TRENDS OF THOUGHT AND 
 CHRISTIAN TRUTH 
 
 JOHN A.W.HAAS 
 
 LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 
 
^mmll ^nivmii^ ^Mm^ 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 ..sI^JUJ-<rMrp3J(~v<^ \j\JtjsJ:^JU^... 
 
 k^^\^ s .^.^ 
 
 7583 
 
The date shows when this volume was taken. 
 
 To renew this book copy the call No. and give to 
 the librarian. 
 
 HOME USE RULES 
 
 All Books subject to Recall 
 
 All borrowers must regis- 
 tei in the library to borrow 
 books for home use. 
 
 All books must be re- 
 turned at end of college 
 year for inspection and 
 repairs. 
 
 Limited books must be re- 
 turned within the four week 
 limit and not renewed. 
 
 Students must return all 
 books before leaving town. 
 Officers should arrange for 
 the return of books wanted 
 during their absence from 
 town. 
 
 Voltmies of periodicals 
 and of pamphlets are held 
 in the library as much as 
 possible. For special pur- 
 poses they are given out for 
 a limited time. 
 
 Borrowers should not use 
 their library privileges for 
 the benefit of other persons. 
 
 Books of special value 
 and gift books, when the 
 giver wishes it, are not 
 allowed to circulate. 
 
 Readers are asked to re- 
 port all cases of books 
 marked or mutilated. 
 
 Do not deface books by marks and writing, 
 i 
 
 arVl4017^°''"®" ^"'^®''®'*y library 
 
 olin,anx 
 
 3 1924 031 230 513 
 
 I 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031230513 
 
TRENDS OF THOUGHT AND 
 CHRISTIAN TRUTH 
 
TRENDS OF THOUGHT AND 
 CHRISTIAN TRUTH 
 
 JOHN A. W. HAAS 
 
 President of Muhlenberg College, Professor of 
 Religion and Philosophy. 
 
 BOSTON: RICHARD G. BADGER 
 TORONTO: THE COPP CLARK CO., LIMITED 
 
Copyright, 1916, by Richard G. Badger 
 AH rights reserved 
 
 
 K-3sni3 
 
 The Goeham Phess, Boston, U. S. A. 
 
To 
 
 EDGAR FAHS SMITH 
 
 Beloved Provost of my Alma Mater 
 
 who combines true scientific culture with 
 
 strong Christian convictions and vital Christian service 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Several years ago a number of lectures were delivered 
 by me, upon request, on the relation of Christianity to 
 modern issues. These lectures formed the starting point 
 for this volume. Some of them were repeated before the 
 students of Wittenberg College and the Hamma Divinity 
 School. They are now elaborated and put into a form 
 which shall correlate them as a text-book with the logical 
 and philosophical studies, which are usually found in cer- 
 tain groups and courses in the Senior year of the college 
 course. There is in them also much material which may 
 sen^e for apologetic courses in theological seminaries. 
 
 No doubt many of the positions taken will be objected 
 to by the philosophers, because I belong to no philosophic 
 school, claim the independent right of Christian truth, and 
 am frequently reactionary. The advanced theologian will 
 find fault because not enough of the older orthodoxy has 
 been eliminated. The strict adherent of the older position 
 will claim that undue concessions to the modem spirit have 
 been made. The whole aim has been to aid in a just com- 
 parison between modem attitudes and Christianity, and 
 to find a proper logical basis for discriminating apolo- 
 getics. It is my conviction that Christian apologetics 
 must enter into the study of modem logical positions. At 
 any rate such is the endeavor of this volume. It will have 
 answered its purpose if it arouses discussion, particularly 
 in the Church to which I belong and which I serve. 
 
 J. H. 
 
 March, 1915. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction 9 
 
 part one leading trends op thought 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I The Mathematical Method S9 
 
 II The Inductive Claim 46 
 
 III The Comparative Idea 61 
 
 IV The Conjectural Scheme 77 
 
 V The Mechanical Demand 90 
 
 VI The Biological Supposition 104 
 
 VII The Psychological Solution 126 
 
 VIII The Social Trend 144 
 
 part two THOUGHT AND TRUTH 
 
 I The Finding op Truth 163 
 
 II The Absolutist Aim 167 
 
 III The Mystic Absorption 184 
 
 IV The Pragmatic Program 196 
 
 V The Results of Pragmatism 216 
 
 VI The Vitalist View 242 
 
 VII The Realist Realm 299 
 
 Index S17 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THERE is a great common character about the 
 thought of every age. It may, as in our time, ap- 
 pear in many forms and be expressed in contrary' 
 conceptions, but still it possesses unifying centres and 
 combining ideals. Thought passes around the world and 
 through the minds of men like a great current. It has 
 common trends and directions even when an age is one of 
 unrest, search and doubt, and is not controlled by a single, 
 over-ruling idea or by one mighty passion. To suppose 
 that thought is merely individual is to fail in understand- 
 ing its force and influence among men. A great thinker 
 may think a new thought, he may originate an idea which 
 is actually novel, but it lives only as it appeals to other 
 minds and becomes a part of general thinking. Mostly the 
 thoughts and ideals of the leaders of thought are only the 
 crystallizing centres of the subconsciously working trends 
 and forces of thought. With such a conception of the 
 movement of thought we are led to analyze its elements, 
 for it is a movement of a number of trends. 
 
 The character of the trends of thought in our age con- 
 cerns us, however, not purely in themselves but in rela- 
 tion to the truth of Christianity. 
 
 We cannot escape finding a real contact between the 
 claim of the truth of Christianity and the thought-trends 
 of an age. Christianity must influence thought, and 
 thought must condition the intellectual expression of 
 Christianity. By its very nature as a great world-re- 
 ligion, and in agreement with its universality and finality, 
 Christianity in every form has a world-view. There lie 
 back of it ijot merely deep religious experiences, strong 
 
 9 
 
10 Introduction 
 
 spiritual insight and a mighty treasure of individual and 
 social feeling, but also the philosophies and ideals of the 
 ages which it has used to express and defend its message. 
 Because of the message of Christianity it must make a 
 demand upon the thought of every age, to ask whether 
 it can accept and employ, or whether it must reject the 
 prevailing modes and forms of thinking. Its action and 
 judgment cannot be one of mere sentiment, deep and true 
 as sentiment may be, but it calls for a calm deliberation. 
 Deliberation must include acquaintance with the ruling 
 thought, comparison of this thought with Christian ideas, 
 and then only can criticism follow. When such a fair 
 and just procedure has been adopted there can be either 
 adoption, or apology and polemic of Christianity against 
 the thought of an age. As an introduction to fuller com- 
 parison and an incentive to more intensive study of modem 
 thought and Christian ideals this short volume attempts a 
 mere general outline of modem positions in relation to 
 Christian truth. 
 
 The trends of thought that shall be considered are 
 those which appear in the scientific and philosophic think- 
 ing. To these our examination shall be limited. A com- 
 plete survey of the thought of the age would demand that 
 in addition the artistic and literary ideals should be consid- 
 ered. Art, in its production, and the account which it 
 renders to itself by exposition of its ideals, and criticism 
 of its results, expresses some ruling philosophy and gives 
 voice to certain trends of thought. Views of life and some 
 sort of philosophy are frequently clothed in the literary 
 forms of the novel or short story, the poem or essay. 
 Both art and literature are closely related to religion in 
 many aspects. To literature as well as to art there is 
 applicable what Doctor Galloway says : " Art makes 
 worship more suggestive and impressive, while religion 
 imparts a purifying and uplifting motive to art. The 
 
Introduction 11 
 
 fact that the two should help each other in this fashion 
 implies something common in their methods and their 
 aims, something akin in their attitude to the world and 
 life. Art and religion both work through the imagination, 
 vivifying experience by lending to it a significance beyond 
 that of the moment. Neither the one nor the other can 
 live in the region of pure thought ; the aesthetic mind has its 
 sensuous intuitions, and the religious mind envisages the 
 things of the spirit in an imaginative representation drawn 
 from the world of sense." ^ Back of both art and religion 
 lie sympathetic insight and a feeling for unity and har- 
 mony, and both art and religion must be accepted by a 
 peculiar spiritual mood. But while such a relation is 
 true, yet the connections of thought with Christianity 
 do not appear as definitely and directly in art as in science 
 and philosophy. The definite intellectual programs of 
 science and philosophy allow of a clearer comparison with 
 the claims of Christianity. And if a conflict exists be- 
 tween thought and the truth of Christianity, it must 
 show itself more markedly between the philosophic and 
 scientific thinking and religion, because their methods are 
 more diverse. Even where religion becomes scientific in 
 theology there is a great difference between it and the 
 purely scientific and philosophic temper. The data of 
 science are the things of sense and the datum of philos- 
 ophy is experience, while the facts of religion are not 
 things of sense nor merely natural experience. For 
 science and philosophy the regulative principle is the 
 mind, for theology revelation. The method of philosophy 
 and science demands consistency of thought; theology, 
 however developed, requires consistency with the religious 
 sources of authority. The content of philosophy and 
 science is the universe in its being, development and truth, 
 the content of theology is the communion between God and 
 
 1 " The Philosophy of Religion," p. 907. 
 
12 Introduction 
 
 man. For the sake, therefore, of both comparison and 
 contrast it is more to the purpose to correlate the philo- 
 sophic and scientific ideas of an age with Christian truth. 
 We must, consequently, pass by the aesthetic expression of 
 thought, delightful and stimulating as it might be to com- 
 pare and contrast Christianity with the classicists, real- 
 ists, impressionists and cubists in the fine arts, with the 
 productions and speculations of Wagner in music, and 
 with the literature of various countries both in its threat- 
 ening decadence and shocking naturalism. 
 
 The trends of thought which shall occupy us are first 
 of all the leading modes of thinking, and then, secondly, 
 the problem of truth which is so much discussed to-day. 
 In the modes of thought we approach the formal side of 
 truth or the great logical ideas and ideals which cannot be 
 overlooked in any outline of the ways of thought in re- 
 lation to Christianity. The logical ideas do not become 
 ruling and leading ideals of thought after the manner 
 of a formal analysis of thought, which any mere discussion 
 of logic must deal with. The ways or trends of thought 
 combine content with form, and they must do so. The ab- 
 stractness of formal logic is useful as an analytic reduc- 
 tion of thinking to its ineradicable ultimates, but the 
 actual thinking in any science or art is never, even in the 
 use of principles and abstractions, without content. And 
 when an age accepts certain ruling trends of thought and 
 classifies its knowledge according to them, there is still 
 more concreteness in the living logic than in the scientific 
 formulation of the principles which dominate its think- 
 ing. We shall, therefore, select those prominent and out- 
 standing concepts that enter our life from the various 
 sciences and mold our thinking into certain shapes and 
 schemes. Such a selection will not be exhaustive, but it 
 aims to be characteristic. 
 
 There are four centres about which the discussion of the 
 
Introdriction 13 
 
 leading trends cluster. The problem of quantitative 
 thinking and the exactness of mathematics with its claim 
 as the highest and most certain form of thought are 
 presented first, and their bearing on Christian thought 
 is not insignificant. They do not, however, loom up so 
 large in common consciousness and thinking as does the 
 modem emphasis on inductive thinking which starts from 
 detail and particulars. Out of it grow directly the ques- 
 tions of comparison and analogy and of real conjecture or 
 hypothesis. These together with induction form the sec- 
 ond centre in distinction from mathematics as the first 
 centre. 
 
 The problem of inductive thinking as related to Chris- 
 tianity is the question, whether we must begin with the 
 universal and general, or whether we can rise from the 
 particular to the type of thinking which Christianity 
 favors. The question of comparison is the application of 
 the place and the value of analogy in human thinking, 
 the right of its extension from instance to instance, and 
 from sphere to sphere. How can such comparative rea- 
 soning be employed in religion and what does it mean for 
 or against Christianity, is the resultant problem. 
 
 Comparison is only one of the great methods ; by its side 
 stands conjecture. Conjecture or conjectural thinking 
 is very prevalent. It is the basis of all critical construc- 
 tion, and it embraces in addition the arguments from prob- 
 ability and those that lead to hypothesis and theory. The 
 interrelation of positive critical construction and probabil- 
 ity and hypothesis is constant. What does it mean over 
 against or in favor of Christianity? How can Christian- 
 ity use or how must it modify probability. Hypothesis 
 and criticism? 
 
 The third centre embraces three trends which largely 
 influence modern thought; they are the mechanical, the 
 biological and the psychological positions. The mechan- 
 
14 Introduction 
 
 ical conception, resting on a restricted formulation of 
 cause as external and material, attempts to form a unified 
 view of the universe in terms no higher than chemistry. 
 What Christianity must do with this view seems very clear 
 and evident at once to most of the writers and thinkers 
 who take the Christian attitude. They utterly reject and 
 deny it. But still it may be asked, whether it is not 
 possible to modify the mechanical view, to make it sup- 
 plementary to idealistic conceptions and then so to ad- 
 just it that Christianity may employ it without surrender- 
 ing its position. 
 
 While the mechanical point of view has sought to sub- 
 sume all phenomena under its name it has found a strong 
 counter-claimant in the biological standpoint. The bio- 
 logical supposition seeks to interpret the connection and 
 relatedness of the universe from the idea of physical life. 
 It appears most prominently in the character of biologism, 
 which may be defined as that point of view that seeks to 
 reduce all terms in the universe to terms and processes 
 of natural life. For it the thought of functioning, which 
 is more important than the thought of being or substance, 
 is very central. The seething, seeking, pushing and pro- 
 gressing life is the all-controlling factor in this trend of 
 thought. 
 
 Out of biologism and in close afiinity with it there 
 arises the modern psychological point of view. From the 
 examination of the phenomena of the mind, as natural 
 occurrences physiologically controlled, many of the higher 
 human interests have been reconsidered. Psychology 
 has offered new solutions and novel points of view in 
 history and economics ; it has claimed to give a right idea 
 of society and communal life and action ; it has stimulated 
 and reformed education; it seeks to attack morality, and 
 to furnish an adequate basis for the explanation of the 
 religious life. It is at once apparent that we must in- 
 
Introdiiction 15 
 
 quire how the psychological point of view will affect 
 Christianity and whether Christianity can accept it as 
 sufficient and adequate. 
 
 The fourth centre leads us to a summary examination 
 of the great social viewpoint in our age. It is expressed 
 in the philosophy of history, in economics, sociology, 
 political philosophy, morality and religion. The problem 
 it offers is, how shall Christianity deal with the claim 
 of the primal importance of society and of society's need 
 and value as paramount to the individual. The influence 
 and results of social ideas reach very far and are re- 
 making modem life. To understand them and to dis- 
 criminate between what is valuable and what is defective 
 is one of the greatest tasks put before the Christianity of 
 our day. 
 
 After the attempt to indicate the relations of thought 
 in these leading modern aspects there still remains the 
 second main problem. We must seek to determine the con- 
 nection of thought with truth and how this connection 
 affects Christianity. The results which may be attained 
 in the discussion of the mathematical method ; of the in- 
 ductive, comparative and conjectural arguments; of the 
 mechanical, biological and psychological claims ; and of 
 the social trend naturally lead to the further problem 
 of considering the whole question of truth. Thought 
 and truth belong together. While thought may deviate, 
 err and be incorrect, and while thinking does not cease 
 as a fact when it fails to reach truth, nevertheless the 
 aim of thought is to attain truth. The science of thought 
 has always sought to give the principles and laws of cor- 
 rect thinking and to eliminate the fallacies. Logic has 
 dealt with the question how we ought to think, not how we 
 do think. The latter has generally been the problem 
 of psychology. 
 
 Not only does thought demand truth but truth must 
 
16 Introduction 
 
 also use thought. No matter how we determine and in- 
 terpret truth, whether as absolute reality or simply as 
 satisfying end, whether we include or exclude feeling and 
 will, whether we believe that it is made or that we make 
 it, yet it always includes the question of intellect. The 
 intellect may not be all that truth needs but it cannot 
 be absent. In feict it remains, after all, the dominant fac- 
 tor, if not in the actuality, at any rate in the demonstra- 
 tion of truth. And as valuable and necessary as demon- 
 stration, proof and verification are to truth, so essential 
 is intellect to truth. Even the satisfaction which it may 
 be supposed to involve for the feeling can only be tested 
 and approved through the intellect. 
 
 In the elaboration of the problem of truth we must 
 enter upon the question of the finding or possession of 
 truth. Is truth a finding or a possession, is it a search 
 or a revelation ; and how shall it be discovered or unveiled.'' 
 Such questions as these enter deeply into the determina- 
 tion of truth and its character and the claim of truth 
 which Christianity makes. This problem of the quest 
 of truth leads us directly to the diverse interpretations of 
 truth which to-day occupy the minds of thinkers. 
 
 Some there are who reassert and redefine truth as the 
 Absolute and as Reality. To them truth is; and with 
 high idealism they maintain the ultimate harmony and 
 unity of truth which gives the final meaning to all things, 
 even though it be unapproachable in its eternally existent 
 universality. How shall Christianity deal with those to 
 whom truth is the absolute whole or the absolute meaning 
 of the universe.? Can it agree with this logical abstrac- 
 tion of unity.? Beside the absolutists of reflection are 
 the absolutists of feeling. They do not find truth in the 
 harmony of logic but they claim to touch reality in the 
 immediacy of the intuition to which feeling leads. These 
 are the mystics who merge thought into the Infinite by 
 
Introduction 17 
 
 the fusion of meditation. In meditation the power of 
 the concentration of the intellect loses itself in mere ab- 
 stract feeling. What sympathy has Christianity with 
 mysticism either in its full or partial assertion ? Is Chris- 
 tianity fundamentally mystical and does it find truth by 
 such intuition of feeling as the mystic lives in? These 
 and kindred questions arising out of the mystic situation 
 are by no means unimportant to Christian truth. 
 
 In contrast and polemic opposition to all absolutism 
 stands pragmatism. With strong emphasis on actuality 
 and direct experience, with unabating assertion of the 
 vitality and progress of truth, pragmatism defines the 
 question of truth as that of verification, satisfaction and 
 real utility. It is the attempt to formulate the question 
 of truth from the Darwinian and biological point of view 
 as purely and solely inductive. What can Christianity 
 do with this peculiar American position, for pragmatism 
 has been most largely developed in America.'' Are there 
 in it elements that can be used in Christian thought or 
 must it be totally rejected.'* Is it the best method for 
 solving the theistic attitude of Christianity, and does it 
 furnish the most adaptable philosophy for the understand- 
 ing of Christian experience.? Such and similar problems 
 are agitating men's minds to-day and they cannot be 
 passed by, inasmuch as for good or for evil pragmatism 
 is a leading way of thinking of thousands to-day for whom 
 the philosopher has defined the ruling attitude. Pragma- 
 tism is not really new in itself ; it is a new way of stating 
 an old problem, but nevertheless it is new in its claim and 
 emphasis at the present. 
 
 Connected with the pragmatic claim although different 
 in many features is the new philosophy of life of which 
 Eucken and Bergson are the main exponents. This vital- 
 istic philosophy seeks to find truth in life itself and in a 
 new use of intuition which is not the intuition of the 
 
18 Introduction 
 
 mystic. Its intuition is that of life in its fulness. Life 
 is made the final unity which is to be accepted without 
 analysis, for intellectual analysis will destroy its rich- 
 ness and concreteness. The philosophy of life claims to 
 have found the key to the problem of truth. Is the con- 
 ception of life consonant with Christianity? Will the new 
 vitalistic point of view furnish a vessel for holding ele- 
 ments of Christian truth which have hitherto not found 
 an adequate philosophic carrier, or will it lead away from 
 clear conceptions of the faith to the indefiniteness of un- 
 analyzed life.? Will it elevate or depress Christian truth.? 
 Can the views of Eucken or Bergson be adopted? Such 
 and cognate questions at once rise in our minds and de- 
 mand some adjustment. 
 
 Not totally unrelated to vitalism but more closely con- 
 nected with pragmatism is the new realism which is as- 
 serting itself strongly at the present through a number 
 of American professors of philosophy. It claims to deal 
 directly with the facts of life and give them their real 
 par-value. While it is still in the flux it has begun to 
 define reality and to give an opinion on the question of 
 truth. Therefore we cannot escape the question how 
 Christianity shall relate itself to this new realism. This 
 opens up the larger question whether Christianity is more 
 in sympathy with the realistic or the idealistic philosophy. 
 Can it express itself equally well and without detriment 
 through either a realistic or idealistic philosophy? 
 
 In adjusting all of these questions which arise out of 
 the discussion of the leading trends of thought to the 
 truth of Christianity we cannot allow Christianity to be 
 undefined. It is necessary to show that, in all its various 
 forms Christianity must come into relation with the prob- 
 lem of thought and truth. Among aU the varieties of the 
 conception of Christianity there are several leading types, 
 and it is to them that attention must be directed if the 
 
Introduction 19 
 
 relation of Christianity to methods of thought is to 
 be determined. It will appear that the connection of 
 Christianity with thought and truth, and particularly 
 with the thought and truth of modern times, is not acci- 
 dental but fundamental and far-reaching. 
 
 The type of interpreting Christianity which immediately 
 demands and is concerned with thinking, is the dogmatic 
 ideal. According to this ideal Christianity is in essence 
 constituted by a number of truths. These are formulated 
 into some kind of a Christian philosophy and form a sys- 
 tem. The foundations and guarantees of the Christian 
 system of thought may differ; they may rest on biblical 
 authority or on ecclesiastical approval, but this does not 
 affect the issue at hand. Under whatever guarantee the 
 Christian system of truth appears, it is evident that 
 its content will not merely make claims upon and counter- 
 claims to systems of philosophy and hypotheses of science 
 in such problems as God, the nature of man, evil, and 
 many like and related questions, but that also, owing to 
 these very contents, the methods of approach to and of 
 the discussion of these problems as well as the whole sphere 
 of thinking will be involved. But it is not this conception 
 of Christianity alone which must necessarily define itself 
 over against the trends of thought. It does so most di- 
 rectly, but it is not exclusively determinative of the whole 
 discussion. 
 
 Closely related to the dogmatic ideal is the mystic con- 
 ception. At first mysticism may appear to be purely anti- 
 intellectual, for it apprehends Christianity in the im- 
 mediacy of feeling ; but what does feeling lead to ? Does 
 it ever remain purely undefined and undefinable, and merely 
 subjective? In its highest ranges of elevation and in its 
 deepest expressions of dependence, it has an object which 
 is universal, and which is at least in part intellectually 
 conceived and expressed. By intuition and imagination 
 
20 Introduction 
 
 a religious world of thought is constructed. The method 
 is not the reflective and systematic thinking of dogmatic 
 Christianity, but the results are truths, and the very em- 
 phasis of the immediacy of feeling in the mystic experi- 
 ence as a source of truth necessarily affects the problem 
 of thinking. The advocates of mysticism of every kind 
 cannot escape defining their attitude toward thinking. 
 
 As little as the mystic can the voluntarist, who inter- 
 prets religion from the point of view of will, escape the 
 problem of thought. Will and action in religion no less 
 than feeling cannot remain blind. The impulses and mo- 
 tives of the will, the purpose of volition, and the aim of 
 action demand thought. A scheme of thoughtful willing 
 and acting resting on some great principle underlies either 
 consciously or unconsciously. The principles of action 
 imply some theory of life and some valuation of other 
 values than their own by exclusion if not by definition. 
 When truth is found in volition the relation to intellection 
 is and cannot be evaded. In the motive and desire of men 
 as they lead to wiU, there must be a union with thought. 
 Professor Cohen rightly says : " Motive and thought 
 dare not remain two unlike elements, if they are to be ca- 
 pable of being combined into a unity in wiU. Without 
 the unity will would not be will ; not an original direction 
 of cultural consciousness." ^ 
 
 In our age the voluntarist ideal generally takes on a 
 moralistic or philanthropic coloring. But in either case 
 it must be related to thought. The emphasis on re- 
 ligion, and particularly Christianity, as merely ethical 
 at once determines what we estimate in Christianity and 
 how we think either from principles downward or from 
 practice by generalization upward. The philanthropic 
 conception which so frequently boasts that it has escaped 
 the quarrel of truth and error and the uncertainty of 
 2 " Ethik des Reinen Willens," p. 166. 
 
Introduction 21 
 
 theory deceives itself. It acts on a great principle which 
 shapes its thinking. The life of love is not thoughtless, 
 for were it such it would become empty sentimentalism. 
 It rests on definite ideas of the reality and value of human 
 love. All thinking even of a theoretical nature is more 
 or less controlled by the ruling passion of life, and the 
 ruling passion of life is a theory of life. Consequently 
 philanthropy is a theory and ideal of life as well as a 
 practice. It determines values and the modes of thinking 
 constantly from its peculiar prejudice, and argues deduc- 
 tively from the impulse of a helpful will. 
 
 A very large emphasis is put by the adherents of a 
 mystic or voluntaristic ideal upon experience. But not 
 only the advocates of these ideals, but many also, who 
 interpret Christianity either from a more intellectual 
 standpoint or from the conception of the total individual- 
 ity, set large store upon experience. Religion like phi- 
 losophy is traced back for its material and its tests to ex- 
 perience in all its fullness and manifoldness. But the 
 complexity of experience cannot remain unanalyzed ; there- 
 fore, the empiric ideal finds some tests and norms which 
 are intellectual. If the verities of religious experience 
 are gathered from the types of feeling or of the will to 
 believe, it is still true that the " twice-born " souls are 
 brought into connection with thought and truth from 
 their new fundamental attitude. The new life remakes 
 all life, and men in consequence of a great experience 
 argue from a controlling principle. They compare and 
 correlate everything with the new ideal of their life, and 
 from the psychology of their religious experience they 
 form the logic of their religion. This result is the more 
 necessary where the experience is more directly a new 
 birth of thought, and rests upon the objective truth either 
 of the Bible or of the Church. When religious experience 
 is, however, not restricted, but allowed to remain total and 
 
22 Introduction 
 
 synthetic in a concrete interpretation of personality, and 
 what it may experience, nevertheless experience conceived 
 even thus has its intellectual implications; and the logic 
 of religious experience shows us that the pure mystic or 
 voluntaristic ideal are as inadequate in denying thought, 
 as the dogmatic ideal is in denying the other elements of 
 the psychic life. 
 
 The experimental type of personal religion arising from 
 the theory of experience marks individualism in religion. 
 Individualism in religion, like pluralism in philosophy, im- 
 plies an intellectual position and a fundamental logical 
 attitude. The very principle of the many individuals in 
 contrast with the Absolute One demands processes of 
 thought. Christianity shows us that where Individual- 
 ism makes its strongest claim it cannot remain with- 
 out some intellectual basis. Some of the different small 
 divisions of Christianity which frequently appear to be 
 distinct because of tense feelings, nevertheless make their 
 propaganda by the appeal to some peculiar tenet or truth 
 which they claim to have rescued. This fact appears 
 equally in greater movements of an individualistic char- 
 acter like the rationalistic theory or the ideal of the in- 
 ner light. Rationalism made the claim that the individual 
 man must establish his religion upon the plain arguments 
 of thought and common sense, but this very claim shows 
 that the validity of rationalism is based on the idea of a 
 common human sense or general rationality. The in- 
 dividualism of rationalism never destroyed its logic. The 
 theory of the inner light emphasizes an intuitional prin- 
 ciple, but this principle has an intellectual trend. There- 
 fore, it was entirely natural that when the theory of the 
 inner light was put into practice by Fox, the founder of 
 the Society of Friends, that its development brought about 
 a freer, liberal, and a more orthodox form of belief. It 
 was impossible, in the effort to get away from the letter. 
 
Introduction 23 
 
 to avoid returning to an intellectual attitude and to cer- 
 tain definite doctrine resting upon great principles. 
 
 The communal idea of Christianity, either in its his- 
 torical form of the Church or in modern attempts of 
 socialization, is more strongly intellectual than the in- 
 dividual attitude. The Church, when it is conceived, not 
 as a bond of unity in action, but as an eternal organiza- 
 tion, naturally is the source and guarantor of truth and 
 the framer and defender of dogma. But even where the 
 Church is not so conceived, but only as a spiritual fellow- 
 ship, it could never live without some intellectual plat- 
 form or some creed, whether expressed or unexpressed, 
 whether officially adopted or loosely acquiesced in. It is 
 equally impossible to define Christianity, as some modern 
 thinkers would define it, as a social movement without 
 including a large element of intellectualism. There can 
 be no final and permanent fusion of men for real action 
 by mere feeling or passion. Great waves of emotion may 
 pass through a mass of men but they can only do so where 
 the emotion has some common background of conviction. 
 There can be no unity of common willing without the 
 communication of intellectual elements which make perma- 
 nent the ideals of the community. No community can live 
 without loyalty of the people in it to its ideals and prin- 
 ciples which must be expressed in terms of thought. 
 Wherever the individual has protested against the com- 
 munity, and particularly against the religious community, 
 it has been against what the individual considers to be 
 the intellectual bondage or the error of the community. 
 Consequently it is clear that in the communal conception 
 of Christianity also we cannot escape the relation to a 
 logic. 
 
 All the types of interpreting Christianity which have 
 been discussed may be finally reduced to another funda- 
 mental distinction, namely that between the permanent 
 
24 Introduction 
 
 and the changing, the eternal and the temporal. Un- 
 fortunately this distinction instead of being combined 
 into a living unity has been made a line of cleavage. On 
 the one hand have stood those who assert that Chris- 
 tianity is naught else but a spiritual luichanging reality 
 and truth. They have not allowed for its historic origin 
 nor its development. In the conception of its doctrines, 
 they have held only to the idea that the doctrines were 
 revealed truth, and they have disregarded the historical 
 character and the debated formulation of doctrine. Back 
 of mysticism they have found the Absolute One whom the 
 mystic has grasped. As explanatory of all voluntarism 
 they have emphasized the eternal impulse or the ever- 
 lasting purpose. Experience itself, and the life of the in- 
 dividual and the community, are interpreted as founded 
 on the adherence to unchanging laws. These conserva- 
 tives hold that there is no true change, nor real history, 
 but that there is only maintenance or loss of the essential 
 truth, which ought always and everywhere be believed 
 by all reasonable believers. This attitude with its fixed- 
 ness has only judgments of condemnation for changing 
 forms and trends of thought. Unmindful of the fact that 
 the conservatism of the present has clothed itself in the 
 garments of the logic of the past, there are still those 
 who would make their accepted theory eternal. Every 
 temporal act and idea, they hold, must be absorbed into 
 the revealed scheme and canonized or rejected by it. This 
 conservatism of a Christianity of everlasting rest has no 
 real place for progress, for even the progress of the 
 assimilation of the eternal truth Is in fact only the absorp- 
 tion into the unchanging reality. 
 
 On the other hand, stand the defenders of change, his- 
 tory and progress. For many of them there is no vestige 
 of eternal unchangeable spiritual truth in Christianity. 
 They find in its history no elements of vital permanence. 
 
Introduction 25 
 
 The definition of Christianity which they accept is that of 
 a merely human religious historical movement to be de- 
 termined by, and measured and compared with, other re- 
 ligions. In such a comparison all claims of universality 
 and finality in Christianity and every trace of an eternal 
 value must be eliminated by historical critical standards 
 of development. According to the men of this type, the 
 claim of real revelation, real prophecy, and of real mir- 
 acles is to be interpreted as a fact of religious history 
 alone. Consequently we would possess only humanly 
 created values but not existent and actual eternal realities. 
 The truth of this kind of historical emphasis lies in its 
 realization of actual progress, but its error is the denial 
 of the Christian conviction that there are eternal elements 
 in the unfolding history of Christianity. 
 
 The sane attitude appears to be in the combination, 
 and not in the separation of the two elements of eternity 
 and temporality. Christianity to be rightly understood 
 needs such a union as much as it is needed in a living con- 
 ception of Christ. An eternal Christ without the problem 
 of the historical Jesus, or the historical Jesus apart from 
 the eternal Christ, are two conceptions equally defective 
 and inadequate. Similarly an eternal Christianity with- 
 out true development, or a historical Christianity without 
 unchanging principles is a misconception. When we have 
 combined both elements it is evident that from this point 
 of view particularly we must from time to time inquire 
 how the historical interpretation of eternal truth is related 
 to the thinking of an age. In such an inquiry it is not 
 proper either absolutely to reject or unquestionably to ac- 
 cept ruling trends of thought and interpretations of truth. 
 The just procedure is to inquire, weigh, balance, compare, 
 criticise, and then to attempt without violence to what we 
 conceive to be the eternal elements in Christianity, to re- 
 affirm its truths and to indicate how they agree or can 
 
26 Introduction 
 
 agree, and how they disagree and must disagree with mod- 
 ern conception of thought and truth. The Christian 
 truth which will be compared with the trends of thought, 
 embraces the fundamental and essential features of what 
 constitutes the general, prevalent and common Christian- 
 ity. 
 
PART ONE 
 LEADING TRENDS OF THOUGHT 
 
TRENDS OF THOUGHT 
 AND CHRISTIAN TRUTH 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE MATHEMATICAL METHOD 
 
 FIGURES and religion, forms and faith, have ap- 
 parently but little to do with each other. But the 
 judgment of the surface, which sees no connection 
 between the thinking of mathematics and the reasoning of 
 religion, has never considered the deeper relations. If the 
 manner in which we think in arithmetic and geometry, 
 trigonometry and calculus, is the one fundamental, accu- 
 rate and ideal form of thought, then as far as we reason 
 in religion we must approach the mathematical goal. 
 Furthermore, the constructive power and the connected 
 contents of mathematical logic can never be passed by in 
 any consideration of thought. They make and form the 
 related system of all thinking in quantity. If this sys- 
 tem is the perfect plan for the intellect, must it not 
 determine any effort to formulate the convictions and 
 truths of religion? Conversely, if our faith claims any in- 
 tellectual element, and as far as it formulates the facts 
 of belief, it must in its procedure either adopt or reject or 
 modify the mathematical claim. Even if religion has 
 independence in making its system, the parts of this 
 system must follow a logic or create a logic. What is the 
 relation of this method of thought to the manner in which 
 the science of quantity argues, is therefore a question that 
 cannot be evaded. 
 
 29 
 
30 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 The conception of the cogency of mathematical proof 
 and the finality of its axioms was the regnant one ever 
 since the great German philosopher Kant wrote his 
 " Critique of Pure Reason." In it he ascribed to mathe- 
 matics the solution of the problem of the certainty of 
 thought. He held that no really new and certain knowl- 
 edge could be attained through an analytic judgment, 
 in which the predicate simply gave one of the attributes 
 of the subject. But in a synthetic judgment it was pos- 
 sible to add a real truth. And mathematics was the 
 science in which prior to all actual experience it was 
 possible " by means of a chain of reasonings always guided 
 by intuition to establish necessary synthetic judgments." * 
 By these judgments, unchangeable, fundamental necessi- 
 ties of thought were expressed. They were conceived to 
 be imbedded in the very nature of reason. Their validity 
 went as far as the universe. The necessity of the cer- 
 tainty in the multiplication table was firmer than the 
 heavens. What Euclid had established in his unfoldment 
 of geometry was the real and final formulation of the 
 principles of space. Since space was prior to experience 
 and determined the manner in which the mind must ar- 
 range its sensations, it followed that the form of all sen- 
 sations was given a priori in ourselves, and that no ex- 
 ternal phenomena could be possible in any other way. It 
 was necessary to hold " that the propositions of geometry 
 are not the results of a mere creation of our poetic 
 imagination," but " they are necessarily valid of space, 
 and consequently of all that may be found in space, be- 
 cause space is nothing else than the form of all external 
 appearances, and it is this form alone in which objects of 
 sense can be given." ^ It follows from this that nothing 
 can be given in appearance that geometry does not de- 
 
 1 First edition of Kant's " Critique of Pure Reason," p. 716. 
 
 2 Kant's " Prolegomena," paragraph 13, remark 1. 
 
The Mathematical Method 31 
 
 scribe. In other words, the mind has certain definite 
 forms that condition all experience. Mathematics is the 
 one certain constructive side of the mind. 
 
 In this attitude of Kant toward the foundation of 
 mathematics he had returned to the idealism of Plato. 
 For Plato in his later years numbers expressed most 
 definitely and certainly the great existent ideas. He 
 adopted much that Pythagoras and his school had de- 
 veloped, but he did not follow their fanciful interpretation 
 of numbers to symbolize moral and religious ideas. Kant, 
 however, differed from these ancients inasmuch as he 
 founded the certainty of quantity on the human mind 
 and not on objective eternal ideas. He was also influenced 
 by Descartes,' who in opposition to the abuse of logic 
 found in mathematics the certainty of self-evident truth. 
 Descartes' " Discourse on Method " seeks, like mathe- 
 matics, to find first principles. But the philosopher who 
 most definitely sought to demonstrate the fact of God and 
 the world, of nature and truth, in a mathematical manner 
 was Spinoza. It was his endeavor to deduce all truth 
 from a few fundamental definitions which he developed into 
 axioms. Upon these he founded propositions and from 
 them he deduced corollaries. His initial definition was 
 that of substance, but this led directly to the definition of 
 God, and thus the main interest of Spinoza was religious. 
 
 It is equally true of Kant that his purpose was also to 
 find a basis for religion which was sound. In his great 
 construction of the " Critique of Pure Reason " the prob- 
 lems of the soul, the world, and God- are those toward 
 which the whole investigation tends. Merz rightly says, 
 " Kant, indeed, had at heart a vindication of the funda- 
 mental verities of religion: of the belief in the existence 
 of God, the Immortality of the soul, and the Freedom of 
 the Will. Was the human intellect able to reach in these 
 matters of belief something like that certainty which be- 
 
32 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 longed, according to his view, to the sciences of applied 
 mathematics ; and, if not, on what foundation had this 
 belief to rest? Mere experience could not give to knowl- 
 edge the characteristics of universality and necessity — 
 it could not make it generally valid or convincing. The 
 question then presented itself, how does some of the knowl- 
 edge we possess, viz., mathematical knowledge, arrive at 
 this generality and convincing evidence.'' " * 
 
 For Kant the answer which mathematics offers gave 
 the answer for the foundation of all knowledge. Knowl- 
 edge to be certain needed the mind to add the logical 
 qualities of universality and certainty through fixed cate- 
 gories to the material given in experience. In mathematics 
 there existed a science the procedure of which was to give 
 the logical clue to physics and metaphysics. It could, 
 prior to all experience, add to knowledge; in other words, 
 it had real synthetic judgments. And as far as knowledge 
 and its logic were to approach to sure foundations, it 
 needed reasoning akin to mathematics. All logic, there- 
 fore, was to be fundamentally of a mathematical nature. 
 It was through synthetic judgments a priori that cer- 
 tainty could be found. There must be, according to Kant, 
 prior to all that we may know, certain categories of 
 thought which lead to ideas and determine contents. 
 
 When the conception of the nature of thought was thus 
 determined mathematically, the problem of the rational 
 basis of religion was settled. The problem of the ra- 
 tional reality of religion rested upon the reality and ex- 
 istence of thought. If religion was to be rational, God 
 and His existence had to be established by certain proofs. 
 There were in vogue three venerable proofs which men had 
 used to establish as they thought, the conception of God 
 on a strong intellectual basis. These proofs were: the 
 
 3 " History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century," Vol. 
 Ill, p. 342. 
 
The Mathematical Method 33 
 
 proof from a plan and purpose in the universe, known 
 as the teleological or physico-theological proof ; the proof 
 from the contingency of the world and its demand of a first 
 cause, called the cosmological proof ; and finally the proof 
 from the inner necessity of thought, called the ontological 
 proof. In this last proof Kant rightly saw the basal 
 argument, for causality and contingency, plan and pur- 
 pose, become sign-posts toward God when the necessity of 
 thought demands Him. Kant argues that the ontological 
 proof cannot be maintained. The thought of an abso- 
 lutely perfect being may exist, but the existence of the 
 thought does not prove the external existence of God. 
 It is possible to say, God is almighty, or omniscient, but 
 then we have only an analytic judgment. In such a judg- 
 ment the predicate only unfolds what has already been in 
 the subject. But we cannot argue synthetically and say 
 that God is, or exists. This synthetic procedure which is 
 justified in mathematics is not justified in rational theol- 
 ogy. The idea of a hundred thalers, thinks Kant, does 
 not imply their reality. Consequently we can neither in 
 thought reach the conception of the existence of God, nor 
 can we test it by outward experience. Therefore, no 
 theology could be constructed theoretically and no proof 
 found for religion on a basis of certainty like that which 
 holds of mathematics. 
 
 Kant believed it to be his mission to destroy the unjust 
 claim of reason to make room for faith. He proved that 
 theoretically we cannot establish the idea of God, of the 
 soul, or of human freedom. By his arguments he de- 
 stroyed the claim, that there could be a demonstration 
 which was cogent for a natural religion of God, immor- 
 tality, and the soul. The arguments which would alone 
 lead to the assumption of these religious verities, Kant 
 found in the moral demands of man's practical reason. 
 The necessity for adjudicating the moral inequalities in 
 
34 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 the world, the desire for permanent happiness, and the 
 categorical imperative of conscience called for God and 
 eternity. The proofs, therefore, which Kant allowed were 
 of a moral nature, and had presumptive worth. They 
 were not scientific and could not be cogent, as they were 
 not of a mathematical nature. They were rather answers 
 to a demand, and judgments of quality and value. By 
 the acceptance of this type of proof, and by the destruc- 
 tion of the former kind of proof, Kant, for a long time, 
 influenced thinking. He had found a true distinction, but 
 at the same time he destroyed all claim of religion to have a 
 basis in the certainty of thought. He aided, therefore, an 
 agnostic attitude in reference to the intellectual founda- 
 tions of religion. And this result he reached through 
 the fundamental assumption that thought was funda- 
 mentally mathematical. 
 
 Later in his life, Kant after all attempted to construct 
 a reasonable religion in his book on " Religion Within 
 the Limits of Reason." In it he returned to the attitude 
 which prevailed prior to his system. Before Kant, Wol£F, 
 a leading German philosopher, who was influenced by 
 Leibniz, gave voice to the conception, that certain rational 
 elements of Christianity could be proven. Kant, in re- 
 stricting religion to the limits of reason, and not follow- 
 ing out his suggestion of basing religion on moral de- 
 mands, which might have led him to recognize the religious 
 demands, reverted himself. He sought to deplete Chris- 
 tianity of its supernatural elements and he argued again 
 for the eternal truths of reason, which, of course, had to 
 be of a mathematical nature. He was thus forced to the 
 tacit acceptance of Lessing's conception, that the acci- 
 dental facts of history cannot be eternal truths of reason. 
 The historical elements of Christianity were consequently 
 as valueless as the supernatural content. Thus, finally, 
 the deeper philosophy, founded on mathematical reason- 
 
The Mathematical Method 35 
 
 ing, led to the same result as the common sense reasoning 
 of the rationalists before Kant. The only Christianity 
 which could remain was a belief in reason, the soul, God, 
 and immortality, and the three last were only the require- 
 ments of the will. 
 
 From all this it appears clearly that, wherever the cer- 
 tainty of mathematics is accepted, and its sure proof is 
 supposed to be the most certain, there only such knowledge 
 can approach certainty, which is capable of demonstra- 
 tion similar to that of mathematics. Consequently, only 
 problematic value can be assigned to religion, which can- 
 not be submitted in its fullness to such proof unless it be 
 emptied of all emotion, and denied all reality of truth, 
 which is not of a mathematical nature. Whatever other 
 kinds of truths there may be, they cannot approach in 
 scientific value and certainty to the mathematical truths. 
 If these, therefore, are the highest, no religion can have a 
 real intellectual certitude. It will be even more uncertain 
 and relative than all the relativities of science. 
 
 The disregard of this fact has constituted one of the 
 mistakes in the apologetic literature of Christianity since 
 Kant. It lacks the understanding of its relation to math- 
 ematical methods in human thought. Strange to relate, 
 it did not abolish, as it ought to have done, the wrong 
 assumption of a natural theology which could be employed 
 as the foundation of revealed truth. It was still supposed 
 that there existed unalterably in the consciousness of man, 
 and in his innate reason, axiomatic truths of religion. 
 These were given more or less content in disregard of the 
 contradictory facts of history. Despite the experience, 
 that rationalism used the conception of natural theology 
 to declare revelation unnecessary, becaqse reason could 
 furnish the necessary basis and information for religion, 
 and despite the eiFort of rationalism to limit religion to its 
 legitimate rational elements ; nevertheless, natural theology 
 
36 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 was again used, although in a secondary place, by the 
 advocates of a positive faith. Kant's destruction of nat- 
 ural theology in his great " Critique " did not affect much 
 of later apologetic literature. Even when finally changes 
 were made and natural theology was laid aside, many 
 theological teachers still argued for a propaedeutic of 
 reason. It seemed impossible for Christianity to separate 
 itself from the dangerous alliance between reasoning, which 
 finally rested on mathematical argument, and direct biblical 
 truth. Wherever this union persisted it injured positive 
 Christian truth. There could be no escape from condemn- 
 ing much Christian truth intellectually, as long as the very 
 nature of reasoning and speculation was conceived to be 
 essentially mathematical. 
 
 No relief was given in the rise of positivism. It claimed 
 to be concerned merely with direct positive facts, but it 
 dealt with them from the point of view of mathematical 
 accuracy. Of it Edouard LeRoy well says : " The 
 dream of that time, despite all verbal palliations, was a 
 universal science of mathematics: mathematics, of course, 
 with their bare and brutal rigor softened and shaded off, 
 where feasible; if possible, supple and sensitive; in ideal, 
 delicate!, buoyant, and judicious ; but mathematics gov- 
 erned from end to end by an equal necessity. Conceived 
 as the sole mistress of truth this science was expected in 
 days to come to fulfil all the needs of man, and unre- 
 servedly to take the place of ancient spiritual discipline. 
 Genuine philosophy had had its day: all metaphysics 
 seemed deception and fantasy, a simple play of empty 
 formula or puerile dream, a mythical possession of ab- 
 straction and phantom: religion itself paled before sci- 
 ence, as poetry of the gray morning before the splendor 
 of the rising sun." * This attitude of positivism was both 
 a result and a new influence, but it became an influence 
 
 * " The New Philosophy of Henri Bergson," p. 139. 
 
The Mathematical Method 37 
 
 rather indirectly than directly. It helped on the mathe- 
 matical ideal in science. Astronomy had always been 
 mathematical, but mathematics now began to press most 
 vigorously into the domain of physics. Psychology so 
 long a free mental science was to be submitted to mathe- 
 matical proportion in the calculation of the impressions 
 of sensation through a stimulus, according to the law of 
 Weber and the formula of Fechner. Until this day the 
 thought that science becomes more accurate as it takes 
 on the measurements of mathematics continues. Biology 
 is much interested in calculating the strains of heredity 
 which make for health or lead to defectiveness. Eugenics 
 bases its claims on an effort to use medical tabulations. 
 Sociology is aiming at exactitude and scientific standing 
 on the basis of statistics. In other words, the aim in 
 every group of data that claim the name of a science is 
 to approach measurement, in order that scientific accuracy 
 may be reached by following the mathematical ideal. Con- 
 sequently when Christian truth, which cannot be measured 
 and quantified, is pressing forward for its rights, It will 
 always be disqualified as long as the very nature of think- 
 ing at Its best Is held to be quantitative. 
 
 But the certainty of the mathematical argument has 
 been very much attacked by the later theories of the mathe- 
 maticians themselves. There has been developed a non- 
 Euclidean geometry which seems to demonstrate the impos- 
 sibility of the absoluteness of the older geometry. It is 
 now held that the first principles of geometry are not fun- 
 damentally the only possible ones and the only logical 
 ones. Professor H. Poincare succinctly puts the issue 
 thus : " Whence are the first principles of geometry de- 
 rived? Are they Imposed on us by logic? Lobatschew- 
 sky, by inventing non-Euclidean geometries, has shown 
 that this is not the case." ^ And in greater detail Dr. J. 
 
 5 * Science and Hypothesis," preface, p. xxv. 
 
38 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 M. O'Sullivan thus states the situation : " Euclidean ge- 
 ometry has operated under assumptions which have always 
 baffled every attempt to prove them. It has, for example, 
 been forced to assume either that the angles of a triangle 
 are together equal to two right angles, or that through 
 the same point one, and not more than one, parallel can 
 be drawn to any given straight line. Now, however, it 
 has been found that starting from assumptions different 
 from those of Euclid, we can develop various perfectly 
 self-consistent systems, the results of which are not in har- 
 mony with those of ordinary geometry. Thus we may 
 regard space as having a constant curvature instead of 
 being homogeneous, of being four instead of three dimen- 
 sions, as being such that we can draw (through a single 
 point) any number of parallels to any given line, and 
 so on. We find, moreover, that these assumptions involve 
 us in no inherent absurdity, no self-contradiction." ® 
 Through the possibility of a geometry of four dimensions, 
 equally logical as that of three dimensions, the old idea 
 of the eternity and unalterabUity of Euclidean geometry 
 suffered a dangerous attack. When, in addition, it was 
 mathematically proved that any number of parallels to any 
 given line could be drawn through a single point, and that 
 one of the axiomatic presuppositions of Euclid was ca- 
 pable of being disproved by the very sort of argument 
 which always seemed invulnerable, the faith in mathemati- 
 cal certainty was still further shaken. It is true that all 
 of these systems may have no validity for our present 
 space. In other words, they cannot be practically dem- 
 onstrated as we now conceive practicality, but they are 
 thinkable and systematically certain. It is only sense as 
 generally interpreted that contradicts them, but not rea- 
 son. 
 
 It is not only the mathematical foundations which 
 
 8 " Old Criticism and New Pragmatism," p. Ill ff. 
 
The Mathematical Method 39 
 
 have been attacked, but mathematical continuity may be 
 questioned. This is important, because logic has some- 
 times been believed to be symbolic. It has been trans- 
 lated into figures and its mathematical nature has been 
 demanded by the investigations of the Englishmen, Boole 
 and Jevons. Dr. Shearman, in " The Scope of Formal 
 Logic," has largely followed this same symbolic procedure. 
 And in the same manner Prof. Louis Couturat, in " The 
 Principles of Logic," a sub-treatise in the Encyclopedia 
 of Philosophical Sciences, Vol. I, also works out the prob- 
 lems of logic mathematically. But can aU thought be thus 
 accurately translated into mathematics.? Is it not true 
 in thinking that an apparent law not failing up to a cer- 
 tain point may suddenly break down when put to a practi- 
 cal test.!* 
 
 A machine might be constructed to give a perfectly 
 regular series of numbers through a vast series of steps, 
 and yet break the law of progression suddenly at any 
 required time. The sudden freezing of water at one point 
 without a gradual approach is another argument against 
 an absolutely continuing mathematical progression in real 
 experiments. The law of the minimal changes in the effect 
 of a stimulus upon sensation has its limits. There is 
 thus more than one instance where the continuity of mathe- 
 matical thinking loses its force for reality. 
 
 These and similar facts led the thinkers on mathe- 
 matical problems to new theories of mathematics. In 
 strongest contrast to the reigning conception of mathe- 
 matical certainty and the claim of its priority to all ex- 
 perience, there arose the hypothesis that mathematical 
 thinking rested purely upon experience. Its axioms were 
 workable generalizations drawn from the actual experi- 
 ence of mankind. While for a time the defenders of the 
 mathematical ideal still claimed that the mathematical 
 concept was prior to and determinative of every percept. 
 
40 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 it is now true as Professor Pitkin says, that : " Ge- 
 ometers pretty generally concede that they get their 
 original information about figures and their relation from 
 perceived forms. The primary subject of inquiry in ge- 
 ometry appears in its very name; it is the measuring of 
 the earth. And there can be no doubt that for centu- 
 ries geometers had no thought of analyzing anything save 
 the observable character of space and spatial entities." ^ 
 In arithmetic as in geometry the actual counting, and the 
 growing number experience of mankind was the basis of 
 the abstraction which formed the science. Where this 
 attitude obtains, there can be no absolute category of 
 number or space or time to begin with. AR these are 
 supposed to be drawn from experience. Consequently 
 there is no fixed nature of thinking of a mathematical 
 character; it is simply the experience that creates quan- 
 tity and makes the science of mathematics. It appears 
 very evident that on such a basis mathematics cannot 
 claim to dictate to religious experience or thinking. From 
 its method it cannot question religion, but must humbly 
 remain in its restricted sphere and within the limits of 
 experience and the character of the experience which makes 
 it possible. Religion, then, has full right to its peculiar 
 experience and the independence of the character of this 
 experience. It is a problem of clearly distinguishing sep- 
 arate types of experience with their legitimate inferences. 
 Another point of view does not permit empiricism as 
 much room as the theory just discussed. One of its lead- 
 ing advocates is Professor Poincar^, who holds that ex- 
 perience does not make mathematics, but that the mind 
 formulates certain definitions and tries them out. An 
 axiom is nothing but an assumption or a definition agreed 
 upon. He says : " We shall also see that there are sev- 
 eral kinds of hypotheses ; that some are verifiable, and 
 
 7 Journal of Philosophy and Psychology, X, 16, p. 399. 
 
The Mathematical Method 41 
 
 when once confirmed by experiment become truths of great 
 fertility; that others may be useful to us in fixing our 
 ideas ; and finally, that others are hypotheses only in ap- 
 pearance, and reduce to definitions or to conventions in 
 disguise. The latter are to be met with, especially in 
 mathematics, and the sciences to which it is applied. 
 From them, indeed, the sciences derived their rigor; such 
 conventions are the result of the unrestricted activity of 
 the mind, which in this domain recognizes no obstacle." * 
 The conventions, while thus imposed, are not arbitrary, 
 but they are fertile and experience helps us to discern the 
 most convenient path to follow. The conventions of the 
 mind are, therefore, not mere postulates from experience, 
 but postulates for experience. Mathematics and logic 
 following it describe the nature of relation, order, dimen- 
 sionality, number, and space. All their postulates, how- 
 ever, for experience are no absolute ideas of the mind, they 
 are merely conventions prior to experience, and the scien- 
 tist selects the postulates that experience can establish. 
 In a somewhat different but related manner. Professor 
 Russell holds that there exist in the world certain mathe- 
 matical entities, and that a relation is to be established 
 between these entities or terms. The terms exist and are 
 experienced, and the mind does not make the terms, but 
 it discovers the relations. Consequently we need the re- 
 lating activity of the mind, for the mere experience of the 
 terms cannot create quantitative thought. In its total 
 effect, therefore. Professor Russell's idea leads, like the 
 theory of Professor Poincare, to a modified empiricism. 
 
 There are many facts in favor of such a theory of 
 modified empiricism. Upon it there is a possibility of the 
 agreement of Christian truth with mathematical theory. 
 Christianity can, from one point of view, be conceived 
 as an experience, but the experience is what it is, and 
 
 8 " Science and Hypothesis," preface, p. xxii. 
 
42 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 becomes what it becomes, through the relations established 
 by the soul. It is the soul which makes its postulates for 
 experience, but it does not create the facts of the religious 
 experience which exist and are found. In such a hypothe- 
 sis, there is a balance which seems to hold in proper poise 
 what life offers and what the soul adds. The balance ap- 
 pears far better sustained than in the efforts of Kant, who, 
 despite every attempt, never succeeded in doing full jus- 
 tice to the value of experience. 
 
 An attempt was made to overcome the force of the 
 mathematical conception of Kant by Hegel. He believed 
 that the content of thought must determine the method, 
 and for him the mechanical and notionless procedure of 
 mathematics could not properly express the living move- 
 ment of thought. He opposed Kant in the contention 
 that each branch of knowledge has only as much strict 
 science as it contains mathematics. According to Kant 
 the category of quantity becomes all-controlling. But 
 Hegel says : " Our knowledge would be in a very awkward 
 predicament if such objects as freedom, law, morality, or 
 even God himself, because they cannot be measured or 
 calculated, or expressed in a mathematical formula, were 
 to be reckoned beyond the reach of exact knowledge, and 
 had to put up with a vague general image of them, leaving 
 their detail or particulars to the pleasure of each indi- 
 vidual, to make out of them what he will." ® Hegel be- 
 lieved that reason could establish itself through arguments 
 of quality rather than of quantity. Perhaps he ascribed 
 too much force and accuracy to reason in its movement, 
 but he destroyed the over-emphasis of quantity. There 
 is much danger in using quantity as the sole category of 
 the mind. Professor Bosanquet rightly says : " This 
 false employment arises, or would arise, supposing the 
 category of quantity to be considered not merely as co- 
 
 » Encyclopedia, paragraph 99, note. 
 
The Mathematical Method 43 
 
 extensive with determinate existence, but as, in its ab- 
 straction, the ultimate reality of all determinate exist- 
 ence, and consequently as furnishing the final ideal of 
 science. It is obvious that the true use of this as of every 
 category slides easily into the false one. Every science 
 is occupied with its own abstractions. Every individual 
 mind tends to magnify that with which it is occupied. 
 The category of quantity, for reasons mentioned above, 
 lends itself to universal application. It seems a short step 
 from universal application to sole application, but it is 
 the step from truth to falsehood. It is not made ex- 
 clusively by votaries of physical science, nor perhaps by 
 them chiefly. It meets us in theology and in philosophy 
 under the form of the quantitative infinite as a sublime 
 attribute of the Deity, or of soul life, or of the universe as 
 contrasted with the ' finite ' mind of man." '" 
 
 A real danger has been indicated by Professor Bosan- 
 quet when he shows how the quantitative idea has cor- 
 rupted theology. He is entirely right when he assails the 
 manner in which the philosophical and mathematical no- 
 tion of the infinite is applied to God. In similar manner 
 the error of a mathematical point of view lurks behind 
 some of the conceptions of divine unity. Unity is con- 
 ceived of as a mathematically closed quantity, and not 
 as a quality which may imply a rich complexity. The 
 presence of God has sometimes been defined to meet the 
 conditions of space. Such a spatial idea of God is an entire 
 misapplication of the idea of spiritual presence, because it 
 attempts to make it clear through a material medium; 
 in fact, however, it confuses the notion. In the idea of 
 the soul, as present in every part of the body and in no 
 particular part of the body, there is an efl!"ort to describe 
 a spiritual entity by material and spatial paradoxes. The 
 effort, however, fails and there is indefiniteness instead of 
 
 10 " Logic," Vol. I, p. 193. 
 
44 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 clearness. Where Christian truth uses such terms, it lays 
 itself open to the objections which Mansel made and which 
 Spencer repeated/-' when they show the contradiction be- 
 tween cause and absolute and infinite. The whole char- 
 acter of the argument is of a mathematical character, 
 and arises from the fact that incongruous notions, which 
 are in essence quantitative, are applied to religious ideas. 
 Religious ideas, however, are fundamentally qualitative, 
 and have value, and, therefore, demand not judgments of 
 quantity, but judgments of value and quality. 
 
 A very formidable enemy to the quantitative way of 
 thinking and to the exclusive sovereignty of the mathe- 
 matical method has arisen in the French philosopher 
 Bergson. He denies the fundamentality of quantity as a 
 part of living thought. The real primal character of 
 thinking is to him not the reasoning of the intellect, but 
 the living quality of intuition with its large range of 
 possibilities. Quantity is a result of separation from the 
 stream of life; it is a reduction of vital moving duration 
 and impulse to static space. Space has been demanded 
 for the sake of matter, and the intellect is instrumental 
 to the demands of matter. It only answers to the external 
 needs, and becomes mathematical because of matter which 
 life has sloughed off. Says Bergson: "All the opera- 
 tions of our intellect tend to geometry, as to the goal 
 where they find their perfect fulfillment. But, as ge- 
 ometry is necessarily prior to them (since these opera- 
 tions have not as their end to construct space and cannot 
 do otherwise than take it as given) it is evident that it 
 is a latent geometry, immanent in our idea of space, which 
 is the mainspring of our intellect and the pause of its 
 workings." ^^ It is because intellect and spatiality go to- 
 gether, believes Bergson, that our thinking is so mathe- 
 
 11 " First Principles," p. 33. 
 
 12 " Creative Evolution," p. 310. 
 
The Mathematical Method 45 
 
 matical. He says: "When we consider the admirable 
 order of mathematics, the perfect agreement of the objects 
 it deals with, the immanent logic in numbers and figures, 
 our certainty of always getting the same conclusion, how- 
 ever diverse and complex our reasonings on the same sub- 
 ject, we hesitate to see in properties apparently so posi- 
 tive a system of negations, the absence rather than the 
 presence of a true reality. But we must not forget that 
 our intellect, which finds this order, and wonders at it, 
 is directed in the same line of movement that leads to 
 the materiality and spatiality of its object. The more 
 complexity the intellect puts into its object by analyzing 
 it, the more complex is the order it finds there. And this 
 order and this complexity necessarily appear to the intel- 
 lect as a positive reality, since reality and intellectuality 
 are turned in the same direction." ^* While Bergson in 
 this attitude has perhaps been unduly severe to the intel- 
 lect of man ^* as a whole, he has laid his finger on a real 
 distinction which applies to mathematical thinking with 
 its abstractness as related to life. True reality is finally 
 not mathematical; it possesses a vital quality. When we 
 conceive of thought as a living movement, then at once 
 the judgment of quality is more important than that of 
 quantity. With this new ideal of thought as primarily 
 inner life, Christianity can make an alliance, for its knowl- 
 edge is fundamentally vital. Its truth is the direct, fresh, 
 gushing water of life. When we have gained this point 
 of view, and when knowledge is considered in this way, we 
 are delivered from the tyranny of every kind of dogmatic 
 rationalism, which has its roots in the mathematical type 
 of thinking. We can purify Christian thinking from the 
 dross of past quantitative reasoning and restore it to its 
 living quality. 
 
 13 « Creative Evolution," p. 208. 
 
 14 Cf. Part II, Chap. 6, p. 259 ff. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE INDUCTIVE CLAIM 
 
 NO demand is more insistent in the present than 
 the claim for facts. Facts are believed to be the 
 unalloyed realities, from which alone legitimate 
 thinking has a right to proceed. It is considered utterly 
 futile to begin with an idea or an ideal ; such an undertak- 
 ing is judged as an unwarranted disturbance of the actual 
 world. Consequently the reasoning which classifies and 
 explains things, setting out from great principles, is put 
 aside. Deductive argument is tabooed, for this is pre- 
 eminently the age of induction. From particulars and 
 not from principles sciences are built up, and out of the 
 details and single instances in experience the interpretation 
 of life is sought. Generalizations are only permitted as 
 summing up individual experiences. For the sake of econ- 
 omy and for purposes of order and classification universal 
 laws are admitted. But it is held that every explanation 
 from one principle must have back of it some cases out of 
 which it is developed ; without such a foundation, all argu- 
 ment from the universal is considered illegitimate. 
 
 The great formulator of the inductive trend of thought 
 in its working details is John Stuart Mill. It is true that 
 Socrates in his day began to gather up instances, and that 
 Plato used illustrations. Following them Aristotle knew 
 of the fact of collecting particulars and called this pro- 
 cedure induction. Every one of these great Greek think- 
 ers realized the value of particulars. But the greater 
 estimate of particular cases by Socrates and his arrival at 
 concepts from living cases and situations, and the allow- 
 ance of an eternal world of thought with its many ideas 
 by Plato, were crowded back in human thinking when 
 
 46 
 
The Inductive Claim 47 
 
 Aristotle thought that strict proof and demonstration 
 were deductive. For him induction was only a counting of 
 cases, and as enumeration it was a secondary and weak 
 substitute where and when the accurate reasoning from 
 foundational, first principles could not be employed. The 
 deduction of Aristotle and his strong formulation of the 
 argument of the syllogism, which always begins with 
 the major premise, ruled down to the modem age. 
 
 But the spell of Aristotle was broken with the coming of 
 modem times. Many were the thinkers who led to the 
 inductive ideal. It is very interesting to note that, while 
 the most immediate beginnings of the new science were 
 controlled by the mathematical notions of Leonardo da 
 Vinci, Kepler, and Galileo, the new impetus to inductive 
 reasoning was made by Bacon. Bacon, however, was most 
 fortunate in his criticisms. When he formulated induc- 
 tion he saw in it largely the gathering of material and the 
 formation of preliminary hypotheses for the sake of orien- 
 tation. His induction is continued with the aid of these 
 hypotheses. To deduction he gave a very secondary 
 place, and he believed that all quantitative considerations 
 had to be inferred from experiences.-' But the impulse 
 which Bacon gave to induction was not at once to prevail. 
 The mathematical ideals of Descartes, and the influence of 
 Isaac Newton, did not allow the inductive process full de- 
 velopment and lasting triumph. It was only after the 
 days of Mill, that inductive logic began to exercise its 
 largest sway over the minds of men. While Mill grad- 
 ually revolutionized, or rather aided in revolutionizing the 
 science of thought, it was nevertheless not his influence 
 alone which brought about the general reign of induction. 
 This was most largely effected by the rise of biology in the 
 researches into nature of which Darwin was such a consum- 
 
 1 Cf. Dr. H, Hoeffding, " Geschichte der Neueren Philosophic," Vol. 
 I, p. 21T, 
 
48 Trends of Thcmght and Christian Truth 
 
 mate leader. He applied most effectively the logic of in- 
 duction, but it grew out of direct practice and not from a 
 formal study of Mill or any logician. Along with the 
 new biology, the advances of geology, as represented in 
 such a thinker as Lyell, also furthered the inductive 
 method. In addition the newer chemical researches con- 
 firmed it, and upon its principles arose a new period of 
 physics. It has pressed into history, economics and 
 sociology, and has laid its claim even to the proper study 
 of morals and to the history of religion. Everywhere its 
 reign is paramount. The conviction rules that we are an 
 age with its feet on the ground, touching real mother-earth 
 in all that we do and think, and that we are fortunately 
 free from the dreaming which has its head in the clouds. 
 
 But the claim that this is the age of reasoning from 
 facts and from facts alone is deceptive. Where reasoning 
 begins there are no longer mere facts. The very ma- 
 terials upon which it draws are no longer the mere external 
 facts. Even if we allow the contention for the moment, 
 that all the material of thought comes from sensation, 
 psychology shows us that we no longer possess the ex- 
 ternal physical fact. Even the first reports of sensation 
 color and change the external data. Much more is it true 
 that the argument which draws from memory, which is 
 stimulated by interest, which must consider attention, and 
 employ concepts, is not a mere resultant of the external ex- 
 istents. The argument from particulars is already a 
 complex argument and must be analyzed into simpler 
 terms. The purely physical facts must be separated from 
 the psychological approach. It is necessary to analyze 
 the mental process which is legitimately true scientific in- 
 duction, and to note its elements and its parts. 
 
 When, however, we begin the analysis of induction it is 
 found that we must consider the problem of the causal 
 chain. We cannot study particular facts scientifically 
 
The Inductive Claim 49 
 
 in any real way without noting that they depend upon 
 each other. The constant sequence that we notice about 
 all phenomena, which we study and begin to interpret 
 scientifically, we divide into cause and effect. Somehow 
 we can never get away from this conjunction. Now, the 
 problem in induction is not primarily to study the idea 
 of causality, but only the direct causes and effects. It is 
 true, that from them we may be led to the deeper question, 
 whether we would ever find in temporal succession causes 
 and effects without the idea of cause. When it is neces- 
 sary to study the manner in which we are able in observa- 
 tion or through experiment to find causes, we are naturally 
 led to certain methods. These methods have been first 
 analyzed in a most direct and thorough manner by Mill, 
 although they may have been used previously. The value 
 of the logic of Mill largely consists in calling attention to 
 and describing the methods, according to which we find 
 causes in the inductive process. 
 
 It will be necessary briefly to indicate these methods in 
 order that we may show what is after all the main problem 
 lying back of all of the methods. The method of agreement 
 posits a causal relation, when in a number of instances and 
 different settings it is found, that the supposed cause is al- 
 ways followed by a certain phenomenon as corresponding 
 effect. In the method of difference, an instance, in which 
 the supposed cause is present, followed by the correspond- 
 ing effect, is compared with an instance of the same general 
 setting, but where the supposed cause being removed, the 
 effect also disappears. These two methods are sometimes 
 combined into a joint method in which the comparison of 
 instances where the supposed cause is present is made with 
 like instances where it is not present. If the correspond- 
 ing effect is found in the former, and absent in the latter 
 collection of instances, a causal connection may rightly be 
 assumed. The method of concomitant variation so modi- 
 
50 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 fies any given datum, that the supposed cause will vary 
 in intensity; if then, there is a like variation in the re- 
 sultant, a causal relation exists. The method of residues 
 is the analysis of a complex phenomenon, in which all ele- 
 ments are related severally to all others in a causal way, 
 except one residual element in the antecedent and one in 
 the consequent. The latter may be considered the effect 
 of the former. 
 
 These different method's and varieties of analyzing the 
 causal chain are sometimes alone, but mostly they are 
 combined. Among them agreement will be discussed fur- 
 ther on because it leads to the modem comparative 
 proof, the argument of analogy. The proof from dif- 
 ference is only the negative side of the proof from agree- 
 ment, and consequently only a confirmatory proof that 
 leads to similarity and merges into it. And when both are 
 combined in the joint method of agreement and difference, 
 it appears all the more clearly that the common element 
 is likeness, and that even in the unlike element it is the 
 similarity of the unlikeness which establishes it. Con- 
 comitant variation is fundamentally the finding of a con- 
 stant in quantity amid the change of variables. It is the 
 reduction of cause and effect to a mathematical equation 
 or proportion. The value of the proof from residual 
 elements is really the emphasis of the exception that may 
 lead to new facts or revision of old views. It is largely 
 accessory to the main method and in its nature, after all, 
 rests on similarity. It appears, therefore, that the con- 
 stant pressure in all of these arguments when summed 
 up is toward similarity in variation. The whole question 
 reduces itself to the problem of variation according to a 
 constant. The constant may be not only quantitative, 
 and this has been frequently the defect of the method of 
 concomitant variation in its statement and use. When 
 this method is rightly combined with agreement and varia- 
 
The Inductive Claim 61 
 
 tion, and residues, it will lead in actual experience, first 
 of all, to a qualitative constant. It is only the mathe- 
 matical ideal which adds the quantitative interpretation. 
 The question now arises, is this qualitative constant, 
 around which all the methods of Mill are actually grouped, 
 in the things themselves? Is it true that the mere experi- 
 ence of the senses and their data carries within it the un- 
 varying constant? While our consciousness reveals a 
 mighty continuum constantly passing through it, yet so 
 changeable and shifting are the things within it, and so 
 complex and heterogeneous the flow of experience through 
 our consciousness, that a fundamental constant does not 
 reveal itself. We are after all driven to the assumption 
 that the mind adds the fixed constant, and groups to- 
 gether the received impressions, and draws inferences from 
 them. Of course, experience confirms the mind and we 
 must consequently accept, as a matter of intellectual belief, 
 the external existence of a great constant. But this 
 constant is not a reality of brute fact but rather an in- 
 ference of associating mind. Consequently the necessary 
 presupposition of all induction is the arrangement of ex- 
 perience as it comes to us in the rough, and the selection 
 of impressions, and the grouping of them into classes which 
 finally constitute the data of various sciences. As history 
 proceeded the mind has more and more separated new 
 groups out of old ones, and thus constituted new sciences. 
 Observation and experiment which are the two methods of 
 the practical working out of induction are not possible 
 without grouping and classifying. How can we rightly 
 observe or experiment unless we fix our attention on 
 specific objects, which we study for certain definite pur- 
 poses, and to answer certain questions arising out of the 
 co-relation of the grouping. What we really are inquir- 
 ing for is the constant. We arrange phenomena to com- 
 pel them to answer our inquiries with the constant in mind 
 
52 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 and with faith in its existence. 
 
 There is nothing in religion which does not allow of 
 the arranging of its phenomena by a constant. This 
 constant within man is the religious consciousness, and 
 the external constant believed in is a real revelation. But 
 Christianity has an additional claim. It demands the 
 examination not merely of a distinct group of historical 
 facts and of specific and peculiar religious truths, but also 
 of a special and peculiar consciousness. This Christian 
 consciousness is the center of any system of experiences 
 that can be combined into a unity. It crystallizes what is 
 borne in upon it through the religious data that occur in a 
 man's education or surroundings. But it at once seeks an 
 object and claims that it is guided by the Holy Spirit, 
 who interprets Christ, whether He be mediated by the 
 Bible or the Church. Thus the constant of revelation is 
 joined to the constant of the religious consciousness. 
 In this procedure Christianity finds a center for the group- 
 ing of Christian experience, and it is really in this respect 
 inductive. Consequently Christianity uses induction and 
 induction can bring no charge against Christianity, 
 
 It has happened, nevertheless, that some types of mod- 
 em induction allowed themselves to be combined with a 
 materialistic interpretation of evolution and life. These, 
 then, claimed that the constant must be of a material 
 order, and that it must be found in the lowest stratum of 
 things. But this is unjust, for in passing from constants 
 to constants they must answer in their character to their 
 own group of facts. The careful induction cannot apply 
 the inductive constant of mechanics to biology, or the 
 constant of chemistry to sociology. Of course, finally, 
 induction desires to unite the separate constants into a 
 great unity; but the question remains whether this unity 
 must be physical. In the course of its operation induction 
 has no right to adopt a metaphysic. Each group of facts 
 
The Inductive Claim 63 
 
 which shall constitute a science or art or any separate 
 domain of life can not suffer violence by introducing any 
 constant untrue to it. Although the mind finds the con- 
 stant, it must be of the nature of the facts that are 
 crystallized about it and serve it. Strange to say, induc- 
 tion with its claim of realism and respect for facts has been 
 employed by some scientists in the service of a material- 
 istic metaphysic. By this attitude, induction has really 
 been perverted into a deduction, and without the exercise 
 of the proper care and a just estimation a wrong pre- 
 supposition has been forced upon the facts. Where such 
 abuse of induction has obtained, it is perfectly explicable 
 that Christianity has suffered from the deductive assump- 
 tion of a mere metaphysic of nature, which denied spirit in 
 its very formulation and initial definition, and under the 
 cloak of induction and its facts really assailed Christian 
 truth from an opposite deductive supposition. But in an 
 equal manner Christianity must be careful to allow for the 
 facts and the groupings of science and not attempt any 
 deductive interference with the sphere of science. It must 
 not take its religious value of man and the world, and 
 through them attempt to deny either the fact or assail 
 the constant that science may find in an examination, which 
 must naturally overlook or abstract from the religious 
 point of view. 
 
 When the various constants have been found the prob- 
 lem of uniting them into some great fundamental constant 
 remains. There never can be any fully carried out induc- 
 tion without a great presupposition. This presupposi- 
 tion of induction in all science is usually termed, the uni- 
 formity of nature. This uniformity of nature is applied 
 to the whole chain of causes with the additional assump- 
 tion of the real continuity of nature. Such an assump- 
 tion of a real whole is essential, if any worth is to be 
 attached to particular facts. Particulars must be thought 
 
64 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 of as parts of a great whole. Their action is to be con- 
 ceived as illustrative of what can be found everywhere. 
 If particulars are the mere counting of single instances, 
 they can create only a probability, and this probability 
 will be only as high as the number of counted cases is in 
 relation to the whole range of existent facts, Mr. Venn, 
 in his Empirical Logic, believes that this probability is all 
 that induction can reach. But most thinkers hold that 
 few cases are conclusive and that even one experiment 
 can be crucial and pivotal. Now such an attitude is only 
 possible if we contend that nature has uniform laws 
 throughout, and that everywhere and without break these 
 laws hold good. In other words, a certainty is ascribed to 
 individual cases out of all relation to their proportion- 
 ateness because of the belief in the uniformity of the uni- 
 verse. It seems impossible for the human mind to hold to 
 a changeable universe. Even if with some thinkers we 
 should deny a universe and simply argue for a multiverse, 
 nevertheless the many individual factors are still con- 
 ceived of as constant, and in some respects uniform. 
 We may, like Bergson, become convinced that creation as 
 evolution is constantly new, but as we look back upon its 
 course we must note that it has proceeded along certain 
 unified lines. We cannot in any view of the universe 
 disregard its continuity in our thinking, and, therefore, 
 we must believe in its existence. 
 
 There still remains, of course, the problem of defining 
 the continuity which appears in a uniform universe. Too 
 often it has been described in the terms of the lowest 
 facts of life, and then from these low origins the higher 
 facts have been injured. If continuity be reduced to 
 mechanical connection and to mechanical movement in a 
 line of conjunction from the atom to man, then such a 
 physical visualization of continuity must be disputed. 
 But if, allowing for new departures at the point of the ori- 
 
The Inductive Claim 55 
 
 gin of life and of the origin of spirit, we do not depress the 
 facts of the sphere of life and soul to the laws of mechanics 
 we are engaged in a true process. It will then be neces- 
 sary to subsume the continued action of mechanics, and 
 somewhat higher up of chemistry, as contributory and 
 secondary to the laws of life and of the spirit. Continuity 
 thus becomes the widening of a great stream into which 
 new, stronger tributaries pour in their waters, and with 
 their mightier currents carry on the currents of the first 
 simpler sources. At present this is the only justifiable 
 conception of continuity ; any other idea is a hope. Even 
 should the bridge between matter and life be actually 
 constructed, this would, nevertheless, only raise the prob- 
 lem whether we have not unduly limited life. 
 
 When we assume such a constant as universal continuity 
 and uniformity, we are easily led to the foundations of re- 
 ligion. It has as an implication the idea of a universe 
 as a unity back of phenomena. In addition it involves 
 the thought of regularity in this universe. These ideas 
 are correlative to its conception of God. It is true that 
 all religion, and Christianity also, believes in special inter- 
 ventions and miracles. But these evidences for a specific 
 need have never destroyed the idea of a uniform character 
 of God, and have never made Him arbitrary. Conse- 
 quently in its deepest beliefs Christianity assumes a regu- 
 lar universe. The conception of a universe as a mental 
 ultimate, and the idea of law as uniform, constant and 
 reliable procedure of phenomena, leads to trustworthi- 
 ness as a mental assumption. When we ascribe trust- 
 worthiness to a universe we are led to the very threshold 
 of the theistic idea by the underlying supposition of induc- 
 tion. As far as Christianity is a theistic faith it is a 
 further unfoldment and completion of the primal postulate 
 of uniformity. This it applies to the higher moral and 
 religious spheres of life, whose uniform constant it finds 
 
56 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 in human and divine love. 
 
 The idea of continuity, as it was defined above, also 
 lends itself readily to religious faith, which demands mind 
 back of the universe, and centers it in a personal God. 
 When new elements enter into the progressive stream of 
 being and life and absorb, though they do not destroy, 
 the previously existent elements, there must be in this re- 
 sultant unity more than accidentalism or chance. The 
 assumption of these would prove inadequate, for the unity 
 and uniformity and continuity are the summing up of the 
 complex into a oneness which is not thinkable without 
 mind. Of course, it may be supposed that this mind is 
 nowhere else but in the process itself. Such an idea, 
 however, materializes mind, or it idealizes matter. 
 Either result is full of difficulties. Consequently, is it 
 not better to see in the continuity the effect of the mind 
 but not its actual presence? If this be our conception, 
 we are led from the finding of purpose and of mind in the 
 uniformity and continuity of the world to the supposition 
 of its separate existence in a purposing spirit. 
 
 Another problem is opened up by the discussion of the 
 relation of induction and Christianity. Can Christianity, 
 as a religion, argue in its truths inductively upward, or 
 is this a defect and must the argument be only deductive.'' 
 It has generally been believed that religion must argue, 
 to argue successfully, from a universal downward, and, 
 therefore, deductively. The very idea of God is always 
 a universal, and a first principle. Now out of this idea of 
 God its implications are deduced, and certain attributes 
 are ascribed to God, as necessary to the validity of the 
 idea of God. Wherever thus, by a systematic procedure, 
 the idea of God is developed, He is not defined as the sum 
 of experiences in communion with Him, and mediated by 
 His revelation. His nature and attributes have been fixed 
 by thought itself through a logical analysis of what the 
 
The Inductive Claim 67 
 
 idea of God was supposed necessarily to contain. In the 
 same manner the idea of the soul and other truths were 
 unfolded, deductions were made, and all of these brought 
 into relation with each other. Now is this procedure 
 necessarily native to religion, and native, therefore, to 
 Christianity ? Does it lie in the spiritual order itself that 
 it must deduct? Professor Hobhouse says of religion: 
 " Essentially a matter of insight rather than of reason- 
 ing, its truths are partial, rather than complete, and 
 where it seeks to cover the whole field of knowledge and 
 action, it does so rather by deduction from conceived 
 positions than by the patient reconstruction of reality 
 through the piece-meal interpretation of experience." ^ 
 
 In this attitude it has been forgotten that no deduction 
 can be made apart from the communication of actual 
 facts and truths. The fulness of the conception of God 
 grew out of experiences, and many deductions were really 
 inductions. It is not necessary nor native to Christianity 
 to employ only deductions, and a legitimate Christian sys- 
 tem cannot fill in its gap by unjustified inferences. It 
 is true, of course, that the great universal notions of 
 Christianity are rich in their implications. The very 
 experiences of Christianity are full of universal meaning. 
 But in the interpretation of such meaning a real Chris- 
 tianity ought to rest on constant historical facts and 
 guaranteed truth. For it is not the aim of Christianity to 
 be a consistent logical system and to keep on drawing 
 conclusions, but to answer the practical needs of the soul. 
 It has also been overlooked by many systematizers of 
 Christian truth, that what they deemed to be inherent 
 in its character was only the influence of past tradition 
 and past philosophic interpretations of Christian truth. 
 Among all the philosophers who have held sway over the 
 minds of the teachers of systematic truth in the Christian 
 
 2 " Development and Purpose," p. 189. 
 
58 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 Church, no one was and is more powerful and has had a 
 longer rule than Aristotle. In the movement of the Ref- 
 ormation there was a reaction against Aristotle. This 
 was largely fostered by the realistic spirit of the later 
 scholastic period. The Reformers were nominalists in 
 philosophy, and the essence of nominalism is really the em- 
 phasis of the individuals. It is, therefore, a close ap- 
 proach to the inductive idea. Despite, however, this re- 
 action, many truths, in the dogmatic systems which fol- 
 lowed the first outburst of the Reformation, were simply 
 a restatement of truth according to the old Aristotelian 
 method of deduction. Only the great direct experiences 
 of salvation and the truths which these immediately imply 
 were freshly formulated. At the very beginning, it is 
 true, the various Reformers i inductively collected the bib- 
 lical truths, but they did not at once formulate complete 
 systems. The one great exception was Calvin. But very 
 soon both in the ethics and dogmatics of Christianity 
 Aristotle gained a new entrance. Even to-day many 
 Christian systems of truth and many doctrinal differences 
 and disputes show his influence. It is this long historic 
 rule of Aristotle which has made many believe that deduc- 
 tion was the essential way of arguing about Christian 
 truth. Even the establishment of a discipline like biblical 
 theology has not altogether removed Aristotelianism in 
 Christian thinking. 
 
 The influence of the deductive idea in the formulation 
 of Christian truths and experiences, is seen in the accept- 
 ance of a single controlling principle. In the Middle Ages 
 the doctrine of the Church was all-controlling, and it 
 colored all other truth. Mediaeval thinking was under the 
 thraldom of a single principle in theory and in practice. 
 When the Reformation assailed the supremacy of the 
 Church by its emphasis of Christ it endeavored to reach 
 a living center and to escape from the overbalance of an 
 
The IndMctive Claim 69 
 
 insufficient single principle. There was a return to Chris- 
 tian experience in which the dominating subjective factor 
 was faith, and the ruling objective element, Christ. The 
 first doctrinal expression of this experience was founded on 
 the Pauline formulation of justification by faith. This 
 became a practical principle and a test for truth. It 
 never attained, however, the place of a deductive principle, 
 and it never created systems. Consequently it was not 
 really of a deductive nature. It is true that the accept- 
 ance of Christ was held to be guaranteed by the Scriptures. 
 Gradually the Christ, the living interpreter of revelation, 
 was made the Christ who guaranteed a set of books. Thus 
 the canon became a ruling principle and some of the life of 
 the Reformation was hemmed in by the principle of the 
 Book and its law. Some life kept its freshness because 
 it conceived of the Book as the living Word. But even 
 where this idea ruled a mechanical doctrine of inspiration 
 finally obtained sway, and again a single external prin- 
 ciple ruled. 
 
 But the rule of this principle still left open the inductive 
 gathering of the many revealed truths in the practical life 
 of Christianity. More dangerous in its final influence was 
 the assumption of the great principle of divine sovereignty. 
 This became far more powerful and led not only to a de- 
 termined life, but to an absolute rule of the deductive 
 method. Christian experience was forced into the mold 
 of divine absoluteness, and the universal crowded out the 
 particular. The results of this dogmatism crowded back 
 many of the best ideals of Christian experience. It 
 robbed it of its freedom and joy. In thinking it opened 
 up the way to the control of Christian thought by con- 
 sistent philosophy. 
 
 There started somewhat later movements which laid em- 
 phasis on vital Christian experience. The direct touch 
 of divine power in human lives was demanded, and the 
 
60 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 regenerating life of the Holy Spirit was to be made the 
 new principle. It is true that the experiences were more 
 discursive and inductive, and the principle was not sub- 
 versive of individual data. But these movements of piety 
 were rather of the feeling than of the intellect, and, be- 
 cause they dwelt more on the psychology of Christian ex- 
 perience than on its logic, they possessed no standard and 
 principle to overcome the regnant power of deductive dog- 
 matics in the sphere of thought. The subjectivism of 
 piety did not offer an adequate and sufficient objective 
 foundation to guarantee and test the soundness of the 
 religious experiences. There were in these experiences, and 
 there still exist in them where they are emphasized to-day, 
 disjointed and atomistic Christian conceptions. There is 
 a lack of the knowledge of the valuable traditions of the 
 past, and a failure to interpret the whole of Christian 
 experience, to see it in its totality and to find its proper 
 objective standard. History shows that after the sub- 
 jectivism of pietism there followed the individualism of 
 rationalism. The brief sketching of the rule of single 
 principles in Christian thinking has shown us their danger. 
 While it cannot be concluded that the inductive procedure 
 is the only one favorable to Christianity, nevertheless it 
 offers large opportunity, and, guarded by the proper ob- 
 jective presupposition of the unity of revelation, can be 
 made most serviceable to express the truths of Christianity, 
 and to formulate the many and manifold Christian experi- 
 ences. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE COMPARATIVE IDEA 
 
 WHEN the inductive argument uses instances 
 that agree it is really employing the logical 
 law of identity. Truly interpreted identity 
 does not mean tautology, and its expression is not A = A, 
 but it does formulate the fact of constancy and close cor- 
 respondence amidst elements of difference. One grade 
 lower than identity and agreement is logical similarity. 
 Its unity is not as strong as that in agreement, but it is 
 more than mere likeness. The bond of connection in 
 similarity is constantly approaching identity, and yet 
 the highest member in the rise of its serial approach to 
 identity is below the lowest factor in identity of clear cor- 
 respondence. Because of this fact similarity, which is 
 generally known in logic as analogy, and which forms the 
 basis of the comparative idea, has often been severely 
 criticised. The analogical proof received a low estimate 
 and a mean value. But such a discouraging appreciation 
 has disregarded the real use and application of analogy in 
 scientific advance. And it has been untrue to a large 
 number of cases that show how analogy and comparison 
 have been used in real scientific discovery. 
 
 It was analogy and comparison which moved Darwin 
 to hit upon the conception of natural selection. The 
 opening chapter of his " Origin of Species " shows that it 
 was the artificial selection in the breeding of pigeons, from 
 which he started out and found selection going on in 
 nature itself without human intervention. In the same 
 manner Darwin also was led to the term " struggle for ex- 
 istence " which had such a large corroborating meaning 
 
 61 
 
62 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 for his theory. He could find no explanation, for a time, 
 to account for the fact of the elimination and the break in 
 the serial development of the species through variation. 
 After he had come into contact with Malthus' great treat- 
 ise, which emphasized the terrible importance of the strug- 
 gle for existence in mankind, and which gave economics 
 such a dismal direction, he applied this conception with 
 advantage from the economic sphere to the processes 
 of nature. The argument of comparison, therefore, en- 
 tered into the very discovery of the Darwinian hypothesis. 
 It was, furthermore, found exceedingly useful in biology 
 in the comparison from plant to plant, from species of 
 animal to animal, from structure and function to like 
 structure and function. Out of it grew comparative 
 anatomy, comparative physiology, and comparative psy- 
 chology. One of the most important and fundamental dis- 
 coveries in physics, viz., the principle of a single energy 
 into which heat and light and electricity might be trans- 
 ferred, was due to an observation in which comparison 
 played a large part. A German physician, Robert Mayer, 
 found in Java that the blood of the veins of Europeans 
 who had but lately come to Java was very bright red. 
 He explained this remarkable phenomenon through the 
 fact, that in the tropics with their heat there was less 
 oxidation of the blood, and, therefore, it was brighter. 
 From this biological fact Mayer was led by careful reason- 
 ing to the conjecture of the transference of energy.-' 
 
 The comparative method has also been very useful in de- 
 ciphering lost languages. Through it, it was possible to 
 argue from the Greek writing on the " Rosetta Stone " 
 to the undeciphered hieroglyphic and to the cursive script. 
 The starting point of Egyptology was, therefore, based on 
 comparison. In a similar manner it was found possible 
 
 1 Fop full account of this, cf., Alois Riehl, " Philosophie der 
 Gegenwart," p. 140 if. 
 
The Comparative Idea 63 
 
 to understand the Assyrian language and to found the 
 study of Assyriology when the great tri-lingual inscrip- 
 tion of Darius was found by Sir Rawlinson on the high 
 rock at Behistun. The case was parallel to that of the 
 " Rosetta Stone," and again the comparative method was 
 the starting point. In the discovery of these lost lan- 
 guages it was necessary to begin with the mere parallel- 
 ism of word with word, but out of such comparison there 
 grew consistent meaning when the discovered words were 
 applied in other connections, and finally similarity of 
 grammatical structure made the comparison very force- 
 ful. Thus it was that the ancient languages of the East, 
 which had been lost, were added to our knowledge and 
 placed into that family group of languages to which they 
 belonged. In linguistic study it is found that etymology 
 is not only historically derivative, but also comparative. 
 A similar fact appears in the phonetic laws of languages. 
 Grimm's great " Law of Lautverschiebung " is in its es- 
 sence analogical. Thus we possess comparative phonetics, 
 comparative etymology, comparative grammar, and 
 through them all comparative philology. In view of facts 
 like these we cannot pass by a serious consideration of 
 comparison and analysis. 
 
 If the use of analogy is to be just, it is exceedingly 
 important to find the essential condition of comparison. 
 It dare not remain a mere supposition of likeness, some 
 times successful, and sometimes and perhaps more often 
 a failure. To escape this uncertainty analogy or com- 
 parison must be analyzed. It must appear in the analysis 
 that there is a fundamental unity of character in the 
 phenomena which are compared. There ought to occur 
 no great dissimilar feature and no disturbing essential 
 characteristic. Thus there can justly be comparative 
 anatomy and it can be strongly approved within its limits, 
 because the similarities are all traced within the unity 
 
64 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 of morphological character. It is far more difficult to es- 
 tablish firmly the science of comparative psychology. 
 There are in man and his mind great conceptual unities 
 which cannot be found below him, as the latest researches 
 in animal psychology in distinction from the conjectures 
 of Romanes seem to show. Nevertheless, in the realm of 
 sensations and perceptions there can be a real compara- 
 tive psychology; in them there is a unity of function. 
 When comparison passes from the sphere of one science to 
 another, or from science to art, or from science to religion 
 and vice versa, it is often very problematic whether the 
 analogy is legitimate. The main problem then is, whether 
 new and diverse elements do not destroy the force of 
 similarity. 
 
 The caution necessary when passing from one sphere 
 to a different sphere needs consideration in our study, 
 particularly as applied to science and religion. Butler 
 in his famous, " Analogy of Religion, National and Re- 
 vealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature," was 
 true to analogical reasoning and gave it a very careful 
 logical fo.undation. He met the Deism of the eighteenth 
 century and many of his applications are just and care- 
 fully guarded. When, however, in our own day Drum- 
 mond, in his book on " Natural Law in the Spiritual 
 World," attempted a comparison between nature and its 
 laws, and faith and its principles, he was by no means as 
 successful as Butler. He failed because the phenomena 
 which he cites as a basis of comparison have a great dis- 
 parity in religion and nature as to their inner value, worth 
 and place. An apparently similar fact to science in relig- 
 ion, as e. g., the atrophy of organs that are not used, is not 
 really similar. Atrophy in nature is the result of environ- 
 ment and necessity, in religion responsibility and choice 
 enter in. There is a failure in the total comparison of 
 Drummond because of his neglect of the ethical element 
 
The Comparative Idea 65 
 
 and of freedom in faith. His comparisons are largely 
 illustrations for the preacher, but they are not scientifi- 
 cally tenable arguments. 
 
 The failure of Drummond in finding in analogy a real 
 constructive argument to unite nature and religion ought 
 to be a warning to those who, from the scientific point of 
 view, attempt to use comparison destructively against re- 
 ligion. When necessity, indestructibility of matter, and 
 conservation of energy, or natural selection, adaptation, 
 and survival of the fittest are transferred to religion as 
 essential conditions and as basal laws a great logical error 
 has been committed. There has been no examination into 
 the specific phenomena and into the differences of their 
 character. The laws of one sphere have been unjustly 
 forced upon another. It is true in science that the laws 
 of no one science can form the essential conditions of an- 
 other science. Still less can the formulations of any 
 science be introduced as demands into the sphere of faith, 
 which is radically diverse. If they are forced upon re- 
 ligion, its nature and character will be distorted. Valu- 
 able facts of religion will be eliminated, and minor facts 
 because of an apparent analogy, will be stressed out of all 
 relation to their real worth in the totality of religion. It 
 is very strange to note how some scientists so strongly 
 resent the interference of religion through comparison 
 with nature, but, seeing the world from their small angle, 
 they would apply their generalizations to religion. 
 
 But the converse is also true. Religion dare not carry 
 its comparisons or analogies into science as demonstrations 
 or arguments. It would be entirely wrong to use the great 
 convictions of faith and to strain the facts of nature 
 to fit into them. Because of the goodness of God it is 
 not possible to deny the " red tooth and claw " in nature. 
 We dare not be oblivious to the facts of nature and slight 
 them from the desire to find the goodness of God, which 
 
66 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 is a religious experience, in nature itself. The many in- 
 equalities of nature, and its brute forces cannot be covered 
 over or slightly passed by because of a belief in divine 
 providence. The meaning of disasters and calamities in 
 nature dare not be suppressed. It will always be an error 
 to smuggle in the God of moral purpose on the basis of the 
 mere evidences of nature. Because salvation and service 
 are such fundamental conceptions in Christianity the 
 healing processes of nature and the common life of 
 the species, with its mother-love, must not be over-valued 
 to establish the presence of grace and love in the realm 
 of nature. In the projection of our adoration we can 
 unify the world in faith, but we dare not argue and claim 
 cogency for the unification from the faith of freedom to 
 the law of necessity. The religious convictions of provi- 
 dence and predestination, in which man regards himself as 
 divinely determined, would be very much misapplied if they 
 were used as vital counterparts of necessity in nature. 
 The responses of natural forms to environment never per- 
 mit the intervention of conscience, which Christianity de- 
 mands in all responses to the religious environment. It is 
 true that predestination has sometimes been thus formu- 
 lated as to empty it of its religious character, and to make 
 it really fatalistic. Then it approached the necessity of 
 nature. But it is increasingly realized to-day that such 
 a religious interpretation of predestination makes it really 
 irreligious and fundamentally unethical. 
 
 Like predestination the fact of the spiritual unity of the 
 race and its common sin is fundamentally different from 
 the natural unity of the race and natural heredity. The 
 spiritual unity of the race is mediated by Christ, the sec- 
 ond Adam. Men enter into this unity through the de- 
 cision of faith, even though faith be divinely wrought. 
 They are not in the unity by necessity, as they are in the 
 unity of nature. Common and original sin after all im- 
 
The Comparative Idea 67 
 
 plies guilt. It always leads to and implies individual 
 responsibility and guilt. Nature in its working of hered- 
 ity knows nothing of such guilt. Thus whatever compari- 
 sons we make of this type must fundamentally fail from 
 the point of view of a correct logic. 
 
 The same problem, which appeared in the question of 
 unity and sin, is also evident when religion attempts to 
 argue from divine will to force and energy in nature. The 
 attempt to unify them from the religious standpoint is 
 very questionable. This whole problem of the relation of 
 will and energy is fundamentally a philosophical question. 
 Idealism generally claims that the action of the will is the 
 interpretation of energy in nature. In nature itself only 
 sequence of phenomena can be discovered, and direct and 
 diverse forces. The unifying of all of these phenomena 
 and forces into the idea of energy can only receive its full 
 interpretation, idealism argues, if we suppose energy as 
 an idea to be derived from the experience of human willing. 
 This contention is one which deserves fair consideration, 
 but when frequently, in the interests of defense. Christian 
 thinkers pass from the conviction of the divine will to the 
 fact of energy, they endanger just logical procedure in 
 comparison. The difficulty with this comparison is, that 
 the more the similarity is pressed, the more the divine 
 will is emptied of its moral character and freedom, and re- 
 duced to the category of necessity. It may also lead to 
 the inclusion of God as a willing God in the world, or of 
 the abolition of a real world in a willing God. Specula- 
 tively it is more to the point to pass from the energy 
 of the universe to the complementary notion or a universal 
 will of which energy is the result.* But this will must re- 
 ceive its fuller definition from history and the demands 
 of man's moral nature. 
 
 Analogy plays a large part as man passes from the 
 
 2 But cf. Chapt. V, p. 95. 
 
68 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 elements of his nature to the conception of the character 
 of God. There has been much severe criticism of this 
 comparison, and it has been disapproved through the 
 historically tabooed term of anthropomorphism. But if 
 no elements of human character and no intimations of 
 human personality dare be used in the effort to formulate 
 the idea of God, it is necessary to reduce this idea to im- 
 personalism. Of course there are those who have coined 
 the designation superpersonalism ; but when we examine 
 its meaning, it is, after all, nothing but a very nebulous 
 impersonalism and denies some of the highest elements 
 in our human life. Are not the moral demands of re- 
 sponsibility and obligation, the belief in freedom, and the 
 triumph of the good, elements closely bound up with per- 
 sonality? If we deny personality must not these consid- 
 erations fall to the ground.? Consequently wiU not a 
 truer result be reached, and one in accord with our deep- 
 est religious and moral desires and demands, if we conceive 
 of God in analogy with human personality.'' When per- 
 sonality is defined as limitation, confused with mere indi- 
 viduality, and connected with subjectivism, then, of course, 
 the personal determination is a limitation. But if we 
 remove restricted human individualism, and accent in God 
 purely His determinative self-possession and His freely 
 self-willed relation, there is an ideal which the development 
 of the human personality through ethical and religious 
 life adumbrates. In such foreshadowing there is an ele- 
 ment of true comparison. The comparison is the more 
 just because it takes place within the limits of religious 
 experience and religious thinking itself. It is, of course, 
 speculative and approaches the hypothetical, but it is more 
 justly comparative and analogical than the argument 
 from impersonal nature or the deification of nature. 
 Christianity not only allows the analogy from man to God, 
 but requires it. For its acceptance of the idea of the 
 
The Comparative Idea 69 
 
 divine image of man, and its fundamental tenet of the in- 
 carnation of God in Christ, rest on the presupposition of 
 the real likeness and similarity of God and man. Chris- 
 tianity is theomorphic in man, and consequently anthro- 
 pomorphic, within the religious and ethical side of man, 
 in God. 
 
 The employment of the comparative argument must 
 necessarily lead us to the consideration of one of the 
 main elements involved in its analysis, viz., the relation 
 of purpose to comparison. As important as the close 
 analysis, restriction and balance of analogy may be, it 
 cannot be complete without the understanding of the re- 
 lation of analogy to purpose or teleology. Many logi- 
 cians have avoided stressing aim and purpose in compari- 
 son, because they feared that it might lead them to the 
 position of Hegel. When, after the manner of Hegel, 
 the world is considered a whole in the Absolute, and when 
 every part is held to be inexplicable without the whole, 
 and is supposed to be intimately and internally related 
 to the whole, every comparison is of necessity an in- 
 terpretation of the purpose fulfilled in the whole. But it 
 is not necessary to adhere to the metaphysics of the 
 whole and absolute, in order to find in analogy the impli- 
 cation of purpose. It is possible on the basis of the in- 
 ductive assumption of uniformity to hold to an inter- 
 relation. This inter-relation, however, can not be merely 
 accidental, as little as the uniformity. The common na- 
 ture of uniformity and continuity in the world implies 
 equal functioning. Where there is equal functioning, 
 there are equal results. Equal results reach equal aims. 
 Therefore, comparison, or analogy, involves postulates of 
 purpose. The purpose may appear only at the end, and 
 may not be seen at its beginning. But is it illegitimate 
 to argue back from the resultant aim to the original pur- 
 pose.'' In the sphere of the organic and upward from it 
 
70 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 into the historical, the moral and the religious, we begin 
 to deal more definitely with the conception of a whole 
 of parts serving a specific end; or in other words, where 
 organism begins, purpose cannot be excluded. It is due 
 to the reasoning of Kant, in his " Critique of Pure Judg- 
 ment," to have clearly stated the necessity of purpose 
 where the organic begins. But Kant has perhaps limited 
 teleology too much in restricting it only to the organic, 
 and allowing necessity to rule below the organic. After 
 all, if the organic does show a direct and immediate pur- 
 pose in the parts and organs of a single organism, this 
 internal purpose in single structures leads to the consid- 
 eration of purpose in wider spheres. A careful consid- 
 eration does not permit a complete exclusion of purpose 
 below the organic. Mechanism and finality are really re- 
 lated, and the mechanical inter-relation of the universe 
 shows ends reached on a large scale.* But even those who 
 dispute this application cannot deny the application of 
 purpose in comparison from biology upward. The prob- 
 lem, then, only is, where does purpose begin.'' No fair 
 consideration of the universe can exclude purpose as ap- 
 parent in it, at least in parts of it. This is sufficient 
 to permit the hypothesis of teleology, which makes anal- 
 ogy cogent, and it allows for an ideal element in the 
 universe, and for a presumptive argument for theism. 
 
 But the sphere in which the connection of purpose with 
 comparison or analogy first touches Christianity most 
 evidently is in history. There arises a real problem out 
 of the comparison between the ideals and purposes of 
 general history, and the specific history of Christianity. 
 The special character of the history of Christianity has 
 been largely doubted. Because it is interwoven with gen- 
 eral history, and because particularly in the Middle Ages 
 the history of Europe is largely the history of the Church, 
 
 8 Cf. Chapter V, p. 96. 
 
The Comparative Idea 71 
 
 and vice versa, therefore, the attempt has been made to 
 absorb the history of Christianity into general history. 
 Upon this claim the history of the Church and of Chris- 
 tianity is only a division of convenience in general his- 
 tory, and is not justified by its separate and distinct 
 character and life. The similarity of the history of 
 Christianity to general history has been pressed to the 
 point of identity. Therefore, the critical principles of 
 general history, which allow for no supernatural element 
 and eliminate everything inexplicable and extraordinary, 
 and deny everything miraculous, have been applied to the 
 history of Christianity, and to the history of Israel, which 
 Christianity claims as preparatory to its origin. It is 
 true that there has arisen a treatment of the problems of 
 Christianity from the point of view of the history of re- 
 ligions. In this history, miracles, prophecies, revelations, 
 are found everywhere, and they are allowed to stand as 
 psychological facts. But this admission does not settle 
 the question of the real existence in Christianity of super- 
 natural elements. It still allows for a theory of a purely 
 natural historical evolution. With the philosophy of a 
 purely human, natural development, controlled by noting 
 the historic process in many nations in mind, many think- 
 ers have reconstructed, first of all, the preparatory his- 
 tory leading to the New Testament in the Old Testament, 
 which at the beginning of the Christian Church was largely 
 the religious book of Christianity. Its documents have 
 been critically severed, and human purpose, corrupting 
 the purer ideals of the prophets by a narrow legalism, 
 has been made the controlling factor. Though the earlier 
 conjectures of reconstruction in the Old Testament are 
 losing their hold, nevertheless the main idea of a natural 
 development has not been abandoned. In the same spirit, 
 the uniqueness of Christ has been questioned. He has 
 been reduced either to a religious genius, whose life the 
 
72 Trends of 'Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 Church embellished by legends, or He has been explained 
 as a myth which attached itself to a person. The history 
 of the Church has also been re-edited into a real history by 
 such a critical handling of the naive accounts of the New 
 Testament as shall make them really, as it is supposed, his- 
 torical. This whole point of view which has determined 
 the historical criticism of Christianity and its documents, 
 rests on the idea of the entire similarity of the history 
 of Christianity to all other history. Similar purposes, 
 similar motives, and, therefore, real likeness are found. 
 Now is this attitude correct, or must Christianity claim 
 an exceptional treatment ? If we are to answer this ques- 
 tion, the problem must be traced further back. Our de- 
 fense of taking the historical documents as they stand, 
 and our refusal to reconstruct them as they are recon- 
 structed by many historians, must rest on the fact of a 
 specific nature of Christianity. The claim of the special 
 character of Christianity in all history is due to the 
 conviction of a unique revelation ; and, therefore, the prob- 
 lem, whether it is justifiable to treat Christianity on the 
 same assumption as other history, must be settled by 
 answering the question, whether Christianity is merely 
 a religion among other religions. 
 
 The difficulty of a real analogy between the history 
 of Christianity and general history will thus lead us to 
 the consideration of comparative religion. The reason 
 why the history of Christianity is given no special privi- 
 lege and place, is because it is denied that Christianity 
 is the unique and final religion. It was Schleiermacher, 
 who held that other forms of religion than Christianity 
 were on the same basis of development; Christianity was 
 more complete, but it was not the only true religion.* 
 
 This attitude is explicable from the fundamentally pan- 
 
 *Cf. Schleiermacher, "Der Christliche Glaube," Introduction II, 
 paragraph 7, 3. 
 
The Comparative Idea 73 
 
 theistic philosophy of Schleiermacher. Since his day there 
 has arisen on the basis of general evolutionary principles 
 the science of comparative religion. The naturalism of 
 this general evolution, like the pantheism of Schleier- 
 macher, finds a common process in all religions. With 
 Schleiermacher the process was an ideal development, with 
 many to-day the process is a natural, psychological one. 
 By speculations of a psychological and anthropological 
 sort, the origin of all religion is found either in animism,^ 
 or magic,® or in ancestor worship, according to Spencer, 
 or in an impersonal power.'' The religion of the lower 
 tribes is investigated, their religious beliefs and practices 
 are analyzed, classified, and traced upward until the period 
 of historic religions approaches. Common features are 
 found in all faiths. In prayer, sacrifice, sacrament, the 
 idea of God, of sin, etc., the mass of men are found to have 
 comparable, common notions. Christianity is included in 
 this process and elements of similarity to other religions 
 are found in it. Is this inclusion really logically just? 
 To accomplish it the minor elements of Christianity have 
 frequently been emphasized, and passing errors as well as 
 degenerations in its history have been used. The difference 
 of meaning and claim in apparently like acts, as in prayer 
 and sacrifice, and in apparently like occurrences, as in 
 the Virgin Birth, is not maintained. What on the surface 
 appears the same has a totally different import in Chris- 
 tian truth and history. This import is neglected, the 
 original documents are wrongly reconstructed upon the 
 basis of a merely human development, and then, of course, 
 Christianity can be fitted into the plan of comparative 
 religions. After the documents have been reconstructed 
 upon the initial assumption of a natural development, they 
 
 5 Cf. Tylor, " Primitive Culture." 
 
 6 Frazer, " The Golden Bough." 
 
 7 Leuba, " A Psychological Study of Religion." 
 
74 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 are again used to support in this reconstructed form the 
 theory of a common human religious history. Thus the 
 argument in the circle works itself out. But now there 
 remains, a larger question. Even after this process has 
 accomplished all that it can, does Christianity appear 
 more like, or more unlike, other religions? Does it pos- 
 sess ineradicable, peculiar features which, from the ex- 
 amination of facts, discredit the comparative procedure? 
 Is Christianity not only superior, but does it possess 
 tnith of such a nature as bears finality within it? 
 
 It is not possible within the range of a short chapter 
 to answer this fundamental question of Christian apologet- 
 ics. It must be answered upon the basis of careful his- 
 torical procedure. A few lines of claim can, however, 
 be indicated. The Christian conception of God, combin- 
 ing the fullest and largest indications of nature with the 
 highest moral and religious demands, in the ideal of God 
 as Father is one great line of difference.* The other re- 
 ligions have claimed its possession, since the spread of 
 Christianity, but they have made it prominent out of all 
 relation to their own past history and teaching, and have 
 secretly changed their defective conception of God into the 
 Christian idea. This appears very clearly if any one will 
 study the documents of the World's Congress of Religions 
 at Chicago, and compare it with the teaching and history 
 of these religions. Another claim of Christianity is the 
 ideal of Christ and the interpretation of humanity in Him. 
 There is no approach to the breadth of humanity in Jesus 
 either in Zoroaster, or Buddha or Mohammed. None of 
 these possess the complete and perfect personality of 
 Jesus, which supports His divine claim. In similar man- 
 ner, prayer and sacrifice have received a different valua- 
 tion, which is always overlooked by those who include 
 Christianity within the compass of other faiths. 
 
 8 Cf . Orr, " The Christian View of God and the World." 
 
The Comparative Idea 75 
 
 One of the most permanent and valuable differences 
 between Christianity and other faiths, is the nature of its 
 ethical demands with their unlimited possibility of develop- 
 ment in the world. Ethical developments have wrecked 
 other religions. They overcame the ancient Greek faith; 
 they are severely injuring Confucianism and Buddhism 
 to-day. Christianity has been the constant inspirer of 
 larger ethical progress. Even when ethical advances have 
 sought to cut loose from Christian history they have finally 
 needed the inspiration of some of its ideals. It is true 
 that the organized form of the Church may not always 
 readily respond to a new ethical ideal, and may be ignorant 
 of the fact that secretly the force of Christian truth has 
 wrought the very change which is opposed. But the other 
 organized forms of society in family or state have also not 
 adapted themselves quickly and readily to great changes. 
 The force of conservatism in fixed forms and customs of so- 
 ciety is always strong. Frequently the resistance of the 
 state and of government has been mightier than that of re- 
 ligion. Despite some hesitancy, Christianity has been able 
 to adopt the most ambitious program of modem progress. 
 It has adopted, inspired through Christian personali- 
 ties, if not through direct organizations of the Church, 
 the peace movement, the child labor question, and many 
 similar problems sufficient to wreck any other faith. Some 
 of its ideals, as that of non-resistance, are not yet realized. 
 They are called impracticable in an age of competition. 
 The larger growth of co-operation will help to justify the 
 neglected truth, that Christianity is opposed to the prin- 
 ciple of an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. In 
 this, one of its oldest truths, is the possibility of a moral 
 progress and expansion which is not yet realized. When 
 such and similar facts carefully gathered from the Bible 
 and Christian history are combined, it will in the end 
 appear that there is a difference between Christianity 
 
76 Trends of Thought arid Christian Truth 
 
 and other faiths larger than the modern comparative ar- 
 gument allows. The burden upon the present apologetic 
 of Christianity is the fuU and clear elaboration of this 
 ethical claim by a careful and critical use of facts. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE CONJECTUEAL SCHEME 
 
 IN all thinking conjecture plays a large part. Many 
 results are not fully demonstrated, thejf are simply 
 accepted because they are highly probable. Prob- 
 ability and not necessity enters into most of our intel- 
 lectual possessions. When the question of probability is 
 approached, the first effort is to make probability more 
 definite by calculation, which seeks to determine chances 
 as they approach reality. Mathematically probability 
 is expressed in a fraction, whose denominator gives the 
 total number of possible cases, and whose numerator shows 
 the actual number that have occurred. The relation of the 
 numerator to the denominator shows the amount of ap- 
 proach to certainty. If a quantitative series should be 
 arranged, the movement of the numerator toward the 
 denominator would show how closely probability can ap- 
 proach certainty. The mathematical form and the calcu- 
 lation of chances and probabilities is an effort to improve 
 on the old enumerative induction of Aristotle. Most cases 
 of probabiKty, however, are not calculable mathematically. 
 They are not such simple cases as the average of births 
 and the rate of death, but they fall under a qualitative 
 probability which is less exact than the mathematical doc- 
 trine of chances. Much of our practical life and many 
 of our choices are determined by such general considera- 
 tions of probability. There is incalculable chance in a 
 large part of our experience, no matter how definite its 
 outcome may be. The present and the hope of the future 
 is subject to chance, which is our admission of ignorance. 
 Experience is not in its formative stage definite, but shift- 
 
 77 
 
78 Trends of Thoitght and Christian Truth 
 
 ing, changing, multiform, heterogeneous, leading to nov- 
 elty amidst all similarity. 
 
 Much of human evidence, whether in a trial at court, 
 or in historical sources, is subject to the calculation of 
 probability. Circumstantial evidence is more so than 
 direct human evidence. But even the most direct human 
 evidence with no desire to be untruthful has its contradic- 
 tions, and, therefore, is never absolutely unified and con- 
 sistent. If this experience of human evidence is rightly 
 valued, it must affect the problems of evidence in historical 
 documents. We can never expect to have completely ac- 
 cordant accounts; minor difficulties will always remain. 
 It is all the more remarkable in view of this fact, to find 
 that the accounts of the gospels, which bear no marks of 
 having been tampered with, are in such large agreement. 
 There are, naturally, minor difficulties, particularly if the 
 effort is made to bring into unity in a chronological way 
 the evidence of the witnesses of Christ's resurrection. But 
 aU accounts have no larger problems than are naturally 
 found in evidence. A careful consideration of what prob- 
 ability means in evidence is favorable, and more than fav- 
 orable to the New Testament accounts. 
 
 Probability in human experience is very illuminating 
 when applied to Christian experience. In our day, when 
 in our Christian thinking we so frequently return in proof 
 of a Christian truth or conviction to experience, it must 
 be remembered that from experience as a source we can 
 obtain only probable results. The assurance of the truths 
 in Christian experience, and the belief in their real eter- 
 nal existence, are certain. But the appropriation of the 
 truths and their working out in Christian experience is sub- 
 ject to the approximations toward pureness in experience. 
 This consideration is necessary for the defenders of the 
 faith, so that they may not ascribe to Christian experi- 
 ence undue certainty. The authority of the original ac- 
 
The Conjectural Scheme 79 
 
 counts of Christian experience and their normative value 
 is due to the conception of revelation and not to the char- 
 acter of experience. Experience, as experience, can never 
 attain full certainty. It is equally important for those 
 who doubt or oppose Christian truth, to note that they 
 have no right to demand a superior certainty in Christian 
 experience. The same probability which rules in other 
 spheres, and upon which science builds up its conjectures, 
 must in all fairness be allowed to Christianity. 
 
 Another question which arises out of the fact of prob- 
 ability and chance, is their relation to the Christian con- 
 ception of Providence. What chance, which lies back of 
 probability, means, is fundamentally our impossibility to 
 determine, in fuU detail, the course of our life. Chance 
 expresses the fact of our uncertainty and of our impotence 
 to control occurrences of our life. There are chances 
 and probabilities in science, but despite these thinking 
 still holds to the ideal of uniform and inviolable law in 
 nature. It cannot abandon this supposition without de- 
 stroying itself. If everything were chance and chance 
 were final, ignorance and helplessness would be final ; and 
 there could be no order even on the basis of probability. 
 We cannot deny chance but we look rather to its deter- 
 mined elements than to its undetermined remnant. Con- 
 sequently, we formulate laws even on the foundation of the 
 similarities in chance. If science operates on this basis, 
 is it not possible and equally just for faith to assume 
 a Providence and to select the orderly elements of life in 
 its favor? The dwelling on the facts favorable to Provi- 
 dence is no more a distortion, than the selection of classi- 
 fiable facts from the whole realm of the unclassified, prob- 
 able, and doubtful data in establishing a scientific law. 
 
 Of more value in the conjectural way of arguing than 
 probability, is hypothesis. There can be no scientific prog- 
 ress without the use of hypothesis, which is created by 
 
80 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 sound imagination. Such imagination before all verifica- 
 tion projects a possible and a probable explanation. 
 When this projection is made, the hypothesis is one that 
 seeks to find, and is rightly called a finding hypothesis. 
 Its character is not that of a mere guess, but it pre- 
 supposes facts and experiences, knowledge and scien- 
 tific training. It cannot be made without postulates, 
 which are conditions in a given set of appearances that 
 call for a certain solution. The hypothesis, then, which 
 answers to these postulates and demands, seeks to reply 
 to their request. When it seems to make possible a fair 
 arrangement and to give a plausible demonstration it is 
 adopted and becomes a working hypothesis, in which a 
 number of agents make clear a law or principle. Such a 
 hypothesis is imaginative, but it is not a fiction. In a 
 fiction we would refer a consequent to an antecedent, 
 which we know cannot produce it. In hypothesis we some- 
 times find that we cannot discover the real agent, which 
 must always remain an assumption, but not a real fiction. 
 Even when scientific men appear to make the wildest trials, 
 they are only actively theorizing. Their theorizing is 
 successful when the hypotheses work out. A large set 
 of accordant hypotheses, or hypotheses becoming more 
 confirmed, may be called a theory. The whole situation 
 of accordance of phenomena in testing them out is well 
 described by Professor Hobhouse : " But it is admitted, 
 that while there are some first principles which are true 
 axioms, needing no proof, there are others which at the 
 outset are mere assumptions, taken up for the purpose of 
 seeing what flows from them. These conclusions can be 
 tested by experience, and if there is agreement, the as- 
 sumption on which they depend stands uncontradicted. 
 It may be true. If further results are elicited, and. the 
 agreement with experience continues, it becomes difficult 
 to believe that an assumption which works so well can be 
 
The Conjectural Scheme 81 
 
 false." ^ It is in this manner that many of the results of 
 science have been reached, as a body of judgments whose 
 strength lies in their common support of each other. It 
 was thus that Darwin was led on in his work.* Professor 
 Tyndale has defended this proper use of imagination in 
 science. He says : " We are gifted with the power of 
 imagination, — combining what the Germans call Anschau- 
 ungsgabe and Einbildungskraft, — and by this power we 
 can lighten the darkness which surrounds the world of the 
 senses. There are Tories in science who regard Imagina- 
 tion as a faculty to be feared and avoided rather than 
 employed. They have observed its actions in weak vessels 
 and were unduly impressed by its disasters. But they might 
 with equal justice point to exploded boilers as an argument 
 against the use of steam. Bounded and conditioned by 
 co-operative Reason, Imagination becomes the mightiest 
 instrument of the scientific discoverer. Newton's passage 
 from a falling apple to a falling moon was, at the outset, 
 a leap of imagination. When William Thomson tries to 
 place the ultimate particles of matter between his compass 
 points, and to apply to them a scale of millimeters, he is 
 powerfully aided by this faculty. And in much that has 
 been recently said about protoplasm and life, we have the 
 outgoings of the Imagination guided and controlled by the 
 known analogies of science. In fact, without this power, 
 our knowledge would be a mere tabulation of co-existences 
 and sequences. We should still believe in the succession 
 of day and night, of summer and winter; but the soul of 
 Force would be dislodged from our universe; causal rela- 
 tions would disappear and with them that science which 
 is now binding the parts of nature to an organic whole." ^ 
 
 1 " Development and Purpose," p. 2S3. 
 
 2 Cf. Francis Darwin, " Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," Vol. 
 I, p. 126. 
 
 3 " Use and Limit of Imagination In Science," p. 16. 
 
82 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 It appears, therefore, that hypothesis and the imagination 
 which creates it are fundamental in inductive reasoning. 
 
 It has generally been thought unworthy of religion, and 
 specially of Christianity, to employ such a speculative 
 process of imagination as hypothesis implies. The cer- 
 tainty of faith seems to demand a sure foundation. Nev- 
 ertheless it is true that, beyond the knowledge immediately 
 given in Christian truth, Christianity in its intellectual 
 formulations has been compelled to enter the hypothetical 
 sphere. Many of the efforts to formulate a system of 
 doctrines show the same speculative and imaginative pro- 
 cedure in giving a probable account of the mysteries 
 of God, man, sin, salvation, as does science. Outside 
 of biblical theology, there is a real chance for hypothesis 
 and philosophical speculation. This, however, must not 
 be permitted to determine the data of Christian faith, or 
 to modify its character. But as in science, such imagina- 
 tive framing of hypotheses has and can lead Christian 
 thinking to new possibilities and fresh vistas. 
 
 One of the applications of hypothesis to Christianity 
 is the use of criticism, particularly of a historical nature. 
 There can be no inherent objection to such criticism, when 
 it is applied to the documents and history of Christianity. 
 These can be rightly examined both in the form of the 
 texts and in their contents. Such examination is really 
 a development of true induction when it rests upon ex- 
 amined, criticised and tested observations. The difficul- 
 ties, that arise and seem to injure the very content of 
 Christian truth, are not the result of a just hypothesis, 
 but are derived from a wrong naturalistic presupposition. 
 It is, therefore, not the proper application, but the abuse 
 of conjectural imagination in the hypothesis through 
 which criticism has injured Christian truth. If the value 
 of religious experience is conserved in the criticism of the 
 origins of Christianity, and if revelation is given its legiti- 
 
The Conjectural Scheme 83 
 
 mate worth, then only advantages can accrue from using 
 proper hypotheses. These, in fact, have led to the rule 
 of biblical theology, upon a careful historical basis. 
 Through it Christian thought has been clarified, new life 
 has been brought into Christian thinking, and the founda- 
 tions have been furnished, upon which we can place the 
 instances of Christian experience. But not only biblical 
 theology has gained through historical hypotheses, they 
 have also supplied material for the formulation of mod- 
 em dogmatic systems. Frequently, however, the mod- 
 ern dogmatic systems have been philosophically colored 
 rather than biblically controlled. They have failed to 
 understand that the imagination in theological hypothesis 
 dare not injure the primal facts and experiences of Chris- 
 tian truth. No requirement of the unity of a system can 
 pass by contrary facts if they are properly attested. The 
 problem must be to arrive at the best fundamental theory 
 for all facts. 
 
 In any usable hypothesis a prime requirement is that 
 it be simple and plausible. Too complex a conjecture 
 does not reduce the multiform data to the simplicity which 
 ought to characterize a real explanation. A very apt 
 case illustrating this was the employment in astronomy 
 of the hypothesis of epicycles. It required cycle upon 
 cycle, and really destroyed itself by the very complexities 
 to which it led. This demand of simplicity has been too 
 largely disregarded in the conjectural analysis of biblical 
 documents. The manner in which the hypothesis of sources 
 was worked out led to continuous disintegration. Small 
 fragments were all that was left after a complete analysis. 
 The seams which were to unite the many patches were 
 also of the minutest kind. There was a process of dissolu- 
 tion evident which had no right limits. Frequently the 
 analysis was based upon a few words, and a fictitious 
 editor was introduced, who formed a new document in the 
 
84 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 most arbitrary manner. The artificiality of the whole 
 procedure, unknown in other literature, made it fall short 
 of plausibility, and was the result of complex character 
 in the hypothesis. This same mistake was committed 
 when Judaism and Christianity were thought to be derived 
 from combinations of other religion. The resultant his- 
 tory was a complex combination in which the unity and sim- 
 plicity of both of these faiths suffered. The difficulty was 
 not simply the historical problems arising from tracing 
 elements in these religions to other religions, without suf- 
 ficient evidence of dependence, but the total explanation 
 described a complex situation out of all accord with the 
 simplicity of a religious, faith. 
 
 Another great necessity in any hypothesis is the de- 
 mand of its suflSciency. A hypothesis must include all 
 data to be explained, and must give a fairly adequate con- 
 jecture to embrace all elements. This demand, so cogent 
 in science, has been very much violated in treating Chris- 
 tianity. In the great body of critical work, the aim has 
 been to satisfy sometimes merely the facts of literature, 
 and sometimes merely the facts of history. There have 
 been saner critics, who have combined both properly. But 
 even when the hypotheses of literature and history were 
 just, there has often been a real failure, because critics 
 forgot that it was religion which they dealt with. The 
 inner facts of faith were disregarded, Christian truth and 
 experience were overlooked, and, consequently, the total 
 hypothesis was inadequate. It was like explaining poetry 
 merely as meter and rhythm and neglecting its soul. It 
 was like analyzing the grammar of oratory and forgetting 
 the motive of the orator. The fundamental difficulty with 
 the critical efforts has been the neglect or denial of the 
 vitally religious facts as most necessary to an adequate 
 critical hypothesis. 
 
 Different hypotheses have different value as they can 
 
The Conjectural Scheme 85 
 
 be arranged in their approach to certainty. Some hy- 
 potheses are fully demonstrable by discoveries. One of 
 the great instances of this was the finding of the new 
 planet, Neptune, by Leverrier and Adams. But most 
 hypotheses do not allow for facts that shall be discovered 
 to confirm or disprove them. It is impossible by the very 
 nature of some hypotheses to absolutely prove or disprove 
 them. They must be accepted as probable if they are 
 thinkable and useful, and are capable of explaining con- 
 nected appearances. They become strong in proportion 
 as they increasingly fit new discoveries. To this class of 
 hypotheses belongs the doctrine of evolution. Its very 
 character excludes real demonstrability. The utility of 
 such a hypothesis can become very high, but it can never 
 reach the place of a fully assured and confirmed theory. 
 The effort has been made constantly to extend evolution 
 beyond its biological limits and to try it out as a universal 
 theory. Of course, mankind in the discovery of any new 
 hypothesis attempts, especially if this hypothesis gains 
 large ground, to unify its knowledge. Consequently, when 
 a great hypothesis helps masses of facts, it is liable to 
 become controlling and to press into every science. Thus 
 it assumes a place of certainty not guaranteed by its 
 nature. Accurate thinking cannot allow such extension. 
 When this limitation is kept in mind, there can be no 
 difficulty as long as evolution as a naturalistic hypothesis 
 does not claim to explain spiritual facts. 
 
 The proper rating of hypothesis in science will also lead 
 us to give it a right place in religion. When we deal 
 in so much of our thinking with the hypothetical, we have 
 no right in the far more difficult and universal problems 
 of religion to demand certainty in the intellectual and 
 speculative features. As a direct experience of life re- 
 ligion will always have its own immediate evidence, but 
 when we come to the proofs of its assertions, if such as- 
 
86 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 sertions are to be proved intellectually, we can only reach 
 hypothetical assurance. Consequently, science must not 
 demand of religion greater certainty than it reaches. It 
 has no right to dispute the value of the religious hypotheses 
 in theology, because they are hypotheses ; nor can it dis- 
 pute the privilege of religion to make its own conjectures 
 in consonance with its nature and character. Science 
 cannot disqualify religious facts by hypotheses of science. 
 Similarly, in the scientific formulation of facts, and in the 
 framing of scientific philosophy, faith, through the evidence 
 of things not seen, cannot as faith, when it steps into the 
 realm of logical proof, demand that its hypotheses shall 
 control science. It cannot demand an exceptional logic. 
 Consequently, religion cannot give higher and more certain 
 logical valuation to its speculations as far as they are 
 speculations and not experiences. This just limitation 
 will be exceedingly helpful to a true apologetic. Its viola- 
 tion has caused much difficulty, and has done much harm 
 to Christianity. 
 
 A remarkable fact about all hypotheses is their mental 
 character. All the great suppositions of science have 
 tended toward the invisible. In every science and in all 
 life, there seems a pressure backward to the unseen. The 
 reality of the unseen appears in all final thinking. It 
 is. a remarkable thing, that, when the scientific student 
 of nature seeks explanation of phenomena, he presses be- 
 yond the visible facts. Explanation has as its purpose to 
 make real to the mind the questions and problems put by 
 observation and experiment. We ask and must ask why 
 are things as they are. From what we see we are led to 
 argue back to the causes from which at last all visible 
 effects come. 
 
 Thus the physicist finds the cause of light and sound in 
 minute waves, that are only demonstrated by certain vis- 
 ible effects. In themselves they are unseen. Similarly 
 
The Conjectural Scheme 87 
 
 wireless telegraphy and the passing of electricity through 
 the universe are explained best by assuming an invisible 
 ether everywhere present. There can be no doubt that 
 from the acceptance of such ether the physical phenomena 
 gain a connected value and ground. The chemist no less 
 than the physicist, when he asks for reasons and arranges 
 his scientific results goes back to atoms. To-day it is even 
 held by some chemists that the atom must be explained by 
 corpuscles which are thought to be minute lines of force. 
 Here again it is the smallest divisible particle beyond 
 vision that is the basis of explanation. Does not chem- 
 istry, therefore, strengthen the right of the invisible.'' 
 
 When we pass from chemistry to biology we find the 
 biologist dealing not merely with the movement and the 
 chemical qualities of the cell. In order to explain heredity 
 he assumes certain minute elements which carry in them 
 the permanent possibilities of transmission. The invisible 
 parts of the cell are called into the account for a full 
 solution of the problems. If this natural, bodily life 
 demands an invisible, can there be any objection in the 
 spiritual life to pass from experienced invisible facts to 
 other invisibles in order to explain the lower and directly- 
 felt invisibles.? 
 
 Psychology adds its emphasis to the trend towards the 
 unseen. It shows us that we do not see the third dimen- 
 sion directly, whether we project it by vision or thought 
 alone. Psychology rests on physiology. But physiology 
 when it studies nerve-structure passes finally beyond itself. 
 Then begins psychology. Its reality is consciousness, but 
 consciousness fringes out into subconsciousness. Now 
 subconsciousness is the realm where the mysterious presses 
 in and demands the undiscovered invisibles beyond. Have 
 we a right to stop if religion unfolds those invisibles.'' 
 
 The forces of the mind play also through hiunanity. 
 Society is not explained ultimately by its industries, its 
 
88 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 economics, its wealth. These rest on invisible forces and 
 beliefs. If we mention but the part which credit plays in 
 all economic progress, and realize that credit is belief, 
 guaranteed it is true, but resting largely on confidence, an 
 unseen force that holds men together, we must admit that 
 even in its material pursuits society needs invisible founda- 
 tions. It cannot live by bread alone. And thus also 
 history seeks the explanation of the unseen. When our 
 country was in the throes of birth it had no strong army, 
 it possessed no great treasury. Finally the battles were 
 fought on faith. There was unswerving faith in liberty 
 and a strong conviction that democracy was real and could 
 be realized, before it ever became a fact. If faith made 
 America, what can it not do in things spiritual.'' 
 
 If then everywhere, in science, in sociology, in history 
 we must seek the invisible factors as the ultimate explana- 
 tion, have we a right consistently and logically to refuse 
 the claims of the invisible given in personality.'' What 
 are the ultimates for personality ? In our ethical concep- 
 tion what is implied in obligation, right and conscience? 
 As far as personality seeks moral aims, and this it must 
 do, for personality demands character, can it stop short 
 of the demand that its longings of mind and heart be sat- 
 isfied in the belief in a personality still further in the in- 
 visible than phenomenal facts urge us to.?* Is this demand 
 and belief not universal.'' Is it less cogent in the moral 
 sphere than other arguments in the sphere of natural 
 science.'' The conviction of the moral demand rests again 
 on the religious longing, on the desire for God in worship 
 both for the race and the individual. 
 
 Is it not just for faith to claim its right to the posit- 
 ing of things not seen, if science must go beyond things 
 visible, even though it pictures them as they might be if 
 they were visible.'' Can we not approach thus by a just 
 hypothesis to a universe which is in part by the very 
 
The Conjectural Scheme 89 
 
 pressure of science and life, ruled by the Unseen in a 
 manner approaching to Plato's speculation of eternal 
 ideas? But the Unseen must not absorb the seen or we 
 shall have an uncertain world; it lies back of the seen 
 as its ultimate cause and explanation but not as a Total 
 which swallows up all the world of seen things, men and 
 facts. There seems no reason why we cannot thus frame 
 on the foundation of the last assumptions of science, a 
 view of the world which leads up very fairly and con- 
 tinuously to the postulates and hypotheses of faith. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE MECHANICAL DEMAND 
 
 THE demand of the mechanical point of view is to 
 conceive of the whole world in the picture and 
 according to the method of a machine. It is noh 
 a new conception, and at present is very hard pressed. 
 Nevertheless it has not been eliminated from a great deal 
 of thinking in science. The idea which mechanism pre- 
 sents as the solution is that of millions of ultimate particles 
 which move on and on, and constitute the real causal chain 
 of all events. This actually connected chain of events and 
 happenings must, according to the mechanical ideal, be 
 traced back to the final moving particles of matter. From 
 the lowest to the highest phenomena in the world the rule 
 of mechanical force is assumed. In many quarters the 
 mechanical connection of the world is not interpreted, as 
 it occurs in causes and effects, in an altogether grossly 
 material manner; but even if the grosser conceptions of 
 matter in mechanism are not maintained, nevertheless, its 
 whole trend is strongly anti-ideal. In its origins the me- 
 chanical view of the world is strictly due to the notions 
 prevalent in mechanics and physics, but it has not re- 
 mained within the narrow limits of its beginnings. The 
 mechanical view has grown to be the chemical view, and 
 this is all the more powerful since the modem combination 
 of the science of chemistry and physics into physical chem- 
 istry. Now apparently the chemical view is not mechani- 
 cal, and yet the explanation of chemistry through ultimate 
 material particles, even though they be made electrical, is 
 mechanistic. The mechanical conception finds in the chemi- 
 cal elements an addition through which it seeks to explain 
 
 90 
 
The Mechcmicdl Demand 91 
 
 life, and it also attempts to find the basis of thought 
 through the chemistry of the brain. But despite the effort 
 to save the contentions in the main of the older grosser 
 material mechanism, through the refinement of the chemical 
 conception, many of the objections to a merely physical 
 mechanism still remain valid. 
 
 Mechanism deceives itself in the idea that it has en- 
 compassed fully the thought of cause, for it actually deals 
 only with individual cases of sequence and material suc- 
 cession. It may name these causes, but from none of 
 these successions can it derive their uniformity, cogency 
 and necessity. Because it cannot find these elements in 
 its causal chain it cannot really find cause. When mech- 
 anism deals with the lower elements of the universe as the 
 ultimate particles it cannot explain the rational relations 
 in the causal chain. The laws of the motion of matter, the 
 proportionate inter-relations of molecules, the mathemati- 
 cal formula of mass, the law of chemical equivalence, and 
 many similar mechanical facts will not allow for a mere 
 material sequence. Unconsciously there is introduced the 
 idea of rationalized matter or mind-matter, which is a con- 
 tradiction in terms. Mechanism is even more helpless 
 when it comes to the explanation of living organisms. It 
 is true that there are those who believe that plants and ani- 
 mals are mere mechanisms, arranged with greater or less 
 responsiveness to environment. These mechanisms are 
 supposed to have grown up through the modification of 
 original living tissue in the form of mechanical combina- 
 tions. But such an explanation does not satisfy really 
 and adequately any theory of organic structures. Hob- 
 house rightly says : " Whatever the cause or origin of 
 the organism, it is in itself not a purely mechanical ar- 
 rangement of parts. It is neither a machine created by 
 intelligence ab extra, nor one built up by unintelligent 
 processes. It is not a pure machine at all, but a whole in 
 
92 Trends of Thoitght and Christian Truth 
 
 which an organic, and that is a teleological, principle is at 
 work within, operating on and modifying what are other- 
 wise physical, mechanically determined elements, and so 
 fashioning the growth and functioning of the parts to the 
 requirements of the whole." ^ In this statement Hobhouse 
 has clearly expressed a real principle. It is not possible to 
 have results, and relevant means toward an end, without 
 the conception of purposive cause. Merely mechanical 
 structures can be explained by mechanical principles, but 
 this does not prove that mechanism explains the universe. 
 Hobhouse again and properly says : " The denial of 
 purposive causation, therefore, is not suggested, but re- 
 pelled by general experience, and owes its existence only to 
 the theory that everything must act by mechanical laws. 
 But this theory is a pure assumption, which derives its 
 apparent cogency from confusion with the quite different 
 principle that everything must act in accordance with 
 some law." * 
 
 A peculiarity of the mechanical view, when it is rightly 
 understood, is its static character. It can never make 
 really clear to us causal progress. At the beginning the 
 whole mass of matter is given. The given matter remains 
 fundamentally indestructible. There can be no room for 
 any real loss or any real addition. Therefore, whatever 
 happens is only a change of combination of the ultimate 
 particles of matter, and there is no real creative evolution. 
 At the start there must be homogeneity, but it has never 
 been shown on a mechanical basis how homogeneity can 
 become heterogeneity. It is true that the homogeneity is 
 supposed to be unstable, but the thought of such insta- 
 bility is itself a heterogeneity in the homogeneity. The 
 assumption of mechanism with its fixed mass of matter 
 is in absolute opposition to all real progress. This ap- 
 
 1 " Development and Purpose," p. 334. 
 2 lUd., p. 336. 
 
The Mechanical Demand 93 
 
 pears equally when the problem of energy or force is 
 considered. It is impossible for energy in its transfer- 
 ence to remain whole; still less is there progress. Nor- 
 mally the motion of bodies is interfered with and rest en- 
 sues. The kinetic energy is re-translated into the po- 
 tential energy, but there is never the same full amount. 
 Some portion of molar motion is always lost in its reduc- 
 tion to heat. Heat as a whole cannot, according to 
 thinkers in physical science, be collected again to make 
 the sum of original energy. Therefore, energy which can 
 do mechanical work is diminishing. " There is a steady 
 dissipation of available energy measured by the increase 
 of ' entropy.' Thus the mechanical view of the universe, 
 in strange contrast with that of biology, psychology, and 
 as we may now add, of astronomy, chemistry and the 
 physical theories of matter contemplates a process of 
 steady degradation or dissolution rather than a process 
 of evolution or development." * Consequently the only 
 ideal left to save a mechanical universe is to demand a 
 rejuvenation in some kind of a cyclical manner. Such a 
 cyclical universe was argued for by Nietzsche. He was 
 really adding the religious possibility to the view of a 
 mechanical universe. The religions which favor a universe 
 of cycles are Brahmanism and Buddhism with their births 
 and re-births. Christianity, however, does not funda- 
 mentally agree with a slowly degrading or static universe. 
 It is true that its acceptance of the creation thinks of 
 a certain ideally originated, and therefore ideally fixed 
 universe. The degradation of evil in the world as a moral 
 fact in human life and society is also emphasized by Chris- 
 tianity. But, despite these facts, Christianity embraces 
 the thought of a real progress and growth of man con- 
 .ditioned by his being and living in Christ. It has hopes 
 of a new world. Therefore, Christianity is not actually 
 
 3 Hobhouse, " Development and Purpose," p. 355. 
 
94; Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 a static religion, and even could mechanism be freed of 
 its materialism, the thought of a fixed balance is after aU 
 contrary to the creative and historical ideal of the faith 
 of Christ. 
 
 Another difficulty which grows out of mechanism is that 
 it begins in its assumption of first cause with a complex 
 notion and not a simple idea of matter. Matter is never 
 alone. It is always combined with the thought of force 
 or energy. Atomism can arrive nowhere without the 
 thought of energy, and energy is, therefore, indispensable 
 to the mechanical point of view. In its development and 
 history, the mechanical point of view has tended toward 
 the dynamical. Newton began with believing that the 
 mechanical actions required a medium, and that gravita- 
 tion demanded contact. He assumed force to be innate, in- 
 herent, and essential to matter. But Newton's idea was 
 reverted by Boscovich, who held that matter is a congeries 
 of mathematical points with the power of attracting or 
 repelling according to fixed laws. The solid particles of 
 Newton's assumption were rejected and inherent forces 
 were supposed to act through a vacuum. The finite mole- 
 cules of matter were reduced to infinitesimal mass points. 
 The idea of Boscovich was developed by Lord Kelvin into 
 the theory of a circling fluid. Later men have returned 
 to the conception of ether and have not conceived action 
 to take place through a vacuum; but the pressure of 
 thought has been toward the emphasis of force and not of 
 matter. Consequently, mechanism is almost compelled to 
 conceive of energy as explanatory, rather than of matter. 
 Such a physicist as Ostwald strongly argues on behalf of 
 energy. But the problem of energy at once leads us 
 away from the attitude of a successful mechanism and 
 destroys it. The complexity in the original conception 
 of matter and force has worked against matter. The 
 increasing emphasis on force has brought physical theories 
 
The Mechanical Demand 95 
 
 within the range of ideal interpretations. 
 
 Because energy can be idealized into will, its existence 
 has been supposed to offer a favorable medium for Chris- 
 tianity. But if will be made into energy, violence is done 
 to will. And if energy be conceived of as will, its con- 
 ception has been changed. In such a procedure the will 
 is made more natural and unmoral than it should be, and 
 energy is made more ideal and moral than it can be. Con- 
 sequently some Christian thinkers have been deceived in 
 their supposition that the conception of energy is most 
 usable in Christianity. The fact, however, that the Ger- 
 man philosopher, Schopenhauer, could use the conception 
 of will as impersonal and non-moral, that in the same man- 
 ner von Hartmann could translate energy into the un- 
 conscious, and that Nietzsche made will to power brute 
 force, demonstrates the danger of this combination of will 
 and energy. The approach to divine will suggested by 
 energy is very questionable. It can deflect the concept 
 of God into mere activity, but any such emphasis in the 
 idea of God necessarily leads away from the moral char- 
 acter of God and injures the thought of His personality. 
 An equal injury is done to the inclusion of wisdom in the 
 conception of God. Even the Christian ideal of God as 
 love cannot be real if God be thought of as energy of 
 spirit apart from wisdom. The very value of will as 
 moral, as wise, as just, is lost when we press the view of 
 energy. Only as God is more than will, and His will is 
 wise, just and loving purpose, can His will be sustained as 
 really a will of purpose, and not of impersonal force. 
 Consequently, Christianity must be very cautious how it 
 employs energy as descriptive of God. It is in danger of 
 depersonalizing God and absorbing Him in nature if it 
 stresses energy too much. Even will as will is not suf- 
 ficient to guarantee a personal God, and where will is ap- 
 proached as energy, it is still less able to keep the idea of 
 
96 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 a personal God and Father pure and intact. 
 
 It is impossible in the discussion of mechanism to avoid 
 the question of its relation to purpose. It has some- 
 times been argued that the idea of the universe upon a 
 mechanical basis, which makes it a machine, does not per- 
 mit the thought of purpose or final cause. It may be 
 true that mechanism in itself can be considered as indif- 
 ferent to purpose. It may follow along its own peculiar 
 lines no matter what the attendant circumstances or values 
 may be. But while the mechanical explanation may an- 
 swer the question of how, for example, wheel may move 
 within wheel, nevertheless, the problem of the specific 
 iunction always leads to the further question of purpose. 
 No mechanism is really explained merely as a succession 
 of efficient causes. There is an inter-relation and general 
 arrangement, which takes up the units of mechanical ac- 
 tions, and gives them their full setting. Mechanism always 
 tends toward plan. The more perfect the arrangement of 
 the mechanical is, the more it argues for predetermina- 
 tion, the larger is its purposive character. It gradually 
 passes over into the organic. From the purpose which is 
 merely evident without there is a progress toward the 
 purpose which appears within. We may begin in the uni- 
 verse by explaining a collocation of acts and occurrences 
 merely by referring them to an antecedent collocation, but 
 gradually these collocations require an answer of the rela- 
 tion of function to effect. When this answer is given 
 we have arrived at the thought of purpose. And purpose 
 implies not merely the action of force upon force, it is not 
 merely forward motion, but it is also looking forward. 
 There is in purpose a consciousness of plan, and in the con- 
 sciousness of plan there is the evidence of mind. Suc- 
 cessions of phenomena are not fully explanatory of the 
 universe. It needs the rational relation and the adaptive 
 adjustment. These are real elements of purpose and 
 
The Mechanical Demand 97 
 
 mind. The mechanical, therefore, is not in itself com- 
 plete. It must lead forward. Its answer to the ques- 
 tion, why, is only half an answer, but its half requires 
 the other half. Mechanism calls for final purpose. 
 
 The fact that mechanism cannot escape finality shows 
 that when properly limited and rightly completed it is 
 usable by Christianity. The question that remains is 
 whether, as we approach finality from mechanism, we can 
 really find an answer to the demand of purpose by mak- 
 ing the evidence of mind immanent in the course of the 
 universe all there is of mind, or whether, to maintain 
 the integrity of the thought of purpose, we must make 
 mind transcendent. It is true that the evidences of pur- 
 pose are found in things and processes; but is it not 
 mythological to ascribe to things, when they are seen in 
 a rational and purposive whole, the strength to make that 
 purpose.'' If it be maintained that the real explanation of 
 purpose lies in the parts and that they are purposive in 
 themselves, then the parts are the whole in their aim, which 
 is contradictory. If the whole is needed even in any single 
 collocation of particles or in any organism to explain the 
 parts, then there is a departure from the strictly mechan- 
 ical view, which maintains the ultimate value of separate 
 particles and derives the whole from them. If the ex- 
 planation of purpose, therefore, remains within things, it 
 is either illogical, or degenerates again into the mechanical. 
 Purpose conceived from the point of view of the whole is 
 ideal. It is only as we maintain an ideal angle that 
 purpose can be spoken of. The difficulty in the mechanical 
 ideal is that it constantly levels down the facts of the 
 universe to the possibility of a mechanical explanation. 
 From the point of view of mechanics, life can have no 
 spontaneity, mind no freedom, morals no real choice, and 
 religion no spiritual value. Mechanism cannot answer the 
 highest demands and it cannot do this because it is in- 
 
98 Trends of Thottght and Christian Truth 
 
 capable of explaining purpose. In the loss of the idea 
 of purpose all else in the higher realms of life is lost. 
 It is true that mechanism may be portrayed in a very 
 attractive form, and it may be used for a very refined 
 materialism ; but does this allow it to be conceived of as 
 adequate to purpose, mind and soul.? John Burroughs, 
 who has sympathy with a mechanical and naturalistic 
 view, is compelled to write thus : " When we have fol- 
 lowed matter from mass to molecule, from molecule to 
 atom, from atom to electron, and seen it in effect de- 
 materialized — seen it in its fourth or ethereal, I had al- 
 most said, spiritual state, — when we have grasped the 
 wonder of radio-activity, and the atomic transformations 
 that attend it, we shall have a conception of the potencies 
 and possibilities of matter that robs scientific material- 
 ism of most of its ugliness. Of course, no deductions of 
 science can satisfy our longings for something kindred to 
 our own spirits in the universe. But neither our telescopes 
 nor our microscopes reveal such a reality. Is this long- 
 ing only the result of our inevitable anthropomorphism, 
 or is it the evidence of things unseen, the substance of 
 things hoped for, the prophecy of our kinship with the far- 
 thest star.'' Can soul arise out of a soulless universe?"* 
 While we cannot accede, therefore, to the tendency of 
 mechanism, of leveling the world down, is it an advantage 
 to level the world up in such a manner as to eliminate 
 mechanism.'' There seems a need from a religious point 
 of view to maintain that a part of the universe is me- 
 chanical, even though the whole universe cannot be ex- 
 plained on a purely mechanical ideal. When we admit 
 mechanism in the world we feel that we have allowed for 
 real things. Now it is only in the conception of the 
 reality of things, and their inter-relation as a part of 
 the world, that Christianity can find a guarantee for 
 
 4 " Life as the Scientist Sees It," Yale Review, October, 1914, p. 49. 
 
The Mechamcal Demand 99 
 
 the purity of its theism. While absolute mechanism de- 
 nies God, partial mechanism allows for the conception of 
 a transcendent and personal God. It is quite possible to 
 combine God's transcendence with mechanism, if mechan- 
 ism be not all that exists. A transcendent and personal 
 God is necessary in Christianity, and He must be above the 
 universe; consequently. His immanence must be in effects 
 and results. His presence personal and moral, and His 
 power in nature not an imprisonment in the universe. Only 
 the supposition of a secondary mechanism and of things 
 apart from, though influenced by, divine mind and power 
 can furnish the proper explanation of a world that leaves 
 room for a real, personal, transcendent God. If this 
 be so, then a modified mechanism, but not an absolute 
 naturalism, is more useful to Christianity than any theory 
 of pure idealism. 
 
 It has often been supposed that because complete mech- 
 anism was in opposition to Christianity, therefore, it had 
 to appeal to idealism as its ally. But a passing review 
 of some great idealistic systems shows this to be a miscon- 
 ception. When Platonism began to influence Christianity 
 through Neo-Platonism, it introduced a pantheistic cur- 
 rent. The high ideality of Platonism was cognate to 
 the spirituality of Christianity. It was this inwardness 
 of Platonism which helped Augustine toward Christianity. 
 But in its fullness and details Platonism, in denying 
 material things, injured the realistic side of Christianity. 
 This appears very clearly in the diff'erence of emphasis 
 which Platonism and Christianity give to the body. Chris- 
 tianity maintains the vital connection of body and soul 
 and believes in the resurrection of the body. It cannot 
 conceive of a complete soul without a body, even though 
 this body be called spiritual. For Platonism the body 
 is the prison-house of the soul, and the important thing 
 is the old Orphic tradition of the immortality of the 
 
100 Trends of Thotight and Christian Truth 
 
 soul. It was, therefore, not accidental when the greater 
 influence was exerted upon Christianity by Aristotle, whose 
 idealism was tempered with the sense for the reality of 
 things. 
 
 When we enter modem idealism, we find similar difficul- 
 ties. None of the idealistic systems fuse with Christianity 
 without detriment to Christian belief. It seemed a great 
 discovery when Descartes was able to discover the thinking 
 self as the foundation of certainty. But when he intro- 
 duced God to guarantee the world, and when he employed 
 the old argument of Anselm, he did not strengthen his 
 position. His effort to prove God from the necessity of 
 the idea of God, and from the contention that the thought 
 of an Infinite in us could only be created by a real Infinite, 
 was inefficient. This idealism, on the one hand made the 
 world dreamlike; on the other hand, it necessitated a 
 theory of mechanism which Descartes extended upward 
 even in the animal world. The influence of the mechanical 
 side of Descartes' theory aided mechanism, and his ideal- 
 ism failed in unifying the conception of the world with 
 the idea of God. Apparently greater success awaited 
 Spinoza, when he identified substance and God, but among 
 the attributes of God the two most vital were thought and 
 extension. Spinoza thus became the father of parallelism. 
 His realistic idealism, after all, could find no real union. 
 The result of parallelism has generally favored not so much 
 mind as matter. 
 
 When Berkeley, in the interest of theism, began to found 
 his psychologicsil idealism a solution seemed to be at hand. 
 But God became only the guarantor of ideas. He guar- 
 anteed phenomena, mere appearances made of the stuff of 
 sensations, and not things. Berkeley's idealism in at- 
 tempting to give the death-blow to matter denied the im- 
 pression of the realism of things. This dissolution of 
 things into mere ideas paved the way for Hume's analysis 
 
The MecJwmcai Demand 101 
 
 of mind into mere impressions and sensations. The way 
 in which Berkeley idealized things, with a sincere purpose 
 to make them real in God, nevertheless introduced a 
 sceptical element into the reality of outward experience. 
 Hume applied this scepticism to the inward life of the 
 mind. There was in Berkeley an illusory undercurrent 
 which finally made mind and God illusory to Hume. The 
 denial of things as real by consequence made ideas unreal. 
 It appeared as though Kant had rescued idealism by his 
 effort to balance things in themselves, appearances, and the 
 categories of the mind. But so unknowable were the 
 things in themselves, that the final elfect of Kant was a new 
 wave of idealism. The manner in which Kant endeavored 
 to give unity to experience in the apperception of the ego 
 determined the future. It was stronger in its after-eflTects 
 than Kant's emphasis on things. Out of the apperception 
 of the ego rose the idealism of Fichte. For him the ego 
 is central as activity, will, vitality; but all data are com- 
 bined in a great intellectual unity. The ego became abso- 
 lute. Through it God was interpreted as the universal 
 moral process, and as the ethical world order. The per- 
 sonal God was lost, and Fichte was accused of atheism. 
 As little as Fichte could produce a system congruent with 
 Christianity, so little was Schelling successful. It is true 
 that in his system of identity he limited nature by the 
 ego, but he also limited mind. Finally he fused the two 
 into an identity which was indiff'erence. But this indif- 
 ference was absolute undetermined reason. It gravitated 
 back to Spinoza. When Schelling began to speculate on 
 religious philosophy he was led to an aesthetic idea. Re- 
 ligion was made a pious feeling of dependence, and God 
 became a series of potencies in the imitation of Neo-Plato- 
 nism. Schelling's speculations did not favor theism. Hegel 
 completed the great idealistic movement in Germany. He 
 conceived the whole world in terms of consciousness, in 
 
102 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 which contradictions were resolved into unity. Thus he 
 approached a monism of reason. To him all being is 
 thought realized, and all becoming is a development of 
 thoiight. In this development the absolute reality is God ; 
 He is the only individual. This individuality of God is, 
 however, not personality. Hegel's religion is a passing 
 phase, for it is the Absolute in personal relation to man. 
 Religion must give way to philosophy where the Absolute 
 finds himself as cosmic consciousness, as complete being, 
 as absolute whole. The idealism of Hegel in the philoso- 
 phy of religion reinterpreted Christian truths from this 
 angle of rationalistic pantheism. The whole history, 
 therefore, of idealism, shows its danger and prevents us, 
 in the effort to escape from mechanism, from throwing 
 ourselves into its arms. No idealistic theory, especially 
 the most pure theory, is compatible with the theism of 
 Christianity, its appreciation of things, its valuation of the 
 body, and its conception of evil. 
 
 A real danger has entered modem theology in conse- 
 quence of its bowing to idealistic schemes. It supposed 
 that it could escape the materialistic danger in mechanism 
 by making God immanent in the world. But this imma- 
 nence cannot be maintained without finally injuring the 
 idea of a personal God. It may lift up the grosser as- 
 pects of nature, but in doing this it must overlook the 
 cruelties of nature, and the evil and sin of the world. 
 Now Christianity, as a religion of redemption, will always 
 be lowered when evil and sin are depreciated. If the 
 thought of immanence is just to nature and man, it cannot 
 deny their inequalities and wrongs ; and then its immanent 
 God becomes very imperfect. We are only safe when 
 we maintain a transcendent God, not a Deistic God abso- 
 lutely apart from the world, but a transcendent God, im- 
 manent by presence and efl'ects, but not in essence and be- 
 ing. Christianity cannot surrender a personal God. 
 
The Mechanical Demand 103 
 
 Therefore, it cannot adopt idealistic systems, for it is 
 ideal in purpose, but not in metaphysics. Its metaphy- 
 sical implications for the world are of a realistic nature. 
 It wants a spiritual God and in the lower ranges a me- 
 chanical world. A world merely of ideas is not the world 
 of Christianity. Therefore, a modified mechanism is far 
 more compatible with Christianity than a thoroughgoing 
 idealism. We must, however, not deny the ideal elements. 
 The final values of righteousness and God must remain 
 preeminent. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE BIOLOGICAL SUPPOSITION 
 
 OURS is peculiarly the age of biology. There 
 had been interest in nature and study of nature 
 for many a century, but only since the time of 
 Darwin and with the establishment of the hypothesis of 
 material evolution in nature did the modem science of biol- 
 ogy take its real rise. From the second half of the nine- 
 teenth century until the present biological science has 
 constantly advanced ; it has reconstituted some of the for- 
 mer natural sciences, opened up new avenues of investi- 
 gation, and annexed in its claims many other phases of 
 thought. Its new points of view not only re-made botany, 
 zoology, anatomy, physiology, and kindred sciences and 
 sub-sciences, but it entered psychology and made its meth- 
 ods biological. It claims to give in the new explanation 
 of mind, from the natural basis of man's past development 
 and from the study of his nervous system and brain, a new 
 solution of man's history, a new theory of economics and of 
 society, of morals and of religion. In fact, it is pressing 
 into every sphere. The successes of biology are, however, 
 not complete. The biologists themselves are re-examining 
 and doubting some of the older assumptions, and are 
 particularly assailing Darwinism.-' The absolute rule of 
 the biological point of view is also opposed by logicians, 
 who deny that all science is natural. They argue for a 
 group of distinctly non-natural or spiritual sciences, which 
 the Germans well designate as " Geisteswissenschaften." 
 We are also passing, in our general thinking, from the 
 
 iCf. KeUogg, "Darwinism To-day." 
 
 104 
 
The Biological Supposition 105 
 
 large influence of the older mechanico-causal idea of life 
 and evolution to a more ideal conception. This ideal con- 
 ception is claimed in the philosophy of Bergson and Eucken 
 to be the solvent of true science and life. Nevertheless, 
 it is still necessary to examine the purely naturalistic 
 biological ideas, because they still rule and determine much 
 of the thinking in both scientific and popular presentation 
 of the world of nature. 
 
 The first result, which followed from reducing life as a 
 mysterious secret to an idea, that can be described in the 
 terms of the chain of secondary causes, was to take life 
 out of the long prevalent scheme of purpose. Since the 
 day of Aristotle the teleological point of view had ruled 
 in the studies of nature, but now the effort was made to 
 find out its actual phenomena as efficient causes in direct 
 material contact. Darwin repudiated the older idea of 
 purpose and opposed the argument from design as it 
 had been stated by Paley. He writes to Asa Gray, in 
 1860: "But I grieve to say that I cannot honestly go 
 as far as you do about Design. I am conscious that I am 
 in an utterly hopeless muddle. I cannot think that the 
 world, as we see it is the result of chance ; and yet I can- 
 not look at each separate thing as the result of Design." ^ 
 In 1861 Darwin writes to Miss Wedgwood: " The mind 
 refuses to look at this universe, being what it is, without 
 having been designed; yet, where one would most expect 
 design, viz., in the structure of a sentient being, the more 
 I think on the subject, the less I can see proof of design." ^ 
 As Darwin grew older, he became more determinately op- 
 posed to design. In 1876 he states in reference to the 
 gospels and their evidence : " Thus disbelief crept over me 
 at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate 
 
 2 " The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," by Francis Darwin, 
 II, p. 146. 
 s Ibid., I, p. 283. 
 
106 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 was so slow that I felt no distress." * And then he con- 
 tinues : " Although I did not think much about the ex- 
 istence of a personal God until a considerably later period 
 of my life, I will here give the vague conclusions to which 
 I have been driven. The old argument from design in 
 Nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me 
 so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection 
 has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for 
 instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have 
 been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door 
 by man. There seems to be no more design in the variabil- 
 ity of organic beings, and in the action of natural selection, 
 than in the course which the wind blows." '^ This negative 
 attitude of Darwin gradually became the ruling one, 
 although Huxley attempted to adjust the newer bio- 
 logical results to a reformulated idea of final cause and 
 purpose. On the whole, biology excluded any considera- 
 tion of first and final cause as Darwin had done. It be- 
 came in some of its advocates, not merely non-religious 
 and non-committal on Christianity ; it not only seemed to 
 further the loss of the spiritual sense as in Spencer; but 
 it was actually taken up by a group of decided anti- 
 religious and anti-Christian thinkers like the Germans 
 Moleschott, Vogt, Buechner, and Haeckel. They added 
 strong philosophic materialism to biological research. 
 Consequently the taboo on any question of purpose became 
 more severe. 
 
 It may have been of great use in the furtherance of 
 biology to examine phenomena directly and to avoid any 
 interference from the question of purpose. A wrong tele- 
 ology had injured careful observation from a deductive 
 application of what ought to be in the face of facts. But 
 has evolution been able to show that all purpose in the 
 
 * Ibid., I, p. 278. 
 B Ihid., I, p. 378. 
 
The Biological Supposition 107 
 
 interpretation of nature is finally impossible? If so, it 
 must, of course, forever oppose a religious explanation 
 of the world. The fear of biology at the beginning of its 
 modern period, that religion would becloud and deny its 
 facts, a fear partly justified by the manner of the attack 
 of Bishop Wilberforce, was too great. Because of its 
 fear of the influence of religion, biology also attempted to 
 avoid, as it supposed, all philosophical questions and 
 theories, that might prejudice its investigations. But 
 many biologists failed to see that they had taken a philo- 
 sophical attitude when they conceived of evolution as causal 
 in the mechanical sense. They began, before life had ex- 
 perimentally been reduced to mechanical terms, to favor a 
 mechanical conception of the universe. In so doing they 
 took upon themselves aU the burdens and difficulties of this 
 point of view. In addition they gave a definite coloring to 
 the idea of cause. Cause in the Darwinian theory must 
 be, if rightly construed, phenomenal succession. But this 
 succession was made at the same time to be both causal 
 and phenomenal. The ignorance of philosophy misled the 
 biologists. They did not apparently know that Hume 
 had defined causes to be mere successions, and yet found it 
 essential to make the succession necessary. Mill was put 
 under the same constraint. Necessity must belong to the 
 causal chain, if it is to be causal. If this be so, how can we 
 have accidental variation and progress, and a causal chain? 
 But there is still another contradiction in the causal idea 
 of Darwinism. While apparently it does not place 
 causes in things, nevertheless, by its mechanical concep- 
 tion it mythologizes cause, and must believe that the ante- 
 cedents are the full raison d'etre of the consequents. The 
 development of higher inductive logic, whether in Sigwart 
 or Erdmann, who follow Kant, has led the best thinkers to 
 put the foundation of causality into mind. The only es- 
 cape is ascribing mind to all matter, and this position of 
 
108 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 panpsychism has actually been taken by Haeckel. 
 
 Because the reigning view of evolution was influenced 
 by a causal notion that necessarily excluded purpose it 
 could not be favorable to any indications that made for a 
 real teleology. The increasing indications of purpose 
 in the ascending scale of beings were passed by. There 
 was no comparison of lower or higher forms from the point 
 of view of complexity of plan. While such examination 
 in reference to plan may have been outside of the immediate 
 aim of evolution, its legitimacy ought not to have been 
 denied. Despite the denial, it remains true, as Professor 
 Ward says : " Comparing the lower forms of life with 
 the higher, it is at once obvious that the non-teleological 
 factors seem more exclusively the eiBcient ones the lower 
 down the scale we go, while the teleological factors come 
 more clearly into play the higher we ascend." ^ It is the 
 disregard of purpose which also largely influenced the 
 attitude toward the arguments of Paley. It is true that 
 Paley in his Natural Theology approaches the idea of pur- 
 pose from the older scientific notion of a species. He 
 frequently speaks of contrivance. But it has been over- 
 looked that in the face of his limitations he approaches 
 the conception of growth in the idea of the watch which 
 can produce another watch. There is a real valuation of 
 the relation of mechanism to organism. When Hobhouse 
 in his modem discussion of development and purpose un- 
 dertakes to argue for purpose, he also begins with the 
 idea of a machine. There is a real parallel between the 
 argument of Hobhouse and Paley. Perhaps Paley's use 
 of design as it was interpreted by the early evolutionists 
 created an unjust prejudice against the actual value of his 
 argument. It must be evident to the student, that though 
 we have shifted our viewpoint from contrivance to or- 
 ganism, and from design to purpose, nevertheless, Paley 
 
 e " Naturalism and Agnosticism," Vol. I, p. 281. 
 
The Biological Supposition 109 
 
 does not deserve the criticisms which have been heaped 
 upon him. 
 
 One of the great difficulties with the philosophic side of 
 evolution is, that the biologists have not seen the implica- 
 tions of the very terms which they have employed, and have 
 not noted the impossibility of eliminating plan and purpose 
 from the evidences of nature. In the very term evolution it- 
 self there lies hidden the thought of advance or progress. 
 We cannot conceive of an evolution which stands still. It 
 cannot move in a circle or return upon itself. There may 
 be intervals of apparent rest or of decline, but the total 
 movement must be upward. Evolution without progress is 
 contradictory. Progress means going somewhere; it is a 
 term which includes aims and ends. It may not be possible 
 to discover purpose at once in things, but purpose cer- 
 tainly appears in evolution. Hobhouse says : " The evo- 
 lutionary process can be best understood as the effect 
 of a purpose slowly working itself out under limiting 
 conditions which it brings successively under control." '' 
 Evolution receives its value from the idea implied in pur- 
 pose as a necessary element in evolution. Bergson may be 
 correct in part when he denies that purpose appears in the 
 onward flow of life. Nevertheless, he must admit that, as 
 we look back, we find purpose. But if we find purpose 
 in looking backward, evolution cannot be " we're going but 
 we know not where." The fact that in looking backward 
 we seem to have arrived somewhere shows that we were 
 going somewhere. Mere impulse as impulse is not evolu- 
 tion, not progress. Hobhouse has made a real point when 
 he says : " A mere vital impulse may blow like the wind 
 where it listeth, so that none can tell whence it cometh 
 or whither it goeth. But creative or rather plastic mind 
 is that which moves towards ends which are worth reach- 
 
 7 " Development and Purpose," Intro., xxvi. 
 
110 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 ing, and because they are worth reaching." ® Can we have 
 real evolution with its idea of advance without assuming 
 creative mind? ® 
 
 There has been a disregard on the part of evolutionists 
 when they discussed the problem of natural selection to 
 note what it ought to mean and what the difficulties in its 
 way were. The term natural selection was originally a 
 generalization. It maintained that certain forms remained 
 after the struggle for existence had broken the continuous 
 line of development and made it discontinuous. Darwin 
 sometimes used the term to denote the result and not the 
 process. It never was to be conceived of as a force, but 
 only as the description of a process or a result. But the 
 problem is, whether this process can be called and actually 
 is a selection as long as the variations through which it 
 appears are merely of the nature of chance. The Dar- 
 winian conception holds that the variations proceed along 
 fortuitous lines. In opposition to this assumption of for- 
 tuitousness there stand not only the implied notion of 
 selection, but also the difficulties of a mathematical nature, 
 which arise from the doctrine of chances. According to 
 the formula of chances, which is involved in fortuitous 
 variation, it is exceedingly difficult for the variations to 
 arise and to be perpetuated in the manner in which evolu- 
 tionism assumes. Not only in the first appearance of an 
 advantageous variation is fortuity over-strained, but also 
 in the transmission.^" The doctrine of chances will also 
 not allow for the fact of the highest forms. Numerically 
 the average ought to live. Furthermore, Galton has 
 worked out a calculation of regression, which opposes the 
 strong assumption of the accidental variation which gen- 
 eral orthodox Darwinism made. Therefore, there is great 
 
 8 Ibid., Intro., p. xxviii. 
 
 » Cf. Part II, Chapter VI, p. 244 ff. 
 
 10 Cf. Martineau, " A Study of Religion," Vol. I, p. 263 ff. 
 
The Biological Supposition 111 
 
 difficulty in the assumption of slow insensible and acci- 
 dental variation. There are also difficulties in the actual 
 examination of facts of nature when we suppose changes 
 of a purely accidental and slight character to take place. 
 If every organic structure is the result of slow and gradual 
 accumulation of very small differences, then such a com- 
 plex structure as the human eye compared with the eye 
 of a mollusk, like the common pecten, is not really expli- 
 cable. As Bergson ^^ has shown, it is impossible, when we 
 compare not function to organ, but two terms of the same 
 nature, as organ with organ, to maintain accidentalism. 
 While mollusks and vertebrates may be traced back to a 
 common beginning, yet they developed before there was any 
 eye. How can we explain on the basis of sUght accidental 
 changes the same essential parts in the eyes of both the 
 mollusks and the vertebrates.? It is only possible, if in 
 such a structure as the eye we have two forms changing 
 point by point in essentially the same way. Professor 
 Watson on this subject rightly concludes thus: "We 
 have, therefore, to suppose that every part of the organ 
 simultaneously develops correlated variations ; so that, not 
 only does variation arise accidentally, but equally acci- 
 dentally there emerge a number of correlated variations; 
 and these on the hypothesis must arise accidientally in two 
 entirely independent lines of evolution." ^^ 
 
 There is another manner in which by variations natural 
 selection is supposed to have happened. In contrast to 
 Darwin's theory of slow and slight variations the assump- 
 tion has been made that the variations occur suddenly 
 and simultaneously. Darwin considered sudden variations 
 " sports," or monstrosities that could not perpetuate them- 
 selves. But the Englishman Bateson claimed quick 
 changes. His claim acquired great importance after the 
 
 11 " Creative Evolution," p. 60. 
 
 18 "The Interpretation of Religious Experience," Part II, p. 164, 
 
112 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 experiment of the botanist De Vries, who working on the 
 CEnothera Lamarckiana, a species of primrose, obtained 
 new species by mutations in a few generations. He claimed 
 that in the period of mutation many changes in different 
 directions take place. While this doctrine attempts to 
 unify the organism it is still a doctrine of accidentalism. 
 It cannot be used in face of the fact of apparently dis- 
 coverable slow variations in the animal world. At the 
 same time it does not account for the variation of a similar 
 nature, such as we find in the eye of the moUusk and the 
 vertebrate. In reference to the difficulties which acci- 
 dental variation has, even on the supposition of the theory 
 of mutation, Bergson rightly argues : " But here there 
 arises another problem, no less formidable, viz., how do 
 all the parts of the visual apparatus, suddenly changed, 
 remain so well co-ordinated that the eye continues to 
 exercise its function.'' For the change of one part alone 
 will make vision impossible, unless this change is absolutely 
 infinitesimal. The parts must then all change at once, 
 each consulting the other. I agree that a great number 
 of un-co-ordinated variations may indeed have arisen in 
 less fortunate individuals, that natural selection may have 
 eliminated these, and that only the combination fit to 
 endure, capable of preserving and improving vision, has 
 survived. Still, this combination had to be produced. 
 And, supposing chance to have granted this favor once, 
 can we admit that it repeats the self-same favor in the 
 course of the history of a species, so as to give rise, 
 every time, all at once, to new complications marvelously 
 regulated with reference to each other, and so related to 
 former complications as to go further on in the same di- 
 rection ? " ^* 
 
 The difficulty in both the sudden and slight theory of 
 accidental variation has arisen from the disregard of 
 
 13 " Creative Evolution," p. 65. 
 
The Biological Supposition 113 
 
 organic structures. The long line of continuity in me- 
 chanical causes to create new species by variation has 
 been emphasized to the detriment of the value of individual 
 organisms. It is true that Darwin realized the fact of co- 
 ordination in organic structures, nevertheless he did not 
 give it adequate place in his whole theory. The co-or- 
 dination and inter-relation in the whole and in the parts of 
 single organisms is very difficult to maintain in the light 
 of accidental changes. The different organs are all con- 
 nected to function for a common end. Where organs are 
 lost they are replaced for the same purpose as the lost 
 organs. Where parts of the tissue can not be replaced 
 in the form of the same organs the tissue of other organs 
 can adapt itself to function toward the same end. The 
 life, therefore, of single organisms, if studied minutely, 
 does not favor chance and accident. In a similar manner, 
 when we compare the anatomical structures of different 
 beings it is impossible to explain the similarity simply 
 as mechanical continuity. The very likeness implies simi- 
 larity of function, and as an argument in analogy it has 
 elements of purpose.-'* When we approach the study of 
 embryology, it may on the one hand show us in higher 
 structures the repetition of the antecedent lower structures 
 in the early stages of the embryo; but on the other hand, 
 the embryo is, after all its development, an embryo of a 
 definite kind and comes to a definite completion. In view 
 of this difficulty arising from the study of co-ordination, 
 and of the contradictions involved in the assumption of 
 slow or sudden accidental changes, it is very inconsequent 
 and illogical to maintain an accidental natural selection. 
 There are two additional facts which also create a 
 probability on behalf of a selection which is more than 
 accidental. The one important fact is the occurrence in 
 nature of mimicry. Certain forms are imitations of other 
 
 14 Cf. Chapter III, p. 69 ff. 
 
114 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 forms for their self-protection. A typical instance is that 
 of the two types of moth called Anosia and Basilarchia. 
 The former is avoided by birds because it is unpalatable to 
 them, and the latter, which is palatable, escapes the birds 
 because its coloring mimics that of the Anosia. Similar 
 instances of color protection frequently occur in the ani- 
 mal world. They certainly argue in favor of protective 
 plan, and are not explicable as mere accidents. The other 
 notable fact is the occurrence of instinct. It is of course 
 a fact, that no animal has any nation of self-preservation 
 or of its service to its species in its instinctive acts. They 
 are done automatically. The nervous system seems pre- 
 organized to certain reactions. Nevertheless it is still 
 true that instinct reaches certain ends and purposes, even 
 though they are not consciously known by the animal. 
 Their occurrence cannot be explained as accidental. 
 
 The insufficiency of accident as a part in variation has 
 led to the theory that variation followed along definite 
 lines. It was the work of the German biologist Eimer to 
 show that transformation is brought about by influences 
 continuously exerted in the same direction. Over against 
 the Darwinian view of fortuitous variation, he apparently 
 demonstrated the theory of orthogenesis, or variation along 
 definite lines. It may not be possible to discover at all 
 times the definiteness in the process, and there may be more 
 accident apparent than orthogenesis allows. It cannot, 
 however, be disputed that the result of the process is 
 definite species and definite forms. Not only is every or- 
 ganism a correlated whole of inter-working parts for a 
 certain end, but organism fits to organism as we examine 
 the result of the process. Consequently in the examina- 
 tion of the whole organic world purpose cannot be denied. 
 Therefore, natural selection, insufficient to explain facts 
 when it is accidental, has led some Grermans to suppose 
 a vital force, which expressed itself in certain controlling 
 
The Biological Supposition 116 
 
 and dominant ways. The dominant was supposed to be an 
 ideal shaping power in the organism. It has not been 
 considered possible to prove this theory of dominants 
 or living entelechies. Nevertheless, its value has been to 
 show the purposive nature of organisms. The whole trend 
 in the problem of natural selection has been toward pur- 
 pose, and consequently natural selection has increasingly 
 gained a teleological meaning. With the teleological im- 
 port assured there can be no quarrel between the hypoth- 
 esis of natural selection and the Christian ideal of a plan 
 in nature. 
 
 In passing from the meaning of natural selection to an- 
 other great term, viz., environment, it is necessary in pass- 
 ing to notice two minor terms employed in the biological 
 theory of evolution. The first is survival of the fittest. 
 Forms may survive after natural selection has done Its 
 work, or perhaps after environment has produced the 
 forms. But in whatever way survival of the fittest may be 
 used, we cannot eliminate the teleological character of 
 " fittest." The second term is adaptation. This term is 
 far more congruent to the conception of environment, but 
 Its coloring is as purposive as survival of the fittest. 
 Both terms, however, are secondary In Importance to the 
 conception of environment. The theory of environment, 
 like the theory of natural selection, Is also a mechanical 
 theory. It attempts to derive forms from external in- 
 fluences. Not the inner changes of an organism, but the 
 Influences of outer circumstances are to determine It. If 
 we take the case of the human eye, referred to above, the 
 theory of environment maintains that the eye is developed 
 by the direct action of the light Itself. It Is supposed 
 that the light made the first pigment spot and then brought 
 about gradually the complex eye. This theory of environ- 
 ment, however, is not adequate without some added prin- 
 ciple. It was Lamarck wh6 believed that living beings dis- 
 
116 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 played a certain selective activity, and made an effort 
 to adapt themselves to their environment. They thus 
 modified their structure, and through the use or disuse of 
 organs, transmitted their character to their descendants. 
 But it has been disputed whether acquired character can be 
 handed down. The transmission seems more or less excep- 
 tional. While the theory of environment is important 
 and played a part in Darwin's original speculations, his 
 followers, the neo-Darwinians, have almost exclusively em- 
 phasized natural selection. Their opponents, the follow- 
 ers of Lamarck, or neo-Lamarckians, have disputed the 
 reign of the almightiness of natural selection. In opposi- 
 tion they have emphasized functional use and environment. 
 Now environment may be interpreted in its manifoldness 
 and indeterminateness as working accidentally. The re- 
 sults, however, have not been brought about in life-forms 
 by the shifting and indeterminate character of the environ- 
 ment, but rather by certain definite influences which pro- 
 duced results of a definite kind. The fact that Lamarck 
 had to add to environment selective adaptation and the 
 functional use of organs does not disprove this contention. 
 Lamarck, moreover, can be only understood rightly on the 
 supposition that his theory must inevitably lead to pur- 
 pose. 
 
 Whenever the idea of purpose has become larger, there 
 has also been more room for the conception of order 
 which allows for freedom. The accidental point of view at 
 all times is more fatalistic. This is the fact because the 
 purposive view implies mind. There has been too much 
 limitation in evolution to the lower terms and not sufficient 
 allowance for the higher terms. Had these been consid- 
 ered as a part in evolution, it would have been juster in 
 its earlier attempts to solve purpose. There could have 
 been no absolutism of natural selection or environment. 
 It must be remembered as Howison says, that " The 
 
The Biological Supposition 117 
 
 whole question, so far as anything more than conjectural 
 evidence is concerned, is man's question: he is the witness 
 to himself for evolution; in his consciousness, directly, 
 and only there, does the demand arise for an explanation 
 of it; in himself he comes upon a nature of mind as di- 
 rectly causal of the form in Nature — of the ideally ge- 
 netic connexion holding from part to part in it — and of 
 the reality of progress there as measured by his ideal 
 of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good." " 
 
 It is the maintenance of these higher elements, of mind 
 and its ideals, which must be included if environment is not 
 to be over-emphasized. The abuse of environment has 
 been due, however, not altogether to the students of nature. 
 The popularizers of natural facts and theories have done 
 much to over-state the place of environment. The influ- 
 ences of biological theory, particularly in reference to en- 
 vironment, have controlled some sociologists. In describ- 
 ing society they were not determined by its psychological 
 aspect, and they did not study it in correlation to the ideals 
 of mind, but rather in relation to the pressure of nature. 
 Environment was then made a very large cause in shaping 
 life. The physical surroundings and the economic condi- 
 tions were described as the real sources of progress or de- 
 cay, of virtue or vice. In such a description the spiritual 
 and ideal environment was frequently neglected. The 
 whole account tended to portray man in society as the 
 creature of conditions. In opposition to such naturalis- 
 tic determinism, Christianity, without denying the reality 
 of existing conditions, proclaims the message of faith. 
 This message appeals to the power of personality to over- 
 come conditions, to bear burdens, to conquer temptations 
 and to change the world. Freedom of life through a divine 
 impetus, and the power of divine environment to stimulate 
 and make free personalities, is fundamental to Christian- 
 is " The Limits of Evolution," p. 43. 
 
118 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 ity, and it cannot admit the usual material conception 
 of environment. Environment is a problem for man to 
 solve, and not a slavery to accept. It must be man's pur- 
 pose, according to Christianity, to understand and change 
 the environment that might unmake him, and guided by 
 the higher purposes of life, to conquer nature, and to 
 abstract from her laws the chance of his spiritual growth. 
 Another of the great terms of evolution is the term 
 heredity. Heredity is emphasized by some men over 
 against mere environment. It has. found its advocates 
 among the neo-Darwinians. In the explanation of what 
 the elements are which are handed on from generation 
 to generation, Weismann studied the constitution of the 
 living cells. He finds that we must maintain a distinction 
 among cells. There is, according to him, a germinal cell 
 through which the character of forms is determined. This 
 he regards independent of the somatic cell by which no 
 characters can be handed on. There have been as strong 
 advocates of the absolute power of heredity as of en- 
 vironment. Heredity has been frequently pressed to the 
 extreme, and conceived of as a mighty non-personal force 
 dominating individual lives and casting them into the molds 
 of necessity. It is true, that the investigations of the 
 Austrian priest Mendel in plant-life have demonstrated the 
 existence and influence of strains of heredity in nature. 
 The extension of Mendel's law has shown itself practicable 
 in the pathology of cases of insanity. Certain definite 
 deviations have been traced back to ancestry. But there 
 has not at all times been an allowance for the separate fact 
 of the psychology of insanity. It has. largely been made 
 material and physical. Never, however, has heredity been 
 able to deny the element of purpose. Its very analysis 
 makes it purposive. The more heredity attempts to re- 
 move novelty and original individuality, the more it has 
 in mind a definitely calculable result, even though this re- 
 
The Biological Supposition 119 
 
 suit and its cause is made purely material. The difficulty 
 with heredity is its underlying assumption of necessity. 
 It may be conceived in an accidental way, but the calcula- 
 tions of Mendel make it purposive. 
 
 The material idea of heredity has found a strong philo- 
 sophical expression in Nietzsche. It is his dream of the 
 future that the physically unfit shall be removed and the 
 proper conditions for creating the super-man shall be 
 established. By proper heredity physical strength is to 
 be handed down and to show itself in the will toward power. 
 The great problem of mankind is, therefore, the problem 
 of physical betterment. Nietzsche finds no place in his 
 speculations for Christianity. This he believes to be the 
 result of a period of decadent weakness. Its ideal of 
 helping the weak and sustaining the suppressed is to him 
 the hinderance of real progress. Real progress depends 
 upon breeding the real type of man. Christianity must 
 be hated and warred against. Says Neitzsche : " Chris- 
 tianity has taken the part of everything that is weak, low, 
 unsuccessful, it has made an ideal out of the contradiction 
 againS't the instincts of the preservation of the strong life ; 
 it has spoiled the reason of the spiritually strongest na- 
 tures, inasmuch as it taught them to feel the highest worth 
 of spirituaJness ^* as sinful, as leading astray, as tempta- 
 tion." ^'' In other words, Nietzsche declares war on Chris- 
 tianity from the point of view of physical heredity. His 
 controlling ideal is the physically perfect man. This same 
 ideal is the motive of the rising science of eugenics. It 
 may not, like Neitzsche, reject all goodness which is not 
 physical soundness ; it may allow for the moral and re- 
 ligious beyond it. Nevertheless, the manner in which it 
 stresses physical heredity aids materialism and determin- 
 
 16 Nietzsche opposes humility, but his idea of splritualness is 
 physical prowess, and thus mental strength. 
 IT « Der Antichrist," Erstes Buch, Par. 6. 
 
120 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 ism. It has certain facts in its favor, but it uses them 
 without proper limitation. Its dream of a new humanity 
 is through better physical parentage. Spiritual factors 
 do not count in its program. 
 
 With all such purely physical definitions of heredity, 
 Christianity is in conflict. It does believe in spiritual 
 heredity, for it has not rejected the solidarity of the race 
 and the unity of man. Through Christ it conceives a new 
 humanity to be possible. But the heredity of the spirit is 
 conditioned by faith. In faith the spirit conquers the flesh. 
 While Christianity allows for original sin, it does not be- 
 lieve in the ahnightiness of ancestry. The problem of sin 
 for it is spiritual. There can be no lasting sympathy be- 
 tween the attempt of Professor Burton ^® in his eff'ort to ex- 
 plain sin on the basis of natural evolution, and the truth 
 of Christianity. Any such effort must make sin to be of 
 animal nature and give it a physical character. To do 
 this means either that to be perfect man must finally elim- 
 inate his physical nature, or, if this be impossible, he must 
 of necessity remain sinful. The first alternative destroys 
 the valuation which Christianity puts on the body and the 
 right of the physical life; the second is a theory of de- 
 spair, for, according to it, sin cannot be removed. The 
 only escape is to depreciate sin and its guilt. To depreci- 
 ate sin is to depreciate the redemption. Consequently the 
 effect of interpreting original sin from the angle of animal 
 nature is to deny its seriousness. Only where the spiritual 
 nature of sin is maintained, is there room for the purpose 
 of Christianity with its message of the redemption of the 
 soul through Christ. 
 
 But the misinterpretation of heredity must not deter- 
 mine our whole attitude toward evolution. If evolution 
 as a biological theory remains within its limits and knows 
 its sphere, it will not contradict the claims of Christianity. 
 
 18 '» The Problem of Evil." 
 
The Biological Supposition 121 
 
 If we avoid a materialistic philosophy in biology, and if we 
 do not make nature all-controlling, we can accept evolution 
 as not in disagreement with Christianity. A conflict can 
 be avoided, if biological science remains sober in its own 
 sphere, and does not antagonize Christianity within its 
 sphere. The only difficulty occurs when evolution de- 
 mands a control over all existence. If it begins with an 
 originally assumed matter and energy, and passes up- 
 ward mechanically, claiming the mechanical ultimates as 
 sufficient, it wiU, of course, contradict a spiritual religion. 
 If the problem of all life is a question of chemistry, conflict 
 must also ensue. In the same manner, if biology has an- 
 nexed these lower origins and uses them to explain the 
 highest elements, there must certainly be constant opposi- 
 tion between it and the Christian religion. It is neces- 
 sary that there should be a proper limitation of evolution. 
 The whole question as to the incompatibility of Christian- 
 ity and evolution depends, as Howison well says, " on the 
 stretch that evolution has over existence, especially over 
 human nature." ^^ But, on the other hand, Christianity 
 must be careful not to demand ajs biblical facts old hypo- 
 theses of species. It must differentiate between biblical 
 statement in popular, religious language and the interpre- 
 tation which tradition has put upon the biblical statement. 
 In this tradition there are elements of past science, which 
 have unconsciously colored the biblical account. Chris- 
 tianity must also treat its; documents historically and not 
 be disturbed if the temporal vessels of its religious truths 
 are not shaped scientifically. Were they thus shaped they 
 would fail in their very purpose. It is general, popular, 
 descriptive, child-like language which is universal and last- 
 ing. But Christianity must make certain great reserva- 
 tions over against any theory of evolution. It must de- 
 mand that the doctrines of a personal God, of the final 
 
 18 " Limits of Evolution," p. 51. 
 
122 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 spiritual character of life and its origin, and of the divine 
 nature of man's spirit, be not violated. 
 
 Although Christianity can allow an evolution as the con- 
 tinuation of creation, it cannot, because of the concep- 
 tion of a personal God, deny a real creation. There can 
 be no toleration on the part of Christianity of any evo- 
 lution which is its own beginning and continuation, and of 
 any creation which has its origin in a process but not 
 in God. The explanation of creation as purely within 
 evolution, and of evolution as all of creation, is the elimina- 
 tion of the transcendent God as spirit and person. While 
 the development still going on is the unfoldment and con- 
 tinuation of creation, it cannot be identified with the orig- 
 inal creation, unless creation be conceived to be nature 
 making itself. But Christianity can believe in no world 
 without the God that makes it. A world that is self-mak- 
 ing is also man-making and God-making. The spiritual 
 results of the world are then only an after-effect of the 
 material results. Even a cosmic consciousness is not 
 sufficient. " An immanent Cosmic Consciousness is not a 
 personal God. For the very quality of personality is, 
 that a person is a being who recognises others as having 
 a reality as unquestionable as his own, and who thus sees 
 himself as a member of a moral republic, standing to other 
 persons in an immutable relationship of reciprocal duties 
 and rights, himself endowed with dignity, and acknowledg- 
 ing the dignity of all the rest. The doctrine of a Cosmic 
 Consciousness, on the contrary, reduces all created minds 
 either to mere phenomena, or at best, to mere modes of 
 the Sole Divine Life." ^ This sole divine life can not 
 itself be personal, and allows no personality to others. 
 
 As little as Christianity can surrender a personal God 
 for the sake of both religion and morals, so little can it 
 surrender the claim that life is also spiritual, and that its 
 
 20 Howison, Ibid., p. 7. 
 
The Biological Supposition 123 
 
 oi'igin is spiritual. When life is defined as purely a mat- 
 ter of chemistry, or of the resolution of the cell to lower 
 elements, Christianity must demur. The material concep- 
 tion of life has endeavored to annex the problem of the 
 origin of all life. While up to this time every effort has 
 finally failed, nevertheless science is hopeful of solving the 
 question of the beginning of life in a chemical and continu- 
 ously material manner. Should science succeed in produc- 
 ing life in the laboratory, should the present efforts of 
 keeping tissue of apparently dead bodies alive lead to 
 further results, these would of necessity need to be con- 
 sidered in their limitation. It would be necessary to prove 
 not only the continuance of life from organic structure, 
 but living tissue would also have to be created, and or- 
 ganic structures found through organization of such tis- 
 sue. Even should this proof be given, it would not demon- 
 strate absolutely that life is self-generating. The germs 
 of life would only be discovered further down in the scale 
 of beings. The solving of the problem of physical life 
 would demand a rearrangement of our conceptions. What 
 we call non-organic matter would be found to be living, the 
 conception of life would be extended, and its origin would 
 be found to be possible below cellular form. At present, 
 however, there is no such necessity. The reduction of life 
 to its first occurrence cannot define all life. If the higher 
 ranges of moral and religious life are the mere consequents 
 of the physical life they lose their worth. However much 
 Christianity can permit science to search for the traces of 
 physical life, it cannot agree with any materialization of 
 all life. Were all life material, and were its last origins 
 not in God, its ends could also not be in God. The denial 
 that God is the author of life removes the underpinning 
 of faith. It injures the place of Christ. Christ cannot 
 have life in Himself, He cannot be life and resurrection. 
 He cannot be the Word through whom all things are 
 
IM Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 made and sustained, He cannot save from death, if all life 
 is primarily non-spiritual and material. Christianity must 
 maintain the spiritual origin and the final spiritual aim 
 of life, because its God is life, and its Saviour is life. 
 
 The third great reservation which Christianity must 
 make is the divine origin and nature of man's spirit. It 
 cannot allow that man is merely a creature of the earth. 
 He is dust and to dust he shall return. To the earth he 
 is linked, but also to heaven. If his highest life as well 
 as his physical basis is merely animal, he cannot be truly 
 God's child. His ancestry lies in nature alone, unless God 
 has given him of His own life. The denial of this truth 
 makes man's psychic life a material result. It does not 
 allow for the separateness of his mind. But even if man's 
 separateness of mind be conceded, and this mind is the 
 result of cosmic mind, there cannot be a genuine individual 
 soul with moral responsibility and religious freedom. No 
 matter how limited may be the attainments of a psychology 
 that observes merely phenomena, the Christian religion 
 must still demand a real personality, a living soul, and a 
 spirit coming from God and destined to return to Him. 
 It cannot permit the mere scientific analysis of observable 
 elements of mind to stand in the way of the belief that 
 man is in God's image, and has in him God's life. 
 
 A tendency has appeared in philosophy which idealizes 
 life. Its representatives are Bergson and Eucken. The 
 ideals of Bergson find their center in the conception of a 
 living impulse which causes life to course through the uni- 
 verse. Life is the one great essential moving reality. 
 Matter has been thrown aside by life and is its remnant. 
 All action partakes of life. May there not be life in 
 chemical reaction.'' May not the geologic deposits speak 
 of life ? The soul of all energy is life ; the one all-absorb- 
 ing reality is the stream of life. Alongside of Bergson 
 stands Eucken with his idealization of life and his faith 
 
The Biological Supposition 125 
 
 in life. He sees life as a spiritual stream. Above all 
 economic life, above all cultural, moral, and religious life, 
 there is the one real divine actuality which can make hu- 
 manity. Into this divine, eternal, peaceful and joyful life, 
 humanity must be lifted up. Through it alone arises all 
 productivity.*^ 
 
 If this new philosophic tendency is rightly limited, and 
 if the ideal of life is spiritually conceived, Christianity can 
 employ them. If life is not merely an intuitive abstrac- 
 tion, or a pantheistic continuity, but if behind and above 
 the conception of life maintained by this new vitalistic 
 philosophy the real ground of life is sought, then we 
 can approach the religious affirmation. Perhaps Chris- 
 tianity can employ the new terminology and ideal of life 
 for an expression of the message of John. Up to the 
 present time the ideals of St. Paul have largely dominated 
 historical Christianity. Its future may demand a fuller 
 statement of the idea of life, which can be found in the 
 conception of the Word in St. John. His wonderful 
 gospel, that deals with great and fundamental thoughts, 
 readily lends itself to an interpretation of Christianity 
 around the central fact of life. A new synthesis is pos- 
 sible and within reach of the Christian faith, if it can 
 employ the new philosophy of life, purged of its difficulties, 
 as an earthen vessel into which it pours its eternal message 
 of life and salvation. Should this synthesis be made, then 
 the best biological thought will be absorbed into Christ; 
 nature will receive the sanctification of the Spirit ; and the 
 human spirit will rejoice to find in all life the earnest and 
 promise of its own reality in the Christ who is and has 
 life eternal. 
 
 21 For further discussion of this vitalism, see Part II, Chapter VI. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGICAI, SOLrTION 
 
 THE rise of the new psychology has given large 
 results to modem thinking. When the old psy- 
 chology, which divided up the mind into faculties 
 and rested purely on introspection, was displaced by the 
 new method of observing the functions of the mind through 
 the correlation of physiological and psychological data 
 biology had conquered psychology. It sought to bring 
 about the removal of psychology from its former alliance 
 with philosophy. The first impetus in investigation was 
 given through the effort of Weber to state the law of the 
 relation of the external stimulus to sensation in a mathe- 
 matical proportion. It was the philosopher Fechner who 
 further quantified Weber's law, and thought that he could 
 find in it a solution of the relation of body and mind. It 
 is true that in the English philosopher, Hume, we already 
 observe the indications of the functional psychology, 
 which so largely , stresses sensations and impressions. 
 There is quite a parallel between him and some of the 
 latest psychological work in its mere phenomenalism. 
 Says Prof. James Orr: "When even so good a psychol- 
 ogist as Prof. William James is found commencing 
 with a ' sensation ' which, even as we look at it, becomes 
 transformed into an ' object,' and ere long is part of a 
 ' world ' of such objects, which by and by are themselves 
 posited as the ' causes ' of the sensations we began with, 
 — when such a writer can satisfy himself with ' cognitive 
 sensations ' and the treatment of self as ' a stream of 
 mental states,' and conclude that ' the states of conscious- 
 
 126 
 
The Psychological Solution 127 
 
 ness are all that psychology needs to do her work with,' 
 and that * metaphysics or theology may prove the soul 
 to exist, but for psychology the hypothesis of such a sub- 
 stantial principle of unity is superfluous * — it may be felt 
 how far Hume is from being obsolete, and how imperative 
 is the need of recurrence to his drastic, but at least con- 
 sistent, logic." ^ It was not, however, the psychology of 
 Hume and the just inferences of a philosophic nature 
 which he drew that made the new psychology; but the 
 German thinkers, stimulated by the researches of Wundt, 
 brought about a change. The greatest influence, however, 
 has been exerted, not by the German formulations, but 
 by the more materialistic efforts of Bain ; and finally it was 
 the subtler work of William James which largely fixed the 
 view-point of modem psychology, and introduced the 
 psychological ideal. 
 
 The careful examination of the senses, the classification 
 of associations, the observation of reaction time, the testing 
 of memory and imagination, the analysis of consciousness 
 as a stream, the study of nervous structure and of the 
 brain — all these and many similar investigations not 
 merely produced a new psychology, but also aroused the 
 mind to push forward the province of psychology, and 
 thus led to the largeness of its application. There arose 
 a pedagogy on a psychological basis, which differed from 
 the psychology which Herbart had combined with his 
 philosophy. The new psychology was not philosophical; 
 it was physiological. The physiological psychology stud- 
 ied the child and its mind. It noted the growth of child- 
 mind from the point of view of the functioning of nerv- 
 ous system and brain, and finally from the standpoint 
 of the whole physical nature of the child. By compari- 
 son psychology reached down into the animal mind, and 
 sought to analyze it. In the beginnings of such study, 
 
 1 " David Hume," p. 13. Cf . also pp. 148, 159. 
 
128 Trends of Thoitght and Christian Truth 
 
 and in the type of work which Romanes did, the ani- 
 mal mind became very human; but the later researches 
 have fixed a larger gulf between man and animal in their 
 mental possibilities. The new psychology studied abnor- 
 mal conditions, and annexed psychiatry. It sought new 
 methods for detecting criminals. But its application was 
 not restricted to these spheres ; it was applied to the 
 testing of men in their fitness for a vocation, to the ex- 
 amination of scientific management, to the increase of eco- 
 nomic efficiency, and to the development of good sales- 
 men.^ The social life was also annexed; the relations of 
 men to each other in common consciousness and mob-mind, 
 the value of social instincts, and the extent of social will, 
 were examined.* In a most extended manner Wilhelm 
 Wundt planned his " Voelkerpsychologie," and included 
 in it the study of language, of art, and also of myth and 
 religion. But the bearing of psychology upon religion, 
 particularly in America, was not so much influenced by 
 Wundt as by investigations in America itself. About 
 ten years ago there arose a specific psychology of reli- 
 gion. The treatise which did more than any other work 
 to found this new department of psychology was " The 
 Varieties of Religious Experience," by William James. A 
 smaller essay by James on " The Will to Believe " made 
 an equally strong impression. The name of the new de- 
 partment of psychology of religion was coined by Profes- 
 sor Coe. An authority of equal importance with Pro- 
 fessor Coe is Professor Starbuck. But these two leaders 
 have quite a following; and the number of treatises and 
 articles on psychology or religion are very many. They 
 include not only such English books as those by Leuba* 
 and Ames,' but also a discussion of the whole method by 
 
 2 Cf. Hugo Muensterberg, " Psychology and Industrial EflSciency." 
 
 8 Cf. William McDougall, " Social Psychology." 
 
 * " A Psychological Study of Religion." 
 
 5 " The Psychology of Religious Experience." 
 
The Psychological Solution 129 
 
 the German Professor Wobbermin,^ and the publication in 
 Clark University of " The American Journal of Religious 
 Psychology and Education." Thus the new psychological 
 point of view has fully entered into the sphere of religion. 
 The former history of religion, and the previous philosophy 
 of religion, though not neglected, have been less stressed 
 than the psychology of religion. The psychological point 
 of view has claimed to be the first and foundational need. 
 
 In many ways the psychology of religion has been of 
 service to rehgious faith. It has established the fact that 
 religion was a real experience of the individual and of the 
 race: By its analysis it has aided the history of religion. 
 By tracing religious ideas and attitudes, ceremonies and 
 cults, back to the mind of man it proved that religious 
 experiences were humanly real. There has been no effort 
 to interpret the psychological existence of religious data 
 as illusions. Modern psychology of religion has not fa- 
 vored in its direct statements the older charge of the self- 
 deception of man in his religious experiences. What the 
 study of mind has discovered as illusions does not include 
 the usual, normal facts of religion. Therefore, prayer, 
 conversion, sacrifice, worship, and faith have been ex- 
 amined for their real mental elements. In the earlier 
 treatises of James the feeling and wiU were made central. 
 Starbuck also emphasizes feeling, and this is equally the 
 attitude of Stanley Hall as far as he touches religious 
 experience in the study of adolescence. The general 
 emphasis in much of American religion on conversion, and 
 the importance ascribed to evangelism, favor the examina- 
 tion of religious experience from the emotional standpoint. 
 There was a disregard of other elements in the religious 
 life. But in the latest work of Leuba and Ames, there 
 is an emphasis upon religion as including the entire psychi- 
 cal life. Ames states : " The clear apprehension of the 
 
 8 " Die Religionspsychologische Methode." 
 
130 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 concrete relation of religion to the total life process fur- 
 nishes a corrective for the erroneous view that within the 
 individual religion is due to some unique faculty or in- 
 stinct." '' It is true that this attitude is directed rather 
 against an older claim, but it equally furnishes a departure 
 from the narrower attitude of previous discussions. It 
 is necessary, as students now realize, to study the whole 
 psychical nature of man in its relation to religion.^ The 
 psychology of religion must claim the total individual and 
 society. If a specific center is to be found a truer ap- 
 proach may be possible from the point of view of religious 
 belief, which is so central a phenomenon in faith. This 
 attitude has been taken by Professor Pratt * and Pro- 
 fessor Lindsay.^" But even these investigations into be- 
 lief ought not to be taken from a smaller angle than that 
 of the total mental equipment of man. Mere will and 
 mere feeling as well as ideas in themselves are inadequate 
 for the description and explanation of the reality of re- 
 ligion in the soul and in society. Religion is connected 
 with the very essence of individual need, want and aspira- 
 tion, and with the leading forces in the life of society. 
 
 The psychological point of view has been of service in 
 emphasizing that there is not only a circle of the directly 
 conscious life, but that it fades out into the subconscious. 
 One of the most remarkable facts in the later stages of 
 modem psychology is the general acceptance of the sub- 
 conscious. On the one side, subconscious facts are those 
 which show the fading away of consciousness into the 
 reflexive and automatic elements of human life. The con- 
 scious fringes out into the subconscious, in which there are 
 the psychical traces of memory, the processes involved in 
 the action of instincts, the residues of great feelings and 
 
 7 " The Psychology of Religious Experience," p. 289. 
 
 8 Cf. Galloway, " The Philosophy of Religion," p. 54 ff. 
 » " Psychology of Religious Belief." 
 
 10 « The Psychology of Belief." 
 
The Psychological Solution 131 
 
 emotions, and the total of human personality and experi- 
 ence not immediately in use. On the other side, it has been 
 supposed that subconsciousness has not only a lower mar- 
 gin, and an outer human margin, but an upper margin, 
 through which remarkable psychic experiences can enter 
 consciousness. Many undeniable experiences gathered by 
 The Society of Psychic Research, even after a just criti- 
 cism has eliminated much material, create a high proba- 
 bility in favor of direct transference of thought, of telep- 
 athy, and of second sight. These phenomena, in which di- 
 rect appearances of others are included in the form of 
 visions and phantasms, do not seem capable of a merely sub- 
 jective explanation. It is this peculiarity which has moved 
 some psychologists to believe that transmundane forces 
 operate upon the mind within our general world.'* 
 Through subconsciousness it has been supposed that we 
 could not only better understand the continuity of a man's 
 religious life through the influence of memories, past emo- 
 tions, and his total character, but also to find a founda- 
 tion for the great mystic experiences in religion, for the 
 fact of divine inspiration and for the instreaming of God 
 into human life. 
 
 There is, however, a very great danger in founding the 
 religious life on the subconscious experience. To set the 
 subconscious over against the conscious elements creates 
 a division in the human mind. The total result of this 
 division is liable to reduce religion to blind forces rising 
 up in man's mind.*^ It may lead to a mere philosophy of 
 the unconscious. When it escapes making religion a result 
 of personal projection it may fall into the en'or of con- 
 sidering it the effect of mere natural force or energy. If 
 the instincts and memories are too largely stressed we 
 
 11 Cf. James, " Varieties of Religious Experience," p. 524. 
 
 12 Cf. Hoclcing, " The Meaning of God in Human Experience," p. 
 527 ff ; Watson, " The Philosophical Basis of Religion," p. ISO S. 
 
132 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 cannot understand how they develop into religious motives. 
 The mind must first have direct religious truth before it 
 can interpret the blind strivings of the subconscious in 
 the direction of faith. ^^ There has as yet been no ade- 
 quate proof of any spiritual communication except be- 
 tween living men. The few extraordinary cases reported 
 have not demonstrated any objective, personal or non- 
 personal reality back of the subconscious experiences. In 
 fact the phenomena of spirit communication have gener- 
 ally been unveiled as deceptions. No true mediumistic in- 
 formation has been guaranteed.^* Consequently any as- 
 sumption of the possibility of direct communication be- 
 tween living men and disembodied spirits is unfounded. 
 In the same way, there is no psychological demonstration 
 through the subconscious that the divine eternal Spirit 
 has reached man's spirit. No matter how strongly we 
 believe out of our own religious experiences in the com- 
 munication of God with man, we cannot prove it with any 
 satisfaction through the study of the subconscious. The 
 real source of religion cannot justly be discovered in sub- 
 consciousness ; but direct conscious convictions, conscious 
 feelings, conscious impulses and forces, and external his- 
 torical occurrences, the influence of our surroundings and 
 education make the religious life of most men. Not even 
 the great founders of religion and its great prophets can 
 be explained apart from history. Their new revelations, 
 even though they be in the form of dreams and visions, are 
 not of such a nature as to justify subconsciousness as the 
 real source or medium. It is, therefore, not fair to con- 
 fuse directness of religious conviction and knowledge, and 
 the intuitive acknowledgment by conscience of religious 
 truths, with the phenomena of subconsciousness. The fact 
 that logical argument and reflective speculation cannot 
 
 13 Cf. Galloway, " The Philosophy of Religion," p. 61. 
 
 1* Cf. Report of Seybert Commission, University of Pennsylvania. 
 
The Psychological Solution 133 
 
 find religious truths does not imply that the only alter- 
 native is to assign religious truths to the sphere of the sub- 
 conscious functioning of the human mind. Professor 
 Ames properly remarks : " In any case no scientific in- 
 quiries into this marginal field of our experience support 
 the claim that the subconscious self is in any way the pe- 
 culiar organ of religion. It is the massive encircling 
 milieu of custom, tradition, sympathies and tastes within 
 which any kind of clear consciousness exists." ^^ But while 
 we must finally admit that there are no proofs strongly in 
 favor of the subconscious as the only medium for religion, 
 nevertheless the failure to find scientific reasons for assum- 
 ing the incoming of the divine above the limit of our con- 
 sciousness does not do away with the fact that we do ex- 
 perience the divine. It is still possible that the future may 
 disclose what we have not yet been able to establish. 
 
 While the psychology of religion has brought some real 
 advantages to the study of religion, and while it has moved 
 men and will continue to influence them on behalf of a 
 careful and valuable scrutiny of the mind in its relation 
 to religious experiences, yet Christianity, using what is 
 good but also noting what is deficient, has certain great 
 reservations to make and certain objections to urge. The 
 first of these is directed against the new effort of the 
 psychology of religion to aid in settling the long debated 
 question of the origin of religion. The settlement is sup- 
 posed to be possible within the range of the mind and its 
 subjective limits. The psychology of religion has at- 
 tempted to justify some of the speculations of the anthro- 
 pologists. It has strengthened the claim that religion 
 began with a condition of spiritism or animism. Some 
 there are who agree with the old idea of Petronius that 
 fear made the gods, while others allow for reverence. It 
 is in magic with its appeal to the extraordinary and un- 
 
 15 " The Psychology of Religious Experience," p. 394. 
 
134 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 usual that Frazer finds the solution. Professor Ames at- 
 tempts to discover it in social needs mentally apprehended. 
 Now it is always assumed in all these investigations, that 
 the lowest impulses and desires in savage tribes are the 
 most primitive. Without a due investigation of his- 
 torical religions and their course, which is generally from 
 a primitive purity to degeneration, the development is 
 conceived of as an advance along a stright line. Such 
 a procedure is due to the influence of Darwinism, which 
 has subtly affected psychology. This appears in the man- 
 ner in which psychology seelos to explain too much through 
 instinctive endowments. The Darwinian interpretation 
 overstresses the problem of origin, and, therefore, when 
 psychology is affected by it, it does not seek primarily 
 the real analysis of what is central in religious experience 
 and what is common to all forms of faith. On the con- 
 trary it operates on the presupposition that the physically 
 and religiously lowest tribes show the clearest traces of 
 primitive faith. In the examination of the religion of the 
 lowest tribes and of the savages there is no just reckon- 
 ing with the fact of the existence of the great gods. In 
 many wild tribes there are thoughts of great gods, which 
 seem to be too early to be explained as later additions, and 
 which seem to be too little in the foreground to be reckoned 
 with as later developments. The idea of these gods is 
 not congruous with the conjectures of the low motives and 
 ideas of primitive belief.^® As far as psychology has en- 
 tered into these problems of origin it has not pursued them 
 purely on a psychological basis ; but it has aimed to help 
 anthropology by first accepting the anthropological hy- 
 potheses as to the best sources for primitive religion. 
 
 In addition to this error of method it can also be justly 
 objected, that the very attempt to determine the origin of 
 religion on a psychological basis is defective. It empha- 
 
 16 Cf. Andrew Lang, « The Making of Religion," Chapters X to XV. 
 
The Psychological Solution 1S6 
 
 sizes the merely subjective, but Christianity claims an ob- 
 jective revelation and communication of God to man. It 
 cannot allow that religion is merely a subjective creation 
 of the mind. The universal psychological fact of religion 
 must be traced back to historical origins. The psycho- 
 logical character of religion is a result which demands a 
 prior explanation, but it is no cause which truly creates an 
 effect. When religion is made real merely as a mental 
 fact a corresponding loss is sustained in the exclusiveness 
 of the emphasis of the psychological point of view. With 
 this emphasis the purely descriptive and phenomenal side 
 of religious life is put before us ; but there exists no guar- 
 antee that there is more to be looked after and sought after 
 than phenomenal reality. Psychology is after all largely 
 descriptive, and description is not real explanation. Con- 
 sequently, if religion cannot proceed beyond psychology it 
 must remain a description of mental phenomena, and must 
 dwell within the realm of appearance. The only escape 
 would be to accept the philosophic position that phenomena 
 are the only reality. In any event, there would be created 
 an element of doubt and scepticism. This cannot help 
 being the outcome when the total problem of faith is re- 
 stricted to psychology. If religion is no more than a 
 fact of the human mind, its real problems are not an- 
 swered. To restrict faith to the mind is to assume that 
 religious realities beyond the mind are either unnecessary 
 or unknowable. The former cannot be maintained with- 
 out the unfounded and unproved assumption, that mere 
 mental assurance without objective fact is adequate. The 
 latter lands uis in the agnosticism of Spencer. Conse- 
 quently, psychology by its very limitation, if this limitation 
 is made essential to the study of religion, must lead us into 
 uncertainty and doubt. 
 
 To make religion mentally real is a vital necessity, but 
 to make it solely real through mind is to lead us into ideal- 
 
136 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 ism. If we identify the religious problem with the psycho- 
 logical we may be logically brought to an idealistic point 
 of view. But this point of view may become very dam- 
 aging to faith. With all the glamor of idealism, with all 
 its beauty of appeal, it can never overcome the human 
 feeling, that it lives in an illusory world. The strongly 
 idealistic faiths, like Buddhism, must make the world Maya 
 or unreality. Everything is at last Maya but mind. 
 Should we draw the one conclusion from psychologism it 
 would end in the illusionism of mind and nothing but 
 mind.^'' But modern psychology has not drawn this con- 
 clusion, but in its connection with the physiological side of 
 mental functioning it has chosen the alternative against 
 idealism. It is true that no science can completely draw 
 all the consequences of its position. Psychology, how- 
 ever, hajs chosen the metaphysical alternative to idealism. 
 The physiological point of view has actually tended to 
 make psychology materialistic. It is, of course, true that 
 no psychologist to-day clearly states that the mental life 
 is an after-effect, or epiphenomenon of material move- 
 ments. There has been no effort at an open materialism 
 since Mr. Huxley said : " Let us suppose the process 
 of physical analysis pushed so far that one could view 
 the last link of the chain of molecules, watch their move- 
 ments as if they were billiard-balls, weigh them, measure 
 them, and know all that is physically knowable about 
 them ; ... we should be as far from being able to include 
 the resulting phenomena of consciousness, the feeling of 
 redness, within the bounds of the physical science as we are 
 now. It would remain as unlike the phenomena we know 
 under the names of matter and motion as it is now." ^^ 
 
 17 Cf. also Chapter V, p. 99 ff. 
 
 18 " Science and Morals," Fortnightly Review, December, 1886. 
 Quoted by Baldwin, " Handbook of Psychology, Senses and Intellect," 
 p. 2. 
 
The Psychological Solution 137 
 
 Nevertheless in the escape from such a theory that mind 
 is the result of matter, modern psychology has not freed 
 itself from a materialistic incubus. 
 
 If we look at and compare a number of modem psy- 
 chologists we shall see whither they lead. According to 
 their accepted theory they are parallelistic ; in other words 
 they accept parallel lines of mind and matter which never 
 meet. Practically the largest space is given to the phys- 
 ical explanation and the physiological hypotheses. There 
 is much detailed description of the nervous system. The 
 human brain is carefully studied and the fact that men- 
 tal actions are localized in the brain is made much of. 
 On the contrary, there is no report of facts adverse 
 to localization, and no estimate of the fact that the 
 brain is shaped by a man's mind, his character and ex- 
 perience.^' Human consciousness is reduced to the ter- 
 minology of human behaviour and action. There is a 
 detailed investigation from a physiological point of view 
 of the senses. These are studied far more carefully than 
 the higher elements of the mind. They are diagram- 
 atically examined, classified and mapped out. Much space 
 is also given to the instincts which are studied com- 
 paratively and in relation to the animal world. Hu- 
 man habits are explained through the tracts which are 
 formed in the nervous system and the permanent modifica- 
 tion of the brain structure, but there is no allowance for 
 mental dispositions. Association is viewed from the angle 
 of the brain connections. Feelings, according to the 
 prevalent theory of Lange and James, are primarily due 
 to physiological functioning. We first cry then feel sorry ; 
 we first laugh and then feel glad. All our emotions are 
 described as taking their rise from bodily conditions. The 
 will is built up out of reflex motions ; its choices are ascribed 
 to motives. Desires are not placed before us so much as 
 
 19 Cf. W. H. Thomson, " Brain and Personality." 
 
138 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 mental wants as they are portrayed as nervous tensions. 
 Concepts and ideas take up small space in the average 
 psychology. And irnally when it comes to the treatment 
 of the self, this is not the approach to the continuity and 
 determination of the mind, but it is rather a mere stream 
 of experiences, a connection between mental phenomena, 
 and a bundle of sensations, feelings, emotions, volitions, 
 ideations, which may split up into various centers. 
 
 Thus the total impression created by the average modem 
 psychology is not ideal, but on the contrary material. 
 Practically parallelism in the science of psychology has not 
 really kept matter and mind truly parallel. Parallelism, 
 if it were to be real, would have to stand for a correspond- 
 ence not only in general, but also point for point. It can- 
 not mean absolute disparateness. But an actual corre- 
 spondence has never been really proved. All parallelism 
 has after all led to a connection. The assertion of a real 
 causal independence of matter and mind has been an as- 
 sumption which has usually led either to the dropping of 
 one or the other term, or to the positing of some larger 
 unity as the foundation of both. In general, this larger 
 unity has not been the absolute substance of Spinoza which 
 had an ideal character. The final outcome has been to 
 revert to materialism and a material series. Huxley, who 
 was quoted above, in a clear statement of parallelism, must 
 after all admit : " The feeling we call volition is not the 
 cause of a voluntary act, but the symbol of that state of 
 the brain which is the immediate cause of that act." ^^ 
 Similar attitudes have been taken more or less clearly since 
 Huxley. We are still under the rule of a psychology whose 
 total effect does not make for the real independence of 
 mind.*^ 
 
 20 " OoUected Essays," Vol. I, p. 244. 
 
 21 Cf. Ward, " Naturalism and Agnosticism," Lectures XI and XII; 
 and for a very fuU and thorough treatment cf. Ludwig Busse, " Geist 
 und Koerper, Seele und Leib." 
 
The Psychological Solution 139 
 
 The reigning conceptions of what is central in the re- 
 ligious experience are dominated by the parallelistic 
 psychology. Among many students of the religious phe- 
 nomena in the mind feeling is made central. The classic 
 expression of religion as feeling is that by Schleiermacher, 
 who defined religion as the feeling of absolute dependence. 
 But with Schleiermacher feeling as a psychical condition 
 was regarded from the ideal point of view. But the 
 modem psychologist must always base his description of 
 feeling on nervous and physical conditions. He may with 
 Hume believe that the ideas of religion arose from fear, 
 and with Ribot he may hold,^^ that religion is " fear in 
 its different degrees, from profound terror to vague un- 
 easiness, due to faith in an unknown, mysterious, impalpa- 
 ble Power." He may say with Hermann Ebbinghaus, 
 " Fear and misery are the parents of religion ; and, al- 
 though it is propagated in the main through authority, 
 it would long ago have become extinct, if it were not born 
 anew out of them all the time." ^^ It is true that the 
 psychologist may add the tenderer emotions and include 
 awe as well as other feelings,^* but the question always re- 
 mains what will be the psychological nature of the feeling. 
 Even if we foUow Hoeffding and make feeling a condition 
 determined by the fate of values in the struggle for exist- 
 ence, or with Tiele conclude that the essence of religion is 
 adoration, the nature of the religious emotion is not de- 
 termined. It has, however, been determined by the more 
 direct studies of psychologists like James and Starbuck. 
 We cannot forget in James' discussion of the varieties of 
 religion, that all his ideal terms rest on his peculiar theory 
 of emotions which is not ideal. Starbuck clearly holds 
 that religion is a feeling adjustment to the deeper things 
 
 22 Ribot, " The Psychology of the Emotions," p. 309. 
 
 23 " Psychology," translated and edited by Max Meyer, p. 191. 
 2* Cf. Leuba, " A Psychological Study of Religion," p. 139. 
 
140 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 of life and has a specific nervous mechanism. In his 
 psychology of religion he lays large stress on conversion 
 with its nervous accompaniments, and on adolescence with 
 its sex coloring to explain religious growth. He fre- 
 quently refers to the large place of sexual feeling in re- 
 ligious differences. This same material side of the mind 
 as explanatory of faith, this same emphasis on food and 
 sex in the social development of religion, is also found in 
 Ames.^^ He after all reduces all ideas, even the highest, 
 to biological considerations ; for he says,^® " In the idea 
 of opening a certain door, analysis shows that the idea is 
 the awakening of definite sensations of muscular strain, 
 the partial reinstatement of actual movement, or of activ- 
 ities in vision, hearing, pressure, or the like. In more 
 complex ideas or concepts, such as justice, truth, evil, 
 eternity, similar content always, exists. There is therefore 
 no sharp break between mental and physical activity, be- 
 tween idea and deed. It is impossible to separate the idea- 
 tional process from the bodily factors. There is conse- 
 quently a pronounced tendency for descriptions of mental 
 process to eventuate in physiological or biological con- 
 siderations." The gist of this statement is to reduce 
 ethics and religion, and ethical and religious ideas to mus- 
 cular antecedents, and eventually, therefore, to biology. 
 Religion would then be a consequence from material ante- 
 cedents and causes, both in the individual and in the race. 
 The impression cannot be escaped that this is the end to 
 which we are brought by drawing the last conclusions of 
 the new psychology of parallelism. Christianity is then 
 the child finally of certain food and sex notions, and these 
 in turn are brought about by specific physiological struc- 
 ture. Biology is thus the key to Christianity, and we 
 are not free but again subject under a new guise to the old 
 
 25 " The Psychology of Religious Experience," p. 33. 
 
 26 Ibid., p. 19. 
 
The Psychological Solution 141 
 
 materialism. 
 
 It may appear that we escape this conclusion if we 
 follow the emphasis of James upon the will to believe. Is 
 it not true that convictions and belief grow out of a liv- 
 ing will.'' Have we not the guarantee of freedom of the 
 mind in this conception of the will.? But let us not be 
 deceived. Were we dealing with Kant, we would be in the 
 realm of freedom, when we deal with the will. For Kant 
 there is nothing finally good but the good will. In it man 
 fulfills the demands of the categorical imperative. The 
 will is strong and a revelation of real reality. Stoic as 
 Kant's conception of the will may be it is ideal and free. 
 But James needs the will, because he holds that our pas- 
 sional nature influences us in our opinions, and that there 
 are " some options between opinions in which this influence 
 must be regarded both as inevitable and as a lawful de- 
 terminant of our choice." ^^ In other words, elements of 
 feeHng lie back of the will. We cannot wait, thinks 
 James, in moral and religious questions till all the evidence 
 is in. Consequently, as moral and religious doubt is un- 
 satisfactory, the will must throw itself into the balance. 
 Where it exists it can help to create the fact. The de- 
 cision is of course eilways a chance but it is more satisfac- 
 tory, according to James, to take the risk on behalf of 
 religion. " We cannot escape the issue by remaining 
 sceptical and waiting for more light, because, although we 
 do avoid error in that way if religion be untrue, we lose 
 the good, if it be true, just as certainly as if we positively 
 chose to disbelieve." ^® Religion then is a gambling of 
 faith, brought about by desire and will, and based upon 
 satisfactions. It works and gives certain satisfying re- 
 sults; therefore it is accepted.^* A similar theory of 
 
 27 " The WiU to Believe," p. 19. 
 
 28 Ibid., p. 26. 
 
 29 Cf. The pragmatic basis of this view. Part II, Chapters IV and V. 
 
142 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 will is maintained in the apologetic treatise of Prof. 
 Eleanor H. Rowland,^" in which faith is argued for as the 
 safer risk to take. There is no deliverance in any such 
 theory of will, which after all rests on the biological 
 assumption of proper functioning, even though it has 
 lost its material terminology. 
 
 The psychological emphasis must finally disallow all 
 ethical concepts their own value. It reduces them to 
 genetic products of the mind, and the genetic concept over- 
 powers the valuation. But if there can be no independent 
 worth in moral ideas, there can also be no separate value 
 and no independent worth of religious ideas and ideals. 
 Struggle as we may, we can obtain no vital independence 
 and no freedom for faith. Christianity is hemmed in to 
 the charmed circle of movements, reactions, reflexes, in- 
 stincts, associations, and habits. These are first, and, 
 therefore, no strong and lasting meaning can be attached 
 to religious thought. It will be under the thraldom of 
 psychology and of psychological phenomenalism. 
 
 The new psychology also desires to absorb logic. It 
 regards ideas only as important in their concrete con- 
 nection. Their function, it claims, is to mediate; and they 
 cannot be considered formally. Their true worth is only 
 found as they are described in psychology. With the 
 elimination of logical normativeness, and through its ab- 
 sorption into the merely descriptive process, all standard- 
 ization of truth falls to the ground. Whatever is, is so. 
 This is the watchword of psychological realism. When 
 such an implied or expressed abolition of logic is applied 
 to religion, it must eventuate in denying that any standard 
 of truth can exist except a flowing, changing measure of 
 probability. Consequently no religion can make any real 
 claim to permanent and final truth, for there is no valid 
 logical standard. Laws of thought are only laws of mov- 
 30 " The Right to Believe." 
 
The Psychological Solution 143 
 
 ing mind. It is true that the logic of religion is not the 
 formal logic of science; it is the living logic of the soul. 
 Nevertheless it has its standards, and the doubt as to all 
 standards, affects it very much. Another result which will 
 come to religion through psychologism must be that there 
 can be no theology which is not the outcome of psychology. 
 Religious psychology claims to furnish the real data for all 
 theological science. There can then be no religious truth 
 and experience with its own validity. No biblical theology 
 can have any standard meaning, it only describes the mind 
 of the author or the religious aspiration of the time in 
 which the biblical books were written. Neither norm nor 
 authority remain. There are no fundamental biblical 
 doctrines. Consequently there is no foundation for any 
 dogma. Dogma is deceptive, for it is merely descriptive 
 of the mind of the Church at a certain age. Finally re- 
 ligious truth is neither altogether true nor altogether false. 
 Eventually along this line of thinking Christianity is 
 merely probable. The standards have fallen ; authority is 
 gone; all is process and practice. In these alone are to 
 be found the remnants of the faith to which the soul can 
 hold. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE SOCIAL TREND 
 
 IT is quite noticeable in some of the later treatises 
 on the psychology of religion, that we find a large 
 emphasis on the social factor. The introduction of 
 this element is indicative of a marked peculiarity of our 
 age. We are living in a social age. The latter half of 
 the nineteenth century has led to a constantly increasing 
 conception of human life as social. A number of factors 
 have contributed their quota to this result. In order to 
 understand the present social view it may be well to con- 
 trast it with the attitude of the eighteenth century. The 
 attitude of the eighteenth century, which in some of its 
 results reached into the first half of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, was that of individualism. It made possible such 
 a figure as Robinson Crusoe, who when stranded on a desert 
 island could construct all his life about him, and reach 
 a civilized basis without a history back of him and with- 
 out a social tradition. The characteristics of the fiction 
 of Robinson Crusoe appear in other forms of thought of 
 the eighteenth century. The voice of Rousseau called the 
 individual man to return to nature. His message was not 
 social but individual. Voltaire attacked the corrupt so- 
 ciety through the brilliant wit of his individual point of 
 view. The French Revolution, which we recognize as a 
 class movement, was thought to be the revolt of the in- 
 dividual against the decadent conditions of society. Its 
 doctrines had an individualistic trend and its doctrinaires 
 were individualistic in character. If we turn to the Ger- 
 man enlightenment we find the same characteristic. Lessing 
 
 144 
 
The Social Trend 145 
 
 appeals to individual reason and its rights. The great 
 German philosopher of the eighteenth century, Leibniz, 
 bases all his thinking on individual centers. Look where 
 we will the outstanding elements of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury are individualistic. Society, as Rousseau thought, 
 was the result of a contract which started with the rights 
 of the individual. 
 
 The nineteenth century, particularly beginning with its 
 second half, developed the sense of solidarity and the con- 
 ception of the conununity. The opposition to consider- 
 ing man as the center of the universe, which we find earlier 
 than the nineteenth century, and which Montaigne so bril- 
 liantly satirizes,^ received new impulse through the dis- 
 coveries of physical sciences. The geocentric idea and the 
 anthropomorphic idea were more and more set aside from 
 the point of view of the universe. When the universe be- 
 came the controlling notion the value of man in his indi- 
 vidual capacity, power and importance was lowered. With 
 the coming of Darwinism and with the increasing accept- 
 ance and growth of its hypothesis, a very strong additional 
 influence was added to advancing physical science. This 
 influence helped to push aside stUl more the conception of 
 man as a separate, spiritual entity. He was incorporated 
 into the total scheme of nature and was studied in con- 
 nection with all the species. His descent was not the de- 
 scent of the individual, but the descent of man as a part 
 of nature. Therefore, the type became dominant and the 
 individual was more or less forgotten. Spontaneity was 
 overlooked and generic forces and conditions were made 
 all-powerful. 
 
 While the study of nature was thus dethroning man 
 from his place of eminence, as a little lower than the angels 
 by asserting that he was only a little higher than the 
 animals, there arose a new study of history. The great 
 
 1" Essays," II, XII. 
 
146 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 historians, Niebuhr, Ranke, Curtius, Momsen, Freeman 
 and others, wrote history from a more or less conscious 
 philosophy of history. None of the great historians 
 viewed history as the story of the lives of great men. 
 They did not find its essence in hero-worship, and the con- 
 ception of Carlyle as to history was not seriously con- 
 sidered. History was made the resultant of great forces. 
 Ranke found in the development of mankind divine ideas ; 
 it was thus that he changed Hegel's great conception of 
 the philosophy of history as a movement of reason. Later 
 historians have, however, interpreted the impulses of his- 
 tory as psychological forces. But the latest conceptions 
 regard all history as explicable on economic grounds. 
 They attempt to show how in the very dawn of history 
 the problems of food and clothing, and the manner of the 
 occupation and vocation of men shaped their history. 
 Economic considerations, economic difficulties and pres- 
 sures are made the elements which explain great nations, 
 mighty empires, and devastating wars. While in Ger- 
 many under Professor Lamprecht's leadership the economic 
 ideal is interpreted in a cultural and, therefore, at least 
 semi-ideal manner, in America and England history is re- 
 garded as the development of man driven merely by ma- 
 terial economic desires and thoughts. These, together 
 with racial elements, constitute, it is held, the final forces 
 of human history. Out of them grow every aspiration and 
 every thought of man. Man is considered fundamentally 
 to be economic. 
 
 The regnancy of the economic conception in history 
 followed the growth of the great economic treatises. Al- 
 though England had its Adam Smith in the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, it had its Malthus and its Mill in the nineteenth 
 century. Germany had its great economist Roscher, who 
 was followed by many brilliant intellects. America con- 
 tributed its Carey. Everywhere the study of economics 
 
The Social Trend 147 
 
 took a hold upon men, and to-day it is perhaps one of the 
 most widely studied and eagerly desired subjects of study. 
 In addition there gradually grew out of economics the new 
 science of sociology. It is true that the French philoso- 
 pher, Comte, had suggested the study of human society, 
 and had coined the name of the science. Nevertheless the 
 real impetus to modern sociology was the study of man in 
 his economic group relation. It was the science of 
 economics, therefore, which led beyond itself to sociol- 
 ogy- 
 There are, however, other forces than the merely in- 
 tellectual consideration of economics which brought about 
 the rapid rise and universal interest in sociology. There 
 came about a number of conditions in society which ne- 
 cessitated a study of its problems. Among these may be 
 noted, the great industrial revolution, by which the home 
 ceased to be the center of industry and manufacture ; the 
 rise of the factory system through the invention of ma- 
 chinery and the large differentiation of manual labor ; the 
 growth of great cities, the changes of commerce, the found- 
 ing of ever new industries, the development of combina- 
 tions and trusts, the organization of labor unions. Such 
 and other elements began to change human society and 
 made it increasingly an industrial society. Agricultural 
 conditions rapidly gave way to industrial conditions and 
 surroundings. Consequently the isolation and separate- 
 ness of agricultural life became displaced by the combina- 
 tion and union of men, and their aggregation and massing 
 in great centers. Thus man became socialized in his life. 
 But the changes of the mode of life produced new and 
 unexpected evils. The congestion of city life, the char- 
 acter of association in industries, the detriment to the 
 home, the pressure which machinery with its rapidity ex- 
 erted against the older virtues of stability and steadiness, 
 the increase of the nervous strain which demanded more 
 
148 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 exciting relaxation and pleasure — such and similar in- 
 fluences produced great difficulties in society. It was the 
 growing consciousness of these difficulties and evils which 
 led to the great development of sociology and to the de- 
 mands for social reform. 
 
 While this socialization of man was going on there 
 arose in the middle of the nineteenth century the theory 
 of socialism. It was the brilliant intellect of Marx in 
 his great treatise, " Das Kapital," which traced all evils 
 to capitalism. The rescue was supposed to be found when 
 labor, which alone was supposed to produce value, would 
 be freed from the incubus of capitalism. This liberation 
 was held to be possible only through society. It was 
 supposed to be the duty of society to own and control the 
 great means of production. While it is true that French 
 speculators like Saint Simon and Fourier also advocated 
 socialistic theories, the real rise of modem socialism, after 
 all, begins with Marx. The socialistic parties have grown 
 in every country and have found able exponents. The 
 growth of socialism is explicable only through our indus- 
 trial age. Whether it be conceived of as a great move- 
 ment of society leading by slow stages of evolution to 
 larger economic adjustment and truer social justice, or 
 whether it be demanded as a revolutionary force in the un- 
 rest and ferment produced by the new conditions of so- 
 ciety, at all events it is both a result of a social age and 
 also an influence toward greater socialization. 
 
 Over against the socialism of a theoretical and practical 
 kind, and in contrast with the claims for social justice and 
 reform we find a very decided individualism advocated 
 by certain great thinkers. The strong and pessimistic 
 individualism of Ibsen, the consistent call of Nietzsche for 
 the great individual, the mighty super-man, the half- 
 cynical and half-realistic demands of Bernard Shaw, and 
 the unbridled egoism of Stimer,^- all of these have not 
 
The Social Trend 149 
 
 overcome the regnant social tendency. Despite the de- 
 mand for a great intellectual liberty £uid for the unlimited 
 right of individualistic hypothesis in science, art, morals, 
 and life, the trend of all this modem individualism is 
 toward naturalism. The one common feature of the pro- 
 testing individualism, is that it seeks mere will for power's 
 sake and desires to live out its own impulses. Conse- 
 quently it battles in vain against the social tendencies, 
 and is enslaved by its own naturalism. The modern wild 
 individualism with its vagaries has no love for society. 
 And because it lacks a true foundation for its individual- 
 ism, it cannot but succumb. Its desire is not the desire of 
 a Goethe, who sought freedom for his own development. 
 The self-emphasis and egotism of Goethe with all its weak- 
 nesses was cultural, but the latest egoism is that of animal 
 desire.^ Consequently it cannot deliver mail, but with all 
 its hopes of liberty leads him to naturalism with a bondage 
 greater than that of human society. Its protests against 
 society are not only against its evils, but also against its 
 morals. The freedom it seeks is the freedom of animal 
 passion. Therefore, it is no real counterbalance to the 
 social trend of the present, and ' it cannot overcome the 
 economic and social enslavement because it has no solid 
 leverage for its claims. 
 
 The social point of view has also entered religion. It 
 is made the basis for an explanation of great religious 
 movements. In part the psychologists of religion have 
 like Ames endeavored to find its origin in social conditions 
 and the common need; and the advance of religion is also 
 supposed to be the result of social forces. There are two 
 characteristic eiForts which are indicative of the present. 
 The first is the attempt of Professor Royce to solve Chris- 
 tianity from the ideal of the community, the second is the 
 endeavor of Professor Patten to put religion on an eco- 
 
 2 This is well illustrated in Wells' "The New Machiavelli." 
 
150 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 nomic basis. Professor Royce sets out to explain the 
 foundation of both morals and religion from the viewpoint 
 of loyalty. Loyalty he conceives to be the attachment to 
 a cause ; and it is the fidelity, genuineness and consistency 
 of the attachment which is most vital. Out of this effort 
 to describe the spirit of loyalty as adequate to give us a 
 philosophy of life, and a religion free from superstition, 
 there was developed not only the idea of a specific religion 
 of loyalty, but also the conception of the real problem in 
 Christianity. Professor Royce believes that it is necessary 
 to find out what Christianity most essentially is and means 
 and what are its permanent and indispensable features.* 
 The first central idea, in Professor Royce's opinion, is 
 not Christ, the Master, but the spiritual community. 
 Christianity, which is one result of mankind to find the way 
 of salvation, rests fundamentally on a social idea. Says 
 Royce : " And we may here state this first Christian idea 
 in our own words thus, namely, as the doctrine that ' The 
 salvation of the individual man is determined by some sort 
 of membership in a certain spiritual community, — a re- 
 ligious community and, in its inmost nature, a divine com- 
 munity, in whose life the Christian virtues are to reach their 
 highest expression and the spirit of the Master is to ob- 
 tain its earthly fulfillment.' In other words : There is 
 a certain universal and divine spiritual community. Mem- 
 bership in that community is necessary to the salvation of 
 man." * The second great notion, sharply contrasted with 
 the first, is the overwhelming moral burden of the individual. 
 This " includes the doctrine that of himself, and apart from 
 the spiritual community which the divine plan provides 
 for his relief, the individual is powerless to escape from his 
 innate and acquired character, the character of a lost 
 soul." ^ In the discussion of this second idea, the funda- 
 
 3 " The Problem of Christianity," Vol. 1, p. 20. 
 * Ibid., p. 39. 
 5 Ihid., p. 42. 
 
The Social Trend 151 
 
 mental conception is that of treason to the common cause 
 and to the community. To save the individual from this 
 burden and to grant him escape, the divine plan of redemp- 
 tion and atonement is necessary. This atonement cannot 
 consist in mere forgiveness. Treason must be triumphed 
 over through the community or " through some steadfast 
 loyal servant who acts, so to speak, as the incarnation of 
 the very spirit of the community itself. This faithful and 
 suffering servant of the community may answer and con- 
 found treason by a work whose type I shall next venture 
 to describe, in my own way, thus: First, this creative 
 work shall include a deed, or various deeds, for which only 
 just this treason furnishes the opportunity. Not treason 
 in general, but just this individual treason shall give the 
 occasion, and supply the condition of the creative deed 
 which I am in ideal describing. Without just that treason, 
 this new deed (so I am supposing) could not have been done 
 at all. And hereupon the new deed, as I suppose, is so in- 
 geniously devised, so concretely practical in the good which 
 it accomplishes, that, when you look down upon the human 
 world after the new creative deed had been done in it, you 
 say, first, ' This deed was made possible by that treason ; 
 and, secondly. The world, as transformed by this creative 
 deed, is better than it would have been had all else remained 
 the same, but had that deed of treason not been done at all.' 
 That is, the new creative deed has made the new world bet- 
 ter than it was before the blow of treason fell." ® By such 
 a deed of creative love on behalf of the community the rec- 
 onciling will of the servant of the community has brought 
 about the elimination of the treason and made the new di- 
 vine community. In this construction of Royce it is of 
 course noticeable that he has been under the influence of 
 Hegel. The three ideas in their relation remind very 
 forcibly of Hegel's conception of the movement of reason, 
 
 6 Ibid., p. SOT ff. 
 
152 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 in the thesis, the antithesis and the reconciliation. The 
 positive and the negative are resolved into unity. The 
 influence of Hegel is also noticeable in the minimizing of 
 evil. The world seems to be the better for the treason, 
 because it is the occasion for the exercise of the reconciling 
 love which makes the community better. There is, how- 
 ever, this difference between Hegel and Royce, that for 
 Hegel the ideal is the state, for Royce society. But if we 
 eliminate the peculiar Hegelian coloring of Royce's idea of 
 Christianity, it is expressive of the trend of the age and 
 meets the demands of much of the thinking of the age be- 
 cause it is social. It stands broadly for a whole group of 
 men who would interpret Christianity as valuable only 
 when it serves the community. The fundamental notion 
 of Christianity would then be that of a new humanity and 
 a great brotherhood. Its activities would be philanthropic 
 and creative of larger human life. Its program would 
 include the overcoming of the individual or the groups 
 of individuals who treasonably oppose humanity. Its 
 service would be in the end social and political betterment, 
 civic virtue and righteousness. Consequently the whole 
 value of Christianity would be in the creating of a new 
 society. 
 
 Distinct from this idealistic conception of Christianity 
 as fundamentally social, is the economic point of view 
 of Professor Patten. For him the aim of Christianity is to 
 bring about the age of co-operation and love. But it is to 
 affect its aims on an economic basis. As far as Christian- 
 ity serves the best interests of a just economic development, 
 so far is it valuable. Professor Patten has expressed his 
 fundamental principle in this striking way : " Sin is mis- 
 ery ; misery is poverty ; and the antidote to poverty is in- 
 come." '' Allowing for the effort in this statement to at- 
 tract attention and to arouse discussion, it nevertheless 
 
 ' " The Social Basis of Religion," p. xviii. 
 
The Social Trend 153 
 
 makes sin dependent upon unjust economic conditions. 
 Adequate economic opportunity and proper economic sur- 
 roundings would overcome the evil. If every one had a 
 sufficient income as indicative of his opportunity to earn 
 and to live, temptation and sin would be overcome. Pro- 
 fessor Patten here speaks for all those who believe that 
 the difficulty of surroundings are creative of wrong. He is 
 at one with the sociologists who desire to save mankind 
 through improved surroundings, and with the socialists who 
 find that capitalism is the root of all evil. The neces- 
 sity then of religion would be to create the spirit of solidar- 
 ity in human goods and possessions, in human opportunities 
 for earthly comfort and ease. Whenever Christianity is 
 interpreted as finding its completion merely in the better- 
 ment of external conditions, it receives such an economic 
 interpretation. Christ is the representative of a purely 
 social religion.* If the end of Christianity is to help in 
 the abolition of child labor, in the solution of the problem 
 of better housing, in the elimination of tuberculosis, and in 
 the creation of a better physical race, its purpose must be 
 merely economic. There are those who endeavor to uphold 
 this viewpoint of Christianity by claiming that Chris- 
 tianity was the historical result of a decadent age, and that 
 it answered to the great cry of the socially depressed. It 
 became the religion of salvation, it is claimed, through its 
 emphasis of brotherhood. A pure Christianity, if this be 
 its origin, must, therefore, serve the social and economic 
 interest. The welfare of society must be the fundamental 
 conditioning factor.® 
 
 The advocates of socialism, as far as they make any 
 claim to be religious and do not follow the atheism of their 
 great leader, Marx, endeavor to find in Jesus a social re- 
 
 8 Cf. Patten," The Social Basis of Religion," p. 193 fif. 
 
 9 For a sober opposite view, cf. Peabody, " Christ and the Social 
 Question." 
 
164 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 former. His advice to the rich young man to sell all 
 things which he had; His sad comment, that it is ea;sier 
 for a camel to pass through a needle's eye than for a rich 
 man to enter the kingdom of God, are emphasized as op- 
 posing the possession of capital. We are asked whether 
 it is not true, that Lazarus, the poor man, is the saint, 
 and Dives, the rich man, the sinner. Does not Jesus say, 
 according to the real original and genuine account of St. 
 Luke : " Blessed be ye poor : for yours is the kingdom 
 of God " .'' ^^ Labor is exalted and Jesus Himself is the 
 carpenter. Was not the early Church socialistic, as it ap- 
 pears in the communism of the congregation at Jerusalem ? 
 Was not Paul a tentmaker and laborer? What was the 
 message of the earliest letter of the New Testament, if not 
 the message of the choice of the poor? ^* The whole trend 
 of early Christianity is, therefore, held to be social. Its 
 spirit of love is interpreted as true co-operation and help- 
 fulness in external poverty and depression. The modem 
 application of Christianity ought to seek a return, we are 
 informed, to its early principles, and it ought to sym- 
 pathize with the laborers who are oppressed. Its func- 
 tion ought to be to create a new society in which there is no 
 competition, and in which labor receives its due reward. 
 
 With influences like these all about Christianity, re- 
 inforced by the desire of a large group within the Church 
 that Christianity should enter the field of social reform, 
 and by the demand that the Church ought to become a 
 mighty philanthropic agency, it is necessary to obtain a 
 clear conception of the function of Christianity in refer- 
 ence to the strong social tendency of the present. It is 
 true that Christianity at its inception had deep sympathy 
 with the poor and oppressed and found among them many 
 of its adherents. Its comforts appeal strongly to the 
 
 10 Luke, 6:20. 
 
 11 James, 2:1 ff. 
 
The Social Trend 165 
 
 downtrodden of every type. The central teaching of 
 Jesus makes much use of the idea of the kingdom of God. 
 In the parables which portray the kingdom there is a con- 
 stant background of a social nature. The kingdom is a 
 vineyard of labor, a feast of joy, a large wheatfield, and a 
 net in which many fish are caught. These and similar 
 pictures certainly portray the common social side of Chris- 
 tianity. It can also not be gainsaid that the early Church 
 was seen to be, by those that observed its gatherings and 
 life, a new society in which love and brotherhood reigned. 
 When St. Paul sees the Church in its greatness, into which 
 the fullness of God is to enter, he pictures it as a great 
 spiritual temple of living men and women, as an organic 
 living body, in which all differences of class, race and sex 
 are obliterated, and in which mankind is unified through 
 the cross of Christ.^^ It cannot be denied that early 
 Christianity contemplated an early return of Jesus for the 
 judgment of the world. Then there would be a new heaven 
 and a new earth. Then the meek would inherit the earth 
 and the saints rule. Despite the fact that Christ claimed 
 His kingdom to be not of this world, the hope of His 
 return presaged His reign as King of kings and Lord of 
 lords. Social injustice and wrong would cease, for there 
 would be no sin nor anything unclean in the new Jerusalem. 
 The hope of Isaiah as to the glorious reign of peace, when 
 the swords would be beaten into ploughshares and the 
 spears into pruning-hooks, would then be realized. We 
 cannot read and combine pictures and teachings like these 
 without admitting that there is a strong social element 
 and a deep social undercurrent in Christianity. 
 
 But with all due allowance for this fact, it is well to 
 realize that Christianity, even as far as it is social, is not 
 moved by economic interests. While John the Baptist 
 directly named social wrongs and demanded their change 
 
 12 Cf. Ephesians, 2:11 ff; Ephesians, 3:6; Galatians, 3:28. 
 
156 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 when he spoke to the Pharisees and the soldiers/^ Jesus 
 promulgated no social program. He was no divider of 
 goods, and in His view capital was only Mammon because 
 of its spiritual danger. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arima- 
 thea were not rejected by Him, nor were Matthew and Zac- 
 cheus thrown aside. Christ opposed the love of money but 
 not its mere possession. He attacked the insincerity of the 
 ruling classes, but not their goods. Dives was finally lost 
 because of his unbelief and not because of his wealth. The 
 early Christian Church had among its members people of 
 standing and wealth. The communistic experiment of the 
 congregation at Jerusalem was purely voluntary and not 
 a law ; it failed and proved that the quick economic applica- 
 tion of spiritual love was unsuccessful. A very clear evi- 
 dence of the relation of early Christianity to social condi- 
 tions and evils is found in the attitude of St. Paul when he 
 returned the fugitive slave Onesimus to Philemon, The 
 slave was returned as a Christian to be treated by his 
 master as a brother. In this way through spiritual broth- 
 erhood the social evil of slavery was inwardly overcome, 
 but St. Paul had no social program for the external change 
 of society through the doing away of slavery. This was 
 not the function of Christianity; it might follow as an 
 effect but it was not the immediate aim. It is only by 
 misinterpretation that Christianity can be made a social 
 or economic movement against the social order of its day. 
 It had social effects but it was not a social propaganda. 
 Its social results are due to its religious claims. It is social 
 as far as religion is social, but it is not economic. It 
 does not announce a new world of bread, but a new faith 
 and life through the Word of God. The interests of its 
 life are not to feed the thousands with bodily bread, but 
 to provide men with the spiritual Bread from Heaven. 
 The ideals and aims of Christianity are not earthly satis- 
 
 13 Luke, 3:7 fF. 
 
The Social Trend 157 
 
 factions ; it does not deal with new surroundings, but with a 
 new soul. It seeks to eliminate sin and then to reform 
 society, but not to change society as a means for the re- 
 moval of isin. There is in Christianity no acquiescence in 
 the idealization of mere material comfort; and it has no 
 sympathy with an ideal economic state as the solution 
 of man's deepest problem of happiness, righteousness, and 
 peace. Its kingdom is within, its ideals are altogether 
 spiritual. The hope which it cherishes is not a new eco- 
 nomic condition and, therefore, a new mankind, but a new 
 spiritually redeemed mankind and, therefore, a new society 
 of a spiritual order. 
 
 Christianity cannot sympathize with the suppression of 
 the individual in any strongly social scheme. The society 
 which Christianity found in the old world was one of 
 classes. In it were the rich and the poor, the free men 
 and the slaves, the Jew and the Greek. The Greek and 
 the Roman States were also marked by classes and castes. 
 One of the mightiest problems in the later Roman Empire 
 was the problem of the slave. But Christianity began, 
 over against all class-calculation, and as against all mass- 
 ing of men, with the declaration of the infinite value of the 
 soul.** One soul outweighed the whole world in worth. 
 One sinner to be saved meant more than all the rest of 
 men.-^^ Even the parables which portray the Kingdom 
 with a social background add the necessity of individual 
 selection. The common vineyard of the Kingdom was the 
 opportunity for dealing with the individual laborer. At 
 the marriage feast man after man was scrutinized, and the 
 unworthy individual was removed. The Kingdom was the 
 infinitely valuable treasure obtained by the purchaser of 
 the field; it was the priceless pearl sought and found by 
 the single, seeking merchant. The highest valuation, 
 
 14 Cf. Mark, 8:35, 36. 
 
 15 Cf. Luke, IS. 
 
158 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 therefore, of the Kingdom was obtained through the in- 
 dividual. In the net which caught the fish of the Kingdom 
 there was to be a separation by individuals. From the 
 great field of the Kingdom the tares were not to be pre- 
 maturely removed out of consideration for the wheat. The 
 fear that any wheat might be destroyed was stronger than 
 the benefit to be derived from an immediate and sweeping 
 elimination of the tares. There was to be no social purifi- 
 cation which might damage the individual. Jesus every- 
 where deals with individuals. Of course, His individual- 
 ism is not the naturalistic individualism of the present, 
 nor the philosophic individualism of our time.^® He seeks 
 the individual to make the individual a saved personality. 
 Christ has no hope of the masses as masses. They do 
 not grasp Him and understand His message. He must 
 hide from them His deepest truth through the parables. 
 It is only the few seeking disciples who are ready to 
 receive the mystery of the Kingdom. Christ's hope is 
 not in the many and in society but in the select and 
 chosen few, singly found, singly saved and trained. 
 Christ holds that many are called and few are chosen. 
 The whole Magna Charta of the spiritual freedom of 
 faith rests upon this valuation of the individual which 
 Jesus established. Any loss of it for the sake of 
 a social scheme would be subversive of Christianity. While 
 Christianity is not the faith of self-centered individualism, 
 it is the faith of the true individual, who is to be developed 
 into a holy personality, and of true society through the 
 saved and sanctified individual. To remove the soul and its 
 salvation from Christianity would be to remove its heart. 
 Christianity has no quarrel with a historical point of 
 view if its philosophy does not eliminate the individual. 
 Historical deeds, when man is involved, can not be justly 
 described without the personal factor. The personal fac- 
 ie Cf. Warner Fite, " Individualism." 
 
The Social Trend 159 
 
 tor need not mean that history is simply the action of its 
 great leaders and heroes. We have come to realize that 
 there is a large place for the common people. But if his- 
 tory does regard the many it cannot reduce their develop- 
 ment to a mere biological, economic or social evolution, 
 without destroying the soul of history and emptying it of 
 its moral import and its divine guidance. History to re- 
 main real and fully concrete must include the highest 
 aspects and strivings of man and cannot see in these merely 
 resultants of the struggle for existence, the selection of sex 
 and the fondness of food. History must allow for the de- 
 velopment of true personality. When history is thus con- 
 ceived as finally a vital development in time, in which man's 
 personality grows and expresses itself in manifold deeds 
 and acts, then it is possible to speak truly of the historical 
 point of view in religion. Without the personal factor 
 man could have no history of religion ; without it there 
 could be no growth in faith or life. It is the persona] 
 man who makes possible the conception of the personal 
 God who speaks to man and deals with him. The prob- 
 lem of the personal man as it leads to the personal God 
 opens up the whole question of the historical attitude in re- 
 ligion. It opens it up but does not complete it ; for other- 
 wise it would mean, that the divine is merely a temporal 
 growth in the history of man. When the historical enters 
 religion it is yoked to a mystery. The temporal cannot 
 originate the divine, the historical cannot beget the eternal. 
 But — and here the mystery enters — will the historical 
 cease if the divine enters the human, and the eternal the 
 temporal.'' Christianity answers, no. It emphasizes the 
 idea that the eternal God has entered into time, that the 
 complete has come into human incompleteness, the perfect 
 into the imperfect, the being into the becoming, the un- 
 changing rest into development. Thus the historical point 
 of view in Christian truth grows out of the incarnation. 
 
160 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 Its reality must determine the philosophy of the history 
 of Christianity. Consequently no other ideals or prin- 
 ciples can rule. It is the Word made flesh who forms the 
 spiritual starting-point for the history of Christianity. 
 
PART TWO 
 THOUGHT AND TRUTH 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE FINDING OF TEUTH 
 
 THE leading aspects of thought open up to us a 
 further problem. When the modern attitudes of 
 thought are correlated to Christianity another 
 question still remains. It is the problem of testing 
 thought. The logical procedure of the present and the 
 ruling ideals have been discussed. Are these adequate to 
 the truth of thought, or do we need a fundamental exami- 
 nation of the character of truth and of its deepest nature.'' 
 The present philosophical trend is inclined to answer that 
 we need a special examination of the formal character of 
 truth. The general determination of the methods of 
 thinking are not sufficient, but they must be seen from a 
 specific angle. Their inner validity must be considered. 
 It is through validity that thought and truth are united, 
 and we realize how they belong together. Thought may 
 err and be incorrect, and the logic and reasoning of 
 thought may be misapplied. In fact, corrective points of 
 view have been emphasized in the whole discussion of the 
 first part. But the whole problem of truth and thought 
 must be more definitely centered. The aim of thought is 
 to attain truth. Now how is this truth attained and 
 found? 
 
 Mankind has always been engaged, though through 
 many a path of error, in seeking truth. It is, however, 
 not the actual quest of truth which interests us. The 
 discussion of the last decades, brought about through 
 pragmatism, turns about the character of the search. 
 
 163 
 
164; Trends of Thoitght and Christian Truth 
 
 This more fonnal question as to how truth is found and 
 established has led to the alignment of men into two great 
 parties. 
 
 On the one side there have gathered those who believe 
 in the existence and absoluteness of truth before all search- 
 ing and finding. They identify truth and reality. For 
 them the logical quest is only an appearance and a shadow. 
 Their first assumption is, that what is, is. The idea and 
 ideal of truth, which is all-embracing, exists prior to all ex- 
 perience, and eternally above and beyond all human search. 
 In this attitude the absolute pantheist and the absolute 
 idealist in substance join hands with the mystic in asserting 
 and re-asserting the old conception of absolute being under 
 new forms and expressions. It will be necessary to ex- 
 amine the newer statements of the old philosophic notion 
 of being and reality, and to note their bearing upon Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 Over against the absolutist of every type and the mystic 
 of every kind there have arisen the pragmatist, the vitalist, 
 and the neo-realist with their apparently new positions. 
 All of these emphasize with Lessing that the search after 
 truth is greater than the possession of it. With the 
 pragmatist the problem of truth is most central, and he has 
 much to say in descriptive elaboration of how truth func- 
 tions. The philosophy of life, which Bergson and Eucken 
 advocate, also pays attention to the problem of truth, 
 even though its main emphasis is laid on the fact of life, 
 and its main contention is on behalf of the idea of life 
 itself. The neo-realistic school has likewise found it neces- 
 sary to declare itself on the problem of truth and error. 
 
 While pragmatism has stirred up the question, how is 
 truth found, and has sought to reduce it to a psychological 
 problem, the starting point of the psychological problem 
 of truth lies further back. The new claim and accent of 
 the descriptive study of mind, to solve what truth really 
 
The Finding of Truth 165 
 
 is and means for man in its formal aspect and in its es- 
 sential features, is a resultant of the whole movement of 
 modern philosophy. When Descartes began to resolve 
 doubt by placing the emphasis of certainty in the think- 
 ing ego, he centered the whole problem of all things in 
 consciousness. Despite the thorough-going pantheism of 
 Spinoza, which depersonalized thinking and made con- 
 sciousness the factual result rather than the thinking 
 source of reality, the new emphasis of the ego maintained 
 its force. The monads of Leibniz were conceived of as 
 ideal and thinking centers, and they led modem thinking 
 to realize the importance of the individual mind. With 
 Leibniz as a background Kant formulated for the modem 
 age in most distinct manner the problem of how we know. 
 In this formulation he was, however, more stimulated by 
 the scepticism of Hume as to the possibility of any certain 
 knowledge beyond impressions, than by the personal ideal- 
 ism of Berkeley. Kant set himself the task of answering 
 the question of truth by means of logic. Thus there arose 
 the whole modem epistemology, which claimed to be sep- 
 arate from the distinct sciences of psychology and formal 
 logic. The foundations of knowledge were sought after 
 and examined. The answers which epistemology suggested 
 were to make a basis of truth by carefully showing, what 
 we know, and what we can know, and how we know. But 
 it did not aim to answer these questions by examining 
 the phenomenal processes of the mind, but by finding the 
 very nature of knowledge. This science of epistemology 
 absorbed the interest of thinkers everywhere. 
 
 But the newer attitude which pragmatism represents 
 raised serious objections to the ruling epistemology. It 
 claimed that epistemology began generally with a meta- 
 physical assumption and doctrine, and then it determined 
 logic and psychology from its assumption, and combined 
 them with its metaphysics. The newer accurate examina- 
 
166 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 tion of psychological phenomena set the current against 
 philosophical epistemology. Psychology desired to have 
 knowledge examined in its procesis. The generalization 
 from the processes of knowledge was to point the way to- 
 ward a doctrine of truth. Truth was then to be considered 
 as more than a philosophical or even a logical problem. 
 The logical and philosophical considerations were to be 
 made secondary to psychology. As the processes of actual 
 knowledge in the human mind include feeling and will these 
 were made parts of actually functioning truth. It was in 
 this way that the newer attitude on truth arose. The 
 absolutists who made truth fundamental before all finding 
 of it, and who claimed that it could never be really realized 
 in the world of appearance, were set aside. There was 
 equal opposition to any epistemologist, who, from some 
 ideal of truth found in examining the heart of knowledge, 
 framed a metaphysical doctrine upon a metaphysical ex- 
 amination. Nor was the emphasis in the newer doctrine 
 put on the mere finding of the truth as something to be 
 discovered, but it was also asserted that frequently the 
 finding and the quest made the truth. Between the di- 
 lemma of this assertion and that of the existence of truth 
 prior to all quest we stand to-day. Is truth existent, and 
 shall we find and discover it, or is truth the result of a proc- 
 ess and is it crystallized out of many truths slowly dis- 
 covered in the search ? 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THK ABSOLUTIST AIM 
 
 IT has often been supposed that the absolutist is the 
 best friend of Christianity. His conception of truth 
 as existent, eternal, actual in its constancy and being, 
 and his identification of truth with absolute, infinite and 
 individual reality, seem not merely truly religious, but also 
 most favorable to Christianity's claim of exclusive and 
 final truth. Does not the absolutist pierce the veil of the 
 visible and audible and tangible, and lead the mind to the 
 unchanging realm of existence beyond the " this," the 
 " what," and the " now " ? But Christianity will be com- 
 pelled to learn through the examination of the present 
 expositions of absolutism, that the result of the newer ab- 
 solutism is not different in its effects and influences from 
 the influence of Hegel and early Hegelianism. When 
 Hegel reigned the power and vitality of the Christian idea 
 of God were lost, because the Absolute was as much de- 
 prived of real personality by Hegel as it had been by 
 Spinoza. All the emphasis on the uniqueness and individu- 
 ality of the Absolute did not guarantee His real personal 
 existence. The doctrine of God's personality was not 
 asserted. And the Christian dogma of the Trinity was 
 interpreted as an intellectual movement, but not as a liv- 
 ing, throbbing, feeling, willing unity of co-equal, eternal 
 persons. The atonement became a moral and speculative 
 fact, and was not a historical and spiritual occurrence. 
 Through its optimism of abstract being Hegelianism re- 
 moved the sting of sin, which it declared to be unreal and 
 
 167 
 
168 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 passing, a discord to be dissolved into unity. With the 
 neglect of a real distinction between sin and holiness there 
 went hand in hand the loss of a really deep and actual 
 difference between truth and error in mankind. 
 
 It has been particularly the difficulty of a clear dis- 
 tinction between truth and error which the latest ab- 
 solutism, that rests on Hegelianism, has brought to light. 
 The idealism of Professor Bradley, in his great book on 
 " Appearance and Reality," makes it very clear, that while 
 perfect truth and reality are identical in their absolute 
 harmony and individuality, there is no real cleavage be- 
 tween truth and error in our human experience. Truth 
 as we seek it and find it finitely is not fundamentally sep- 
 arate from error. Only when completed is truth reality 
 and fullness of existence. Professor Bradley says: 
 " Perfection of truth and of reality has in the end the 
 same character. . . . Truth must exhibit the mark of in- 
 ternal harmony, or, again the mark of expansion and aU- 
 inclusiveness. And these two characteristics are diverse 
 aspects of a single principle. . . . But, in the second 
 place, harmony is incompatible with restriction and fini- 
 tude." ^ Therefore, all finite relations are only degrees 
 toward the truth and possess a side which is at the same 
 time error.^ Error is only finite and false appearance ; it 
 is discrepant with reality. To eliminate error there must 
 be a progress toward full reality. In his later work, " Es- 
 says on Truth and Reality," Bradley, in order to bring out 
 clearly the expansion of partial truth toward all-inclusive- 
 ness, and to emphasize the process toward complete har- 
 mony, differentiates truth and reality only to merge them 
 again finally. He says : " Truth claimed identity with 
 an individual and all-inclusive whole. But such a whole, 
 when we examine it, we find itself to be the Universe and all 
 
 1 " Appearance and Reality," p. 363. 
 2/6id., Chapter XVI. 
 
The Absolutist Aim 169 
 
 reality. And when we had to see how truth fails,* as truth, 
 in attaining its own end, we were being shown the very 
 features of difference between truth and reality. And in 
 passing over into reality and in thus ceasing to be mere 
 truth, truth does not pass beyond its own end, nor does 
 it fail to realize itself. Hence, being the same as reality, 
 and at the same time different from reality, truth is thus 
 able to apprehend its identity and difference. But, if 
 this is so, we seem to have reached the solution of our 
 problem." * " And thus, if we are asked for the relation of 
 truth to reality, we must reply that in the end there is no 
 relation, since in the end there are no separate terms. All 
 that we can say is that, in order for truth to complete 
 itself into reality, such and such defects in truth itself 
 would have to be rectified." ^ In other words, truth com- 
 pleted is reality. It resolves itself into absolute unity 
 and harmony, and becomes finally and really truth in real- 
 ity. This is a logical process in which every contradiction 
 is resolved into absolute non-contradiction beyond identity 
 and difference. 
 
 Meantime, however, in our experience, there are grades 
 of truth and error. " 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-consis- 
 tency." ® On the other hand, " error is truth, it is par- 
 tial truth, that is false only because partial and left in- 
 complete." "^ " Error consists in the deviation of the 
 idea, whether by excess or defect from that reality at which 
 
 3 Essays on Truth and Reality," p. 114 ff. Truth is claimed to 
 fail in its finite process, (1) because its contents cannot be made 
 intelligible throughout and entirely; (3) failing thus truth fails again 
 to include all the given facts. These failures are in truth as it 
 seeks to arrive at its standard of all-inclusive completeness. 
 
 *Ibid., p. 116. 
 
 5 Ibid., p. iir. 
 
 6 " Appearance and Reality," p. 364. 
 
 7 Ibid., p. 192. 
 
170 Trends of Thoiight and Christian Truth 
 
 it aims." * Thus error and partial truth are identical, and 
 partial error is also partial truth. The aim in either is 
 toward a coherent and consistent whole. The higher the 
 structure and the more complete the system which relates 
 everything internally to the absolute whole, the nearer 
 we are to the truth. " If we could reach an all-embracing 
 ordered whole, then our certainty would be absolute." ® 
 But while this certainty is not reached by us, it is never- 
 theless true that the Absolute works in and through us. 
 However, this working is only partial. " Truth is an ideal 
 expression of the Universe, at once coherent and com- 
 prehensive. It must not conflict with itself, and there 
 must be no suggestion which fails to fall inside it. Perfect 
 truth in short must realize the idea of a systematic 
 whole." " 
 
 In full accord with Professor Bradley is Mr. Joachim 
 in his book on " The Nature of Truth." He holds that 
 an ideal experience, which is the absolute total, the whole 
 in perfect unity, is being fulfilled and found through finite 
 approach to ideal, final truth. The final truth is con- 
 tained in the notion of coherence, which is inner and logical, 
 and leads to the whole. " For the ideal of absolute truth, 
 by reference to which we are measuring the relative de- 
 grees of truth in the various systems of judgments, and 
 (through them) in the single judgments, is the completely 
 individual, self-sustained, significant whole. The truth, 
 we seem to see, emerges in its perfect completeness as an 
 individual meaning with an internal logical connectedness 
 and articulation. Its articulate connexion demands dis- 
 cursive expression as a system of judgments. Its indi- 
 viduality requires self-containedness or complete self-co- 
 herence of the system. And this seems to be the ideal, 
 
 8 " Essays on Truth and Reality," p. 258. 
 » Ibid., p. 211. 
 10 Ibid., p. 223. 
 
The Absolutist Aim 171 
 
 which human knowledge involves and partly attains ; 
 though it can never be adequately, fuUy, or finally embodied 
 within the actual knowledge of finite subjects." ^^ In the 
 approach to the ideal and to reality " systematic knowl- 
 edge, which is to represent this ' reality,' will include nega- 
 tive as well as afiirmative judgments on the same level of 
 significance." ^^ The negations do not exclude the positive 
 instances, but only serve to throw into relief positive judg- 
 ments. Just as truth in its progress needs negation, it 
 also needs error, and it requires error as the road to truth. 
 Error is isolation and partakes of the character of frag- 
 ments, but stm it performs a positive service. Finally 
 Joachim, although he cannot doubt the unity and whole- 
 ness of truth, finds a real insoluble problem. This arises 
 not in the immediate recognition of the truth, nor in the 
 immediate recognition of various judgments or systems 
 of judgments as more or less true in approximating the one 
 standard, but it does arise from the immediate experience 
 of truth when the thinker endeavors to raise immediate 
 certainty to the level of reflective knowledge. In other 
 words, an ideal of logical, perfect harmony, held as a belief 
 cannot be logically and reflectively defended in discursive 
 and analytic argument. Despite this failure, which makes 
 it impossible to apply the ideal of truth in actual thought 
 and life, Joachim is not moved to test any other concep- 
 tion of truth. 
 
 Professor Royce endeavors to approach this problem 
 from a somewhat different angle, but the final result is the 
 same. He begins by differing from what he designates as 
 critical rationalism, which seeks truth as the empirically 
 verifiable truth. It is the purpose of Royce to find as the 
 truth " in a completed experience the whole meaning of a 
 System of Ideas." ^^ According to Royce experience is 
 
 11 " The Nature of Truth," p. 113 ff. 
 
 i2 76id., p. 138. 
 
 18 « The World and the Individual," Vol. I, p. 61. 
 
172 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 truly interpreted not as partial, broken, and finite, but as 
 an absolute, total, whole experience. Experience in its 
 completeness is made the Absolute. The meaning of the 
 Absolute is Truth. But this meaning can not be reached 
 except through the whole, full apprehension and compre- 
 hension of the System of Ideas. Truth is finally a har- 
 mony sought and really intended in all finite meanings, 
 but it is found in them only in part. The incompleteness 
 makes the meaning partly true and partly erroneous. But 
 through this finiteness there is working out the Whole, 
 toward which we are tending. In every idea the important 
 element is the meaning. An idea is any state of mind that 
 has a meaning ; and a meaning is the partial fulfillment or 
 the relatively complete embodiment of a purpose. Purpose 
 is the real internal core of the meaning of the idea, which 
 we want and but partly attain. When all ideas with their 
 meanings, i. e., their internal purpose and aim, are in a 
 complete system, we have the truth and experience as ab- 
 solute. Such an Absolute is our ideal, our goal of striving, 
 but never our finite, actual possession. 
 
 The longer we study the modern absolutist and Hegelian 
 position, the more certain fundamental ideas stand out 
 despite all minor differences. All absolutists emphasize 
 system and harmony in the complete and absolute whole- 
 ness. Such a system and harmony is essentially intellec- 
 tual. It is true that Professor Royce emphasizes the 
 conception of purpose, but, nevertheless, he does not be- 
 come clearly voluntaristic, and he does not throw the ac- 
 cent like Schopenhauer on the will. He still remains an 
 intellectualist. Through the intellect and its ideal of 
 logical totality the modem absolutists attempt to find 
 reality. Their striving is to discover traces of reality in 
 appearance, and they hold that the finite, though only 
 as a shadow, reflects the Infinite. They start from the 
 whole and struggle to express how the part guarantees 
 
The Absolutist Am. 178 
 
 the whole, the incomplete the complete, the seeking the 
 finding, and the striving the goal. All absolutists are 
 idealists and accept and believe in an ideally complete, 
 harmonious Universe. 
 
 The idealism of the absolutists is not out of tune in its 
 tendency with Christianity. Christianity, as well as ab- 
 solutism, has the ideal of harmony in a more than finite 
 God. The belief in a universe where error is to be at last 
 a passing phase, where finally, despite all finite imperfec- 
 tions, every idea must come into unity with the great and 
 final purpose and intent of the Universe, possesses the 
 desire of Christian optimism and hope. The conviction 
 that there is a truth, whole and complete, before and be- 
 yond us, which is more constant, than Professor Royce's 
 idea of a completed experience, seems to fit in admirably 
 with the Christian idea that Truth is as God is. It begins 
 with an all-embracing ideal, lofty and inspiring, and offers 
 a strong motive for our seeking and wanting the Truth. 
 In wanting and seeking it we are seeking the complete ; the 
 Truth is making us, and we are not making the Truth. 
 This belief, that behind all our feeble attempts there is ab- 
 solute harmony, furnishes us with a real religious inspira- 
 tion. We make so many sacrifices, we give up so much, we 
 contribute such value to our little truth-seeking and our 
 relative truth-finding, because in it and through it Truth 
 itself, with its high perfection and its joy of completeness, 
 is laying hold on us. Does not such an ideal of truth, 
 which can be at once artistic and scientific, accord with 
 Christian thinking? Can not Christian thinking find in 
 this philosophic creed, an expression of the perfect mind of 
 God working through our minds, and of God's ideas find- 
 ing their fulfillment through our thoughts and ways .'' The 
 ideal of a perfect truth before all human search is a be- 
 lief in divine Wisdom and Providence, and in the power of 
 a divine Ideal in human thought. 
 
174 Trends of Thought and Christia/n Truth 
 
 In addition to the agreement in the main tendency be- 
 tween Christianity and absolutism in accepting absolute 
 truth, there is also a unity of ideals in the effort to reach 
 the Absolute, as far as this Absolute means God. It is 
 true that Christianity has no philosophic name for God. 
 The terms Absolute and Infinite are not fundamentally 
 religious terms, but they are philosophic. While, there- 
 fore, Christianity as religion cannot be just if it starts out 
 from the philosophic ideas of the Infinite and Absolute, it 
 nevertheless cannot accept a mere limited and finite God. 
 It is, therefore, in sympathy with the idea of some sort 
 of an absolute and infinite God in its theology. It cannot 
 admit objective limitations in God.-'* Consequently any 
 philosophy which starts from the Absolute and Infinite 
 creates a predisposition in its favor in the mind of the 
 Christian thinker. But while Christianity is thus in con- 
 sonance with the ideal of an Absolute, we shall find that 
 when absolutism defines its Absolute, and gives meaning to 
 it, Christianity must differ as we shall see further on. 
 Thus Christianity is favorable to the tendency of absolut- 
 ism, to the purpose which it seeks, to the spirit which seems 
 to move it, but not to its full argument and its reflective 
 exposition. Christianity can estimate the strivings of ab- 
 solutism, its great faith, its optimistic hope, but it cannot 
 accept its worked-out philosophy as a creed. 
 
 The first discrepancy arises because Christianity can- 
 not accept truth as a purely intellectual ideal. In it the 
 word of Christ : " I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life," 
 has given truth a vital, full, personal meaning. The ideal 
 of truth in Christianity, consequently, includes in truth 
 the satisfaction of the heart as well as of the mind; it 
 implies the right of feeling and will, and not only of the 
 intellect. As far as Christianity attempts to define its 
 truth it cannot be ruled by any mere philosophic exposi- 
 
 " Cf . below, Chapter V, p. 936. 
 
The Absolutist Aim 176 
 
 tion of an intellectual order. Its system of truths and its 
 scheme of doctrines are controlled by the living facts of 
 faith, but faith is not modified through the demands of the 
 unity of an intellectual system. It is true that in the ex- 
 position of the Scriptures the Church early fixed a rule 
 of faith, and that it constantly employs the analogy of the 
 faith believed. But neither the rule of faith nor the 
 analogy of faith are aught else but the original, normative 
 Christian revelation in its essence, both as communicated 
 and experienced, though the form is creedal. They de- 
 termine by their living content and not by their logicality. 
 Where they have been philosophically colored, and where 
 the desire to be consistent has entered in as controlling, a 
 wrong trend has taken hold of Christian truth and injured 
 the Scriptural normativeness and the Christian life. Con- 
 sistency and thoroughness of system, logical non-contra- 
 diction and harmony are not the essentials in Christian 
 truth. Christian truth because it is living is frequently, 
 like life, non-logical. Christianity at its best, which is its 
 truth in vital relations, cannot, therefore, be judged by 
 logical categories, and in it the law of absolute identity 
 dare not make its truth mechanical in opposition to its 
 vital nature. 
 
 In all the newer treatises of the absolutists one feature 
 of Hegel's philosophy is constantly present. All absolut- 
 ists agree with their master in stressing the Real as the 
 Universe, and the Universe as Individuality. It is, how- 
 ever, particularly Bosanquet who builds all his speculations 
 on the one, total, complete, perfect Individuality.^® But 
 we would be very much mistaken and altogether misunder- 
 stand and misapply this idea of Individuality, if we were 
 to interpret it as synonymous with personality. Personal- 
 ity as conceived by the absolutists is a limiting and finite 
 
 15 Cf. "The Principle of Individuality and Value"; also "The 
 Value and Destiny of the Individual." 
 
176 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 determination. In this conception they follow Spinoza, 
 who sees in personality a determining idea. But a deter- 
 mining idea is supposed to be a negation of full reality. 
 Consequently Individuality, the Universe, the Absolute can- 
 not be personal. Bradley says : " The highest Reality, 
 so far as I see must be super-personal." ^^ This super- 
 personality does away with God's individuality ; He is made 
 a part of nature itself. " The Maker and Sustainer be- 
 comes also the indwelling Life and Mind and the inspiring 
 Love " ; ^^ He is no external Person beyond the Universe. 
 Its Individuality is He. The reality of God is His pres- 
 ence in the world and in the individual soul. This presence 
 is He. Bradley honestly confesses as a result : " But 
 how this necessary ' pantheism ' is to be made consistent 
 with an individual Creator I myelf do not perceive." ^* 
 The Universe, therefore, is eternal and sustains itself ; it is 
 the Individuality, it is God. Never in any proper sense is 
 God an individuality, a person, and, therefore, He cannot 
 be a Creator. With such a result Christianity as a theistic 
 religion is utterly out of tune. If Individuality is the 
 Universe, if pantheism is correct, there can be no God 
 and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Bradley in part goes beyond Spinoza;, he is not willing 
 with Spinoza to really identify God and the world. To 
 him God is less and less real than the Universe. He is 
 not willing to decide categorically between the real and 
 the unreal without allowing for degrees of the real. If 
 this right of assuming degrees of the real is denied him, 
 he denies the reality of God. In his own words this is 
 his conclusion : " Now, if I am forced to take reality as 
 having thus only one sense, I must reply that God is not 
 real at all any more than you and I are real. Nothing to 
 
 16 " Essays on Truth and Reality," p. 436. 
 nibid., p. 436. 
 18 Ibid., p. 436. 
 
The Absolutist Aim 177 
 
 me in this sense ^* is real except the Universe as a whole; 
 for I cannot take God as including, or as equivalent to, 
 the entire Universe. This answer is the result of forcing 
 me to reply to a question which I regard as erroneous. 
 But if, on the other hand, I am allowed to hold to degrees 
 in reality, the conclusion at once is different. God to me 
 is now so much more real than you or myself that to com- 
 pare God's reality with ours would be ridiculous." ^^ 
 From this discussion we can conclude nothing else but 
 that God is not the absolute reality, although he is more 
 real than we are. He is far more real than men, but He 
 is not the Real, the Absolute, the Individuality. The total 
 Real is only the Universe as a Whole. The Universe guar- 
 antees God's reality, not God the reality of the Universe. 
 He is not all in all, but some in the all of the Universe. 
 In an effort to find the philosophical basis of religion. 
 Professor Watson argues for what he calls Constructive 
 Idealism, which he attempts to differentiate from the pan- 
 theism of the absolutists. He claims that pantheism fails 
 in conceiving the divine as equally manifest in nature and in 
 mind, and that it robs the finite of its worth. For his 
 thinking there must be degrees of God's manifestation and 
 the finite must be recognized. Nevertheless he admits 
 this agreement between pantheism and Constructive Ideal- 
 ism : " The point of agreement between them is that both 
 aflirm that the world can have no> reality apart from God, 
 and therefore that the finite as such has no^ existence." ^^ 
 Even in this attempt we at last lose the finite ; and while 
 Watson does not make the Universe God like Bradley, his 
 putting the reality of the finite into God is only the re- 
 verse, and leads to the absorption of all things in the 
 Whole. It must end in taking away real personality and 
 
 19 This applies to absolute meaning. 
 
 20 Ibid., p. 448. 
 
 21 " The Philosophical Basis of Religion," p. 444. 
 
178 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 individuality from God because man as finite personality 
 can have no real self-existence. Neither the God of Brad- 
 ley nor the God of Watson is the God of Christianity. 
 
 Due to the inferior place which personality occupies in 
 the thought of absolutism and of any system which ap- 
 proaches absolutism, it is quite natural and necessary that 
 a doubt should arise about personal immortality. This 
 doubt appears in the discussions of McTaggart when, to 
 overcome the difficulties of the problem of immortality, he 
 says : " To meet such doubts as these it would be neces- 
 sary to construct a complete metaphysical system. We 
 should have to determine what was the general nature 
 of all reality, and whether that nature involved the exist- 
 ence of finite selves." ^^ The manner in which McTaggart 
 believes that reality is determinative of the finite selves in- 
 dicates where we shall arrive through a doctrine of reality 
 like that of absolutism. But we are not compelled to re- 
 main within inference alone. Bradley clearly says : " The 
 main demand of religion is for the assurance that the 
 individual, as one with the Good, has so far conquered 
 death, and that what we call this life with its before and 
 after is not the main reality. If and so far as it is neces- 
 sary in the interest of religion to represent this funda- 
 mental truth in the form of prolonged existence, I approve 
 and I adhere to such a doctrine. But for myself I feel the 
 gravest doubt with regard to such a necessity." ^^ The 
 doubt of' Mr. Bradley is no mere personal whim, although 
 he thinks it to be due to a defect of his temperament and 
 imaginative power. He does not seem to see the result of 
 his own logic. Therefore, he continues and admits, 
 " Wherever after due consideration it is found by any man 
 or any set of men that religion calls for a genuine indi- 
 vidual personal existence after death, I am on the side of 
 
 22 " Some Dogmas of Eeliglon," p. 110. 
 28 '< Essays on Truth and Reality," p. 438. 
 
The Absolutist Aim 179 
 
 such a doctrine. I think that the belief, so far is 
 right, and under this condition, may be called true. Ex- 
 actly what its truth comes to in the end, however, I think 
 that we cannot know, and, so far as we are religious, I am 
 sure that we ought not much to care." ^* In this wavering 
 attitude, Bradley after all is finally compelled to take back 
 what he has doubtfully granted. His philosophic absolut- 
 ism has led him to a religion of the Total, the Universe, 
 in whose interest, of course, personal immortality is not a 
 matter to care for very much. Wherever the Universe is 
 the Real, we cannot find any sure foundation for the per- 
 manence of the individual soul. It is perfectly natural, 
 and a legitimate result of pantheistic absolutism to oppose 
 or at least to doubt personal immortality. In this at- 
 titude it must contradict the high valuation which Chris- 
 tianity places upon the immortality of the single soul. 
 
 Absolutism with its effort to find the Whole, the Eternal, 
 in every part and every finite self is apparently at first 
 sight favorable to the Christian idea of incarnation. It 
 seems to support the presence of the Real behind the 
 phenomenal. Bradley writes : " Behind me the absolute 
 reality works through and in union with myself, and the 
 world which confronts me is at bottom one thing in sub- 
 stance and in power with this reality. There is a world 
 of appearance and there is a sensuous curtain, and to seek 
 to deny the presence of this or to identify it with reality 
 is mistaken. But for the truth I come back always to that 
 doctrine of Hegel, that * there is nothing behind the curtain 
 other than that which is in front of it.' For what is in 
 front of it is the Absolute that is at once one with the 
 knower and behind him." ^' Strong, however, as this ad- 
 mission is, it must not be forgotten that the substance 
 and power of reality is only present in appearance and in 
 
 2* Ibid., p. 439. 
 25 Ibid., p. 318. 
 
180 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 varying degrees. Appearance, according to the whole 
 system of Bradley, is not reality, but only partial and er- 
 roneous reality. It cannot at once, if we are consistent, 
 be reality and not reality. Nevertheless, this contradic- 
 tion lurks in the idea of Bradley that there are degrees 
 of reality in appearance, and that the substance is partially 
 evident in the shadow. But finally appearance rather 
 hides than reveals reality; it conceals reality behind a 
 changing world. The actual reality is the total, invisible 
 Universe. There is and must be a constant discrepancy 
 between what is and what appears, for the part at its best 
 cannot be the whole. 
 
 Now the Christian conception of incarnation cannot 
 be clothed in the garments of appearance and reality. 
 Its fundamental idea is rather that of revelation than of 
 concealment, and its purpose is not to hide but to dis- 
 close a mystery. Christ claims to be the revealer of 
 the Father; in Him the Father is apparent. He says: 
 " He that seeth me seeth Him that sent me." ^® The incar- 
 nation brings God nearer to us, while the appearance of the 
 absolutist hides the reality of the Absolute. For the Chris- 
 tian incarnation is the approach and way to God ; and this 
 approach is through the personality of Jesus. The abso- 
 lutist, however, begins with the total Individuality, the 
 whole Universe, as the Reality, and then attempts to find 
 it in the world of appearance. His ideas, therefore, ob- 
 scure but do not aid in grasping the Christian claim that 
 God is manifest in Christ. 
 
 The difl5culty, which was indicated at the very beginning 
 of this chapter, when it was shown how the absolutists 
 fail to distinguish definitely between truth and error in 
 their finite form, must again occupy us. While the asser- 
 tion of the absolute existence of Truth was seen to con- 
 tain an element favorable to Christianity, nevertheless, 
 
 26 John, 13:45. 
 
The Absolutist Aim 181 
 
 there is a larger amount that is unfavorable to Christian 
 truth. If it be true that there is no real distinction be- 
 tween finite truth and error, so that error is partial truth, 
 and developing truth is partial error, there arises a great 
 difficulty in making any finite statement. Then we shall 
 have no right to claim any strong superiority for any 
 finite truth or any truth finitely stated. But Christianity 
 like all religions must demand both clearness and authority 
 for its message. It cannot come to men with a doctrine 
 of salvation, which it claims as final, if this doctrine does 
 not possess a certainty adequate to its claim. Therefore, 
 Christianity in stating its essential truth must quarrel 
 with any conception which will make even the human state- 
 ments of divine truth purely relative and uncertain. It is 
 true that Christianity admits that we have and bear the 
 divine treasure in earthen vessels, and that we only know 
 in part; nevertheless despite the vessel and despite the 
 partial knowledge, we do have the treasure and we do 
 know. The assertion that there are grades of truth in 
 the communication of the divine, and that in the world of 
 finite appearance truth and error cannot be really sep- 
 arated, must impair the claim of Christianity to have the 
 final message for the souls of men. Of course, if this claim 
 is surrendered and if Christianity is only relatively true, 
 there will be no quarrel with absolutism. But as long 
 as Christianity does not surrender its Christ as the Truth, 
 it cannot be satisfied with the theory of truth which the 
 absolutist accepts. He possesses no guarantee how far 
 the relative truth is, real truth other than mere abstract 
 totality, identity, and non-contradiction. Christianity 
 cannot bow to such a standard, and must maintain its own 
 claim of certainty in its message. 
 
 Closely connected with the failure to distinguish be- 
 tween truth and error is the failure to distinguish funda- 
 mentally between evil and good. A very strong contra- 
 
182 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 diction arises between absolutism and Christianity, in the 
 assertion of absolutism that evil is only the partial, the 
 incomplete, and the logically disarranged. Even as the 
 partial and incomplete evil is a part of a whole, and belongs 
 to the Universe. It is supposed to be over-ruled and to 
 serve a higher good end. Upon this final outcome the 
 claim is buUt, that evil is unknowingly good, and that as 
 discord it disappears if the harmony is made large enough. 
 It must fall within the Absolute, but in it " The collision 
 and the strife may be an element in some fuller realiza- 
 tion." ^'' The Absolute resolves evU finally. " The Abso- 
 lute is the richer for every discord, and for all diversity 
 which it embraces ; and it is our ignorance only in which 
 consists the poverty of our object." ^* If evil is in the 
 Absolute and a passing phase in it leading to a higher 
 unity and fullness, then there can be in evil no absolute 
 opposition to goodness. Goodness must be as relative as 
 evil. Such a relativity must be absolutely opposed by 
 Christianity, for it ill accords with the emphasis of salva- 
 tion as a delivery from sin. The way in which Christianity 
 contends against evil, and the estimate which it puts upon 
 its seriousness, will never allow evil to be considered as a 
 mere discord. The belief of Christianity is that sin is not 
 merely a discord, nor a blemish, but condemnable selfishness 
 and opposition to the love of man and God. It is high 
 lawlessness which God hates, and to remove which God's 
 Son became incarnate. Therefore, sin is a reality totally 
 foreign to God ; it is a fact in human life to be eliminated, 
 and not a disharmony to be resolved. If Christianity 
 would abandon this conception of sin, it would be necessary 
 to imdervalue goodness. It is goodness which absolutism 
 does not value as ultimate.^® In its Absolute it does not 
 
 27 Bradley, " Appearance and Reality," p. 203. 
 
 28 Ibid., p. 204. 
 
 28 Cf. Bradley, " Appearance and Reality," Chapter XXV. 
 
The Absolutist Aim 183 
 
 place moral distinction; the Absolute is fundamentally 
 amoral. Consequently there is no final place for the good. 
 Thus Bradley says : " Good and evil reproduce that 
 main result which we found in our examination of truth 
 and error. The opposition in the end is unreal, but it is, 
 for all that, emphatically actual and valid. Error and evil 
 are facts, and most assuredly there are degrees of each; 
 and whether anything is better or worse, does without any 
 doubt make a difference to the Absolute. And certainly 
 the better anything is, the less totally in the end is its 
 being over-ruled. But nothing, however good, can in the 
 end be real precisely as it appears. Evil and good, in 
 short, are not ultimate; they are relative factors which 
 cannot retain their special characters in the Whole." ** In 
 other words, the Whole is more fundamental than the Good ; 
 and, therefore, greater than the idea of a holy God. The 
 Whole, the logical Total is the Real, but this Real is not 
 the Good and not God. If absolutism emphasizes this re- 
 sult of its thinking it must destroy all morality and re- 
 ligion. If the good is not absolute, if the ethical is not 
 higher than the logical, then all virtues and faith are un- 
 dermined. Ideals cannot be maintained through a belief 
 in a logical Whole, in a Universe, in an Individuality, in 
 which moral and religious distinctions do not ultimately ex- 
 ist. This Whole is a creation of human abstraction, it is 
 an idol of the concept which man has made and in his 
 ignorance worships. The Christian conviction is that of a 
 holy and loving God, in Whom the Good in its fullness and 
 richness exists as real, absolute and eternal. 
 30 Ibid., p. 430. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE MYSTIC ABSORPTION 
 
 WHEREVER absolutism is discussed as a 
 method of approaching the problem of truth, 
 there the claim of mysticism must also be con- 
 sidered. In many respects absolutism and mysticism dif- 
 fer. Absolutism uses logic, mysticism intuition; absolu- 
 tism relies on reasoning, mysticism on feeling; absolutism 
 shows how relative is the world of appearance, mysticism 
 seeks practically to escape from it. But finally absolutism 
 and mysticism agree in their emphasis of the One and the 
 Absolute. In their main tenet they belong together. It is 
 true that Professor Royce ^ attempts to bring together 
 mysticism and realism, but though there are points of con- 
 tact between them, mysticism after all approaches far more 
 closely to absolutist idealism than to realism. 
 
 It is impossible and not within the limit of our purpose 
 to discuss mysticism in all its bearings. We are only con- 
 cerned with its claim to be able to find the truth. Its 
 other qualities and characteristics are important for us 
 only as they grow out of and are connected with this claim. 
 The side of mysticism which concerns us is what James 
 calls its noetic quality. He says : " Although so similar 
 to states of feeling, mystical states seem to those who ex- 
 perience them to be also states of knowledge. They are 
 states of insight into depth of truth unplumbed by the 
 discursive intellect." ^ This knowledge, however, of an in- 
 tuitive nature bears with it a sense of authority. It 
 
 1 " The World and the Individual," Vol. I, Lectures 3, 4, 5. 
 2 " Varieties of Religious Experience," p. 380. 
 
 184 
 
The Mystic Absorption 186 
 
 exists first of all for the individual who has the mystic ex- 
 perience, but its truth with its remoteness and abstractness 
 claims a general value. Mysticism believes that it reaches 
 the ultimate which is the final object of pure reason. The 
 mystic in his approach to what is finally reasonable in 
 the Absolute does not at the outset reject reflection. He 
 allows all facts to be known before he shows their illusion. 
 Says Royce : " His doctrine has the honesty of reflective 
 thought about it. He tells you where his own paradoxes 
 are to be found." * " The mystic asserts that the real can- 
 not be wholly independent of knowledge." * The knowl- 
 edge, however, of the mystic does not remain in the re- 
 flective stage, for reflection is not of value any further than 
 to lead you to analyze your own experience. In this 
 analysis mysticism rises above mere perception of conscious 
 abstractions and seeks reality within the realm of vital 
 knowing. Its message, according to Royce, is this: 
 " ' Know,' says Mysticism. ' The truth is nigh thee, even in 
 thy heart. Purify thyself. In thee is all truth. How shall 
 it he except as known and as one with the Knower? ' " ^ 
 But such high knowledge of experience is found " not 
 through a cultivation of what we ordinarily call Reason, 
 but through a quenching of Reason in the very presence 
 of the absolute goal of all finite thought." ® Reason is 
 merged into intuition ; it is absorbed into the immediate 
 recognition of Being by that degree of abstraction, which 
 finds the unity of Being not through definitions but through 
 feeling. It is the concentration of reason in feeling. 
 Through this concentration the self, with whose knowl- 
 edge mysticism begins, is lost in the immediate feeling of 
 its unity with God. 
 
 3 " The World and the Individual," Vol. I, p. 189. 
 i Ibid., Vol. I, p. 189. 
 
 5 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 1T9. 
 
 6 Ibid., Vol. I, p. ISS. 
 
186 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 The path from reason to the immediacy of feeling neces- 
 sarily emphasizes the subjective in man. Mysticism claims 
 to be no speculative projection, but an actual, vital, inner 
 experience. In this experience large stress is placed upon 
 the Self or the Soul. It is only in the Self or Soul that 
 truth can be found. The Soul, which is the real Self, is 
 whither men must go to seek and secure truth. Therefore, 
 no external letter, but only the inner light leads to the 
 truth. Thus the mystic declares that " within yourself 
 lies the sole motive that leads you to distinguish truth 
 from error, reality from unreality, the world from the in- 
 stant's passing contents." '' But if experience, real, inner, 
 felt personal, experience is needed, this experience itself is 
 not the truth. Through it absolute Being reveals itself. 
 
 Finally in our inner feeling we know not as knowing our- 
 selves, but the Knower knows in and through us. We 
 ourselves are lost and Being exists. Royce thus defines the 
 deepest character of mysticism : " I have said, more than 
 once, that the essence of Mysticism lies not in the definition 
 of the subject to which you attribute Being, but in the 
 predicate Being itself. This predicate in case of Mysti- 
 cism is such that, as soon as you apply it, the subject in- 
 deed loses all finite outlines, lapses into pure immediacy, 
 quenches thought, becomes ineffable, satisfies even by turn- 
 ing into what ordinary Realism would call a mere naught." * 
 Naturally when Being thus predominates and absorbs the 
 mind and heart it cannot be defined. It becomes ineffable.* 
 By mere negative terms of high feeling the mind seeks 
 to remove all limited and finite words and thoughts,^" to 
 reach the great positive and undefinable Absolute which 
 is not a conception but the absolute unity of all reality. 
 
 7 Royce, Ibid., Vol. I, p. 189. 
 
 8 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 177. 
 
 9 Cf. James, " Varieties of Religious Experience," p. 380. 
 
 10 Hocking, "The Meaning of God in Human Experience," p. 
 369 ff. 
 
The Mystic Absorption 187 
 
 Before this unity man becomes passive and silent. Grod, 
 the One, is seen face to face as silence fiUs the soul. In this 
 lonely stillness the Absolute alone is left, while man is re- 
 signed and lapses into dormancy, idleness, emptiness, noth- 
 ingness.^^ The silence of the soul may lead into quietism, 
 and in some types of mysticism to unconsciousness. Per- 
 sonal unconsciousness is the last step in the purification of 
 the mystic. While not all mystics reach this final stage, 
 and while not all claim this final stage, nevertheless there 
 must be such a disconnection from the world, that all de- 
 sires and conflicting perceptions may be eliminated and the 
 soul live in the illumination of the Absolute. ^^ The goal is 
 at all times the absorption into the One. God is this 
 One, the supreme, all-pervading, indwelling power, in 
 Whom all existence has synthesis and oneness. His center 
 is everywhere and His circumference is nowhere. He is not 
 nature, not the universe, not mind, not reason, not feeling 
 and not will. He is Being, He is Reality. " For the 
 mystic, according to the genuinely historical definition 
 of what constitutes speculative Mysticism, to be real 
 means to be in such wise Immediate that in the presence of 
 this immediacy, all thought and all ideas, absolutely sat- 
 isfied, are quenched, so that the finite search ceases, and the 
 Other is no longer another, but is absolutely found. The 
 object which fulfils this definition, and which is therefore 
 worthy to be called real, is of necessity in itself One and 
 only One." 13 
 
 There is much in mysticism with which Christianity can 
 agree. But the question is this, whether mysticism has 
 the method of finding truth which Christianity can accept. 
 The occurrence of mystic elements in Christianity is no 
 
 11 Cf . James, " Varieties of Religious Experience," p. 381 ; Hock- 
 ing, "The Meaning of God in Human Experience," p. 382 ff; p. 403. 
 
 12 Cf. Hocking, Ibid., p. 397. 
 18 Royce, Ibid., Vol. I, p. 144. 
 
188 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 proof that Christianity is essentially mysticism. Like 
 all religions, Christianity has had its great mystics ; ^* it 
 is not, however, like Brahmanism and Buddhism, essen- 
 tially and unconditionally mystical. It cannot be shown 
 that the many utterances in the sayings of Christ and in 
 the words of the apostles are genuinely mystical. Of 
 course, we can put a mystical coloring on some of the 
 experiences of Christ, if, e.g., we explain the temptation 
 and transfiguration of Christ, not as historical outward 
 occurrences and facts, but as descriptions of ecstatic in- 
 ner experiences. But such an assertion and such an ex- 
 planation of Christ's temptation and transfiguration de- 
 stroy their vital objectivity. If this be maintained, these 
 experiences cannot be mystic because they cannot be sub- 
 jective. As soon as we attribute to them historical reve- 
 latory character, they must become essentially non-mysti- 
 cal. 
 
 Similarly Christ's word in reference to His spiritual 
 presence,^^ His beatitude for the pure in heart, who shall 
 see God,-*^® and His saying " The Kingdom of God is 
 within ^"^ you," ^* are spiritual facts and not necessarily 
 mystic experiences. Of course, if spiritual facts are in 
 themselves mystical experiences, then the two can be iden- 
 tified. But these spiritual facts emphasized in Christian- 
 ity lack the important elements of mysticism, as, e.g., the 
 merging of reason into feeling, and the absorption of self 
 in God. There are, however, among spiritual facts in 
 Christianity, those which approach a mystical type; but 
 
 i*Cf. Inge, "Christian Mysticism"; W. Major Scott, "Aspects of 
 Christian Mysticism"; E. C. Gregory, "An Introduction to Christian 
 Mysticism"; W. K. Fleming, "Mysticism in Christianity"; Rufus M. 
 Jones, " Studies in Mystical Religion." 
 
 IB Matthew, 28:20. 
 
 16 Matthew, 5:8. 
 
 17 Strictly speaking it is not " within " but " in the midst of you." 
 
 18 Luke, 17:21. 
 
The Mystic Absorption 189 
 
 even in these we must observe what Fleming is compelled 
 to admit : " The aim of Christianity is catholic ; it is 
 meant to embrace human nature as a whole and not a spe- 
 cialized function of it." ^^ With this reservation in mind 
 we must admit that, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in be- 
 lievers, and through Him the indwelling of the Father and 
 Son in us, and the real inner union and communion of 
 God with us, are in large measure mystical and inward. 
 
 The spiritual experiences have not made the message, 
 nor the life of the apostles and the early Church mystical. 
 While Paul has his visions and is lifted up into the heav- 
 ens, where he hears unspeakable words, he does not glory 
 in this experience, nor make it the basis of his Christian 
 life.^° While he glories that the Father revealed the Son 
 in him,^-"^ as a basis for his preaching he refers to his com- 
 mission and not to his message. Paul does say : " I am 
 crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but 
 Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the 
 flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me 
 and gave Himself for me." ^^ But in this statement we find 
 that the life of Christ in Paul is one which conserves Paul's 
 personality and does not absorb him. He grasps the Son 
 of God by faith, and faith requires two personalities. 
 From the manner in which Paul thus interprets the inner 
 life of Christ in his own life, light is thrown on the truth 
 of the indwelling of the Spirit, and the so-called " mystical 
 union " in Christian life. These experiences never do 
 away with the separate personality of man over against 
 God. Man is not absorbed into God, and consequently we 
 have no pure mysticism. It is rather the religions of India 
 which exhibit a pure mystical absorption. 
 
 19 " Mysticism in Christianity," p. 27. 
 
 20 Cf. II Corinthians, 12:4. 
 
 21 Galatians, 1 tX6. 
 22Galatians, 2:20. 
 
190 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 St. John like St. Paul is no mystic in the strict and 
 full sense of the word. Despite his apparently mystic 
 terms, as, e. g., life, light, new birth, he has the equally 
 important historical term, " witness," which implies ex- 
 ternal testimony and occurrences. John may exhibit in 
 the Apocalypse a symbolism which lends itself to mystic 
 uses, for mysticism loves symbolism and delights in allegory. 
 On the whole, however, John bears a historic message. 
 Fleming, while favoring the interpretation of John in 
 a mystical manner, must admit : " That by this very insist- 
 ence on a historical revelation, he (John) counterpoises 
 the strong mystical tendency in succeeding ages to regard 
 the Gospel story as a kind of drama merely, correspond- 
 ent to a more vital reality." ^ It was in a later day that 
 mysticism crept into certain types of Christianity. The 
 one character through whom very largely the mystic in- 
 fluence entered Christian thought was Dionysius, the Areo- 
 pagite, who is really the father of Christian mysticism. 
 But Dionysius is largely indebted to the neo-Platonist 
 Plotinus. 
 
 While primitive Christianity is, however, not essentially 
 mystic, it can approve of certain elements in mysticism. 
 The first of these is the emphasis on a real knowledge of 
 the divine which is not the result of reason. Christianity 
 has always favored a communication of divine truth from 
 without and from within, not through the processes of 
 logic, but through direct intuition. In this intuition truth 
 is directly received and immediately recognized. Chris- 
 tianity emphasizes the conscience as that part of man which 
 receives and preserves Christian truth.^* It does not de- 
 mand as essential to truth a logical proof or a consistent 
 scientific foundation, but it holds to the possibility of real 
 knowledge otherwise gained than by reflection. In this 
 
 23 " Mysticism in Christianity," p. 38. 
 
 24 II Corinthians, 4:2; I Timothy, 3:9. 
 
The Mystic Absorption 191 
 
 respect it favors mysticism. The point of dispute among 
 Christians is, however, whether such knowledge, as mysti- 
 cism asserts, is finally of the nature of feeling. It is not 
 ratiocinative purely and simply, but this negation does not 
 necessarily imply the assertion, that the immediacy and 
 authority of Christian truth is shifting and transient like 
 the coming and going of feeling. Such an assumption is 
 not adequate to the intellectual and volitional elements of 
 Christian truth. The latest result of the best psychology 
 of religion does not approve of affection or feeling ^^ as 
 the primal element in religious life, but it rather argues for 
 the total mental life. 
 
 The second characteristic in which Christianity and mys- 
 ticism agree is the strong emphasis on the soul. The soul 
 or self of mysticism never remains purely psychological, 
 but it is always given a religious meaning. The process 
 of knowing that leads to feeling, and the essential dwelling 
 in feeling, is in most of the interpretations of mysticism 
 a religious act. Now Christianity favors any philosophy 
 which makes much of the soul and the value of the individ- 
 ual in contrast with the world and its passing show. Chris- 
 tianity believes that this world and the fashion thereof 
 perisheth, but that the soul liveth forever. 
 
 Again Christianity is in harmony with the belief of 
 mysticism that there is a real inner revelation. While 
 inner revelation is not the only kind that Christianity 
 knows, it nevertheless accepts it and approves of it. The 
 revelation which is the basis of the communication of truth 
 to others may be made through historical acts and deeds 
 of great personages, but men are also inwardly moved by 
 the Holy Spirit. They have visions and dreams, and re- 
 ceive truth through the organ of the soul. Christianity 
 also holds, that such revelation, which has now become ob- 
 jective, and is guaranteed through the sources of early 
 26 Cf. above. Part I, Chapter VII, p. 130. 
 
192 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 Apostolic Christianity, is the medium through which God 
 communicates with the soul. In this communication it is 
 not the letter which counts, but the spirit. The revela- 
 tion becomes real in the human soul as God adds through 
 the conveying Word the enlightenment of His Spirit. 
 Thus there is a real communion of God with the soul. In 
 consequence the assertion of an actual inner life and a real 
 inner experience, which mysticism constajitly dwells on, 
 is acceptable to Christian faith and to Christian ideals, if 
 there is also a dependence on God's objective revelation. 
 
 But after all these agreements, some very serious ob- 
 jections must be made by Christian thinking against mys- 
 ticism. First, Christian truth opposes the subjectivism 
 of the source of truth in mysticism. No matter whither 
 mysticism leads, it mostly regards the inner intuition 
 and light as the origin of truth. It is out of the self that 
 the truth is bom. We must pass through the path of 
 reflection and reason to find feeling. When we have 
 reached the state of feeling we shall really know. Conse- 
 quently feeling is the guarantee of the process of knowing 
 truth. There is a subjective character despite all absorp- 
 tion of the self in mysticism. Mystics frequently speak 
 as though their condition was the guarantee of the truth. 
 The emphasis on the reception of truth is lessened by the 
 strong subjective element. Consequently mysticism fre- 
 quently deals in a rather arbitrary manner with what ap- 
 pears to contradict its inner light. It has a prejudice 
 which arises from the projections and imaginations of the 
 feeling self. In its individualism it is really a half-brother 
 of individualistic rationalism. 
 
 On the other hand mysticism is not true to the individ- 
 ual. Individualistic in process it does not preserve true 
 personality. The self is to be absorbed into the One. 
 But, first of all, the self, like the individual ego of the 
 absolutist, is a part and a reflection of the One. The 
 
The Mystic Absorption 193 
 
 One is found in the soul. When mysticism asserts the loss 
 of self in the One it denies the separateness of man from 
 God. Despite all struggle to remain theistic, mysticism, 
 even in most of its Christian representatives, has a pan- 
 theistic tendency. 
 
 When mysticism simply asserts the One, it can be com- 
 bined not only with an ideal unity, but it can also give 
 poetic color to a materialistic pantheism. Such a mysti- 
 cism appears in the naturalistic pantheism of Maeterlinck. 
 His interpretation of life is thus summed up by Professor 
 Dewey : " The natural kinship of man's intellectual and 
 moral life with nature, naturalistically reported and ac- 
 cepted; the mutual interpretation of unconscious instinct, 
 blind passion, and conscious luminous reason ; the unfath- 
 omable and equable character of our immediate, ordinary, 
 commonplace experiences, so that our experience has no 
 goal save itself — these ideas define his interpretation of 
 life." ^® In these ideas Maeterlinck combines Walt Whit- 
 man with Emerson, the naturalism of the first with the 
 mystic pantheism of the second. Mysticism, therefore, 'is 
 no guarantee of ideality in itself. Its doctrine of the One 
 may combine with idealistic or materialistic pantheism. 
 
 When mysticism has an opportunity to work itself out 
 as in Brahmanism it arrives at Nirvana. Its zero may 
 claim a positive quality as does Plotinus in his One, his 
 Absolute, and Being. But mysticism in its consistent 
 forms can have neither a personal nor a triune God. One 
 can color the belief in a personal God, or in a Trinity, with 
 mystic fervor, but it is impossible to be either a real uni- 
 tarian or trinitarian mystic. The God of mysticism al- 
 ways tends toward impersonalism, even though the mystic 
 may believe that he has a personal God. The intuition 
 of the mystic is often a philosophy of ignorance produced 
 by unbridled imagination. Therefore, the claim of the 
 
 26 The Hibbert Journal, Vol. IX, p. 778. 
 
194 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 mystic contradicts the implication of his own position. 
 He thinks he has a personal God, but he is really absorbed 
 into impersonal Being. 
 
 Mysticism believes in passivity, sometimes to the degree 
 of unconsciousness. It is a religion of rest and not of 
 work. On the one hand it revels in the joy of its inner 
 experience, on the other hand its tendency is ascetic. It 
 flees the world and seeks escape from the life of sense with- 
 out. Real life for it is rest from the pressing and chang- 
 ing beauties of actuality about us. Out of such quietism 
 which only seeks personal peace no ethical result can legiti- 
 mately follow. It is only as the mystic leaves his dreams 
 that he can live in the world. Mysticism seeks to save 
 itself and in its deepest asceticism it is selfish. The love 
 of God and the life in the One is sought by the mystic as 
 a haven of peace, but it does not with the consistent 
 mystic become a motive for an active, helpful life. The 
 soul loses itself in God, but the life of the soul remains 
 inactive and contemplative. Mysticism is no faith which 
 conquers the world, redeems man, changes conditions and 
 transforms civilization. It is destructive of a Christianity 
 which is active, missionary and progressive. Where it 
 actually obtains in its real meaning, Christianity has no 
 mission to control the world, sanctify literature, inspire 
 art, baptize science, and glorify culture. Mysticism in 
 its truest aspect is the religion of monasticism. It is true 
 that monasticism actually became active and forsook its 
 mysticism. But as consistently mystic monasticism de- 
 spised the world. It lived and died to itself. A Chris- 
 tianity with a life to be Kved, a message to be given, and 
 a world to be gained for Christ can never be mystic. 
 The more mystic man is the less ethical is he, and the less 
 ethical he is the less Christian faith can affect him, and 
 make its purposes real in his life. It is of the very na- 
 
The Mystic Absorption 195 
 
 ture of Christianity to have and demand strong ethical 
 results; it is religio-ethical and ethico-religious. These 
 two can never really be divorced in any vital Christian 
 ideal. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE PBAGMATIC PEOGRAM 
 
 THE whole problem of truth and the effort to de- 
 termine it logically and to define it formally is 
 due to the modem pragmatic movement. The 
 meaning of pragmatism is the theory, that truth is the re- 
 sult of practice and that it is eminently practical. Its 
 origin has thus been described by Professor James : " It 
 was first introduced into philosophy by Mr. Charles Peirce 
 in 1878. In an article entitled ' How to Make Our Ideas 
 Clear,' in the Popular Science Monthly for January of 
 that year Mr. Peirce, after pointing out that our beliefs 
 are really rules for action, said that, to develop a thought's 
 meaning, we need only determine what conduct it is fitted 
 to produce: that conduct is for us its sole significance. 
 And the tangible fact at the root of all our thought-dis- 
 tinctions, however subtle, is that there is no one of them 
 so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference 
 of practice. To attain perfect clearness in our thoughts 
 of an object, then, we need only consider what conceivable 
 effects of a practical kind the object may involve — what 
 sensations we are to expect from it, and what reactions 
 we must prepare. Our conception of these effects, whether 
 immediate or remote, is then for us the whole of our con- 
 ception of the object, so far as that conception has posi- 
 tive significance at all. This is the principle of Peirce, 
 the principle of pragmatism. It lay entirely unnoticed by 
 any one for twenty years, until I, in an address before 
 Professor Howison's philosophical union at the University 
 
 196 
 
The Pragmatic Program 197 
 
 of California, brought it forward again and made a spe- 
 cial application of it to religion. By that date (1898) 
 the times seemed ripe for its reception. The word ' prag- 
 matism ' spread, and at present it fairly spots the pages 
 of the philosophic journals." ■*■ The reason why Professor 
 James' resuscitation of Peirce's initial idea of pragmatism 
 was effective lies deeper than the great influence of the 
 scholarship of James. His interpretation that the real 
 logical method and the nature of truth are found in the 
 active functioning of thought tested by its results and 
 effects ; his use of pragmatism on behalf of pluralism or 
 the theory of the many; and his advocacy of radical em- 
 piricism, were not in themselves sufficient to advance the 
 cause of pragmatism. 
 
 In the same way we cannot explain the vogue of prag- 
 matism through the acute logical discussions and dis- 
 crimination of Professor Dewey and his followers. 
 Dewey emphasized experience as immediate, and claimed 
 that in it knowledge and truth are experienced relations 
 of things, and that neither have meaning outside of such 
 relation. For Dewey : " Like knowledge itself, truth 
 is an experienced relation of things and it has no meaning 
 outside of such relation, any more than such adjectives 
 as comfortable applied to lodging, correct applied to 
 speech, persuasive applied to an orator, etc., have worth 
 apart from the specific things to which they are applied." ^ 
 It was not through such and similar novel ways of stating 
 pragmatism that it gained its hold. As little as to James 
 and to Dewey can we ascribe the credit of the spread of 
 pragmatism to the efforts of Professor Schiller. It is 
 true that his defense of pragmatism added to its modes 
 of statement and to its ethical applications. He coined 
 
 1 " Pragmatism," p. 46. 
 
 2 " The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy, and Other Essays in 
 Contemporary Thought," p. 9S. 
 
198 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 the word " Humanism," as representative of pragmatism, 
 over against a theory of absolute truth which did not re- 
 gard man. Through him and his pupils " Personalism," 
 or the theory of living individual persons as functioning 
 and creating the truth, arose. He strongly accented the 
 human meaning of truth and the human making of truth, 
 and he stood for the right of feelings, beliefs, and hopes 
 as elements of truth both in our general experience and in 
 our religious life. But even these points of view of Schiller 
 are not adequate to explain the spread of pragmatism. 
 Nor can the combined influence of James, Dewey, and 
 Schiller be considered the reason why pragmatism spread 
 and grew as it did. 
 
 The real explanation of pragmatism and its method, is 
 that it interprets ruling tendencies of the present age. 
 It is empirical in an age of the search after details and of 
 laboratory methods in science ; it is pluralistic in an age of 
 many separate opinions and ideas, but not of great over- 
 miling passions and commanding ideals ; it is experimental 
 and hypothetica:! in its theory of truth in an age of unrest, 
 trying out many expedients in literature, science, art, eco- 
 nomic life, morals and religion. Because the will to do 
 is prominent in our active age, pragmatism has a voluntar- 
 istic coloring. As intellectualism has its great problems 
 and is strongly reminded of its limitations at the present, 
 pragmatism gravitates toward feelings and becomes human- 
 istic. It is against aU that is ultimate and final in a 
 changing age, and it keeps man conscious of his part in 
 the making of ideals. The very God of the age is to be 
 limited by experience and to be found in the searching of 
 men. It is quite explicable also why pragmatism in an 
 empirical age caters to utilitarianism and gives its ap- 
 proval to what works best. What works best leads to 
 the description of processes, therefore, pragmatism is 
 descriptive, and it is by no mere accident that its form is 
 
The Pragmatic Program 199 
 
 psychological. Because it is psychological it derives its 
 logic from psychological observation. Truth is not found 
 by means of the old logical norms. At all times its 
 logical method is psychplogical. But psychology is its 
 method and its starting point because of the emphasis put 
 on the functioning of truth. Functioning is fundamen- 
 tally a biological term and indicates that the psychology 
 of pragmatism is biological. Pragmatism has fully 
 adopted the biological point of view in modem psychology. 
 The adoption of this view and the biological standard of 
 pragmatism is the outcome finally of the modern emphasis 
 on biology with its evolutionary point of view. Pragma- 
 tism has been begotten in an age which still feels, despite 
 all opposition and change of hypotheses in biology, the in- 
 fluence of Darwin. The evolutionary standpoint is really 
 the leading point of view in pragmatism. Out of this point 
 of view others follow, and, therefore, it deserves to be con- 
 sidered first, as controlling and shaping the whole theory 
 of pragmatism. All other elements will be seen to be con- 
 ditioned by it. 
 
 There is entire agreement among many more or less pro- 
 nounced pragmatists, that the pragmatic method is the 
 best logical exposition of evolution. It is an entirely rep- 
 resentative statement when De Laguna says : " Prag- 
 matism is the first whole-hearted attempt at an apprecia- 
 tion of the significance of Darwinism for logical theory." ^ 
 He admits that the development even of the highest mental 
 forms in ideas is essentially a development of interests. 
 Consciousness is necessary for the control of conduct. 
 " The function of consciousness in the biological organism 
 being the control of conduct, it is only in and through the 
 performance of that function that its development is pos- 
 sible. If we examine into the use and context of a newly 
 developed idea, we find that we must recognize : (1) its rela- 
 
 » " Dogmatism and Evolution," p. 133. 
 
200 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 tion to the relatively simple idea from which it has sprung, 
 as well as to the contrasted idea from which it has been 
 distinguished (and, perhaps, soon also to the more complex 
 ideas to which it in turn gives rise) ; and (2) its relation 
 to the conduct to which it prompts — briefly and crudely 
 — its genetic and functional relations." * In this whole 
 discussion consciousness and ideas are interpreted in a 
 purely biological manner. Origin and function are made 
 entirely determinative of the action of consciousness and of 
 the movement of ideas. It is out of the movement of ideas in 
 a genetic and functional manner that meaning is supposed 
 to grow. Schiller is in entire agreement with De Laguna 
 and definitely states : " Evolutionism, the great scien- 
 tific movement of the nineteenth century, is at length in- 
 vesting the last well-nigh inaccessible stronghold of ' pure ' 
 metaphysics, and systematically grappling with the ulti- 
 mate abstractions which human thought has recognized 
 and respected for ages, but has never succeeded in render- 
 ing really useful and intelligible." ^ The result of this in- 
 vasion and its influence is defined by Schiller in the same 
 terms of functioning and process. The underlying condi- 
 tional definition of evolution is thus given : " The es- 
 sence of Evolutionism " is " the doctrine that the world is 
 in process." ® The whole general aspect, therefore, of 
 pragmatism as one of function and process rests on Dar- 
 winian assumptions. Through them the origin and the 
 successive steps of thought and truth are explained. But 
 it is not only in this fundamental manner that evolutionism 
 has influenced pragmatism. The specific terms of evolu- 
 tionism, variation, selection, survival of the fittest, and 
 adaptation are employed to illustrate the movement of 
 thought in the finding of truth. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 126. 
 
 B " Studies in Humanism," p. 224. 
 
 8 Ibid., p. 22S. 
 
The Pragmatic Program 201 
 
 The very idea of variation is that of a. constantly pro- 
 ceeding change. Minute variatibns are the basis among 
 observed facts through whose accumulation and progress 
 evolution finds its point of departure. Nothing is by sup- 
 position without the chain of constantly proceeding varia- 
 tions. It is altogether on the same ground that pragma- 
 tism finds knowledge and truth wholly within the variation 
 of ideas, feelings and volitions. These reacting and being 
 reacted upon constitute experience in and through which 
 the functioning of thought works its way out toward truth. 
 The fact which is emphasized is not fixity but movement, 
 not a firm truth but variation of mind. Dewey says: 
 " Once admit that the whole verifiable or fruitful object 
 of knowledge is the particular set of changes that generate 
 the object of study together with the consequences that 
 flow from it, and no intelligible question can be asked about 
 what, by assumption, lies outside." "^ In other words, there 
 can be no recourse to any logical norm or any eternal 
 principle behind truth. Any such effort is supposed to be 
 an unjust abstraction from the existing course of events. 
 It is out of the changing events and the set of variations 
 within experience, as it touches the mind, that truth must 
 be foimd. By test and trial, by elimination and survival, 
 man must finally establish his truths and his knowledge. 
 
 Pragmatism is not only favorable to the use of variation 
 as rightly descriptive of the process of truth-finding, but it 
 is also friendly to the idea of natural selection. In life- 
 forms the struggle for existence explains how the unfit are 
 eliminated. It breaks down the actual continuity of 
 forms, and thus brings about the result of the remnant 
 of selected forms through a purely natural process. By 
 a very similar selection the thoughts that remain after the 
 struggle for existence in experience are those which are 
 valuable as elements of truth. Truth " happens " in the 
 
 7 " The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy," p. 14, 
 
202 Trends of Thoitght and Christian Truth 
 
 conflict of experience. The selection in our mind may be 
 mediated by attention, or voluntary selection, but finally, 
 according to most pragmatists, the selection is attained in 
 a more indirect manner. We keep as truth what proves 
 valuable and what is finally existent in our experience. 
 Professor Schiller, in consistence with the pragmatic idea, 
 has expressed the concept of selection thus : " A human 
 mind initially commences its career in a jumble resembling 
 a chaotic rag-bag. It finds itself containing things valu- 
 able, worthless, and pernicious, dreams, illusions, fancies, 
 delusions, incongruities, inconsistencies, etc., all jost- 
 ling the materials for what are subsequently construed as 
 realities. If, therefore, anything approaching a har- 
 monious life is to be constructed out of such stuff, a large 
 amount of selection is necessary. The pernicious contents 
 must be kept under and as far as possible eliminated ; the 
 worthless and useless must be neglected ; and so chaos must 
 be turned into something like cosmos. Th|s we do by 
 selectively attending to what turns out to be valuable, and 
 by ignoring those elements in our experience which we can- 
 not use." ® In other words it is use after trial that dteter- 
 mines the selection. What persists is valuable. Purpose 
 is sometimes admitted in such selection, but, after all, the 
 selection is purely natural in its character, and is deter- 
 mined by use and value. 
 
 It is very evident that when variation and selection are 
 ruling ideas, that survival of the fittest must also be in- 
 cluded. In the logic of pragmatism it is the very survival, 
 the verification of truth as it answers human uses, which 
 constitutes truth as truth. If there were no survival of 
 certain ideas after the trying-out of hiunan experience, 
 there could be no remaining truth. Never can that be 
 truth which has not stood trial and test and come out 
 victorious. Sometimes an apparent truth may live for a 
 8 Ibid., p. 933. 
 
The Pragmatic Program' 203 
 
 time, but it will not finally survive a closer search and a 
 fuller knowledge. Its failure to survive causes it to cease 
 to be a truth. Whatever is not a strong survival and 
 forms a basis for belief and action, and vrhatever is not 
 approved by the effects of belief and action, is not really 
 true. Truth never lies back of experience as a great ideal 
 or motive. It is only the usable, valuable, satisfying ex- 
 perience which survives. Survival in the evolutionary 
 sense is always the essential precondition of all the various 
 phenomena of life. It is also, according to pragmatism, 
 the precondition of all truths as living facts. 
 
 But when survival is a precondition, it needs, prior 
 to , it, adaptation. Evolution cannot maintain survival 
 without the supposition of the adaptation of life-forms to 
 their environment, whether it stresses selection or environ- 
 ment. This hypothesis of adaptation, which biology so 
 largely employs, is also applied to knowledge and to truth 
 by the pragmatist. While consciousness seems to inter- 
 fere when merely reflex adjustment and habitual adapta- 
 tion fail, it only interferes for a time and retires again. 
 Its whole concern is to aid the proper adjustment of con- 
 duct and it has no value in itself. Finally it is itself con- 
 duct and action, and all that it does, even in the highest 
 idea, is to mediate proper adjustment. Ideas themselves 
 only live as they are adapted to the conditions of life. 
 Truth constituted through ideas is the adapted remainder 
 of our experience out of which we can explain other pos- 
 sible experience. Truth, therefore, is the deposit of real 
 experience. But this deposit is formed only after the re- 
 sponse to environment is successful. Ideas are true when 
 they properly meet the call of the surroundings. Says 
 Dewey : "Sol beg to remind you that, according to 
 pragmatism, ideas (judgments and reasonings being in- 
 cluded for convenience in this term) are attitudes of re- 
 sponse taken toward extra-ideal, extra-mental things. In- 
 
204 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 stinct and habit express, for instance, modes of response, 
 but modes inadequate for a progressive being, or for adap- 
 tation to an environment presenting novel and unmastered 
 features. Under such conditions ideas are their surro- 
 gates. The origin of an idea is thus some empirical, ex- 
 tra-mental situation which provokes ideas as modes of re- 
 sponse, while their meaning is found in the modifications 
 — the ' differences ' — they make in this extra-mental sit- 
 uation. Their validity in turn is measured by their ca- 
 pacity to effect the transformation they intend." ® If this 
 transformation is really effected the idea that has vital 
 adaptation is true. Consequently not some inner ideal, 
 some light beckoning man on, forms his ideas and ideals, 
 even the highest of them, but ideas and ideals, are only 
 the adaptive resultant called forth by environment. Their 
 success in meeting the condition of environment, which de- 
 termines their workableness, stamps them as true. 
 
 It is very apparent from all this, that since pragmatism 
 finds in the general idea and the specific terminology of 
 evolution a basis adequate to explain its conception of 
 knowledge and truth, it is fundamentally biological. But 
 biology toi it means not merely biology as a natural science, 
 but such speculation as may be built upon it starting 
 from experience. Every trace, however, of an ideal de- 
 termination of life is generally avoided. Perry rightly 
 says : " Pragmatism means in the broadest sense, the 
 acceptance of the categories of life as fundamental. It is 
 the bio-centric philosophy. And it must be added at once 
 that the pragmatist means by ' life,' not the imaginary 
 or ideal life of any hypothetical being, not the ' eternal ' 
 life or the ' absolute ' life ; but the temporal, operative 
 life of animals and men, the life of instinct and desire, 
 of adaptation and environment, of civilization and prog- 
 ress." ^** It is true that in this conception of life pragma- 
 
 9 Ibid., p. ISfi. 
 
 10 " Present Philosophical Tendencies," p. 197. 
 
The Pragmatic Program 205 
 
 tism is not compelled to advocate a mechanical or chemi- 
 cal idea of the origin of life. It everywhere prefers to 
 rest on the actual biology, it even adds a feature of purpose 
 at times, for we can have no truth as value without the 
 implication of end or purpose. But whatever notions it 
 finds in life do not lead it to an ideal point of view. It al- 
 ways remains purely natural, and its idea of purpose is 
 a purpose altogether immanent in man and the world. 
 And, therefore, Perry is entirely correct when he char- 
 acterizes pragmatism thus : " It may even in a sense 
 be called ' naturalistic' For it identifies reality with ' this 
 world,' with the sort of thing that is going on here and 
 now; and regards perception as the most reliable means 
 of knowledge." ^^ 
 
 The biologism of the pragmatist finds its expression 
 and realizes its outcome in the psychological attitude. 
 The problem of knowledge and of truth is placed wholly 
 within the limits of the phenomenal process in the human 
 mind. The mind, conditioned by the physiological struc- 
 ture of man, is considered from the viewpoint of biology. 
 Consequently the psychological analysis of knowledge is 
 altogether the analysis of a function. There is no admis- 
 sion at all of any theory of knowledge on a normative 
 basis. Truth, consequently, is also a question of procedure 
 and result, and it can never be determined by standards 
 or norms which logic establishes. There is no legitimate 
 place for logic; its abstractions are supposed to be hin- 
 drances and not aids. Schiller defies the logician " (1) 
 to produce his ' pure ' thought ; (2) to account for the 
 movement of thought by anything but an appeal to psy- 
 chological motives, desire, feeling, interest, attention, will, 
 etc. ; (3) even to describe what he conceives to happen in 
 strictly logical terms and without constant recourse to 
 psychology." '^ Logical coherence is analyzed by Schiller 
 
 11 Ibid., p. 198. 
 
 12 « Humanism," p. SI. 
 
206 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 as interest. Identity is supposed to be due to sissociation. 
 Schiller believes that thought without interest to set think- 
 ing into motion is no thought at all. He endeavors a fun- 
 damental criticism of all logic.^' His attitude truly rep- 
 resents the endeavor of pragmatism to absorb the older 
 formal logic into psychology. The tendency of pragma- 
 tism is anti-logical, and opposes older logical positions. 
 Professor Boodin in his book on " Truth and Reality " 
 proceeds from the mind as instinct and the categories of 
 intelligence to the truth process. While he conceives the 
 truth process to involve ideation, feeling, and will, he de- 
 fines it purely in a psychological manner thus : " It is 
 the realization of an idea, selected and fixated by the will, 
 which has a definite hedonic value, as the process fails or 
 succeeds of realization. The truth process is self-realiza- 
 tion — the whole self striving to realize a definite end — 
 the will to know." ** After truth has been given this vol- 
 untaristic attitude, which is characteristic of pragmatism,'^^ 
 Professor Boodin discusses its morphology and form. 
 The determination of the form of thought is supposed to be 
 found, when one begins with the hypothetical judgment 
 which is the trial stage. From the hypothetical judgment 
 one can pass to the categorical judgment and to full affirm- 
 ative and negative assertion. Judgment and assertion 
 are always a part of a concrete situation. " Judgment 
 is always a process, with beginning, middle and end, the 
 developing of a drama of determinate interest. The tradi- 
 tional names of judgment we have found to be mere stages, 
 artificially isolated from this concrete process. Judgment, 
 inference and concept again are not different activities. 
 Inference is merely the expansion of the judgment into 
 its reasons, machinery in its realization." ** In this proc- 
 
 13 Cf. Schiller, " Formal Logic." 
 
 "P. 85. 
 
 15 James, " Pragmatism," p. 46. 
 
 10 Boodin, " Truth and Keality," p. 98. 
 
The Pragmatic Programt 207 
 
 ess and expansion, which is movement and phenomenal 
 connection, thought seeks its identity. 
 
 The psychological attitude of Boodin is fully shared by 
 Dewey, who claims : " All the distinctions of the thought- 
 function, of conception as over against sense-perception, of 
 judgment in its various modes and forms, of inference in its 
 vast diversity of operation — all these distinctions come 
 within the thought-situation as growing out of a character- 
 istic antecedent typical formation of experience ; and have 
 for their purpose the solution of the peculiar problem with 
 respect to which the thought function is generated or 
 evolved : the restoration of a deliberately integrated expe- 
 rience from the inherent conflict into which it has fallen." ^"^ 
 The whole description of Dewey shows us that the estimate 
 of thought is by no means logical in the usual sense of the 
 term. Thought is altogether a functioning, and its move- 
 ment is the important part. It must then follow " if 
 thought's nature is dependent upon its actual conditions 
 and circumstances, the primary logical problem is to study 
 thought-in-its-conditioning ; it is to detect the crisis within 
 which thought and its subject-matter present themselves in 
 their mutual distinction and cross-reference." ^* Thought 
 is altogether considered in its. correlations as it appears in 
 the phenomena of the mind. It is joined to its contents 
 not by any standard of logic, but only by psychological 
 considerations. " Thinking is adaptation to an end 
 through the adjustment of particular abjective con- 
 tents." ^® It is the particular contents working them- 
 selves out which make the truth. The whole process of 
 thinking is supposed to lead from sense to image, from 
 image to logical functioning. " The complexity of the 
 thinking process resides in consciousness also ; it resides 
 in the imagery, the stimuli, the mere symbols, if you like, 
 
 IT " studies in Logical Theory," p. 47. 
 
 18 Dewey, " Studies in Lopcal Theory," p. 63. 
 
 19 Ihid., p. 81. 
 
208 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 that have ' come ' to consciousness. As soon as the com- 
 plexity begins to be felt, as soon as any discrimination 
 whatsoever begins to be introduced or appreciated, at that 
 instant the sense-content, the quale, of imagery begins to 
 have a logical function. . . . It is only as the sense-con- 
 tents of various images are discriminated and compared 
 that anything like thinking can be conceived to go on." ^"^ 
 It is perfectly explicable that on such a basis conception 
 is altogether to be accounted for by psychological reasons. 
 There can be no real distinction between logic and psychol- 
 ogy. Logic has unduly limited psychology.^ -"^ These clear 
 statements, which deny separate logical standards, entirely 
 justify Professor Pratt's description: "We have noted 
 the emphasis placed' by pragmatists upon the concrete, 
 psychological nature of our human truths. These do not, 
 they insist, dwell apart in a Platonic realm ; they are all 
 of them concrete mental facts, they are of such stuff as 
 dreams and feelings and sensations are made of." ^^ 
 
 Out of this theory, which constantly emphasizes the 
 psychological attitude, there grow a number of peculiar 
 terms in which thought is characterized, and in which truth 
 is supposed to be related to thought. The first of these 
 terms is the description of knowledge as a process of lead- 
 ing. The manner in which thought flows on is described 
 to be the result of leading. Agreement is supposed to re- 
 sult through proper leading which justifies itself by its 
 direction and outcome. " True ideas lead us into useful 
 verbal and conceptional quarters as well as directly up to 
 useful sensible termini. They lead to consistency, stability 
 and flowing human intercourse. They lead away from 
 excentricity and isolation, from foiled and barren thinking. 
 The untrammelled flowing of the leading-process, its gen- 
 
 20 Professor Gore, " Studies in Logical Theory," p. 201. 
 
 21 Ibid., p. 185. 
 
 22 "What is Pragmatism?" p. 84. 
 
The Pragmatic Program 209 
 
 eral freedom from clash and contradiction, passes for its 
 indirect verification ; but all roads lead to Rome, and in the 
 end and eventually, all true processes must lead to the face 
 of directly verifying sensible experiences somewhere, which 
 somebody's ideas have copied." *^ The important thing 
 is, that after all the flowing of thought ends in the sen- 
 sible experience. The proof of truth is altogether practi- 
 cal and we are conducted through a present idea success- 
 fully to truth if the idea runs off prosperously. It is in 
 this manner that pragmatism supposes that we find the 
 agreement of truth, and it is out of such leading that the 
 kindly light of moving ideas guides us into truth. 
 
 Because knowledge is a leading, a leading from the con- 
 fused to the clear idea, from separation to unity, its 
 prospects always lie ahead. The leading is a leading away 
 into the future. Thought is supposed to look to ends, 
 for ends and aims are what action wants. If thought is 
 essentially not static but dynamic it must be determined by 
 its future result. Thought, as active and functioning, 
 must be purposive and look to the future. It is the suc- 
 cess of its venture which makes its functioning truth. 
 Therefore, the pragmatic method means : " The attitude 
 of looking away from first things, principles, ' categories,' 
 supposed necessities ; amd of looking towards last things, 
 fruits, consequences, facts." ^* There is, therefore, no way 
 of deciding truth in the present without regard to its 
 future consequences. Truth must be found by a teleology 
 of action. The end makes true and justifies the means. 
 
 Pragmatism in this attitude of moving toward the fu- 
 ture, and in this position which looks towards ends, must 
 define knowledge as a truth-seeking and a truth-finding. 
 The truth-seeking becomes a truth-finding when it reaches 
 proper satisfaction. The end of all the process of 
 
 23 James, " Pragmatism," p. 315. 
 2* Ibid., p. 54 e. 
 
SIO Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 thought, as it aims at truth, is to give real satisfaction. 
 The only ends that can be acknowledged are those that 
 satisfy. It is in this way that the ends become real pur- 
 poses. Purposes are real and true when they possess the 
 quality of answering to a want, whether it be a want of 
 sensation, of perception, or of idea. The satisfactions 
 vary with the situation and the need. But even the high- 
 est ideals are finally nothing but satisfactions. There is 
 no other standard or criterion. " The criterion proposed 
 is satisfaction, and primarily every kind of satisfaction. 
 In so far as a theory, idea, judgment gives us any kind of 
 satisfaction, so far forth it is true; in so far as it runs 
 counter to this and produces dissatisfaction it is false." *** 
 There is no other test but just the way in which truth 
 satisfies and fits in to the experiences which constitute our 
 lives. " Ideas {which themselves are but parts of our ex- 
 perience) become true just in so far as they help us to get 
 into satisfactory relation with other parts of our experi- 
 ence." ^^ 
 
 It is due to the reference which thought has for the fu- 
 ture, and it is owing to the emphasis on satisfaction, that 
 it must be supposed, that thoughts properly functioning 
 make the truth. Truth is not any quality or property 
 which inheres in ideas. The only thing that makes ideas 
 true is that truth happens to them. It is the outcome 
 which establishes the truth of an idea. An idea becomes 
 true when we can assimilate it, confirm it, corroborate it 
 and verify it. It is false if we cannot do this. " It be- 
 comes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact 
 an event, a process; the process namely of its verifying 
 itself, its \evi-fu:ation. Its validity is the process of its 
 \&\\A-ation." ^ By verification the ends are satisfied, by 
 
 20 J. M. O'SulUvan, " Old Criticism and New Pragmatism," p. 269. 
 28 James, " Pragmatism," p. 58. 
 i" Ibid., p. 201. 
 
The Pragmatic Program 211 
 
 validation the leadings of thought are established. Thus, 
 and thus only, through the immediate and concrete proc- 
 ess of verifying leadings do we attain the truth. " Such 
 simply athd fidly verified leadings are certainly the origi- 
 nals and prototypes of the truth- process." ^^ 
 
 On the whole Schiller agrees with James in his emphasis 
 upon the making of truth. But Schiller assigns a greater 
 place in the process to man himself. His theory becomes 
 real humanism, because the verification is a procedure into 
 which human feelings and volitions enter together with 
 ideas. Truth-finding is no process of a mere intellectual 
 order. It has the warmth of human nature, because in 
 truth man seeks and finds satisfaction. The problem is 
 not whether we can construct an unexceptionable theory, 
 but whether we recognize the Importance of subjective 
 activity in the making of truth. " It must frankly be 
 admitted that truth is humum truth, and incapable of com- 
 ing into being without human effort and agency; that 
 human action is psychologically conditioned; that, there- 
 fore, the concrete fulness of human Interests, desires, emo- 
 tions, satisfactions, purposes, hopes, and fears Is relevant 
 to the theory of knowledge and must not be abstracted 
 from." ^^ Truth is not independent, but thoroughly de- 
 pendent on htunan life. There can be no real absolute 
 and transcendent truth. Life offers to us problems. We 
 must distinguish between the right and the wrong solution 
 of these problems. It is this situation of life which pre- 
 sents to us truth in its inception as ambiguous. The 
 ambiguity of truth presents us with a claim which we must 
 either accept or reject. " Truth, therefore, wUl become 
 ambiguous. It wiU mean primarily a claim which may or 
 may not turn out to be valid. It will mean, secondarily, 
 such a claim after it has been tested and ratified, by proc- 
 
 28 James, Ibid., p. 206. 
 
 29 « Studies in Humanism," p. 182. 
 
212 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 esses which it behooves us to examine." ^° In this ex- 
 amination the claim of truth is validated when truth ac- 
 tually works. It is by no process of formal logic that we 
 can establish it, but only by its own inherent workableness. 
 This workableness will aid us to separate it from what is 
 false. But a part of the workableness is the very fact 
 that truth yields satisfaction and answers to real human 
 interests. By its workings, when the claims are really 
 verified, truth itself helps to make reality. It is not the 
 initial state of truth that counts, but what truth finally 
 and really makes out of the data of human experienced^ 
 When we have considered how truth establishes itself, 
 how it makes reality, how it answers satisfactions, how 
 it looks to the future, how it is successful in its leadings, 
 we are ready to acknowledge that truth is useful. The 
 reduction of truth to the test of usefulness demands care- 
 ful consideration. The standard of utility advocated, as 
 a test of truth, by pragmatism is not necessarily a narrow 
 one. Utility need not be employed in an unideal sense. 
 Consequently the utilitarian standard, which follows from 
 pragmatism, is not to be immediately identified with earlier 
 utilitarianism. The conception of use in most pragmatic 
 discussions is far wider and more balanced, than the same 
 idea in the utilitarianism of morals, which Bentham and 
 Mill introduced into English thought. But, after all, the 
 theory of resultant, satisfactory ends as validating truth, 
 and the hypothesis of its successful operation in justifying 
 a claim, give truth a strong utilitarian color. Truth is 
 not finally a vital credit, but it is a usable cash value. Its 
 importance is its expediency in the long run and to meet 
 all wants. " ' The true/ to put it very briefly, is only 
 the expedient in the way of our thmking, just as ' the 
 
 so " studies in Humanism," p. 144 ff. 
 
 81 Cf. " Studies in Humanism; The Making of Reality," p. 421 ff. 
 
The Pragmatic Program, 213 
 
 right ' is only the expedient in the way of our behaving" ^^ 
 When we have arrived at such a definition the balance of 
 the broader idea of use in pragmatism has been lost. The 
 moral standard of expediency has led us back again to the 
 utilitarianism of a Mill. Not all pragmatists, however, 
 will fully admit the identification of the right with the ex- 
 pedient. Nevertheless, not one can get away from the im- 
 plication of the practical consequences implied in the 
 pragmatic program. Utility may be broadly defined, but 
 finally it sinks again to mere practical expediency which 
 can be applied to every kind of idea. James, who has 
 been most outspoken and clear in indicating the last result 
 of pragmatism, applies the standard of use to religion 
 and theological ideeis. He says : " If theological ideas 
 prove to have a value for concrete life, they will be true, 
 for pragmatism, im the sense of being good for so much. 
 For how much more they are true, will depend entirely 
 on their relatione to the other truths that also have to be 
 acknowledged." ^* The standard of usefulness is discussed 
 more cautiously by Boodin. While he admits that truth 
 may turn out to be useful, and that the utilitarian motive 
 has been important in the investigation of truth, he denies 
 that the usefulness of any search in science and life makes 
 it true. He claims : " But the statement that truth is, on 
 the whole, useful is a conclusion and not a part of prag- 
 matism as an epistemological criterion."^* Doubtless 
 this is correct. Utility is not the initial standard of the 
 process but its consequence. However, in as far as it is a 
 real and admitted consequence it points to the testing of 
 all claims of truth by their outcome in the procedure of ex- 
 perience. 
 
 All the special and peculiar psychological definitions of 
 
 32 James, " Pragmatism,'' p. 222. 
 
 S3 Ibid., p. 73. 
 
 3i " Truth and Reality," p. 191. 
 
214 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 truth emphasize that truth is purely within experience. 
 It has been constantly necessary to assert and to re-assert 
 this limitation of truth. The emphasis upon experience 
 and its workings is as fundamental to pragmatism as the 
 evolutional point of view. Of course, this experience need 
 not be at all times material. The earlier pragmatists 
 emphasized conduct and behaviour as a result in a purely 
 perceptual and sensible manner. This reduction to the 
 external and material has never been fully removed from 
 pragmatism. Nevertheless, it must be admitted, that 
 some of the pragmatists have put a larger emphasis on the 
 ideal side. None have absolutely denied it. It has been 
 definitely stated by Boodin : " There is a conduct of the 
 understanding as well as a conduct involving certain 
 perceptual events as its outcome. The procedure may be 
 entirely of a logical kind as in formal logic and pure 
 mathematics. But here, too, the idea is true only as it 
 terminates consistently in its intended result." '^ There is 
 an ideal termination of the process of thinking admitted 
 in these words of Boodin. Nevertheless the result is 
 reached not through the validity of the axiom, or prin- 
 ciple, or law, but the trial and the experience make it true. 
 Consequently truth is included within the limits of ex- 
 perience. It is conditioned by the situation in which men 
 are. " Hence the criterion of the truth or falsity of the 
 meaning, of the adequacy, of the cognitional thing lies 
 within the relationships of the situation and not mth- 
 out." ** We are to remain totally within the elements 
 that experience offers, and we have to do only with its 
 values. By no other way can we explain thought or 
 truth. " Is it not clear that the reason that there is a 
 dialectic of thought is because at bottom thought is a part 
 of the total process of an efficient desire and effort to 
 38 Ibid., p. isr. 
 
 3« Dewey, " The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy," p. 1(W. 
 
The Pragmatic Program 215 
 
 effect a change m experienced values? " *^ In other words, 
 when experience becomes interpreted in the human mind 
 and the human mind acts upon it, there arise certain values. 
 In these values lies the problem of truth. When they 
 possess the power to work, to satisfy and to agree, they 
 are true. A true value meets a situation. Truth and 
 falsity do not belong to any facts in themselves. They 
 are not mere existences, but they are found when assurance 
 and belief enter in. It is through belief and assurance 
 that a meaning is found. The fulfillment of use, the an- 
 swer of satisfaction, the completion of purpose, the reply 
 to the claim, the ending of the leading, these constitute 
 truth and give lasting meaning. Things, percepts, feel- 
 ings, volitions, ideas, — all tending to ends and actions 
 and purposes are relations whose meanings can furnish 
 truth. When the proper assurance has been answered and 
 consciously satisfied we have truth. Truth is an experi- 
 enced relation of things and gives them real meaning. 
 Falsity is equally a situation, but one which does not sat- 
 isfy. " Truth cmd falsity present themselves as signifi- 
 cant facts ordy in situations m which specific meanings 
 and their already experienced fulfUments and nonrfulfill- 
 ments are intentionally compared and contrasted with ref- 
 erence to the question of the worth, as to reliability of 
 meaning, of the given meanmg or class of meanings." ^^ 
 Thus truth works itself out and justifies itself. It gives 
 meaning to life in and through the fiow of life itself. 
 
 87 Moore, " Pragmatism and Its Critics," p. 93. 
 38 Dewey, " The Influence of Darwin," p. 95. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE EESULTS OF PEAGMATISM 
 
 INTERESTING and suggestive as the program of 
 pragmatism may be in itself, its theories concern us 
 and become important for us in their results. When 
 the results are examined the question at once arises, what 
 is their bearing upon the truth of Christianity. Pragma- 
 tism has been received most variously by different types 
 of thinkers. While some have accorded it a high place 
 as the best ally of Christianity, others have assailed it 
 as a most dangerous enemy because of its emphasis on 
 actuality, its endorsement of evolution, and its trend to- 
 ward utility. A careful and just estimate must lead us 
 to the same final judgment which we find necessary in 
 reference to all the modem methods of thought. We 
 shall be constrained to mediate between wholesale adoption 
 and complete rejection. 
 
 In as far as pragmatism is an evolutionary theory and 
 uses the terms of a biological hypothesis, it can be used in 
 appreciating Christianity as a developing religion. Of 
 course we must exercise great care not to confuse the 
 usableness of biological terms in Christian truth with 
 their basal bearing on the determination of Christian truth. 
 Perhaps the relation of biologic terms to Christianity is 
 more of an illustrative character, and, if rightly balanced, 
 of a comparative nature, than of a fundamental and con- 
 stitutive value. If we desire to tell the story of Christian 
 truth in the Church and in the world, we may employ the 
 formulas of variation, struggle, selection and survival. 
 
 There is a sense in which biological evolution has dis- 
 
 216 
 
The Results of Pragmatism 217 
 
 covered fundamental points of view, which, if properly 
 modified, do in part obtain in the development of thought 
 and truth. To the degree in which Christianity employed 
 human thought and the vessels of human thinking it is 
 affected by the relation of biological terminology to 
 thought. After Christianity had announced its first mes- 
 sage it did not rest with the mere proclamation of this 
 initial truth, but it compelled men's attention and called 
 forth their statements about it. Some, like the early 
 Gnostics, endeavored to submerge it in other systems of 
 religion and philosophy. Some, like the great Apologists 
 of the second century, sought to save its distinctness, even 
 though they were compelled to state it through the medium 
 of Greek thought. Thus whatever the medium, Chris- 
 tianity was shaped according to a number of varieties. 
 
 Through a continuous selection there arose standard 
 Christianity with its orthodoxy. It had at first to strug- 
 gle for its existence, but it survived despite all opposition 
 because of its fitness to meet the needs of man's cry for 
 salvation. Its fortunes at times wavered; but has it not 
 succeeded.'' As far as we trace it historically and are 
 compelled to judge it in its force among men, it has lived 
 by best meeting the conditions and situations of a religion 
 that can and shall live. There can be no quarrel, there- 
 fore, on the part of fair-minded Christianity, about allow- 
 ing a delineation of its history and of the growth of its 
 truth along the lines of the pragmatic emphasis upon de- 
 velopment. A generalization from the facts of Christian 
 history allows us to see the worth of the application of 
 pragmatic evolutionary tenns, even though these terms do 
 not describe the actual motive forces. 
 
 When pragmatism applies the psychological test it has 
 offered a valuable and usable medium. Through prag- 
 matism the advantages of the psychological view ^ have 
 
 I Cf. above, Part I, Chapter VII, p. 129 ff. 
 
218 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 been furthered- It has rendered real service in classifying 
 and differentiating religious phenomena, and it has aided 
 in the study of the religious consciousness. The psy- 
 chological point of view, as it has applied the biological 
 attitude, opened up the possibility of a real research into 
 the effect of different types of religion and of different 
 kinds of religious life upon the whole of man's life. As 
 far as pragmatism favors psychology it has helped to make 
 the study of religion in the human mind not a mere ab- 
 stract, philosophic procedure, but a living, concrete analy- 
 sis. Pragmatism has carried forward the scientific analy- 
 sis of spiritual life, and has done this most successfully 
 when most careful in its collection of data and in its ob- 
 servation, and when least influenced by a metaphysical bias. 
 Through careful psychological analysis pragmatism has 
 advanced the application of inductive reasoning * to the 
 truth of Christianity. The manner in which inductive 
 modes of thought, which were most largely advanced 
 through modern psychology and biology, have become 
 the ruling ways of thinking, can only be welcomed by 
 Christianity in so far forth as it desires and uses the facts, 
 the data, and the living growth of the human mind. With 
 these before it Christianity can more clearly and definitely 
 show its bearings and the influence of its truth upon man. 
 The attitude of pragmatism towards verification has an 
 element through which it can be brought into harmony 
 with Christian ideals and claims. When truth is por- 
 trayed as the outgrowth of a claim, and as verifying 
 itself through its own development, is this viewpoint al- 
 together objectionable? Can we not rather use this idea 
 and may it not serve to show how Christianity is its own 
 defense? In its unfoldment and history Christianity has 
 constantly gained strength and has become its own evi- 
 dence, because its truths met the demand, and satisfied and 
 2Cf. Part I, Chapter II. 
 
The Results of Pragmatism 819 
 
 answered the need of man. The claim which Christianity 
 made to be the religion was established as Christianity 
 was tried out in history. It is through the comparison 
 of its history with the history of other faiths, it is through 
 the study of its results and effects that it has justified 
 itself. The immediate verification and validation of Chris- 
 tianity to the conscience is also an establishment of its 
 truth in and through the experience of the recipient. 
 When Christianity is received it validates itself. Its as- 
 surance of grace and its power of salvation work out im- 
 mediately and establish the heart of man. And in the long 
 run the apologetic of Christianity is best found in the man- 
 ner in which Christianity has validated itself, and through 
 which it is still verifying itself among men. This test is 
 its defense, and to this test men naturally look. The good 
 tree can be known in no other way than by its fruits. It 
 may be good, but men do not know it to be good until it 
 bears fruit. 
 
 The pragmatic conception of satisfaction, which is a 
 particular application of the idea of verification, also con- 
 tains a true point of view. Christianity argues that its 
 offer of salvation satisfies the human soul, and with the 
 claim of this satisfaction that wiU be received Christianity 
 presses forward. It is certainly true that Christianity 
 interprets satisfaction in the highest sense, and it makes 
 the supreme satisfaction of man to be the satisfaction of 
 his soul. It constantly puts forward the fact of this 
 satisfaction as a basis for accepting its message. While 
 there may be some who interpret Christianity's proffer 
 of satisfaction in a selfish sense, there are others who 
 realize that even spiritual satisfaction should not be the 
 main motive. Nevertheless even these advocates of a 
 Christianity, in which man does not primarily seek the 
 salvation of his soul, do not deny the final attainment 
 of a satisfaction. Now such a procedure in Christianity 
 
Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 is entirely pragmatic. It is a result of the practical lead- 
 ing of Christian truth that it renders satisfaction, and in 
 rendering this satisfaction Christian truth has become 
 really useful. The practical outcome and utility of Chris- 
 tianity as an evidence and an establishment of its claim 
 is indicated even in the sayings of Christ. He says of 
 men that claim to be prophets, " Ye shall know them by 
 their fruits." ^ His own doctrine He submits for its es- 
 tablishment to the test of its results and effects. To ob- 
 tain these results men must accept the condition of prac- 
 tically acting in accord with Christ's teaching ; then, in the 
 doing of this teaching, it will become established as certain 
 in the mind of the doer as the truth of God Himself. 
 Christ says : " My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent 
 me. If any man will do His will, he shall know of the 
 doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of my- 
 self." * The same test of results is applied when, in keep- 
 ing with this principle announced by Christ, emphasis is 
 placed upon the ethical character of Christianity. Its 
 faith works through love, its love does good. There is 
 no standard to be applied finally to man but the standard 
 of the deeds of love.^ This is purely and simply the prag- 
 matic standard. The fact that Christianity works now 
 and will work hereafter is its appeal and justification. 
 There is no peculiar term of the pragmatic attitude which 
 cannot readily be employed by Christianity as a defense 
 of its truth in the practical working out of it. 
 
 Again and again it has been borne in upon us, that the 
 truth of Christianity is not merely intellectual. When 
 pragmatism asserts and reiterates the contention, that 
 feeling and will are elements of truth, it presents a theory 
 of truth which Christianity regards with favor. There 
 
 3 Matthew, 7:16. 
 *John, 7:16, 17. 
 6 Matthew, 25^6 ff. 
 
The Results of Pragmatism 221 
 
 can be no living faith in Christianity which does not receive 
 the impetus of the feelings, no matter how temperaments 
 may differ. In the same way the will is an essential ele- 
 ment in all trust and faith. When Professor James accen- 
 tuates the will to believe he has found, despite many diffi- 
 culties inherent in this attitude, the very heart of faith. 
 Faith as defined in the New Testament is confidence and 
 trust, and its psychological center is will. Though there 
 is more in faith than mere will, and though it embraces 
 knowledge and feeling, yet without will faith is impossible. 
 Even if we interpret faith in itself, not as living trust, but 
 as intellectual assent, nevertheless even this assent de- 
 mands an attitude of will. Therefore, the pragmatic 
 method, reasserting the voluntaristic element in faith, is 
 in agreement not only with the evangelical. New Testament 
 conception of faith, but also with that idea of it which 
 makes it an assent to the creed of the Church. There is 
 no interpretation which can overlook the fact of will in 
 faith. It is through emphasis on will and faith that prag- 
 matism has derived its humanistic trend. By the valuation 
 of the will pragmatism has made truth a living reality and 
 found a just basis for the element of faith. With such 
 a valuation Christianity and religion can remain no ab- 
 stractions. Christianity must be in thorough sympathy 
 with any opposition to the interpretation of religion as 
 intellectual, which is the basis of absolutism. Consequently 
 it approves of the pragmatic attack upon the absolut- 
 ist. It has entire sympathy with Schiller,* when he dis- 
 tinguishes absolutism and religion. The rejection of the 
 intellectualism of absolutism, of its pantheism, of its denial 
 of evil, and of its detraction from the reality about us 
 are entirely agreeable to Christianity. 
 
 Pragmatism has also helped us in reasserting the doc- 
 trine of values. It is not the originator of the idea of 
 
 8 "Studies in Humanism," p. 274 ff. 
 
222 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 values. The neo^Kantian philosophy of the modern period 
 was most instrumental in introducing the thought of value. 
 From this philosophy it crept into theology through 
 Ritschl, even though he claimed to have divorced philoso- 
 phy from religion. But it is pragmatism which, at least in 
 America, has done most to introduce the idea of value. 
 Now while there is a danger in contrasting value with exist- 
 ence, it is nevertheless true that the mere assertion of exist- 
 ence without value cannot aid Christianity. Religious facts 
 and religious truths, like mortil facts and laws, and like 
 aesthetic judgments, and like logical abstractions and 
 formulas, cannot be maintained and held to be mere exist- 
 ences. The very nature of a religious reality, whether God, 
 the soul, freedom, sin, grace, falls short of what it is, if it is 
 not more than the assertion of an existence by the mind. It 
 is not 'Sufficient to say that Grod is ; He cannot really be God 
 unless His existence has a meaning and value for us. 
 Whether men want to do so or not, they always evaluate 
 in every confession of Christian truth. Those thinkers are 
 entirely astray who forget that the message of Christian- 
 ity, its claim of truth, the demand of its history, are all 
 calls for a judgment of special value. The worth and 
 value of Christianity is its defense. Not merely that 
 Christianity is what it is, but that it gives what it gives, 
 makes Christianity the religion it is. Christ always calls 
 for an evaluation of Himself; He demands that men de- 
 clare for Him or against Him; and such a declaration is 
 not the mere acceptance of His existence, but the confes- 
 sion of His divine Sonship and of His Messiahship. He 
 cannot be what He is to men unless He is a value. He 
 must become their life, their light, their truth. In all this 
 becoming lies His meaning and value, and without it men 
 do not have Him. Similarly in all the truth and history 
 of Christiatiity an equal demand is made upon us to ac- 
 cept it as a worth and as a value. 
 
The Results of Pragmatism 223 
 
 Out of pragmatism with its opposition to a mere fixed 
 truth and universe there grows a new appreciation of free- 
 dom.'' In the theory that things are constantly moving 
 and changing, that they are becoming, and that truth is 
 that which works out in man's development, we are offered 
 a real opportunity of choice.* Men are not supposed to 
 be merely determined ; but as they take part in the making 
 of truth and reality they can really decide. Their de- 
 cisions are not illusions though their choices are not un- 
 restricted. Though character affects them and habits 
 must be accounted for, yet both character and habits are 
 under the control of truth-shaping man. The moral de- 
 mands of freedom and of obligation to do one's duty are 
 justified. At the same time science is not set aside, be- 
 cause the empirically free acts arise continuously out of 
 the given situation. The choice that has been made is, 
 after its making, found to be intelligible. But whatever 
 choice we take, the alternative may also seem intelligible 
 because it is equally natural and calculable in human ex- 
 perience and its living and connected course. With the 
 possibility of such freedom, but not unreasonable arbi- 
 trariness, imbedded in the conception of experience, Chris- 
 tianity can agree. A place seems to be made for man as 
 a growing personality, who can highly value his own soul 
 freely over against the world and as separate from, though 
 not independent of, God. The accountability of man re- 
 mains in balance with the justice of God. Man can be 
 justly punished because he has his own choice. Through 
 such ideals we can maintain the free inter-relation of God 
 and man, of Father and child. In the development of life 
 man finds God and God leads man, but He does not control 
 him through an absolute decree. No matter what God 
 
 ' Cf. Schiller's Bssay on Freedom, " Studies in Humanism," p. 391. 
 8 Cf. James, The Dilemma of Determinism in " The Will to Be- 
 lieve," etc., p. ITS ff. 
 
224« Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 may foresee, He cannot determine man without man's 
 responsibility, unless the choice of man is abolished. The 
 newer attitudes of Christianity favor such a redefinition 
 of the problem of freedom and necessity, of predestination 
 and faith, as to conserve both God's justice and man's 
 responsibility. In the balance of these the moral de- 
 mands are more justly satisfied than in any absolute theory 
 of election. This solution of Christian thinking rests on a 
 pragmatic basis. It regards freedom as necessary and as 
 discovered in the life and experience of men. 
 
 Pragmatism, because it opposes a pantheistic universe, 
 is necessarily moved to accept an attitude of pluralism. 
 It is clearly and openly pluralistic over against any theory 
 of monism, which absorbs all personalities into a unitary 
 existence or reality, whether this be defined to be matter 
 or mind. Christianity can also not allow the absorption 
 of human souls into God, or their submergence into the 
 world. It believes in many separate spirits. From these 
 it sets God apart as the highest Spirit. Consequently 
 Christianity favors any philosophy which maintains a 
 theistic attitude. Any hypothesis which allows for a co- 
 ordinated world, and a God, not the world, as well as a 
 world not God, is far more favorable to Christian truth 
 than any speculation of idealism, in which all separate 
 entities are made subservient to a single substance. With 
 a single substance posited there can be no relatively inde- 
 pendent man and no absolutely independent God. Unless 
 there be separate personalities it is impossible to main- 
 tain the true individuality of man, and it is impossible (o 
 believe in God or in the Christian Trinity. 
 
 The maintenance of separate personality has been par- 
 ticularly favored by the development of modem " Personal 
 Idealism." This personal idealism has grown up under the 
 influence of pragmatism. It is most clearly argued out 
 by Professor Rashdall in his essay on " Personality : Hu- 
 
The Results of Pragmatism 225 
 
 man and Divine," which is included in the series of essays 
 entitled " Personal Idealism " edited by Henry Sturt.* 
 According to Professor Rashdall, the fundamental ele- 
 ments in personality are not merely a feeling but a think- 
 ing consciousness which has a certain permanence. The 
 permanent thinking consciousness distinguishes itself from 
 the objects as things and as other persons. Personality 
 also possesses as its most important element and its most 
 essential attribute the power to will and through will to 
 originate. This idea of personality is not at all satisfied 
 by any form of consciousness below the human, but it is 
 not even adequately fulfilled through the human conscious- 
 ness. It is only in God that personality finds its fulfill- 
 ment, but this fulfillment does not do away with the human 
 selves. There is an independence about personality which 
 dare not be denied. The mistake in the monistic idealism 
 is " the assumption that what constitutes existence for 
 others is the same as what constitutes existence for self." ^^ 
 We must take this attitude : " A thing is as it is known : 
 its esse is to be known: what it is for the experience of 
 spirits, is its whole reality: it is that £ind nothing more. 
 But the esse of a person is to know himself, to be for him- 
 self, to feel and to think for himself, to act on his own 
 knowledge, and to know that he acts. In dealing with 
 persons, therefore, there is an unfathomable gulf between 
 knowledge and reality. What a person is for himself is 
 entirely unaffected by what he is for any other, so long as 
 he does not know what he is for that other." ^^ " The 
 essence of a person is not what he is for another, but what 
 he is for himself." ^^ But the being for itself does not ex- 
 
 » Two other books resting on the same basis are, " Personality 
 and the Christian Ideal," by Buckham; "Personality, Human and 
 Divine," by Illingworth. 
 
 loSturt, Essay of Rashdall, "Personal Idealism," p. 382. 
 
 11 Ibid., p. 383. 
 
 lilbid., p. 383. 
 
226 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 elude from personality the not-self. When the not-self is 
 a thing it is not real apart from what it is for me and for 
 other selves. " When the not-self is a person, the knowl- 
 edge of that self is part of my experience, and so (if you 
 like it) in a sense part of me ; but that does not show that 
 there is not a something which he is for himself, which is 
 no part at all of me, and which is as real as I am," ^* 
 This independent self is no doubt in relation with others, 
 but it never loses itself in them. There can be no self 
 which entirely covers another. This is true even if that 
 self be God. " The knowledge of the finite self by God 
 does not exhaust its being as is the ca'se with the mere 
 object. It is the knowledge of them that is in God. God 
 must know the self as a self which has a consciousness, an 
 experience, a will which is its own — that is, as a being 
 which is not identical with the knowledge that He has of 
 it." ** Such knowledge of God is of course infinitely 
 deeper and completer than any other selves can have of 
 each other. This is the result of the fuller personality 
 of God. " God must then, it would seem, know other 
 selves by the analogy of what He is Himself; He could 
 not (it is reasonable to infer) have created beings wholly 
 unlike Himself. His knowledge of other selves may be 
 perfect knowledge without his ever being or becoming the 
 selves which He knows." ^^ He can penetrate into human 
 life without that human life being contained in Him. It 
 is through ideals of human personality like these, indi- 
 cated by Professor Rashdall that Christianity finds it pos- 
 sible to maintain its belief in separate human souls, in 
 God the Creator, and in God's personality. In as far as 
 the pluralism of pragmatism favors these conceptions of 
 separate personalities it is in harmony with Christian 
 truth. 
 
 18 Ibid., p. 386. 
 I* Ibid., p. 886." 
 15 Ibid., p. 387. 
 
The Results of Pragmatism 227 
 
 But after all these aspects of pragmatism, which are 
 favorable to Christianity, it is necessary to pass to the 
 examination of other aspects, which are inimical to Chris- 
 tian truth. The fact of development has frequently been 
 stated in such a naturalistic manner as to injure the spirit- 
 ual content of Christianity. There exists in pragmatism 
 a trend to see and stress the merely natural side of de- 
 velopment and progress. Because the finding of the truth 
 is in the process, it is through the process that truth is 
 made. Now while Christian history and its development 
 shows that truth has assumed many forms, and that it 
 cannot be explained apart from human receptivity, yet 
 Christianity can never grant that the receptivity produced 
 the reality of truth. The changing forms of the Christian 
 message are not the explanation of its essence. If it is 
 true that the human experience made Christianity, then 
 Christianity must surrender its claim to be really super- 
 natural. It is not supernatural without a history into 
 which the supernatural descends, but it is also not his- 
 torical and a natural development without a deposit of the 
 eternal. The stressing of development and evolution is 
 liable to deeply injure religion. Eucken rightly doubts 
 whether any naturalistic evolution is congruent with 
 Christianity. It cannot satisfy the claim of the eternal 
 reasonableness of religion within its sphere. While reli- 
 gion is not reason it is reasonable. The inner reasonable- 
 ness cannot be found in the confusion of development and 
 history in which both the reasonable and the unreasonable 
 occur. The very substance of Christianity is denied when 
 development claims to be the solvent of the truth of Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 The naturalism of most pragmatists hinders them from 
 giving real value to the separation of the psychological 
 facts from the biological facts. While in theory they 
 adhere to the parallelism of modem psychology, they 
 
228 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 finally reduce phenomena of the mind too largely to the 
 objective external biological data. This appears in the 
 manner in which survival in the biologist's sense is made 
 an end of consciousness. We agree in great part with 
 DeLaguna when he says : " For in the rise of con- 
 sciousness a second end (in the sense above defined) 
 emerges, namely, the satisfaction of desire or happiness. 
 That happiness does thus operate as a determining con- 
 dition in the psychical selection by which the more com- 
 plex mental processes are developed, is well known and 
 none have illustrated the fact better than the pragmatists. 
 Their fault, as we conceive it, has been a failure to dis- 
 tinguish accurately between the conditions of happiness 
 and those of survival." ^® In other words the biological 
 attitude has crowded out a just psychological fact. In a 
 similar manner the biological and physiological coloring 
 of the psychology of pragmatism has hindered the proper 
 estimate of consciousness in other directions. The reduc- 
 tion of ideas and ideals, of thoughts and conceptions, to 
 mere actions and mere functions has aided in overthrow- 
 ing the real worth of the psychological. Consequently the 
 psychology of pragmatism has become material. Be- 
 cause of its material and naturalistic tendency it is 
 detrimental to a spiritual conception of mind. When 
 the spiritual idea of the mind is lost there is no ade- 
 quate basis in human nature for religion. Consequently 
 pragmatism in its materializing of mind has injured its 
 best observations and inferences derived from the psychol- 
 ogy of religion. It has injured the idea of the soul, of the 
 conscience, and of the character of man. The studies of 
 religious experience and their varieties, when they were 
 observed in feelings and in the wiU, brought them closer to 
 nerve action. Religious ideas became subservient to feel- 
 ing and will, and this subservience was aided by the nat- 
 
 18 " Dogmatism and Evolution," p. 137. 
 
The Results of Pragmatism 229 
 
 uralistic conception of both feeling and will. Christian- 
 ity demands against all such notions, that man's spiritual 
 nature remain intact and that it be given an ideal value. 
 
 Another difficulty with the pragmatic theory is the man- 
 ner in which it seems to restrict the working out of truth 
 to the basis of perception. There is no real place for ideas. 
 Because these are depreciated, there is no real way of ex- 
 plaining some very fundamental notions of the human 
 mind. We are entirely at sea when we attempt to derive 
 the axioms of mathematics, ^'^ or to unfold the conception 
 of causality. The failure of pragmatism to furnish a 
 foundation for ideas, because it is too much entranced by 
 perception, has also led to the denial of the separateness 
 of logic. Pragmatism has no real logic, but only a descrip- 
 tive psychology. Now Christian truth demands a norm 
 and a standard. The demand of a standard cannot be 
 upheld, if there is no value, from the point of view of 
 truth, for any logical norm apart from its psychological 
 derivation. The psychological conditions of a standard do 
 not explain its essence. If they are stressed we shall 
 finally have a standard which always moves and shifts, 
 but a shifting standard is a perishing standard. The 
 mere occurrence of any fact is sufficient in the theory of 
 pragmatism to justify it, if it does not actually disagree 
 with another experience. Now this matter of mere prac- 
 tical agreement or disagreement may be a working basis 
 and a provisional platform, but the standard of truth 
 demands a higher justification. Christianity cannot 
 abandon its claim, that there is a fixity and a certainty 
 about Christian truth which is due to its own inner na- 
 ture. Therefore, no change of interpretation and no 
 varieties of experience can decide as to the final worth of 
 Christian truth. 
 
 The pragmatic theory of the workableness of truth, of 
 
 17 DeLaguna, ibid., p. ISS. 
 
230 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 its satisfaction, and of its utility, which has a favorable 
 side, also has a very dangerous implication. It seems 
 to rest truth on the possibility of its being tested. A 
 claim and a truth which cannot be tested can never be es- 
 tablished. Now Christian truth claims to be ethically 
 right and justifiable on its own foundations. It works, 
 it satisfies, and is truly useful, because it is what it is. 
 The truth is the cause of the workableness, not the work- 
 ableness the cause of the truth. Many religious truths, 
 because they are supernatural, are above man's possible 
 experience. They cannot be tested in themselves. Their 
 unity with other truths is possible through a Christian 
 system of truth, but the unity of such a system is a merely 
 logical expedient. A logical expedient is not the satis- 
 faction which experience must give. Therefore, pragma- 
 tism would be compelled to eliminate many transcendent 
 ideas of Christianity. Some truths may not at all appear 
 practicable. They must be believed to become practical, 
 but the belief does not make them so. If, e. g., we take 
 the Christian teaching of non-resistance, the opposition of 
 Christ to the notion of " an eye for an eye, a tooth for a 
 tooth," and His commendation of suffering evil, it seems 
 that the practical life of man, his struggle for existence, 
 and his necessity of self-preservation contradict the claim 
 of non-resistance in every way. There is no satisfaction 
 to be found in it, and it is not at all usable in the world, 
 but if, prior to all verification and in the face of difficul- 
 ties. Christians would become sufficiently Christian to ac- 
 cept the value of the ideal of non-resistance the ideal 
 would transform the world. In other words, it would not 
 be the workableness which would establish the truth, but 
 the truth accepted would make its way. With all its 
 emphasis on the will to believe, pragmatism has not solved 
 the problem of the power of Christian truth. It has 
 failed in its solution, just because it has no independent 
 
The Results of Pragmatism 231 
 
 ideal of truth. There is an element of unbelief or of 
 agnosticism in the theory of pragmatism in as far as it 
 claims that only verification is truth. The acceptance of 
 the ideal can be translated into action, but it is not the 
 translation and the success of the action that make the 
 ideal. Great religious ideals are not taken up by men 
 because they work. But they work because they are be- 
 lieved. And a true belief is not a blind venture, for there 
 is an inherent reasonableness in a great ideal. Great 
 ideals and great ideas create true reality because of their 
 inner truth and reality. The weakness of pragmatism is 
 the conception that only what has received a certain en- 
 dorsement and proof can be true. It has transferred the 
 principles of the scientific laboratory to the realm of 
 spiritual values. It has reduced the inner certainty of 
 Christian truth to the uncertainty of a human experi- 
 ment. 
 
 It is necessary for Christianity when it admits that its 
 judgments are values to know more about them than that 
 they are values. If values are only values, it is easily pos- 
 sible to declare the question of their existence irrelevant or 
 to doubt existence and its necessity. Now, as was main- 
 tained above,** the truth of real religion is never the mere 
 statement of existence, e. g., God is, Christ saves, etc. But 
 if we believe in God we must be assured that He exists. 
 Christ our Saviour dare not remain a mere estimate of what 
 He is worth to us. The maintenance of a religious value 
 suffers if its existence is uncertain. Any theory of truth, 
 therefore, which demands that i-eligious judgments are to 
 be tested by their adaptability to and their existence 
 within human experience alone, and which does not begin 
 with the belief in the existence and reality of truth be- 
 fore and beyond human experience, will fail to satisfy 
 the demands of Christianity. The estimation of value 
 
 18 p. 222. 
 
232 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 through test alone makes truth ambiguous. It can then 
 only become certain when it is established by the thought 
 and experience of men. This appears clearly if we quote 
 again a very characteristic statement of Schiller, in 
 which he says : " Truth, therefore, will become ambiguous. 
 It wUl mean primarily a claim which may or may not turn 
 out to be valid. It will mean, secondarily, such a claim 
 after it has been tested and ratified, by processes, which it 
 behooves us to examine." ^® As long as truth, conse- 
 quently, remains a mere claim and is not ratified, it must al- 
 ways be regarded with some suspicion. We shall not be able 
 to know whether the claim is really and actually true. 
 " We shall tend to reserve this honourable predicate for 
 what has victoriously sustained its claim." ^° In other 
 words, apart from truth through the experience of men 
 truth is doubtful. Such an assertion will fit human gen- 
 eralizations and human assumptions in scientific experi- 
 mentation and in deducing certain results from life, but in 
 religion the prime assumption must be that God is true 
 though all men be liars. The submission of divine tnith 
 to human experience is for the sake of humanity and not for 
 the sake of truth. It cannot be claimed, if Christian truth 
 is to remain pure that its validity and permanence is due to 
 human testing. It may be necessary in the human recep- 
 tion of divine truth to show its real harmonization with the 
 demands of the soul and of life, but such harmonization is 
 not the establishment of the fundamental verity of Chris- 
 tian truth. 
 
 A logical theory, which can possess no firm certainty 
 before it has been tried out, and whose hypothesis of truth 
 allows truth to have only as much "validity as it has prac- 
 ticability, can never furnish a basis for strong moral 
 postulates. Now an ethical religion like Christianity must 
 
 19 " studies in Humanism," p. 144. 
 
 20 Schiller, Ibid., p. 145. 
 
The Results of Pragmatism 
 
 hold to the certainty of its moral principles and demands. 
 The persistence in emphasizing the certainty of moral 
 principles in Christianity arises from the fact, that its 
 ethics are not due to the assumptions of a mere specula- 
 tive theory, but that they are founded on the sure founda- 
 tion of a truth divinely communicated. As long as Chris- 
 tianity claims a specific revelation, the assurance of the 
 right and truth of its moral system is not subject to the 
 uncertainties of experience. A virtue like mercy is true, 
 therefore, not because mercy is practicable, but because 
 mercy is an eternal reality in God who is merciful. Even 
 though mercy would be a failure among men it could not be 
 doubted as long as it is sustained by the nature of God. 
 In the same manner forgiveness is moral because God for- 
 gives, not because forgiveness is of larger worth in hu- 
 man life than revenge. Justice and truthfulness, honesty 
 and purity are right not because they are expedient or 
 prove to be the best policy, but because they are divine 
 in their origin and claim. To take any other attitude 
 would undermine the specific force of Christian moral 
 motives. Their certainty must lie within the immedi- 
 ate authority of the divine command, and not within the 
 problematic establishment by human test. 
 
 The constant appeal to proof and test undermines finally 
 all authority in morals and faith. If authority is need- 
 less in religion, this difficulty does not in the least trouble 
 us. But if authority of some sort or kind is necessary to 
 maintain and propagate faith, it follows that any theory 
 which disturbs authority is detrimental. The proof that 
 can be demanded is only the proof that the authority is 
 the right authority. To demonstrate the reasonableness 
 of authority Is good as far as it furnishes a ground why 
 men are willing to bow to authority, and why such sub- 
 mission is advantageous. But the verification of authority 
 by being found to be useful does not establish it. Au- 
 
234 Trends of Thcntght and Christian Truth 
 
 thority is authority prior to all proof, and it must be re- 
 ceived and accepted directly. The authoritative claim 
 of Christianity upon the conscience and upon the soul of 
 man asks to be received not through argument but upon 
 its own demand. If it is received in this manner it will 
 justify itself, but no rational proof, and no demonstra- 
 tion in life, give certainty to the authoritative and divine 
 claim of Christianity. It is true that men accept au- 
 thority in religion because they feel its need and recog- 
 nize its necessity, but the feeling of this need and the 
 satisfaction which may come through authority do not 
 constitute the authority. Real religious authority and 
 divine authority must rest upon itself. When Christian- 
 ity claims divine origin and authority, it cannot permit 
 this authority to be derived from human experience, for 
 this would mean a confusion between the human and divine. 
 It would base an authority which claims to be divine upon 
 the mere workings of human experience, and, consequently, 
 the authority would be a delusion. Christianity permits 
 and encourages its demand of authority to be tested, but 
 the test is not that which makes the authority. 
 
 The lack of authority appears in the manner in which 
 the pragmatist arrives at his conception of God. Be- 
 cause his universe is pluralistic, and because the work- 
 ableness of an idea is thought sufficient to establish the 
 truth, the pragmatist argues for a finite God. As Chris- 
 tians we can sympathize with the pragmatist when he op- 
 poses the Absolute of the pantheist, which is Substance, 
 the Universe, the Whole. Every such abstract notion of 
 God destroys His personality.^^ Therefore, as far as the 
 pragmatist is justly pluralistic he is favorable to Chris- 
 tianity, but the difficulty is the lack of authority. This 
 appears in the manner in which Professor James ap- 
 proaches the problem of God. He says : " On prag- 
 
 21 Cf. p. 175 fif. 
 
Th^ Results of Fragmatisjn 
 
 matistic principles, if the hypothesis of Grod works satis- 
 factorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true. Now 
 whatever its residual difficulties may be, experience shows 
 that it certainly does work, and that the problem is to 
 build it out and determine it so that it will combine satis- 
 factorily with aU the other working truths." ^^ When 
 Professor James begins to approach the working out of the 
 hypothesis of God, and strives to adjust it to other truths, 
 he arrives at the conception of a finite God. This idea is 
 not a new one in philosophic thinking. It was broached 
 by John Stuart Mill, who claimed : " If the maker of the 
 world can all that he will, he wills misery, and there is no 
 escape from the conclusion." ^^ He holds that men have 
 usually saved God's goodness, at the expense of His power, 
 and says : " But those who have been strengthened in 
 goodness by relying on the sympathizing support of a 
 powerful and good Governor of the world, have, I am 
 satisfied, never really believed that Governor to be, in the 
 strict sense of the term, omnipotent." ^* In a similar way 
 Mill claims that the argument from Design in the world 
 does not justify an omnipotent God. In this contention 
 he followed Kant. 
 
 Influenced by Mill's arguments, Schiller, in order to 
 overthrow the pantheistic Absolute, and to meet the di- 
 lemma between God's power and goodness, rejects the idea 
 of an Infinite. He argues for a finite God and claims 
 that only a " personal and finite, but non-phenomenal, 
 God is the only possible cause that can account for the 
 existence and character of the world-process." ^^ In the 
 very same manner Professor James defines his attitude 
 thus : " The line of least resistance, then, as it seems 
 
 22 " Pragmatism," p. 299. 
 23 "Three Essays on Religion," p. 37. 
 24 Ihid., p. 40. 
 
 25 "Riddles of the Sphinx," p. 372. Cf. also the whole of Chap- 
 ter X. 
 
236 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 to me, both in theology and in philosophy, is to accept 
 along with the superhuman consciousness, the notion that 
 it is not all-embracing, the notion in other words, that 
 there is a God, but that he is finite, either in power or 
 in knowledge, or in both at once." ^® Such is the final 
 resultant which a theory of workableness arrives at in ex- 
 plaining a pluralistic universe. 
 
 The attitude of Christianity cannot accept such a limita- 
 tion of God as proposed by Mill, Schiller and James. The 
 pluralistic universe of Christian thinking is monistic in ori- 
 gin and purpose. While it does not place the unity of the 
 universe in the world, and allows for individualities and real 
 things, it dtemands a unification in God. When the single 
 units of the universe, however, are all-determining and the 
 test of truth is agreement with their actuality and expe- 
 rience, there can remain no God in the sense of Christianity. 
 Christianity in contrast with the finiteness of the world 
 must apply in some manner the adjectives infinite and abso- 
 lute to God. It can only permit such a limitation as lies 
 within God's self-determination. God limits Himself when 
 He permits human freedom ; He limits Himself as He en- 
 ters into history. From this self-limitation it is possible 
 to explain evil, or at least to show that it does not con- 
 tradict God's power, and that it does not impugn God's 
 goodness. When the effort is made to justify God by a 
 limitation of His own nature, and when He is reduced to 
 one among many beings, although far higher, this justifi- 
 cation is bought at too high a price. Christianity can- 
 not allow God to be reduced to mere substance, nor His 
 might to be interpreted impersonally, for this would lead 
 to pantheism with all its implications. At the same time 
 Christianity cannot gravitate into mere pragmatism, and 
 believe in a finite God. Such a belief would take away 
 the certainty of Christian faith. 
 
 26 " A Pluralistic Universe," p. 311. 
 
The Remits of Pragmatism 237 
 
 The effort which approaches more closely to a balanced 
 center, is that of Rashdall. He argues thus : " God is 
 certainly limited by all other beings in the Universe, that is 
 to say, by other selves, in so far as He is not those selves. 
 He is not limited, as I hold, by anything which does not ul- 
 timately proceed from his own Nature or WiU or Power. 
 That power is doubtless limited, and in the frank recogni- 
 tion of power lies the only solution of the problem of Evil 
 which does not either destroy the goodness of God or de- 
 stroy moral distinctions altogether. He is limited by his 
 own eternal, if you like ' necessary ' nature — a nature 
 which wills eternally the best which that nature has in it to 
 create. The limitation is therefore what Theologians have 
 often called a self -limitation : provided only that this limi- 
 tation must not be regarded as an arbitrary self-limita- 
 tion, but as arising from the presence of that idea of the 
 best that is eternally present to a will whose potentialities 
 are limited — that idea of the best which to Platonising 
 Fathers and Schoolmen became the Second Person of the 
 Holy Trinity. The truth of the world is then neither 
 Monism, in the pantheising sense of the word, nor Plural- 
 ism: the world is neither a single Being, nor many co- 
 ordinate and independent Beings, but a One Mind who gives 
 rise to many." *^ If the limitations of God which Rash- 
 dall suggests be placed altogether within His control, and 
 if His personality be not subjected to His nature, nor His 
 nature divorced from His personality, we shall approach 
 more closely to the heart of this great problem. Chris- 
 tianity conceives of God as Spirit and as Love. If the 
 character of God as Love expresses itself through Him as 
 Spirit, His limitation will not be arbitrary but in agree- 
 ment with what He is and what He wills. He is His na- 
 ture ; and an abstraction like nature dare never be greater 
 
 27 " Personality, Human and Divine," p. 390 ff, in Sturt, " Personal 
 Idealism." 
 
238 Trends of Thcmght and Christian Truth 
 
 and more determinative of the idea of God than that of a 
 living, personal God. His personality, however, must not 
 ■be so construed as to injure the essential deity of the Son 
 and the Spirit. It dare not become unitary and indi- 
 vidualistic. With these reservations we have a real God 
 who can and does limit Himself by love and who grants 
 the right of freedom. But such a self-limiting God, not 
 a force, moving by its own impetus, not a world in its un- 
 conscious totality, is not the finite God of the pluralistic 
 universe of pragmatism. 
 
 Because pragmatism has a finite God it denies the power 
 of determination in God. God is not allowed really to 
 determine the world'. Says Schiller : " If human free- 
 dom is real, the world is really indeterminate." ** In the 
 indeterminate world men are subject to chance, although 
 this chance is limited by the laws of nature and is con- 
 trolled by the choice of men. In such a universe there is 
 no place for an absolute control by God. Even though 
 He is given a specific place higher than man He is only 
 freer than man. His power is thus described by Schiller: 
 " A higher and more perfect being than man, if the intelli- 
 gent operations of such a one are traceable in the world, 
 would be both ' freer ' than man, that is more able to 
 achieve his ends and less often thwarted, and also more 
 determinate in his action, and more uniform and calculable 
 in the execution of his purposes." ^* But such a higher 
 being though He possesses more power than man and is 
 more uniform in action, is only different in degree from 
 man. There is no absolute difference of kind. With such 
 a notion prevalent in pragmatism, there can be no real 
 room for any Christian doctrine of providence, nor for 
 even the mildest possible formulation of predestination. 
 The greater freedom and knowledge of God would only 
 
 28 " Studies in Humanism,'' p. 411. 
 
 29 Ibid., p. 413. 
 
The Results of Pragmatism 239 
 
 show greater power to use the universe. God is after aJJ 
 only a higher unit in a pluralistic universe, but He is not 
 above the universe. When the pragmatist, therefore, as- 
 sails the absolutist so severely, he is not entirely justified. 
 For although the absolutist absorbs God in the universe, 
 as an ideally conceived whole, he does not make God a 
 mere part. But the pluralistic pragmatist, unconsciously 
 influenced by his naturalism, makes God only one among 
 many personalities. The God of the pragmatist does not 
 seem to be above the laws of nature. He is enclosed in a 
 multiverse, and is not the real Creator and Governor of the 
 world. 
 
 It follows legitimately from such a conception of God 
 that there can be no real purpose of God in the world. 
 God is not really the First Cause. The pragmatist lives 
 altogether in a world of secondary causes. In the chain 
 of secondary causes he may admit the occurrence of pur- 
 pose. Moore asks : " Does not the conception of the 
 mutability of species at any rate make an opening for 
 purposive, ideational control as a type of change.? " *" 
 He asserts : " Variation in species implies at least the pos- 
 sibility of a purposive species of variation." *^ But this 
 purposive control is merely within a moving world, but it 
 does not admit a transcendent power and purpose. 
 Pragmatism does not, if it be true to itself, seek for the 
 transcendant. Dewey clearly states: "Merely because 
 Spencer labeled his unknowable energy ' God,' this faded 
 piece of metaphysical goods was greeted as an important 
 and grateful concession to the reality of the spiritual 
 realm. Were it not for the deep hold of the habit of 
 seeking justification for ideal values in the remote and 
 transcendent, surely this reference of them to an unknow- 
 able absolute would be despised in comparison with the 
 
 so " Pragmatism and Its Critics," p. 77. 
 ?i Ibid., p. 77. 
 
240 Trends of Thotight and Christian Truth 
 
 demonstrations of experience that knowable energies are 
 daily generating about us precious values." *^ Dewey does 
 not explain the real reason of the deep hold of ideal values 
 and of the human trend to seek a single transcendent 
 energy. He claims that we do not really need it. " And 
 were it a thousand times dialectically demonstrated that 
 life as a whole is regulated by a transcendent principle to 
 a final inclusive goal, none the less truth and error, health 
 and disease, good and evil, hope and fear in the concrete, 
 would remain just what and where they now are." ^' But 
 the question remains whether all experiences would be 
 " what and where they are now," if there were not in the 
 world and in the religious history of man the belief in a 
 transcendent, divine power and purpose. Does such a 
 hypothesis of God's rule make no difference in the life of 
 men? Does it not aid the righteous and their cause in 
 their deepest distress and in their temporary failures ? Is 
 life, without belief in a purposing and powerful God, finally 
 the same and will it create the same results as a belief in 
 mere purpose found in the working of the world.'' Chris- 
 tianity claims that the world and the life of the soul of man 
 do need faith in God's determination. Without it man 
 is lost in the world of secondary causes. The denial of 
 pragmatism that there is purpose beyond the experience 
 of man is a real indication of its enslavement to biologism. 
 Pragmatism has not shaken off the accidentalism of the 
 Darwinian theory. And because it is not free from this 
 it cannot have a real God. If we suppose God to be im- 
 manent in the universe. He can be immanent, according to 
 pragmatic theory, only as a result. The consistent prag- 
 matist must believe that God is being shaped and made 
 in the world. As Truth will be the final summing up of 
 many truths tried out and found valuable, so God will be 
 
 32 " Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays," p. 16, 
 
 33 Ibid., p. 16 flF. 
 
Th£ Results of Pragmatism 241 
 
 the final summing up of man's religious experiences. He 
 will come at the end, and not at the beginning; He will 
 be the Omega, but not the Alpha of the world. His 
 immanence is not a real one but a developing one. Man 
 is making his God as he is making his truth. It is this 
 emphasis on humanism, it is this proud claim of pragma- 
 tism, whether it be openly uttered or not, that brings it 
 into opposition with Christianity, which teaches humility, 
 and whose central figure, Jesus Christ, gloried as man to 
 be meek and lowly. For Jesus only God was good. The 
 God of Jesus is not the God of pragmatism. Humanity 
 as Jesus sees it is not humanity as pragmatism paints it. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE VITAUST VIEW 
 
 THE discussion of the praginatist's position leads 
 very naturally to the two other ruling modern 
 attitudes, the vitalistic conception of reality and 
 truth, and the realistic interpretation. The former must 
 be clearly distinguished from what is known as vitalism 
 in biology. The older vitalism in biology, which was 
 largely believed in before the reign of Darwinism, was the 
 conception of a force known as life-force, which, though 
 in its essence wonderful and mysterious, was supposed to 
 explain organic structure, continuous purpose, and the 
 transmission of life from form to form. Since Darwinism 
 there has been an effort to return to vitalism. The atti- 
 tude of neo-vitalism is represented through such leading 
 German biologists as Driesch and Reinke. These men op- 
 pose any mechanical explanation of life, and hold that 
 there are certain distinct formative and purposive indi- 
 vidual centers. These individual life-centers through 
 which separate organic life-forms are shaped, are known 
 as " dominants," or " entelechies." But it is not this 
 theory which concerns us in the discussion of the vitalistic 
 view of the present. The vitalism of present philosophical 
 thinking is due to the effort of Henri Bergson and Rudolf 
 Eucken, to make life, as a real, full, concrete, active force 
 and tendency, which is fundamentally ideal, the central 
 and all-embracing reality. 
 
 The new philosophy of life, distinct as it is from the 
 pragmatic method, because it is metaphysical and not 
 
The Vitalist View 
 
 merely logical, nevertheless possesses several points of con- 
 tact with pragmatism. It strives, though more so in Berg- 
 son than in Eucken, to be the legitimate philosophic ex- 
 planation of evolution and the corrective of a mere ma- 
 terial conception of development. Like pragmatism it, 
 therefore, grows out of the evolutionary point of view. 
 Bergson's whole discussion is due to the effort to demon- 
 strate, in his great book, " Creative Evolution," how con- 
 stant creative activity is the essence of development. 
 Eucken does not begin with biology, nor does he, like 
 Bergson, discuss mechanism and finality as great problems. 
 He rather outlines and attacks the problem of life from 
 the cultural, ethical, and religious standpoints, which show 
 life as a force, a fact and a developing reality. To his 
 mind there is danger in stressing biology, and in blologism 
 he sees a defective description of the full reality of life. 
 Nevertheless he claims to be an actualist, who explains the 
 world through movement and action. In this actualism 
 he agrees with Bergson; and both philosophers in their 
 emphasis of movement and actualism are acceptable to 
 the pragmatists, Eucken, however, is not as emphatic 
 an advocate of movement as Bergson, although he values 
 the conception of movement in the pragmatic point of 
 view, the close attention to experience, and the humanistic 
 elements. He definitely opposes the distractedness, the 
 atomism and the shifting character of pragmatism. Its 
 separation of action from causality, and its under-estlma- 
 tion of the part which thought plays in creating life, and 
 not merely furthering it as an instrument or tool, is 
 strongly disapproved of by Eucken. Bergson takes a 
 friendlier attitude toward pragmatic efforts, and he has 
 received the endorsement of Professor James.'- Both 
 Eucken and Bergson agree with pragmatism on the whole 
 in its anti-intellectual attitude. Neither of these philoso- 
 
 1 " A Pluralistic Universe," Lecture VI. 
 
244! Trends of Th<mght and Christian Truth 
 
 phers, however, accept the pluralistic conception of prag- 
 matism. Eucken has a more pregnant monistic ideal of 
 life than Bergson, but even Bergson's notion of life is not 
 individualistic, nor pluralistic, but fundamentally unitary. 
 
 BEKGSON 
 
 Life, according to Bergson, must be grasped in its tor 
 tality and movement. It is a creative effort, but not of 
 a material sort. Even in its humblest stages life already 
 constitutes a spiritual activity and takes on a spiritual 
 character. " Life is conscious, spiritual activity, creative 
 effort leading towards freedom." ^ There is no rest in 
 life, but it is continued and continuous movement. " It 
 is movement that we must accustom ourselves to look upon 
 as simplest and clearest, immobility being only the ex- 
 treme limit of the slowing down of movement, a limit 
 reached only, perhaps, in thought and never realized in 
 nature." ' This ineradicable mobility, in which life con- 
 sists, is due to " an original impetus of life, passing from 
 one generation of germs to the following generation of 
 germs through the developed organisms which bridge the 
 interval between the generations. This impetus, sus- 
 tained right along the lines of evolution among which it 
 gets divided, is the fundamental cause of variations, at 
 least of those that are regularly passed on, that accumu- 
 late and create new species." * The vital impulse keeps a 
 true, inward unity, but it does not remain a single move- 
 ment and the same tendency. Vegetative, instinctive and 
 rational life are not " three successive degrees of the de- 
 velopment of one and the same tendency." ^ " They are 
 three divergent directions of an activity that has split up 
 
 2 LeRoy, " The New Philosophy of Henri Bergson," p. 213. 
 ' Bergson, " An Introduction to Metaphysics," p. 61. 
 * Bergson, " Creative Evolution," p. 87. 
 5 " Creative Evolution," p. 135. 
 
The Vitalist View 245 
 
 as it grew. The difference between them is not a differ- 
 ence of intensity, nor, more generally of degree, but of 
 kind." ® In the balance brought about by this difference 
 of tendency and by the unity of the movement of life, we 
 find the solution of the progress of life. 
 
 Wherever life moves and pushes along, it has to over- 
 come the torpor of matter, which is the very inverse of life. 
 It is in the living species and the connected life-forms that 
 we must trace the original impetus and impulsion of life. 
 Life may be compared to an immense vessel " full of steam 
 at a high pressure, and here and there in its sides a crack 
 through which the steam is escaping in a jet. The steam 
 thrown into the air is nearly all condensed into little drops 
 which fall back and this condensation and this fall repre- 
 sent simply the loss of something, an interruption, a 
 deficit." '' The condensation and the falling of the con- 
 densed drops represent matter, while the living steam rep- 
 resents the impulse of life. The condensation is a picture 
 of the way in which the creative activity unmakes itself 
 in matter. But the vital activity is that which exists and 
 continues as the direct movement in the indirect move- 
 ment, which works against it. Life, however, goes on 
 persistently. " In vital activity, we see, then, that which 
 subsists of the direct movement in the inverted movement, 
 a reality which is making itself im a reality which is wn- 
 making itself." ® 
 
 The direct creative movement, which is an ascending 
 movement, an inner ripening and unfolding, endures in its 
 essence. The very continuation of the universe is de- 
 pendent upon this continuance and duration of movement. 
 Without the living movement, there would be no duration, 
 but duration is the key to movement. In the speculation 
 
 8 Ibid., p. 135. 
 T Ibid., p. 24T. 
 s Ibid., p. 248. 
 
246 Trends of Thoitght and Christian Truth 
 
 of Bergson duration forms a very essential conception. 
 Through it he finds the ideal factor. It is the absolute 
 opposite of any static notion. Through duration and its 
 tension, Bergson describes consciousness and ideal life. 
 " The duration lived by our consciousness is a duration 
 with its own determined rhythm, a duration very different 
 from the time of the physicist, which can store up, in a 
 given inteirval, as great a number of phenomena as we 
 please." ® This flowing duration, which is real life, is 
 summed up by our consciousness. Not the separate deeds 
 measured by a fixed order, but a flowing connection marks 
 continuation. It is by this free flow that we conquer 
 necessity. Therefore, the continuous and untrammeled 
 movement of duration is the solution of time. Time is no 
 static- notion. But it is the full complete movement of 
 real duration. " Pure duration is the form which the suc- 
 cession of our conscious states assumes when our ego lets 
 itself live, when it refrains from separating its present 
 state from its former states. For this purpose it need 
 not be entirely absorbed in the passing sensation or idea; 
 for then, on the contrary, it would no longer endure." ^^ 
 As the ego endures in the living movement of time it finds 
 its freedom. Time and free will belong together. There 
 is a constant unfoldment in the onward trend of real time 
 and duration. " Duration is the continuous progress of 
 the past which gnaws into the future and which swells as 
 it advances. And as the past grows without ceasing, so 
 also there is no limit to its preservation." ^^ 
 
 It is through memory that duration continues and lives. 
 No mere physical continuation in any way explains time 
 and duration, but consciousness lies back of duration and 
 works through it. Matter must be clearly separated from 
 
 9 " Matter and Memory," p. 379. 
 
 10 " Time and Free Will," p. 100. 
 11 " Creative Evolution," p. 4. 
 
The Vitidist View 247 
 
 memory, through which the bond is formed for the contin- 
 uation of the movement of the living impulse. Without 
 memory we fail to really understand duration. " Inner 
 duration is the continuous life of a memory which pro- 
 longs the past into the present, the present either contain- 
 ing within it in a distinct form, the ceaselessly growing 
 image of the past, or, more probably, showing by its con- 
 tinual change of quality the heavier and still heavier load 
 we drag behind us as we grow older. Without this sur- 
 vival of the past into the present there would be no dura- 
 tion, but only instantaneity." ■'•^ But continued memory 
 is no emanation of matter. It is " just the intersection 
 of mind and matter," ^^ and no brain lesion destroys it. 
 It is through memory that we pass from perception and 
 from material images to spiritual continuance. " To 
 touch the reality of spirit we must place ourselves at the 
 point where an individual consciousness, continuing and 
 retaining the past in a present enriched by it, thus escapes 
 the law of necessity, the law which ordains that the past 
 shall ever follow itself in a present which merely repeats it 
 in another form, and that all things shall ever be flowing 
 away. When we pass from pure perception to memory, 
 we definitely abandon matter for spirit." ^* Memory, 
 therefore, becomes the solvent for the problem of duration. 
 The correlation of unity and multiplicity in consciousness 
 is effected through the synthesis of living tension. This 
 living tension is memory, which is entirely distinct from 
 every sort and kind of matter. 
 
 It naturally follows that if duration is the solvent of 
 the vital impulse, and if the center of duration is memory, 
 by which consciousness continuously moves on, we cannot 
 separate these three. The result is that " theory/ of 
 
 12 " An Introduction to Metaphysics," p. 44 ff. 
 IS " Matter and Memory," Introduction, p. xii. 
 14 « Matter and Memory," p. 313. 
 
248 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 knowledge and theory of life seem to us inseparable." *® 
 We must explain knowledge from the angle of life. Now 
 as life progresses and pushes on, consciousness can not 
 remain within itself. It launches into matter and strug- 
 gles with it. The world shows us consciousness falling 
 asleep in matter, but it again arouses itself, and impels 
 itself onward. In the onward movement life may pay at- 
 tention to its own movement, or it may direct itself toward 
 the matter it passes through. If life pays attention to its 
 own movement it appears as intuition, in which life and 
 consciousness remain within themselves. If, however, life 
 looks to matter it needs the intellect, which is the concen- 
 tration of consciousness on matter. Intellect is demanded 
 for the sake of matter, but in intuition we have the key 
 to the inwardness of knowledge and life.^® Intuition fully 
 reinstates us into original life. We gain full reality and 
 find an absolute through intuition. " By intuition is 
 meant the kind of intellectual sympathy by which one 
 places oneself within an object in order to coincide with 
 what is unique in it and consequently inexpressible." ^'^ 
 Through intuition, therefore, we enter into the very heart 
 of knowledge. 
 
 There are, however, practical reasons which compel us 
 to turn to the intellect with its fixed concepts. It is true 
 that intuition precedes the concepts, which are demanded 
 through matter and for the sake of matter. They " are 
 the deposited sediment of intuition." ^^ But we are at 
 times forced to go outside of intuition and the living flow 
 of duration. There are static relations of matter and 
 space, which call for mechanics and physics. The needs of 
 these sciences, and the practical necessity of actual living 
 
 15 " Creative Evolution," Introduction, p. xiii. 
 10 Cf. " Creative Evolution," p. 181 ff. 
 
 17 " Introduction to Metaphysics," p. 7. 
 
 18 LeEoy, " The New Philosophy of Henri Bergson," p. S3. 
 
The Vitalist View 249 
 
 in space with its relations, justify and require the intel- 
 lect. Through the external relations and connections the 
 intellect frames its static concepts. We begin with real 
 living intuition ; but the fundamental thinking, which is of 
 an intuitional nature, passes from the actually experi- 
 enced things to concepts. The movement is not vice versa 
 and man does not pass from concepts to things. The 
 living grasp of things found in the intuition of life must 
 give way as man deals with matter. Through matter 
 there arises the idea of static space. When we have ar- 
 rived at this idea the intellect has already had its history. 
 The theoretical speculations on matter and space may ex- 
 press scientifically the character of the intellect, but they 
 do not originate it. The origin of intellect is due to prac- 
 tical demands, and fundamentally it arises as an instru- 
 ment or tool to meet practical demands. " In short, in- 
 telligence, considered in what seems to be its original fea- 
 ture, is the faculty of mamUrfactioring artificial objects, es- 
 pecicdly tools to make tools, and of indefinitely varying 
 the TTumufacture." ^' Because the intellect has arisen 
 through meeting practical mechanical needs, it is funda- 
 mentally mechanical and spatial, and it is not meant for 
 real theorizing. " If the intellect were meant for pure 
 theorizing, it would take its place within movement, for 
 movement is reality itself, and immobility is always only 
 apparent or relative. But the intellect is meant for some- 
 thing altogether different. Unless it does violence to it- 
 self, it takes the opposite course; it always starts from 
 immobility, as if this were the ultimate reality; when it 
 tries to form an idea of movement, it does so by construct- 
 ing movement out of immobilities put together." ^^ The 
 mistake which the intellect makes, when it starts with a 
 fixed world, is due to the very character of the intellect, 
 
 18 " Creative Evolution," p. 139. 
 20 Ibid., p. 155. 
 
250 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 for it can only grasp the immovable. There is no way 
 in which it can lay hold of a living flux. " The intellect 
 is characterized by a natural inability to comprehend 
 life." *^ But it is also " characterized hy the unlimited 
 power of decomposing according to any law and of recom- 
 posing into any system." ^^ The human intellect thus 
 has the power to fabricate its systems, but whatever it 
 projects is an adaptation to the fundamental static char- 
 acter of space. Consequently the intellect, in all its sys- 
 tems and through all its speculations, can never build up 
 the real duration nor find the vital impulse. Its use, there- 
 fore, is purely instrumental and secondary; it can never 
 solve the riddle of the universe, which must be approached 
 from the point of view of moving, creating, and progress- 
 ing life. 
 
 There are many valuable deductions to be derived for 
 the elucidation of Christian truth from Bergson's funda- 
 mental notions. Of all these notions, the most central and 
 the ever-recurring one is that of life as movement. Chris- 
 tianity, when it regards the message of the Gospel of John, 
 can well employ any true effort to describe life as inner 
 creative continuity, full, rich, ideal and spiritual. If 
 God's life in us and our life in God are thought of as real 
 power, we can discover in Bergson's pictures of unfolding 
 life illustrations of life in its inmost spiritual reality. The 
 constant trend toward the Johannine conception, which 
 considers Christianity fundamentally as life, finds itself 
 in agreement with the philosophic attempt to make life 
 the all-determining center of a real view of the world. 
 The manner in which Bergson aims to combine the di- 
 versity in the unfoldment of life with its underlying unity 
 may be employed to show the divergences of the divine life 
 in the world and also its unity. The oneness and central 
 
 21 " Creative Evolution," p. 165. 
 22 Ibid., p. 1S7. 
 
The VitdList View 251 
 
 continuity of divine life in its eternal character enters into 
 the changes of history and through them works out its 
 plans. We men live and move and have our being in God, 
 and stiU develop along our own separate lines of charac- 
 ter. The Christian life in Christ and His presence in us 
 is one of strong unity ; but, nevertheless, at certain nodal 
 points it starts in different men and at different times and 
 among different peoples on new and varying lines of di- 
 vergent development, unfolding into ever richer complexity 
 and bursting into ever greater glory as it proceeds. 
 
 The separation of matter and memory in the philosophy 
 of Bergson is very important. It follows from this fact, 
 that matter is purely secondary, and results as a deposit 
 of the real life, which in its essence is fundamentally of an 
 ideal and spiritual nature. The import of the speculation 
 of Bergson, who, with all his careful knowledge of biology, 
 has found it necessary to define life not mechanically, but 
 as a real force, a vital impulse, a spiritual activity, is very 
 great. From the observations of life in the world, we are 
 led away into an inner life which is not material. The 
 very threshold of Christianity is approached when life is 
 spiritualized. Of course, no speculation can reach the 
 life that proceeds from the Father and that is fully and 
 really present in Christ, the Life. But the spiritualiza- 
 tion of life in the world, and that view of it, which does 
 not rest with the interpretation of a chemical process or a 
 mechanical movement, approaches the mystery of life in 
 Christianity. While, of course, Christianity does not deal 
 with the external and observable phenomena of life, and 
 while it does not deny any just generalizations to be de- 
 rived from them,, nevertheless, it is favorably inclined to a 
 view of life, even in the phenomenal world, which rises 
 above the level of the material. It has an interest in the 
 emphasis of the soul-life of man, and in God as life, who 
 determines all life in its final source and in its deepest as- 
 
252 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 pects. A real broad Christianity will never quarrel with 
 the manner and form of hypotheses that are framed on 
 the basis of the observable progress of life in the sphere of 
 secondary causes and movements. But no Christianity 
 can allow that the solutions of science shall contradict or 
 deny the fact that life in its first origin and in its last 
 analysis is of the spirit. It is, therefore, ready gladly to 
 receive and to employ any view of total life, which is anti- 
 material and rightly ideal. Its agreement is all the greater 
 when the ideal life is placed at the very center of all 
 being. 
 
 The opposition of Bergson to the intellect as primary, 
 and his emphasis of intuition, are also valuable for Chris- 
 tianity. The appeal of Christianity is to the conscience, 
 and the value of Christian truth does not rest upon its 
 demonstrability. Christian truth is not logically estab- 
 lished, but comes with a direct demand of acceptance. 
 Now such a direct demand, which comes not in words of 
 human wisdom, but through the paradox of human fool- 
 ishness and divine wisdom, can never rest upon the proofs 
 of the intellect. In calling upon the deepest appre- 
 hensive power of the human soul, Christian truth rests 
 its case upon and seeks its reception through an inner, 
 immediate, intuitive recognition of what it is and what it 
 means. The belief that underlies Christian truth is the 
 conviction that spiritual truth is spiritually discerned by 
 spiritual man. The natural man with his reasoning can- 
 not find it through logic or rhetoric.^* Spiritual discern- 
 ment is in its very nature alogical; its axioms arise from 
 the agreement with the intuition of the spiritual man, who 
 has been bom again of the Spirit. The very experience 
 by which man is permitted to test Christianity, and his 
 possibility of understanding it, rest upon a spiritual ex- 
 perience of the new birth which is intuitional and not in its 
 
 23 1 Corinthians, 9. 
 
The Vitalist View 253 
 
 essence intellectual. The spiritual man knows the truth, 
 and needs not to be taught, for he is bom of God. This 
 inner intuition of truth in the Christian life is a sympathy 
 which takes intellectual color, but it really instates itself 
 within the divine, the mysterious, the everlasting truth, by 
 ready child-like receptivity, and through trust in the in- 
 ward leading of the Spirit of God. The theory of knowl- 
 edge in Christianity is fundamentally intuitional, and, 
 therefore, Christianity readily understands and highly es- 
 teems any theory that seeks to define and establish the 
 knowledge of intuition. 
 
 It is out of living intuition that we arrive at the true 
 self and discover personality. Our self is multiple, but it 
 is not like other multiplicity, for it has a real unity and 
 continuity. It is through the vital, multiple unity of the 
 self that we find the balance between unity and multiplicity. 
 The self is a reality superior to abstract unity and mul- 
 tiplicity. This character of the self can only be found 
 through intuition. " Now philosophy will know this only 
 when it recovers possession of the simple intuition of the 
 self by the self." ^ It is the self which is the enduring 
 fact. " There is one reality, at least, which we all seize 
 from within, by intuition and not by simple analysis. It is 
 our own personality in its flowing through time — our self 
 which endures." ^® As our self and our expanding per- 
 sonality is given through real intuition, it can never be 
 constituted or re-constituted out of the operations of the 
 mind. It is a fundamental mistake to " try to reconstruct 
 personality with psychical states, whether they confine 
 themselves to those states alone, or whether they add a 
 kind of thread for the purpose of joining the states to- 
 gether." ^^ The self or soul, which is a real unity of life, 
 
 24 " An Introduction to Metaphysics," p. 38. 
 
 25 Ibid., p. 9. 
 
 26 Ibid., p. 30. 
 
254 Trerids of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 is constantly being created, but it also pre-exists as one 
 of " the little rills into which the great river of life divides 
 itself, flowing through the body of humanity." ^^ This 
 flowing life expressing itself through soul is conscious, and 
 because it is conscious it is free. " Consciousness is essen- 
 tially free ; it is freedom itself." ^* As consciousness 
 passes through matter it must adapt itself, and this adap- 
 tation is intellectuality, but in itself the soul can not be 
 explained by psychological phenomena. Even on the basis 
 of the associations in the phenomenal life of the mind, " it 
 is diiScult to maintain that an act is absolutely determined 
 by its motive and our conscious states by one another." ** 
 But it is not this possibility of demonstrating the inde- 
 pendence of the self psychologically upon which the whole 
 matter is to be determined. In intuition we finally find 
 the real, conscious and truly free personality. 
 
 In this conception of personality, advocated by Berg- 
 son, there is much that is highly valuable for Christian 
 truth. The opposition to a psychology of mere phenom- 
 enalism, and the affirmation that the soul is found as a 
 living concrete unity in man's intuition, offers an excel- 
 lent philosophic explanation of the Christian emphasis on 
 the soul. A psychology of mere disjoinable states and of 
 separable personalities, in which the abnormal experience 
 of divided selves is fundamental, must always be in conflict 
 with the unitary idea of the soul or self as a spiritual unit, 
 which Christianity posits in determining personality. 
 Christianity desires the inward grasp and the intuitive 
 belief in the soul which Bergson deduces from life. Not 
 the psychologism of the soul, but the apprehension of it 
 as a living unity in multiplicity, approaches the Christian 
 idea of the soul or of the human spirit as coming from God. 
 
 27 " Creative Evolution," p. 270. 
 
 28 Ibid., p. 270. 
 
 29 " Time and Free Will," p. 168. 
 
The Vitalist View. 255 
 
 When the soul is found by Bergson in the stream of life, 
 and when he does not interpret it as a reflection of matter, 
 he has put himself in strong opposition to materialistic 
 science. For him the soul cannot be an after-effect, which 
 will cease when the mechanical and chemical actions and 
 reactions of the body stop. The soul is valued at a price 
 which materialistic and naturalistic science cannot meet. 
 The derivation of souls from life itself gives them an ideal 
 worth and a spiritual origin. Christianity in its own terms 
 and on its own foundation can find in such philosophic 
 speculation an approach to its ideals. It may employ 
 such conceptions for its conviction that we are of the life of 
 God. Our souls are His breath, and not the shadow of 
 matter ascending through the brutes and animals. Such 
 origin and descent of man is not strictly Darwinian, it is 
 not a creative evolution in the naturalistic sense. The 
 soul- theory of Bergson leads us into spiritual and ideal 
 realms, and it is, therefore, that Christianity may and 
 does welcome it. 
 
 It is of great interest to find that Bergson allows per- 
 sonality to be continually created and shaped, and to be 
 vitally free in itself. The continuity of life in which men 
 are freely made personalities can be viewed favorably by 
 Christianity. It may agree with the idea that God is con- 
 stantly making and shaping us in our inmost souls. He, 
 in whom we live and move and have our being, did not make 
 us absolutely finished, predestined personalities; but 
 through and in Jesus Christ He is building up our lives 
 and our souls constantly. This very construction is re- 
 alized by us in vital inner freedom. Our sanctification as 
 Christians, and the life through which the Holy Spirit is 
 constantly leading us into the truth, is really a new crea- 
 tion within us. Christianity at its best is not favorable 
 to any theory of the dead level of the soul. It opposes 
 any determinism of the soul as soul, although it finds the 
 
256 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 actual soul burdened and enthralled by sin; but in the 
 ideal state the soul is free, and sin does not belong to its 
 being. In like manner Christianity will not allow any 
 other slavery of the soul through heredity, environment 
 or any such thing. Whatever degrading inheritance of 
 sin attaches to the soul is overcome for the Christian, when 
 he is born again and becomes a new creature. The as- 
 surance that the guilt is removed lies at the foundation, 
 but the process of the removal is continuous. In this new 
 spiritual re-creation the creation and its ideal is com- 
 pleting itself. There is a creative evolution of God in 
 the human soul, and God is working out a new development 
 in human lives. 
 
 There is much also in Bergson's philosophy, which as 
 far as it is now developed by him, seems favorable to theism. 
 His God is not an intellectual Absolute, not a mere name 
 for the universe, and not a synonym for nature or 
 matter. The God of Bergson is life. In a letter Bergson 
 says that God is " a free, creating God producing matter 
 and life at once, whose creative effort is continued in a 
 vital direction by the creation of species and the construc- 
 tion of human personalities." *" Apparently we have here 
 a freely working and freely creating God. He is imma- 
 nent in the world and shaping it constantly and continu- 
 ously out of the fullness of His life, but apparently He is 
 not His creation, for He is free and produces life and 
 matter. 
 
 But after we have considered the strong and favorable 
 aspects of the Bergsonian philosophy, and after we have 
 noted its close approach to Christian ideas and to Chris- 
 tian truth in many particulars, it remains for us to dis- 
 cuss certain weaknesses and defects. The first of these is 
 the elimination of the idea of rest. Duration is eternal, 
 but it is movement. In this so central idea of his phi- 
 
 30 LeRoy, " The New Philosophy of Henri Bergson," p. 324. 
 
The Vitalist View 257 
 
 losophy Bergson has in essence returned to the specula- 
 tions of the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus. He has built 
 up his philosophy on a world of change. The opposition 
 of Bergson to any static conception is apparently true to 
 the idea of life as we see it developing and growing in the 
 world. But Bergson has been influenced by the phenom- 
 enal side of life, and has used the observable changes in 
 physical life to determine the character and constitution 
 of life in itself. Because he has noted the development of 
 life, this very development is its creation. There is no 
 distinction between the beginning and the continuance. 
 Life itself as changing and unfolding is made eternal. 
 Consequently there can be no distinction between the crea- 
 tion and the preservation of life in the world, the former is 
 absorbed into the latter. Life, in its changing aspects 
 that we find now, is made the prime assumption. The 
 origin of life lies in itself and in its present processes. 
 Life is a flowing river without beginning or end, and it has 
 no banks. Is it possible for Christian truth to be satis- 
 fied with such a notion of life, or must there be a demand 
 for more permanence, in order to satisfy the implications 
 of spiritual life? Is spiritual life nothing but movement 
 and progress, or does it demand strong, permanent, and 
 conserved elements .'' Is the memory of the soul only move- 
 ment because the recall of the memory is movement, or is 
 the spiritual content and the truth which memory returns 
 fixed and static in nature? We cannot but assume that 
 there is a constancy in truth, an eternity in great ideals, 
 a fixity in spiritual conceptions, even though all of these 
 may at times be forgotten or neglected. A philosophy of 
 movement and of action cannot really appreciate the fact 
 of eternal, fixed ideals. Christianity does hold to a faith 
 once delivered to the saints. It believes in a permanence 
 of divine truth for the soul, and in an inner identity of the 
 soul which no creative change can destroy or make. There 
 
258 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 is an underlying idea of duration in Christianity, which is 
 not the interpenetration of moving elements, but of a great 
 lasting fixity. 
 
 Bergson's view seems to offer no idea of rest over against 
 the shifting of time. It has translated flowing time it- 
 self into eternity. There is no separation between the 
 eternity when there was no time, and the time which is the 
 framework for finite development. Because time and 
 change are made so fundamental the conception of eternity 
 suffers. Through its depreciation the Christian ideals of 
 a rest for the people of God, of a cessation from the trials, 
 burdens and labors of time, and of a heaven of peaceful 
 and restful calm suffer. God Himself, if all is in time, 
 and if all is movement, must work hitherto and be move- 
 ment in Himself in such a manner that He does not rest 
 from His labors. The elimination of the idea of rest may 
 carry with it the loss of the idea of peace. The striving 
 creative evolution seems to offer no support for those ele- 
 ments in Christian truth that demand rest and peace. 
 Nor can there seem to be any end or fulfillment for hope. 
 The process goes on forever, for evolution is eternal. 
 There can be no finally new heaven and new earth. Growth 
 is eternal and life is eternal, and, therefore, development 
 can not cease. While it may be true that the Christian 
 life will unceasingly unfold into all eternity, is this unfold- 
 ment the same as that of time.!* Does not the Christian 
 hope call for a new condition in heaven, through which the 
 very development of man must be differentiated very 
 clearly from all growth of the spirit in the present age and 
 time? There appears to be in Bergson's philosophy a 
 naturalistic remnant, which is not removed although life 
 is translated into the terms of consciousness. 
 
 Despite the emphasis put on the soul as it is found 
 in intuition, the consciousness described is, after all, the 
 consciousness of phenomenal psychology, the stream of 
 
The Vitalist View 269 
 
 thoughts, feelings, and volition. This phenomenal con- 
 sciousness is exalted into the eternal, and consequently 
 there can be no vital, absolute truth larger and more real 
 than the change of external life. Everything is within the 
 stream and nothing is without it. Fixity is a mere neces- 
 sity of matter, and movement is of the very nature of life. 
 From this it must follow that a truth is not true because 
 of itself, but because it is life and movement, and the soul 
 is eternal not because it is divine, but because it is life 
 and life lasts. Life itself, not really freed from biological 
 determinations, is not eternal as God's life, but as a mov- 
 ing and unfolding duration. 
 
 It is through the reinstatement into life that we really 
 know and find truth, for in life we have everlasting moving 
 duration. But the reinstatement into life is possible only 
 through intuition. Intuition, as stated above,^^ is the 
 deepest and truest knowledge, for through it we find re- 
 ality. The intellect is secondary and exists for material 
 ends and practical purposes. This emphasis upon intui- 
 tion which, as previously stated, has its great worth for 
 Christian truth, is, however, in its strong accentuation 
 dangerous. In Christian truth intuition is allowed as a 
 means for receiving the great fixed truths of God. The 
 Bergsonian intuition is a part of the moving and shaping 
 reality. It does not receive eternal facts and realities, 
 but it is carried along by the creative flux. As man's 
 mind dips into the living stream of life and duration he 
 finds truth. Truth is within the movement. 
 
 From this exclusive right of intuition the depreciation 
 of the intellect naturally results. While Bergson calls in- 
 tuition " intellectual sympathy," the adjective " intellec- 
 tual " is really lost in the stressing of sympathy. Intui- 
 tion is fundamentally anti-intellectual. Because the in- 
 tuition is found in life and its unfoldment, and because true 
 
 81 P. 948. 
 
260 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 knowledge is gathered out of the reinstatement of the 
 mind in the great stream of life, the nature of the intui- 
 tion takes on the character of feeling and striving. The 
 will aids in the reinstatement, and the experience of the 
 sympathy is in feeling. Consequently this intuitionism 
 has no place for thought and intellect as necessary to find 
 spiritual truth. But the spiritual truth of Christianity 
 has never been without an intellectual side. No form of 
 Christianity has been able finally to get along without 
 doctrines. In this attitude Christianity has been true to 
 the best in religious experience. If, however, the intellect 
 is merely instrumental to material uses, then reflection has 
 no place in religious life. Modern religious psychology 
 in its latest development is not willing, however, to sup- 
 press the intellectual side of religious experience and 
 truth. Professor Galloway rightly says : " Religious 
 belief and doctrines have a cognitive aspect, and, in virtue 
 of this, thought has the right to examine them and to test, 
 so far as that is possible, their consistency with the articu- 
 lated whole of knowledge. Where applicable, reason is 
 the most adequate criterion ; feeling is individual ; working 
 value has a social and historic aspect ; but thought is uni- 
 versal. And reflective thinking alone makes it possible to 
 connect and compare the religious experience with experi- 
 ence as a whole." ^* In order that a religion may become 
 universal it is necessary that it be both understood and 
 taught. It must, therefore, employ intellect and reflec- 
 tion. While Christianity does not rest upon logic, it can 
 and must employ it in unifying its truth, in confessing its 
 faith and in communicating its ideals. Any theory which 
 limits the truth of Christianity by mere intuitionalism 
 makes Christianity individualistic, uncertain and shifting. 
 The depression of the intellect will also finally impugn the 
 place of knowledge and wisdom in God Himself. If in- 
 
 S2 " The Philosophy of Religion," p. 369. 
 
The Vitalist View 261 
 
 tellect must be altogether removed from the unity of Hfe 
 and its inward reality, then as God is in such life there 
 can be no real intellect in God. His knowledge must be 
 reduced to the movement of life itself. That this result- 
 ant has actually been indicated by Bergson, despite his 
 care, will appear further on. 
 
 The mere intuitionalist, like Bergson, who has no place 
 for intellect in the greatest religious issues, can consist- 
 ently have no fixed standards of judgment. His norm 
 of truth, like that of the pragmatist, must become ex- 
 periential and purely psychological. But truth for its vi- 
 tality demands firm logical criteria. Above all Christian 
 truth, which asks to be accepted as divine and authorita- 
 tive, must hold to standards which are eternally stable and 
 true in themselves, although they are never experienced. 
 There is, it is true, a necessity for flo\^ing experience, but 
 this does not guarantee divine truth in itself. Mere move- 
 ment can never assure us of standards, and where there 
 are no standards there can be no real distinction of true 
 and false. That by which we measure must be fixed. 
 The higher the issue, the more certain must be the stand- 
 ard. If the yard-stick would move with the cloth, how 
 could it measure. J" If the hands on the dial of the clock 
 were not the only moving thing, but if the dial would re- 
 volve with the hands, how could we have any standard of 
 the fleeting moments.'' If there is nothing but on-going 
 life by what shall it be measured.'' Christianity, there- 
 fore, does not favor an exposition of movement that in- 
 jures its standard and its claim to be the final and uni- 
 versal religion. The abandonment of the peculiar claim 
 of Christianity, its reduction to a mere experience like 
 other experience, and its depression to changing Hfe, 
 would invalidate its very being. It is equally true, that 
 if Christianity is interpreted as only social and historical, 
 and if all its types are considered equally right iand true. 
 
262 Trends of Thottght and Christian Truth 
 
 then its worth becomes questionable. Such a procedure 
 produces indiiferentism and detracts from the power and 
 definiteness of the Christian message. The end of in- 
 tuitionism would be, in the sympathy of feeling to do away 
 with the intellectual strength and the reflective universal- 
 ity of Christian truth. 
 
 When we approach the problem of the self or soul, we 
 shall find that the under-estimation of the intellect has 
 its effect upon the doctrine of the soul. Great as has 
 been the service of Bergson in calling attention to the 
 freedom of the soul, there has been offered no sufficient 
 guarantee for the real separate individuality of the soul. 
 While the great stream of life finds certain spiritual and 
 nodal points in spiritual centers, these are not really in- 
 dependent. The souls are not placed above on-flowing 
 life, even though they are said to pre-exist in a certain 
 undefined sense. The rising wave of consciousness, which 
 includes potentialities without number, bears matter along 
 with it. In the interstices of this matter consciousness 
 inserts itself, but the matter divides it into distinct in- 
 dividualities. " On flows the current, running through 
 human generations, subdividing itself into individuals. 
 This subdivision was vaguely indicated In it, but could not 
 have been made clear without matter. Thus souls are con- 
 tinually being created, which, nevertheless, in a certain 
 sense pre-existed." *' Individuality of the soul is, there- 
 fore, not clearly ascribed to the spirit but caused by mat- 
 ter. It is the body which after all divides the souls from 
 the great stream of life. The souls are compared to 
 " little rills into which the great river of life divides itself, 
 flowing through the body of humanity." '* If this illustra- 
 tion means anything, it means that the soul is only a wave 
 in the great river of life itself. Hindered by the body it 
 
 33 " Creative Evolution," p. 369 ff. 
 
 34 Ibid., p. 270. 
 
The Vitalist View 263 
 
 is separate from all life in its individuality. The problem 
 is, through intuition to seek again the immersion in the 
 river of life. Back of the effort of Bergson to unite the 
 fullness of life with human personality there lies a ro- 
 mantic pantheism, which must destroy real personality and 
 responsibility. The soul is not, as in Christianity, con- 
 nected with a wise, knowing, and personal God, but is a 
 wave in the vital impulsion, divided from the whole of life 
 by the body. There is a secret Platonism in Bergson, but 
 still no Platonism of individual souls. Along with it there 
 is a depreciation of the body which Christianity does not 
 favor. For to the Christian the body is the temple of the 
 Spirit, and his hope is that of a final spiritual organism. 
 Neither, therefore, in the dependence of the soul on the 
 pantheistic notion of life, nor in the relation of the soul 
 to the body, can Christianity gain any advantage from 
 the Bergsonlan point of view. 
 
 Because Bergson makes life greater than the soul, ho 
 is also compelled to make life greater than God. Where- 
 ever the soul Is sunk Into the general stream of movement, 
 and does not remain personal, there the conception of 
 God as Creator and Father must also suffer. While 
 LeRoy,^' quoted above, seems to imply that Bergson has 
 a free, creative, personal God, this statement is only found 
 in a letter of Bergson. What can be gleaned from the 
 statements in " Creative Evolution " does not justify us 
 In maintaining that within the system of Bergson, there 
 is a place for a real, personal God. God seems to exist 
 as secondary to life and for the sake of life. There Is 
 no clear and definite statement that life flows forth from 
 God. It Is the action of life itself which moves Bergson 
 to say : " I simply express this probable similitude when 
 I speak of a center from which worlds shoot out like 
 rockets In a fire-works display — provided, however, that 
 
 86 See p. 3S6. 
 
264 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 I do not present this center as a thing, but as a continuity 
 of shooting out. God, thus defined, has nothing of the 
 already made; He is unceasing life, action, freedom. 
 Creation, so conceived, is not a mystery ; we experience it 
 in ourselves when we act freely." ^* The God of Berg- 
 son, as here defined, is a " continuity of shooting out 
 and " unceasing life, action, freedom." There is no mys- 
 tery in His creation, for our own free actions are the 
 same. It follows from this, that God cannot be the 
 Supreme Person. He is in a process ; and the opposition 
 of Bergson to God as a thing is really an opposition to 
 God in His self-possessed personality. God is motion, 
 and this really means that motion is God. Life, action, 
 freedom of movement in life, is really Bergson's God. He 
 has subsumed the personal conception of God to the im- 
 personal concept of life; therefore, he is really a vital- 
 istic pantheist and not a theist. He has no God and 
 Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, because 
 he has no separate place for the soul of man. 
 
 Because Bergson's God, like the God of consistent prag- 
 matists, is wholly within the world, it naturally follows 
 that the purposes and plans of God are not above but 
 within the universe. In the great discussion on the re- 
 lation of mechanism and finalism,^'' Bergson opposes the 
 mere mechanical notion; but he gives no room to the old 
 conception of finalism. Evidences of purpose in the world 
 are not denied. Purpose, however, is supposed not to be 
 prior to the development, but to be found as we look back 
 upon life. Evolution is held to produce not only the 
 forms of life, but also the ideas that will enable the intellect 
 to understand these forms in their correlation and pur- 
 pose. Purpose and teleological value are among the Ideas 
 wrought out in the process of life. Says Bergson : " If 
 
 S8 « Creative Evolution," p. 248. 
 87 Cf . Ibid., p. 37 ff. 
 
The Vitalist View 265 
 
 life realizes a plan, it ought to manifest a greater har- 
 mony the further it advances, just as the house shows 
 better and better the idea of the architect as stone is set 
 upon stone. If, on the contrary, the unity of life is to 
 be found solely in the impetus that pushes it along the 
 road of time, the harmony is not in front, but behind. 
 The unity is derived from a tfis a tergo: it is given at 
 the start as an impulsion, not placed at the end as an 
 attraction." ** In this description we note that life is 
 to derive its unity from the mere impulse of life. The 
 harmony of life and its plan is behind the universe. It is 
 picked out of the process. Bergson does not desire it to 
 be pictured as an attractive force at the end. It is the 
 pictorial representation of a purpose pulling the world 
 on which has misled Bergson. He has overlooked the 
 fact, that the increasing complexity of life, which shows 
 harmony and purpose, must either be explained as pur- 
 posive through accident, or through design. It must be 
 the latter; but to include design in the impulse of life 
 makes life intellectual. The inclusion of design working 
 itself out and appearing at the end is a peculiar con- 
 tradiction. It might seem guaranteed by the notion of 
 Bergson that life is finally spiritual. But the problem 
 remains, whether it is impersonally spiritual, or personally 
 spiritual. Can it be impersonally spiritual and still re- 
 main purposive? In this denial of purpose as pointing to 
 a personal God, a supreme Mind beyond the universe, 
 Bergson has been true to the limitations of the thought of 
 evolution. Because he has included everything within 
 evolution he cannot make mind greater than its purposive 
 actions. He is at one with other thinkers for whom Hob- 
 house speaks, when he says, " It is submitted, not in the 
 least as a matter of faith, but as a sound working hy- 
 pothesis, that the evolutionary process can be best under- 
 
 38 IHd., p. 103. 
 
266 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 stood as the effect of a purpose slowly working itself out 
 under limiting conditions which it brings successively un- 
 der control." ^' But Bergson differs from Hobhouse in his 
 defining the evolutionary process to be life, and life finally 
 as spiritual. But this definition does not overcome the 
 evolutionary conception. Because this is all-controlling 
 for Bergson, he has no place for an over-ruling and pur- 
 posing God and Father outside of and beyond the world. 
 Because his God is simply life and movement, the purposes 
 of God must be within life and movement. These pur- 
 poses cannot be the plans of the transcendent, personal 
 God that Christianity believes in. The purposes in the 
 world arise from the impulsion of life. Consequently 
 they are the result of will, and there is only in the idea of 
 Bergson a forward-pushing of life, but not a forward-look- 
 ing in life. The lack of the intellectual element in plan 
 and purpose destroys its meaning. While plan, design, 
 and aim cannot be explained as mere calculation without 
 will, it is equally impossible to exclude the intellect from 
 these conceptions. But if the intellect must be included, 
 Bergson fails in his theory of finalism. And he fails, be- 
 cause his immanence of plan is not connected with trans- 
 cendence of intellect; and there can be no transcendence 
 of intellect without a real personal God. Bergson never 
 sees that there can be no finality of purpose without pri- 
 ority, and that finality cannot be maintained in the notion 
 of a mere moving series. All these errors in the concep- 
 tion of Bergson finally lead him to a denial of the Creator 
 and Preserver of the world, whom Christianity accepts. 
 The God of Bergson cannot be the God of the Christian. 
 The purposing and planning God of Christianity is not 
 the God whom Bergson includes within the stream of life. 
 
 89 " Development and Purpose," Introduction, p. xxvi. 
 
The ntaliat View 267 
 
 EUCKEN 
 
 When we turn from Bergson, the Frenchman, with his 
 brilliant pictorial philosophy, to Eucken, the German, 
 with his depth of sentiment, his height of ideality, and his 
 breadth of spirit, the definition of life and its relation to 
 thought and truth take on an entirely different aspect. 
 While life, sis evidenced in this world and in time, is not 
 a finished magnitude but a problem, nevertheless the great- 
 ness of life consists in the fact that it dwells and remains 
 within itself. This self-centering life is truly spiritual. 
 " Man cannot produce a spiritual life of his own capacity : 
 a spiritual world must impart itself to him and raise him 
 to itself."*" It is characteristic of this life "that it is 
 conducted from the whole; the elements are moulded by 
 a comprehensive unity; the different complexes and tend- 
 encies which arise within this life strive ultimately towards 
 a single realm," *^ The movement of this life is not a 
 scattered one, but it shapes everything that belongs to 
 life as ordinarily lived. The whole range of interests of 
 man are covered, and all meanness and smallness is over- 
 come. The spiritual life is a true independent reality, 
 which comprehends the opposition of subject and object. 
 " It is not that a primary thought or even a creative moral 
 activity operates in us, but that a new totality of life, a 
 self-existent and self-sufBcing being, a primary creative 
 power which fashions the world and expresses itself in 
 complete acts, makes its presence felt in us — this is the 
 cardinal principle on the attainment and vivid realization 
 of which all truth of thought and life depends for us." *^ 
 
 In such spiritual life unity and multiplicity' are rightly 
 balanced; through it eternity comes into time, the outer 
 
 10 " Life's Basis and Life's Ideal," p. 144. 
 
 *i Ibid., p. 145. 
 
 *2 " The Life of the Spirit," p. 329. 
 
268 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 and the inner world are united; and happiness is 
 found when truth is life. This life does not leave us hol- 
 low and unsatisfied because it is richer than all that mere 
 intellect implies. " It is swayed by strong spiritual pas- 
 sion, by a deep longing to make life more dependent on 
 personal decision and to shape it by personal effort; it is 
 absorbed in a keen struggle to secure a master-position 
 from which the whole environment can be brought under 
 control."*^ The life of this nature has authoritative 
 fixity, a sure goal, and is independent of human caprices. 
 Out of it comes the completion of all that incomplete and 
 minor living seeks, for its movements are transcending, and 
 it is the original source of life. " Only as life thus turns 
 itself and elaborates a depth can it win a content and an 
 independent footing. Here for the first time we see a 
 reality that is grounded in itself. Thus the new life is 
 not one particular kind of life as contrasted with others, 
 but the completion of life in general. The only life that 
 is life in the genuine sense is that which becomes ensouled 
 through the growth of an independent inward world. 
 That this life does not remain a mere vague outline is 
 shown both by its development in particular directions, 
 e.g., those of the good, the true, and the beautiful, and 
 by the formation of well-defined departments of life, such 
 as we find in science and art, in law and economics, and 
 so on. All these are by no means merely special applica- 
 tions of one general idea, but rather distinctive develop- 
 ments of an independent inward principle." ** 
 
 It is the fullness of the inner life which enables men to 
 accomplish what they do. The results in the life of great 
 leaders and thinkers, and the manner in which they solve 
 the problem of life is due to a full, deeply active life, 
 which embraces power and has its object of action. There 
 
 43 " Can We Still Be Christians? " p. 87. 
 44 Ihid., p. 96. 
 
The Vitalist View 269 
 
 arises a peculiar atmosphere about those who stand on 
 the heights, but we are not to turn to them and their 
 own ideas. " No ; we are not concerned with the reflec- 
 tions of these thinkers about life, but with life itself as it 
 is fashioned forth in their world of thought." *^ Through 
 them life has creative power, and to work out its creative 
 emphasis is its purpose. When it enters into history, and 
 is subject to development, it may be pressed about with 
 difficulties, but at last it breaks through again triumphant 
 and victorious, autonomous and free, full of originality 
 and force. Though there are many movements and mul- 
 titudinous changes in the universe and in historic experi- 
 ence, yet through all these different phases there is a single, 
 total movement. " In it life seeks itself, its self-presence 
 (Beisichselbstsein), and at the same time its full content, 
 its full depth." ** " History offers this self-presence not 
 as a mere succession, but only in as far as out of the 
 movement of history there is lifted up a life beyond time 
 (zeitueberlegenes Leben)."*'^ Its leading spirits are 
 those in whom new life and powers come to be developed. 
 They are conquerors in the realm of the spirit. The life 
 of the spirit requires effort; it must be gained through 
 actual hope, strength and striving, but it must also be 
 believed in. It requires faith because it is a life, true, 
 etemalj beyond material conditions, beyond temporal 
 forms of economic development, beyond cultural advance 
 and even above historic forms of religion. Into this real 
 and divine life all human endeavor must be raised, but 
 the lifting up into the lasting life needs struggle. It is 
 accomplished as men by striving allow it to encompass 
 and conquer the temporal flow of succession. 
 
 Out of such a conception of life it follows that mere 
 
 45 " The Problem of Human Life," Introduction, p. xx. 
 48 « Erkennen und Leben," p. 97. Engl. Translation—" Knowledge 
 and Life." 
 47 Ibid., p. 160. 
 
270 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 intellectualism will never suffice. It is particularly mod- 
 em life with its many intellectual problems and difficulties, 
 thinks Eucken, that has led philosophy necessarily to the 
 problem of life which is more inclusive than the problem of 
 thought and truth. " The constantly growing expansion 
 of life in great outlines as well as in details revealed it as 
 far too rich and differently colored, as far too movable 
 and changeable than to permit it to be absorbed into the 
 forms and formulas of thinking." ** Thought instead of 
 offering real things dealt with symbols, signs and pictures ; 
 through its ceaseless reflection and discussion it appeared 
 to dissipate life and to wander into a land of shadows. 
 It did not satisfy the passionate thirst for reality. 
 
 But perhaps we can flee to the immediacy of intuition, as 
 men did in the past. Can we thus grasp reality ? " This 
 immediate grasping the past centuries designated as in- 
 tuition, which shaped itself at times more artistically as 
 the grasp of unity in multiplicity, at times it shaped itself 
 more religiously as the grasp of a unity over against all 
 multiplicity and evident through all multiplicity. Thus 
 there met in intuition the demands of immediacy and 
 unity; as discursive thinking had resolved reality into 
 single pieces and theories, it becomes the task of intuition 
 to effect a combination into a whole and out of this whole 
 to permeate all multiplicity with quickening spirit. It is 
 not to be wondered at that the conception of intuition 
 gained all the love of men, but it is also not surprising that 
 the willing recognition of an indisputable task allowed the 
 question, whether the solution offered was adequate, to 
 be treated far too summarily." *^ Through such intui- 
 tive thinking it happened that the scientific aspect of the 
 world was reduced to the artistic point of view. Such 
 a view the ancient world could accept, but the modern 
 
 48 Ibid., p. 29. 
 *3 Ibid., p. 138. 
 
The Vitalist View 271 
 
 world cannot accept it, for the modern world cannot so 
 readily separate sense and spirit, as did the ancient world, 
 but it unites the two. Back of this unity of modem 
 thought is the failure to be readily satisfied with what 
 formerly seemed final and axiomatic. Modem thinking 
 not only asks for stronger unity of sense and spirit, but 
 it also is far more critical. It constantly pushes former 
 axioms further back. Together with its critical doubt 
 modern thought is translating everything into action. 
 What is needed, therefore, is not the intuition of the past, 
 but the instatement into creative reality, and the reduction 
 of this creative reality to the " total of a purely original 
 life." s» 
 
 There are two extremes that we must avoid. We can- 
 not remain mere intellectualists, but we can also not be 
 mere intuitionalists. Therefore, thought must be within 
 life. From this, however, it does not follow that the mod- 
 ern thinkers are correct in their anti-intellectualism, when 
 they totally disregard and reject the importance of logic. 
 " The reaction against intellectualism in the midst of 
 which we find ourselves to-day leads us easily to under- 
 value the logical elements in the work of knowledge. Cer- 
 tainly logic cannot create out of itself ; it can only criticize 
 and regulate. It pre-supposes something as a basis of 
 its activity. But it is an indispensable means for attain- 
 ing unity of life, for removing contradictions, for binding 
 together isolated members into a whole. The lack of 
 logic is always avenged in the end by a dismemberment of 
 life. Our striving for a full comprehension of reality, for 
 a transformation of the world in our own life, certainly 
 meets insurmountable limits ; but shall we on that account 
 at once take refuge in the irrational? He who always 
 gives first place to life and regards an enhancement of it 
 as possible, will try to enrich thought with elements de- 
 
 50 Ibid., p. 139. 
 
272 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 rived from life ; he certainly will not undervalue thought 
 and seek knowledge outside of it. One may reject Ra- 
 tionalism without necessarily becoming a Romanticist." "^ 
 Though logic may tempt to formalism this danger ought 
 never to recommend to men the romantic disposition, which 
 rejoices in the illogical and allows contradictions to stand. 
 Whatever dangers and difficulties there are in logic must 
 only serve to drive it beyond itself into broader connec- 
 tions, and to compel it to seek animating and discriminat- 
 ing forces in the total of life. 
 
 In order to carry through the legitimate use of logic 
 and to combine with it whatever is valuable in the older 
 idea of intuition, Eucken aims to combine thought and 
 life. He derives thought and truth out of the reality and 
 independence of the spiritual life. This independent life 
 through all complications strives toward a common goal, 
 and in its striving develops a characteristic form. In 
 such development thinking is fructified and becomes a vital 
 knowing. A true reality arises out of the labor of think- 
 ing, a reality which cannot be hidden, but which allows 
 a full and thorough permeation of light and life. The 
 whole seeking and striving, moving and developing, is not 
 an abstract tendency of thought. It is a real movement 
 which arises out of the wholeness of total life, which is 
 spiritual life. It leads from life to true enlightenment and 
 knowledge in three distinctive stages, the stages of Criti- 
 cism, of Creation, and of Work. 
 
 " As Criticism it causes the immediately preceding con- 
 dition of man to be felt as intolerable incompleteness and 
 confusion, and arouses him to action to free himself from 
 that condition. In the problem of knowledge the conflict 
 of philosophy with the traditional stand-point is especially 
 severe, since here philosophy makes evident the insecurity, 
 
 51 " Knowledge and Life," The Philosophical Review, Vol. XXII, p. 
 13. Cf. also, " Erkennen und Leben," p. 141. 
 
Th£ Vitalist View 273 
 
 even the emptiness, of all that with which man is usually 
 satisfied. In like manner when dealing with the problems 
 of the good and the beautiful, philosophy has been a power- 
 ful force in arousing men from their comfortable self- 
 satisfaction and lethargy." ^^ The confusion and the in- 
 sufficiency of the existing intellectual, aesthetic and moral 
 life, must be overcome, if the spiritual life is to find its 
 originality and independence. The spiritual life must 
 contradict the existing order, arouse men from their com- 
 fortable self-satisfaction and idleness, and show them 
 through keen analysis the smallness, the meanness, the 
 shadowiness and uncertainty of their attitude. How 
 weak are the usual means suggested to heal the hurt of 
 spiritual life! But the result of criticism, which condi- 
 tions of thought and life force on us, cannot be reached 
 unless criticism begins with the problem of knowledge. 
 Because men held that they knew and had the truth, while 
 they really lacked in real foundations and firm support 
 for their supposed truth, great thinkers were moved to 
 anger and determined struggle against the blindness and 
 stubbornness of men. The thinkers sought and found 
 the truth through the purgatory of doubt and through 
 the negation of existent but erroneous ideas. When the 
 intellectual sphere had forced men to criticism, other great 
 spheres of life, like art, morality, and religion, were also 
 criticised and revealed in their defects. Criticism was es- 
 sential if life was to be reached. It had to remove the hin- 
 drances and the obstacles that thwarted life and its de- 
 velopments. 
 
 " In all genuine criticism there lies a germ of positive 
 truth, but this germ must be fully developed. Now this 
 can only be done through a continuous creative movement, 
 in which, with the help of logical fancy, the spiritual life 
 constitutes itself as an independent world, and at the same 
 
 52 " Knowledge and Life," Philos. Review, XXII, p. 8. 
 
274 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 time develops its own peculiar character." '^ It is thus 
 that criticism merges into creative life, in which man is 
 elevated above the needs and purposes of mere man. Into 
 whatever sphere creative power enters it constructs a new 
 reality with its self determining reason, that transcends 
 the opinions and desires of finite individuals. The crea- 
 tive spiritual life, although it works through man, is above 
 man. It re-creates him, his needs, his thoughts, and his 
 ideals. The reality of the life in itself, which criticism 
 could not give, but toward which it pointed, is found in 
 creation. But man himself as a creator is not finally the 
 fact. He only grasps the original life which exists in it- 
 self. This life can exercise its creative, superhuman, 
 spiritual, and divine function after criticism has removed 
 the pretenses and the obstacles of ordinary external life. 
 Creation is the joyous gospel of life, while criticism is its 
 necessary and prevenient law. 
 
 It would be an error were we to suppose that Eucken 
 held that this creative stage was the end, and that its 
 goal was our mere passive reception of the creative power 
 of life. Creation leads to work, as criticism was needed 
 that creation might have its full sway. It is true that 
 creation must precede, if work is to succeed and is not to 
 be occupied with merely external aspects. The heroes 
 of revolution and of creative innovation must appear to 
 prepare the way for the heroes of ceaseless toil and steady 
 advance. " But to Creation there must finally be added 
 Work, which leads us back from the transcendence of the 
 world to the realm of experience. It is in the subjection 
 of this latter world through Work that the spiritual world 
 proves itself to be the all-ruling truth, and at the same 
 time brings the world of experience to a fuller reality and 
 perfection." ^* The world of Work is not so easily con- 
 
 53 " Knowledge and Life," Philos. Review, XXII, p. 8. 
 
 54 Ibid., Philos. Review, XXII, p. 9. 
 
The Vitalist View 275 
 
 quered. " The new kingdom is not ready-made, so that 
 we can appropriate it without trouble, but it needs to be 
 formed within us and demands our labor and devotion ; in 
 turning toward it and holding it fast there lies an act, an 
 act which dare not farm a mere transition, but which 
 must continue, and support and permeate all doing. In 
 this respect this new kingdom may be called a kingdom of 
 act (Tatwelt). But it does not thereby become a work 
 of mere man, it is not something which he thinks out and 
 spins out. But what happens in man here, that lies at 
 the same time above him, and lifts him in devotion above 
 himself, is the unfoldment of independent happening, the 
 revelation of a new world, whose grasp makes something 
 different of us and transports the center of gravity of our 
 very being." ®' When such work is thus performed, real 
 spiritual life has its power over us. We are led on to con- 
 trol all being, to see connections everywhere, to correlate 
 all that is related, to explain not single features, but to 
 find life as a total. A new world opens itself thus to man, 
 and his life receives a new tension and magnitude. A 
 mighty movement enters into experience, and the meta- 
 physic of life begins through the life of the spirit. 
 
 But after we have been on the mountain and received 
 the inward inspiration of labor we must turn toward the 
 external tasks of life. Without abandoning its independ- 
 ence the new life must enter the world and its confusion, 
 and attempt to encompass it. The world of thought 
 must spread out and branch out, and systematize the 
 whole world of thought and action through the new center 
 of spiritual life. The creative act as it bursts forth in 
 works leads to the task of applying its force and meaning 
 constantly. Without creation thought and its systems 
 are soulless efforts. After creation, however, comes the 
 demand of the use and development of life. Creative life 
 55 " Erkennen und Leben," p. 82. 
 
276 Trends of Thcmght and Christian Truth 
 
 must be carried down into everyday experience, and the 
 world must be made the better in every direction; better 
 thought, better ideals, better science, better art, better 
 morals, and better religion must appear. The inner life 
 must complete itself, but its fulfillment is not the result 
 of a mere world of action or of outer surroundings. 
 
 It is in the inter-relation of the three stages of criticism, 
 of creation, and of work that knowledge arises. These 
 must be equally developed, and in their co-operation they 
 form the ideal to be approached, in which truth is appre- 
 hended. When their balance is lost danger arises. 
 Criticism wiU become mere fruitless dialectic and idle rea- 
 soning, it will lead to destructive doubt and skepticism, and 
 it will tear apart the unities of life, unless it be united 
 with creation. Creation, the quickening soul of the whole 
 procedure, must not only follow but constantly animate 
 criticism, if criticism is not to be lost like a stream in the 
 swamp. Without creation work must become a useless 
 undertaking and an idle venture, tiresome, oppressive, 
 without force and lasting result. Creation alone can add 
 to work its real impetus and power. But if creation lacks 
 criticism, it cannot be separated from the standard general 
 average of effort. The severer and keener the criticism 
 the more creative life is longed for, and the more clearly 
 it stands out. Without work creation may lose the nec- 
 essary self-clarification and the possibility to make itself 
 felt in the whole, wide world. Through the whole proc- 
 ess of knowledge as it reaches truth, there must be the in- 
 dispensable co-operation of criticism, creation and work 
 for the completing of life. In this way life uses thought, 
 for life needs thought as thought also needs life. 
 Through life thought remains vital; in itself it is but a 
 skeleton. In life thought seeks and finds as it is led be- 
 yond itself. Its powers are exalted and it centers in a 
 real world of totality, and enters into the unity of being. 
 
The Vitalist View 277 
 
 Thus thought and life are the expression of the real 
 philosophy of activism. It is activism for which Eucken 
 stands.^* But this activism is not a mere movement of 
 life in the manner in which Bergson conceives life to be 
 action and movement. Eucken believes that life must be 
 found in activity, but this activity does not seem possible 
 to him " starting from given being with its strong en- 
 chainments, but only through a reversal of this being, 
 through the grasping of a new point of departure and 
 the unfoldment of a new life." ^^ This constitutes the 
 activism of Eucken. 
 
 In the philosophy of Eucken we find an ideal of life 
 which is more friendly to Christianity than that of Berg- 
 son. Up to this time the latter has never fully freed him- 
 self from psychological presuppositions, and his reasoning 
 is largely clothed in biological terms. Eucken, however, 
 has sought for life in the cultural and spiritual movements 
 of the world. He has searched the ideals of great think- 
 ers, and he has analyzed great currents of striving 
 thought and truth as the expression of fundamental life. 
 Consequently his conception of life is more closely af- 
 filiated to religion. Religion itself is included in many of 
 his thoughts on life, and he has endeavored to find and 
 describe its real content of truth. He would not have 
 religion regarded from the mere subjective point of view 
 and clearly shows that its real purpose is universal. 
 " Religion has quite a different content, and thus a dif- 
 ferent significance for knowledge, according as it is looked 
 upon as a means to further the subjective well-being of 
 man — whether as an individual or as a social complex, — 
 to strengthen and afford support for his wishes and 
 hopes, or as a force which carries further the demands of 
 
 '« " Geistige Stroemungen der Gegenwart," p. SI ff. Engl. Transla- 
 tion, " Main Current of Thought." 
 »' " Geistige Stroemungen der Gegenwart," p. S3. 
 
278 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 a natural Jife. Under this latter conception, religion 
 awakens man to consciousness of new tasks and capacities, 
 calls forth new activities and alters his whole view of 
 life. In short, religion effects such a complete revolution 
 of life-processes in man that all former pursuits and 
 standards, indeed all previously recognized forms of 
 reality become unreal and even intolerable to him." ^^ It 
 is in this manner that we find real universal religion. The 
 universal life breaks through and lifts us above the weak- 
 ness and pettiness of our life. " But all this is no prod- 
 uct of natural evolution; it arises through man being up- 
 lifted by the power of the whole, in other words through 
 his turning to religion. The presupposition of religion 
 is in fact just this, that something higher makes its ap- 
 pearance in man and yet is hindered and restricted in the 
 condition in which it first finds him. Religion is the over- 
 coming of such hindrance and restriction." ^® 
 
 But out of this universal religion grow historic religions. 
 " The main concern of the historic religions was not the 
 kindling of spirituality, but the saving of the human soul 
 and of the whole human life from intolerable contradiction, 
 the emancipation from sin and sorrow, the upholding of the 
 spiritual life against the destruction which threatens it 
 on every hand. In pursuit of this aim these religions 
 were obliged to sever themselves from the rest of life and 
 to found a new order of fellowship." ** The historic re- 
 ligions helped to save the spiritual life; they allowed the 
 universal religion to work its way through and to lift 
 them beyond themselves. Historic religions become in 
 the terminology of Eucken, " characteristic." " As all 
 religion in the characteristic sense springs from the de- 
 sire to be freed from sorrow and sin, it must effect a con- 
 
 58 Philof. Review, XXII, p. S. 
 
 59 " Can We StUl Be Christians? " p. 103. Cf. also Part II in " The 
 Truth of Religion." 
 
 60 Ibid., p. 114. 
 
TJie Vitalist View 279 
 
 quest of these and, in so doing, must convert life into a 
 great onward movement. This movement seeks to press 
 beyond sorrow, but can still allow a value to sorrow in so 
 far as it rouses life from inertia and sloth, awakens long- 
 ing in the soul, and thus paves the way for the uplifting 
 into a new life." ^^ The approach to religion and Chris- 
 tianity is opened through interpreting all religion as spirit- 
 ual life and its true movement. There is no neglect, nor 
 undervaluation of the fact and reality of religion in the 
 theory of Eucken. 
 
 There is an inwardness in Eucken's idea of life com- 
 bined with a rich and full concreteness of reality. The 
 manner in which he elevates life, and attempts to keep it 
 full and real, allows a religious use of his philosophic en- 
 deavor to describe life. What Christianity claims to be 
 man's real life in God, what it describes as man's life in 
 Christ, and what it assigns to life in spiritual possessions 
 and gifts, agrees with the endeavor to define reality as 
 life. For Eucken his philosophy is no mere speculative 
 attempt at definition. It is to aid not in discussion or 
 intellectual subtlety, but in fonning a real world-view. 
 In the " Weltanschauung " of Eucken a number of ele- 
 ments have been fused together to bring about his richly 
 colored notion of life. He began as a student of Aristotle 
 and was influenced by his realism and his actualism. He 
 possesses the rich breadth of Hegel, without emphasizing 
 mechanically the logical, absolute reason of Hegelianism. 
 The strong actualism and moral earnestness of Fichte 
 appears in him, but he has combined the moral purpose of 
 Fichte with the religious idealism of Hegel. Through the 
 unity of these elements the " Weltanschauung " of Eucken 
 becomes in its highest ranges ethical and religious. Be- 
 cause ethical and religious elements interpenetrate, and 
 because faith and morals are summed up into a totality 
 
 81 Ibid., p. 130 fF. Cf. Part IV, " The Truth of Religion." 
 
280 Trend* of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 and combined with all life, the philosophy of Eucken can 
 be welcomed by such a religion as Christianity, whose truth 
 always seeks fulfillment in religious and moral life. 
 
 Eucken in his anti-intellectual attitude is less pro- 
 nounced than Bergson. While he desires to avoid stress- 
 ing the logical movement of reason, as Hegel did, he is 
 still more inimical to the naturalistic monism of his col- 
 league at Jena, Haeckel. Consequently he does not de- 
 press the intellect unduly,*^ and he allows logic an im- 
 portant place in maintaining the balance and consist- 
 ency of truth. Eucken's appreciation of logic in its 
 place, and his defense of its necessity, not as foundational 
 but as regulative, appeals very much to Christianity, 
 which cannot do without a firm logical assumption in the 
 theory of knowledge. In order to unify its messages and 
 in order to defend them over against false implications 
 and inferences, Christianity needs logic for systematiza- 
 tion. But the logic of Christianity is not constituitive 
 of its truth, and must constantly be permeated and kept 
 alive by the free Spirit of God. In similar manner 
 Eucken desires no mere mechanical logic as master of 
 reality. He desires life to fill logical forms, but he does 
 not deny the use of logical axioms and categories over 
 against unsystematized truth. The balance of life and 
 logic in Eucken is most suggestive, and it can aid Chris- 
 tian truth in its endeavor rightly to keep apart and yet 
 justly to combine logic and life. 
 
 A very striking feature in Eucken's speculation is the 
 emphasis on the super-human character of real life. For 
 him life is a higher actuality than a mere stream of flowing 
 duration, which lies at the basis of Bergson's thinking. 
 Ever and again Eucken lifts life above mere man. He 
 gives it a place, a content, and a character of an eternal 
 kind. The true life, as it in part appears in religious 
 
 «2 See above p. 271. 
 
The Vitalist View 281 
 
 faith, comes from above and has its own right of exist- 
 ence. It is not given merely to satisfy our desires or to 
 strengthen our hopes. To give such an interpretation to 
 Hfe in religion would be to make religion psychological, 
 but psychological religion, thinks Eucken, would never 
 raise us above ourselves. It can never remove the doubt, 
 whether the whole sphere of religion is not a mere spinning 
 out of human wishes and ideas, and whether man is not 
 building up a world of imagination which has no claim 
 upon truth. " But when religion calls forth movements, 
 which directly oppose the natural comfort of man, which 
 generate severe complications and throw man into great 
 unrest, but which through all arousal and negation open 
 up for man new contents of life, new motive powers, new 
 aims, yea, which accomplish a reversal of life — can all this 
 be derived from that given existence, which most directly 
 surrounds us ; is there not to be recognized here a wide 
 opening of reality, which carries its legitimation within 
 itself.'' " '^ Such a conception as this rests on the ideal 
 of a great, free and independent life, which is the reality. 
 Eucken opens up the way for divine life in man. Life 
 eternal becomes incarnate in humanity. This attempt at 
 a philosophic exposition of the divine in the human is 
 closer to the Christian idea of incarnation than the 
 Hegelian embodiment of reason. It also offers an 
 analogy to the Christian ideal of the overcoming life. In 
 the Christian ideal regeneration makes man a new crea- 
 ture and the new life conquers the old sinful life in man. 
 Through all difficulties the new life, which is God's life, 
 maintains itself. For these two ideas of incarnation and 
 the new, regenerate life of the Christian Eucken has fur- 
 nished an important philosophical parallel. He has ap- 
 proached to the very kernel of the truth of Christianity. 
 Because Eucken has an ideal of superhuman life, he has 
 
 •3 " Erkennen und Leben," p. 49. 
 
282 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 also been able rightly to stress the spiritual character of 
 life. Life to him is not full nor real if it is not spiritual. 
 It is true, that his idea of a struggle for a spiritual con- 
 tent of life begins on a lower level than that of religion, 
 but at the end it rises up to it. In all history Eucken 
 finds spiritual reality. This reality, however, does not 
 appear in mere outward deeds but in spiritual inward- 
 ness. It is not in nature, not in individual soul-life, not 
 in ontological speculation, but in the inner world of the 
 spiritual life, its struggles and opposition, its revelations 
 and experiences, that real knowledge and truth are found. 
 They cannot be gathered apart from life but must arise 
 in its own self-development. It is the constant eifort of 
 Eucken to keep his concept of spiritual life entirely pure 
 and uncontaminated from all individualistic, socialistic, 
 economic and naturalistic features. He repeats and re- 
 peats in one form or another his emphasis on the spirit- 
 uality of life as the guiding reality of mankind. In this 
 endeavor Eucken's philosophy seeks to define on its level 
 what Christianity aims at when it so strongly holds to the 
 fact that the highest truth is the truth of the Spirit, into 
 which men are constantly led and guided by the living 
 presence, power and enlightenment of God. 
 
 Eucken, in holding to the unity of the spiritual life, 
 raises it above science, culture, and social ends. In so 
 doing he vindicates philosophically the right of religion to 
 demand its own independence and reality. He deprecates 
 the claim that science can give a " Weltanschauung." 
 The change of science into " Weltanschauung " is only 
 possible, he thinks, when man, the subject, is overlooked 
 and the great spiritual process in history is neglected. 
 It is this process which really bears the work of science, 
 and which has brought forth contents and aims that are 
 far broader and larger than science, and that are truly 
 human. Among such contents and aims of human en- 
 
The Vitalist Vim 283 
 
 deavor Eucken includes art, literature, morals and re- 
 ligion. Religion is made a full cultural fact and reality. 
 In the same way Eucken, although he approaches in his 
 conception of culture to religion, would not have cul- 
 ture and religion identified. He believes that a mere hu- 
 manistic and naturalistic culture is insufficient. On the 
 one hand there is too much subjective emotionalism, on the 
 other hand there is too much soulless objectivity. Be- 
 tween these two man's life is rent apart. If man is not to 
 surrender himself his " effort will inevitably take the form 
 of a struggle for spiritual self-preservation." ^* In this 
 struggle religion must be a mighty aid. 
 
 In the same manner as religion is independent over 
 against mere culture and science, it must be independent 
 of and cannot be controlled by the mere interests of so- 
 ciety. These are very liable to reduce man's spiritual 
 life to material terms. While there are ideals in the 
 new social striving it cannot compensate for religion, for 
 it does not answer to the spiritual need. " This striving, 
 which in itself cannot be rejected, enters upon a narrow 
 course and at the same time upon much that is prob- 
 lematical, in that it unites with the positivistic tendencies 
 of the age in the rejection of all invisible connections 
 and the restriction of life to the experience of sense. In- 
 stead of the whole, we now have the average and the masses, 
 and instead of a creation from the whole, a building up 
 from below; the needs of the masses are the main motive 
 power of life. But as with the masses the chief questions 
 are those of the physical preservation of life, and of 
 economic existence, it seems as if, with their solution, 
 with the deliverance from the oppressing cares and ne- 
 cessity through a radical revolution, a complete state 
 of happiness and a ceaseless spiritual advance of hu- 
 manity are assured. Material welfare, which in earlier 
 84 " Can We Still Be ChrisUans? " p. 79. 
 
284 Trends of Thought and Chriitian Truth 
 
 organizations of life was so depreciated, in the new sys- 
 tem becomes the matter of chief concern; it is regarded 
 as that which more than anything else leads to the de- 
 velopment of every power and makes culture the truth for 
 the whole of humanity."®" In the clear elimination of 
 the purely social ideal as adequate for human life Eucken 
 again aids in bringing out definitely the supreme need of 
 all-embracing life. Christianity can only welcome such 
 an approximation to its claim of the right of religion, and 
 of its supreme necessity in human life to solve the deep- 
 est problems, to maintain the real ideality, and to furnish 
 permanent happiness. 
 
 While Eucken's philosophy thus has many ideas which 
 Christian thinking can hail with delight, it also has ele- 
 ments against which Christianity must remain in a doubt- 
 ful attitude. The first of the difficulties is the way in 
 which Eucken deals with the problem of personality. Ap- 
 parently Eucken is favorable to personality as he seeks 
 a unity, which will recognize both the ethical and specula- 
 tive movement of mankind. He says: "that we should 
 cling to the word * personal ' as descriptive of that unity 
 is not due to any love of the mere word, which we could 
 easily consent to drop. It is due rather to that which 
 lies behind the word. Thinkers such as Leibniz and 
 Kant, whom no one can accuse of a crass anthropomor- 
 phism, have used it to designate the transcendence of the 
 spiritual life. We desire to retain it in order that the 
 spiritual may be understood and recognized as an active 
 element, and the divine as self-determining life, not as the 
 mysterious, dreamy, enchained process which romanticism 
 conceived it to be. But our object becomes imperilled, 
 or at least obscured, if once we designate and treat the 
 ultimate cause of things as impersonal. Because con- 
 cepts drawn from human life do not satisfy us completely, 
 80 " Life's Basis and Life's Ideal," p. 48 ff. 
 
The Vitalist View 285 
 
 we must not, therefore, sink back upon something infra- 
 human, as has so often happened and is happening in 
 memy quarters to-day." ^^ This seemingly so strong de- 
 fense appears to do full justice to the idea of the per- 
 sonality. But, after all, while there is a strong effort to 
 overcome indefinite impersonalism, the problem remains 
 whether personality, in which the spiritual becomes active 
 and the divine determining, is a higher idea than spirit- 
 ual life. Is personality essential to the transcendent, di- 
 vine life, or does the transcendent, divine life only become 
 personal in man? Is the spiritual, divine life essentially 
 personal? While Eucken seems to assert this in main- 
 taining that personality is needed to make the divine a 
 self-determining life, nevertheless he determines per- 
 sonality not as a fixed possession. Personality for man 
 is defined as a constant appropriation of higher life, a 
 great task, and the winning of a new self. Personality is 
 to be a concentration in man gained through experiences 
 and decisions, through struggle and conquest. Per- 
 sonality lies at the height of a spiritual movement."^ 
 Eucken nowhere clearly says that God has personality. 
 And the conception of personality as mere becoming will 
 not allow of its consistent application to the idea of God. 
 Eucken has freed himself from the non-personal intellec- 
 tualism of Hegel, but he has not really gained a full 
 theistic foundation. The spiritual life as a category and 
 an idea retains a larger place than God as a person. 
 With all his efforts Eucken does not seem to have kept 
 clearly away from a pantheistic trend. His idea of life 
 is supreme. The ultimate is not God, but spiritual life. 
 Another difficulty in Eucken's thinking is the failure to 
 find definite standards of truth in the notion of life. 
 While life is largely described it retains elements of in- 
 
 86 " Can We Still Be Christians? " p. 153. 
 
 87 Cf. " Geistige Stroemungen der Gegenwart," p. 348 fif. 
 
286 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 definiteness. There may not be in Eucken's description 
 of life as much pictorialness as in Bergson's conception, 
 but nevertheless Eucken does employ the illustrative 
 method of portraying life. He would resent being called 
 a romanticist, and he is no romanticist of the extreme, 
 illogical type, but his actualism and his notion of life are 
 richer in descriptive detail and poetic fervor than in 
 logical accuracy and in distinct norms of truth. Eucken 
 is a romantic, idealistic preacher who sermonizes on life, 
 and preaches a definitely thought out romantic conception 
 like a religion. If we ask for the definite contents of 
 Eucken's philosophy we shall not find that they are worked 
 out in a great system. He has a great central theme in 
 spiritual life, which he constantly elaborates upon and 
 applies. Everything is subservient to this ruling idea. 
 Not only the matter but also the very manner of Eucken as 
 a lecturer demonstrate how large an element feeling and 
 imagination play in his thinking. Were all truth of this 
 nature it would lead to much uncertainty, for with all 
 his brilliancy Eucken has not given the world strong 
 standards. It is in this respect that Christianity holds, 
 that a mere philosophy of life cannot compensate for 
 strong, fixed standards of truth. Christianity has a sys- 
 tem of truth to which it must cling. Eucken, it is true, 
 says, that life must have authoritative fixity; but how 
 does he define this fixity? "Unless life have some such 
 authoritative fixity over against human dealings, we can 
 never arrive at any sure goal, any inner fellowship, any 
 independence of time's fluctuations. To us modem men, 
 however, taught by long experience of the world's work, 
 that authoritative fixity can never come from without." ** 
 But if the authority cannot come from without, if truth 
 has no value apart from life and as shaping life, does not 
 truth become changeable and flowing? On this founda- 
 68 " Can We StUl Be Christians? " p. 88. 
 
The Vitalist View 287 
 
 tion Eucken cannot hold to any fixed eternal truth. He 
 has no such standard as Christianity accepts in its au- 
 thoritative revelation of truth. 
 
 Because Eucken's philosophy, despite his protest, has 
 a romantic flavor ; and because he claims for it the real in- 
 wardness and unity, and because he uses it to determine 
 the whole problem of man, the world, and God, he must 
 place philosophy above religion. He claims that only 
 through philosophy can the problems of life be lifted up 
 into the character of principles, and only through 
 philosophy can the complications of life be resolved into 
 unity.®* Of course this philosophy is not the mere 
 philosophy of the schools, but it is a philosophy of human 
 life. Such a philosophy is, however, superior and unifies 
 all that man possesses. While Eucken does not subsume 
 religion to reason, like Hegel, he is, after all, Hegelian in 
 as far as religion is secondary to philosophy. He be- 
 lieves that though art and religion bring inward reality to 
 man, and though they possess independence over against 
 philosophy, nevertheless philosophy must furnish the 
 final justification of their strivings. It is the great unifier 
 which is superior to all other forms of life. But such 
 a claim Christianity can never admit. It must main- 
 tain not only its independence, but also its authoritative 
 superiority to every philosophy. It does not need any 
 philosophy to give unity and clarity to its own life. It 
 may use philosophies to approach to the mind of man, 
 but the value of its truth lies within itself. The life of 
 religion, particularly in Christianity, can never bow to the 
 demand of philosophy whose source is reflection, whether 
 it be colored with imagination or not. The immediacy 
 of the authority and truth of Christian revelation can 
 suffer no abatement through any philosophical claim. 
 Christianity cannot admit that it must in any way finally 
 
 «9 Cf. " Erkennen und Leben," p. 159. 
 
288 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 stand aside for either philosophy, science or art. 
 
 In addition to these general discrepancies between 
 Christian truth and the philosophy of Eucken, we have 
 some very direct utterances which affect the central place 
 of Christianity and some of its essential doctrines. 
 Eucken has discussed his view of Christianity in " The 
 Truth of Religion."''" But he has most definitely de- 
 scribed his attitude toward Christianity, in view of the 
 modem world, in the volume "Can We Still Be Chris- 
 tians ? " He admits that Christianity has certain great 
 and supreme elements. It makes religion the sovereign 
 mistress of man's life and destiny, and reveals another 
 world to him than that of his surroundings. This new 
 world is a supra-sensible, invisible kingdom and consti- 
 tutes Christianity, as a religion of the spirit. Spiritual- 
 ity marks Christianity, for it is not a religion of the 
 law, but a religion of redemption. The redemption which 
 Christianity promises is ethical and not intellectual. 
 Through these truths Christianity attempts to close up 
 the rift between God and man in its message of the com- 
 ing of the kingdom and of the incarnation and mediation 
 through Christ. Eucken believes that Christianity- can 
 still be maintained and cannot be rejected altogether, be- 
 cause through it alone can we rightly define our relation 
 to the world, maintain the true value of our nature, and 
 properly control and shape the real work of life. 
 
 But with all this strength of estimation of the value of 
 Christianity, Eucken does not give it the place of the final 
 religion. He says, " Therefore, we must most resolutely 
 resist the claim of any one particular religion, Chris- 
 tianity included, to be the one and only true religion to 
 the exclusion and rejection of all others. It is only 
 necessary to think out the consequences of a claim of this 
 kind in order to feel its monstrosity. Other religions be- 
 70 Cf. Part V. 
 
The ntalht View 289 
 
 sides Christianity allow man to live and die in the belief 
 that divine life is ruling within him and drawing him away 
 and beyond himself. If now the manifestation of divinity 
 be limited to Christianity, then this belief can be nothing 
 more than a gross illusion; the supposed revelation be- 
 comes mere semblance and deception." ''■'■ The difficulty 
 in this estimate of Christianity is, that there is permitted 
 to be in it no specific and final message of God to men. 
 A real, broad Christianity does not deny that God at all 
 times was seeking men; but is the divine which other re- 
 ligions than Christianity claim of the same redemptive 
 value that Christianity is, and has it the same vital truth ? 
 Because Eucken has a great, general spiritual life, which 
 is found in universal religion, he cannot admit that the 
 peculiar characteristics of Christianity constitute it the 
 religion for mankind. But can a consistent Christianity 
 abandon this claim? If it can, Eucken is correct; if it 
 cannot, we must reject the depression of Christianity in 
 Eucken's point of view. The latter is the general assump- 
 tion among Christians, and is the outcome of Christian 
 truth and experience. 
 
 Out of Eucken's view of Christianity, and closely con- 
 nected with it, there arises his conception of the Church. 
 He is willing to give the Church a real spiritual value. 
 He says : " We have touched repeatedly on the prob- 
 lem of the Church and convinced ourselves that, in spite 
 of all defects and imperfections, a religious community is 
 nevertheless indispensable. Christianity, moreover, must 
 find such a community particularly essential and valuable, 
 since, with more than ordinary boldness, it builds up a 
 new world over against the world as given, and instead 
 of looking upon the kingdom of God as a far-distant goal 
 seeks to bring it right into human existence." ''^ High 
 
 ""Can We StUl Be Christians?" p. 133 ff. 
 T2 Ibid., p. 180 ff. 
 
290 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 as this estimate appears to be, it justifies the Church 
 solely on the necessity of religious fellowship and of a 
 religious community. There is no appreciation of the 
 relation of the Church to Christ. It seems to grow, in 
 Eucken's view, out of the religious need. Of course, it 
 cannot be expected that the fullness of Christian truth 
 about the Church, as the body of Christ, is to be found in 
 the philosophic approach. Nevertheless the definition 
 of the Church is too broad and lacks character. 
 
 Over against the ideal need of the Church Eucken finds 
 many difficulties in the practical life of the Church. He 
 knows and admits that there must be an inner connection of 
 Christian truth starting out from the incarnation and 
 the redemption. From these central dogmas there fol- 
 low for Christianity " all its other distinctive dogmas, 
 such as the Trinity, the miraculous birth, the bodily 
 resurrection, and the ascension. There is something ex- 
 ceedingly logical in the development of these dogmas. 
 There is no stopping midway ; he who wishes to retain one 
 must accept the others." ^* But the problem for Chris- 
 tians, according to Eucken, is, " whether the religious for- 
 mation which we find in Christianity has really the funda- 
 mental contact which will enable it to maintain itself 
 as the supreme climax of religious life, in face of all the 
 attacks and opposition which it must encounter to-day." ''* 
 Another question is " whether the forms in which Chris- 
 tianity is at present enshrined are really capable of in- 
 cluding the truth-content of the life which has been grad- 
 ually growing up anew in the movements and experiences 
 of the last few centuries." ''^ In general it is the opinion 
 of Eucken that present Christianity in its ecclesiastical 
 forms cannot solve these problems. 
 
 73 Ibid., p. 13. 
 
 74 Ihid., p. 137. 
 
 75 Ibid., p. 137, 
 
The Vitalist View 291 
 
 A new Christianity is indispensable because the present 
 cannot be reformed. To prove this he analyzes broadly 
 both Catholicism and Protestantism. As to the former 
 he states, that the manner in which Catholicism controlled 
 culture is no longer possible. It is attached to an old 
 culture and, therefore, cannot control the present. In 
 addition it dwells too much in the sensible embodiment of 
 the spiritual, and is liable to make the Church an end in 
 itself. All this dooms it in view of the inner life which the 
 modem age demands. Protestantism is divided into old 
 and new Protestantism. Of the old Protestantism it is 
 said, that it " did not regard itself as in any way a mere 
 part of a progressive movement, but rather as a highly 
 necessary restoration of a truth which had been tarnished 
 and disfigured but was in itself valid to all eternity. To 
 this extent it shows just as decided an aversion to the idea 
 of progress as did Catholicism." ''^ The newer Prot- 
 estantism is supposed to be ineifective because in its lib- 
 erality, in its confidence in man's powers, and in its strong 
 immanental leaning, it has " a tendency to overlook the ob- 
 scurity of life and its inward stniggles." '^'' Every his- 
 toric form, therefore, of Christianity is insufficient, and 
 the maintenance of Christianity is supposed to demand a 
 freeing from ecclesiastical control. Christianity is sup- 
 posed only to be able to live " on the one condition, that 
 Christianity be recognized as a progressive historic move- 
 ment still in the making, that it be shaken free from the 
 numbing influence of ecclesiasticism and placed upon a 
 broader foundation." ^* In other words, the value of the 
 present historic forms of Christianity has ceased, in 
 Eucken's opinion. There must be a new broad move- 
 ment in which universal religion, the religion of the 
 
 T8 ihid., p. 201. 
 77 Ihid., p. 203. 
 T8 Ihid., p. 218. 
 
293 Trends of Thoiight and Christian Truth 
 
 spiritual life, redeems what is eternal in Christianity. 
 On such a theory there has been no continuity of Chris- 
 tian life, and the Spirit has forsaken the Church. 
 The broad development of thought is to re-make and re- 
 formulate Christian truth, not out of its own treasures, 
 but in accord with the philosophic notion of what con- 
 stitutes spiritual life. The Church has no normative 
 Word of God to which it can return; it has no innate au- 
 thority of truth. Eucken seems to have given away alto- 
 gether to the modem criticism against the Church. He 
 would not re-vivify her, as far as she needs it, out of her 
 own life, but in agreement with modern ideals and modem 
 culture. 
 
 The difference between Eucken's point of view and Chris- 
 tianity also appears in the manner in which he attempts 
 to eliminate the temporal elements of Christian truth in 
 some of its great teachings. He singles out, first of all, 
 the doctrines of human sin and guilt, and of atonement. 
 There is, according to Eucken, a real problem of evil, 
 which optimism cannot so easily explain away. But 
 Eucken hopes that the contradiction of evil may be over- 
 come by the new spiritual life. He says : " The harm 
 and perversion would be impossible, if there were nothing 
 to harm and to pervert. Without good, evil is unthink- 
 able. The very risks we run may make us conscious of 
 something deeper than we before suspected. Guilt may 
 strengthen our certainty of the government of a moral 
 order ; doubt may make us more convinced of the existence 
 of a truth. But this reflection still leaves us our contra- 
 diction, and with it the danger that our life and effort may 
 come to a complete standstill." ''* The manner in which 
 the danger can be met and the burden overcome is summed 
 up in this manner : " That through the opening-up of an 
 immediate relationship of the soul and of man to a Grod- 
 T8 Ibid., p. 117. 
 
The Vitalist View 293 
 
 head which is not merely immanent in the world but also 
 transcendent, a new spiritual life wells up which cannot 
 be thus imperilled and distorted, since now all human ac- 
 tivity has the support and sustenance of the divine." *" 
 With all the effort to appreciate guilt and evil justly, it is, 
 nevertheless, not grasped in its depth. There is no easy 
 attempt to get rid oif the complications of life and its real 
 wrongs. But the apprehension of sin in its depth is lack- 
 ing, and the emphasis of redemption from sin is wanting, 
 for these ideas are supposed to savor " of old-world 
 weakness and weariness, and cannot be adopted by the man 
 of to-day unless he be disloyal to himself." ^^ There is 
 no estimate of sin which makes it guilt before God, for the 
 wrath of God is disallowed, and the greatness of sin in its 
 source and results, which Christianity claims, is neglected. 
 There is also an under-estimation of real atonement. 
 Its sacrificial character is questioned. It is supposed 
 to be mythical. Says Eucken : " When further we 
 contemplate the important part played by the sacri- 
 ficial blood in this doctrine of mediation and substitution, 
 we cannot but realize that this whole mode of presentation, 
 penetrated though it be by a depth of real spiritual feel- 
 ing, yet belongs to another, more childish and more picture- 
 loving stage of spiritual development than that in which 
 we find ourselves to-day after all our centuries of experi- 
 ence and struggle. That which once seemed a fitting ex- 
 pression of divine truth bids fair to become for us an- 
 thropomorphic and mythological. And no power on earth 
 can force us to respect as religious a conception which we 
 once perceive to be of the nature of myth." *^ In the 
 same manner it is doubted that the divine love, grace, and 
 reaction against sin depend upon any manifestation in 
 
 80 Ibid., p. 118. 
 
 81 Ibid., p. 1S9. I 
 
 82 Ibid., p. 32. 
 
294 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 Jesus Christ, and that they are evident in His redemption. 
 " The imaginative conceptions, moreover, which support 
 the whole edifice of Christian dogma, — particularly that 
 of the wrath of God only to be appeased through the blood 
 of His son, — we are bound to reject as far too an- 
 thropomorphic and irreconcilable with our purer concep- 
 tions of the Godhead." *^ Eucken has mentioned as his 
 objections anthropomorphism and mythologism. The 
 former has often been urged since the days of the early 
 Greek thinker, Xenophanes, but its value cannot be de- 
 nied if it is rightly limited. To remove all anthropo- 
 morphism would lead into vagueness, abstraction and 
 finally agnosticism. The removal of the elements which 
 Eucken disapproves of would depreciate sin and the per- 
 sonal conception of God. The mythologism charged is due 
 to a questioning of the historical sources of Christianity. 
 Eucken's main quarrel is with any historic redemption 
 through Jesus Christ, and with any doctrine in which real 
 sin before God is atoned for through Jesus Christ. No 
 room is left for any formulation of atonement such as the 
 teaching of Christ and early Christianity demands. 
 Eucken must reject the statement of Jesus, that He gave 
 His life as a ransom for many.** In the same way the 
 reference to sacrifice, when Jesus says at the Last Supper, 
 that the cup is the New Testament in His blood,** must 
 be repudiated. Christ cannot be made sin for us by 
 God,*® and God is not really in Christ, reconciling men, 
 and not imputing their sins to them.*''^ All such teach- 
 ings have no place if the sacrifice of Jesus be set aside, 
 and if the mention of His blood is pure anthropomorphism. 
 Eucken cannot square himself with the Christian doctrines 
 
 83 Ibid., p. 172. 
 
 84 Mark, 10:45. 
 
 85 Matthew, 26:28. 
 
 88 II Corinthians, 5:21. 
 87 II Corinthians, 5:19. 
 
The Vitalist View 295 
 
 of sin and atonement, because his activism will not allow 
 for real sin, and his depreciation of the historical Jesus, 
 as will appear below, hinders him from accepting a real 
 atonement. The romantic character of the doctrine of 
 spiritual life makes this life itself the atoning factor, and, 
 therefore, no historic atonement and no sacrifice is really 
 needed. Christianity finds in Eucken's re-formulation of 
 sin and sacrifice the same hindrances which it found in 
 Hegel's effort to discover permanent rational Christianity. 
 The real historical is lost in Eucken's case as well as in 
 Hegel's. The all-determining influence of the creative 
 life reigns and in all consistency suffers no real atone- 
 ment. 
 
 When, at last, we come to the fact of Jesus Himself, 
 there is discovered in Eucken a combination of an high 
 estimate of Jesus with a doubt of His actual incarnation 
 and of His divine nature. Says Eucken : " The Christian 
 conviction of love as a world-ruling power was embodied in 
 a personality which in its union of childlike simplicity 
 with historic greatness, outward poverty with inward 
 loftiness, tenderest spirituality with world-compelling 
 power, youthful joyousness with impressive seriousness, 
 has made a deep and lasting impression upon humanity 
 and stands out clear and vivid in the minds of all Chris- 
 tian believers." *® Jesus is the personality which brought 
 divine truth to historic realization. " A personality like 
 that of Jesus is not a mere carrier of doctrines or moods, 
 but a convincing actual proof of divine life, from which 
 new divine life can constantly be kindled." ** The fact 
 of Jesus is the source of an endless movement. But after 
 all Jesus is not the Christ of confessing Christianity, al- 
 though He is not lowered to a mere teacher. " The per- 
 
 8s«Can We Still Be Christians?" p. 14. 
 
 89 Translated from " Der Wahrheitsgehalt der Religion," p. 427. 
 Engl. Translation, " The Truth of ReUglon." 
 
296 TreTids of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 sonality of Jesus, the man Jesus, is in no wise robbed of 
 its pre-eminent significajice, nor is his status lowered to 
 that of a mere teacher of wisdom," *" But Jesus is not 
 vitally the Son of God ; He is simply a unique Creator of 
 spiritual life. 
 
 There is no approval of the union of the divine and 
 human in Jesus. In fact, many difficulties are found. 
 Says Eucken, " The fuU unity of Godhead and hu- 
 manity in ONE person has not become a living reality 
 for the religious life through the dogmatic decreeing of 
 it." ®^ There is supposed to be an insoluble contradic- 
 tion in a man who is God, who bears human cares and suf- 
 ferings, and stiU remains in possession of the full com- 
 pleteness of divine absolute truth. Not only is Jesus op- 
 posed in view of His Godhead, but there is a fear that 
 Christianity is too much bound to holding fast the truth 
 as it was realized in Jesus. Consequently Eucken says : 
 " Nor is our resistance on this point confined to the old, 
 in itself consistent, doctrine of the God-man ; it is directed 
 also against the modern halfway position which drops the 
 old doctrine, but nevertheless calls Jesus unconditionally 
 lord and master and must consequently bind our whole 
 religious life indissolubly to him, thus taking away all 
 independence with regard to him, and robbing our own life 
 of its full originative power." ®^ The desire of Eucken 
 to be free from the control of the personality of Jesus, 
 after he has so highly estimated Him, may at first seem 
 strange. The doubt of Eucken and his rejection of the 
 divine-human Jesus is, however, readily explicable if we 
 recall Eucken's leading conceptions. 
 
 There is no room for the inclusion of divine, spiritual 
 life in one great personality, if divine life is a universal 
 
 80 "Can We Still Be Christians?" p. 178. 
 
 »i " Der Wahrheitsgehalt der Religion," p. 4S4. 
 
 »2 " Can We StiU Be ChrisUans? " p. 173. 
 
The Vitcdist View 297 
 
 idea. Eucken cannot accept the uniqueness of Jesus just 
 because his idea of life is greater than that of personality. 
 Despite his exaltation of the personal, quoted above,** in 
 which the divine is supposed to have its self-determination 
 in personality, Eucken cannot bring himself to a consist- 
 ent and real conviction that the divine and human, that di- 
 vinity and humanity can coalesce in one person. The 
 unity of divine and human cannot be found in one person 
 because personality itself is not concrete in God. It is 
 rather identified with the indefinite, general, romantic term 
 of spiritual life. Eucken finds contradiction in the real 
 vital unity of divine and human in Jesus, and still he 
 maintains that the spiritual life is divine. Why should 
 there be more contradiction, when the contrast is centered 
 in a person, than if we suppose a divine movement of life to 
 be struggling with human movements .'' If the divine can- 
 not enter a person, can it enter finite human movements? 
 Either Eucken's divine can not be- a real full divine, or his 
 human must be lost in the divine, when spiritual life breaks 
 through. 
 
 In general the divine plays a minor part in Eucken's 
 theory. The activism of the divine in creation is fre- 
 quently forgotten in the stressing of human work. 
 The labor is man's labor, and the divine In life is not by 
 grace.®* Consequently there is a failure in the inter- 
 relation of the divine and human in Eucken's speculation. 
 His objection, therefore, to centering divinity and human- 
 ity in their fullness in Jesus, is a result of his lack of a 
 real, absolutely divine element. There is also a constant 
 reluctance against making a single historical personality 
 like Jesus aU-determining. Should we grant that Eucken 
 has maintained the balance of the divine and human In 
 
 93 See p. 284. 
 
 84 Even where grace is appreciated activity and freedom are largely 
 stressed (cf. "Ethics and Modern Thought," p. 57). 
 
298 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 spiritual life, as he intends to do, it would be necessary 
 to ascribe his objection to the divine-human in Jesus to 
 the dwelling within the romantic notion of life. This no- 
 tion seeks to absorb subjective and objective into a unity, 
 and is averse to personality in its concreteness because it 
 may become individuality. 
 
 At all events, whatever may be the reason, Eucken does 
 not possess the Christ of Christianity. He does not 
 want Him as divine Saviour, not even, on a liberal basis, 
 as Lord and Master. But Christianity can never sur- 
 render its central figure to any such idea as that of 
 Eucken. The vitality and power of Christianity would 
 be gone with the fading away of the picture of Jesus 
 in all its fullness. It is specifically in the incar- 
 nation of Jesus and all that follows from it that Chris- 
 tianity finds its support. But the end of this incarnation 
 is for Christianity no speculative aim, but the practical 
 necessity of a real salvation through God and in God for 
 man. The injury done to any of the vital elements that 
 are embraced in the truth of the salvation of Jesus, through 
 His person and merit, is an injury, which must at last de- 
 stroy Christianity, as the best interpretation of the re- 
 ligion of salvation in the world. Consequently a Chris- 
 tianity that knows what it possesses will always maintain 
 the integrity of Jesus in His human and divine character. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE KEAUST IlEALM 
 
 AMONG the diverse modem movements in America 
 one of the latest is the philosophical movement 
 which calls itself Neo-Realism. It is a common 
 endeavor of the following university professors: Edwin 
 B. Holt of Harvard, Ralph Barton Perry of Harvard, 
 W. P. Montague of Columbia, Walter B. Pitkin of Co- 
 lumbia, E. G. Spaulding of Princeton, and Walter T. 
 Marvin of Rutgers College. These are the distinct lead- 
 ers of American Neo-Realism, although there is a realistic 
 trend in Professor FuUerton's later publications, and in 
 Bertrand Russell's speculations. The neo-realists in op- 
 position to all assumptions of a single substance are seek- 
 ing to assert that there are only functioning centers. 
 Over against the priority of mere first simples they de- 
 mand continuing energies. They attack idealism by de- 
 nying the ego-centric character of the world and its purely 
 ideal nature. They hold to independent entities which 
 exist in themselves and are not dependent upon the mind. 
 In their realism they do not follow the older Scottish phi- 
 losophers who opposed idealism, and became common-sense 
 dualists, demanding both mind and matter. The Amer- 
 ican realists are not satisfied with such a naive theory. 
 Their attitude strives for a diflFerent kind of pluralistic 
 world. It is not the world of everybody, it is not the 
 shifting world of pragmatism, it is not the dream world 
 of idealism, but a world of immediate experience of physi- 
 
300 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 cal phenomena, which are not to be made mental.-^ The 
 attitudes of the neo-realists are still largely critical and 
 negative, but a common program and platform has 
 been announced.^ Although neo-realism objects to any 
 identification with naturalism, idealism or pragmatism, it 
 is nevertheless in agreement with many important teach- 
 ings of these attitudes, " With naturalism, for example, 
 it maintains the unimpeachable truth of the accredited re- 
 sults of science, and the independence of physical nature 
 on knowledge; with idealism it maintains the validity and 
 irreducibility of logical and moral science ; and with prag- 
 matism, the practical and empirical character of the 
 knowledge process, and the presumptively pluralistic con- 
 stitution of the universe." ^ 
 
 Realism begins with a world of manifold entities. These 
 are " not all mental, conscious, or spiritual," and " are 
 knowable without being known." * It is even asserted 
 that "the entities (objects, facts, etc.) under study in 
 logic, mathematics, and the physical sciences are not mental 
 in any usual or proper meaning of the word ' mental.' " ' 
 There is a drift away from mental emphasis, and the claim 
 of Professor Perry, that neo-realism like idealism main- 
 tains the irreducibility of logical and moral science, is 
 hardly sustained. The entities are not fundamentally of 
 an ideal nature. The pressure everywhere is against any 
 assertion or stressing of mental entities in the sense of 
 their being conditioned upon knowledge. Such an atti- 
 tude might lead in logic and morals to either Platonic 
 ideas, or to the spiritual monads of Leibniz, or to the ideal 
 
 iCf. "The New Realism," by Professor Fullerton, in "Essays 
 Philosophical and Psychological In Honor of "William James," etc., 
 p. 3ff.— Cf. also, FuUerton, "The World We Live In," Chapters IX, 
 X, XI. 
 
 2 " The New Realism," p. 471 ff. 
 
 8 Perry, " Present Philosophical Tendencies," p. 272. 
 
 * Professor Spaulding, in " The New Realism," p. 478. 
 
 8 Professor Holt, in " The New Realism," p. 472. 
 
Th£ Realist Realm 301 
 
 reals of Herbart, but this is not the case. It will appear 
 that in logic, morals and religion, neo-realism has prac- 
 tically become pragmatic. Its strong assertion of the in- 
 dependence of entities, and its opposition to knowledge as 
 conditioning any of them, tend toward making the enti- 
 ties really physical. In other words, because neo-realism 
 is not dualistic in an outspoken manner, and because it 
 denies the ideality of all entities, it is actually monistic in 
 a physical and naturalistic manner. Its pluralism is sci- 
 entific and external, and can be used even less for mental 
 ends than pragmatic pluralism. It becomes as inde- 
 terminate and shifting in its pluralism as does pragmatism. 
 Its emphasis of manyness and irrevelance goes even further 
 than that of pragmatism. 
 
 The indefinite description of entities, which really looks 
 toward materialism, is strongly seconded by the opposition 
 of neo-realism to an idealistic theory of knowledge. The 
 entities are never to be conditioned in their nature or being 
 through being known. They enter into many relations 
 which do not change them in their substance. One of these 
 relations may be knowledge. But the entities are never 
 completely immanent in knowledge, for they may be im- 
 manent in many connections, combinations, and relations, 
 and still remain transcendent and independent. This in- 
 dependence is denominated " the external view of rela- 
 tions." It is opposed to a connected, inner relationship 
 of all things, which absolutism asserts. The assertion 
 that all things are external to each other is the great 
 fundamental logical principle which is to be prior to all 
 metaphysical systems and theories of knowledge. Many 
 propositions are built upon it. " There are many ex- 
 istential, as well as non-existential, propositions which are 
 logically prior to epistemology," for " epistemology is not 
 logically fundamental." ® In all propositions " one identi- 
 
 8 Professor Marvin, in " The New Realism," p. 473. 
 
302 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 cal term may stand in many relations," '' tind it may change 
 some relations without changing all. There is no real al- 
 teration brought about by knowledge. " Realism holds 
 that things known may continue to exist unaltered when 
 they are not known, or that things may pass in and out 
 of the cognitive relation without prejudice to their re- 
 ality." ^ Knowledge plays its part within an independent 
 environment. It is " a complex process, involving physi- 
 cal, physiological, biological, and ethical factors that are 
 determinable by the laws proper to these sciences." * 
 There is the strongest emphasis on a naturalistic theory of 
 knowledge. Professor Perry claims that modem realism 
 is closer to the phenomenal monistic realism of Hume than 
 to the dualistic realism of the Scottish philosophers. 
 There is an effort to regard things not merely as inde- 
 pendent of the mind, but as identical with perception when 
 they are present to the mind. Things may enter directly 
 into the mind and then become ideas. This theory of the 
 mind largely deals with entities as physical things, and 
 certainly under-values mental entities. 
 
 The whole neo-realistic school does not accentuate ob- 
 jective mental facts in themselves and in their relation to 
 knowledge. There are occasional utterances about spir- 
 itual entities, but the whole trend is toward a neglect of 
 the spiritual and an exaltation of the natural. It is 
 through the speculations of the English thinker Bertrand 
 Russell that we find a better valuation of objective mental 
 facts. His theory of knowledge and of truth asserts that 
 there are many things which enter into multiple relations 
 through the mind. When a judgment is made there is 
 " not a dual relation of the mind to a single objective, but 
 a multiple relation of the mind to the various other terms 
 
 T Professor Pitkin, in " The New Realism," p. 477. 
 s Professor Montague, in " The New Realism," p. 474. 
 9 " The New Realism," p. 135. 
 
The Realist Realm 303 
 
 with which the judgment is concerned." ^^ It is through 
 such multiple relations that the mind finds both things and 
 ideas. Out of the proper relations truth is constituted. 
 When a judgment is true, there is a relation between the 
 objects of the judgment, which really exist. " Every 
 judgment is a relation of a mind to several objects, one of 
 which is a relation; the judgment is tme when the rela- 
 tion which is one of the objects relates the other objects, 
 otherwise it is false." ■^^ Knowledge, therefore, rests on 
 the relating which has objective facts with which the mind 
 must connect. The objective facts are not merely ma- 
 terial, they may be ideal. The relation, however, of the 
 mind does not make the existence, it only establishes con- 
 nections. There is more room for both the mind and the 
 world in this theory than in that of neo-realism. 
 
 From the doctrine of knowledge, which the realists hold, 
 there follows a peculiar explanation of the mind. The 
 mind is only a center of relationships. In its conscious- 
 ness, says Professor Woodbridge, " we have simply an in- 
 stance of the existence of different things together, . . . 
 consciousness is only a form of connection of objects, a 
 relation between them." ^* The relations established by 
 the mind do not change the objects which persist in their 
 nature. When the mind is studied and observed in its 
 experience of sensations and perceptions, the result, ac- 
 cording to neo-realism, shows that the mind is not distinc- 
 tive and separate in nature and function. It is a complex 
 which has arisen from certain biological processes that 
 acted in the direction of self-preservation. These 
 processes protected, renewed and finally isolated them- 
 selves, and thus they developed a variety of special inter- 
 ests. Out of such origin the mind through biological de- 
 
 i» " Philosophical Essays," p. 180. 
 
 11 Ibid., p. 181. 
 
 12 Perry, " Present Philosophical Tendencies," p. 378. 
 
304 Trend* of Thotight and Christian Truth 
 
 termination became a complex organization which acted 
 desideratively or interestedly. In the action of biological 
 interest the vital processes were developed. " Such 
 processes, interested in their general form, possess charac- 
 teristic instrumentalities, notably a bodily nervous system 
 which localizes the interest and conditions the refinement 
 and range of its intercourse with its environment." ** 
 Through these instrumentalities the mind has taken up 
 such contents of the environment as it sought on behalf 
 of the biological interests and desires. This theory of the 
 mind is certainly naturalistic and material. It is not 
 parallelistic like the prevailing theory of most psycholo- 
 gists. It does not allow for any real interaction, but is 
 simply and solely a biological process. Consequently the 
 mind must be only a name for the fact of the functioning 
 of entities through a center. The mind and its phenom- 
 ena are natural, for biology and physiology altogether 
 determine it. There is no distinctive spiritual character 
 and life of the mind. " The natural mind, as here and 
 now existing, is thus an organization possessing as dis- 
 tinguishable, but complementary, aspects, interest, nervous 
 St/stem, and contents. Or, if interest and nervous system 
 be taken together as constituting the action of the mind, 
 we may summarize mind as action and contents." ^* On 
 such a theory of mind no place is left for any real spirit 
 or for any truly spiritual entities, and even logical, moral, 
 and religious facts must be fundamentally naturalistic. 
 
 At times the characteristics of naturalism may appear 
 more disguised, but finally they will break through again. 
 This result is very evident in the discussion of the prob- 
 lem of truth by neo-realism. Truth is approached as in 
 pragmatism not from a unitary ideal, but through the 
 collection of details. " The logical categories of unity, 
 
 15 Perry, " Present Philosophical Tendencies," p. 304. 
 " Perry, Ibid., p. 304. 
 
The Realist Realm 305 
 
 such as homogeneity, consistency, coherence, interrelation, 
 etc., do not in any case imply a determinate degree of 
 unity. Hence the degree of unity which the world pos- 
 sesses can not be determined logically, but only by assem- 
 bling the results of the special branches of knowledge." ^® 
 It is only through the special results of special sciences 
 that we are enabled to reach truths. The relation and 
 relevancy of special facts allows us to approach to truths, 
 and from truths we can seek for truth. It is, therefore, 
 relation and not inner value that actually establishes a 
 truth. No intuition and no axiomatic truth is really pos- 
 sible. " There may be axiomatic truths or intuitive 
 truths. But the fact that a trath belongs to either of 
 these classes does not make it fundamental or important 
 for a theory of knowledge, much less for a theory of re- 
 ality. Like all other truths, it too must be interpreted in 
 the light of other relevant truths." ^^ 
 
 The whole investigation of tnith, therefore, is the prob- 
 lem of relevancy, and relevancy must be established 
 through the existence of objective facts, but objective 
 facts largely depend upon the immediate experience of the 
 senses. Professor Montague clearly demonstrates this in 
 his essay on " A Theory of Truth and Error." He says : 
 " I hold that the true and the false are respectively the real 
 and the unreal, considered as objects of a possible belief 
 or judgment. There is, that is to say, the same difference 
 between what is real and what is true as between George 
 Washington and President George Washington. Presi- 
 dent George Washington refers to Washington in a certain 
 relation to our government. George Washington denotes 
 precisely the same individual without calling attention to 
 the presidential relation." " The real world from which 
 
 IB Perry, in " The New Realism," p. 476. 
 
 i« Professor Pitiin, in " The New Realism," p. 478. 
 
 IT " The New Realism," p. 352. 
 
306 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 truths are found is the world of qualities and objects in 
 space and time. " The reed universe consists of the space- 
 time system of existence, together with all that is pre- 
 supposed by that system." ^* Toward this universe, this 
 reality, when its existents are expressed in propositions, we 
 take an attitude of belief or judgment. This belief or 
 judgment about objects of the space-time universe is truth. 
 In the working out of this relation there is no partial truth 
 and error; truth and error are always definite and distinct. 
 The world as we find it in its complexity must be 
 analyzed into its simpler elements. In the proper analysis 
 we find the existents which guarantee the truth. When we 
 elaborate the relation of existent objects to belief we have 
 three facts to consider : first, the actually existing, external, 
 object; second, the cerebral state; third, the object per- 
 ceived and apprehended. When truth is found the real, 
 external object or event is identical with the perceived ob- 
 ject or event. This may be due to the fact " that the 
 medium through which the energy has been carried from 
 the external object to the brain has not altered the char- 
 acter of that energy." ^® Then the cerebral event cor- 
 responds with the object. But more frequently the me- 
 dium has distorted the energy in quality, time or space, 
 " but the brain through inherited capacities or through 
 memory-traces will have neutralized and corrected this 
 distortion." ^" We are limited to these origins in the re- 
 lation which is called truth. Even when we appear to be 
 conscious of ourselves and our states, there is merely " the 
 consciousness at each moment of the brain processes and 
 implications of the just preceding moment." '^^ When we 
 are conscious of our brain-states, the consciousness is in- 
 tra-organic. " And in this intra-organic consciousness, 
 
 18 Ibid., p. 255. 
 18 Ibid., p. 389. 
 
 20 Ibid., p. 289. 
 
 21 Ibid., p. 390. 
 
The Realist Realm 307 
 
 where the self-transcending implication ' reaches ' only to 
 the next moment, there would seem to be no chance for 
 error." ^^ In other words, the certainty of truth in in- 
 trospection is greater than from external objects, and we 
 are more sure of our own thoughts and feelings than of 
 anything else. This sureness, however, is greater because 
 of the temporal closeness of observed brain-states. Thus 
 through cerebral concatenation in time arises the idea of 
 the greater certainty of our thoughts and feelings. We 
 are determined even here not by spiritual axioms and sur- 
 roundings, but by physical environment and conditions. 
 The most certain truth is established by closeness to the 
 brain environment of the self. 
 
 By statements like these realism gravitates back into a 
 materialistic evaluation of truth and of mind. Professor 
 Perry definitely states, " Mind operates in an environment, 
 tmd succeeds or fails, according as it meets or violates the 
 terms which the environment dictates. Truth is the 
 achievement and error the risk, incidental to the great 
 adventure of knowledge. But eternal being, and the order 
 of nature, are not implicated in its vicissitudes." ^' There 
 is a return in this statement to a grosser pragmatism than 
 that maintained by any regular pragmatist. Truth is 
 mere adjustment and there are no eternal values to be 
 found in it. It is no guiding star, no inner ideal and no 
 leading hope, but it may be compared to a ship risking its 
 way and making its compass as it goes. The certainties 
 of this theory of truth are finally uncertainties. They are 
 risks taken and relative assurance in the risks. 
 
 If the inquiry is made as to the advantages for Chris- 
 tian truth from neo-realism, no great claim can be estab- 
 lished until realism changes some of its attitudes. As far 
 as it is pluralistic it is more material and not as congenial 
 
 22 Ihid., p. 290. 
 
 23 " Present Philosophical Tendencies," p. 328. 
 
308 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 to Christianity as pragmatism. It cannot at all measure 
 itself with the pluralism of Leibniz whose theory of 
 monads is quite usable by Christian theism. The entities 
 of realism are mostly gross, sense-entities, or energy-cen- 
 ters. Professor Holt in his book on "The Concept of 
 Consciousness," argues for neutral, simple entities. These, 
 however, are not spiritual nor ideal like Leibniz's monads. 
 Most of the realists entirely disregard spiritual and ideal 
 centers. As far as realism opposes idealism it is no ad- 
 vance on pragmatism. Its theory of knowledge is in- 
 ferior to that of pragmatism. 
 
 Neo-realism claims to have aided positive freedom on 
 the basis of decision and intention, and to have favored 
 negative freedom from the exclusive control of mechanical 
 laws. Professor Perry claims that there is also a free- 
 dom for the individual from cosmic moral laws. He 
 says : " There is a sense in which every individual is 
 morally a law unto himself." ^* With this in mind it is 
 possible to see how far the negative freedom extends. It is 
 not only asserted that moral laws take precedence in the 
 control of life over mechanical laws, but the individual is 
 free within himself. In other words, freedom has become 
 mere individualism. But when we ask upon what psychol- 
 ogy such individualism and such freedom rest, we are dis- 
 appointed, for we learn that " mental action is a property 
 of the physical organism." ^^ A physically determined 
 organism is free in its choices. This means that a phys- 
 ically controlled man is free in the determinations and in 
 the laws of his organism. In other words he is not really 
 free as a biological center. He is only free from mechan- 
 ical control and from cosmic moral control. Such a 
 theory of freedom is really deterministic. On its moral 
 side it does away with all general moral laws, and it de- 
 
 2* " Present Philosophical Tendencies," p. 343. 
 JB Jhid., p. 298. 
 
The Realist Realm 309 
 
 stroys the foundations of common ethics and common 
 moral purposes. 
 
 Scientific, mechanical, physical, and biological attitudes 
 control realism. It is materialistic to a remarkable de- 
 gree and has no real place for the spirit. The claim of 
 the independence of logical, asthetical, moral and religious 
 facts is not warranted by the gross psychology of realism. 
 Because it has no real foundation for spiritual independ- 
 ence, and because it denies the ideality of knowledge, truth 
 for it is a question of brain-states. There is no spiritual 
 element in its theory of truth. It has borrowed from the^ 
 most materialistic German philosophers, like Mach and 
 Avenarius, but it has no sympathy with the strivings of 
 the mind and the ideals of the spirit. If Christianity must 
 fundamentally combat any modern type of thinking and 
 any scheme of philosophy, it must combat this inconsistent 
 materialism parading under the name of realism. 
 
 Apparently Professor Perry rescues morals and re- 
 ligion in his endeavor at a realistic philosophy of life.^® 
 But what does he leave us of morals and religion, and how 
 does he seek to establish them ? He says : " A philos- 
 ophy of life must always contain two principal com- 
 ponents, a theory concerning the nature of goodness or 
 value, and a theory concerning the conditions and pros- 
 pect of its realization. The former is the central topic 
 of ethics, and the second is the central topic of a philos- 
 ophy of religion." ''' In this definition Professor Perry 
 has borrowed a Kantian idea to determine the place and 
 use of religion. Religion is only necessary and its phi- 
 losophy is only demanded for the realization of goodness 
 or value. Thus religion is the servant of ethics, and its 
 own life and worth is denied. Value is fundamentally 
 value of goodness. Consequently ethics is all that really 
 
 20 Ibid., p. 329 ff. 
 2T Ibid., p. 331. 
 
310 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 constitutes life. It is supposed that there must be faith, 
 but when faith acts it must create a habit. The making 
 of a habit is, however, advantageous, for though faith 
 and religious optimism cannot be proven, as little can 
 pessimism be sustained. Pessimism holds that man's hope 
 must be buried in the final collapse of the universe. It is 
 better not to believe in the collapse of the universe. Op- 
 timism, consequently, and faith in goodness is most profit- 
 able. Therefore, the religion of neo-realism is a belief 
 in an optimistic chance of man in the universe of neces- 
 sity. Such is the extent of the religious philosophy in 
 realism. It does not assert a God. It has no place for 
 superhuman and supernatural fact. God can only be a 
 hypothesis, and a hypothesis which is a habit. Because 
 there is no emphasis placed upon directly and immediately 
 experienced spiritual realities, and because there is no al- 
 lowance for an inner spiritual grasp of God, it is impossi- 
 ble to have any real religion or any real philosophy of 
 religion except as an inference from morals. The vitiat- 
 ing influence of the materialistic psychology of realism 
 stands in the way of the recognition of real religion as a 
 human experience. There can be no truce between such 
 an uncertain optimism, misnamed religion, and Chris- 
 tianity. Even the moral hopefulness of mere realism is 
 not the outcome of a strong ethical idealism. Kant's 
 thought is borrowed, but it has not grown out of this new 
 philosophy. Realism has attempted to graft an incom- 
 patible part of an idealistic belief in optimisrn on a barren 
 naturalistic tree. 
 
 The attitude which Professor Perry assumes toward 
 religion leads us to ask how the moral values are conserved, 
 for the sake of which optimism, called religion, is de- 
 manded. The good is not conceded to be good because 
 it is inherently good. Its value depends on desire. There 
 is no inherent worth because every value is supposed to 
 
Th€ Realist Realm 311 
 
 arise from a relation to interests in which desire expresses 
 itself. " Moral value arises from the complexity and 
 mutual relation of interests." ^* This moral value de- 
 pends first of all on rightness and when an action is right 
 it conduces to goodness. But rightness only leads to com- 
 parative goodness, and this is the outcome of proper ac- 
 tion controlled by interest. " When an interest is con- 
 fronted by an occasion, or particular phase of the environ- 
 ment, there is an action which will so meet the occasion 
 as to fulfill the interest. This is the right act in the 
 premises." ^^ "But rightness is not necessarily moral; 
 it may be merely intelligence or expediency. Moral 
 values adhere only when there is a question of comparative 
 value. And this question arises from the contact and con- 
 flict of interests." ^^ In all this conflict of actions that 
 is best which fulfills all interests. " Morality, then, is 
 such performance as under the circwmstoMces, and in view 
 of all the interests affected, conduces to most goodness." ^^ 
 Morality, consequently, can only be a probable decision 
 about the good. There can be no absolute value and no 
 absolute ideal. Only what is best for existing interests 
 under existing conditions can be reached. Moral life has 
 no fixed ideals toward which it strives. It is true that 
 Professor Perry claims that this theory is not " relativis- 
 tic in any vicious or sceptical sense," ^^ but it is after all 
 strongly relative. It has no foundation in absolute good- 
 ness. AU actions are determined by relation to desires 
 and interests. The satisfactions are not clearly empha- 
 sized as moral satisfactions even in a relative sense. The 
 outcome of this relativism in morals can be readily fore- 
 seen. In such a shifting morality of mere comparative 
 
 28 Ibid., p. 333. 
 
 29 Ibid., p. 333 ff. 
 3a Ibid., p. 334. 
 
 31 Ibid., p. 334. 
 
 32 Ibid., p. 337. 
 
312 Trends of Thoiight and Christian Truth 
 
 values, Christianity can find no friend, but it can only de- 
 tect an enemy. If Christianity is ever to use the new 
 realism, the realists must remove the leaven of scientific 
 materialism, of naturalistic psychologism, of uncertain 
 standards of truth and morals, and of an unfounded op- 
 timism wrongly called religion. Christian truth has its 
 own basis and its own value ; and these do not agree with 
 the uncertainties, the relativism, and the materialism of 
 the new realism. 
 
 It has been necessary, in examining all the trends of 
 thought and all the solutions of the problem of truth, for 
 Christianity to maintain its own standard and ideals. It 
 has discovered points of contact, hut it has also fre- 
 quently found points of difference. There can be no 
 acceptance of a natural theology, which rests on the 
 supposition that the only accurate thinking is mathe- 
 matical. Christianity has to dissent from the quantita- 
 tive, a priori idea of truth. It finds a better plan in a 
 rightly guarded conception of induction, which considers 
 the living facts of experience. The religion of Chris- 
 tianity is a life and it derives its principles from a real 
 life. It can employ real comparison and just conjec- 
 ture. It cannot throw itself into the arms of a me- 
 chanical theory of the world, but it accepts real external 
 things and is not to be misled into an illusive idealism. 
 For it the theories of physical life cannot determine 
 all life, and its world cannot be a world of chance but 
 one of purpose, of an unfolding purpose of God. No 
 theory of mind which impairs spiritual reality is ac- 
 ceptable to it. In its truth no conception of society which 
 endangers the soul is possible. It uses, however, true 
 ideals of the things in the world, of the interests of mind, 
 of the plans of life, and of the values of society. 
 
 With a high standard of truth, personally expressed 
 
The Realist Realm 313 
 
 in Christ, before it, Christianity has a conception of truth 
 and life which gives it its own character. It cannot, 
 therefore, become absolutistic, merge God into the world, 
 injure freedom and virtually deny sin, as does absolutism. 
 The ideality of the absolutist appeals to it, but it finds a 
 deeper striving of inwardness in mysticism. But even 
 mysticism gravitates to a negative position, to an abso- 
 lute One, which injures the living God and Father of Chris- 
 tianity. Christianity is, therefore, not essentially abso- 
 lutist or mystical in its idea of truth. It has real rela- 
 tions with a living verification of truth in a pragmatic 
 world, but it must reject the uncertainty, the utilitarian- 
 ism and the naturalism of pragmatism. In sympathy 
 with the ideal of life, it nevertheless finds that neither the 
 vital impulse, nor the God who is an outbursting of forces, 
 can satisfy it. In closer affinity with the conception of a 
 divine life in the world, it must, nevertheless, dissent from 
 a philosophy of life which has no definite personal God, 
 no divine-human Christ, no real appreciation of guilt and 
 sin, no vital, atonement, and no really Spirit-guided 
 Church. It stands altogether aloof from the materialism 
 and relativism of the newer realistic philosophy. 
 
 While Christianity is no philosophy, it bears within its 
 life the implications and the truths which compel it to take 
 these attitudes. It is neither materialistic nor philosoph- 
 ically idealistic, for it accepts real things but claims an 
 ideal origin and purpose for the world. It is neither 
 monistic nor purely pluralistic, but it wants a unity of 
 origin and plan in a world of many things and persons. 
 It is neither totally absolutistic, nor in any way relativis- 
 tic. It emphasizes neither the intellect exclusively, nor 
 feelings exclusively, nor the will exclusively, but rests on 
 man's total nature. It uses intuition, but is not alto- 
 gether intuitional or inspirational. It does not depreciate 
 the body for the sake of the soul, and it does not condemn 
 
314 Trends of Thought and Christian Truth 
 
 the individual because of society. The aim of Christianity, 
 as it works its way through succeeding ages of civiliza- 
 tion and culture, is to correlate the discordant opposites 
 in all the specific philosophies. Its unity is larger than 
 that of mere logic, but it is not a harmony of indefinite de- 
 sires and feelings. The mere consistency of any single 
 system of thought is not the aim or fulfillment of Chris- 
 tian truth. It has its correlations and unities of thought 
 and truth, but its life is larger. If difficulties of logic 
 within any Christian system are criticized, they are only 
 the result of the whole problem of knowledge. Professor 
 Ladd, in discussing knowledge on its own basis, is willing 
 to accept the criticism that he does not belong to any 
 one school in the problem of knowledge, which is due to the 
 vitality and difficulties of knowledge. But he finally 
 says : ^* " Knowledge does not come by indisputable 
 logic; truth is not revealed to those who will not seek, and 
 pay its price; the path of right living is not all in the 
 ' lime-light.' " Knowledge and life have never been com- 
 passed by any system. The fact that Christianity and 
 its truth cannot be encased in any one philosophy, and that 
 they are larger than logic, connects them with all real life 
 and vital knowledge. The demand of standards and their 
 use does not reduce Christianity to logic. It only aids 
 in preserving revelation which is not to be corrected by 
 logic. Christianity must and will create its systems of 
 doctrine, but these are not philosophies in the true sense. 
 Their principle is not reason. In them Christianity seeks 
 to hold fast and defend its vital elements. If Christianity 
 surrenders any of its vital elements it will become a mere 
 himian philosophy ; if it maintains its essentials, its life and 
 truth will again and again overcome the errors of time and 
 lead mankind to a larger synthesis of all truth in Him, who 
 is truly the Way, the Truth and the Life. 
 33 " What Can I Know? " p. 307. 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 Absolute, the, 16 
 
 as truth, 172 
 
 and God, 174 
 Absolutism 
 
 and personal immortality, 178 
 
 and incarnation, 179 
 
 and mysticism, 184 
 Absolutist 
 
 aim, 167flF. 
 
 and Christianity, 167, 174 
 Absolutists 
 
 assert absolute wholeness, 172 
 
 and individuality, 17Sff. 
 Accidental change, its difSculties, 
 
 111 
 Accounts of the Gospels, 78 
 Activism of Eucken, 277 
 Adaptation, 115 
 
 and pragmatism, 203ff. 
 Ames, 
 
 religion claims total life, 130 
 
 subconsciousness not pectiliar 
 place of religion, 133 
 
 on ideas as movements, 140 
 Analogy, 61 
 
 and conservation of energy, 62 
 
 analyzed, 63ff. 
 
 in religion and science, 65 
 
 of man and God, 68 
 
 and purpose, 69 
 
 between Christianity and gen- 
 eral history, 70 
 
 in comparative religion, 72 
 
 of faith, 175 
 Ancestor worship, 73 
 Animism, 73 
 Anselm, 100 
 
 Anthropomorphism, 68, 294 
 Apologetics and mathematics, 35 
 Aristotle 
 
 and induction, 46ff. 
 
 in Christian truth, 58 
 
 gains new power in Christian 
 truth, 58 
 
 Aristotle — Continued. 
 
 and purpose, 105 
 Art, relation to religion, lOff. 
 Assyriology and analogy, 63 
 Atomism, 94 
 Atonement 
 
 for community, ISOff. 
 
 as speculative fact, 167 
 
 according to Eucken, 293 
 Augustine and Platonism, 99 
 Authority in religion, 233 
 
 Bacon formulated induction, 47 
 Bergson, Henri, 17, 105, 109, 
 111, 244ff. 
 
 his discussion of mathematics, 
 44flF. 
 
 evolution and unity, 54 
 
 on difficulty of sudden varia- 
 tion, 112 
 
 on life, 124 
 
 compared with Eucken, 243 
 
 on life as mobility, 244 
 
 on vital impulse, 245 
 
 on duration, 246if. 
 
 on time, 246 
 
 on matter and memory, 247 
 
 on theory of knowledge, 248 
 
 on intuition, 248 
 
 on the intellect, 249 
 
 and the Christian idea of life, 
 250 
 
 opposition to intellect, 252 
 
 on personality, 353 
 
 on soul, 254, 263 
 
 opposes psychology of phenom- 
 enalism, 254 
 
 on personality as continually 
 created, 255 
 
 and theism, 256, 263 
 
 eliminates idea of rest, 256ff. 
 
 his philosophy of change, 257 
 
 no strong conception of eter- 
 nity, 258 
 317 
 
318 
 
 Index 
 
 Bergson — Continued, 
 evolution as eternal, 2S8 
 has partly phenomenal con- 
 sciousness, 259 
 lacks strong norms, 261 
 has romantic pantheism, 263 
 his Platonism, 263 
 makes life greater than God, 
 
 263 
 his God, life and action, 264 
 and purpose, ^64ff. 
 on design, 265 
 
 no place for over-ruling God, 
 266 
 Berkeley's psychological ideal- 
 ism, lOOff. 
 Biological supposition, 14, 104fF. 
 Biology 
 and the Unseen, 87 
 its iniluence on the sciences, 
 
 104 
 and purpose, 106ff. 
 and philosophy, 107 
 Boodin, Professor 
 
 on truth as self realization, 
 
 206 
 on judgment as a process, 206 
 on utility as a criterion, 213 
 on truth as result, 314 
 Bosanquet, Professor, 175 
 on the danger of sole applica- 
 tion of quantity, 42ff. 
 Boscovich, 94 
 Brahmanism, 93, 188, 193 
 Bradley, Professor 
 truth as harmony, 168 
 on the super-personal, 176 
 on degrees of reality, 177 
 doubts personal immortality, 
 
 178ff. 
 on the reality in appearance, 
 
 179 
 on relativity of good and evil, 
 183 
 Buddhism, 93, 136, 188 
 Burroughs, John, on mechanism, 
 
 98 
 Burton, on sin, 120 
 Butler's Analogy, 64 
 
 Calvin, 58 
 Carlyle, 146 
 
 Catholicism, according to 
 
 Eucken, 291 
 Causal chain, 48flF. 
 Cause in the Darwinian theory, 
 
 107 ff. 
 Centers, four. Of discussion, 12flF. 
 Certainty 
 
 in mathematics, 32, 35 
 
 in hypothesis, 85 
 Chance, doctrine of, 77, 110 
 Characteristic religion, OT8 
 Chemistry and the Unseen, 87 
 Child mind, 127 
 Christ 
 
 and history, 71 ff. 
 
 as ideal in Christianity, 74 
 
 and mysticism, 188 
 
 on practical test of truth, 230 
 
 calls for a valuation of him- 
 self, 223 
 Christianity 
 
 types of, 18ff. 
 
 dogmatic ideal of, 19 
 
 mystic conception of, 19 
 
 voluntarist ideal of, 30 
 
 communal idea of, 33 
 
 eternal and temporal idea of, 
 34 
 
 as vital knowledge, 45 
 
 and inductive science, S3 
 
 and inductive argument, 56ff. 
 
 not necessarily deductive, 57 
 
 and single controlling prin- 
 ciple, 58 
 
 and Aristotle, 58, 100 
 
 history of, and general his- 
 tory, 70 
 
 and ethical development, 75ff. 
 
 and hypothesis, 83 
 
 and criticism, 82ff. 
 
 and a static universe, 93ff. 
 
 and idealism, 99ff., 136 
 
 can use mechanism, 97, 99, 103 
 
 and naturalistic determinism, 
 117 
 
 and heredity, 120 
 
 and evolution, 131 
 
 and life, 125 
 
 demands objective revelation, 
 135 
 
 a new humanity, 152 
 
 and social betterment, 153 
 
Index 
 
 319 
 
 Christianity — Continued, 
 and socialism, 153ff. 
 and social reform, 154 
 and economic interests, 15Sff. 
 and the economic state, 1S7 
 and the individual, lS7ff. 
 and philosophy of history, 
 
 ISSflf. 
 and absolutist, 167 
 and absolutism as to harmony, 
 
 believes that truth is, 173 
 
 and the infinite and absolute, 
 174 
 
 and the Intellectual ideal, 
 174fiF. 
 
 demands finite truth, 181 
 
 seeks certainty for its mes- 
 sagcj 181 
 
 denies that evil is partial, 183 
 
 and mystic elements, 187ff. 
 
 what it approves of in mysti- 
 cism, 190ff. 
 
 and conscience, 190 
 
 and mysticism on the soul, 191 
 
 and inner revelation, 191 
 
 and passivity, 194 
 
 and biological terms, 216 
 
 and selection, 317 
 
 and verification, 318flF. 
 
 and satisfaction, 319ff. 
 
 not merely intellectual, 220iF. 
 
 and values, 323 
 
 and pluralism, 234 
 
 and development, 227 
 
 demands fixity of truth, 239 
 
 its transcendent ideas, 230 
 
 and non-resistance, 330 
 
 needs strong moral principles, 
 233 
 
 and a limited God, 336fi^. 
 
 and Bergson's depreciation of 
 matter, 351 
 
 and spiritual life, 351ff. 
 
 and spiritual experience, 253 
 
 and Bergson's soul, 3S4ff. 
 
 not fully satisfied with a phi- 
 losophy of change, 257 
 
 and eternity, 258 
 
 and the intellectual side of 
 man, 360 
 
 and intuitionalism, 260 
 
 Christianity — Continued. 
 
 approves of no movement with- 
 out standards, 361 
 
 and Eucken's idea of life, 
 379ff-. 
 
 and Eucken's anti-inteUectual- 
 ism, 280 
 
 wherein it diflfers from Eucken, 
 284 fi'. 
 
 cannot admit superiority of 
 philosophy, 287 
 
 Eucken's idea of, 388ff. 
 
 denied sis final religion by 
 Eucken, 288ir. 
 
 a specific and final message, 
 
 cannot accept the Christ of 
 Eucken, 298 
 
 and realism, 307fl'. 
 
 a life, 312ff^. 
 
 no philosophy, 313 
 
 uses all truths, 314 
 Church 
 
 Eucken's view of the, SSgflF. 
 
 Eucken's criticism of the, 
 3905^. 
 Coe, Professor, psychology of 
 
 religion, 138 
 Communal idea of Christianity, 
 
 23 
 Community claimed as central 
 doctrine of Christianity, 150 
 Comparative thinking, 13 
 Comparative idea, 61 ff. 
 Comparative method in lan- 
 guages, 62flF. 
 Comparative religion, 735^. 
 Comte, and sociology, 147 
 Conjectural thinking, 13 
 Conjectural scheme, 77ff. 
 Conscience in Christianity, 190 
 Consciousness, 
 
 Christian, S3 
 
 and brain states, 306 
 Constant 
 
 in induction, 50flf. 
 
 and the human mind, 51 
 
 as external, 51 
 
 and religion, 53 
 
 in each group of facts, 53if. 
 Continuity, 
 
 mathematical, 39 
 
320 
 
 Index 
 
 Continuity — Continued, 
 problem of defining, S4flF. 
 a.nd religion, 55 
 and a. personal God, 56 
 idea developed in the Nine- 
 teenth Century, 145 
 Conventions in mathematics, 41 
 Co-ordination in evolution, 113 
 Cosmological proof, 33 
 Creation 
 and evolution, 193 
 its relation to criticism and 
 work in Eucken's philosophy, 
 276 
 Creative thought according to 
 
 Eucken, 373flf. 
 Criticism, 83flF. 
 in Eucken, 273ff. 
 its relation and work in 
 Eucken's philosophy, 376 
 Culture and religion, 283 
 
 Darwin, Charles, 47, 81 
 and analogy, 61ff. 
 repudiates design, I05ff. 
 and idea of God, 106 
 use of natural selection, 110 
 Darwinism, 104, 145 
 
 and pragmatism, 199ff. 
 Deduction and Christianity, 57ff. 
 DeLaguna, 
 on pragmatism as Darwinism, 
 
 199 
 on function of consciousness, 
 
 199ff. 
 on happiness as separate from 
 survival, 328 
 Descartes, 31, 47, 100 
 
 emphasizes thinking ego, 165 
 Design, 
 opposed by Darwin, 105flf. 
 in Bergson's philosophy, 365 
 DeVries, 113 
 Dewey, Professor 
 on Maeterlinck, 193 
 on truth as experienced rela- 
 tion, 197 
 on knowledge as set of 
 
 changes, 301 
 on ideas as attitudes of re- 
 sponse, 303flF. 
 
 Dewey, Professor — Continued, 
 on thought as dependent upon 
 
 actual conditions, 307 
 on truth as within experience, 
 
 314 
 on truth as experienced fulfil- 
 ment, 315 
 against Spencer's unknowable, 
 
 339 
 against transcendent prin- 
 ciple, 340 
 Difference in science, philosophy 
 
 and Christianity, 11 
 Dogmatic ideal, 19 
 Dominants, 115, 343 
 Drummond, and analogy, 64 
 Duration in Bergson's philoso- 
 phy, 345ff. 
 
 Ebbinghaus, Herman, 139 
 Economic consideration in his- 
 tory, 146 
 Entdechies, 342 
 Energy 
 
 and the divine will, 67 
 
 and matter, 94 
 
 and will, 95 
 Entities in neo^realism, 300ff. 
 Entropy, 93 
 Environment 
 
 and purpose, 115ff. 
 
 must include ideals of mind, 
 117 
 Epistemology, modern, 16Sff. 
 Error 
 
 and truth, 168ff., 180ff. 
 
 as finite appearance, 168 
 
 grades of, 169 
 
 partial truth, 170 
 
 as isolation, 171 
 
 in neo-realism, 305 ff. 
 Eternity and temporality of 
 
 Christianity, 35 
 Eucken, 17, 105, 367ff. 
 
 on life, 124 
 
 on naturalistic evolution, 227 
 
 compared with Bergson, 243 
 
 on pragmatism, 343 
 
 on spiritual life, 367 
 
 on life, its depth and compass, 
 368 
 
Index 
 
 881 
 
 Eucken — Continued. 
 
 on life in its self-presence, 269 
 
 on life and the thinkers, 269 
 
 and intellectualism, 270 
 
 on intuition, 270 
 
 logical elements needed, 271 
 
 on thought and life, 272 
 
 on criticism, S72ff. 
 
 on creative movement of 
 thought, 273ff. 
 
 on spiritual work, 274 
 
 on the kingdom of the act, 275 
 
 and the tasks of life, 275 
 
 inter-relation of creation, crit- 
 icism and work, 276 
 
 his activism, 277 
 
 on spiritual and cultural move- 
 miemts, 277 
 
 on religion, 277ff. 
 
 on universal religion, 278 
 
 on historical religions, 278ff. 
 
 seeks inwardness of life, 279 
 
 his "Weltanschauung," 279 
 
 as anti-intellectual, 280 
 
 on life as super-human, 280ff. 
 
 on religion as above man and 
 divine, 281 
 
 and spiritual reality, 282 
 
 puts religion above culture, 283 
 
 on religion as above the inter- 
 ests of society, 283fiF. 
 
 on personality, 284ff. 
 
 and impersonaUsm, 285 
 
 and definite standards of 
 truth, 285ff. 
 
 a romanticist, 286 
 
 on authority, 286 
 
 places philosophy above reli- 
 gion, 287 
 
 on Christianity, 288flf. 
 
 denies finality of Christianity, 
 288fF. 
 
 on the Church, 289fr. 
 
 criticism of the Church, 290ff. 
 
 on dogmas, 290 
 
 on Catholicism and Protestant- 
 ism, 291 
 
 on evil, 292ff. 
 
 on atonement, 293 
 
 on anthropomorphic elements 
 in the atonement, 294 
 
 on Jesus, 295 
 
 Eucken — Continued. 
 
 doubts Godhead of Jesus, 296 
 
 cannot find divinity in one per- 
 son, 296, 297 
 
 his Christ not that of Christi- 
 anity, 298 
 Euclid, 30 
 Evidence, 78 
 Evil 
 
 and good in absolutism, 181 if. 
 
 according to Eucken, 292ff. 
 Evolution 
 
 and teleology, 1088^. 
 
 and progress, 109 
 
 and co-ordination, 113 
 
 and mimicry, 113fF. 
 
 and instinct, 114 
 
 and Christianity, 120flF. 
 
 and a personal God, 122 
 
 and creation, 132 
 
 and spiritual life, 122ff. 
 
 and man's spirit, 124 
 
 and pragmatism, 199 
 
 as eternal, 258 
 Experience, 21, 41, 59, 78<r. 
 
 completed as truth, 172 
 
 in truth, 214 
 Eye, the, in evolution, 110 
 
 Facts and reasoning, 46 
 Facts and induction, 48 
 Faith 
 
 and mathematics, 29 
 
 in psychology of religion, 130 
 Fechner, formula of, 37, 126 
 FinaUsm and purpose, 266 
 Finding of truth, 16, 163if. 
 Finite lost in infinite, 177 
 Fichte and the ego, 101 
 Fleming, 189, 190 
 Force, see Energy 
 Fortuitousness, 110 
 Fox, 22 
 Freedom 
 
 and pragmatism, 223 
 
 in neo-realism, 308 
 
 Galileo, 47 
 
 Galloway, 
 relation of art and religion, 10 
 religion needs cognitive aspect, 
 260 
 
322 
 
 Index 
 
 Galton calculated regression, 110 
 Geo-oentric idea, 145 
 Geometry, 
 
 and thought, 30 
 
 non-Euclidean, 37fF. 
 
 of four dimensions, 38 
 God 
 
 proofs for, 33 
 
 Christian conception of, 74 
 
 and energy, 95 
 
 and evolution, 122 
 
 personality not guaranteed in 
 absolutism, 167 
 
 His personality denied, 176 
 
 as reality, 177 
 
 as the One in mysticism, 187 
 
 of mysticism, 193 
 
 as personality, 225 
 
 and the finite self, 926 
 
 guarantees virtues, 233 
 
 finite in pragmatism, 235 
 
 as self-limiting, 236ff. 
 
 as limited, 237 flF. 
 
 the, of pragmatism, 241 
 
 the, of Bergson, 256, 263 
 
 in time and movement, 258 
 
 as life and action in Bergson, 
 264 
 
 and neo-realism, 310 
 Gods of wild tribes, 134 
 Goethe, 149 
 Good and evil in absolutism, 
 
 181ff. 
 Goodness of God and nature, 65 
 Goodness as relative, 182 
 
 Harmony as asserted by abso- 
 lutists, 172 
 Hartman, von, 95 
 Hegel, 146, 152 
 
 on mathematical formulas, 42 
 
 and analogy, 69 
 
 and idealism, 101 ff. 
 
 and the absolute, 103 
 
 and Christian truths, 167ff. 
 Hegelianism and sin, 167 
 Herbart, 127 
 Heredity, llSflF. 
 
 and Christianity, 120 
 History, 
 
 general, and history of Christi- 
 anity, 70 
 
 History — Continued, 
 theories of, 146 
 and economics, 146 
 philosophy of, and Christian- 
 ity, 158ff. 
 and personality, 159 
 and incarnation, 159 
 Hobhouse, Professor, 108 
 on religion as deductive, 57 
 on assumptions, 80 
 on organic structure, 91 
 denial of purposive causation, 
 
 92 
 on entropy, 93 
 
 on evolution and purpose, 109 
 Hoeflfding, 139 
 Homogeneity and hetereogeneity, 
 
 93 
 Howison, 121 
 evolution, man's question, 117 
 opposed to cosmic conscious- 
 ness, 122 
 Humanism, 211 
 Hume, 139 
 and scepticism, 101 
 definition of causes, 107 
 and functional psychology, 126 
 stimulates Kant, 165 
 Huxley, 138 
 
 re-formulates final cause, 106 
 on epi-phenomenon, 136 
 Hypothesis, 79fl'. 
 
 requirements of, 83iF. 
 and certainty, 85 
 in religion, 85 ff. 
 mental character of, 86ff. 
 
 Idea and meaning, 172 
 Idealism 
 
 and Christianity, 97 
 its danger to Christianity, 102, 
 136 
 Identity, law of, 61 
 Immanence, injures a personal 
 
 God, 103 
 Immediate, the, in mysticism, 
 
 187 
 Immortality 
 
 and absolutism, 178 
 personal, and the universe, 179 
 Impersonalism, 68 
 
Index 
 
 Incarnation 
 
 in phUosopliy of history, 159fr. 
 
 and absolutism, 179if. 
 
 not explicable as appearance 
 and reality, 180 
 Individual, the, in Christianity, 
 
 U1S. 
 Individualism, 148flF. 
 
 in religion, 22 
 
 naturaUstic, 149 
 Individuality 
 
 as the Universe, 175fF. 
 
 in Bergson, 362 
 Induction 
 
 and the sciences, 48 
 
 methods of, 49 ff. 
 
 its constant, 50ff. 
 
 materialistic interpretation, S3 
 Inductive claim, 46ff. 
 Inductive science and Christian- 
 ity, S3 
 Inductive thinking, 13 
 Industrial revolution, 147 
 Industrial conditions, favor soci- 
 ology, 147fF. 
 Infinite^ and God, 174 
 Instinct and evolution, 114 
 Intellect 
 
 in truth, 16 
 
 in Bergson's philosophy, 348£F. 
 
 and space, 349 
 
 its systems, 3S0 
 Intellectual ideal and Christian- 
 ity, 174 
 Intellectualism in Eucken, 370 
 Intuition 
 
 and truth, 190 
 
 in Bergson's philosophy, 348 
 
 its danger, 3S9fF. 
 
 in Eucken, 370 
 
 its insufSciency, 370ff. 
 Intuitionism and Christian truth, 
 360 
 
 James, Professor William, 127, 
 128, 139 
 
 on the will to believe, 141, 221 
 
 on mystical states as knowl- 
 edge, 184 
 
 on origin of pragmatism, 196 
 
 on leading, 308flf. 
 
 James, Professor — Continued. 
 
 on pragmatism as consequence, 
 209 
 
 on satisfaction, 310 
 
 on truth as verification, 210 
 
 on " the true " as expedient, 
 213 
 
 on practical value of theologi- 
 cal ideas, 213 
 
 on finite God, 335fi^. 
 Jesus, 
 
 no social program, 156 
 
 according to Eucken, 395 
 
 divine character doubted, 396 
 St. John 
 
 and mysticism, 190 
 
 Gospel of, and Bergson's idea 
 of life, 250 
 Joachim, 
 
 on nature of truth, 170flF. 
 
 his insoluble problem, 171 
 Judgment 
 
 analytic, 30 
 
 synthetic, 30 
 
 in pragmatism, 306 
 
 Kant, 
 
 treatment of mathematics, 30fF. 
 
 and ontological proof, 33 
 
 on purpose in the organic 
 world, 70 
 
 produces new wave of ideal- 
 ism, 101 
 
 and good will, 141 
 
 formulates problem of knowl- 
 edge, 165 
 
 finds truth through logic, 165 
 Kelvin, Lord, 94 
 Kepler, 47 
 Kingdom of God 
 
 and the social point of view, 
 ISSfF. 
 
 the individual in the, 158 
 Knowing and the knower, 186 
 Knowledge 
 
 in Bergson's philosophy, 348ff. 
 
 and neo-realism, 301, 303 
 
 and life, 314 
 
 Ladd, Professor, on knowledge, 
 
 314 
 Lamarck, 116 
 
SM 
 
 Index 
 
 Lamprecht, 146 
 
 Leading, process of, in pragma- 
 
 tUm, 208flF. 
 Leibniz, 34, 145 
 
 on thinking centers, 165 
 Lessing, 34 
 Life^ 
 
 philosophy of, 17 
 
 and secondary causes, 105 
 
 and evolution, 12S 
 
 and Christianity, 135 
 
 needs a purposive God, 240 
 
 its new philcsophy, 242ff. 
 
 as mobility, 344 
 
 and knowledge, 248 
 
 Christian idea, 251 
 
 its depth and fullness, 268 
 
 and tie thinkers, 269 
 
 in its exaltedness, 269 
 
 its tasks, 275 
 Logic 
 
 as limiting psychology, 208 
 
 in Eucken's philosophy, 271 fif. 
 Logical ideas, 12 
 LyeU, 48 
 
 Maeterlinck, his pantheism, 193 
 
 Magic, 73 
 
 Malthus, 62 
 
 Mansel, 44 
 
 Man's place in the universe, 145 
 
 Marx, 148 
 
 Mathematics 
 
 and modern sciences, 37 
 and experience, 39if. 
 
 Mathematical continuity, 39 
 
 Mathematical method of think- 
 ing, 29ir. 
 
 Matter in Bergson's philosophy, 
 247 
 
 Mayer, Dr. Robert, on transfer- 
 ence of energy, 62 
 
 McTaggart, on personal immor- 
 tality, 178 
 
 Mechanical and chemical view, 
 90 
 
 Mechanical conception, 14 
 
 Mechanical demand, 90ff. 
 
 Mechanical view, its static char- 
 acter, 92 
 
 Mechanism 
 
 and cause, 91 
 
 and material sequence, 91 
 
 and living organisms, 91 
 
 a complex assumption, 94 
 
 and purpose, 96flF. 
 
 usable by Christianity, 97, 99, 
 103 
 
 and final purpose, 97 
 
 and mind, 97 
 
 its elimination, 98 
 Memory, in Bergson's philoso- 
 phy, 247 
 Mendel's law, 118 
 Merz, discussion of Kant, 31ff. 
 Mill, John Stuart, 4«ff. 
 
 and causes, 107 
 
 on God as not omnipotent, 235 
 Mimicry and evolution, 113 
 Mind, 
 
 its immanence in the world, 97 
 
 according to neo-realism, 303 
 
 and environment, 304, 307 
 Modes of thinking, 12if. 
 Montaigne, 145 
 Moore, 
 
 truth as desire and effort, 214 
 
 on purpose in change, 239 
 Moral proofs for God, 33ff. 
 Mystic absorption, 184ff. 
 Mysticism, 19 
 
 its noetic quality, 184ff. 
 
 and reflection, 185 
 
 merges reason into intuition, 
 185 
 
 as inner experience, 186 
 
 finds truth in the soul, 186 
 
 essence of, as Being, 186 
 
 and God, 187 
 
 j^id quietism, 187 
 
 and the Immediate, 187 
 
 and Christianity, 187ff. 
 
 and St. Paul, 189 
 
 and St. John, 190 
 
 how far approved of by Chris- 
 tianity, 190ff. 
 
 and Christianity, on the soul, 
 191 
 
 as inner revelation, 191 
 
 its subjectivism, 192 
 
 and inner intuition, 192 
 
 untrue to the individual, 192ff. 
 
Index 
 
 SS5 
 
 Mysticism — Continued. 
 
 and materialistic pantheism, 
 193 
 
 and God, 193 
 
 and passivity, 194 
 Mythologism, S94 
 
 I 
 Natural selection 
 
 and purpose, llOff. 
 
 and pragmatism, 301tf. 
 Naturtil theology, 35 
 Naturalism in neo-realism, 304iF. 
 Neo-platonism, 99, 101 
 Neo-realism, 299flf. 
 
 its relation to other philoso- 
 phies, 300 
 
 as world of manifold entities. 
 SOOff. 
 
 as pragmatic, 301 
 
 opposes idealistic theory of 
 knowledge, 301 
 
 its explanation of mind, 303 
 
 its naturalism, 304ff. 
 
 its theory of truth and error, 
 SOSff. 
 
 on brain states and conscious- 
 ness, 306 
 
 materialistic in theory of 
 truth and mind, 307 
 
 and Christianity, 307ff. 
 
 and freedom, 308 
 
 has no place for the spirit, 309 
 
 and morals, 309 if. 
 
 and religion, 309if. 
 
 and moral values, SlOff. 
 
 and morality, 311flf. 
 Neo-vitalism, 242 
 Newton, 47, 94 
 Nietzsche, 
 
 his cyclical universe, 93 
 
 on brute force, 95 
 
 against Christianity, 119 
 
 and heredity, 119 
 Nineteenth Century as social, 
 
 145 
 Non-Euclidean, see Geometry 
 Non-resistance, ideal of, 75 
 
 Old Testament, 71 ff. 
 Ontological proof, 33 
 Original sin, 66ff. 
 Origin of religion, 133if. 
 
 Origin and the Darwinian inter- 
 pretation, 134 
 
 Orr, Professor James, compares 
 Hume and James, 126if. 
 
 Ostwald, 94 
 
 O'SulUvan, Dr. J. M. 
 on Euclidean and non-Euclid- 
 ean geometry, 38 
 on satisfaction in pragmatism, 
 210 
 
 Paley, 106 
 
 on the notion of species, 108 
 Pantheism, materialistic, 193 
 Parallelism in psychology, 137, 
 
 138 
 Particulars in reasoning, 46 
 Patten, Professor 
 
 economic idea of Christianity, 
 152if. 
 Paul, St. 
 
 on slavery, 156 
 
 and mysticism, 189 
 Passivity in mysticism, 194 
 Peirce, Charles, 196 
 Perry, 205 
 
 on pragmatism as bio-centric 
 philosophy, 204 
 
 on neo-realism, 300 
 
 on mind and nervous system, 
 304 
 
 on mind and environment, 307 
 
 on freedom, 308 
 
 on morals, 309ff. 
 
 on religion, 309if. 
 
 on morality, 311 
 
 and relativism, 311 
 " Personal idealism," 224 
 Personallsm, 198 
 Personality, 225 
 
 and God, 68 
 
 its ultimates, 88 
 
 in Bergson, 253 
 
 as continually created, 255 
 
 and Eucken, 284 
 Philosophy and religion, 287 
 Physico-theological proof, see 
 
 Design, Purpose 
 Physics, and the Unseen, 86 
 Pitkin, Professor, on geometry, 
 
 40 
 Plato and induction, 46 
 
Index 
 
 Plato's idealism and mathemat- 
 ics, 31 
 Platonism, 99 
 
 in Bergson, 263 
 Poincar^, Professor, H. L. 
 
 on principles of geometry, 37 
 
 mathematics as definitions, 40 
 Positivism and mathematics, 36 
 Postulates 
 
 in mathematics, 41 
 
 and the soul, 42 
 Practicability and moral postu- 
 lates, 233ff. 
 Pragmatic program, 196flF. 
 Pragmatism, 17, 164 
 
 objects to epistemology, 165flF. 
 
 principle of, 196flF. 
 
 how to explain its vogue, 197 
 
 its real explanation, 198ff. 
 
 and evolution, 199 
 
 and variation, 201 
 
 and natural selection, 201ff. 
 
 and survival of the fittest, 
 202£f. 
 
 and adaptation^ 203if. 
 
 fundamentally biological, 204<f. 
 
 as psychological, 20Sff., 217flf. 
 
 has no place for logic, 205fi^. 
 
 as leading, 208 
 
 looking to consequences, 209 
 
 as satisfaction, 209ff. 
 
 and utUity, 219, 313 
 
 and experience, 214 
 
 its results, 2158^. 
 
 its bearing on Christianity, 
 216ff. 
 
 and spiritual life, 218 
 
 and doctrine of values, 221 ff., 
 222, 231 
 
 and freedom, 223 
 
 and pluralism, 224 
 
 too biological, 227flF. 
 
 its psychology material, 228 
 
 its undervaluation of ideas, 
 229 
 
 and workableness of truth. 
 
 as agnostic, 231 
 
 and a finite God, 234ff. 
 
 denies power of determination 
 
 in God, 238 
 and purpose, 239 
 
 Pragmatism — Continued. 
 
 and Darwinian accidentalism, 
 240flP. 
 
 its God, 241 
 
 as related to vitalism, 243 
 Pratt, on psychological nature 
 
 of pragmatism, 208 
 Predestination, 66, 224 
 Probability, 77, 78 
 Progress and Christianity, 24ff. 
 Progress and evolution, 109 
 Proofs for God, 33 
 Protestantism according to 
 
 Eucken, 291 
 Providence, 66, 79 
 Psychological investigation, 127 
 Psychological point of view, 14 
 Psychological solution, 126ff. 
 Psychological test in pragma- 
 tism, 217flF. 
 Psychology 
 
 and the Unseen, 87 
 
 and management, 128 
 
 and social life, 128 
 
 width of application, 128 
 
 and materialism, 136, 138 
 
 as parellelistic, 137, 138, 139 
 
 its physiological character, 
 137 
 
 and ethical concepts, 142 
 
 and logic, 143 
 
 and knowledge, 166 
 
 and pragmatism, 206ff. 
 Psychology of religion, 128 
 
 its value, 129flF. 
 
 and origin of religiop, 133 
 
 subjective, 134fF. 
 
 and theology, 143 
 Purpose 
 
 and analogy, 69 
 
 and mechanism, 96 
 
 in things, 97 
 
 and life, 105 
 
 and biology, 106, 109 
 
 and evolution, 108 
 
 and freedom, 116 
 
 and heredity, 118 
 
 and meaning, 172 
 
 and pragmatism, 239 ff. 
 
 in Bergson's philosophy, 264ff. 
 
 and God, 265 
 Purposive cause, 92 
 
Indew 
 
 327 
 
 Pythagoras, 31 
 
 Quantitative idea, and theoloev. 
 43ff. ^^ 
 
 Quantitative thinking, 13 
 
 Ranke, 146 
 Rashdall 
 
 on personality, 325 
 
 on God as limited, 237 
 Rational basis of religion, 33 
 Rationalism, 22 
 Real, the, greater than the good, 
 
 183 
 Realism, the new, 18 
 Realist realm, 299 if. 
 Reality, 16 
 
 in appearance, 172 
 
 degrees of, 177 
 
 as God, 177 
 Reformers 
 
 against Aristotle, 58 
 
 as nominalists, 58 
 Religion 
 
 rational basis of, 32 
 
 within the limits of reason, 34 
 
 its constant, 52 
 
 comparative, 72flf. 
 
 not illusion, 129 
 
 not fundamentally subcon- 
 scious, 132 
 
 origin of, 133flF. 
 
 as fear, 139 
 
 reduced to material antece- 
 dent, 140 
 
 and social viewpoint, 149ff. 
 
 and authority, 233if. 
 
 universal, 278 
 
 historic, 278fr. 
 
 as new content of divine life, 
 281 
 
 above culture, 283 
 
 above the interests of society, 
 283ff. 
 
 and philosophy, 287 
 Results of pragmatism, 216flF. 
 Revelation, inner, 191 
 Rosetta Stone, 63 
 Rousseau, 144 
 Rowland, Eleanor, 142 
 Royce, 172 
 
 Royce — Continued. 
 
 social explanation of Christi- 
 anity, ISOif. 
 
 finds truth in completed ex- 
 perience, 171 
 
 on the mystic and knowledge, 
 185 
 
 on essence of mysticism, 186 
 Russell, Bertrand, 
 
 on mathematical entitles, 41 
 
 his theory of knowledge, 302ff. 
 
 Salvation and nature, 66 
 Satisfaction 
 
 in pragmatism, 209flF. 
 
 and Christianity, 219ff. 
 Schelling and identity, 101 
 Schiller, 
 
 and humanism, 198 
 
 on evolutionism in thought, 
 200 
 
 on selection in knowledge, 202 
 
 as against pure thought, 205 
 
 truth as human, 211 
 
 truth as ambiguous, 211, 232 
 
 on finite God, 235 
 
 on an indeterminate world, 
 238 
 ScWeiermacher, 139 
 
 Christianity and other reli- 
 gions, 72 
 Schopenhauer, 95, 172 
 Science and the spiritual process, 
 
 282 
 Scriptures, 59 
 
 Selection and Christianity, 217 
 Self deception and religious ex- 
 perience, 129 
 Self, the, as enduring, 253 
 Sense-content, how it becomes 
 
 logical, 208 
 Similarity, 61 
 
 Simplicity of hypothesis, 83 
 Sin, defined by Prof. Patten, 152 
 Slaveiy, St. Paul on, 156 
 Socialism, 148 
 
 and Christianity, ISSff. 
 Social reform and Christianity, 
 
 154 
 Social viewpoint, 15 
 
 and religion, 149 
 
 and kingdom of God, 155 
 
3^8 
 
 Index 
 
 Social trend, the, 144fF. 
 Society, 
 
 forces of mind in, 87flF. 
 
 and religious interests, 283ff. 
 Sociology, its use explained, 147 
 Socrates, 46 
 Soul 
 
 truth found in, 186 
 
 the real self, 186 
 
 in Christianity and mysticism, 
 191 
 
 in Bergson, 254, 262 
 Sovereignty, divine, 59 
 Spencer, 44, 73 
 Spinoza, 138 
 
 ajid the mathematical method, 
 31 
 
 the father of parallelism, 100 
 
 depersonalized thinking, 165 
 
 his idea of personality, 176 
 
 identifies God and the world, 
 176 
 Spirit of man and evolution, 124 
 Spiritual experiences not mystic, 
 
 189 
 Spiritual life above science, 282 
 Spiritual life not only changing, 
 
 257 
 Spiritual sciences, 104 
 Starbuck, Prof., 128, 139 
 Sub-conscious, the, 
 
 and religion, 130if. 
 
 danger of, in religion, 131 flF. 
 Subjectivism of piety, 60 
 Subjectivism In mysticism, 192 
 Sufficiency of hypothesis, 84 
 Super-personalism, see Imperson- 
 
 alism 
 Super-personality and God, 176 
 Survival of the fittest, 116 
 
 and pragmatism, 202ff. 
 System of ideas complete as 
 
 truth, 172 
 System and Christian truth, 175 
 
 Teleological proof, see Design 
 and Purpose 
 
 Theology 
 
 and quantitative thinking, 43 
 and psychology of religion, 143 
 
 Thought, common character of, 9 
 
 Thought and ends, 209 
 
 Time in Bergson's philosophy, 
 
 246 
 Transference of energy, its unity, 
 
 93 
 Transmission of characters, 115 
 Treason, and salvation, 151 
 Trinity as intellectual movement, 
 
 167 
 Truth 
 
 and thought, 15ff. 
 
 finding of, 16, 163flF. 
 
 formal character of, 163 
 
 as absoluteness, 164 
 
 search after, 164 
 
 the dilemma of, 166 
 
 and error, 168flF., ISOflF. 
 
 degrees of, 168 
 
 and reality, 169 
 
 grades of, 169 
 
 partial error, 170 
 
 as expression of universe, 170 
 
 as connectedness, 170 
 
 as completeness, 170 
 
 needs error, 171 
 
 as complete, 173 
 
 makes men, 173 
 
 Christian, and system, 175 
 
 as experienced relation, 197 
 
 made true by events, 210 
 
 as ambiguous, 211, 232 
 
 as workableness, 212, 229ff. 
 
 as useful, 212 
 
 as within experience, 214 
 
 as only in situations, 215 
 
 standards of, in Eucken, 285fi'. 
 
 according to neo-realism, 30Sff. 
 Tyndale, Professor, use of imag- 
 ination, 81 
 
 Uniformity of nature, 53fF. 
 
 and religion, 55ff. 
 Unity of the race and spiritual, 
 
 66iF. 
 Universality and certainty in 
 
 mathematics, 32 
 Universe, the, disregardful of 
 
 personal immortality, 179 
 Unseen, the, in speculation, 87flf. 
 Utilitarianism, 212 
 Utility in pragmatism, 312ff. 
 
Index 
 
 329 
 
 Validity of thought and truth, 
 
 163 
 Values, doctrine of, and pragma- 
 tism, 222, 231 
 Values, and Christianity, 222 
 Variation, 
 
 slight and slow. 111 
 
 sudden. 111 
 
 along definite lines, 1141f. 
 
 in pragmatism, 201 
 Venn on induction, 54 
 Verification in Christianity, 
 
 218ff., 231 
 Vinci, da, 47 
 "Vital impulse," 245 
 Vitalism, the older, 242 
 Vitalist view, 242if. 
 Voluntarist ideal, 20 
 
 Ward on teleological factors, 108 
 
 Watson, Professor, 
 
 correlated variations. 111 
 his constructive realism, 177 
 
 Weber, formula of, 37, 126 
 
 Weissman, 118 
 
 WUberforce, Bishop, attacks evo- 
 lution, 107 
 
 Will and energy, 95 
 
 Will to beHeve, 141 
 
 Wolff, 34 
 
 Work, according to Eucken, 
 274flF. 
 
 Work, its relation to creation 
 and criticism, in Eucken's 
 philosophy, 276 
 
 World-view and Christianity, 9 
 
 Wundt, 127 
 
m ^^^i