions and to take measurements, these two being the 
 apparatus of scientific description. It is not, however, 
 the function of science to determine the significance 
 of what it investigates, for this is the function of 
 jEsthetics, ethics, and theology, each dealing with its 
 own series of values. But the fact that science does 
 not deal with values does not prove those values non- 
 existent. On the other hand, it gives to the normative 
 sciences a clear field for the exercise of their function, 
 which is, not to discover causal relations and to take 
 
230 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 measurements, but to discover and explicate meanings 
 and values. 
 
 If then the theologian raises no objection to the 
 agnostic determination to cease from speculation as to 
 " spirit and spontaneity," and agrees with Spencer that 
 we can gain no adequate knowledge, in the scientific 
 sense, of the nature of the absolute, he is also within 
 his rights in repudiating Spencer's famous specula- 
 tions as to the absolute. He is justified indeed in 
 doing this by the synthetic philosopher's reference 
 to the " raw material of consciousness," and may 
 properly assert that all such speculations have a 
 theological import, and should be attempted only 
 with due regard to proper theological method. If 
 the theologian is ready to respect the limits natural 
 to his own discipline he is justified in claiming the 
 autonomy of that discipline and immunity from the 
 charge of making use of a false method, on the 
 ground that that method is not the method of natural 
 science. 
 
 In one particular, however, it must be admitted 
 that the theologian is open to some criticism. Much 
 confusion in dealing with these vast problems has 
 resulted from obscurity of terminology. If the subject- 
 matter, method, and function of theology differ so 
 considerably from the subject-matter, method, and 
 function of natural science, it would be well for this 
 difference to be recognised and embodied in a differ- 
 ence of terminology. If such a proposition as 
 " Water is H2O " be legitimately termed an element 
 of knowledge, or a truth, it seems unfortunate that 
 
RECENT CHANGES IN THEOLOGY 231 
 
 the same terms should be used to describe the pro- 
 position " God is love." It would be better frankly 
 to abandon terms which are properly used by natural 
 science and to seek out such as may be peculiar to 
 the method and subject-matter of theology. Such a 
 search need not take us far. In religion itself are to 
 be found the terms that we need, and for " know- 
 ledge " the theologian might well use the word " faith," 
 while for "truth" the term "belief" or "article of 
 faith " is eminently appropriate. Having come to 
 this conclusion, we have no difficulty in accepting 
 the dictum of Professor Denney, " The separation of 
 the religious from the scientific means in the end the 
 separation of the religious and the true," if it be 
 borne in mind that " true " here is a technical term 
 describing a proposition whose validity rests upon 
 the scientific criterion of truth, demonstrability, or 
 descriptive consistency. Theology can properly set 
 up no claim to " truth " in this sense for its proposi- 
 tions. They are not scientific laws, which are eminently 
 variable, but articles of faith, which in essence never 
 change. 
 
 It is to be hoped that theologians, who are noto- 
 riously careless of epistemology, will, however, in the 
 future become more vividly conscious of the prin- 
 ciples which are implied in their own discipline, and 
 in due course be ready, like Martineau, to refrain 
 from using the term "knowledge" where faith is 
 meant, and, despite the unhappy associations with 
 which previous controversies have burdened the 
 expression, agree to describe theological affirmations 
 
232 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 as "articles of faith" rather than "truths." It 
 must nevertheless be admitted that, however advan- 
 tageous the recognition of the difference between 
 articles of faith and scientific truths may be, it is by 
 no means an easy matter, after these many years of 
 confusion, to distinguish between them. But, what- 
 ever other mark of differentiation may be dis- 
 covered, it must never be supposed to consist in 
 any postulated weakness of persuasive power on 
 the part of the articles of faith. It is the func- 
 tion of systematic epistemology (indeed, perhaps a 
 separate discipline of pistiology, or theory of faith, 
 will yet have to be developed) to elaborate the 
 very complicated relations between the principles 
 of faith and knowledge. Meanwhile perhaps the 
 following points of chief importance may here be 
 briefly enumerated : 
 
 1. The difference of subject-matter has already 
 been referred to. Scientific propositions have to do 
 with demonstrable factors of experience ; articles of 
 faith have to do with such factors of experience as 
 can never be demonstrated, and which, depending 
 for their evidence on the individual consciousness, 
 can only be referred to by analogy, never con- 
 templated by two persons in common. 
 
 2. Psychologically considered, the scientific pro- 
 position is solely, or at least in an overwhelming 
 degree, the product of pure thought. The will 
 is merely of psychogenetic significance and any 
 accompanying emotion is entirely unimportant. In 
 the case of articles of faith, will and emotion play 
 
RECENT CHANGES IN THEOLOGY 233 
 
 decisive parts. Pure thought withdraws to a 
 secondary position. 
 
 3. Logically considered, the scientific proposition is 
 analytic ; and its validity is tested by an inquiry into 
 the ground upon which subject and predicate are 
 brought together. There must be a middle term, so 
 that the proposition may be displayed as a conclusion 
 drawn from two premisses. Articles of faith, on the 
 other hand are ultimately rejected or received imme- 
 diately. All that logic has to do in the matter is 
 (in harmony with the psychological character of the 
 proposition) merely the attestation of the validity of 
 making use of the intuitive criterion in this particular 
 instance. 
 
 We have now traced the recent changes in theology 
 to their root in changes in theory of knowledge, and 
 the confusion arising from these changes we have 
 seen to be due to a failure to state clearly and apply 
 consistently that theory of knowledge which is im- 
 plicit in theological thought. We have further been 
 brought considerably nearer some solution of the 
 problem, " What is the nature of religious truth ? " 
 For we have seen that in certain radical ways religious 
 truth differs from scientific truth to such a degree 
 that it would be well to use the word truth for 
 technical purposes exclusively with reference to 
 scientific statements, and the words article of faith 
 when referring to religious propositions. 
 
 We may now leave this subject with the reminder 
 that many thinkers to-day agree, more or less con- 
 sistently, in recognising the validity of this distinction 
 
234 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 between two classes of judgments. It is therefore 
 likely that Herbert Spencer's assumption that theology 
 would one day be content to affirm no propositions as 
 reliable which are not the conclusions of empirical 
 knowledge will prove to be as poor in prophetic 
 insight as in modesty. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE THREE PARADOXES 
 
 We have now completed our examination of the 
 three types of modern English thought, and their 
 doctrine as to the nature of knowledge and religion. 
 We proceed then to summarise our results, showing 
 in what way each type of philosophy answers the 
 question, " What is the nature of religious truth ? " 
 
 I. 
 
 In discussing Naturalism we found it to be based 
 upon an epistemological dualism. This dualism may 
 be indicated by two propositions, (i) The canon of 
 relativity : Since all knowledge is relative and conse- 
 quently of a merely utilitarian validity, there can be 
 for us no objective or absolute truth, whether in the 
 world of knowledge or of faith. (2) The canon of 
 Agnosticism : The absolute is strictly unknowable, 
 and although experience convinces us of its reality, 
 we are not justified in making any statements what- 
 ever as to its nature. 
 
 In accordance with this epistemological dualism 
 Naturalism develops a philosophy of religion which 
 in its turn may be indicated by two propositions. 
 
236 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 (i) The repudiation of theology: The canon of 
 Agnosticism denies the vaHdity of any doctrine of the 
 supernatural, and therefore, since the. positive teaching 
 of historic religions consists in the formulation of such 
 doctrines, all theological systems known and possible 
 are philosophically false. The only proper science of 
 religion is one which examines the historic religious 
 systems by the methods of anthropology and 
 psychology. (2) The province of religion is rigidly 
 restricted. The unknowable absolute is the proper 
 object of reverence, and such reverence constitutes 
 the sole and sufficient function of religion. 
 
 This naturalistic philosophy of religion involves 
 what we have called the paradox of Naturalism, 
 namely, the doctrine of the incommensurability of 
 thought and reality. Thought is relative ; reality is 
 absolute : thought formulates concepts ; reality is un- 
 knowable : thought is useful in promoting life ; reality 
 is permanent, unchangeable and remote : thought is 
 formulated in science ; reality is worshipped by religion : 
 science monopolises truth ; religion can claim no truth. 
 " Religious truth," then, is a phrase involving a contra- 
 diction in terms, except in as far as it asserts the utter 
 incomprehensibility of the object of religious worship. 
 
 We have seen that this naturalistic paradox gives 
 rise to two movements of thought which seek such an 
 epistemological doctrine as will allow of the recogni- 
 tion of the validity of religious truth. The first 
 movement, of which we found an illustration in 
 Romanes, tends to modify the canon of relativity and, 
 by limiting the naturalistic criterion of truth to the 
 
THE THREE PARADOXES 237 
 
 field of science, to make it possible for statements with 
 regard to the supernatural or absolute to claim some 
 validity. Thus it not only retains the epistemo- 
 logical dualism of Naturalism, but sets up a second 
 criterion of truth. This movement passes away from 
 Naturalism toward Free-will Idealism. 
 
 The second reaction from the paradox of Naturalism, 
 illustrated by the writings of Henry Drummond, seeks 
 to make place for religious truth by rejecting the 
 canon of Agnosticism and so doing away with the 
 doctrine that the absolute is unknowable. It does not 
 do this, however, by setting up a second criterion of 
 truth applicable to the absolute, but by denying the 
 dualism of Naturalism, and asserting that the one 
 criterion of truth is valid both when applied to 
 phenomena and noumena. It moves towards monism, 
 and, if logically persisted in, ultimately leads to 
 Objective Idealism. 
 
 II. 
 
 Objective Idealism, escaping from the paradox of 
 Naturalism by adopting a monistic epistemology, 
 claims for knowledge not only a relative and utilitarian, 
 but also an absolute, validity. That is to say, the 
 absolute, which the canon of Agnosticism separates 
 from experience by a great gulf, Objective Idealism 
 regards as continuous with relative knowledge and so 
 subject to the same criterion of truth. That is to say, 
 it treats knowledge as in possession of objective truth, 
 elements of knowledge differing from each other 
 
238 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 according to the degree of absolute truth present. 
 Truth, however, the Objective Idealist subordinates to 
 reality, and his epistemology becomes a metaphysic. 
 Thus the final criterion of truth is a criterion of reality, 
 and the degrees of truth to be found anywhere corre- 
 spond with degrees of reality. The criterion is that 
 of self-consistency. 
 
 Upon this epistemological, or rather metaphysical, 
 basis, truth being identified with reality, religion, like 
 morals, has to be tested by the criterion of self- 
 consistency. Objective Idealism does not find that 
 religion can completely stand the test. On the 
 contrary, it finds that religion, along with science and 
 philosophy, can only be regarded as to a certain 
 degree possessed of reality. The absolute truth is not 
 to be found in religion. 
 
 This doctrine of degrees of reality is found on 
 examination to be as paradoxical as the naturalistic 
 teaching of the incommensurability of thought and 
 reality, and it becomes peculiarly intolerable when it 
 is seen to deny the fundamental reality of personality. 
 Its tendency is to force the thinker away from Objec- 
 tive Idealism, and might conceivably have the effect 
 of urging thought in either of two directions. In the 
 first place, it might lead back to Naturalism, if it were 
 recognised that after all Objective Idealism gives no 
 hope in its most consistent representatives {f.g., Mr. 
 Bradley) of the attainment of more than a certain 
 degree of reality, and that therefore, while the relative 
 alone is actually present, the absolute is properly 
 unknowable, and the applicability of any criterion of 
 
THE THREE PARADOXES 239 
 
 truth to it a mere conjecture. In the second place, it 
 leads to Free-will Idealism where it is felt that the 
 absolute reality of the individual experience must be 
 adhered to despite all the embarrassments to which 
 speculation exposes this view. The transition from 
 Objective Idealism to Naturalism finds no representa- 
 tive in the literature with which we have been dealing. 
 It must therefore be regarded as merely theoretically 
 possible. The movement, however, to Free-will 
 Idealism has been illustrated by Professor A. Seth. 
 
 III. 
 
 Free will Idealism holds in its epistemological 
 system a part of the doctrine of each of its rival 
 schools. Along with Naturalism it maintains that 
 the criterion of demonstrability (or descriptive consis- 
 tency cannot be applied to the absolute, but only to 
 the relative. That is to say, it does not afford a basis 
 for the erection of religious truth, properly so called. 
 But at the same time, in agreement with Objective 
 Idealism, it asserts that it is possible for valid 
 religious judgments to be passed. In other words, it 
 teaches that scientific and religious truth exist side by 
 side. It does not, however, adopt the thorough-going 
 monism of Objective Idealism, but asserts that there 
 are two criteria of truth, or rather a double criterion, 
 and thus maintains that both knowledge and faith 
 express, each in its own way, truth. 
 
 It is upon the basis of this epistemological 
 dualism that Free-will Idealism admits of the 
 
240 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 defence of religious propositions and of the scientific 
 validity of theology. The source of religious proposi- 
 tions is personality, an entity denied to be real by 
 Objective Idealism, and thrust into the unknowable 
 absolute by Naturalism ; and so these propositions 
 have that in them that is distinct from the mere 
 temporal, spatial, and causal relations with which the 
 criterion of demonstrability has to do. That is, there 
 are truths of description or science, and truths of 
 significance (value) or religion. Each one of these 
 has its own criterion, and the religious criterion makes 
 the development of a valid theology possible. 
 
 Here there becomes at once apparent a new paradox, 
 that of dualism (or even pluralism), and this paradox 
 initiates a movement of thought in two directions. 
 The first is toward the subordination of the criterion 
 of demonstrability to that of insight (the criterion of 
 religious truth), so that reality is more and more 
 identified with consciousness. This leads through 
 Mysticism, as we have seen, to Objective Idealism. 
 The second is toward the denial of the validity of the 
 criterion of insight, and so, as illustrated by Mr. B. 
 Kidd, leads back again to Naturalism. 
 
 The three types of philosophy are obviously related 
 to each other in a very definite way. Each rests 
 uncomfortably upon the horns of its own dilemma — 
 what we have called its paradox — and so each tries to 
 do away with these horns, first the one being wrested 
 and then the other. So there are two movements 
 from each type and two movements toward each 
 type. For it is impossible to escape from any one of 
 
THE THREE PARADOXES 
 
 241 
 
 the three without ultimately reaching one of the 
 others. These mutual relations may be readily 
 expressed in the following diagram. 
 
 Tendencjj from BtoC (Kidd) 
 
 What is common to all three types is the fact that 
 each gives rise to a paradox which tends to force 
 thought toward the other two types. Have the three 
 paradoxes anything in common? Is the fact that 
 these philosophies are fundamentally paradoxical 
 accidental, or is paradox the necessary mark of 
 thought when occupied with its own principles? 
 Is there any way of avoiding paradox, or of so 
 
 T. Q 
 
242 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 reducing the three paradoxes that we shall at least 
 see clearly what radical defect — or virtue — of the mind 
 it is which forces them to appear ? We will look at 
 the three a little more closely, and try to get an 
 answer to these questions. 
 
 We have seen that the paradox of Naturalism arises 
 from the denial of the objective validity of thought 
 and the substitution therefor of a subjective validity. 
 This would not in itself, however, be intolerable were 
 it not that Naturalism includes in the concept of 
 objective validity a certain metaphysical element, and 
 this despite the general repugnance expressed by 
 naturalistic thinkers for all metaphysics. It is the 
 claim of Naturalism to make epistemology, and not 
 metaphysics, the final battlefield of thought, and if the 
 distinction between objective and subjective had in 
 fact remained epistemological, the paradox would not 
 have arisen, at any rate not with that centrifugal force 
 which we have seen to mark it. But Naturalism has 
 not remained content with the epistemological distinc- 
 tion. It has given to that distinction a metaphysical 
 meaning, and has developed out of it a doctrine as to 
 reality. It hcis maintained that the real is unknowable, 
 incommensurable with thought, which is a thoroughly 
 metaphysical proposition. 
 
 No elaborate argument is necessary to show that the 
 paradox of Objective Idealism, like that of Naturalism, 
 is associated with the metaphysics of the school. The 
 paradox itself is a frankly metaphysical doctrine, that 
 of degrees of reality. Had it merely to do with 
 knowledge, had it asserted that knowledge of things 
 
THE THREE PARADOXES 243 
 
 might be more or less, it had not run with such 
 offensive tilt against logic : but asserting as it does 
 that a thing may both be and not be at the same 
 time — be possessed of a certain quantity of what is 
 called absolute " reality " — it involves a series of 
 positions which cannot be finally defended, but must 
 be given up for more advantageous ground. 
 
 In just the same way it is a metaphysical element 
 in the doctrine of Free-will Idealism which is the really 
 constituent factor in the paradox of our third type of 
 thought. Should a mere analysis and description of 
 knowledge and faith occur, without any attempt at 
 bringing the two together or subordinating one to 
 the other, and without any attempt at linking this 
 epistemological dualism to a metaphysical theory, 
 the paradox we have observed would not appear. 
 It is the effort to discover what is " Real," either in a 
 " deeper monism " or in a permanent dualism of the 
 absolute, or in a pluralism, that lends a certain 
 uneasiness to Free-will Idealism, and tempts toward 
 some other philosophic point of view. 
 
 This view, that the various paradoxes of the three 
 types are due to their metaphysical elements, is 
 confirmed when we survey the effects of the paradoxes 
 upon the various philosophies of religion which the types 
 produce. The rejection of theology by Naturalism 
 is based ostensibly upon epistemology — theology claims 
 to know the unknowable, and therefore is from the 
 outset misleading. But the " unknowable " is itself a 
 metaphysical abstraction, and the single function 
 which Naturalism would allow religion to exercise 
 
 Q 2 
 
244 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 is the worship of that unknowable. In the case of 
 Objective Idealism, metaphysics naturally plays the 
 leading part in the development of a philosophy of 
 religion, with very various results, but always in such a 
 way that a doctrine of religion which is founded in 
 faith as against knowledge is impossible. The linking 
 together of knowledge and reality leaves no proper 
 place for faith, except in those members of the school 
 who give up the stricter notion of the nature of truth 
 and subsume knowledge under the heading of faith, still 
 adhering to the monistic position. Knowledge and 
 faith thus differ according to their respective degrees 
 of reality, and finally Free-will Idealism is affected by 
 its metaphysical element in a very notable fashion. 
 The metaphysical bulking largely, a close investigation 
 of the nature of faith and its possible objects is seldom 
 undertaken, and never brought to a thoroughly satis- 
 factory conclusion. The result is that thinkers of this 
 school have taken refuge in the old doctrine of twofold 
 truth, although not in the same rigorous and deliberate 
 way as did the schoolmen. We have observed some 
 instances of this, the most noteworthy being the double 
 meaning attached to the notion of causality, one sort of 
 causality being that described by science, the other only 
 coming within the purview of theology and philosophy. 
 The question, however, as to what are in general the 
 proper objects respectively of theological and scientific 
 investigation has not been adequately dealt with by 
 Free-will Idealists. For instance, it has not been deter- 
 mined in what sense theology can handle appropriately 
 the idea of causality. In short, the problem of the 
 
THE THREE PARADOXES 245 
 
 presuppositions of theological thought has been 
 neglected in favour of metaphysical discussion. What 
 theology stands most in need of is a clear sense of 
 the relative functions of knowledge and faith within 
 its system, and that implies a clear apprehension of 
 the nature of religious truth, which is only possible 
 by seriously taking in hand the revision of its 
 epistemological basis. 
 
 Our examination of the three types has brought us 
 to this conclusion. All three types are in a condition 
 of unstable equilibrium, each being ready to pass 
 over into the other two at the instance of an intoler- 
 able paradox which it discovers in its own doctrine. 
 This paradox is found in each case to be finally due 
 to the presence of metaphysical elements in the teaching 
 of the given philosophy, and only with the elimination 
 of these metaphysical elements does it seem likely 
 that a finally satisfactory basis for the philosophy 
 of religion will be obtained. So long as they remain, 
 human thinking will never be able to make its escape 
 from that sort of circular perpetual motion which 
 results from the continuous thwarting of the mind 
 by the paradoxes we have been considering. The 
 question now arises. Is not this metaphysical element 
 a necessary and benevolent element in thought ? Is 
 it possible for philosophy ever to be rid of it, and yet 
 to remain fruitful ? But a prior question will have to 
 be settled before this can be answered, namely, what 
 actually is the metaphysical element.' To this 
 question we must now address ourselves, and we 
 shall do so by means of a historical survey. In this 
 
246 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 survey we shall briefly show the place of the meta- 
 physical, not merely as one element in thought, but as 
 a main method of thought ; and we shall trace in 
 bare outline the course by which, from the thorough- 
 going metaphysical method of antiquity, metaphysical 
 elements have been handed down to modern thinkers. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 HISTORICAL SURVEY OF METAPHYSICAL METHOD 
 
 The earliest efforts of Western thinkers to make 
 for themselves some explanatory theory of the universe 
 — or rather of things, for they had at first hardly any 
 clear notion of what we term "the universe" — though 
 differing from each other as widely as possible in 
 respect of their results, have one aspect in common. 
 This is the method by which they sought knowledge. 
 They found themselves possessed of a number of tradi- 
 tional notions and sayings that were held to be truths. 
 Fragments of physical observations jostled moral 
 maxims, myths and religious tales were received side 
 by side with records of travel and warfare. There 
 was the veriest anarchy of thought in all these things, 
 and when the various morsels of accepted lore were 
 brought together they exhibited a discrepancy and 
 discord which the Greek mind, with its restless love 
 of the beautiful and harmonious, must set about 
 bringing to order. The striking thing about all this 
 discrepancy and change of opinion, was that it was 
 paralleled by an elusive uncertainty in the experiences 
 of the individual. Nothing seemed at all permanent. 
 What one day was, disappeared on the morrow, and 
 things that somewhile ago were not, suddenly sprang 
 
248 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 into existence. Human institutions were no more 
 reliable than nature itself, and the fickle voice of the 
 mob seemed a fit type of the changeful temper of the 
 world. And yet, although nothing permanent and 
 reliable could be found in all human experience, the 
 earliest thinkers of Europe approached this world of 
 flux and variety in that temper which has always 
 characterised the metaphysician. They could find 
 nothing permanent, and yet there must be some such 
 stable reality ! They had an indomitable conviction 
 that in all the whirling confusion of opinion and 
 nature there must be some one principle of order 
 and permanence. To this principle the name of 
 Apxv ^^^ eventually given. The earliest thinkers — 
 Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes — conceived of 
 this cosmic principle as material, and seem hardly 
 to have needed it for any other purpose than to 
 explain the changes they found in the physical 
 world. So to them it was some one material element, 
 or something to which all such elements might be 
 reduced : water, air, or some undefinable unorganised 
 material conceived perhaps in a vague way as the 
 original stuff from which all matter was made, and 
 into which it would again sink — the origin of growth, 
 the goal of decay. Widely as these various principles 
 of reality differed from each other, they were naively 
 accepted by their advocates as self-evident and con- 
 vincing, and were defended in all their crudity. 
 The fact, however, that these various principles were 
 mutually contradictory stimulated new thought, and 
 slowly resulted in a more refined conception both of the 
 
METAPHYSICAL METHOD 249 
 
 problem of philosophy and of its solution. Heraclitus 
 found that no one element or confusion of elements 
 could really be taken as the explanatory principle 
 of things. To him the only reality to be found in all 
 experience was that very change and uncertainty 
 which his fellow thinkers had tried to explain. Udyra 
 pa was the phrase in which he described nature — 
 " all things fleet," they come and go, and slip from us 
 when we fain would have them stay. It is true that 
 he too adopted an ap^^ as Thales and the rest had 
 done : but in a slightly different sense. What is more 
 emblematic of this perpetual flux than the mysterious 
 flicker and changing wonder of fire.' Who can tell 
 how flame originates, or whither it goes ? How 
 explain the destruction it causes, and the new things 
 it brings into being } It is the very symbol of the 
 principle of flux : the symbol too of the contradic- 
 tions that he, like his predecessors, found in the 
 world, apparently waiting to be harmonised, yet ever 
 remaining there side by side — rise and fall, growth 
 and decay, light and dark. And so he thought in his 
 mystic way of a hidden harmony even in these con- 
 tradictions, an unseen order among things, a way 
 upwards to balance, so to speak, the way downwards, 
 a constant reappearance of what has disappeared. So 
 despite all that changeful uncertainty, despite his 
 principle of Trdvra pel, Heraclitus comes to the con- 
 clusion that there is a reason in things, a k6yos orderly 
 and persistent. In Xenophon, indeed, this Xayos is 
 the sort of personified apxn, so as to give the notion 
 of a world-god — one in all. This brings us to the 
 
2SO THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 end of the first cycle of thinkers, those who tried to 
 make the world as felt and seen rational by reference 
 to a principle which should harmonise all the contra- 
 dictions of sense and opinion. 
 
 But there was another school of thinkers to whom 
 this mere explanation of the given by reference to 
 something just hinted at in nature seemed totally 
 inadequate. They applied the idea of the dpxv more 
 rigorously. Parmenides, their chief, boldly announced 
 that all this confusion of the opinions and feelings of 
 men is no real world, but a phantasm. What really 
 is, is permanent, changeless, in a full sense existent.* 
 This natural world does not exist — what really is, 
 is a perfect self-sufficient whole, to be likened to a 
 sphere. Parmenides, in short, was the first akbsmist. 
 Zeno carried out his teaching by an analysis and 
 rejection of all human notions, much as we have 
 seen Mr. Bradley do — our ideas of time, of place, of 
 motion are all false, for what is is one, permanent, 
 self-harmonious. 
 
 That this Eleatic akosmism should prove per- 
 manently acceptable could no more be expected 
 than that its rival doctrine of perpetual flux should 
 altogether pass away. Empedocles was the first of 
 a new school that sought to reconcile the principles of 
 the other two with his doctrine of the four elements 
 moved through empty space (t.e., non-existence) by love 
 and hate. The elements were permanent in the Eleatic 
 sense, and at the same time they were necessary factors 
 of the Ionic doctrine of growth and decay. Anaxagoras, 
 
 * frrt yhp cTfai. 
 
METAPHYSICAL METHOD 251 
 
 teaching the existence of innumerable elements called 
 seeds or particles, then prepared the way for Leukippus, 
 whose atoms, controlled by mere necessity, moved 
 themselves in empty space. Here we have on the one 
 hand the victory of the Eleatic denial of the world 
 of sense — what exists is not nature, but a mass of 
 innumerable though similar atoms : all variety, change, 
 confusion, belongs to nature, but not to reality. 
 And on the other hand we have the Heraclitean 
 insistence upon the instability of things. Heraclitus's 
 doctrine of the logos had made for itself by now a 
 permanent place. In the teaching of Anaxagoras it 
 became a sort of mindstuff (voSs) diffused through 
 all being and determining, by reference to ends, the 
 various changes that took place. According to 
 Leukippus a purely mechanical principle controlled 
 change, and so the possibility of freedom of any sort 
 was eliminated. 
 
 Here we may pause and notice that all the principal 
 notions of metaphysics were developed long ago by 
 these Greek thinkers. The crudity with which they 
 expressed their thoughts should not hinder us from 
 recognising that the thoughts were there. The 
 philosophic notion of God, the ideas of real existence, 
 non-existence, philosophic principle as opposed to 
 experience, necessity, matter, spirit, causation, change, 
 motion, freedom — all these, and many other notions 
 of the same order, appear here for the first time 
 among the Western peoples, and persist to this day. 
 The study of these notions has afforded thinkers 
 their most perplexing occupation, and has, of all 
 
252 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 human pursuits, the least satisfactory results to show. 
 For this the reason is not far to seek. These 
 notions were first won by men who sought an ex- 
 planation of nature beyond the field of nature 
 itself — who sought things of permanent reality outside 
 the world of things given to the senses. What method 
 could be applied to these notions in order to explain 
 them in their turn ? Their function is to explain the 
 given, but what shall be the key to their own 
 existence ? How can we rationalise purely ideal 
 entities ? They help us to know things : they are the 
 instruments by means of which we group and name 
 and explain what is given : but how are we in turn 
 to know them ? And the answer which metaphysics 
 has always given to these questionings has been 
 that they must be treated, not as purely ideal 
 entities, but as things ; they must be so treated 
 that there may be a harmony of thought between 
 them and all given things ; we must regard them in 
 their turn as objects of knowledge. But then there 
 arises this diiificulty. These notions are found to 
 explain, not the reality, but the appearance of the 
 things directly given. And so, the very fact of 
 treating metaphysical notions as belonging to the 
 same order of knowledge as things given has 
 driven thinkers to ascribe to them alone final 
 reality, while the things given have been said to be 
 transient, unreal, illusions, a dream-like sequence of 
 deceptions from which the mind will one day perhaps 
 awake. 
 The method then which the early Greek thinkers 
 
METAPHYSICAL METHOD 253 
 
 adopted, we have seen to be that of asserting the 
 real and necessary existence of something not given 
 in experience. To the question, What is there ? the 
 philosopher answers, What does not appear but must 
 be. The real then is identified with the ideal. The 
 given is not real — the only real is what must be, and 
 all the given is merely contingent. The Pythagoreans 
 applied this method in that they substituted an ideal 
 harmony for the real discord and confusion of ex- 
 perience, and called it real. They attempted to make 
 this more easily understood by their numerical 
 doctrine — all things are the expression or sym- 
 bolising of numbers, and all truth is ultimately of 
 the nature of mathematical truth. Protagoras seems 
 at first sight to proceed differently in that he 
 is outspokenly sensualistic. And yet even he to 
 some extent falls back on the method of his 
 predecessors. For although he refuses to distinguish 
 between secondary and primary qualities, classing all 
 qualities as subjective, he explains perception (?>,, 
 the qualities, purely relative) as movement, and so 
 puts something not given behind the elements of 
 experience. 
 
 The work of these early thinkers, however, never 
 reached anything like systematic elaboration. That 
 was left for subsequent writers who found the method 
 and main notions of metaphysics already given them 
 by their predecessors. It was owing to this inherited 
 equipment that the three great systematic thinkers of 
 antiquity — Democritus, Plato and Aristotle — were 
 able to undertake their Herculean task. 
 
254 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 Democritus recognised this dualism between the 
 unreal given in nature and the real discovered by 
 thought in the most thoroughgoing fashion, and 
 worked it out according to the principles of Leukippus 
 and Protagoras with the utmost logical consistency. 
 Democritus was the first to introduce the term 
 phenomenon, opposing mere appearance as given to 
 the senses — something relative, changeful, unreliable — 
 to the permanently existent reality of the Eleatics, or 
 rather to a world of indestructible and changeless 
 realities. Appearances and realities — he was the first 
 deliberately to set these two abstractions in definite 
 opposition. 
 
 For a clue as to the nature of realities he turned 
 back to Leukippus and adopted his atomic theory. 
 Strangely enough he used for them the same name 
 that Plato used for his real beings (ideas) though he 
 called them at the same time o-xrumTa. These ideas 
 of Democritus were purely material atoms : smallest 
 theoretic objects of sense, though practically never 
 singly causing sense impressions. These atoms had 
 a definite size and shape which it was impossible to 
 change, and formed together groups and changing 
 associations from which resulted the phenomena 
 that human beings perceived. This formation of 
 phenomena, like the combination of the atoms them- 
 selves, was controlled by that principle of purely 
 mechanical necessity which Leukippus had been the 
 first to enunciate, and which Democritus only modified 
 inasmuch as he connected it with the Heraclitean 
 notion of the logos. Thus mechanical necessity was 
 
METAPHYSICAL METHOD 255 
 
 still of a reasonable nature — that is, it was such that 
 the reason in man was able to apprehend it, — and 
 philosophy was possible. Hence the justification of 
 the philosopher in going beyond the phenomena 
 given to sense and confidently asserting the reality of 
 his own ideal entities. It is in complete harmony 
 with this method that Democritus enunciated the 
 theory of primary and secondary qualities, that he 
 explained the fact of perception by reference, not to 
 what is seen, but to minute figures which penetrated 
 through the eye to the firelike soul of the observer ; 
 and that he asserted that the difference between 
 thought and perception was quantitative. So Demo- 
 critus affirmed a theoretic metaphysical dualism, and 
 set over against what was given in experience that 
 which the mind by reflection asserted must be. The 
 ideal was substituted for the real. 
 
 Plato's method was in no wise different. He too 
 denied the reality of the given world of experience, 
 and substitutes for it a world of ideas. The given 
 world was one which gave men opinion and not truth. 
 It was a world of change or development and not 
 the world of true being. He parted company with 
 Democritus, ho\yever, when he came to discuss the 
 nature of the ideas. These were for him not material 
 atoms, but thought-types, according to which all the 
 changeful particulars of experience were modelled. 
 Or rather they were themselves that which made 
 nature to seem to be — for it was but a seeming. 
 The real was permanent, changeless, and of the nature 
 of mind. Plato, further, under the influence of 
 
2S6 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 Socrates, identified the true with the good, and so 
 his rationalism was not merely theoretic, like that of 
 Democritus, but ethical. The world of reality was 
 not a single homogeneous entity, utterly apart from 
 nature, as the Eleatics conceived it ; nor a mass of 
 material atoms changing according to a rational but 
 unconscious necessity, as Democritus taught. Accord- 
 ing to Plato it was a living hierarchy of ideas, 
 culminating at length in the Idea of Good, which he 
 identified with God. The world of ideas, instead 
 of being wholly apart from nature, was reflected, 
 so to speak, in nature. The ideas were the cause 
 of the world. How this could be Plato does not 
 successfully tell us, indeed there is in his system 
 a dualism which no amount of grading among 
 the; Ideas can ever overcome, although it seeks to 
 express itself in the untenable doctrine of degrees 
 of reality. 
 
 The characteristic difference between the system of 
 Aristotle and that of his master was the substitution 
 of what we may call a notional for a mythical 
 teleology. The Ideas of Plato were beings, com- 
 parable with the gods of a pantheism ; in the theory 
 of Aristotle they become the essences of things given 
 in experience. To him change, development, was the 
 realisation in time and space, not of an archetypal 
 timeless and changeless idea, but of the essence of the 
 particular thing itself. But, although Aristotle avoided 
 the mythical manner of his teachers, his method was 
 none the less that which we have found in Plato as 
 well as in the earliest thinkers. He found it impossible 
 
METAPHYSICAL METHOD 25; 
 
 to explain things given in experience without going 
 beyond experience, and yet treating these entities, 
 which were admittedly beyond experience, as having 
 a known reality. The "essence" was not the given 
 thing, but something else. Alongside the things 
 Aristotle taught the existence of a second substance, 
 which was the class, or general group, never really 
 given in nature itself. Corresponding with this duality 
 of substance was a duality of causation : in the world 
 of things causation was purely mechanical, while in 
 the world of permanent reality it was teleological. 
 Ultimately, Aristotle brought this dualism to a head, 
 so to speak, in that he set matter, the mere dead, 
 motionless possibility of natural things, over against 
 God, the real First Cause and unmoved Mover of 
 matter. And, yet, although this divine voSs was 
 the primal mover of all, it must be conceived as quite 
 apart from matter, transcendent above the things it 
 moved. Indeed, the real motive power was after all 
 not the activity of the First Cause, but the longing of 
 the dead matter itself — the yearning of inert matter 
 after the godhead. And here there shows itself 
 a paradox as marked and perplexing as that of Plato. 
 It is true the mystical hierarchy was no longer there ; 
 but that the inert and formless matter, devoid of all 
 mind, should take upon itself ever increasingly com- 
 plex forms and life, moving always towards a higher 
 development, all under the influence of a yearning 
 towards the divine ; and that this divine, the first 
 and unmoved Mover, should nevertheless be trans- 
 cendent above matter, and so separate from the same 
 
 T, R 
 
2S8 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 that it could not come into contact with it — all this is 
 as paradoxical as we can well imagine anything to 
 be. The method employed, however, is clearly that 
 which we have noticed over and over again. Ideal 
 entities, that which must be in order to the explanation 
 of nature, are dealt with in the same way as the 
 things given in experience, although a transcendent 
 reality is ascribed to them. That is, which must be ; 
 the ideal is the truly real, and if a conflict arises 
 between the ideal entities and the given, the ideal 
 entities are endowed with a claim to a superior reality, 
 which enables them to hold their position in the teeth 
 of any paradox. 
 
 The method thus discovered by the lonians and 
 triumphantly applied by the three great systematic 
 thinkers of Greece, has been, in the main, the method 
 of philosophy right up to our own time. It is true 
 that some thinkers* departed from this method, but 
 for the present we may notice that from the time of 
 Thales to the ascendance of Hegel, what we have 
 called the metaphysical method has been regarded 
 as the method proper to philosophic thought. The 
 departures from this method — made, in some instances, 
 even before the time of Aristotle — have been from 
 age to age of growing frequence. The sciences have 
 one by one freed themselves from the older philosophy 
 and asserted their independence, not only of its con- 
 clusions, but of its habits of thought. The function 
 of these sciences is the description of what is given in 
 nature, and its method, which we call the scientific 
 • E.g., Locke, Hume, Kant. 
 
METAPHYSICAL METHOD 259 
 
 method, consists in description (observation, classifica- 
 tion, etc.) by the principles of consistency. The 
 function of metaphysical philosophy is the discovery 
 of the meaning of what is given, and its method the 
 reference of the given to an ideal, or, perhaps, rather 
 the imposition of an ideal upon the given, the 
 substitution of the ideal for the given, and the 
 assertion that this ideal is the real. 
 
 A few instances of how this occurs in more modern 
 philosophic systems will further illustrate our meaning. 
 The most imposing and splendid monument of 
 metaphysical ingenuity is the ontological argument 
 for the being of God. This so-called proof stands 
 or falls with the proposition that the highest perfection 
 is the attribute of the highest reality : "Ens realissimum 
 est ens perfectissimum." The very form in which this 
 is stated betrays that ever-recurring paradox and 
 fallacy which we noticed in the philosophy of Plato 
 — the paradox of degrees of reality. That anything 
 can be more or less real is, as we have seen earlier, 
 not only an abuse of language, but a futility of 
 thought. We can add nothing to the concept " real " 
 by saying "more real" or "most real." Real and 
 unreal are contradictory terms, admitting of no 
 gradation. The same is obviously true of the word 
 perfect. Perfection can have no grades. But, apart 
 from this fallacy, the ontological proposition affirming 
 perfection of reality is based purely upon the meta- 
 physical assumption that the real is the ideal. The 
 real is not given, is never given, in experience — i.e., 
 in nature. It is supernatural. And yet it can be 
 
 R 2 
 
26o THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 conceived. The real is our conception, not of what 
 is, but of what ought to be. Of course the meta- 
 physician asserts at once that this " ought '' is 
 objective, not dependent upon the peculiarities of 
 the thinker. It is the highest perfection — perfection 
 of beauty, of holiness, of power. But that existence 
 must be included among the attributes of this 
 most perfect being is another fallacy (existence not 
 being an attribute) which, however, we need not 
 further discuss. The point here to be emphasised 
 is that this metaphysical method consists in the 
 denial of the reality of the given, and the assertion 
 of the reality of the ideal, which is not given in 
 experience. It asserts that what must be, or ought 
 to be, is. 
 
 Descartes, who struggled manfully to gain a new 
 point of view for philosophy, and sought to elaborate 
 a new method, nevertheless was too much entangled 
 in the mediaeval ways of thinking to be able to effect 
 much. His famous dictum, Cogito ergo sum, seemed 
 upon the point of opening up to him a new way, but 
 he fell back into the old path when he went on from this 
 to the statement, Cogito ergo sum res cogitans. For 
 the notion of substance, as something apart from 
 phenomena, cannot be held ontologically without 
 making use of the metaphysical method. No sub- 
 stance, in the hyperphysical sense, is ever given in 
 nature. It is an ideal which leads eventually to the 
 exclusion and denial of the given. Accept the Carte- 
 sian notion of substance, and you must pronounce 
 nature a phantasm and experience a futility. It is 
 
METAPHYSICAL METHOD 261 
 
 true that Descartes himself tried to escape this con- 
 clusion by the introduction of theological notions, but 
 his more consistent follower, Spinoza, carried the 
 doctrine of substance to its logical conclusion, and 
 has become for all time the type and exemplar of the 
 metaphysician, an akosmist giving a thorough-going 
 denial of nature, asserting that the only real is the 
 unknown, imposing upon nature the tyranny of the 
 ideal. Take the definitions, for instance, in the first 
 part of his " Ethics." Not one of them is taken from 
 experience. Each is a carefully elaborated d, priori 
 proposition. " Per causam sui intelligo id cujus 
 essentia involvit existentiam, sive id cujus natura 
 non potest concipi nisi existens." Here we have the 
 ontological proposition assumed at once. And where 
 in nature can the causa sui be found ? Nowhere. 
 The same reply must be given with reference to all 
 the objects of his definitions. Substance is not any- 
 thing given at all ; it is none of the " substances " 
 known to experience. It is " id quod in se est et per 
 se concipitur." It is not anything perceived, but 
 wholly conceptual. Attribute, mode, freedom, neces- 
 sity, eternity, all are hyperphysical notions. And so 
 too, the " God " of Spinoza. Where could the philo- 
 sopher get the notion of " Ens absolute infinitum hoc 
 est substantiam constantem infinitis attributis" from ? 
 Nowhere in nature or experience. It is an ideal, an 
 ideal which may be justifiable in theology, but cannot 
 be defended as a notion by means of which the 
 universe as given is to be explained. Spinoza brings 
 this " God " right into what he would have us regard 
 
262 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 as the world of things in that he terms Him the only 
 causa sui. This is the imposition of the ideal upon 
 the given. Even in his definition of a finite thing, 
 Spinoza is wholly unconcerned about natural things. 
 To him it is merely res qua alia ejusdetn natures 
 tertninari potest. And yet he is perfectly frank all the 
 time as to his method. He does not say, " Deus est 
 ens absolute infinitum," nor "Causa sui est id cujus 
 essentia involvit existentiam." What he does say is 
 that he understands these words in these given senses : 
 " Per Deum intelligo" etc., and " Per causam sui 
 intelligo id," etc. It is the notion that Spinoza has as 
 to what must or should be, that decides what he will 
 regard as real ; and not what he finds given in experi- 
 ence, that he will say " is." The ideal, not the given, 
 is the real. 
 
 To show how little this method is to be regarded as 
 antiquated it will be sufficient to notice that it is par 
 excellence the method of Mr. Bradley, who, like his 
 predecessor Green, largely influenced as he is by the 
 modern German Idealists, consistently applies this 
 metaphysical method. Mr. William James* has 
 called metaphysics " an unusually obstinate attempt 
 to think clearly and consistently." This is Mr. 
 Bradley's view, tersely put. It should be observed that 
 the function of science is to think what is given in 
 nature. Science cannot afford to assume that nature 
 is consistent. It has to think first, to describe nature, 
 and hopes to be able to pronounce as to the con- 
 sistency of nature when the process of learning what 
 * "Text-book of Psychology," p. 461. 
 
METAPHYSICAL METHOD 263 
 
 nature is has been completed. But metaphysics starts 
 with its ideal and asserts "The real is consistent." 
 And this, as we have seen, is literally Mr. Bradley's 
 test of reality : self-consistency. The result of the 
 application of this criterion is, in the first place, a 
 thorough-going akosmism. Like Spinoza, the English 
 thinker finds what is given to be unreal, for it is not 
 consistent. Of course for the real to be self-consistent 
 there can be no substantial differences. A monism is 
 for Mr. Bradley an intellectual necessity. And so it 
 must be. There is really no necessity to seek any 
 confirmation of this assertion of the existence of but 
 one substance. " Feeling, thought, volition (any 
 groups under which we class psychical phenomena), 
 are all the material of existence, and there is no other 
 material actual or even possible."* This method 
 eventually leads to the assertion of the ontological 
 proposition in the form of the doctrine that the only 
 real (or rather the most real) being is the absolute, 
 which is to us unknowable. All experience, however, 
 has a place in this absolute. All contradictions are 
 swallowed up in it. There is no pain nor happiness, 
 good nor evil, ignorance nor knowledge, but only the 
 absolute. Mr. Bradley's method in establishing these 
 conclusions is most instructive. He shows first that 
 tJie disappearance of the negative aspects of experi- 
 ence {e.g., pain) in the absolute is possible. He then 
 asserts that, according to the principle of consistency, 
 this must happen. Consequently it does happen. 
 " For what may be, if it also must be, assuredly 
 ' "Appearance and Reality," p. 144. 
 
264 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 is."* Here we have the metaphysical method in 
 all its simplicity. What is, is not the given but the 
 ideal ; not what is discovered, but what it is thought 
 mj4st be. 
 
 * " Appearance and Reality," pp. 196, 199, 240, etc. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 METAPHYSICAL METHOD AND THE IDEALS 
 
 We shall not here discuss the method of modern 
 science as we have discussed the metaphysical method. 
 It will suffice to point out that, whereas the method 
 of metaphysicians from the time of Thales to the 
 present day has been to discover what must be (in 
 accordance with some ideal), the scientist is content 
 merely to describe the given, to say what is. A 
 natural law is a means of saying what does 
 actually happen. A formula is a mathematical mode 
 of expressing what is. So-called scientific " explana- 
 tion " is only a record of what has been observed, 
 done in such a way that the thing " explained " may 
 be recognised as similar to other things observed. 
 Science is content to describe. 
 
 Now modern science has for its subject-matter 
 that which used at one time to be dealt with by the 
 metaphysical method. There has been a change in 
 the way in which different classes of objects have 
 been dealt with. In some cases the change from the 
 one method to the other has been so gradual that it 
 can hardly be traced without entering upon minute 
 historical discussion. In other cases, however, there 
 have been well-marked transitional stages, and the 
 
266 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 state of these branches of knowledge before the change 
 of method is so different from their subsequent con- 
 dition that we are able to see clearly when the change 
 was made. An excellent example of this can be found 
 in the history of the science of astronomy. The 
 Pythagoreans determined that the orbit of all heavenly 
 bodies must be circular, because the supralunar world 
 was regarded as the world of perfection, and the circle 
 was regarded as the sign of perfection, the perfect 
 figure. That movements on the earth are not of 
 this circular order, they considered to be due to the 
 fact that the sublunary world was the home of 
 imperfection. Here an ideal or notion, a priori, not 
 derived from experience, was used to explain the 
 given facts of experience in a metaphysical sense. 
 That is the reason why the method is said to be 
 metaphysical, not because the result of the application 
 of the method (orbits said to be circular which are 
 elliptical) was wrong. It would be possible, of course, 
 for two thinkers, one using the metaphysical method 
 and the other seeking strictly to describe what actually 
 is given to his experience, to come to similar conclu- 
 sions. It would be possible for two astronomers in 
 this way to come to the same false result while using 
 different methods. 
 
 Let us suppose that two thinkers hold exactly the 
 same view as to the orbit of any given planet. Each 
 supposes the planet to move in a circle, and in each 
 case the supposition is, of course, wrong. But what 
 we have to do with here is not the truth of the judg- 
 ment, but the method by which it is arrived at. Now 
 
METHOD AND IDEALS 267 
 
 the course of thought of the one thinker would be 
 something like this : " Beyond certain limits of space 
 all motion is perfect. The planet I watch moves 
 beyond those limits, and therefore its movements are 
 perfect. But a perfect movement is circular, where- 
 fore the movement of that planet must be circular." 
 And this is the metaphysical method. The conclusion 
 is arrived at apart from discovery and scientific 
 description. It is in accordance with a principle out- 
 side of nature, the principle of supralunary perfection. 
 In the case of the second thinker we have an argu- 
 ment somewhat in this style : "Observing the move- 
 ments of the planet A, I note that at certain times it 
 occupies certain given positions. It can only occupy 
 these positions at those times on the supposition that 
 it moves in a circle. Granted that the hypothesis of 
 a circular orbit is correct, the given times and positions 
 may be deduced. Hence I am scientifically justified 
 in assuming the theory of circular movement." Here 
 the method is scientific, though, as in the other case, 
 a hypothesis requiring the work of imagination is 
 used. But the scientific hypothesis differs from the 
 metaphysical hypothesis in that it is formed in con- 
 scious conformity with given experience. It is in 
 fact part of the result of the effort of the mind to think 
 what is given in nature, whereas the metaphysical 
 hypothesis is, as we have seen, the imposition of an 
 ideal upon nature. In science the Baconian motto 
 holds, and always must hold, " Parendo vincire'' 
 whereas in the metaphysical method the greatest 
 conqueror is the most truculent browbeater of nature. 
 
268 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 Another branch of knowledge in which this change 
 of method may be seen is history. An exaihple may 
 be discovered by a comparison of a modern work on 
 history with some older writing. The book of Judges 
 furnishes an excellent example. Here we have brief 
 accounts of the actions of the ancient Jews — it is of no 
 importance here whether the characters and incidents 
 dealt with were mainly traditional or strictly historical, 
 — given in such a way that it is perfectly clear that the 
 priestly- prophetic author has written under the convic- 
 tion that all disregard of the Jewish worship must be 
 followed by calamity, that all national calamity must 
 be due to the worship of foreign deities, and that all 
 national heroes must be miraculous personages. A 
 brief study of the style makes this apparent. In the 
 same spirit Sir W. Raleigh begins his history of the 
 world with the story of the Creation. In each case 
 we have the metaphysical method. Explanations and 
 incidents are embodied in the history upon other than 
 evidential grounds. The modern scientific historian 
 adopts another method. He writes his history at the 
 bidding of what he finds given. This at least is his 
 method, though his success is generally questionable 
 enough. Similarly in chemistry we find this change of 
 method. That search after the philosopher's stone and 
 the elixir of life which formed so large a part of the 
 labours of ancient investigators, would have been 
 impossible but for the persistence of the metaphysical 
 habit of thought after the separation of science from 
 philosophy in general. When the separation became 
 more complete this search became impossible. Indeed, 
 
METHOD AND IDEALS 269 
 
 the fundamental difference between alchemy and 
 modern chemistry is one of method. The method of 
 alchemy was metaphysical, that of chemistry scientific. 
 The chemist has made such vast advances in his 
 investigations, because his method now is to think the 
 given and to describe what he discovers in nature. He 
 no longer tries to find what he imagines ought to be 
 there. In saying this we neither wish to deny the 
 place of hypotheses in science, nor to minimise the 
 importance of the scientific imagination. But it must 
 be insisted upon that the methodical hypothesis and 
 the imagination which evolves it are, as we have seen 
 above in the case of astronomy, subordinated in strict 
 scientific thinking to the elucidation of the given, and 
 not employed in the imposition of d. priori notions 
 upon the given. 
 
 But the question now naturally arises whether there 
 is not a class of objects which demand a method 
 other than the scientific, indeed, to which the meta- 
 physical method may be legitimately applied. Grant- 
 ing that the scientific method has been found to be 
 the method proper to certain fields of thought, is it 
 not a fact that in another field the metaphysical 
 method, and not the scientific, must be adopted .' 
 Well, what is then this subject-matter which is 
 different in kind from that of science ? The answer 
 is that science has to do with phenomena or mere 
 appearance, while metaphysics has to do with reality. 
 The method of science — discovery, description, naming, 
 the criterion of consistency — may be granted to be 
 adequate when we are dealing with phenomena, but it 
 
270 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 certainly is not sufficient when we deal with noumena. 
 Now this claim of metaphysicians, that they are 
 dealing with reality, is a very serious one, and must 
 be defended before we can accept it. And a defence 
 of it can only be made upon certain definite lines. 
 Either we are referred to the body for metaphysical 
 doctrine itself as giving conviction that reality can be 
 adequately dealt with by the metaphysician, or an 
 epistemological investigation is undertaken with the 
 real intention of discovering whether a knowledge of 
 reality be possible. Now the first of these methods 
 of defence * is, as a matter of fact, a bare begging of 
 the question. For the results of the metaphysical 
 method are not in question. They can only be justi- 
 fied by an appeal to an ontological ideal, and it is 
 this very appeal which constitutes the metaphysical 
 method. It is therefore arguing in a circle to assert 
 that the convincing nature of the results of the method 
 is a proof of the validity of that method. On the 
 other hand, no examination of the nature of know- 
 ledge can ever give a justification of the metaphysical 
 method. For this examination must be in turn 
 methodically either metaphysical or scientific. If it 
 be metaphysical we have once more a vicious circle, 
 and if it be scientific we can arrive at no other conclusion 
 than that the real, when regarded as distinct from 
 the given, cannot be known. Knowledge is that 
 possession of the mind which is arrived at through 
 the medium of phenomena, and a valid epistemology 
 
 • Mr. Bradley, "Appearance and Reality," Introduction; Dr. 
 John Caird, " Philosophy of Religion," chap. i. 
 
METHOD AND IDEALS 2;i 
 
 must affirm at the outset that what it has to deal 
 with are the elements of a given experience. It 
 must treat the ideals themselves with which the 
 metaphysician operates as also in some sense given in 
 experience, and must apply to them, if it were possible, 
 the same method which it applies to nature. It must 
 discover and describe without making the assumption 
 that reality is peculiar to any class of objects. 
 
 And so we seem to have arrived at a sort of 
 impasse. The metaphysician still makes his assertion. 
 He still affirms that a knowledge of reality is possible, 
 although he can offer no confirmation of his assertion 
 outside of his statement of that knowledge itself. 
 The epistemologist, on the other hand, who refuses to 
 acknowledge the validity of the metaphysical method, 
 can only do so upon the basis of his own method, the 
 scientific method, which the metaphysician persists 
 in affirming to be futile outside certain narrow limits. 
 
 There remains, however, one way of testing this meta- 
 physical method which may prove more satisfactory. 
 The metaphysician claims that we may be sure that he 
 is dealing with reality if we will but follow his specula- 
 tions and think out with him the problems of being. 
 Of course the individual ontologist has in his mind 
 his own theories when he makes this challenge. He 
 would not feel so sure were we to take it up in 
 reference to some rival thinker. Spinoza means that 
 Spinozism proves itself, and Hegel takes the same 
 view of Hegelianism. If then we wish to do full 
 justice to this line of defence of the metaphysical 
 method we must take a broad view of the metaphysical 
 
272 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 schools, and discover to what class of conclusions 
 they lead us. Do these general conclusions carry 
 conviction ? Now, this is exactly what we have 
 done in the earlier chapters of this book We have 
 examined the three types of philosophic thought 
 prevalent, and we have discovered in each a paradox 
 which has prevented the mind from resting in the 
 conclusions arrived at, and has driven the thinker 
 toward some other form of philosophy. This para- 
 dox, we have seen, is in every case some form of 
 what we called generally the metaphysical paradox, 
 a paradox which arises in one form or other when- 
 ever the metaphysical method is resorted to. Now, 
 the three forms of this paradox may be stated con- 
 cisely as follows : When we try to confine knowledge 
 to the given and so discover the real, we are bound 
 to admit, with the Naturalist, that the real is unknow- 
 able. When, however, we assert that knowledge 
 gives no clue to the real, we are driven to the position 
 that the ideal is the real, and consequently are made 
 to think of the real as gradual, as do the Objective 
 Idealists. When, lastly, we try to find the real in the 
 known and the unknowable at once, as do the Free-will 
 Idealists, we assert the equal and similar validity of 
 knowledge gained by intuition and knowledge gained 
 by demonstration, and so fall into an unmanageable 
 dualism which results theologically in Manichaeism, 
 and which theoretically justifies magic. Stating the 
 matter thus, we can see that the root of this threefold 
 metaphysical paradox is the search after the real. 
 In the case of Free-will Idealism, e.g., it is not the 
 
METHOD AND IDEALS 273 
 
 bare fact of a dualism, but of a dualism of reals, that 
 is impossible. Thus we see that confusion and unrest 
 are characteristic of the metaphysical method, and 
 not such an intellectual satisfaction as metaphysiciaijs 
 themselves boast or as would lend cogency to their 
 apologetic. The metaphysical method, when the final 
 test has been applied to it, leaves us perplexed. 
 
 The reader has probably been asking. What has all 
 this to do with the problem we set before ourselves at 
 the outset of our journey as to the nature of religious 
 truth ? The answer is, that it has everything to do 
 with that problem. For the metaphysical method is 
 based upon a theory of truth, of religious truth and all 
 other. This theory of truth is, that truth is to be 
 attained by the imposition of an ideal upon what is 
 given in experience, and the assertion that experience 
 is what this ideal asserts it ought to be. The theory 
 of truth, however, which underlies the scientific 
 method, is that truth is only to be attained by the 
 careful description of what is given without reference 
 to any ideal of what ought to be given, or simply 
 what ought to be. We have seen that the metaphysical 
 method fails to justify itself to thought when put 
 into practice. It is not enough, however, to convince 
 ourselves that the method fails in this way. We 
 must also ask why it fails. The answer to this 
 question is simple enough. It is that the metaphysical 
 method fails because it is not the function of the ideal 
 to give a knowledge of the given. It is the function 
 of the ideal to regulate conduct. 
 
 Ideals are of four cla§se§ ; logical, aesthetic, moral, 
 T. S 
 
274 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 and religious. Each one of these ideals is the statement 
 of an end pursued by some type of human activity. 
 The logical ideal is that which regulates thought. It 
 has validity only within the limits of thought, and it 
 must be clearly borne in mind that thought is not 
 knowledge. The logical ideal has to do with the 
 form in which knowledge may be expressed, but 
 knowledge is more than this form : it has a content 
 which the ideal of thought cannot determine. That 
 is to say, if the logical ideal be consistency, this ideal, 
 while regulating the form of our thought, has no right 
 to decide the matter of our thought. This matter is 
 given by the object of thought, otherwise we can have 
 no standard of validity of thought, and no knowledge. 
 It is not enough to think without object, even though 
 we think consistently. We must think what is given, 
 for thought has no creative power. It is imagination 
 which creates. If we merely determine to think 
 consistently we shall, like Mr. Bradley, decide that 
 the only real object of thought is an absolute which 
 the mind can never really think at all ; we shall see 
 in the universe merely a mass of unmeaning con- 
 sistency. The method of the Objective Idealist, whose 
 ideal is the logical ideal, is to impose the ideal of 
 thought upon existence, and to assert that only the 
 consistent is real. This is the first form of the purely 
 metaphysical method. 
 
 The aesthetic ideal is quite other than the logical, 
 though closely allied to it, for it is, after all, a sort 
 of sense of the beautiful, a sense of symmetry, that 
 determines the logical ideal. And yet the aesthetic 
 
METHOD AND IDEALS 275 
 
 ideal has its own characteristic. The artist is creative 
 in the sense that he seeks to make what he vaguely 
 feels to be beautiful ; he does not determine his con- 
 duct by what is given any more than the logician 
 does, but by what is not given. No artist ever finds 
 in nature what he seeks ; he is driven beyond nature 
 by the ideal that dominates his life. The painter 
 selects, modifies, recasts, even what he finds in the 
 most harmonious landscapes. Turner puts Whitby 
 Church on the other side of the stream, and the 
 portrait painter wishes to leave out the wart when 
 painting Cromwell's picture. The artist is discon- 
 tented with reality, and seeks instead to create some- 
 thing which is as yet not real. And as soon as he 
 has created this, and it has become real, he feels 
 dissatisfied with it. The true artist never feels con- 
 tented with his achievements. No orchestra could 
 possibly produce the music that clanged and surged 
 through the brain of Beethoven, no chisel discover in 
 the marble the wondrous forms that hovered before 
 the mind's eye of Praxiteles. As soon as a fancy 
 becomes realised in verse it is seen to be faulty, and 
 the aesthetic ideal, like the gleam of Tennyson, eludes 
 the grasp of its follower. And so this ideal too can 
 never be used as giving a clue to the nature of reality. 
 Plato and Shaftesbury both in a measure sought to 
 impose their aesthetic ideal upon the universe, but in 
 doing so were bound philosophically to fail, just 
 as Keats pronounces the absurdest nonsense, philo- 
 sophically considered, when he says, " Beauty is truth, 
 truth beauty." 
 
 S 2 
 
2>6 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 The moral ideal is of the same nature as those 
 ideals already noticed. It is the denial of what is, 
 the assertion that something else ought to be, the 
 command to the will, or rather of the will, that the 
 given shall be destroyed, and that that which is but 
 vaguely conceived shall be put into its place. The 
 moral reformer sees everywhere in society, and even 
 beyond the limits of humanity, wrongs which should be 
 righted, things that are which ought not to be ; and he 
 strives to impose this ideal of his upon the real ; he 
 strives to alter laws, to remodel customs, to root out 
 injustices, to overthrow kingdoms, and even to change 
 the very instincts of his race. But when the moralist 
 tries not only to alter what is to what ought to be, but 
 goes a step further and maintains theoretically that 
 it is that which ought to be which really exists, he is 
 uttering a paradox, and this paradox, when made the 
 basis'^of a metaphysic, becomes the contradiction of 
 his own ideal. For the reality of his ideal must 
 mean the unreality of the given, and the effort to 
 destroy the given and substitute for it the ideal can 
 only result in the modification of the same varying 
 unreality. In theology this doctrine of the unreality 
 of given evil and the reality of the ideal results in 
 a denial of sin, and a carelessness about morality 
 which finally induces that worst of all heresies, 
 Antinomianism. That form of metaphysics which, 
 recognising the fact that science alone cannot give an 
 adequate explanation of the universe, turns to the 
 moral nature of man, and seeks to use that as a 
 criterion of reality, is as false methodologically as the 
 
METHOD AND IDEALS. 277 
 
 other forms we have examined. The real is not what 
 ought to be, for the " ought '* cannot be known any 
 more than the beautiful and the consistent can be 
 known. The '* ought " is an ideal of action, having to 
 do with conduct, and not with theory. The basing 
 of a metaphysic upon it leads eventually either to 
 the metaphysical paradox of the Objective Idealist, 
 as in Green, or the dualism of the Free-will Idealist, 
 as in Martineau. 
 
 The religious ideal is not so simply characterised as 
 those already indicated. It partakes of the nature 
 of the aesthetic and moral ideals, but superimposed 
 upon these is the ideal of personality. The highest 
 type of conduct is conceived as being in accord, not 
 merely with an idea of the beautiful or an abstract 
 notion of the good, but with a perfected personality. 
 Life is regarded as imperfect where it is impersonal, 
 and it is felt that only such conduct is finally good 
 which is more than moral, which springs from will 
 " touched with emotion," bathed ultimately in the fire 
 of whole-hearted love. The religious ideal embraces 
 the whole of life, and the religious man is one who at 
 all moments regards his thoughts, feelings, and actions 
 as directed, not merely towards certain persons and 
 certain impersonal things, but towards the one Person, 
 God. To the religious man the world becomes the 
 home of spirits of whom he is one, and over all finite 
 spirits there is the one God who is the type of truth, 
 the glowing ideal of beauty, the holy Director of good 
 action, the loving Father of all. The religious ideal 
 is ultimately God, revealing Himself to man in certain 
 
278 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 definite ways, historically, naturally, and immediately, 
 so that the being of the believer may partake of the 
 being of God. 
 
 But here again this God is not given* ; He is not in 
 thi? sense the real. He is ideal. And so religion 
 never-^except in the case of Gnostics, whom their co- 
 religionists with keen insight wisely assert to be here- 
 tics — claims to know God in any but a metaphorical 
 sense. The highest types of religion invariably affirm 
 that man by searching cannot find out Godj that "no 
 man hath seen God at any time." To arrive at the 
 ideal of God it is not knowledge, but faith, which is 
 necessary, and as soon as the philosopher tries to 
 banish faith and put knowledge in its place he not 
 only fails as a thinker, but endangers that religion 
 which he thinks he may secure. The classic example 
 of this is of course the mediaeval scholasticism. This 
 school sought to identify the religious God of 
 Christianity with the logical principle of Aristotle — 
 things entirely and generically different. Unfortu- 
 nately the metaphysical methods of the schoolmen 
 have never been altogether discarded by theologians, 
 though for the metaphysics of Aristotle other systems 
 have been from time to time adopted. The result is 
 that the so-called " proofs " of the being of God 
 have persisted, and even where their invalidity has 
 been recognised they have, for one reason or another, 
 
 * In saying that " God is not given " it is not suggested that we 
 have no experience of God. We have that experience. But it is 
 an intimate and incommunicable experience, quite other than the 
 experiences which the natural sciences describe. 
 
METHOD AND IDEALS 279 
 
 been preserved. And so it is sought to prove that the 
 God of religion is in a metaphysical sense. That is, 
 He is degraded from His position as ideal, as above 
 the world of things that may be measured and described, 
 and asserted to have His place among what is given ; 
 and that must eventually be among phenomena. In 
 this -way God becomes epistemologically . merely a 
 thing or a finite personality, or else He is merged into 
 some logical principle of an Objective Idealist and 
 spoken of as infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent, the 
 sole causa sui, the First Cause, the great monad, and so 
 on, all of which terms have no religious import, being 
 mere logical abstractions, empty of all but theoretic 
 interest. 
 
 We cannot here develop this brief examination of 
 the four ideals, but it will be obvious that each one of 
 them is not given to thought in experience, but is 
 imposed upon experience. No examination of experi- 
 ence will discover that ideal consistency which the 
 logician seeks, that beauty which delights the soul of 
 the artist, that goodness for which the moral reformer 
 would lay down his life, or that God who can inspire men 
 in the humblest position with peace and devotion. But 
 though these ideals are not given in experience, and 
 cannot be said to be known, they nevertheless exert a 
 profound influence upon conduct. And not only this : it 
 is they which make conduct, they alone, and not the 
 things that are. They are furthermore not appre- 
 hended by cognition, but by faith, not known, but 
 believed. Here it is that the motive power of life 
 finally resides, in faith, not in knowledge. The func- 
 
280 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 tion of imposing an ideal upon the real is the function, 
 not of knowledge, but of faith, and the result of this 
 imposition is not a theory, but a form of conduct, not 
 science, but life. Faith, determined by an ideal, reads 
 a significance into phenomena which descriptive 
 science does not see, and thereby determines con- 
 duct. But if, leaping beyond its proper sphere, it 
 becomes a principle upon which a knowledge of 
 reality may be built, it can only produce confusion 
 and doubt. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 In examining the trend of recent changes in theo- 
 logy* we saw a steady tendency to distinguish more 
 and more strictly between religious and scientific 
 truth. Those elements in theology which were of the 
 nature of scientific judgments, we found were being in- 
 vestigated, and accepted or rejected, according to 
 scientific method without reference to dogmatic con- 
 siderations, while those elements which expressed 
 moral and spiritual values were handled according to 
 a different criterioji. Thus theology to-day has two 
 functions, the scientific and the religious. It is only 
 however as religious that it is autonomous ; as scientific 
 it adopts methods determined for it by the general 
 state of contemporaneous culture. Strictly speaking, 
 then, only religious theology is theology proper. So, 
 thcHj literary and historical criticism determines the text 
 of Scripture ; theology proper expounds the meaning of 
 that text for the religious man. Comparative religion 
 describes the relations between Christianity and other 
 religions ; theology proper declares the supremacy of 
 Christianity as an article of faith. Psychology 
 
 ♦ Chap. X. 
 
282 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 discovers the effectof prayer upon human life ; theology 
 proper declares God as a sympathetic and comforting 
 Listener. Scientific ethics discovers and displays the 
 ethical norms which are operative under various 
 social conditions and at various times; Christian 
 ethics displays the ideal given to men in Jesus 
 Christ. In short, while the registration and descrip- 
 tion of phenomena is being carried on according to 
 the canons of science, the theologian claims as his 
 prerogative the declaration of spiritual meanings 
 according to criteria which have no validity for the 
 scientist as such. While unreservedly accepting 
 scientific truth, the theologian boldly states articles 
 of faitli. 
 
 This steady trend in theological thought we are 
 justified in linking up with that much larger intellec- 
 tual movement which we have observed sweeping 
 through all modern English thinking. That process 
 in theology which carefully marks scientific truth from 
 religious faith must be treated as an element of the 
 general tendency to differentiate the scientific from 
 the metaphysical method by making it the exclusive 
 province of science to describe things as they are, and 
 by confining the metaphysical method to its proper 
 sphere. This proper sphere is indicated when we have 
 noted that metaphysics is essentially the advocacy of 
 an ideal, and such advocacy has its legitimate function, 
 not in constructing a dpctrine of what is, but in deter- 
 mining what ought to be. When we speak of the 
 " proper sphere of the metaphysical method " let there 
 be no mistake as to our meaning. It may be that men 
 
THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 283 
 
 will persist in an attempt at the discovery of reality as 
 somethirig distinct from the subject-matter of science. 
 It may be, indeed, that this discovery of the noumerial 
 may be made possible by some future development of 
 the human spirit. Neither of these contingencies is 
 however referred to here as a sphere in whicb the 
 metaphysical method may properly be continued. 
 The ipetaphysical method indeed — the assertion that 
 things are of a certain order because our ideals lead us 
 to make them according to that order — is no longer 
 tenable. If adopted it must, as we have seen, lead to 
 paradox and unstable equilibrium of thought. The 
 proper sphere of the metaphysical method is not within 
 the limits of pure thought any longer. It is not the 
 description of things as they are — which is science. 
 It is, however, something else, and something vastly 
 more important than what has been called " meta- 
 physics." The metaphysical method, in short, is not 
 justifiable as an attempt at the construction of a world 
 view, but it is justifiable, nay, it is necessary, to the 
 construction of a life. 
 
 We have seen that metaphysical method is essen- 
 tially the imposition of the ideal upon the given. 
 This may take place in two ways. First, it may be 
 theoretic in the sense that it results in the construction 
 of a " metaphysic," round assertion being made that 
 what is given is the ideal. This we hold to be vicious 
 and improper. Secondly, it may be practical, not 
 corisisting of any mere assertion as to reality, but being 
 primarily an effort to impose the ideal upon what is 
 given by the actual manipulation, and violent recon- 
 
284 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 struction, of the given. This we hold to be the legiti- 
 mate element lending propriety to the metaphysical 
 impulse. As a matter of fact, all metaphysics is the 
 outcome of the metaphysical stress turned away from 
 its proper sphere by being thwarted in practical affairs. 
 The moralist who longs to be good in life, , but finds 
 the inertia of his character too great for him, takes 
 refuge in imposing his moral ideal upon reality in 
 thought. He cannot make his life good, and so he 
 asserts that all life is good, that evil is a mere appear- 
 ance, that due insight would reveal the goodness of 
 every part of reality — in short, that this is the best of 
 all possible worlds ! And so with the other ideals. 
 This, however, is illegitimate as an effort to discover 
 truth. It is mere assertion not based on reality, but 
 definitely denying the given. It is when the moralist 
 turns his whole attention to the facts of life, and seeks 
 to give free play to the ideal that ought to master him, 
 that the " metaphysical method " really begins to find 
 its proper sphere — the sphere of action, not of thought. 
 The moralist then does not say " all is good." He 
 recognises the given and admits with a sorrow pro- 
 portionate to the vivacity of his ideal that there is 
 much that is evil. He does not try to argue that evil 
 is only appearance, but he sets to work so to live that 
 within the limits of the reach of his will evil shall dis- 
 appear. That is to say, he admits the reality of evil, 
 but determines to construct the reality of good. Here 
 we may find an explanation of the fact that so many 
 noble lives feel more keenly the ills of the world than 
 do those not so eager to live rightly. For it is the 
 
THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 285 
 
 strain of the struggle to construct goodness that makes 
 them the more alive to the power of evil. 
 
 What is true of the moral ideal is true of the other 
 ideals. The proper sphere in which the metaphysical 
 impulse should play is life. The kingdom of heaven, 
 with its beauty, its goodness and its God, is not to be 
 realised by the assertion that it " is " : " the kingdom 
 of heaven suffereth violence, and men of violence take 
 it by force." The man of faith believes in his ideal 
 against the utmost menace of hostile reality. An 
 Amos beards Jeroboam and Amaziah in the very 
 temple of their worship, not because he says " Jehovah 
 is the God you worship," but because he would have 
 them repent. A Luther stands immovable before 
 Emperor and Papacy, not because of a smooth meta- 
 physic denying error's existence, but because the 
 truth must be published to the world. Jesus of 
 Nazareth gave Himself, not to illustrate a theodicy, 
 but to bring redemption into men's lives. The man 
 of faith is the legitimate metaphysician, taking the 
 kingdom of heaven by force. And the summary of his 
 experience is religious truth, a truth not culled from 
 incidents given in a historical reality, but born in the 
 throes of the ideal. What remains to the metaphysical 
 impulse then, as against the discovery of truth, which 
 is the province of science, is the statement of articles 
 of faith, so that here we have a differentiation 
 similar to that going on within the limits of theology, 
 resulting in marking off scientific theology from 
 theology proper. 
 
 Religious truth, then, which has been broadly 
 
286 Theology and truth 
 
 described above,* must be distinguished with the 
 utmost rigour from scientific truth within the limits of 
 theology, just as in philosophy the distinction between 
 scientific truths and metaphysical statements must be 
 observed. Indeed, as has been already said, the two 
 things had better be given distinct names. Religious 
 truth is best termed faith, which " gives substance to 
 things hoped for,'' and " tests things not seen." It is 
 the reaching out of the soul after that which is not 
 known, but felt, which is not apprehended, but which 
 apprehends the man. It is the victory of the things 
 that are not — the ideals — over the things that are. 
 It is the imposition of an ideal upon life, upon the 
 given, not ultimately in mere thought, but in conduct. 
 It is the substance of all striving and aspiration. 
 It lends nobility to discontent and even to despair ; 
 it sends humanity despite the cold discouragements of 
 knowledge, striding joyously and valiantly towards 
 an unknown goal. 
 
 The religious man is ready to venture his all upon 
 this faith. When once he has it revealed to him it 
 seems a light thing to wager his soul upon the divine 
 truth. Like Paul, the Christian may be chased by 
 enemies from city to city ; may be stoned and 
 whipped and half killed ; may be slandered and 
 impeached and imprisoned ; may be smitten with 
 disease, robbed of ambition, ever suffering from a 
 thorn in the flesh — but he will never cease to believe 
 that God is love, and to the end will be able to cry 
 exultantly, " Rejoice, the Lord is at hand ! " What 
 • P. 230- 
 
THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 287 
 
 does it matter what the scientist says ? What does 
 it matter how many Huxleys chop logic to feed him 
 with ? What does it matter though solemn chemists 
 shake their test tubes, and busy historians enumerate 
 wars, and icy astronomers prove that in ten million 
 years this planet will be dead ? To those who have 
 felt, who have experienced, the forgiveness of sins. 
 He who died upon Calvary is more real than any 
 syllogism yet invented. 
 
 This distinction between scientific and religious 
 truths, or rather between knowledge and faith, is one 
 which has of course often been insisted upon. But it 
 is a distinction which has not been applied to theology 
 with complete and outspoken logical earnestness. In 
 the future it will have to be observed with much 
 greater rigour, the fields of thought in which the two 
 criteria are respectively valid being kept carefully 
 distinct. In scientific theology the criterion of truth 
 (descriptive consistency) will have to be applied 
 without any reference whatever to faith. The date 
 of a document, the origin of a tradition, the evidence 
 for a miracle, the psychological source and nature of 
 religious ecstasy, the history of a dogma, the exegesis 
 of a passage of Scripture — ^these and all kindred 
 things will have to be settled in the fifst place by a 
 purely scientific method, perhaps what the Germans 
 call the religious-historical method, and not by 
 reference to any element of faith to which the theo- 
 logian himself may tenaciously cling. The results 
 thus arrived at — the pure description of the subject- 
 fnatter of theology — must be recognised as a series 
 
288 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 of scientific truths.* In religious theology, the 
 criterion of faith — which is for religion the moral and 
 spiritual imperative often technically known in philo- 
 sophy as " intuitive knowledge," and in theology as 
 " revelation "t — must be applied as it asserts itself 
 in the living religious consciousness of the theologian 
 himself In this realm it is the individual faith 
 that must have the last word. The only and ultimate 
 religious authority is the witness of experience. 
 
 A group of writers have recently become influential 
 in Germany advocating the complete elimination of 
 this that we have here called " religious theology " 
 from scholarship. These theologians maintain that 
 the scientific method (the religious-historical method 
 so-called) can alone be legitimately used, and when 
 legitimately used can give satisfactory results. It is 
 asserted that the religious belief of the theologian 
 should not be allowed to obtrude itself upon the 
 discussion of the historically objective religions with 
 which he deals ; and that that belief can only be a 
 disturbing element when it leads the scholar to pro- 
 nounce as to the value of historical events, ancient 
 documents, and ecclesiastical dogmas and institutions. 
 
 This view of the function of theology has, as we 
 have seen, a certain element of truth. It suggests, 
 
 * It should be borne in mind that scientific truths are not 
 necessarily permanent. On the contrary, being relative to culture, 
 they are in a state of constant flux. 
 
 f By this phrase it is not intended to deny the reality of divine 
 revelation. The writer is convinced that religious truths, or articles 
 of faith, are essentially the revelations of God. Here it is a question 
 of technical terms. 
 
THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 289 
 
 too, a Puritan rigour and uncompromising veracity 
 which commend themselves to all. And yet does it 
 not lead to the paradoxical conclusion that the best 
 interpreter of any religion is the man who knows 
 least about it ? If we may only be told the truth 
 concerning Christianity by one who can approach 
 Christianity without allowing faith to warp the 
 accuracy of his vision, does it not follow that he 
 would be the best theologian who believed in no 
 religion at all ? Should we not, in accordance with 
 this view, be acting wisely in filling all our theological 
 chairs with agnostic professors ? Obviously, any 
 effort to eliminate all the operations of faith in the 
 development of theology has something false in it. 
 For theology has to do with religious beliefs as well 
 as with scientific truths, and while the strictest 
 scientific methods should be used in stating truth, the 
 richest religious experience is needed to display and 
 interpret faith. While the scientist is the proper 
 person to handle scientific questions, it is only the 
 believer who can unfold a living religion. 
 
 So then the theologian must be capable of exer- 
 cising the two functions : he must be equipped with 
 knowledge and rigorous impartiality in dealing with 
 those elements of theology to which the criterion of 
 scientific truth can be applied ; and he must be a 
 man of faith for the setting forth of those elements of 
 religious belief which give their ultimate practical 
 meaning and value to the life of the religious man 
 and the facts of history. 
 
 We will illustrate this by reference to two 
 T. T 
 
290 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 departments of theology, comparative religion and 
 Biblical theology. Comparative religion is a dis- 
 cipline in which the scientific criterion has properly 
 a large place. The various religions of the world 
 adjacent to Christianity chronologically, logically, and 
 geographically, are being studied with the utmost 
 care by the theologian, and the methods which he 
 applies to them with a view to the discovery of their 
 origin and development he is also applying to 
 Christianity itself. He must, however, prosecute this 
 work with the utmost rigour. For instance, in the 
 study of Buddhism, the relation of the new faith to 
 the Vedanta philosophy and Brahmanism generally 
 is, of course, carefully investigated, and the elements 
 of originality in Buddha, if any, marked off; and 
 exactly the same effort is made in examining Chris- 
 tianity in its relation to Judaism: indebtedness to 
 Judaism is appraised, and the elements of originality 
 in Christianity exhibited. But then two other 
 problems arise. If Buddhism is thus to be traced 
 to some extent to Brahmanism, and Christianity to 
 Judaism, the problem of the relation between Judaism 
 and prior religions must not be neglected. Are the 
 elements of Judaism to be treated as wholly original, 
 or themselves due to earlier beliefs? And if the 
 latter is the case, as is now almost universally 
 believed, what was the home of the mother-faith of 
 Judaism — Babylon, Egypt, or the Arabian deserts? 
 That is the first problem. The second is. Whence 
 came the so-called original elements of Buddhism in 
 the one case, and of Christianity in the other } Now 
 
THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 291 
 
 in the case of Buddhism this question may be put 
 and answered with the utmost equanimity, for the 
 English theologian does not believe in the necessary 
 originality of Gautama. But the case of Christianity 
 is different. The person of its Founder stands robed 
 in the light and fire of faith, and can hardly be 
 approached. Nevertheless, since this is a question 
 of history and fact, the scientific criterion must be 
 applied. With reverence, and therefore with rigorous 
 and scrupulous honesty, the fullest investigation must 
 be made. 
 
 But when all this scientific investigation has been 
 completed the task of the theologian is not finished. 
 The application of the descriptive criterion is only pre- 
 paratory to the application of the religious criterion. 
 Many questions of peculiar religious import arise in 
 connection with the comparison of Christianity with 
 other religions and the establishment of their historic 
 relations. Prominent among them is that of the 
 absoluteness of the Christian religion. Is Christianity 
 the absolute religion ? And if so, in what sense ? 
 Now this is a question the urgency of which is due to 
 the intensity of the faith of Christians. It is the 
 expression of a state of heart. It is the triumphant 
 assertion of the believer who has found a certain 
 satisfaction and rest in Christ. It is not primarily a 
 theory, but the intellectual expression of a secret 
 experience. That is to say, it has not been arrived 
 at by an elaborate comparison of the various other 
 positive religions with Christianity ; it is not the result 
 of a scientific survey. It does not owe its guarantee 
 
 T 2 
 
292 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 to the application of the criterion of descriptive 
 consistency. But, more than that, it neither needs, 
 nor can possibly receive, the confirmation of science. 
 Comparative religion, when applying the scientific 
 criterion, can say nothing about the "absolute," 
 unless it distort the meaning of that word. It can 
 only deal with the relative. Its very being consists 
 in comparison, and can at best only assert com- 
 parative values. But can it properly even assert 
 these ? Do they not imply a norm or criterion which 
 science itself cannot furnish ? Indeed, can com- 
 parative religion do more than compare the religions 
 in point of fact ? Is it not beyond its sphere to say 
 anything about comparative values? True, this 
 science can tell us of the relative vitality of Christianity, 
 and can set Christian ethics side by side with the other 
 moralities. But it must leave to the religious criterion 
 itself the assertion that the vitality was due to 
 superior goodness, and that the moral code of Jesus 
 is higher than that of its rival. And if this is so it is d 
 fortiori impossible for comparative religion to say that 
 no religion could embody higher truth than that which 
 Christianity gives, or that it marks the final develop- 
 ment of religious ideas and forces, or that no finer type 
 of character could be produced than that which Chris- 
 tianity has historically trained. That is, comparative 
 religion, by means of the scientific criterion, cannot 
 discover or prove the absoluteness of the Christian 
 religion. In order to show that Christianity is the 
 absolute religion, something other than an appeal to 
 scientific truth is necessary, and that is the appeal 
 
THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 293 
 
 to faith. Faith in the absoluteness of Christianity 
 involves the intuitive or revelational criterion, that is, 
 the moral and spiritual imperative. Beneath all must 
 be, that is to say, the appeal to the incommunicable 
 experience of the individual ; there must be the imme- 
 diate assertion of this absoluteness as an " article of 
 faith" in a way which makes the subjective, personal 
 element decisive, and adds to scientific knowledge, or 
 builds upon that as a basis, an ideal superstructure. 
 The metaphysical method does this in the region of 
 pure thought, and refuses to recognise any radical 
 distinction between the articles of faith and the 
 scientific statements. But an epistemologically legiti- 
 mate theology must clearly mark that distinction, and 
 must bravely acknowledge the intuitive character of 
 its final conclusions. That Christianity is the absolute 
 religion then is asserted, not upon the ground of its 
 comparative superiority to other religions, but upon 
 its absolute value to the Christian ; not because it is 
 seen to bring evolution to a period, but because it 
 furnishes the Christian with a faith which makes him 
 careless of all processes ; not because it has actually 
 given certain supreme types of nobility of character 
 to the world, but because it gives to the Christian a 
 belief in his own possible achievement of perfection. 
 In some such form as this the basis of faith in Chris- 
 tianity as absolute may be expressed. But, whether 
 in this way or some other, that basis is ultimately a 
 personal, individual experience of Christianity which 
 issues an imperative : Christianity must be absolute. 
 It is utterly different from the basis of a scientific 
 
294 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 judgment. For that is an impersonal abstract descrip- 
 tion of what is observed, issuing in an indicative. 
 Scientific theology working by means of comparative 
 religion cannot say that Christianity is absolute. It 
 can only say that Christianity is, in point of fact, 
 related to other religions in certain formulated ways. 
 The theologian holds both statements. The second, 
 however, is a truth guaranteed by the criterion of 
 descriptive consistency, while the first is an article of 
 faith based upon intuitive experience, or, speaking 
 theologically, revealed. And of the two the article 
 of faith is the more important, for it issues an impera- 
 tive which moulds life, and imposes, in actuality rather 
 than in thought, an ideal upon the given. 
 
 We turn now to Biblical theology. As a science 
 this discipline rigorously applies to Scripture just 
 those canons which literary criticism applies to all 
 other documents. Reverence for the Bible insists on 
 perfect honesty and thoroughness in this work, what- 
 ever results may be reached. The source, age, author- 
 ship, meaning and accuracy of the documents must be 
 tested by all possible means, regardless of dogmatic 
 considerations. But alongside of this the religious 
 criterion must do its work. The theologian asserts 
 the inspirational character of the Bible, and to do that 
 must work by means of religious experience. And 
 so it is that he deals with all Biblical literature in two 
 ways. First of all, he gives it its due scientific descrip- 
 tion. If he finds myth, he says so ; if he finds error, 
 he lays it bare. If he finds that passages owe their 
 content to extra-Biblical sources, he discovers these. 
 
THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 295 
 
 But where he feels inspiration to have its lodgement 
 he declares this also. For instance, the Biblical 
 theologian will take such a phrase as that in Gen. i. : 
 " And God said, Let there be light, and there was 
 light." Applying to this the scientific criterion, a 
 host of results are at once obtained. The words 
 occur in the so-called "Priest's Code," which has 
 been interwoven with another narrative, itself com- 
 posite, by a compiler. Taken literally, it is part of a 
 story which gives the date of creation about 4CXX) B.C. 
 — a date historically and physically impossible. It 
 therefore is poetical or imaginative, and cannot be 
 held as scientifically true. Again, since it purports 
 to give the words of God spoken in a human language 
 at a particular point of time, it must be classed 
 as literature along with all other similar stories, and 
 must be called a myth. Further, since the history of 
 Israel is closely bound up with that of Babylon, and 
 the culture of the one was in constant touch with the 
 culture of the other, the temporal origin of the narra- 
 tive of the Creation may be sought among the myths 
 of Babylonish religion. In point of fact, very similar 
 accounts of creation occur in Babylonish mythology, 
 and, if the Israelitish account is not to be regarded as 
 derived from Babylon, the two stories have probably 
 a common origin. Finally, physicists assert that 
 matter, and such forms of force as light, could not be 
 created at intervals, but must have a simultaneous 
 history. As soon as matter was created, if even in 
 chaos, light was ipso facto already in being. 
 
 Thus the scientific criterion applied to this phrase 
 
296 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 in Genesis does not permit us to class it as in any 
 sense literally true. But this is not the end of the 
 theologian's work ; it is not even the beginning of 
 theology proper. The theologian now proceeds, even 
 if he should feel that this verse is mythical, non- 
 Mosaic, historically impossible, and physically false, 
 to apply to it his religious criterion. Science having 
 spoken as to facts, it is for faith to declare meanings. 
 And out of the phrase " And God said, Let there be 
 light, and there was light," the religious consciousness 
 immediately develops a series of inspirational truths. 
 " God is," is the article of faith. The heart leaps to 
 affirm its truth. But not only does God exist : He is 
 the mighty ground of all phenomena. Light and all 
 else have their origin and sanction in His will. And so 
 beyond His might is something supremely adorable 
 — His love. God is the Light giver. He has dowered 
 mankind with wonderful possibilities of joy. The 
 iridescent wing of the beetle, the phosphorescent 
 gleam of the darkened ocean, the splendour of star- 
 light, and the humble beauty of the grass — these and 
 a myriad other beauties God gives freely to His 
 creatures. God is love. 
 
 Now these are the affirmations of the soul. They 
 are therefore affirmations which science as such can- 
 not make. Science cannot assert that God is. No 
 knowledge of the given, however intimate, can 
 furnish proof of the being of God, who is to the 
 soul the supreme ideal, ontological and other 
 "proofs" notwithstanding. Nor can science assert 
 that God has might or is love, for these affirmations 
 
THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 297 
 
 lead altogether beyond the phenomenal. But though 
 science cannot assert these articles of faith, the verse 
 in Genesis does express them in symbol. What 
 matter its origin, its literary form, its scientific 
 accuracy ? The theologian has finally to deal with 
 its spiritual implicates, its expression of religious 
 experience. He recognises in its message what 
 his own heart vouches for as divine. In it faith 
 bounds to meet faith, deep calls unto deep. The 
 very phrase casts light over his own soul and flashes 
 inspiration through the dead world of the given. 
 And so it is that for the theologian the sentence 
 is inspired. It is compact of religious truth. It 
 glows with the ideal. It gives impulses towards 
 life. 
 
 Thus can Biblical theology adhere, whatever be the 
 findings of Biblical science, to the doctrine of inspira- 
 tion. Inspiration is a religious thing, and no errors 
 in history or physics or literary knowledge can shake 
 the religious man's faith in it. 
 
 These two illustrations help us to see how the 
 declaration of articles of faith cannot be either 
 occasioned or hindered by changes in scientific know- 
 ledge, though, as we have already seen, the form in 
 which articles of faith are expressed varies very con- 
 siderably from time to time according to the fluctua- 
 tions of general culture. Thus, though theologians 
 continue to teach the inspiration of the Bible, they 
 cannot continue to teach certain forms of that doctrine 
 which denied or ignored the nature and achievements 
 of science. The theory of verbal inspiration and the 
 
298 THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 
 
 theory of inerrancy are alike now impossible, since it 
 is not possible to determine in all cases just what the 
 words of the Bible actually are, and in some cases 
 error is definitely discernible. And so in general the 
 fluctuations of scientific knowledge necessarily change 
 the form of theological utterance, but the matter of 
 that utterance, the real soul of faith, is religious 
 experience, and for the Christian is Christ, " the same 
 yesterday, to-day, and for ever." 
 
 In this brief study we have not attempted a 
 systematic analysis of religious truth, but have 
 essayed the humbler task of marking its characteristic 
 distinction from truth in the stricter sense of the 
 word, scientific truth. As we end our work we come, 
 however, into view of the larger task, which would 
 add to our existing theory of knowledge (episte- 
 mology) a theory of faith, or pistiology. Meanwhile 
 theology should boldly claim its proper place. It 
 has been, perhaps, too apologetic in some respects in 
 the past. It has not made the great claims upon 
 men's lives that it should have made. It has occu- 
 pied itself so largely in combating criticism, in 
 elaborating historical arguments to support sectarian 
 positions, and in asserting that it must stand aloof 
 from the affairs of the multitude, that most have taken 
 it at its word and left it to its lexicons, its polemics 
 and its sacerdotal claims. In consequence men have 
 increasingly occupied themselves with other ideals 
 than those of religion, and have devoted themselves 
 to "art for art's sake," or to "ethical culture," or 
 
THEOLOGY AND TRUTH 299 
 
 social reform. Admirable as these things are, they 
 rise to their highest power only when associated with 
 the Master Ideal, the ideal of God. And God can 
 only be unfolded to the world out of the glowing 
 experience of the religious man. This unfolding of 
 God, this revealing of His will, is the work of 
 religious theology. 
 
 So it is for all theologians to recognise the radical 
 difference between the two fields of truth and, while 
 avoiding all pronouncements which would appear to 
 deny the validity of the scientific method in its own 
 sphere, to insist with firmness and precision that it is 
 the function of theology, and of theology alone, to 
 announce the ultimate findings of faith. As music 
 abides, whatever changes take place in the theory of 
 sound, so religion and religious truth, their home 
 being God, outlive and outshine all the sciences that 
 would decipher their reality. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Absolute, The, 72, 80, 104 
 Absolute religion, 291 
 Adeney, Professor, 221 
 Agnosticism, 34, 88, 92, 212 
 Alexander, Professor, 156 
 Allen, Grant, 34, 83, 84 
 Anaxagoras, 134, 250 
 Anaximander, 248 
 Anaximenes, 248 
 Anthropology, 83, 206 
 Anthropomorphism, 198 
 Aristotle, 134, 206, 253, 256, 
 
 278 
 Authority, 215 
 
 Balfour, Mr. A. J., 157, 160 
 
 Banks, Professor, 178 (note) 
 
 Belief, 231 
 
 Bentham, 23, 172 
 
 Bible, 21, 204, 213, 216, 294 
 
 Borderland Philosophies, 23, 143, 
 
 14s. 177 
 Bradley, Mr. F. H., 23, 94, 137, 
 
 151, IS3. 174. 179. 250, 262 
 Buddhism, 132, 135, 290 
 
 Caird, Professor E., 29, 152 
 
 „ Dr. John, 140 
 Caldecolt, Dr. A., 12 
 Catholics, 214, 216 
 Causation, 186 
 Certainty, 167 
 
 Christ, 196, 298 
 
 , , second coming of, 222 
 Christianity, 137, 192, 196, 289 
 Church, 204, 214 
 Qassification, 17, 168 
 Comparative Religion, 21, 290 
 Comte, 17, 55, 85 
 Conceivability, 59 
 Consistency, 65 
 Cosmology, 206 
 Criterion of Truth {See Truth) 
 Criterion of Truth, The Double, 
 
 164 
 
 D'Arcy, Mr., 112 
 Darwin, 88 
 Democritus, 253 
 Demonstrability, 35, 53, 56 
 Descartes, 149, 197, 260 
 Determinism, 147 
 Dilthey, Professor, 18 (note) 
 Drummond, Henry, 88 
 Dual Criterion of Truth, 201 
 Dualism, 168, 179, 209, 253 
 
 EcKHARDT, 173 
 Empedocles, 250 
 Epistemology, 15, 158, 230 
 Eschatology, 222 
 Ethical Insight, 191 
 Ethics, 191 
 Explanation, 265 
 
302 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Fairbairn, Prof., 196, 212 
 Faith, 169, 171, 230, 279, 286 
 Fetishism, 131, 140 
 First Cause, 185, 207, 257, 279 
 Flint, Professor, 85, 138 (note) 
 Fraser, Dr. Campbell, 18 (note), 
 
 157 (note), 160, 166 (note), 
 
 168, 188 
 Frazer, J. G., 84 
 Freedom, 150 
 Freewill Idealism, 18, 88, \^^Jf., 
 
 236 
 
 God, 173, 179, 18s, 191, 202, 
 226, 251, 256, 259, 277 
 
 Gore, Bishop, 220 
 
 Granger, Professor, 194 
 
 Green, T. H., 145, 151, IS3. 262, 
 277 
 
 Haeckel, Professor, 34 
 
 Hamilton, 69 
 
 Harrison, Mr. Frederic, 85 
 
 Hegel, 138, 170, 258, 271 
 
 Heraclitus, 249 
 
 Higher Criticism, 21, 217 
 
 History, 268 
 
 Hobbes, 41, 43 
 
 Hume, 38, 62 
 
 Huxley, Professor T. H., 21, 24, 
 
 26#, 54, 69, 76, 149, 19s, 210, 
 
 227 
 
 Idealism. See (i) Objective, 
 
 (2) Freewill. 
 Ideals, 265, 280, 293 
 
 „ aesthetic, 274 
 
 „ logical, 273 
 
 ,, moral, 276 
 
 „ religious, 277 
 
 Illingworth, Mr. J. R. 159 (note), 
 
 160 
 Immortality, 194 
 Incarnation, 221 
 Inspiration, 218, 297 
 Intuition, 164, 215 
 
 James, Mr. Wm., 262 
 Jehovah, 187 
 Jesus, 136, 192, 203 
 Judaism, 136 
 
 Kant, 38, 62, 74, 134, 140, 144, 
 
 162, 197 
 Kidd, Mr. Benjamin, 174 
 Knight, Professor, 159 (note), 160, 
 
 172 
 Knowledge, 65, 267 
 
 Lang, Mr. Andrew, 84 
 Laplace, 148 
 Law, 31 
 Leukippus, 251 
 Locke, 65 (note), 94 
 Logic, 63 
 Lotze, 178, 181 
 Love, 192, 226 
 
 Macdonald, Duff, 84 
 
 Mansel, 69 
 
 Martineau, James, IJO, 162/"., 178, 
 
 206 (note), 277 
 Materialism, 38, 95, 157 
 Metaphysics, 37, 55, 74, 242 
 Metaphysical Method, 247, 264, 
 
 266, 272, 283 
 Metaphysical paradox. The, 240 
 Method, religious-historical, 287 
 
INDEX 
 
 303 
 
 Method, scientific, 40 
 
 Mill, J. S., 23, 63, 172 
 
 Miracles, 223 
 
 Monism, 179 
 
 Moore, Rev. Aubrey, 68 (note), 
 
 84 
 Miiller, Max, 24, 84, 142 
 Mysticism, 142, 172 
 
 Naturalism, 18, zdff., 91, 147, 
 234 
 
 Objective Idealism, i8, 90, 91/, 
 
 170, 238 
 Orr, Prof. James, 33, 195 
 
 Pantheism, 132, 137, 180, 
 
 189 
 Paradox of Free-will Idealism, 
 
 169, 176, 184, 239, 243 
 Paradox of Naturalism, The, 53, 
 
 66, 68, 87, 184, 236, 242 
 Paradox of Objective Idealism, 
 
 III, lis, 237. 242 
 Parmenides, 250 
 Pearson, Professor Karl, 34 
 Personality, 147 
 Philosophy of Religion, 1 1 
 Plato, 134, 253, 255 
 Plotinus, 173 
 Polytheism, 132 
 Positivism, 34, 86 
 Prayer, 223 
 
 Proofs, Theistic, 203, 259 
 Protagoras, 253 
 Protestantism, 135, 216 
 Psychology, 231 
 
 „ Failure of, 40 
 
 Psychophysics, 47 
 Pythagoreans, 253, 266 
 
 Raleigh, Sir W. 268 
 Rashdall, Dr., 218 (note) 
 Reason, 175 
 Relativity, 66 
 
 Religion, 13, 76, 175, 178, 213 
 Revelation, 288 
 Ritschlianism, 170 
 Romanes, J. G. , 87 
 
 Self, 153 
 
 Seth, Professor A., 144 
 Schleiermacher, 180 
 Schoolmen, 257, 278 
 Schopenhauer, 26 
 Science, Natural, 33, 188 
 
 „ Theology and, 76, 210, 
 
 224, 281, 296 
 Scientific method, 265, 266 
 Scott Holland, Canon, 171 
 Smith, Robertson, 84 
 Spencer, Herbert, 24, 41, 54^., 
 
 77. 197, 210, 229, 234 
 Spinoza, 26, 72, 137, 138, 156, 
 
 261, 271 
 
 Thales, 248 
 
 Theism, 12, 202 
 
 Theological idealism, 194 
 „ method, 198 
 
 Theology, 194,281/'. 
 ,, Biblical, 294 
 ,, changes in, 19, 210 
 ,, importance of, 10 
 ,, natural, 12 
 ,, pseudo-science, a, 81 
 „ and Philosophy, 194 
 
 Trinity, 204 
 
304 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Truth, 14, 208, 232 
 
 „ Criterion of, 36, S3. 56. 65, 
 
 94, 161, 164, 168 
 Tylor, 84 
 T^ndal, 34 
 
 Universal Postulate, 60 
 Unknowable, Doctrine of the, 29 
 
 Upton, Professor C. B., 138, 156, 
 159 (note), 150, 178 
 
 Ward, Professor James, 1 50 
 Whewell, 63 
 
 Xenophon, 249 
 
 Zeno, 250 
 
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CATALOGUE OF BOOKS, 
 
 27 
 
 Index of Titles. 
 
 the 
 
 Abbey Mill, The 
 
 Adrift on the Black Wild Tide 
 
 America in the East 
 
 Ancient Musical Instruments 
 
 Angels of God, The . 
 
 Apocalyptical Writers, The Messages of 
 
 Apostles, The Messages of the 
 
 Art of Living Alone, The 
 
 Atonement in Modern Thought, The 
 
 Aunt Agatha Ann 
 
 Awe of the New Century, The 
 
 Backward Glance, A 
 
 Baptist Handbook, The 
 
 Barbone Parliament, The 
 
 Barrow, Henry, Separatist . 
 
 Beads of Tasmar, The . 
 
 Between Two Loves . 
 
 Bible Definition of Religion, The 
 
 Bible Story, The : Retold for Young People 
 
 Bible, The : For Home and School 
 
 Birthday Books 
 
 Bishop and the Caterpillar, The 
 
 Black Familiars, The . 
 
 Border Shepherdess, A 
 
 Bow of Orange Ribbon, The 
 
 Brudenells of Brude, The . 
 
 Burning Questions 
 
 Oanonbury Holt . 
 
 Cartoons of St. Mark . 
 
 Changing Creeds and Social Struggles 
 
 Character through Inspiration 
 
 Children's Pace,' The . 
 
 Christ of the Children, The 
 
 Christ of the Heart, The 
 
 Christ that is To Be, The . 
 
 Christ Within, The 
 
 Christ's Pathway to the Cross 
 
 Christian Life, The 
 
 Christian World, The . 
 
 Christian World Pulpit, The 
 
 Christianity and Social Problems 
 
 Christianity in Common Speech 
 
 Chrystabel .... 
 
 Church and the Kingdom, The 
 
 Church, Ministry and Sacraments 
 
 Cinderella .... 
 
 Common Life, The 
 
 Common-sense Christianity . 
 
 Conquered World, The 
 
 Courage of the Coward, The 
 
 Crucible of Experience, The 
 
 Daily Text Books 
 
 Daughter of Fife, A 
 
 in the New Testament. 
 
 PAGE 
 16 
 17 
 
 6 
 20 
 18 
 11 
 
 a 
 
 19 
 
 4 
 
 23 
 
 23 
 
 14 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 11 
 U 
 23 
 14 
 
 2 
 24 
 23 
 4, 16 
 U 
 U, 16 
 16 
 
 9 
 16 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 
 19 
 20 
 13 
 
 6 
 10 
 18 
 17 
 19 
 26 
 26 
 
 6 
 24 
 12, 16 
 20 
 
 6 
 3, 16 
 
 4 
 17 
 18 
 
 8 
 17 
 24 
 11. 16 
 
 1 
 
V £U.L1. JJJt^ 
 
 Debt of the DameraU. The 
 
 Divine Satisfaction, The 
 
 Dutch in the Medway, The . 
 
 Early Pupils of the Spirit, and What of Samuel 
 
 Earlier Prophets, The Messages of the 
 
 Earliest Christian Hymn, The 
 
 Economics of Jesus, The 
 
 England's Danger 
 
 Episcopacy .... 
 
 Epistle to the Galatians, The 
 
 Esther Wynne .... 
 
 Eternal Religion, The 
 
 EzeMel, The Book of. 
 
 Faith the Beginning, Self-Surrender the 
 
 Spiritual Life . 
 Family Prayers for Morning Use . 
 Father Fabian .... 
 Feet of Clay 
 Flower-o'-the-Com 
 Fortune's Favourite . 
 Fortunes of Cyril Denham, The . 
 Friend Olivia .... 
 From Philistia .... 
 Funny Animals and Stories about Them 
 Gain or Loss T . ... 
 
 Garcia, G. H. R. 
 
 Gloria Fatri : Talks about the Trinity 
 Glorious Company of the Apostles, The 
 God's Greater Britain . 
 Golden Truths for Young Folk . 
 Grey and Gold .... 
 Grey House at Endlestone . 
 Growing Revelation, The . 
 Haromi : A New Zealand Story . 
 Harvest Gleanings 
 Health and Home Nursing . 
 Heartsease ia the Family . 
 Heirs of Errington, The 
 Helen Bury .... 
 
 Helping Hand to Mothers . 
 Helps to Health and Beauty 
 Higher on the Hill 
 His Next of Kin 
 His Rustic Wife 
 
 History of the United States, A . 
 Holy Christian Empire 
 Household of MacNeil, The 
 House of Bondage, The 
 How Much is Left of the Old Doctrmes 
 How to Become Like Christ 
 How to Read the Bible 
 Husbands and Wives . 
 Ideals for Girls .... 
 Incarnation of the Lord, The . 
 Industrial Explorings in and around London 
 Isfoldin^s and Unfoldings of the Divine Genius 
 Inspiration in Common Life , 
 
 Inward Light, The . 
 
 Fulfilment, 
 
 of the 
 
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!i OF BOOKS. 
 
 29 
 
 Israel's Law Givers, The Messages of 
 
 Jan Vedder's Wife 
 
 Jealousy of Ood, The . 
 
 Jesus according to the Synoptists, The Messages of 
 
 Joan Carisbroke . 
 
 Job and His Coraforters 
 
 Joshua, The Book of . 
 
 Judges, The Book of . 
 
 Kingdom of the Lord Jesus, The 
 
 Kit Kennedy : Country Boy 
 
 Lady Clarissa ... 
 
 Last of the MacAllisters, The 
 
 Later Prophets, The Messages of the 
 
 Leaves for Quiet Hours 
 
 Let us Pray 
 
 Leviticus, The Book of 
 
 Life and Letters of Paul the Apostle, The 
 
 Life and Letters of Alexander Mackennal, The 
 
 Life and Literature of the Ancient Hebrews, The 
 
 Literary World, The . 
 
 Louis Wain's Aniraal Show 
 
 Louis Wain's Baby's Picture Book 
 
 Loves of Miss Aime, The . 
 
 Lynch, Rev. T. T. : A Memoir 
 
 Making of an Apostle, The . 
 
 Manual for Free Church Ministers, A 
 
 Margaret Torrington . 
 
 Married Life . 
 
 Martineau's Study of Belieion 
 
 Maud Bolingbroke 
 
 Max Hereford's Dream 
 
 Messages of the Bible, The . 
 
 Method of Prayer, A . 
 
 Millicent Kendrick 
 
 Miss Devereux, Spinster 
 
 Model Prayer, The . 
 
 More Tasty Dishes 
 
 Morning and Evening Cries 
 
 Morning; Noon, and Night . 
 
 Momington Lecture, The 
 
 Mr. Montmorency's Money . 
 
 My Baptism 
 
 My Neighbour and Ood 
 
 New Mrs. Lascelles, The 
 
 New Points to Old Texts . 
 
 New Testament in Modem Speech, The 
 
 Nineteen Hundred ? . 
 
 Nobly Bom 
 
 Nonconformist Church Buildings, 
 
 Oath in Heaven, An . 
 
 Old Pictures in Modem Frames 
 
 Oliver Cromwell 
 
 Oliver Westwood 
 
 Ordeal of Faith, The . 
 
 Our Girls' Cookery 
 
 Our New House . 
 
 Ourselves and the Universe 
 
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 fAOE 
 
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■iO 
 
 JAMES CLARKE AND CO.'S 
 
 Outline Text Lessons for Junior Classes 
 
 Overdale ..... 
 
 Passion for Souls, Tlie 
 
 Paul and Christina 
 
 Paul, The Messages of . 
 
 Paxton Hood : Poet and Preacher 
 
 Pilot, The . •. . . 
 
 Poems. By Mme. Guyon . 
 
 Polychrome Bible, The 
 
 Popular History of the Free Churches, . 
 
 Practical Points in Popular Proverbs 
 
 Prayer ..... 
 
 Preaching to the Times 
 
 Price of Priestcraft, The . 
 
 Pride of the Family, The . 
 
 Principles and Practices of the Baptists 
 
 Problems of Living 
 
 Prophetical and Priestly Historians, The 
 
 Psalmists, The Messages of the . 
 
 Quickening of Caliban, The 
 
 Quiet Hints to Growing Preachers 
 
 Race and Religion 
 
 Reasonable View of Life, A 
 
 Reasons Why for Congregationalists 
 
 Reasons Why for Free Churchmen 
 
 Reconsiderations and Reinforcements 
 
 Religion of Jesus, The . 
 
 Religion that will Wear, A . 
 
 Rights of Man, The . 
 
 Rise of Philip Barratt, The 
 
 Robert Wreford's Daughter. 
 
 Rogers, J. Guinness . 
 
 Rome from the Inside 
 
 Rosebud, The . 
 
 Rosebud Annual, The 
 
 Rose of a Hundred Leaves, A 
 
 Ruling Ideas of the Present Age 
 
 School Hymns . 
 
 School of Life. The 
 
 Sceptre Without a Sword, The 
 
 Ekjourge of God, The . 
 
 Seven Puzzling Bible Books. 
 
 Ship of the Soul, The . 
 
 She Loved a Sailor 
 
 Short Devoeional Services 
 
 Singlehurst Manor 
 
 Sissie 
 
 Sister to Esau, A 
 
 Small Books on Great Subjects 
 
 Social Salvation. 
 
 Social Worship an Everlasting Necessity 
 
 Spirit Christlike, The . 
 
 Squire of Sandal Side, The . 
 
 St. Beetha's 
 
 Story of the English Baptist?, The 
 
 Story of Penelope, The 
 
 Studies of the Soul . 
 
 of 
 
 
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 . 12 
 
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 . U 
 
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 . 12 
 
 12, 16 
 
 . U 
 
 18, 19 
 
 7 
 
 . 18 
 
 . 13 
 
 11, 16 
 
 12, 16 
 
 8 
 
 16 
 
 
 9 
 
CATALOGUE OF BOOKS. 
 
 31 
 
 Sunday Afternoon Song Book 
 
 Sunday Morning Talks with Boys and Girls 
 
 Sunday School Times, The . 
 
 Sxinny Memories of Australeraia . 
 
 Supreme Argument for Christianity, The 
 
 Tale of a Telephone, A . . . 
 
 Talks to Little Folks .... 
 
 Taste of Death and the Life of Grace, The 
 
 Tasty Dishes ..... 
 
 Tasty Dishes and More Tasty Dishes 
 
 Teaching of Christ, in its Present Appeal 
 
 Ten Commandments, The ... 
 
 Theology of an Evolutionist, The . 
 
 Theophj'lus Trinal, Memorials of . 
 
 Thornyoroft Hall .... 
 
 Through Science to Faith . . ^ 
 
 Tommy, and Other Poems . 
 
 Tools and the Man .... 
 
 Town Romance, A ; or. On London Stones 
 
 Trial and Triumph .... 
 
 Types of Christian Life ... 
 
 Undertones of the Ninsteenth Century 
 
 Unique Class Chart and Begister . 
 
 Unity of Isaiah, A Popular Argument for the 
 
 Unknown to Herself . 
 
 Value of the Apocrypha, The 
 
 Violet Vaughan 
 
 Wanderer, The . 
 
 Warleigh's Trust 
 
 Way of Life, The 
 
 Wayside Angels 
 
 What Shall this Child Be ? . 
 
 Where does the Sky Begin ? 
 
 Who Wrote the Bible 7 
 
 Why we Believe ! 
 
 Wife as Lover and Friend, The 
 
 Witnesses of the Light 
 
 Woman's Patience, A 
 
 Women and their Saviour . 
 
 Words by the Wayside 
 
 Woven of Love and Glory . 
 
 FAOE 
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 13 
 15 
 
 7 
 
 12, 16 
 20 
 18 
 11 
 
 Index of Authors. 
 
 , 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Abbot, C. L. . 
 
 9 
 
 Barrett, G. S. 
 
 . 15 
 
 Abbott, Lyman 
 
 .5; 6 
 
 Bartlett, E. T. . 
 
 . 2 
 
 Adeney, W. F. . 
 
 14, 21 
 
 Bennett, Rev. W. H. 
 
 3, 14 
 
 Aitohison, George 
 
 . 29 
 
 Benvie, Andrew 
 
 . 8 
 
 Aked, C. F, 
 
 8, 9 
 
 Blake, J. M. . 
 
 . . , 17 
 
 .Allin, Thomas . 
 
 .. .20 
 
 BloundeUe-^urton, J 
 
 . . 16 
 
 Andom, B. 
 
 . 10 
 
 Bradford, A mory H. 
 
 6, 8, 19 
 
 Andrews, C. C. 
 
 . 16 
 
 Brierley, J. 
 
 4. 9 
 
 Armstrong, Richard A. 
 
 . 19 
 
 Briggs, Prof. C. A. . 
 
 6 
 
 Bainton, George 
 
 . 15 
 
 Bbook, W. 
 
 .,, 14 
 
 Barr, Amelia E.i . 4, 
 
 11, 16 
 
 Brooke, Stopford A. . 
 
 . 19 
 
32 
 
 JAMES CLARKE AND CO.'S CATALOGUB. 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Brown, C 
 
 u. 
 
 ■-'0 
 
 Lynch, T. T. . 
 
 6 
 
 Burford. W. K. 
 
 
 22 
 
 Lynd, William . 
 
 . 21) 
 
 Campbell, Rev. R. J. 
 
 , 
 
 18 
 
 Macfadyen, D. . 
 
 7 
 
 CarlUe, Rev. J. C. . 
 
 8, 
 
 21 
 
 Macfarland, Charles 
 
 3. . 13 
 
 CUfEord, Dr. 
 
 
 18 
 
 Macfarlaae, Charles 
 
 10 
 
 Crockett, S. R. . 
 
 3. 
 
 16 
 
 Mackennal, Alexande 
 
 r 7, 19 
 
 Cubitt. James . 
 
 
 15 
 
 Manners, Mary E. 
 
 . 23 
 
 Cuff, W. . 
 
 
 17 
 
 Marohant, B. . 
 
 . 16 
 
 Darlow, Herbert F. . 
 
 . 
 
 20 
 
 Marshall, J. T. . 
 
 . 14 
 
 Davidson, Gladys 
 
 . 
 
 21 
 
 Martineau, James 
 
 . 18 
 
 Dods, Marniin . 
 
 . 
 
 18 
 
 Mather, Lesaels 
 
 . 21 
 
 Driver, S. R. . 
 
 
 3 
 
 Mather, Z. 
 
 6 
 
 EUigott, Mimiie 
 
 . 
 
 25 
 
 Matheson, George 
 
 . 8, 18, 23 
 
 EUia, J. . 
 
 . 
 
 21 
 
 Maver, J. S. 
 
 . 20 
 
 Evana, H. 
 
 . 
 
 20 
 
 Meade, L. T. . 
 
 . 16 
 
 Farningham, Marianne 10 
 
 ,13 
 
 20 
 
 Metcalfe, R. D. 
 
 . 24 
 
 Fiske, J. . 
 
 
 2 
 
 Moore, G. F. . 
 
 . 3 
 
 Forsyth, Rev. Principal 
 
 18, 
 
 25 
 
 Morgan, Rev. G. Can 
 
 ipbell. 14 
 
 Fraaor, J. 
 
 
 12 
 
 Mountain, J. 
 
 . 17 
 
 Funoke, 0, 
 
 . 
 
 12 
 
 Munger, T. T. . 
 
 . 19 
 
 Gibbon, J. Morgan 
 
 . 
 
 14 
 
 Peters, J. P. . 
 
 2 
 
 Giberne, Agnes. 
 
 , 
 
 16 
 
 Pharmaceutical Chen 
 
 3i8t, A 21 
 
 Gladden, Washington 
 
 
 
 Picton, J. AUanson 
 
 . 17 
 
 6.7.9 
 
 17, 
 
 20 
 
 Powicke, F. J. . 
 
 2 
 
 Glass, Henry Alexander 
 
 
 5 
 
 Pulsford, John . 
 
 . 19 
 
 Greenhough, J. G. 
 
 14, 
 
 18 
 
 Rees, F. A. , . 
 
 . 14 
 
 Griffith-Jones, E. 
 
 17, 
 
 18 
 
 Rirkett, J, Compton 
 
 10, 24 
 
 Griffis, William Elliot 
 
 
 5 
 
 Ridette, J. H. . 
 
 . 26 
 
 Gunn, E. H. Mayo . 
 
 12, 
 
 26 
 
 Ridley, A. E. . 
 
 . 6 
 
 Guyon, Madame 
 
 
 12 
 
 Robarts, F. H. . 
 
 . 14 
 
 Haweis, H. R. . 
 
 , 
 
 15 
 
 Rogers, Dr. Guinness 
 
 . 2 
 
 Hayoraft, Mrs. . 
 
 , 
 
 10 
 
 Russell, F. A. . 
 
 . 17 
 
 Heddle, E. F. . 
 
 . 
 
 16 
 
 Ryoe, John 
 
 4 
 
 Henderson, J. G. 
 
 , 
 
 8 
 
 Sanders. Frank Knigl 
 
 It . 11 
 
 Henson, Canon Hensley 
 
 , 
 
 10 
 
 Scottish Presbyterian 
 
 . A . 14 
 
 Horder, W. Garrett . 
 
 , 
 
 19 
 
 Sinclair, Archdeacon 
 
 , 19 
 
 Home, C. Silvester 
 
 
 
 Smyth, Dr. Newmem 
 
 . 4 
 
 4, 13, 15. 
 
 17, 
 
 20 
 
 Snell, Bernard J. 
 
 17,20 
 
 Horton, Dr. R. F. 6, 18, 
 
 22 
 
 
 Stevenson, J. G. 
 
 . 13 
 
 
 23, 
 
 25 
 
 Thomas, H. Arnold 
 
 . 19 
 
 Hunter, John . 
 
 
 18 
 
 Trotter, Mrs. E. 
 
 . 13 
 
 "J. B." of The Christian 
 
 
 Toy, Rev. C. H. 
 
 2 
 
 World . 
 
 , 
 
 23 
 
 Wain, Louis 
 
 . 21 
 
 JeeEerson, C. E. 
 
 , 
 
 12 
 
 Walford. L. B. . 
 
 4. 16 
 
 J. M. G. . 
 
 . 
 
 9 
 
 Walker, W. L. . 
 
 . 16 
 
 Jones, J. D. . .15, 
 
 17, 
 
 20 
 
 Watkinson, W. L. . 
 
 . 17 
 
 (Towett, J. H. . 
 
 
 17 
 
 Watson, W. . 
 
 . 17 
 
 Kane, James J. 
 
 . 
 
 17 
 
 Weymouth, R. F. 
 
 . 13 
 
 Kaye. Bannermao 
 
 . 
 
 4 
 
 White, H. A. 
 
 3 
 
 Kennedy, H. A. 
 
 24, 
 
 26 
 
 White. William 
 
 6 
 
 Kennedy, John 
 
 
 16 
 
 Whitley, W. T. 
 
 . 6 
 
 Kent, CharlM Foster. 
 
 , 
 
 11 
 
 Whiton, J. M. . 10 
 
 . 17, 19. 24 
 
 Lanafeldt, L. 1. 
 
 , 
 
 16 
 
 Waiiams, C. . 
 
 . 13 
 
 Lee, W. T. . . . 
 
 13 
 
 Williams. T. R. 
 
 . 18 
 
 Lyall, David . 
 
 • 
 
 4 
 
 Wilson, PhilipjWhitH 
 
 Tea . 13 
 
 Lyall, Edna 
 
 • 
 
 26 
 
 Worhoise. Emma J. 
 
 . 12. 13. 16 
 
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