BL 200 .D32 1893 Davidson, William Lesl ie, 1848-192< ) . Theism as grounded in human nature ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS. THEISM AS GROUNDED IN HUMAN NATURE HISTORICALLY AND CRITICALLY HANDLED BEING THE BUENETT LECTURES FOE 1892 AND 1893 WILLIAM L. DAVIDSON, M.A., LL.D. AITIKiK OF "THE logic of definition," etc. LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET IMC! ■• \\ iili busy hammers closing rivets up." — Shakespeare. '\\fxe~is 5( ovk icTfjiv inroaroAris . . . a\\a iriarfais. — Hebrews. •• The philosophy thai one chooses depends on the kind of man one is. —FichU. 1111 imvma delicti, nolle agnoscere, quern ignorare non possis." Tertullian. THE FIRST COURSE OF LECTURES, 1892. WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. THE LOGIC OF DEFINITION : EXPLAINED AND APPLIED. Price 6s. "There is manifested throughout the hook sound scholarship, wide general and philosophical reading, and praetical acquaintance with the several branches of natural scienee ; then, with these attainments, there is everywhere combined rare analytical power and a broad independent method of looking at difficult questions. The result is a work that deserves to take a high place in the philosophical literature of the day. It is admirably calculated to assist students in all departments of inquiry ; but it is especially fitted to be useful to students of philosophy." — The Scotsman. " Faithful, thorough work. . . . The illustrative examples of this chapter are in themselves studies. . . . The remaining chapters are, taken )n>r se, studies of uncommon excellence. . . . A debt of gratitude is due to the author, who Wrings a logical training to bear on natural science definition." — The Daily !■'>'<, Press. '"The hook is one that marks a stage in the development of logical method. . . . [t is the product of a vigorous mind, and no one can read such a chapter as that on 'The separation of questions in Philosophy' — truly a multum in parvo — without finding in a few pages more help towards the solution of sonic of the knottiest problems in metaphysics and morals than is to lie found in manv other octavo volumes. The style is terse and strong, and the hook so abounds in illustrations and examples as to make a subjecl naturally difficult and uninteresting to manv, easy and instructive to all." -The Banffshire Journal. "To clear away Logomachies, the smoke and dust which hides the real battles of metaphysics, is certainly a material service t>> x II rorks by the Same Author. those who have to -take a pari in those ever-raging contests. And this service Mr. Davidson most patiently and faithfully performs for those who will read and mark T//<- Logic of Definition." — The Oxford Review. "This is one of that useful class of works which apply the principles of forma] logic to interesting and important examples. The discipline of the parade is directed to the requirements of actual service." — The Academy. •' We cannot here follow Mr. Davidson through his masterly, and we must repeat, entertaining and instructive pages. We can only add that his definitions and principles are laid down with precision and clearness, that his illustrations and examples are well chosen, and that to those who wish to write or think correctlv, or to thread their way through the perplexities which many modern writers prepare for them, his volume will prove invaluable." Scottish Quarterly Review. ''This is an able and useful hook, and one that treats of a subject of urgent importance." — British Quarterly Review. "The peculiar merit of Mr. Davidson's work lies in the original and suggestive application of the first principles of logic to the four departments of Dictionaries, School Books, Philosophical Vocabulary, and Biology." — The Journal of Education. " Mi1. DAVIDSON'S style is direct and forcible. He writes with fulness of knowledge, and often gives interest to somewhat abstruse themes by means of well chosen examples."— Daily Review. ••This work is a valuable contribution to clearness of thoughl and expression. . . . The arrangemenl of the work is clear and methodical, the style lucid, and the examples are, as a rule, admirable." — Tlir Guardian. ENGLISB WORDS EXPLAINED. Price Ss. 6d. "This little work, intended for scl Is, and sure to find an entrance where the master is intelligent enough^ is a most useful Works by the Same Author. xi yet simple piece of applied logic— in the way of 'synonymous discrimination '." — Mind. "The book seems to be accurate as Car as it goes, and with it- object we are in thorough sympathy." — TJie Saturday Review. "To those who are engaged in teaching, tins new work of Mr. Davidson's can scarcely fail to prove exceedingly acceptable. It will lie of value also to all who are desirous of speaking or writing with accuracy." — The Scottish Quarterly Review. ••A useful little book this . . . carefully executed." The Spectator. "On the whole, Mr. Davidson has done his work well, and a clever teacher might make the book very useful in his lessons on English composition." — The Athenceum. " A very praiseworthy effort to illumine the path of the aspirant to the art of writing the English language with propriety." —The Guardian. "This hook, which is intended to he 'An Aid to Teaching,' seems thoroughly well fitted to serve its purpose. . . . Students of the English language, and writers ambitious to attain exactness and accuracy in the use of English words, will find il an invaluable guide." — The Educational News. •'The little hook named above is one we can heartily welcome. . . . The author as a logician treats his subject with admirable clearness, and at the same time makes it interesting by his wealth of illustrations and examples." The Practical Teacher. "The work is very useful and suggestive, and, what is more, of an accuracy unusual in English school hooks on the English language."- The Journal, of Education. Mr. I ).a\ inso\ has certainly provided a book which, if studied by teacher and pupil, will do much towards correcting the loose ness of style prevalent alike in lectures, conversation, and even in educational text books. The volume, moreover, forms a convenient little hand book which is an acquisition to every writing table.*' — The Educational Times. CONTEXTS. FIRST COURSE OF LECTURES. LECTURE I. Theistic Doubt : Its Nature, Possibility, and Limits. Simonides and Theistic Difficulties, The value and true function of Difficulties, Different ways of approaching Theism, The attitude assumed in these Lectures, Need of reverence, patience, and sympathy. ... Religious Doubt : its nature, How removable, ... Two parts of the Method, ^ Intuition : how unsatisfactory. Descartes, ... Dr. Josiah Royce, >Grod a Dictum of Consciousness : meaning of, ^ Mysticism, ... Exercise of Religious Faculty, ... •JGenius for Religion, •i Authority in Religion, Meaning of Devotion, f Principal Caird, Language of Devotion, Analogy between Friendship and Religious Devotion, Religious Doubt : its possibility, Demand for absolute Certainty unreasonable, Doubt, the condition of Spiritual activity, Man finite and sinful. The kind of Certainty attainable, External World, ... PAGE 1 2,3 4 4,5 5-7 7,8 9 9,10 11 id. 12 13, 14 14-16 16, 17 17,18 18 19-21 20 21-23 23 24 id. 25 id. 26 26, 27 XIV Contents. 28-30 I onditions of External and of Spiritual Perception the same, God a Living Person to living persons, ... ... ... 30 The man makes all the difference, ... ... ... ... 31 Schiller and Tennyson quoted, ... ... ... ... 31.82 LECTURE II. Analysis of Human Nature : Expository and Historical. I. 1 >ifnculties attaching to Knowledge of Human Nature. .. 83 X<>t insurmountable, II. 1. Plato. His conception of Man, .. Reason as guide and controller, . . . Reason and the intelligible world, Man's kinship to God, Nature of the Body. Nature of the Soul. Immortality and Pre-existence, Microcosm anil Macrocosm, The Ideal Republic, Summary of Plato's views. 2. Aristotle. Reason: characteristics of, Aristotle's conception of the Deity, Eternity of the Universe, Man as a Social Being, Soul : immortality. Quotation from De Anniai, Aristotle and Avcrroes, Aristotle's Ethics, ... Aristotle as psychologist, 3. The Bible. 1 iontrasl between Greek Philosophy and Old Testament, I lilacw connexion between Ethics and Religion, Christianity, Hebrew Psychological terms, I [ebrew view of Spirit, ... I [ebrevi \ iew of Soul, Hebrew view of Heart. ... These three as contrasted with Body in Old Testament. 39, 11 43. 45. 17 51, 52, 55, 38 id. 40 40 id. 41 42 42 43 44 45 46 46 47 ■49 50 id. 51 52 5 5 5 1 50 56 58, 59 Contents. xv PAGE Hellenism and Hebraism at Alexandria, ... ... ... 59-61 The Greek Septuagint, ... ... ... ... ... ... 59 The Apocrypha, ... ... ... ... ... ... ••• 60 Immortality in Old Testament, 61,62 Resurrection among the Jews, ... ... ... ... ... 62 Psychology of New Testament, ... ... ... 63 St. Paul's view of Man, ... ... ... ... 64 His so-called Trichotomy, 64-66 His Antithesis of Flesh and Spirit, ... ... 66 Christianity and Old Testament psychical teaching, ... ... 67 Christianity and Greek psychical teaching. ... ... ... id. 4. Confucius, Buddha, the Stoics. Confucius and Morality, ... ... ... ... ... ... 68 Metaphysics discouraged, ... ... ... ... ... 69 Contrast between Confucianism and Hebraism, ... ... 69,70 Buddhism supremely Ethical, .. ... ... ... ... 70 Its high tone : whence derived — .. ... ... ... 70,71 Weak on the side of Ontology, ... ... ... ... ... 71 Stoicism sternly Ethical, .. . ... ... ... ... •• id. Its leading doctrines, ... ... ... ... ... ... 72 Its Fatalism, id. Contrast with Buddhism, ... ... ■ ... ... ... id. 5. The Neo-platonists. Analysis of Human Nature now complete, ... ... ... 7;> lldi'thiiis and Early Christian Writers, ... .. ... ... id. Mysticism of the Neo-platonists : retrograde step, ... ... 7 1 An Oriental element; this, ... ... ... ••• ••• id. 6. The Schoolmen. Distinction between Faith and Reason: also retrograde, ... 75 Partial emancipation of Philosophy by Albertus and Aquinas, 76 Bruno, Leibniz, Wolff, Aufklarung id. Averroes's distinction, ... ... ... ••• ••• l,!- Pomponatius's distinction, ... ... ... ■•• ••• 77 All these distinctions vicious, .. ... ... ••• ••• 77,78 7. From Descartes to Hegel. Descartes's place in Philosophy, ... ••• ■•• ••• 79 His Obligations to St. Augustine and St. Anselm id. Ontology his special province, ... ■•• ■•• "'• XVI Contents. This true also of Spinoza, Leibniz, Berkeley, etc. Locke, an Epistemologist by pre-eminence, ... So, too, II lime and Kant, ... Hegel, 8. Recent Advance. (1) In Psychology, Psychology defined, Three modern improvements, (2 In Epistemology, Episternology defined and exemplified, Professor Croom Robertson quoted, (3) In Ontology, ... Ontology defined. ... Advance, III. Different views of Theism, 1. Founded in Man's Rational Nature alone : Aristotle, 2. Grounded in Emotion alone : Primitive Man, 3. A postulate of Ethics : Kant, 4. In both Intellect and Morality : Plato, In Intellect, Emotion, and Ethics : these Lectures, ... PAGl 79, 80 80, HI 81,82 82 83 88, 84 84 84,85 86 id. id. 86,87 87 id. 88 id. id. id. LECTURE III. Agnostic Objections. \Can God be Known ? Present interest in this question, X.^alixc Argument from Anthropomorphism, 89 90, 91 4 First aspect of argument, ... ... ... 91-94 What, is true here, ... ... ... ... ... ... 94 Six countervailing considerations, ... ... ... ... 94-98 What proved by first form of argument, and what not proved, 98 Progressing clearness in conceptions the rule everywhere, ... id. This exemplified from the various departments of Knowledge, 99 Especially Erom Mental Science, ... ... 100 II. Second form of Anthropomorphic Objection, ... ... id. This pre-eminently the Agnostic position, ... 101 / Contents. Agnosticism defined, Agnosticism not identical with Atheism, •Causes of Agnosticism, ... Hobbes quoted, What is true in Agnosticism, Hobbes's dictum analyzed, Agnostic Types grouped in a threefold way, ... I. Philosophical Agnosticism. 1. Xenophanes. Xenophanes's teaching, ... Opposes Polytheism, His doctrine criticized, ... Xenophanes followed by Spinoza, ^Answer to both, Importance of Xenophanes, 2. Ilium. In what sense "the father of modern agnosticism," His relation to Locke and Berkeley, His general philosophical position, How to be assailed. Hume on Theism, His Natural History of Religion, Quotation from, ... Theism derivative in man, Polytheism man's primary religion, From which Monotheism is developed, Hume's simply a theory of origin. What then '? Conclusion, one of indifference towards Theism, The Dialogues Concerning Sutured Religion, Examination of Teleological argument, The Enquiry Concerning" Human Under standing, Quotations from. ... Historical importance of Hume's Agnosticism, 3. Kant His leading doctrine as to Human Knowledge, The fallacy here, ... Thorough-going phenomenism, ... Kant's inconsistencies. XV11 PAGE 101 102 102, 103 103,104 104 105 106 107 id. . 108-110 110 . 110-112 . 112, 113 . 113 114 114 . 114, 115*- .. 115 116 116 id. . 116-118 118 119 . 119 120 m 121^ 122 123 . 123 124 124 .. 125-127 127 128 129 130<- 131 Will Contentt I li- Ethical Theism, I [is teaching explained, Two criticisms, 133, 184 LECTURE IV. Agnostic Objections (Continued). II. PlIILOSOPHICO-DEVOUT AGNOSTICISM. 4. ZVie Neo-platonists. The Neo-platonic position, Plotinus, Philo Judaeus, Justin Martyr. Ecstasy, Intellectual difficulty, Three characteristics of Neo-platonism. Two criticisms, 5. Mansel. Sir \Y. Hamilton's doctrine of the cotiditioned. Summary of Hansel's teaching. 1. The Absolute, Relativity of Human Knowledge, 2. Faith and Reason, .".. Mansel's Caution and his Credulity. 4. The Negative Notion, ... Matthew Arnold, and Minutius Felix. Ferrier's Doctrine of Ignorance, 5. Analogy, Berkeley quoted, ... 6. The Emotions and Ethics, 1 1 1. Philosophico-Scientific Agnosticism. 6. Mr. Herbert Spencer. M r. Spencer and Mansel. Mr. Spencer's position, ... Three questions, ... 1. Relativity of Knowledge, Rejection of Negative Notion, ... I'ii'' I aknowable, ... 2. I >octrine of I aeradicable Beliefs, Criticism. ... 185 186 id. 187 id. 138/- 138-140 140 / 144-146 147. 148 148-fol 151, 152 153 153-155 155, 156 156, 157 158 159 160 161-163 163 id.. 164 165 166-168 168 Contents. XIX 3. Characterization of the Unknowable, Personality, Force, Professor Huxley. Professor Huxley's position. Criticism, ... Miracles, ... Origin of Religion, Prospects of Religion, Summary and Conclusion, PAGE 169 170 171, 172 ... 17-2-176 ... 176-178 ... 179-182 ... 182-185 ... 185-187 L"' .^188-190* LECTURE V. God a Necessity of Human Nature. Philosophy rests upon Experience, I. The Psychological basis of Theism, The argument explained, (I.) The Idea of God ministers to a human Want, ... Distinction between Desire, Wish, and Want, Doctrine of Natural Wants, Distinctions to be drawn, Want and its Object, Position fully explained, .. 1. First Objection, 2. Second Objection, 3. Third Objection, Comte's doctrine, . . . Criticism, ... Conclusion, 4. Fourth Objection, (II.) The Utility of Religion, Limitation of original statement. 1. First Objection : Superstition, 2. Second Objection : Persecution, 191 LECTURE VI. The Idea of God, as Psychologically Determined. II. Preliminary remark as to Spiritual Progress, ... 6 229 \\ Contents. Deductions, Explanations, (I.) The Personality of God, Definition and meanings of Personality, Personality the highest fact in our Experience, Matthew Arnold's conception of God, ... Objections, Personality as Limitation, Duality of Self-consciousness, ... Eternity of God, ... Summary and Conclusion, (II.) The Unity of God, Monotheism, Polytheism, History of Monotheistic struggle, Modes of attacking Polytheism, (III.) God the All-perfect, (IV.) Immanence and Transcendence, ... Anaxagoras, Spinoza, PAGE 230 231-233 238 233-238 238 239 240 •241-243 243, 244 245-247 247 248 c 249-251^ 251-253 253-257,- 257-260 260 id. 261-268 264 III. The Philosophy of History, The Ancient Hebrews, The Ancient Greeks and Romans, Post-Christian thought, ... Hegel Meaning of the Argument from History, Divine Plan, ... ... How best seen, Exact point of Argument, Argument from History part of the wider Argument 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 278.274 275, 276 SECOND COURSE OE LECTURES. LECTURE VII. Emotional Thkism. Plan <>i See 1 Course of Lectures, Lord Kiiines on the Emotions, ... 277 277. 27S Contents. x\i I. PAOE (I.) .Esthetic Emotions, 279 1. Awe and Fear, ... ... ... ... ... ... id. Fear not the origin of Religion, .. . ... ... ... ... id. Theistic foundation in Awe, ... ... ... 280, 281 2. The Sublime, 281 Awe and Sublimity compared, ... ... ... ... ... 281,282 Sublimity analyzed, ... ... ... ... ... ... 282 Connexion of Sublimity with Religion , . . . ... ... ... 283 Professor Max Midler's doctrine, ... ... ... 284 3. The Beautiful, ... ... ... ... ... id. Beauty analyzed, ... ... id. Lotze, ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 285 Berkeley, ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... id. (II.) Love and Sympathy, ... ... ... ... ... 286 1. Love: Selfishness and Self dove, ... ... ... ... id. Channing, ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 287 2. Sympathy, 288 (III.) Sense of Dependence, Benevolence, Gratitude, ... 289 1. Benevolence and Gratitude, ... ... ... .. ... id. 2. Sense of Dependence, ... ... .. ... ... ... id. Reasons for not laying the sole foundation of Religion here. . . . id. Schleiermacher's view. First Objection to it, Second Objection to it. Third Objection to it, II. 290 291 id- 293 III. Non- theistic alternatives, 1. Emotional Pantheism, V2. Worship of Humanity, Professor Huxley, ... First Objection to Worship of Humanity, Second Objection to Worship of Humanity, Third Objection to Worship of Humanity, Edgar Quinet and Confucianism, . ... 294 id. < 296 297 298 id. 299 300 IV. Pessimism, Professor Otto PHeiderer quoted, 301 id. XXII Contents. First Criticism of Pessimism, Second Criticism of Pessimism, Third Criticism of Pessimism, Summary of Criticism, ... PAGE 303 304 305-307 307 Historical matter, 1. Regarding Emotional Theism, 2. Regarding Emotional Pantheism, 3. Regarding Worship of Humanity, 4. Regarding Pessimism, 308 id. ... 309-311 311 ... 311 . 312 LECTURE VIII. Ethical Theism : Ideality and the Ethical Self. I. Definition of Ethics, Objections to Ethics as science of the ideal, 1. Ferrier's Objection, Answered, 2. Second Objection, Answered, Professor Green, Dr. Martineau, Summary, ... II. The Ethical Self, Character defined, T. The Elements of Character, ... Butler quoted, II. Formation of Character, 1. The first start of Habit, 2. Repetition: its nature and functions, Butler's doctrine, ... As amended by Professor Bain, Enthusiasm, Predisposition, Moral Progress, 313-316 316 317 318-320 320 id. 321.322 323 323, 324 Y 325 id. 326-328 328-330 330 331 332 333 v/ 334 u id. 335 336 Contents. xxiii PAGE III. Spiritual Force, ... ... ... ... ... ... 337 Moral Freedom, 338 Manifestations of Ethical Force, 338-340 LECTURE IX. Ethical Theism: Conscience— psychological. I. The Analysis of Conscience. Butler's definitions, ... ... ... ... ... ... 341,342 Explanations and addenda, ... ... ... ... ... 342^347 II. Moral Judgment. k Judgment denned, ... ... ... ... ... ... 347-349 Explained, 349-35T" The Four Elements in Moral Judgment, ... 351-353 III. The Intuitive Character of Conscience. Right and Wrong. Defined, 354-356 Ought. Illustrated and defined, ... ... ... ... ... ... 356-358 Tennyson's dictum, ... ... ... ... ... ... 359 Consequences the test of Morality, ... ... 360-362 IV. Virtue its own Reward. Different meanings of this proposition, ... ... ... ... 363,364 Doctrine of a Future life, ... ... ... ... ... ... 365.366 V. Reward. Instances of the Reward of Virtue, ... ... ... ... 367 Contrasted with the Recompense of Vice, ... ... ... 367,368 VI. Moral Motifs. This taken in connexion with the doctrine of Consequences, 368 Example from Shakespeare, ... ... ... ... ... 369,37] Why Consequences are usually regarded as inadequate. .. 871, 372 The Hedonistic Paradox, 372-374 What is meant by an act "good in itself," ... ... -. -575 WIN Contents. LECTURE X. Ethical Theism : Conscience— metaphysical. VII. Rational Implicates of Conscience Origin of Conscience, Implications of Conscience, 1. Sociality. Hobbes, Rousseau, ... 2. Generalization, ... ■ 3. Authority, The development of Morality in a child, How men may act contrary to Conscience, VIII. Ontological or Theistic Implications. Remorse, Objection and Answer, Tower of the Ethical Ideal, Sensitiveness of Conscience in upright men, The special value of the Ethical testimony. IX. Objections. 1. The Ontological Implications: are they original? 2. If Conscience be derived, are they not useless? . 3. Is not Ethical Pantheism sufficient'? (1) Eichte's position. Answer to Fichte, i?) Matthew Arnold's position answered, fa«:k 376-378 378 id.^ 380 381 *"" id. 382 *- 383,384 384 r ^385 38J8, 387 387, 388 388 38ST^ 390, 391 89i-;;;i;! 894 id. 395 396 X. Historical. 1. Semitic attitude, 2. Tragic Poets, ancient and modern. ... .".. Philosophy, Socrates, Alialaid and St. Thomas, l!a\ nmnd of Sabunde, Bui Ler and Kant, Fichte, Wordsworth, Newman, ... Typical instances, from the various nationalities, The line of cleavage : how marked, 397 . 897,398 399 id. id. 400 id. id. 401 . 401, 402 Contents. XXV LECTURE XI. Intellectual Theism : Logical and Analytic. The "Proofs," I. The Teleological Argument, History of it, 1. Socrates's mode of putting the argument, Criticism, ... 2. Reicl's mode, Criticism, .. 3. Tulloch's mode, Criticism, ... Value of the Teleological Argument, ... II. The Cosmological Argument, Its meaning, Hobhes's mode of stating the argument Locke's mode, Samuel Clarke's mode, ... Other modes of expression : Aristotle's, Grotius's, etc. Criticism, ... Value of the Cosmological Argument, III. The Ontological Argument, 1. St. Anselm's mode of putting it, Criticism, ... 2. Descartes's mode, Criticism, ... J. S. Mill, The argument, how justified, IV. The Consensus Gentium, ... History of this argument, Criticism of argument, What real force the argument has, r \ci: KB! M. 403-409 ,409 410-412 , 412 413-416 416 417-419* II!) 420 420-422 422 423 424 42iy, 426 426. 127 428 429 id. 430 431-433 433 434 id. 435 436 436, 437 LECTURE XII. Intellectual Theism: Philosophical am» Synthetic Philosophy defined, 438 XXVI Contents. Tin' attitude here common to Schools of Philosophy Two Preliminary Cautions, 1. Man's restricted Knowledge,... 2. Eelation between Concrete and Abstract Thinkin Unity: what? Mind the interpreting term, Berkeley, What Philosophy does, and what it does not, claim The plain man's demand unreasonable, Enumeration of results, ... 1. Explanation of Natural Law,... 2. Biological Evolution, ... 3. Outward Nature, 4. The Eternity of Matter, ."). Moral Evil and Physical Pain, (1) Argument against God's Omnipotence, How rebutted, (2) Pain no adverse argument, ... (3) Nor the sufferings of the lower animals, ... Return to the statement of what Philosophy can no The Position of the abstract eritic, ... ... The true nature of the Unity of Personality. ... Difference between a Unit and Unity, ... Valedictory, do, do, PAGE 439 440 id. 441 442-446 446 447 448, 449 450 451 451-454 454 id. 455 456 457 457-461 461-463 463, 464 465 465, 466 467 468 469 £ THEISM, AS GROUNDED IN HUMAN NATURE HISTORICALLY AND CRITICALLY HANDLED. LECTURE I. THEISTIC DOUBT : ITS NATURE, POSSIBILITY. AND LIMITS. There is probably no one who has turned his mind seriously to the consideration of Theism who lias not felt somewhat as Simonides of old did, when the theistic problem was set him for solution by his royal master. Of Simonides it is recorded that, when Hiero proposed to him the question, "What is God?" he desired a day to consider it. When next day his answer was required, he begged two days more; and as, time after time, he went on doubling the number of days, Hiero at last, in astonishment, asked him the reason for his strange procedure. "Because," replied he, "the longer I meditate upon it, the more obscure does it seem to me to be." l •_> Theistic Doubt. What exactly were the difficulties that Simon- ides encountered, we are not told. Perhaps it was, as Cotta, in the Be Natura Deorum (i. 22), suggests, that Simonides, "being not only a delightful poet, but also in other respects a Avise and learned man, found so many acute and subtle arguments occurring to him that he had doubt which of them was the truest, and so despaired of attaining any truth". Or, perhaps it was, as Caecilius, in the Octavius of Marcus Minutius Felix, seems to suppose, that he exercised a wise delay "for fear either of introducing doting superstition or of destroying all religion". But, either way, he should not have finally despaired. For even though, from the very nature of the case, the treatment of such a subject must, at the very l>cst, be imperfect, there is no necessity that, so far as it goes, it should be utterly inadequate; and. allowing that the introduction of "doting super- stition" would unquestionably be an evil, it might yet be a greater good than the creation and cherishing of the false impression that Religion has no rational foundation. There is a pithy sentence in Bacon somewhere, which runs: "When the human mind finally despairs of truth, or begins to languish, weakness of mind is as much shown in sceptical despair as it is in unquestioning prejudice or dogma ". We need not, then, he terrified by difficulties : The Value of Difficulties. 3 at any rate, we need not allow them to paralyze us. Difficulties beset all great questions : shall we expect them to be absent from the greatest ? There is difficulty in the famous metaphysical prob- lems of External Perception and the Freedom of the Will ; the biologist has difficulty with the con- ception and proper definition of Life ; and if, with the modern physicist, we permit ourselves to speculate on the nature and ultimate constitution of Atoms, we shall soon discover that we have penetrated into a region where neither sun nor stars in many days appear. It must never be forgotten that we may carry our scepticism too far, — we may be over-cautious as well as over- bold; and once let us refuse to move because of obscurity, and we therein' put a stop to progress altogether, not only in religion, but also in every field of physical and intellectual research. Diffi- culties should stimulate rather than deter. "He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper." And so, when I now propose to follow out one great line of theistic exposition. I hope that I shall not be accused of attempting the impossible, or be taunted with too great presumption in essaying a task in which Simonides seems to have failed. There arc countless ways in which people may 4 Theistic Douht. look at theism, and the modes of handling it are manifold ; but three in particular are very promi- nent, and require to be specialized. In the first place : starting from the idea of God, given in experience and duly analyzed, we may set our- selves to trace its origin; using for this purpose philology or the testimony of language, document- ary evidence from a period as far back as one can go, investigation into the thoughts, manners, and customs of existing races — these, one or more, according to the individual investigator's particu- lar leanings or his special acquirements. In the next place : starting still from the idea of God, given in experience and duly analyzed, we may investigate its roots in human nature, and, giving it a philosophical explanation, employ it as a rational interpretation of the universe. In the third place: eliminating the idea of God altogether. we may try to see how the universe looks when stript of theistic implications, and, if satisfied with the result, stop short of theism, or cast it aside as illusion or chinnera. It is the second of these three attitudes that is taken here. I do not, indeed, ignore the other two. 1 shall have much to say, one way or other, of each of them; but 1 regard Theism essentially from the side of the philosophy of human nature. It is a doctrine psychologically grounded, and Mode of treating Theism adopted here. 5 rationally defensible ; and I venture to defend it. In doing so, I hope to be able to show that Theism is logically valid ; meeting a distinct want of man, and making imperative demands upon him. Or, if you refuse me this, I hope at any rate to be able to gain the negative merit of refuting certain for- midable-looking arguments that are frequently launched against Theism in the name of Philo- sophy, but which have really no true philosophical value. Even this negative merit is of vast import- ance, and goes a long way towards answering those who accuse the theist of indulging in the worthless chase of an ignis fatuus, rather than in the sober quest of a great Reality justified by reason. For if, as Berkeley maintains, the main end of dis- cussion is, not simply to persuade, but to discover and defend the truth, then "truth may be justified, not only by persuading its adversaries, but, where that cannot be done, by showing them to be un- reasonable " [Aldphron ; or, T//e Minute Philo- sopher, iv. ^ 2). The subject of Theism is a very great one, and needs both patient and reverent handling. But this need for reverence and patience is only what we find in every department of knowledge. Not here alone but elsewhere is it true, that the pondering gaze of reverence sees farthest into the G Theistic Doubt. secrets of* the universe. The reverent spirit is the earnest spirit and the open spirit ; and to it, necessarily, revelations are emphatically made. It is, also, the tolerant and sympathetic spirit, Im- plying as it does entire loyalty to Truth and a desire to be guided by it, — a desire to practise it and live by it, and not simply to know it- implying, in other words, a certain attitude of will, as well as of intellect, — it spurns, of neces- sity, the notion of arguing merely for victory's sake, and it strives to throw itself sympathetically into the point of view of opponents. I do not think that Truth has ever been attained by any man who did not strenuously cultivate it, nor do I think that it has ever been attained by any man who looked contemptuously on those who differ from him in opinion. Scorn, unless it be in the shape of moral indignation against insincerity and hypocrisy, is weakness and disease, and blinds the eye to clear perception and the light, Very easy is it to assume that oneself is always in the right and one's adversary always in the wrong, and, if very easy, so too very grati- fying. But is it not too gratifying and too easy for the attainment of any solid result \ Cromwell spoke words of deepest wisdom when he gave the famous advice to the General Assembly: - I beseech vim in the bowels of Christ, think it Patience, tic re fence, and Si/mjx/thi/ needed. 7 possible you may be mistaken". We may take it as a fundamental axiom, that truth is not the exclusive property of an individual, nor of any one class of individuals ; and, wherever the earnest inquirer is, there is the man on the way to light. Truth, indeed, is infinite, and the roads that lead to it are numberless. We can attain it, appar- ently, only piecemeal and by degrees. But, how- ever diverse the approaches and however numerous the paths, the ultimate result can only be unity. Whatever else we lose, never let us lose our faith that "Truth is catholic, and Nature one". All this granted, it may, nevertheless, be main- tained that neither reverence nor tolerance solves difficulties; neither of them is even an antidote to Doubt. Doubts assail the earnest seeker after truth, and it is impossible to allay them. Doubts, indeed, assail the earnest seeker after truth: but I cannot admit that it is impossible to allay them. A great authority has told us to "prove all things". This just means that we are to believe only as we see reason, that we must not pretend more than we actually feel, that we are not to force conviction. But, while we are not to force conviction, we are at the same time to see that we do not consciously retard it. There is a twofold duty in connexion with the matter, and 8 Theistic Doubt. one part of that duty is equally necessary with the other. All philosophy, and, therefore, all rational religion, must pass through the ordeal of Doubt : their validity must be tested by every method applicable to the subject-matter. But we must take care that our tests are of the ap- propriate kind. We do not weigh our thoughts in literal scales, nor measure our ideas with the actual foot-rule. The ponderable is simply irrel- evant in the one case, and the mensurable in the other. We do not gauge the capacity of the eye by instruments suited only for the ear : nor arc the phenomena of life subject to the same treatment as those of inorganic matter. So, to demand that spiritual facts shall conform to material manipulation is unreasonable. Lalande might sweep the heavens with his telescope, and yet find no God ; but had he seriously asked him- self the reason why, he would have soon dis- covered that a God so found would be no God at all. It is possible that God may be seen, though not with the fleshly organ. The telescope is suitable for the stars, and the microscope for the lower living organisms ; but, fine though these instruments are, and marvellous in their revelations, they are all too coarse for the perception and dis- covery of spiritual things. The world is not ex- hausted by what we see and taste and handle. Doubt: how removed. 9 Remembering this, we may be able to perceive a way of removing Doubt. There may be methods of investigation that we do not always sufficiently respect, but which, nevertheless, carry1 in them the means of satisfying earnest inquiry. The method that I adopt is a very simple one. It consists in a statement and analysis of Theistic Experience, together with an explicit reference to its psychological grounds and logical implications. This, and nothing more. Yet it will be found to be very much. I take my stand firmly on ex- perienced fact, on the psychological and historical data on which religion is based, and argue from that in accordance with the acknowledged canons of dialectic. This I hold to be the true method of Philosophy; for philosophy may be defined as the systematic and sustained attempt to turn spon- taneous into reflective thought, and, in doing so, to give explicit expression to the rational presup- positions of human experience. Observe, then, the two parts of the method: Experience, and the Interpretation of experience. On this latter, of course, I place distinct stress. It is the deductive and inferential side of the process, without which the other would be incom- plete. But, just because it is deductive and inferential, many people distrust it. They think 10 The stic Doubt. that inference is a dangerous thing, and they will not allow that anything that needs to be reasoned out, anything that is supported by argument or demonstration, has that degree of validity about it which would justify them in giving it an unreserved acceptance. That is a strange notion, and some- what ludicrous, if it were not also painful. If human nature is to be trusted at all, it must be trusted as much on its intellectual as on its sensa- tional side ; and, though reasoning may undoubtedly err, so too may the senses, and the cure of both is found in Reason itself, whose laws and constitution we know. It is a doubtful compliment to Aris- totle and the logicians of the past two thousand years, to suppose that they have been working all that time and yet have been unable to discover any valid tests of truth and falsehood, of error and correctness; and ill has Evolution been doing its duty these many aeons if it has been evolving us all in the wrong direction, if it has been pro- pagating and continuing life and consciousness and thought by an unceasing //^//-adjustment of organ- ism and environment. The notion is laughable, were it not that it has been a source of much pain to many timid souls. They have been harassed and distressed by it, not perceiving that it is a spectre of their own raising — a fear that has its origin solely in their own weakness. Intuition. 1 1 What, then, is it that timid souls would like in place of this rational procedure ? They would like to be able to apprehend the Deity by an intuition, just as they have (so they express it) an intuitive perception of the external world. Is that reason- able ? Would it answer the purpose, supposing it were given them ? An intuition ! ] The external world itself does not stand so secure in this respect as at first sight it seems to do. Philosophy has little difficult} in shaking our faith in the plain man's crude intuition ; and Science, with its many incontestable facts about the fallaciousness of sight and the other senses,2 leaves us very uncomfortable. Descartes, when he wishes to give expression, in geometrical form, to the reasons that establish the existence of God, has to begin with the postulate: "I request that my readers consider how feeble are the reasons that have hitherto led them to repose faith in their senses, and how uncertain are all the judgments which they afterwards founded on them ; and that they will revolve this consideration in their mind so long and so frequent ly, that, in fine, they may acquire the habit of no longer trusting so confidently in their senses; for I hold that this is necessary to 1 For an historical account of the meanings of Intuition in philo- sophy, sec The Logic of Definition, pp. 176-189. '-'See, for instance, Professor Sully's Illusions. l-_> TJieistic Doubt. render one capable of apprehending metaphysical truths" (Professor Veitch's Descartes, p. 268). To this we must add, that " every assertion of an external world, being an assertion of something beyond the present data of consciousness, must spring from an activity of judgment that does more than merely reduce present data to order. Such an assertion must be an active construction of non-data. We do not receive in our senses, but we posit through our judgment, whatever external world there may for us be " (Dr. Josiah Koyce, in Mind, 1st series, vol. vii. p. 43). X But intuition in religion is pre-eminently pre- earious. It has been tried, and it has failed. Let ns note its nature and its characteristics. By intuition in religion is meant a direct or immediate apprehension of the Divine Being, self- evidencing and unimpeachable, — such a close con- tact of the finite with the Infinite as to forbid in the former all doubt or hesitation as to the exist- ence of the latter : in other words, it is such a clear revelation of God to the individual soul as to assure him absolutely of God's existence and to free him from all harassing or disturbing question- ings or fears regarding it, But, philosophically interpreted, this just means that God is a dictum of consciousness. /Now, what do we understand by God a Dictma of Consciousness. 13 God's being a dictum of consciousness ? We under- stand that the individual has simply to interrogate his own mind, and there he will find the assurance either (1) that God is, or (2) that He is a God of such and such a character. But mark, now, what this signifies. If the deliverance of consciousness be simply that "God is," this can only mean, that ^s<»n<>- 1 hiu< i not-ourselves is"; for the God whose exist- ence is asserted is altogether undefined, He lacks all characterization. He is, therefore, a bare abstrac- tion : and the deliverance of consciousness, even supposing it to be given, would be practically valueless. But the fact of such a deliverance will, I presume, be generally denied, if not contemptu- ously set aside. Whoever claims the testimony of consciousness to God's existence is sure to claim it as declaring a God of such and such attributes or qualities, — a living concrete God, not a lifeless, useless abstraction. Let us accept, then, this form of the intuitive utterance, and note the implications. A man's consciousness assures him i that God is as he conceives Him to be; in other words, that his idea of God exactly corresponds with the reality. But men of differenl ages and of different countries have had very different, and even diametrically opposed, ideas of the Deity. Polytheists, pantheists, monotheists are in irrecon- cilable disagreement. If then people are to be 14 Theistic Doubt. allowed, under the plea of intuition, to identify their idea of God with His existence, the Mahom- etan will interrogate his consciousness and find his God there; the savage will do the same with a similar result, and so on all along the line ; and, as each is positively assured in the matter, and, eoc hypothesi, lias a right to be positively assured, we shall have as the outcome " gods many and lords many," each established on the surest founda- tion, yet some moral, others immoral — some em- bodying a lofty conception, and others representing what is base and ignoble. Intuition; then, lands us in an awkward dilemma. If it merely testify that " something not-ourselves is," and allow us to call this undefined something God, the whole of experience rises up against it and says. " No such testimony does consciousness give "; or if it testify to God as possessing particular characteristics, then, in the face of the great diversity of religious ^ opinion in the world, Whose consciousness is to be accepted as authoritative, the Gentile's or the Jew's >. and on what ground, from within intuition itself, can yon decide this question? But, it may be said, there is another meaning < >f intuition, — viz. , that claimed by the Mystic. We reach God by a special exaltation of spirit, pro- duced by self-abasement and by a process of pious Mysticism. 15 meditation, passive contemplation, prolonged con- centration of the thoughts on the One Great Being; and, having reached God, we find that all dis- tinctions are removed and we ourselves become one with Him in nature, being, and substance. May not this avail us? No! Philosophically regarded, this method is equally futile with the other. For, the process here referred to is senti- mental and individualistic solely; and it lands us in pantheism, not theism. The God of the mystic is an undefined object, — He is simply a permeating essence, or an overshadowing presence: and the individual when absorbed in Him abnegates his rationality. Mysticism is sickly and wanting in robustness; and, being ecstatic and inactive, rests satisfied in impressions that are wholly subjective. It appeals essentially to the passive side of our nature, that side of it which craves for rest and placid repose; but is ineffective in satisfying the intellectual and active side. It is dreamy, and. therefore, obscure; suited at the most for a "eloister'd vertue," but incompetent to bear the stress and pressure of our robuster needs. In vain, then, do we trust to mystical intuition. If God conies to the soul, it must be through the mediation of reason ; and mysticism cannot help us as a philosophical principle. On the contrary, when philosophy becomes mystical it thereby L6 Theistic Doubt. acknowledges its own impotence. It is only when effort seems to be useless that " the mind idealizes Inaction, and seeks a metaphysical basis for it ". Mysticism and scepticism are alike confessions of despair. Both " flourish in the same atmosphere, though in different soils, both, though in different ways, implying the abandonment of the rational problem. The sceptic, the agnostic or positivist of to-day, declares it insoluble, and settles down content to take things as they are; the mystic re- tires into himself, and dreams of a state of being which is the obverse of the world of fact " (Aubrey L. Moore, Essays Sclent [fir and Philosophical, p. His). But, although thus denying that Intuition is of avail as a philosophical # faculty for apprehending the Divinity, I quite grant, of course, that famili- arity with divine things produces an alacrity or readiness to discern them and to perceive their exact nature and import, which is altogether wanting in the absence of such familiarity. This you may, if you care, denominate intuition; but it is. obviously, the result of discipline and practice. None the less important, however, is it on that account ; and its virtue needs to be emphatically recognized. It is only "those who, by reason of use. have their senses exercised " that can be Practice in Religion. 17 accepted as authorities in spiritual things. But this is only saying, in the spiritual sphere, what we say and insist upon in other spheres — in all spheres, indeed, without exception. In the matter of mere seeing, it is the trained eye that best takes in the character and beauty of a landscape, or that, perhaps, alone takes cognizance of an object which is equally within the range of the untrained eye but is unobserved by it. It needs an education to be able to discriminate shades of colour with anything like precision, or exactly to distinguish between certain sounds or tastes or touches. The fallacy in an argument that has entire plausibility about it for the untutored intellect is instantly deteeted by the disciplined logician ; and the sensitive conscience is alone alive to hue moral distinctions. So, practice in Religion produces a wonderful effect in the matter of clearness of apprehension and justness of appreciation of di- vine objects*; and the question whether, on any given occasion, we shall see or not see, is, in great measure, the question whether we arc occupying the right standpoint and are practised in the art of seeing. And this is really what we mean when we say that some men are distinguished by deep spiritual insight, or that they have pre-eminent I \ a genius for religion. Religion is so inwoven into their 18 Theistic Doubt. character, they are so perpetually alert on the spiritual side, that they seize at a glance the truth that less-practised and lower-toned people are labouring to reach but fail to achieve. Here, as everywhere, faculty increases by exercise, and, with faculty, facility. With every advance in spiritual growth, there come greater distinctness of vision, finer susceptibility to spiritual sugges- tions, an increased power of reading spiritual signs or indications, and a firmer hold of spiritual realities. Thus we can distinctly see the true place of authority in things religious. Men, jealous of dogmatism and eager for the rights of private judgment, sometimes speak as though it were irrational, were servile or slavish, to acknowledge dependence on the religious teaching, views, and experiences of others. But, surely, it is rational to submit ourselves for instruction, in any sphere, to men who, we have every reason to believe, have greater insight or fuller knowledge in that sphere than we ourselves possess. A leader in Science commands our assent, just because he is a leader in science — a man who has made science his special study, and has, therefore, a special right to lie heard on his own subject. A Prophet or an Apostle is authoritative, just because he is a prophet or an apostle — because he has a deeper Authority in Religion. 19 experience and a closer familiarity with the divine than the majority of men have. The irrationality is all the other way. " To submit to authority," as Marheineke says, "is not unworthy of a free intelligence ; but what it ought to reserve to itself, is the right to recognize its necessity." " He who excels," says Dr. Johnson, speaking of Dryden, " has a right to teach, and he whose judgment is incontestable may without usurpation examine and decide." " But still," it may be urged, " we cannot give over Intuition ; for a man may hold intercourse with God, may have communion with Him, may speak to Him ' face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend'." Ah yes ! no doubt he may : that is the very essence of piety and devotion ; and this close fellowship and communion is, in the deepest sense, what we mean by Prayer. But note exactly what this communion is. You have just said, "as a man speaketh unto his friend ". That gives you precisely the nature of the act, and points you to the philosophical interpretation. While we are engaged speaking with a friend, self-consciousness is in abeyance : we do not then ask, How comes all this about ? what does it all mean ? It is only when critical reflection sets in, that we come to see 20 Theistic Doubt. its exact character and import. So, while engaged in close communion with God, no one stops to analyze the process. Critical reflection then is not ; and, likely enough, critical reflection is never exercised by many religious persons at all. They simply rest in their devotional experience, and push inquiry no further. As Principal Caird puts it : " In the attitude of devotion, in simple faith and communion with God, the spiritual mind seems to be in immediate converse with its objects, and to have the same assurance of their reality which the ordinary consciousness has of the reality of the external world. The certainty of that which it knows is bound up with the certainty which it has of itself. It seems to know God and divine things, not by the intermediation of any process of proof, but because in its own conscious- ness there is a revelation of their presence which is beyond the reach of doubt. It does not ask how it comes to know God, or how it is possible for the individual mind to transcend its own limitations and attain to a knowledge of objective realities \ It does not ask how it can verify their existence or justify its own conceptions of them? They arc there, and the sense of their reality comes to it with a force of conviction which it feels no need to define or defend" [Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, pp. 41, 42). But once let critical Devotion. 2 1 reflection supervene, once let us lie driven to think, either by our descent from the Pisgah-height or by the upstarting of doubt in the mind, and immediately it is seen that the Object of devotion, with whom in prayer we hold intercourse, is assured to us just as the existence of a friend or of a brother is assured to us — not by intuition, hut by inference. We have no intuition of a fellow-man's existence. We do not see his soul, even as we see his body ; he simply makes his existence and his presence felt by certain outward signs and manifestations and by his producing certain effects, and these we regard as infallibly demonstrative. Each one's own being alone is known to him directly : and yet no sane man would think of maintaining that he himself is the sole existence in the universe, or that all other living beings are illusions. Devotion, then, remains, and the facts of the religious life remain; and, in denying Intuition as the organ of perceiving the divine. I simply deny that God is known to us in any other way than kindred human souls are known to us, or that His presence is discoverable save through its effects. And here may he the place to say a word on the language of devotion. To some, this language seems extravagant and reprehensible, and bespeaks the visionary. But devotion, he it remembered, is 22 Theistic Doubt. not simply rational,— it is deeply touched with emotion : it is the attachment of the heart, a.s well as the assent of the understanding, — it is union with God through the medium of feeling. That being so, it would surely be the very height of un-^ reason to expect the impassioned soul to restrict itself to the unimpassioned utterances of reason. All strong feeling expresses itself strongly, and why should religious feeling be an exception ? Affection, indeed, when it runs deep, is often undemonstrative. But times come when the flood-gates are opened, and the streams pour forth. Where affection is real, it is ever intense; and intensity is not incompatible with permanence. Intensity is only incompatible with permanence when it is a mere play upon the nerves, an unhealthy physical excitement. But religious love is not of this description ; and, as the Object of it is unique, the advice of the Son of Sirach is only soberest reason : " When ye glorify the Lord, exalt Him as much as ye can ; for even yet will He far exceed : and when ye exalt Him, put forth all your strength, and be not weary; for ye can never go far enough ". Moreover, devotion is the pouring forth of the grateful and adoring heart to the Great Being in whom alone it finds rest and satisfaction ; and when the pious man represents the Object Language of Devotion. 23 of his worship as being his all in all, as dwelling in him and working in him and transforming him, he gives no greater signs of being a visionary than does one friend deeply attached to another when he represents that other as constantly occupying his thoughts and guiding his conduct. The results of true friendship are, indeed, mar- vellous : yet, there they are. A being not myself can so lay hold of me, so attract me by the purity of his character or by the superiority of his wisdom or by the strength of his will, as to become my loadstar ; and he can so seat himself in my affec- tions as to be, in more than a metaphor, " a second self" to me. The manner, indeed, that spirit can thus act on spirit is in the last result inexplicable ; but the fact of such action is itself beyond dispute. So, the pious man finds God to be his Loadstar. He enthrones Him in his heart, he submits to Him with his will, and accepts His law as his rule of conduct. Is it visionary, then, to say that God dwells in him ? Is it visionary to represent himself as being in God? If this were all that mysticism meant, then are we all mystics : every man who really loves the God whom he avows, and allows himself to be guided by His word, every man who has a vivid conviction of the reality of God and of his own personal relations with Him. 24 Theistic Doubt. Note, now, another point. Earnest seekers after truth, and religiously minded men, disturbed by doubt, yet tenacious of faith, are apt to com- plain (inwardly to groan) that God's existence should be capable of doubt at all ; and non-theists make it an argument against Theism that the evidence is not so plain as to put it beyond all possibility of dispute. " God, if He existed," they say, " would so reveal Himself to man that no one could deny Him." Now, the nature of the demand here made is perfectly intelligible ; and, in the form of a longing or desire, I daresay, we are all acquainted with it, It is the "cry out of the depths," which every earnest soul can understand. But, though intelligible, is this demand just ( Observe, in the first place, regarding it, that the longing or the sigh that prompts it is only a part of a much wider sigh or longing : it is only a part of that more general desire to be freed from un- certainty or hesitation of every kind that one ex- periences when tired out with the problems and perplexities of life. Difficulties have to be un- ravelled, not only in religion, but in ethics and psychology and metaphysics, in politics, society, and art ; and every student, in whatever sphere, is apt to grow disheartened sometimes, and. in his gloomier moods, to curse or to bewail his fate. The Demand for Absolute Certainty. 25 But then, observe next, the demand for ab- solute certainty is really at bottom irrational. The ground of all progress here is, unquestionably. activity: activity is the very condition of life. .Man is essentially an active being, in soul as well as in body; and his intellectual and his spiritual nature can only thrive through exercise. Remove, then, all possibility of doubt with regard to the supersensible, and you remove the very condition of our spiritual health and growth ; you atrophy the spiritua4 organ, and replace life and vigour by stagnation and death. Then, lastly, man's very nature — the very constitution of his being — implies two things : it implies the possibility of ignorance, and it implies the possibility of sin. Such is his make, and yon cannot help it : you can only work with the material that you have. It is not, therefore, of man but of another being that you are thinking. when you demand that knowledge shall l>c perfecl —shall be full, and thoroughly adequate, and at all points beyond the range of question ; and that would not be man, but a creature of your own imagination, a mental fiction, in whom the fact <>)' spiritual corruption made no difference to his power of spiritual perception. If absolute certainty, then, may not be had. 26 Theistic Doubt. what kind of certainty may? The answer we shall see, after a moment's consideration. I have already said that we know nothing immediately save onr own selves; l all other objects are, in comparison, mediately cognized. But, amongst these other objects, there are some of whose existence we have much greater assurance than of others, — some of whose existence we can hardly doubt, any more than we can doubt of our own existence. How comes this about ? How comes it, for example, that we think it almost irrational to dispute the existence of the external material world, or of our friends and comrades, or of other human beings in general ? The reasons are— (1) First, that these external objects, or these fellow-men, are constantly present with ns and palpable to the senses ; (2) secondly, that it is by things external that we are first impressed, and, through them, first become aware of our own self- activity, and (as Berkeley says) " what first seizes holds fast " (Siris, § 294) ; and (3), thirdly, that things external are perpetually making their presence felt by us. Wherever we turn we are, as it were, stumbling up against them ; and the vivid- ness with which they affect ns very much prevents 1 There is no need, for our present purpose, to obtrude at this point the distinction between the immediate consciousness of mental states and the relatively indirect cognition of the unity of the Ego. Example of Perception of External World. '11 our entertaining doubts as to their reality or being. Hence, when away from friends or absent from well-known objects or places, we try to keep alive our remembrance of them, and, therefore, to stimulate our sense of their reality, by photo- graphs or pictures of them, or, it may be, by keeping in our possession relics, or mementoes of them, — a friend's staff, a lock of hair, a stone from a mountain, a piece of wood from a forest, a flower from a hill-side, a shell or pebble from the sea-shore. The presence of these brings up memories of the person or the places or the ob- jects wherewith they are associated, and the absent and the departed are thereby brought nearer to us, and we feel their power. "How comes it, then," it may be asked, "that we have not the same uhdoubting belief in the reality and existence of God as we have of these '. Does not the want of this belief tell against the theistic position ? " This is, undoubtedly, a very proper question to ask : and it may, I think, be satisfactorily answered. It really resolves itself into this : How come things that appeal to the senses external objects to have an apparently greater certainty to us than spiritual things, especially than the Supreme Being Himself I To this, I answer : — 28 Theistic Doubt. (1) First, that we need not suppose it to be because the Supreme Being is absent from us, while these are always present with us ; for, mere presence of an object does not necessarily ensure our cognizance of it. Many objects may be about ' us and within our ken which, nevertheless, from want of having the attention tinned to them, remain unknown to us. It is only what we attend to that we can know ; an unobserved thing and a thing non-existent are for us practically the same. Moreover, constant familiarity with a thing may blunt our apprehension of its presence and its existence :— " That is the truly secret which lies ever open before us ; And the least seen is that which the eye constantly sees ". The difference, therefore, (2) secondly, seems to lie in the superior power that external material objects have of drawing our attention to them, of exciting our interest in them, or of compelling us to concentrate our mind upon them. Is this actually the case? I think not. External objects have no power of attracting the attention, if we voluntarily exclude them from our view. The lives and sky and fields, the flowers and grass, the lovely scenery, outside the room in which I am now wiiting, are impotent to impress me if I close my eyes or draw down the blind. By fiercely Condition* of Objective Perception. 29 concentrating my attention on a single object, I shut out the consciousness of all other objects, even of those in the immediate neighbourhood, which would otherwise lie within my range. There are conditions of objective perception ; and, unless these conditions be conformed to, the external object cannot make its power felt. So, God may be present with us, and His presence may be in- dubitably realized, if we conform to the condi- tions. But mark that qualification " if we conform to the conditions " ; for therein, I think, lies the whole explanation. If we erect a barrier between£■'"■", ourselves and Him, if we interpose a concealing object, if we voluntarily turn away our attention, or preoccupy ourselves with other objects, we therel>\ necessarily shut out God from our view. And, un- fortunately, the temptation to such preoccupation, or such voluntary withdrawing of the attention, is very great, It is so easy to lay hold of a material object, and the presence of such an object so fre- quently ministers to our self-indulgence and appeals to that indolent and languid side of our nature which is so strong in most of us, that we rest eon- tent in this lower plane and refuse to rise into the higher, which it would take trouble, effort, and self- sacrifice to reach, and where the lower indulgences are not. But once let us rise into this higher plane, once let us open the soul's eye to the heavenly pros- 30 Theistic Doubt. pect, and divine things will be found to be not less impressive, and our conviction of their reality equally strong, yea, stronger. Yet, because of the constant pressure of external things, with our in- evitable practical interest in them, and for many other reasons, the chief of them being moral, it will be difficult for us to maintain ourselves in the right attitude for perceiving spiritual reality ; and so helps, memorials, symbols will be needed. We shall require, in this sphere, something correspond- ing to the staff of an absent friend or the pebble of a once-traversed but now distant shore. These are fasts and feasts, the sacraments and ordinances, the rites and ceremonies, practised, with more or less detail, by every religion. But I have just said that, if we conform to certain conditions, our conviction of the Divine will become as strong as, yea stronger limn, our conviction of material realities. Is this so \ Yes ; because God, the Divine Being, stands to us in the relation of a living person; and we all know how intercourse and communion with a living person, when heart goes forth to heart, and spirit touches spirit, is a more intimate thing than converse with external nature. And if it be so, as I believe, that external nature itself has its perennial charm and interest for us mainly through the fact of its being supported by the Schiller and Tennysort. 31 Divine, then we can see, intellectually, bow God's existence should be held with even a higher as- surance, by those who keep their hearts and minds open, than even the existence of objective reality. Yon see, then, the answer to our question. Our question was, How comes it that external material objects — things that we can see and taste and handle — affect us more strongly than spiritual objects? And the answer is. That, /'// themselves, they do not : the difference, where it exists, lies, not in the object, but in the subject. It is the man himself that makes all the difference. He has the power of voluntary attention; and there are many reasons, well known and thoroughly under- stood, why he should be averse to exercise this power in the spiritual sphere. It is a fact of experience thoroughly attested, apart altogether from Scripture revelation, that "blessed art1 the pure in I/curt, for they shall see God". "What," says Schiller, "no intellect of the intellectual sees, is practised in simplicity by a childlike heart." And finely has our own poet sung : — 1 >ark is the world to thee : thyself arl the reason wh] : For is lie not all hut thou, that hast power to feel " I am [ "? Glory about Thee, without thee; and thou EuMllesI thy doom Making Him broken gleams, and a stilled splendour and •doom. 32 Theistic Doubt. Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet — Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see ; But if we could see and hear, this Vision — were it not He '.' (Tennyson, The Higher Pantheism.) LECTURE II. ANALYSIS OF HUMAN NATURE : EXPOSITORY AND HISTORICAL. I. Nothing at first sight seems simpler, as nothing in the history of thought may appear older, than knowledge of human nature. Such knowledge, in a rough and ready way, must have begun with the first man who turned his thoughts inwards and reflected upon his own acts and motives, or who watched the actions of other men and compared them with his own. But nothing is really more difficult, as nothing is more complex ; and the wisest counsel of the ancient Greek sages, to which also has been assigned a divine origin, was "Know thyself".1 Self-knowledge, or knowledge of man in the workings of his mind and in the hidden springs of his conduct, is, and must neces- 1 See Juvenal, Satires, XI 27: "E caelo deseendit yvwBi crem tov ". The advice has been attributed to each of the seven wise men, as well as to the Delphic Oracle; but the latter, impressed bj the difficulty of self-knowledge, toils over the expression of it in lumber- ing spondees (Xenophon, Gyropcedia, vii. 2): — Savrov yiyvuxriuav evbaipav, Kpolcre, 7repdrreis (Thyself knowing, Croesus, thou shah happily live then). 3 (33) 34 Analysis of' Human Nature sarily be, a progressive thing. Implying as it does accurate observation and clear steady insight, to- gether with analytical power of a very high order, it could not have been a thing of very early de- velopment ; and, before it could assume anything like a scientific or philosophical aspect, it needed the co-operation of many thinkers and many analysts, and a wide experience, involving the study not only of the individual human being, but of social manners, ways, and institutions, and the comparison of different peoples and different races of mankind. No wonder, then, that the science of human nature should really be one of late, rather than of early, origin ; and no wonder that, even at the present day, there should remain a vast deal to be done. The difficulties attaching to it are of the follow- ing kind. The individual mind can be reached < lirectly only by the individual himself. Nobody but myself knows exactly what the contents of my own consciousness at any particular moment are, or what the inward springs or motives of my actions. But even I myself, when 1 turn my attention inwards, am met by seemingly insuperable diffi- culties. When I withdraw within myself and try to note and analyze and classify my conscious ex- Difficulties of Psychological Introspection. 35 periences ; when I set myself to watch my own thoughts and feelings and volitions — to mark their nature, their strength, their sequence, their combinations, the conflicts among them and the coalitions ; when I study them at one time, as far as may be, in isolation, and endeavour at another time to obtain a distinct view of their mutual dependence and tout ensemble, — I am apparently upon the safe ground of inner obser- vation, where everything seen is a present fact, carrying its own meaning and the evidence of its existence within itself. But, in reality, I am here dependent on memory and reflection : intro- spection is in great measure retrospection. The mental phenomena that I mark and examine are fleeting states or passing moods, and ere ever I can combine them, or reflect upon them, I have to unite the present with the memory of the past ; and what security have T that Memory is exact '. — Again, T rim the risk, more particu- larly in the case of motives, of inaccurate obser- vation, taking the complex for the simple; over and above the circumstance that, in dealing with my motives, I am apt to deceive myself, to substitute the counterfeit for the real. — Again, my inner nature, in order to be studied accurately, must be studied in a calm, philosophic mood. \'wo alike from prejudice and from passion. But, long before I reach the 36 Analysis of Human Nature. stage of self-reflection, I have acquired a mass of preconceived opinion, resting for the most part on authority ; and, when I approach the work of deliberate introspection, I bring' with me partial- ities and prejudices as to what I am to find and what not to find, and my eye is fain to see only what it brings the powrer to see. — Then, lastly, the very act of inward observation is an analytic one. We must discriminate and classify — separ- ating feelings from cognition, and cognition from will. But the mind is in reality a unity, — an organic unity, — whose operations are in most intimate connexion with each other, and with the whole. There is no such thing as pure thought, or pure will, or pure feeling. What we find is simply that, in every mental state. there is a predominating element — feeling, voli- tion, thought ; and from this predominating factor the particular state takes its distinctive desig- nation. There are difficulties, then, in the study of human nature from the side of individual con- sciousness. But the individual is not the sole reality in the universe ; and help may be got from studying other individuals, by carefully noting and examining the effects of mind as shown in human language, customs, institutions, as also by com- Helps to Introspection. 37 paring man's work and actions with those of the lower animals. Helpful, however, as this is, it is not absolutely infallible. On the contrary, in dealing with others, we are necessarily thrown upon inference; and how can we be certain that our grounds of inference are secure ? Our starting- point is necessarily ourselves; and, unless we know ourselves, how can we know others \ .More- over, men may dissemble ; and we ourselves may err in the interpretation of signs, or in the under- standing of speech. And, as for analogy between man and the brutes, — it may be only a seeming one, or, at least, may be much less reliable, as a ground of evidence, than is frequently supposed. All this I mention, not with any design to prove that knowledge of human nature is impossible, but simply with the view of pointing out the difficulties of the subject, and of showing reason why we should be prepared for the late origin and slow progress of scientific anthropology. So Car am 1 from believing that knowledge of human nature is impossible, that I have a very firm conviction that such knowledge is at this moment very full and has reached a high degree of accuracy. And what the nature and extent of it arc, will best he brought out, I think, if we take a rapid historical survey of it. 38 Analysis of Human Nature. II. 1. Plato. I naturally begin with Plato. Man, according to Plato, consists of two parts — a body and a soul. His soul is of a triple nature, partly rational and immortal, partly ir- rational and mortal ; the irrational being again divided into two — the spirited or courageous and the appetitive or lustful. Each of these three divisions of the soul has a separate habitation in the body. The head is the seat of the rational soul (to Xoyio-TLKOv) ; the spirited soul (to tfu/xoeiSe?) is located in the breast, and the appetitive soul (to kTTiBv^TiKov) in the lower regions. It is of the nature of passion, much more of lust, to be law- less and rebellious; Reason's function is to bring both under due control, to harmonize and to restrain them. Hence, in the Phwdrus, the soul is represented as a charioteer, riding in a chariot drawn by two winged steeds ; fiercely struggling often to curb and guide the dark and vicious horse, which is ever wont to be troublesome and re- fractory. Hence, too, in the Republic (ix. 12), man is represented as a compound of a hydra- headed monster, a lion and a man ; and his great aim should be to tame the lion and subdue the monster, and gain for "the inner man (o ivTbs Plato's Conception of Reason. 39 aivdptoiros)1 the entire mastery of the man". This ordering and controlling power of reason is obviously ethical; for, it is in the placing of rational restraint on the lower nature that morality emerges. But, besides this guiding and order-giving function of Reason, there is another, and, in some respects, a higher function. For man, besides being a bundle of impulses which need to be rationalized, is also an intellectual being, with definite perceptive relations to the world around him, and with the power of understanding and interpreting the meaning of things. As thus con- ceived, he is in part a creature of sense, passively receiving the impressions that are made upon him from without, but in part also an active thinker with divine insight, penetrating below the mere sense-impressions, and grasping the reality that underlies phenomena. He is the member of an intelligible world, and, as such, has the power of freeing himself from the limitations and the de- ceptions of the senses, and of bringing himself into contact with the eternal Ideas, which are the sole true existence, all else being but shadow and appearance. These supersensible Ideas have objective being; they are both paradeigmata or patterns, supersensible counterparts of the sensible, 1 Compare with St. Paul's rbv eVw av6pmirov of Romans vii. 22. 40 Analysis of Human Nature. and efficient causes (though how these two things can be reconciled, Plato does not say) ; they constitute a graduated system, at the top of which stands the Good — comprehending all, harmonizing all, — and this highest of all, this summum genus, designated the Good, is God. This "idea of the Good " is, according to the famous allegory of the Cave, given at the opening of the seventh book of the Republic, — "the last object of vision, as respects human knowledge, and hard to be seen ; but, when seen, it must be inferred to be the cause of all that is right and beautiful in all things, begetting in what is seen light and light's sovereign (the sun), and being itself, in Avhat is intelligible, the sovereign producing truth and intelligence ". Man's kinship to God is to be found both in his rational and in his moral nature. It is by the speculative reason, together with moral conduct founded on reason, that he attains to knowledge of the divine ; and, through the persistent exercise of philosophic contemplation and upright living, he is rendered more and more like to God. A leading distinction with Plato is that be- tween man's body and his soul. Except in the Timceus, the body, though mortal, is not regarded as essentially vile; it is not (as Plotinus, later on, held) the origin and source of sin (sin is a disease, and arises either from ignorance or from madness). Plato and the Immortality of the Soul. 4 1 It is simply the prison of the soul — a clog or hindrance, therefore, to the highest perfection, and the occasion or condition of moral evil : and, until man is freed from it, he has not full scope for the development of his higher self. Death, then, is to be welcomed, not feared — it is a blessing, not a curse ; and our present life is a season of probation in preparation for that great event. The soul, on the other hand, is immortal. Hut, if immortal, then also pre-existent. Immortality and pre-existence stood or fell together in the mind of Plato. And this for various reasons. In the first place, the metaphysical arguments, or arguments based on the nature of the soul, on which Plato laid such stress (seen, e.g., in the Phoedo), proved both or neither. If it be so that the very essence of the soul implies Life, then the life that is implicated must have an eternal past as well as a never-ending future. In the next place, Plato taught the doctrine (adopted, no doubt, from Pythagorean sources), of the transmigration of souls, — which was simply his way, as it was also Origen's and Lessing's way, of expressing what lias come to be known in these later ages as the neces- sity for a progressive purification of the sinner, and the need of a cleanzing process, if not actually a probationary period, hereafter as well as here. Judgment full and minute follows death, and 42 Analysis of Human Nature. reward is proportioned to merit.1 Lastly, the doctrine of pre-existence was needed to explain the fact that truth is attainable by man at all, and that Virtue can be taught : the theory of Heredity had not yet occurred to the philosophic mind as suggestive of a satisfactory solution. In the Meno, the question is distinctly raised, — " How, then, can you search for that of which you know nothing ; and how, even if you find it, can you be sure that you have got it ? " And the answer is returned the same that we find in many other Dialogues of Plato, — "Reminiscence": i.e., truth is latent in the mind ; and, in learning here, we only revive what we have known elsewhere. Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar ; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home. Two other points remain to be noticed. First, man, in the Timams, is viewed as a microcosm, of which the universe is the macrocosm. The same 1 The doctrine of metempsychosis may have a twofold ground. It may be based either (a) on the metaphysical consideration of the nature of the soul, or (b) on the demands of Conscience for the due punishment of the transgressor. Plato $ Analysis of Human Nature. 4:$ elements that are found in the one are discoverable also in the other, — only, on a larger scale. The world has a soul, no less than man ; and in this soul-inspired world mass, as in man, we can discern a nous or mind, a psyche or soul, and a soma or body. Secondly, man is essentially a social being, and he has necessarily relations to the State. Hence, in the Ideal Republic, man's threefold soul finds its concrete counterparts in the grades or classes of the citizens. The highest class or rulers represent the rational element; the spirited or courageous factor is embodied in the soldiers ; and the artizans, agriculturists, and tradesmen stand for the appetitive soul. Such, in brief, is Plato's analysis of Human Nature and his doctrine of Man. Note now. about it, various things. (1) First, on the ethical side, Plato draws a clear distinction between reason and the passions: ascribing law and order to the former, and lawless- ness and licence to the latter, and laying upon reason the duty of restraining or controlling the unruly impulses. In this way, he bears testimony to the fact of disorder or a rupture in man's nature, and lends the weight of his authority to the teaching that the real truth of morality lies in the ideal. 44 Analysis of Human Nature. (2) Next, this rupture is more deeply seated than in the mere antagonism of the body to the soul. That the body is frail and liable to disease, and that it is even in itself an impediment to the soul, Plato indeed emphasizes : he even calls it, in due Orphic fashion, "our sepulchre" and "prison," and wonders, in one place, whether the earthly life of soul united to body does not give the proper meaning of Death : " for, indeed, I should not wonder if Euripides speaks the truth when he says, 'Who knows whether to live is not death, and to die, life ? ' : (Gorgias, 104). But he does not regard the body as the cause of sin, — only its instrument and occasion ; nor does he admit that we have a right to cut the thread and hasten the consummation of the separation of soul from body. On the contrary, Suicide is strictly condemned by him : we are not our own (he tells us), but belong to God, and must await the summons hence at His good pleasure. (3) Thirdly, he is very explicit in his teaching that man can rise above mere sense ; and that, if he does not, he remains simply in the region of shadows and delusions. Through his intellectual nature, through his speculative power, he is akin to God. (4) Lastly, man is akin to God also through holy living; for, holiness and justice are Divine Aristotle's Conception of the Deity. 45 attributes, and Plato's philosophy is supremely ethical. *J. Aristotle. As with Plato, so with Aristotle : human nature is characterized by the attribute of Reason. On the side of speculative reason (La), man can attain to truth; on the side of practical reason (^pdi^o-i?), he is possessed of the con- sciousness of right and has the power of forming character. On both sides, he sets himself an ideal ; an ideal of knowledge, on the one hand, — of character and conduct, on the other. It is only, however, in intellectual or speculative reason that he approximates to God : this is the " divine element" in his nature, constituting his "true self" (Ethics, X., vii. 8, 9). The Deity, therefore, is simply Self-consciousness: Aristotle defines His life, in a classical passage (Metaphysics, XL, ix. 4), as "the thinking upon thought". He has not moral qualities; indeed, ethical attributes are (see Ethics, X., viii. 7) distinctly denied Him, and His life, "which surpasses all others in blessed- ness," is declared to consist in contemplation. The proof of His existence may. as Socrates main- tained, be found in the marks of Design so visible in the universe; but Aristotle's great demonstra- tion was cosmological. Observing in ordinary 46 Analysis of Human Nature. experience that things move only when set in motion, he concluded that the world, as an ordered system of things in motion, needed for its existence a moving cause ; and so he posited the Deity as the prime mover or first cause of motion, " Himself un- moved the while ". This, however, must not be con- founded with the conception of God as the Creator of the universe. Such a conception was quite alien to Aristotle's thought. The universe, no less than God, existed from eternity ; and the prime mover was simply the immanent principle of Reason in the world, — reason pervading the universe, not outside it, and the object to the universe of desire. Once, indeed, in the eleventh book of the Metaphysics, the idea of God as dis- tinct from and independent of the universe seems to have dawned upon Aristotle ; but it did not rise into clear light of day. He there represents the Deity as standing to the world in the relation of a general to his army, — which seems to imply the notion of a personal overruling Providence. But this is a solitary passage, and not much can be built upon it; although it seemed quite enough to justify the Schoolmen in claiming Aristotle as a pure theist, at the time when the Stagirite reigned supreme in the schools. Man, while a rational being, is also an animal ; and, alone of animals, is endowed with speech. In Aristotelian Anthropology. 47 many points, he resembles the brutes. Like them, he has appetites and desires; but while, with the brutes, these arc simply instinctive wants and appetencies, with man they are brought under the control of will — that is, are associated with a wish for the good, with a desire for welfare (evSoufjiovia), — am I thereby are rationalized. This rationalizing is nothing else than imposing law and order (for reason is law) upon elements that would other- wise be lawless and indeterminate. Man is further social, and the individual is practically subordinated to the State ; for, the chief good of the one is the chief good of the other, and the state, as being the greater of the two, has the paramount interest. Now, the chief good of the state is the cultivation and develop- ment of speculative thought ; and that is the chief good of the individual too. As Sir Alexander Grant pithily puts it, "Aristotle thought that the highest aim for a State was to turn out philo- sophers, and that the highest aim for an indi- vidual was to be a philosopher" {Aristotle, p. KM).1 Man's soul is in the closest connexion with his body; the union is even so intimate that the former cannot be defined at all except in terms expressive 1 See also Grote's Fragments "H Ethical Subjects, Essays v. and \i. ; or Chapters xiii. and xiv. of the second edition of his Aristotle. 48 Analysis of Human Nature. of its relation to the latter.1 Nevertheless, the soul is not wholly mortal. Those functions of it that are concerned with nutrition, sentience, and the like, perish ; but the Intellect is immortal. Not the whole intellect, however, but only the active and creative portion of it ; for, Aristotle draws a distinction between the passive and the active intellect (at least, he does so in the De A hi inn, although not in any other of his treatises), and the latter alone survives death. Here is the leading passage on the subject, as translated by Edwin Wallace : — " The same differences, however, as are found in nature as a whole must be characteristic also of the soul. Now in nature there is on the one hand that which acts as material substratum to each class of objects, this being that which is potentially all of them : on the other hand, there is the element which is causal and creative in virtue of its produc- ing all things, and which stands towards the other in the same relation as that in which art stands towards the materials on which it operates. Thus reason is, on the one hand, of such a character as to become all things, on the other hand of such a 1 Aristotle's famous definition of the Soul is, " The first entelechv (or perfeel realization) of a natural organized body, having life potentially ". For explanation, see, in particular, Edwin Wallace's Aristotle's Psychology, Introduction, pp. xii., etc. See, also, Sir A. Grant's Ethics of Aristotle. Th< Aft ire Intellect. 49 nature as to weate all things, acting then much in the same way as some positive quality, such as for instance light : for light also in a way creates actual out of potential colour. This phase of reason is separate from and uncompounded with material conditions, and, being in its essential character fully and actually realized, it is not sub- ject to impressions from without : for the creative is in every case more honourable than the passive, just as the originating principle is superior to the matter which it forms. And thus, though know- ledge as an actually realized condition is identical with its object, this knowledge as a potential capacity is in time prior in the individual, though in universal existence it is not even in time thus prior to actual thought, Further, this creative reason does not at one time think, at another time not think: [it thinks eternally:] and when separ- ated from the body it remains nothing but what it essentially is: and thus it is alone immortal and eternal. Of this unceasing work of thought, how- ever, we retain no memory, because this reason is unaffected by its objects: whereas the receptive passive intellect (which is affected) is perishable, and can really think nothing without the support of t he creative intellect " ( De . \ nima, iii. 5). This at once raises the question, What precisely was the kind of immortality that Aristotle per- 4 50 Analysis of Human Nature. mitted to the soul, or, rather, to that part of it denominated the Active Intellect ? Was it per- sonal or was it impersonal ? If left simply to logical inference, we should distinctly say " im- personal," for future existence without memory would be the same thing as absorption into the Deity, and Averroes had unquestionably good ground for maintaining that, according to Aristotle, men exist after death but not as individuals, only as constituents of the universal intellect common to mankind. Yet, Aristotle himself drew no such inference. In the Ethics (i. 11), he even inclines to the contrary opinion. When discussing the question, whether the fortunes of survivors affect the dead, he pronounces the negative answer to be " too cold and too much opposed to popular opinion " ; but, at the same time, he is not at all strong on the affirmative side. He is cautious and hesitative to a degree, and his final conclusion is simply this : " It seems then — to conclude — that the prosperity, and likewise the adversity, of friends does affect the dead, but not in such a way or to such an extent as to make the happy unhappy, or to do anything of* the kind" (Mr. F. H. Peters's transl.). It is not, however, in the question of immor- tality that Aristotle's interest centres, but in mental processes and the analysis of the soul's functions. Greek and Hebrew Theism Compared. 51 It is to Aristotle, therefore, that we trace the beginning of scientific Psychology; and from him was derived the first great impulse to psycholog- ical investigation, the effects of which are discernible at the present day. :j. The Bible. From what lias now been said, it will he seen that both to Plato and to Aristotle, and (as these are typical in this respect) to the ancient Greek philosophers generally, man is first and chiefly an intellectual being, and his affinity to the Divine is mainly, if not wholly, on the side of the theoretical or speculative reason. Neither Plato nor Aristotle based Theism in the emotions, and the latter dis- tinctly disowned theistic ethics. The reason is not far to seek. As the Greek philosophers naturally waged an uncompromising war againsl the baseness and degradation of the popular mythology, their zeal was apt to carry them into the extreme of denying that there was any truth whatever in the popular conceptions; and Plato cuts God thus far off from man at one point that, in the Republic (ii. 20, 21), he maintains that a Divine theophany, or a Divine incarnation, or a Divine revelation to man by dreams, visions, and the like, would be a subversion of the Divine nature; it would he equivalent to saying that God could change from 52 Analysis of Human Nature. a better state to a worse, and could associate Him- self with falsehood and deceit. But it is entirely different when we pass from the Greeks to the Hebrews. To the ancient Jew, man is pre-eminently an ethical being, and his speculative ability is quite secondary. Indeed, accentuation of man's moral nature, carrying with it the teaching that man is a spirit, a free ego, and as such has a unique personal worth and dignity, is the leading distinctive contribution of the Jews to the analysis of human nature : he is both " but little lower than God (Elohim)," being "crowned with glory and honour," and has natural lord- ship, deputed authority, dominion over the lower animals. Hebraism is further unique in this respect that it clearly sees that the disorder in man's nature is deeper than any intellectual impotence, deeper too than the opposition of the Appetites and the Reason ; that it is a breach in his being, caused by his own self-will and having connexion with his relation to the Supreme. Re- move this disorder, and all will be well. But the removal of this disorder means help from without, help from a higher source than himself. The great cause of human misery is guilt, and the highest human happiness is ethical fellowship with God, union and communion with the Divine. Wrw the Jewish ethics joins on to theology. Ethical Character of Hebraic Thought. 53 But the theology itself is essentially ethical. While, on the one hand, the Jew regarded man as eminently a moral being, lie no less regarded God as the Moral Counterpart of man. God is the Creator and Sustainer, indeed, but He is, above all, the giver of the Decalogue; and, in enjoining the Ten Commandments direct from heaven, He shows that morality is both heaven's great c6ncern and man's chief need. Human nature, in other words, is to the Jew a coin struck in the celestial mint; the reverse representing man in his ethical aspirations, and the obverse representing God as their source, fulfilment, and completion. Hence the further contribution to psychological theism in the idea of God's pardoning guilt. The Emotions, no less than the moral sense, have now a place in theism. A vast advance is made when it is seen that " mercy and truth are met to- gether; righteousness and peace have kissed each other ". And what is true of the Hebrew faith is no less true of Christianity. All that was distinctive of the former, in anthropology and theology alike, was taken up and vitalized and purified and deepened by the latter. Regenerate man i> man still, — only, his powers and the capacities of Ins being acquire a fresh energy, and a new direction is oriven to his aims and his affections. 54 Analysis of Human Nature Now, the Bible doctrine of Man came early into contact with Greek philosophy, and was a potent factor in moulding philosophical concep- tions. There were action and reaction, no doubt: but the distinctive Hebrew mark was indelibly impressed, and it is unambiguously apparent in Western philosophy at the present day. It be- comes necessary, then, to consider briefly this Bible doctrine, and to give it its rightful place in the current of theistic thought. The Hebrew teaching about Man all circles round three psychological terms. These three terms are, — Spirit, Soul, and Heart (ruach, nep- hesh, lebab or lei) ; translated into Greek by pneuma, psyche, kardia). Each of these terms is used both in an. exceedingly loose and general fashion, and also in a more accurate and restricted manner. Thus, Spirit (ruach) designates (ft) breath, (A) wind, (r) life or vital principle, () soul or vital principle, {(•) mind. While heart (lebab) is either a synonym for soul, of else does duty with equal impartiality, in the expression of mental phenomena and states. as an intellectual, an emotive, and a volitional term. Yet, in the midst of all this confusion, there can be traced a central conception char- acteristic of each term, and to which that term Spirit in the Old Testament. 55 (and no other) is most properly applied. \\ 'hat, then, are the characteristic conceptions of the three words { They are these. The one great idea attaching to Spirit (rnaeli or pnemiia) is given quite early in the Old Testa- ment. It is unfolded at the very commencement of* the book of Genesis; where creative energy of a particular kind is ascribed to the Spirit of God, and where the action of this Spirit is represented as a brooding over the face of the waters, vivifying and cherishing, as a hen does in the process <»! incubation. The chief product of Divine creative power is, immediately after, declared to be .Man ; and while one part of man (his body) is simply "dust of the ground," the other and higher part is expressed as "the breath of life, breathed into his nostrils," whereby he became "a living soul". Now, what is meant by this "breath of life," and what by this special act of " breathing " 1 There can be little doubt that the meaning underlying both is, that man is himself a spirit, having drawn his life from the formative Spirit, and that to this formative Spirit he stands in a special personal and close relationship. It is what Elihu, later on. interprets, "But there is a spirit (ruach, pneuma) in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding"; or what dob distinctly characterizes when, speaking of himself, he says, 56 Analysis of Human Nature. "All the while my breath is in me, and the Spirit of God (not the Holy Spirit, but the Trvevpa Oalov, as the Septuagint has it) is in my nostrils " ; or what the Proverbs (as interpreted by St. Paul in 1 Corinth, ii. 11) indicates in the sentence,— "The spirit (literally, breath) of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the innermost parts of the belly". In other words, according to the Crea- tion narratives, Man is a heaven-descended God- related being, he bears in himself the image of the Deity; and this Divine relationship (derived from the "Father of spirits," from "the God of the spirits of all flesh ") constitutes him a spirit : because of his heavenly origin, he is himself a ruacli or pneuma.1 What, then, of Soul (nephesh or psyche)? On its physiological side, it is simply life or vital principle ; but, on its psychological side, it is the emotive and volitional part of man,— his "glory," as several of the Psalms express it. If man is a "spirit" because he shares in the image of the Deity, he is a " soul " both because he lives and because lie is possessed of feeling and of will. Next, Heart (leb or lebab) : what is designated 1 Whether the narrative of the Creation of man be regarded as the literal account of an historical fact, or simply as the literary presentation in pictorial language of Man in his ideal character, the doctrine of the Pneuma is sufficiently suggestive. But. perhaps, its meaning is best brought out under the second interpretation. Biblical View of Sou/ and Heart. 57 by this? Not, in the main, what we understand by the term, not pre-eminently the aesthetic and emotional side of our being (although the word sometimes bears tins signification, just as it is also the Biblical synonym for conscience); rather, it is intellect or thought, or, it may be self-consciousness. Lebab comes nearer to our word "mind" than perhaps any other Hebrew term does. To the heart, according to the Jewish conception, belong "thought," "imagination," "wisdom," and other mental functions. Job, referring to his con- troversial friends as " men of understanding," denominates them literally, "men of heart ": while, in reference to himself, in the famous ironical passage beginning, "No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you," he says, "But I have understanding (literally, / have heart) as well as you". On the other hand, when Ahasuerus asks Haman the question, " What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour?" Hainan ••thought in his heart, To whom would the king delight to do honour more than to myself?"— where "thought in his heart" is rightly translated by the Septuagint by h> iavrai, in himself. Where then, let us ask. is there any special psychological significance here? Do these dis- tinctions enable us in any way to grasp mental 5b Analysis of Human Nature. facts, and to understand human nature, better than we could have done without them ? I think they do. And we shall best see how, if we take them in connexion with their Hebrew contrasts. The opposite of Spirit (ruach, pneuma), in the Old Testament, is body; but body in its aspect of "dust of the ground"— the earthy, in antithesis to the heaven-derived. There is here, therefore, no question raised as to the materiality or im- materiality of the higher part of man — that ques- tion never came before the ancient Hebrews at all. The sole truth meant to be conveyed by the antith- esis is, that man is to be viewed in two distinct relations, — as a heaven-born being and as a son of the earth. And this discrimination is perfectly clear and intelligible, having both a psychological and a religious value. A different view is taken of man when he is regarded as Soul (nephesh or psyche). The con- trast still is body ; but body as a lifeless and insensate thing, but, when animated, the instru- ment of sensation and volition. To the soul. psychologically considered, belong "hope," "fear," "courage," "disquietude," "thanksgiving," "praise," etc-. : in other words, the soul is characteristically the seat of emotion and of will. The opposite of Heart (lebab, kardia), on the other hand, is still body; but body under its Spiritualistic Terms and their Opposites. 51) denomination "flesh" (basar, o-dpg) : not flesh, however, in the sense of vitiosity.or carnal desire (the ethical signification is not found in the Old Testament), but in the sense of physical, as dis- tinguished from mental, existence, — frequently with the superadded notion of mortality, frailty or weakness, "dust and ashes," "earth and ashes". The body, indeed, according to the Apocrypha (see Ecclus. xiv. 18, etc.), and according to rabbinical analysis, consisted of "blood and flesh" or " flesh and blood". In these three terms, then, taken in conjunction with their contrasts, we have a tolerably complete account of the leading phenomena of man's nature and it can easily be seen that an important step was gained, towards spiritualistic philosophy, when Hebrew distinctions began to exert an influence outside the Jewish community. But the influence was not all on one side. On the contrary, whenever Hebrew conceptions began, as they did in Alexandria, to act on Greek thought. Greek thought began to react «»n Hebrew concep- tions. This is best seen when we turn to the Hebrew Scriptures as embodied in the Greek terminology of the Septnagint. Not only is Hebrew anthropomorphism now purified— Enoch, for instance, no longer "walks with God," but 60 Analysis of Human Nature. simply " pleases " Him ; x but a richness of synony- mous rendering of mental facts is introduced that is sometimes even bewildering. In Philo, too, we find Greek thought wedded to Hebrew feeling, with marvellous results as to subtlety and refine- ment. And when we turn to the later books of the Apocrypha, we feel at once what has been effected by contact with Hellenism and Greek philosophy. Many of the sharp-cut psycho- logical distinctions that we are accustomed to associate with other sources entered Hebrew re- ligion from that quarter, and became, by and by, current phrases in the New Testament, Such, for instance, is the antithesis of "mind and body" or "soul and body". In the ancient Jewish Scriptures, we have simply "heart and flesh" or " flesh- and soul " ; but now the very name, as well as the thing, has come to light, and it is at once accepted as the fit expression of the Jewish notion. So, the cosmogony of the Apocryphal books shows us Hebrew doctrine influenced by Greek ideas. The main lines are still, of course, Hebrew; but such touches and variations as are perceptible in 1 This is the Septuagint rendering of Genesis v. 24, and is the basis of the argument in Hebrews xi. 5, 6. -Tlint basar means "flesh" in this antithesis (as, e.g., in Is. x. 18, and Job xiv. 22), both the Septuagint and the Vulgate clearly see. What, again, our Revised Version translates by "my soul and my body," in Ps. xxxi. 0. should be "my soul and my belly". Action and Reaction of Hellenism and Hebraism. GI the Wisdom of Solomon are eminently Hellenic: Plato mingles here with Moses. Plato, too, lias now affected the Hebrew conception of Body: "For the corruptible body," so says Wisdom (ix. 15), "presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things". Plato is also in great measure responsible for the clear and full teach- ing on immortality, discernible in Wisdom and other similar writings. So, the doctrine of Re- surrection, as taught in '2 Mure. vi. and vii., though in itself anti-Hellenic, has strong psycho- logical implications evidently of a Greek cast. This reference to Resurrection suggests two questions: (1) What of Immortality in the Old Testament? (2) What of Resurrection? That Immortality did come within the ancient Hebrew's range of vision, seems to me unquestion- able. It is implied in the Creation narratives the doctrine of* Spirit (ruach) would be unintelligible without it; though how tar the notion grew in vivid- ness as time went on, and how far the doctrinal belief influenced the dew's practice, are questions for the scientific theologian. Again, the belief in Sheol, the doctrine of I lades, sombre though it was, embodied the conception of life as persistent;1 and 1 It has been said that the Jews, in their doctrine of Sheol, meant to express the facl thai the departed exist but do not live. To this 62 Analysis of Human Nature. the Hebrew's intense realization of personal com- munion with the Deity (as expressed, for instance, in Ps. xvi.) seemed to give indication of life <\sf/i//. So that, the words of Wisdom (ii. 23), late though they be, may be taken as faithfully reflecting the Jewish opinion : " (rod created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of His own eternity". Resurrection, on the other hand, we may con- fidently enough pronounce to be of late origin ; and although there are glimpses of it in the ancient Scriptures, and types of it, which the rabbis came by and by to lay stress upon, it can hardly be said to have assumed a definite dogmatic form till the second century B.C. If we cannot positively affirm that it actually originated in the Maccabean period, we can say, with little fear of contradiction, that it "became then for the first time an article of the popular creed," and gave rise to the practice of prayer for the dead. Yet, there it was in Maccabean times — men's solace under persecution, suffering, martyrdom, — to be handed on to Christianity, and, thence, to affect all future faith and speculation. We come, then, to Christianity. The psycho- ilistinction between mere personal existence and life, I object on two separate grounds : first, because it is in itself untenable — a personal existence that is not living is inconceivable ; secondly, because it is a toucb of metaphysics that is alien to Jewisb thought. Psychical Terms in the New Testament. 63 logical matter that the New Testament writers found ready to their hand was this : — (1) The doctrine of a divine principle in man (ruach or pneuma) ; ('2) the doctrine of man as an active, intellectual, and emotive being (nephesh />///.< lebab, or psyche plus kardia) ; (3) the doctrine of a lower and earthly part of man — his body (basar, adpf; and acofia) ; (4) the doctrines of Immortality and Resurrection. How did they operate on these ? In what light did they consider them '. It is quite unnecessary to say that they accepted them; but, while accepting them, they deepened and transformed them. The pneuma or spirit became now the regenerated nature of man, the divine life-principle in him renewed, and that through the operation of, and in connexion with, the Holy Spirit, and resting on faith in the atonement of Christ, Man's psyche became his unregenerated nature ; and his body (a-w^a. in contradistinction now to adp^ or "flesh") con- tracted a sanctified and sacred character: it became, in a sense that the Hebrew "dust of the ground" did not attain to. a part of the' human being absolutely necessary and indispensable to his complete existence — it became the "temple of the Holy Ghost," the "tent" that God Himself inhabited, and, in the form of the resurrection- body, it had immortality secured to it. The 64 Analysis of Human Nature advance over previous interpretations is obvious : and we shall see it most clearly by attending to the psychology of the New Testament as it con- fronts us in the writings of St. Paul. With St. Paul, man is still (as in the Apocrypha) a compound being, consisting of soul and body ; but the soul, in its unrenewed state, is at war with itself : the pneuma strives with the psyche, not as a battle of the reason against the appetites (that contest is also represented in St. Paul, but under the form of the " flesh " or adp^, contending with the " mind " or vovs, and overcoming it), but as the struggle of the psychical or " natural " man with the " spiritual " man ; and so great and vehement is this warfare that it seems as if there were in man two distinct souls. A threefold partition of the human being, therefore, becomes desirable, if we would adequately express the fact ; and St. Paul announces it (reproducing the Apocrypha, perhaps x) as " spirit, soul, and body " {Trvevjxa, i/^x1?, crajfxa). Much has been made of this trichotomy, as though the Apostle teaches in it a literal threefold division of the human being, implying a tripartite nature; just as Plato has sometimes been interpreted as teaching that man has three distinct souls (the rational, the spirited, and the appetitive), because he locates 1 See Song of th° Three Children, 64. Also, Wisdom of Solomon (xv. 11). St. Paul's so-called Trichotomy. 65 each of its three functions in a particular part of the body. But, without arguing the point here, nothing seems to me clearer than that St. Paul is simply endeavouring to express his own vivid realization of the spiritual warfare that went on in himself (so passionately portrayed in Romans), and which he believed other Christians experienced, and is trying to bring into strong relief the central point of his religious teaching — the need, namely, for fallen man to have his entire being, (soul and body equally) spiritualized, in order to perfection. It is no more a literal trichotomy than the ancient threefold Jewish enumeration of mental facts as ruach, nephesh, and lebab (spirit, soul, and heart) was a literal trichotomy ; or the modern threefold classification of the mind's states into feelings, cognitions, and volitions implies the possession by man of three separate and distinct minds ; or than the fourfold division of man's being, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, into "soul and spirit, joints and marrow"' (where "joints" seem to stand for the organs of motion, and "marrow" for those of sen- sation), is to be taken as a literal tetrachotomv. Tt is simply the Christianized form of Old Testa- ment teaching: the additions and changes being necessitated by the advance that religious ex- perience had made in the interval. The underlying truth is: — That man. originally formed in the <;<) Analysis of Human Nature. Divine Image, is fallen and needs to be restored ; as fallen he is at best but " psychical," as restored he is " spiritual," and while this spiritual restora- tion, like the original creation, is of Divine origin,1 it is also accomplished by a Divine Person, and is inexplicable unless on the supposi- tion of the agency and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle's meaning is still further brought out by his famous antithesis of Flesh and Spirit. Flesh, to him, signified something entirely different from what that term in its Hebrew form, basar, did to the Old Testament Jews. To them, it was simply one of three or four synonyms for man's body; to him, it stands for the whole corrupt nature of man, represented by, but not exhausted in, the sensual lusts and passions.2 It is the unruly belligerent principle in human nature ; warring against the mind (vovs) and subduing it, warred against by the spirit (-rrvevixa) and subdued. This view went far beyond, though it is clearly on the same line as, that of the Stoics, which repre- sents man's great struggle towards right as being 1 Hence the meaning of designating .Tesns a "life-giving spirit,'* TTl>fVfJ.a {(OOTTOIOVV (1 0oi\ XV. 45). -Nevertheless, there seems to be a trace of this meaning in Genesis vi. 8, where it is said, " My Spirit (i.e., the Divine breath) shall not always strive with (properly, abide in) man, because he also is flesh {i.e., is fallen or corrupted)". Christianity. <57 "with the flesh" where "flesh" stands for the carnal appetites and desires. Here, then, we have a distinct addition to any- thing that has gone before: and it has been brought about by the religious fact of redemption and regeneration. In the interests of this fact, the ancient Hebrew terminology, as well as the ancient psychical conceptions, has been in measure changed. But it is a transformation, not an actual reversal, that is made. There is not even an actual reversal of old Greek psychical teaching, save in one point. That one point is the doctrine of a future "glori- fied" body, taught by St. Paul and endorsed by other New Testament writers. This is something that neither Plato nor Aristotle ever conceived, which they would have summarily rejected, and which even later Greek thought in posl Christian times failed to appreciate. Vet. modern philosophy has come to see that mind is not opposed to body in the absolute antithesis set forth in ancient Greek philosophy.1 But the pari thai Christian teaching 'Hence, Hegel denominates the view that looks on man as a compound of soul and body as "the mechanical theory," and rightly objects to it that, according to tins conception, "the two things (soul and body) stand each self-subsistent, and associated only from without. Similarly we rind the soul regarded as a re group of forces and faculties, subsisting independently side l>\ side '/'-< Logic ■J II, yd, Wallace, p. 291). 68 Analysis of Human Nature. has played in bringing about this result has yet to be explicitly acknowledged. 4. Confucius, Buddha, the Stoics. I said, a short way back, that the Bible's conception of God is essentially ethical, and that man is, in the eye of Scripture, first and mainly a moral being. It becomes of interest, then, to compare the conception of human nature that is here given with other similar conceptions that are famous in the history of human speculation. One such conception is that of Confucius. With Confucius, Morality is everything, and his system is a series of practical rules designed to educate and guide the individual in his efforts to discharge his duty towards his neighbour and to act the part of a good citizen. We are here very much on the level, though prior to Aristotle's time, of Aristotle's Ethics. The great thing is to strike the mean, and the teacher's chief endeavour is to point the path of respectability in living. " Heaven," indeed, is regarded as the source of Confucius's wise counsels; but this Heaven is simply a word connoting superior authority, — such authority as truths and customs coming down to us from a venerable antiquity possess, or such as have stood the test of experience, -and must not Confucianism and Hebraism Compared. <>(.) be regarded as equivalent to God. To Confucius, God, in any Western meaning of the term, is not; and investigations about the Deity, about what awaits man in the future, about the immortality of the soul, and all attempts to deal with the problems that are distinctly known as metaphysical such problems as Lao-tsze exercised himself with, — are distinctly discouraged: "You do not yet under- stand life, how then can you profess to understand death ?" It is enough, according to Confucius, if a man knows what are the rules whereby he should guide4 himself in his conduct and in his daily dealings with his fellow-men : Speculative problems are not for him. The contrast here is very evident. The Hebrew, like Confucius, had a distinct dislike to speculative inquiry; but, on the side of Ethics, his creed is in the highest degree stimulating and ennobling. This it is, because he does not dissoci- ate man from Cod, but, on the contrary, sets Cod forth as the necessary ethical correlate of man's nature, and makes the Deity Himself' the inspiring Agent in the Moral Law. The distance is simply immeasurable between, "The master said. ' Perfect is the state of equilibrium and harmony ! Few have they ever been who could attain to it,' " " The master said, ' 1 know how it is that the Path is not walked in. The cunning go beyond it, and 70 Analysis of Human Nature. the stupid fall short of it,' " — and, "Hear, 0 Israel : The Lord our God is one Lord : And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might," " I call heaven and earth to record this day against yon, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing : therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live : That thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto Him : for He is thy life, and the length of thy days ". Another moral system that has played the part of a religion in the world is Buddhism. Contem- poraneous with Confucianism in its origin, although belonging to India, not China, it is vastly higher in its tone, and approaches the distinctly spiritual and ideal standpoint with which we are nowa- days accustomed to associate Ethics. Its aim is tersely expressed in the celebrated verse :— To cease from all sin, To get virtue, To cleanze one's own heart : This is the religion of the Bucldhas. The high tone that characterizes Buddhism, as contrasted with Confucianism, arose from two causes : first, from the pantheistic Hindu atmo- sphere in which Buddhistic ethics was generated : Buddhism and Stoicism. 71 secondly, from the fact that Buddhism, at its origin, was essentially anti-sacerdotal and ascetic. A morality based on self-denial and set forth as within the reach of all men without regard to caste, can never be low ; and thus far it bears resemblance to Christianity. But Buddhism, as it faced theology, was weak. Being non-theistic in its groundwork, it could not rise to the height of the Jewish ethics ; and, regarding life as an evil and human desire to live as the great source of man's misery, it was too unnatural to be really effeetive in regenerating the race. With no per- sonal God to believe in, with annihilation or Nirvana as its goal, and pessimism as its founda- tion. Buddhism could only be a maimed, albeit impressive, creed ; and no wonder that, in its propagandist efforts in the world, it found it necessary to ally itself with polytheism. It was only thus that it could be galvanized into life and gain a hold on the affections of mankind. A third ethical system was ancient Stoicism. Here, too, as in early Buddhism, elevation of view- was reached by fixing on the stern and heroic side of morality; and here, too, Character became the one leading concern. The advantage, however, lay with Stoicism: and this was owing to its doctrine of Conscience, and to its stimulating 72 Analysis of Human Nature. cosmopolitanism or teaching of the universal brotherhood of men — where the approach to Christianity is apparent. Founding on Plato's analysis of human nature, the Stoics laid firm hold on Reason, and made this the ruling principle (to -qyefxopLKOp). They went beyond Plato, however, in the stress they put on the ethical and practical side of our being. They despised pleasure and crucified the passions, and set philosophic in- difference to the ills of life before them as their aim. This is their far-famed doctrine of Apathy (aTTddeLa). Pleasure they held to be no good, and pain to be no evil. Character was the great thing that interested the ideal wise man, and character alone had intrinsic value. Hence Stoicism, like early Buddhism, overshot the mark ; but, unlike Buddhism (although not unlike Talmudic Pal- estinian philosophy), it was fatalistic. Because events in life are fated, therefore (argued the Stoic) it is the mark of the wise man to accept with composure whatever happens to him — by ungrudging submission to the inevitable he shows his wisdom ; or, if untoward circumstances circumstances brought about by no fault of the man himself should render life unendurable, then moral freedom and true independence is best shown by suicide. No (said the philosophic Buddhist), not fate rules in life, but the necessity Neo-platonic Mysticism. 73 of cause and consequence. This is the doc-trine of Karma. Evil is evil, and is no good ; pain is pain, and should begot rid of*. But it arises from man's own acts ; it is the result of his yielding to Desire. Let him renounce desire, then, and he will free himself from pain. Self-annihilation is the end, mysticism the means; and through mystic con- templation, aided by asceticism, Nirvana may be reached. 5. The Neo-platonists. We have now, practically, obtained all the ele- ments of human nature. Once the Greek analysis had become welded with the Scripture teaching, there was little further, in the way of actual dis- covery of elements, to be done. Many old prob- lems, indeed, had to be faced anew: and many fresh problems presented themselves, from time to time, for solution, as experience deepened and knowledge increased. The nature of the Soul, with all the train of allied questions, became ;i subject of engrossing interest to some: "fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute" taxed the energies of others. Boethius stands conspicuous, among the Latin writers of the early Christian times, for his wrestling with the last of these subjects; and, in many respects, no greater work on the problem of evil and its theistic hearings has 74 Analysis of Human Nature. ever been produced than his treatise (hi the Con- solation of Philosophy. But human nature, in its essentials, was now known ; for, though subsequent attempts have been made to add to them, they have been without success. Two of these attempts, however, demand our consideration. The first is the attempt to give a supreme place to Mysticism, as a normal element of man's being. The Neo-platonists of the third and fourth centuries of our era may stand as our example. Regarding the Absolute as entirely character- less, and refusing to admit that God could in any way be known by man, they, nevertheless, taught the possibility of ecstatic union with Him, implying the abnegation of self on man's part and all that constitutes individuality. Such ecstatic union and self-effacement was a new thing, so far as pure Greek philosophy was concerned ; and it was alien also to ancient Hebrew thought, Pantheism, in- deed, was native to the Greek — yet pantheism, not as a religions mood, but as an intellectual explana- tion of the universe. Pantheism, too, was not quite foreign to the Jew, with his deep emotional theism and his vivid consciousness of God as the all- comprehending presence, in whom men lived and moved and had their being. But mysticism was Oriental in its origin: and came into Greek and Scholasticism. 75 Jewish philosophy only about the time of* Philo Judaeus, and commended itself first to the schools of Alexandria. Its value we shall consider more particularly in a future lecture;1 but, meanwhile, note the thing itself, and the fact that it was an element additional to any that we have yet had in the analysis of human nature, and an element which, when accepted either by philosophy or by theology, has produced disastrous consequences. (5. The Schoolmen. The other retrograde doctrine also very fatal to philosophy and to theology alike— is of Mediaeval origin. We are now dealing with a time when Philosophy was regarded as the handmaid of the Church. Its help was sought, not for the inde- pendent truth that it might disclose, hut for the defence that it might be able to give to ecclesiasti- cal dogmas, and for its utility in formulating and systematizing these. Hence, the great point over which the Schoolmen argued lor centuries, begin- ning at the tenth, was the nature and meaning of Universals. The dogmas of the Church, and more especially the doctrine of the Trinity, seemed at stake: and Philosophy was here of value, when it supported Realism. But it was different when Philosophy presumed to show lite of its own. and 1 Lecture IV. 76 Analysis of Human Nature. to speculate in independence of Church control. The cases of Roscelin and Abaelard, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, are typical. Let philosophy show originality, and it must be suppressed : con- vinced or unconvinced, the offending thinker must bow to ecclesiastical authority, and recant, By and by, however, freedom of speculation was to assert itself, — though sometimes by means rather dubious. First came the partial emancipation of philosophy, under the sanction of the Church, by the two celebrated Latin Doctors of the thir- teenth century — Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas. A sphere of theistic doctrine was now distinctly assigned to Reason, and another sphere was strictly reserved for Revelation. This was the famous distinction between truths "competent to reason" and truths "beyond" or "above reason," though not "contrary" to it, — between Natural and Revealed Theology : a distinction destined to play such a conspicuous part in the philosophy of Bruno, and, later on, in the dog- matic rationalism of Leibniz, Wolff, and the German Llluminism (Aufklarung). It was but a step to the further doctrine that what is true in philosophy may be false in theology, and inversely; and the less orthodox Churchmen eagerly seized at it. It came, no doubt, from the Arabian Aver- roes. But, surely, if it originated with the dis- Faith and Reason. 77 tinguished Mussulman, whose name was a thing to conjure with in the learned world, it might well be accepted by perturbed philosophers in Latin Christendom. Only one more refinement was necessary; and this was made by Pomponatius, about the opening of the sixteenth century, when Reason itself was divided into an intellectual and a practical reason — the one speculative and the other regulative, the first dealing with the truths of philosophy and the second assigned to theology and to the guidance of morality and conduct. Now this distinction, in each of its two forms— as an opposition between Faith and Reason and as an opposition between speculative and regulative Reason, — is an entirely vicious one, and has been productive of much harm. Sunder Faith from Thought, and truth is rent in twain, and the pails remain in helpless separation. Affirm with Ter- tullian, " I believe, because it is impossible" (certum est, quia impossibile est), and Theology becomes the embodiment of irrationality, and Revelation is degraded to the level of nonsense. -'The human spirit," says Principal Caird (Introduction /<> the Philosophy of Religion, pp. <>(a, etc.). "is not a thing divided against itself so that faith and reason can subsist side b\ side in the same mind, each assert- 7S Analysis of Human Nature. ing as absolute principles which are contradicted by the other. If it were so, then either there must be a higher umpire than both to decide between them, or thought and knowledge are reduced to chaos. For, in the first place, we must have rational grounds for the acceptance of a super- natural revelation. It must verify its right to teach authoritatively. Reason must be competent to judge, if not of the content, at least of the credentials, of revelation. But an authority prov- ing by reason its right to teach irrationally is an impossible conception. The authority which appeals to reason in proof of its rights commits itself, so to speak, to be essentially rational. To prove to reason a right to set reason at defiance is self-contradictory, inasmuch as the proof itself must 1 >e one of the things to which that right extends. . . . In the second place, reason itself lies nearer to us than any external authority, and no other or out- ward evidence can be sufficient to overturn its testimony. . . . The attempt therefore to main- tain an unreal equilibrium between faith and reason — between a reverence which accepts, and an intelligence which rejects, the same things- can only issue in one of two results, practical unbelief or the violent suppression of doubt. No adjustment of the difference can be satisfactory save an adjustment in thought." Descartes and St. Augustine. 7i> 7. Fnmi Descartes to Hegel. Modern philosophy is usually regarded as be- ginning with Descartes. Bo it so, if the meaning is that the greatest impulseto philosophizing in post- Reformation times came from him, and that sub- sequent schools looked to him as to a master. But neither Descartes's standpoint nor his ontology, nay nor even his method, is original. When Descartes lays the basis of philosophy in self-consciousness (Cogito, ergo sum), he is simply reverting to a position long ago taken up by St. Augustine, and expressed with all the clearness and vigour of that great thinker. When, again, he prescribes Doubt as the one leading philosophic method, and bids us build only on what stands the test of doubt, he is but repeating St. Augustine; and when he argues for the existence of God from the concept of the Deity in the human mind, he attaches himself to St. Anselm. Ontology, however, was Descartes's special province. He was no psychologist — he did not even greatly interest himself in Theory of Knowledge; his supreme concern was Theory of Being. But here he has left an indelible mark on philosophy, and has done much to vindicate for human nature its right to a rational theism. Ontology, in like manner, was the greal concern of his continental successors, down to the time of 80 Analysis of Human Nature Kant ; including the two greatest of them all— Spinoza and Leibniz. This cannot be said of Britain, however. British ontologists, it is true, were not wanting, not even eminent ones : it is enough to mention Berkeley. But Bacon ruled in science, and Locke gave the impulse in philosophy ; and Locke's philosophy was no ontology, — although God, the World, and the Soul find their place in it. It was not even, strictly speaking, a psychology or analysis of the human mind, notwithstanding that Locke is usually cited as an English psychologist. We have, of course, a good deal of psychology in it, and we have also the important enunciation that philosophy, if it is to have real value, must start from psychological inquiry ; but it was itself distinctively a Theory of Cognition, — an attempt (1) first, to trace the origin, and (2) secondly, to determine the extent and validity, of human know- ledge. The very title of the famous Essay proves this. Locke calls it An Essay Concerning Human Understanding ; and, in the opening paragraph, he lays down his object. " This, therefore, being my purpose," he says (I., 1, § 2), "to inquire into the original, certainty, and extent of human knowledge, together with the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent, T shall not at present meddle with the physical consideration of the mind, or Locke, Hume, and Kant. 81 trouble myself to examine wherein its essence consists, or by what motions of our spirits or alterations of our bodies we come to have any sensation by our organs, or any ideas in our under- standings. ... It shall suffice to my present purpose, to consider the discerning faculties of a man, as they are employed about the objects which they have to do with. And I shall imagine I have not wholly misemployed myself in the thoughts I shall have on this occasion, if, in this historical, plain method, 1 can give any account of the ways whereby our understandings come to attain those notions of things we have, and can set down any measures of the certainty of our knowledge, or the grounds of those persuasions which are to be found amongst men." The same is true of Hume. Hume's i>reat interest lay, not in psychology nor in ontology, but in the theory of knowledge. There is this differ- ence, however. Locke never allowed his doctrine of the genesis of knowledge to shake the validity of knowledge ; with Hume, the theory of origin reacted unfavourably on that of validity. Never- theless, in morals, Hume distinctly upheld the dignity of human nature and maintained "that the sentiments of those who are inclined to think favourably of mankind are much more advan- 6 82 Analysis of Human Nature. tageous to virtue than the contrary principles, which give us a mean opinion of our nature ". Hume's position brought out Kant. Theory of knowledge became Kant's great problem too. Conversant with psychology, but not starting from it, nay rather, deliberately setting it aside and "giving it a little attention only upon sufferance,"1 Kant set himself to analyze human experience, and thereby to secure a foundation for human knowledge. For, in experience, when duly ana- lyzed, he found the mental elements that gave the validity that he desiderated ; and, through reason, he claimed to overthrow the scepticism that aimed at impugning reason. On the high speculative side, however. Kant's philosophy was clearly defective (this we shall see later on). Knowing and Being he left standing apart ; and it was the problem of Hegel to show the power of Philosophy in bringing the two into union. 8. Recent Advance. But what now of more recent advance \ It has lain in a threefold direction. (1) First, in the region of Psychology. By Psychology is meant the science of the 1 See this very clearly brought out m the late Professor Croom Robertson's striking article on " Psychology and Philosophy," in vol. viii. of the first series of Mind. Psychology. 8:3 phenomena of consciousness, of the states and operations of the mind, their nature and their origin, together with the laws that determine their combination and interaction, without, however, raising the question whether these manifestations do or do not imply a distinct spiritual self as their groundwork. It asks, What are the actual con- tents of our minds; what feelings, ideas, thoughts, volitions do we consciously experience? Also, How do these various elements in our mental furniture arise, coalesce, and continue to be ? Its character and scope will be clearly seen by referring to such works as those of Professor Bain, Professor Sully, Dr. James Ward, Professor H<"> tiding. Now, clearly, all progress in other spheres of mental science is dependent upon accuracy and fulness here. And what we have tocredil modern psychological investigation with, is — (1) a luminous classification of mental phenomena (originated by Tetens, a contemporary of Kant) into Feeling, Intellect, ami Will; (2) a just appreciation of the physiological side of mind, and an admirable analysis of each of the various groups of mental phenomena (Dr. Bain leading the way); and (3) a clear perception of the fact that no mental element stands isolated or alone, hut that, in every one element, the others are implicated too. A soul 84 Analysis of Human Nature. divided into parts (as with Plato), or even a mind working through separate and distinct "faculties" (as with psychologists of last generation), is now happily an anachronism, and cannot again, we may hope, be resuscitated to retard mental science and confuse clear thinking. But we must not forget to include in the recent psychological advance Comparative Psychology, or "the psychology of peoples or races," — i.e., of mind acting in the aggregate under diversity of time, place, and circumstance, and manifesting itself in collective works. This is a study quite modern, and of great promise. The good effects of it are already discernible in many quarters. In the advance, we ought, too, to include Animal Psychology. ('2) Secondly, in the region of Epistemology. This is Theory of Knowledge ; which, taking up the facts of consciousness as given by psycho- logy, proceeds to inquire into their worth. It does not dispute their existence, it accepts them as subjective facts ; but goes on to ask whether they are valid on the side of truth — whether they are, in whole or in part, as they ought to be. Now this is, obviously, a most important operation, and one fraught with momentous con- sequences. Psychology, suppose, approaches the Ep istemology. 8 5 subject of human Belief. All that it can do is, to tell us what men actually believe and how they have come to believe it, or how they will believe under given circumstances ; but whether their beliefs are true or false, valid or not, it cannot say. Here Epistemology steps in, and declares that the mere fact of a man's having a particular belief is no sufficient assurance of its truth, but that the criterion of truth must be determined outside mere psychology; and this determination Epistemology itself undertakes. If psychology gives us the fact and the genesis or process of belief, epistemology supplies us with its justification. Clearly, therefore, Epistemology presupposes that not only do men have experience, not only are they aware of mental facts or of things happening, but they are also in possession of* a power of appraising these facts ; and this again implies that Mind or Reason has within itself, as part of its nature, a standard of criticism. Epistemology, therefore, may be re- garded as a section of Met a physics (for meta- physics is the science of first principles as well as of supersensible essence); but it is metaphysics on its normative side. If now it be asked. " What is the advance that recent Epistemology has made?" -I answer, in the words of the late Professor ('room Robertson, 86 Analysis of Human Nature. "Let us . . . note but two points in the philo- sophical theory of knowledge which, since the time of Kant, may be regarded as placed beyond reasonable question: (1) that we know Space, abstractly, as a ' form ' inclusive of sensation, and, actually, as one great continuum (percept, not concept) within which all sensible objects are ordered ; (2)' that anything to be definitely called Object, as a sensible reality for all men alike, is a complex product of thought-activity working under common conditions in all " (Mind, first series, vol. viii. p. '21). (3) Lastly, in the region of Ontology. This is Theory of Being; or Metaphysics as it deals with the three great entities — God, the Soul, the World. Take, as example, the case of the Perception of an External World. There are three questions here that must be kept separate. (1) First, What, as given in consciousness, is the nature of external sense-perception ? This question may again be broken up into two : — («) What is the psychological analysis of Subject and Object in external perception % (I>) What is the genesis of our notion of Subject and Object in externa] perception? (2) Secondly, What is the value of our knowledge in external perception ? Is it valid; and, if so, in what sense? (3) Thirdly, Ontology. 87 What is Being, as distinguished from knowing, in external perception '. Or, what is meant by saying that there is an (independent) external world1? The first of these questions, in both its aspects, is purely psychological. The second belongs to Epistemology or theory of knowledge. The third alone is Ontological. Now, as to Ontology, the obvious advance (speaking generally) is, that it has become more and more clear that, if we are to achieve a rational interpretation of the universe we must work outwards from our experience of our own inward selves, and upwards from psychology through epistemology, and that the unity of things is, not a mere mechanical union, as of part in external contact with part, but an <>r) that he may not, in the course of the progress of the race, himself become so changed in nature as to be, to a certain extent, an accurate reflection of the Divine. The progressive clearing of man's conceptions, as experience deepens and time goes on, is a very common phenomenon, and is not confined to Theism. There is no branch of Truth that docs not show a similar development. Development in Theistic Conceptions. \)\) Wrong notions, false notions, inadequate notions of the leading ideas in science, philosophy, and art alike, have been entertained in some age. In all departments of knowledge, men have groped their way towards light erringlv and stumbling] v, and, frequently, themselves creating the darkness that enveloped them. Yet, no one thinks of maintaining that there is no such thing as truth, or that there were no glimpses of what we clearly see to-day in the dim anticipations of the past. Copernicus did not originate Astronomy, though he revolutionized it ; nor is the Uniformity of Nature an absolutely new discovery of these later days. Man's know- ledge advances, and his character improves; and, with advancing knowledge and improved character, great things are achieved. But the light at the beginning, and throughout all the struggles at self-revelation — sometimes sadly baffled, at other times obscurely asserting itself, — was light still; and we must not despise the beginnings because they were weak and humble, nor must we exaggerate the early darkness so as to make believe that darkness alone existed then. What the struggling towards pure Theism (as shown in history) proves, is precisely what is proved by the continual struggle towards clearer and ever clearer knowledge of the nature and capability of human reason. I do not suppose 100 Agnostic Objections. that Reason's laws were unknown, or were not acted upon, before the time of Aristotle ; yet it was Aristotle who clearly formulated them, and developed, on their basis, the science of Logic. 1 do not suppose that Aristotle was the first to set himself to a persistent and systematic study of the human mind ; yet he was the first to give scien- tific form to Psychology, and to inaugurate that close and careful investigation into mind and mind's phenomena that is only to-day approaching a satisfactory position. I do not suppose that the earliest philosopher, or the man who first gave himself to speculation, was altogether devoid of some notion of the criterion of truth and the theory of knoAvledge ; yet it is only now that we are awaking to the true nature of Epistemology. In each and all of these cases, there has been a gradual advance, often through conspicuous retro- gressions; but the germ of truth was never wanting. Wherever, indeed, man's curiosity is really awakened, there is Truth beginning to make a revelation ; and we are not to refuse to call it truth because the earliest form of the revelation may be something entirely different in appearance from the latest. II. We turn, then, to the second form of the anthropomorphic objection ; and this is a much Agnosticism Defined. loi more serious affair. Man and God, it is main- tained, are direct opposites ; they have, in their essence, nothing in common. It is impossible, therefore, that there should be any communication between the two. Not only do man's feelings, thoughts, and volitions differ in degree from those of the Deity, they differ also in kind : the finite and the Infinite, the relative and the Absolute, arc1 separated toto coelo. This is what is usually denominated by pre- eminence the agnostic position, although it is an agnosticism of a very positive kind. It does not simply profess that it does not know whether God exists (that was the position of the ancient Pyrrhonists and Academics generally, — it is the position that we usually associate with the term sceptic); but it clearly maintains that God, though existent, cannot be known. It is the second limb of Gorgias's threefold nescience: — (1) Nothing is ; (*2) if anything is, it cannot be known ; (3) if it can be known, it cannot be communicated. Agnosticism: what, then, is it '. One has denned it as " Doubt emptied of Faith, and turn- ing its face towards Denial". And this, unfortu- nately, is only too true of much of the secularist agnosticism of the present moment. There are many so-called agnostics who rejoice in being 102 Agnostic Objections. "atheists". But atheism and agnosticism arc by no means synonymous terms, and 1 am not surprised when high-toned agnostics indignantly disclaim the imputation of atheism. Absolute denial is not of the essence of agnosticism, and there is such a thing as agnostic faith. Even Professor Huxley admits that " a man may be an agnostic, in the sense of admitting he has no positive knowledge, and yet consider that he has more or less probable ground for accepting any given hypothesis about the spiritual world. Just as a man may frankly declare that he has no means of knowing whether the planets generally are inhabited or not, and yet may think one of the two possible hypotheses more likely than the other, so he may admit that he has no means of knowing anything about the spiritual world, and yet may think one or other of the current views on the subject, to some extent probable " [Essays upon Some Controverted Questions, p. 4(5(5). ( )n the other hand, we must never forget, as Dr. Martineau reminds us ("Preface" to A Study of Religion, p. xi.), that "for much of the Agnosticism of the age, the Gnosticism of theologians is un- deniably responsible ". Sometimes, Agnosticism has been prompted by the highest and deepest religions feeling ; the Motives to Agnosticism. L03 individual agnostic- having such an overpowering consciousness of the majesty and greatness of God and of his own intellectual and moral impotence as to be driven to refuse to ascribe to the Deity any qualities which his own weak nature possessed, and to conceive Him (if that word may he permitted) simply as the negation of all that is finite. At other times, agnosticism has been prompted by a hafHed intellect ; as when Kant, through his metaphysical distinction of things-in- them selves and their mere manifestation, shut the door against a speculative knowledge of the Divinity, but opened it again to the ethical aspirations of man, and based the theistic argument in the Practical Reason; or when Democritus, feeling keenly the limits of the human mind, declared that "Truth lies buried in the dee})". Once more. baffled intellect has given rise to an agnosticism more thorough-going than Kant's. Air. Herbert Spencer's is a case in point : but it was substan- tially in existence long before Mr. Spencer's time. Says Hobbes, for instance: "Forasmuch as God Almighty is incomprehensible, it followeth, that we can have no conception or image of the Deity : and, consequently, all his attributes signify our inability and defect of power to conceive anything concerning his nature, and not any conception of the same, excepting only this, that there is a God. 104 Agnostic Objections. For the effects we acknowledge naturally, *o/>hi<-o-S<-i<'ii- tijfc agnosticism. As being supremely scientific, it is pre-eminently modern ; and may best be seen in such writers as Mr. Herbert Spencer and Professor Huxley. These groups, of course, are not mutually ex- clusive : I lay no claim to a logical division. They merely give us a very simple and convenient classifi- cation,— such as it may be well to follow, with a view to definite presentation and clear exposition. Xenophanes. 107 I. Philosophical Agnosticism. I begin, then, with Philosophical agnosticism ; making the start with Xenophanes. 1. Xenophanes. Xenophanes, who lived in the sixth century, B.C., was the founder of the Eleatic school of philo- sophy, and his teaching, which has conic down to us only in poetic fragments, was as nearly mono- theistic as anything in ancient Greece could be, but eminently agnostic. He preached the doctrine of one God — "There is one God," he said, "highest among gods and men"; but in the same breath he maintained that "He is like to mortals neither in body nor in mind". Nevertheless, he cannot help speaking of Him metaphorically in the language of men ; for, he says that "He is all eye, all mind. all ear," and, in expressing His causal relation to the universe, he declares that "without effort He rules all things by the power of thought (voov pez/i)," or, as some render it, "by mind and will," or, as we might say, "by intelligent volition". Xenophanes's position, however, cannot be under- stood unless we take it injeonnexion with the doc- trine that it directly opposes. Polytheism is the conscious antithesis in the philosopher's own mind to monotheism : and against the grossness of the Greek mythology, and the current religious belief 108 Agnostic Objections. of his countrymen, his whole soul revolts. On the one hand, he assails it with intellectual sarcasm- believing, apparently, with Shaftesbury, that ridi- cule is a good criterion of truth ; and, on the other hand, he showers upon it moral indignation. On the ethical side, he ridicules the notion of the birth and genealogy of the gods, holding it to be equally impious (so Aristotle tells us) to maintain that the gods are born as to maintain that they die ; and he complains with warmth of Homer and of Hesiod for ascribing to the gods such base acts as "theft, adultery, and mutual deceit," which are the reproach and disgrace of men. In the sarcastic vein, he declares: "If oxen or lions had hands, and could draw and fashion things as men do, they too would make the gods after their own likeness, each ascribing to them such form and body as they themselves possessed, horses making them like horses, and oxen like oxen ". He is, also, represented by Cicero as having inveighed against divination. Now, regarding this doctrine, we may remark:— (1) First, that, as an attack on Greek polytheism and the popular religion, it is unassailable. Such anthropomorphism and anthropopathy as we find in Greek mythology — gods revelling in cruelties and jealousies and lust, in petty quarrels and Criticism of Xenophanes's Position. 1 Oi> incessant intrigue, in the basest passions and the grossest means of gratifying them, in hatreds and partialities and unrighteousness and injustice is utterly revolting, alike to reason and to conscience. A great and memorable step was taken, fraught with good no less to philosophy than to religion, when it was clearly shown and driven home to men by the shafts of wit that such anthropomor- phism as this is altogether derogatory and un- worthy. God is one, and, as such, is far removed from human mutability and frailty and sin. (2) But, next, Xenophanes's monotheism was, intellectually, too unbending. For, while he teaches the unity of God, and bases it on the idea of His supremacy ("there is one God, highest — /xeyioro? — among gods and men "), he, at the same time, refuses to allow us to ascribe to this supreme Deity either physical form or spiritual qualities (" like to mortals neither in body nor in mind, ovre Se/xas ovrt w^/xa"). But a Deity without attributes, of whom no qualities can be predicated, a mere characterless Deity, is simply a nonentity. Bodily attributes are, indeed, inapplicable to God, because God is a Spirit; or they are allowable only in a figurative sense, in compliance with the exigencies of human speech. Bui mental and moral attributes stand on a different footing. These are essentially spiritual ; and, although they 110 Agnostic Object ion s. may not be, by any means, the whole of what Spirit designates, they are at least a part of it. Xenophanes was too much afraid, and many people at the present day are too much afraid, of anthropomorphism : it seems to them, mistakenly, a breach of the Second commandment, Our starting-point in Theism is, and must be, self; and this it may rightfully be, if man is formed in the image of God. No doubt, human reason may err ; but this does not invalidate it wholly. If it may err, it has within itself the power of detecting error and of correcting mental aberrations. And this gives us the answer to Xenophanes's objection (in so far as it is an objection to our really knowing God, and not simply an argument against Greek polytheism) that, if horses and oxen could fashion things as men do, they would make their gods like themselves ; as it equally gives us the answer to the similar objection — urged how- ever, from the side of pantheism — made in later days by Spinoza. Said Spinoza: "It is as little tit to ascribe to God the properties that make a man perfect as if one should ascribe to man such as belong to the perfection of the elephant or the ass"; and, again — "I believe that a triangle, if it could speak, would in like manner say that God is eminently triangular, and a circle that the divine nature is in an eminent manner circular ; and thus Spinoza. 1 1 1 should every one ascribe his own attributes to (rod, and make himself like God, counting every- thing else as misshapen" (Sir V. Pollock's Spinoza, pp. .">4, 63). Obviously, horses and oxen and asses, if they possessed Thought, would cease to be horses and oxen and asses ; and a conscious triangle or a conscious circle would be something considerably more' than a triangle or a circle. Moreover, if horses and oxen and asses and the geo- metrical triangle and circle possessed thought, they would possess also, implicitly at least, the power of rectifying the errors into which the mistaken use of thought might lead them. This is implied in the very meaning of thought, according to any con- ception we can form of it, or to any experience that we have of it. The whole system of Logic is a product of thought, and the doctrine of the fallacies is a standing witness that man has within himself a rational norm, by which he can test truth and distinguish falsehood. This rational norm (which conies out in another way in Epistemology or theory of knowledge) is, ex hypothesi, ascribed to the conscious brute creatures by Kenophanes, and to the thinking triangle and circle also b\ Spinoza; and, in ascribing to them this much, they ascribe to them more. They suppose them to know, or to be able to discover (laboriously, it may be, and after a lapse of time, yet none the less L12 Agnostic Objections. really), what truth there is in their thoughts about God, how far their own attributes either serve to express the Divine nature or to symbolize it, and what the rational limits of equine or bovine or asinine or circular or triangular thought are : in other words, possession of thought means posses- sion also of a criterion of truth. This first form of Agnosticism, then, need not appal us. Nevertheless, it is very interesting and most important. Xenophanes is more than a name in the history of natural theology ; he was a real power in guiding the stream of philosophical theism into the agnostic channel. Although himself a monotheist (or as nearly so as a Greek could be), his principles, if consistently carried out, end in pantheism — all the more so as he himself emphasized the immanence of Deity, and, along with the unity of God, held also the unity of the world. And this his famous disciple Parmenides distinctly saw, and he did not hesitate to push on to the logical conclusion. This, too, later pan- theists have perceived; and, when we read in Spinoza such a sentence as this, — "That neither intellect nor will pertains to the nature of God, for such intellect and will as would constitute the essence of God ought to differ from our intellect and will toto ccelo, nor could the two have Hume. 113 anything but the name in common ; there is no other agreement, indeed, between them than there is between the constellation Dog and the animal that barks" (Ethics, Part i., scholium to prop. xvii.), — we seem to hear but an echo of Xeno- phanes's sentence, " There is one God, highest among gods and men, like to mortals neither in body nor in mind ". Xenophanes stood to Par- menides very much in the relation that Descartes stood to Spinoza. Both Xenophanes and Des- cartes gave their disciples a great philosophic impulse, and both were theists after the mono- theistic type. Parmenides and Spinoza, men of far greater intellectual power, carried out the teaching of their respective masters with unflinching fear- lessness to the ultimate issue ; and both were pantheists of the purely metaphysical stamp. 2. 1 1 ii nic Passing now at a bound from ancient, we come to modern times. Hume has been called "the father of modern agnosticism". This designation may be very readily allowed him. if we do not rigidly mean by it that he was positively the first among the philosophers of the past three hundred years to use agnostic arguments and to manifest the agnostic spirit. That, we know, remembering Hobbes, Pascal, 1 i 4 Agnostic Objections. and others, would not be true. But Hume is " the father of modern agnosticism " as being, what Professor Huxley terms him, the " prince of agnos- tics," and as being also the greatest influence in recent days in the stimulating and directing of agnostic tendencies. Not only did he undermine Theistic dogmatism, he struck equally at dogmatic assertion as to the reality of the individual Self and of the External Material World. In depriv- ing us of " matter," he simply followed in the footsteps of Berkeley ; but, in turning Berkeley's reasoning against the Ego (which he did, however, only in his youthful Treatise on Human Nature, yet never retracted), he made the new departure that may be taken as the commencement of modern scepticism. Given the sensational standpoint of Locke, such as Hume conceived it to be, and given the critical weapons of Berkeley, and Hume undertakes to show that, while Locke was largely inconsistent in the working out of his system, and Berkeley only half thorough in his attack, the logical out- come of both Lockian and Berkeleyan principles is pure agnosticism. That was his intention ; and that the execution of it was crowned with a great measure of success, cannot be disputed. For if, as Locke (not quite meaning it) supposed, the Agnosticism in Hume's Philosophy. L15 mind be originally an entire blank, and if the ultimate origin of all our ideas be sense-impres- sions, then indeed our mental beliefs may be mere illusions, useful for practical purposes, but philo- sophically incompetent. In sense units, as thus conceived, units isolated and unconnected, there could be no true causality ; and of them there is nothing that we can predicate as certain apart from experience, and Experience (so Hume argued) is here the same thing as Custom or association, and this is an unstable ground of truth. If, more- over, as Hume insisted, the ultimate test of every idea is turning it into the original impression, there can, obviously, be no such test of Theism at all, and God, being no object of the senses, must remain unknown. This agnosticism of Hume's, if you grant the principles from which it starts, is irrefragable. If sensation, in the form he conceived it, be the sole origin of ideas, nothing but sensation can lie the final court of appeal, and all that modern philo- sophy regards as spiritualistic must go. But sensation, it may be rejoined, is not the sole origin of ideas : and, indeed, in mere sense units as presented to us by Hume, knowledge could never originate at all. Sensations existing in isolation and unrelated are mere logical fictions. 116 Agnostic Objections. pure abstractions of the mind. An unrelated entity would be no entity ; and, if by possibility it could exist, there is no means of bringing it into relation, or of making it a part of an intelligible world. Not Hume's reasoning is vicious, but the preliminary starting-point which he believed to be Locke's, and the presupposition that to add a mental element to sense-given fact is to introduce illusion. But, apart from his general philosophical posi- tion, let us see what precisely Hume says of Theism. This we find in numerous passages of his writings, but more particularly in two distinct treatises devoted to the subject. One of these is The Natural History of Religion, and the other is Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. In his Natural History of Religion (first pub- lished in 1755), he starts with the announcement :— "As every enquiry, which regards religion, is of the utmost importance, there are two questions in particular, which challenge our attention, to wit, that concerning its foundation in reason, and that concerning its origin in human nature. Happily, the first question, which is the most important, admits of the most obvious, at least, the clearest solution, the whole frame of nature bespeaks an Position in "The Natural History of Religion". 1 17 intelligent author ; and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion. But the other question, concerning the origin of religion in human nature, is exposed to some more difficulty. The belief of invisible, intelligent power has been very generally diffused over the human race, in all places and in all ages; but it has neither perhaps been so uni- versal as to admit of no exception, nor has it been, in any degree, uniform in the ideas, which it has suggested. Some nations have been discovered, who entertained no sentiments of Religion, if travellers and historians may be credited ; and no two nations, and scarce any two men, have ever agreed precisely in the same sentiments. It would appear, therefore, that this preconception springs not from an original instinct or primary impression of nature, such as gives rise to self-love, affection between the sexes, love of progeny, gratitude, resentment ; since every instinct of this kind has been found absolutely universal in all nations and ages, and has always a precise determinate object, which it inflexibly pursues. The first religions principles must be secondary : such as may easily be perverted by various accidents and causes, and whose operation too, in some cases, may. by an extraordinary concurrence of circumstances, be 118 Agnostic Objections. altogether prevented. What those principles are, which give rise to the original belief, and what those accidents and causes are, which direct its operation, is the subject of our present enquiry." Here, then, we have a very clear and concise statement of the plan and purpose of the treatise. One point is distinctly and entirely excluded : the rational basis of theism — that is, meanwhile, taken as unimpeachable, and it is frequently referred to throughout the writing in strong terms of assent. The point that is here to be considered and sifted is the origin of theism in human nature; and what creates difficulty is the want of universality among men, and the fact of endless diversity of religious opinion in the nations and ages of the world. What, then, has Hume to say on this matter \ Put briefly, his theory is : — That theism is not original to man : that it is not a primary or instinctive principle of his nature, like love of offspring, or self-love, but a derivative principle — a principle originating in man's attitude of fear and hope towards the unknown causes of the natural events (favourable and unfavourable, beneficent and maleficent) that befall him in life.1 1 It is interesting to compare Hume's view with Kenan's. Kenan, too, thinks that Religion arose in feeling (Dialogues philosophiques, pp. 38, 39), but he " compares man's religious impulses to the instinct that makes the hen-bird ' sit,' which instinct spontaneously declares itself as soon as the appropriate stage is reached " (Count Goblet d'Alviella's Hibbert Lectures, p. 48). Origin of Religion in Man. 119 In other words, Religion takes its rise, not in thinking or in reason, but in emotion, — i.e., in the play of the fancy or imagination around the in- visible and secret causes of natural events — more particularly future or expected events, — in which man's self-interest is bound up. (liven, on the one hand, man's dependence upon Nature, and his powerlessness to control Nature, and, on the other hand, the working of terror and of hope in him at the prospect of what Nature, through her various processes, may effect, — and you have the datum of the psychological basis of religion in man. Hence, polytheism is man's primary religion the deifica- tion and worship of a variety of beings or powers under the promptings of human fear, on the one side, and of human gratitude, on the other. Out of this primary polytheism, monotheism was gradu- ally evolved. The process of evolution is peculiar. It is owing to man's native propensity to overpraise or Hatter beings on whom he is dependent, motived either by love begotten of self-interest or by terror. "It may readily happen," says Hume (section vi.), " in an idolatrous nation, that though men admit the existence of several limited deities, yet is there some one God, whom, in a particular manner, they make the object of their worship and adoration. They may either suppose, that, in the distribution of power and territory among the gods, their nation 120 Agnostic Objections. was subjected to the jurisdiction of that particular deity ; or reducing heavenly objects to the model of things below, they may represent one god as the prince or supreme magistrate of the rest, who, though of the same nature, rules them with an authority, like that which an earthly sovereign exercises over his subjects or vassals. Whether this god, therefore, be considered as their peculiar patron, or as the general sovereign of heaven, his votaries will endeavour, by every art, to insinuate themselves into his favour ; and supposing him to be pleased, like themselves, with praise and tiattery, there is no eulogy or exaggeration, which will be spared in their addresses to him. In proportion as men's fears or distresses become more urgent, they still invent new strains of adulation ; and even he who outdoes his prede- cessor in swelling up the titles of his divinity, is sure to be outdone by his successor in newer and more pompous epithets of praise. Thus they pro- ceed ; till at last they arrive at infinity itself, beyond which there is no further progress." Such, in summary, is Hume's theory. Into its historical accuracy, it is not necessary to enter. Our Darwins and our Tylors, our M'Lennans, our Spencers and our Lubbocks, our Hibbert Lecturers and others, have brought much to light Criticism of Hume's Argument. 121 since Hume's day, —partly corroborating, partly modifying, Hume's positions. Totemism,1 heno- theism,2 and many similar ethnographical notions, were practically unknown to Hume ; and the whole doctrine of physiolatry transforming itself into polytheism (as seen in India, in the sacred writings of that country) is, of necessity, quite modern. But what it concerns us to observe is, that Hume is here exercised directly with the origin, and only indirectly with the nature, of Religion. When, therefore, he maintains thai Religion arose in such and such a way, we need only answer, — " Be it so : what then ? No theory of the historical origin of theism can really affect the validity of theism itself, nor do you prove that religion is illusory because it is derived from certain principles and tendencies of the human mind. All that yon prove is that man's theistic notions are. like his other knowledge, subject to the law of progress; and that they are not, any more than his other notions, at any time complete." Yet Hume wishes us to go farther than this. He 1 Totemism may In' generally defined as the worship by a tribe of some species of plant or animal (the wolf, the bear, the serpent), regarded as the progenitor ami special protector of the tribe. 2 Henotheism is Professor Max Muller's name for the tendencj on the part of the worshipper to ascribe to each god, at the moment of invocation, all the attributes of supreme power, as if he alone were God. Specialized meanings have been given to the term by E. von Hartmann, Professor Otto Pfleiderer, and others. 122 Agnostic Objections. docs not, certainly, deny God's existence ; but he desires ns to assume an agnostic attitude as to His attributes. "The whole," he says (in the General Corollary, at the conclusion of the treatise), " is a riddle, an senigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgment appear the only result of our most accurate scrutiny, con- cerning this subject. But such is the frailty of human reason, and such the irresistible contagion of opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could scarcely be upheld ; did we not enlarge our view, and opposing one species of superstition to another, set them a quarrelling ; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape, into the calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy." Here, then, he goes beyond mere Academic doubt, or conclusion of probability, such as we find in Cicero's De Natura Deorum. In the last sentence, he refers in an oracular way to betaking oneself to the calm of philosophy. This I inter- pret as equivalent to saying: — The philosophical attitude is the true one, and the philosophical / attitude is that of entire indifference towards Theism ; it is the simple refusal to go on exer- cising oneself in the search for the supersensible, which evermore eludes our grasp. Such know- Ledge (it says) is too high for me, I cannot attain unto it ; therefore, I will leave it alone. Position in the "Dialogues". L23 But, surely, this agnostic indifferentism is too easy a solution of the problem to be really effec- tive. To summarily dismiss the difficulty is not to solve it. You may, indeed, get rid of a pain by administering a soporific; but the experiment has cost you too dear, if the soporific produce in you a permanent anaesthesia. The agnostic conclusion which is here reached is reached, also, in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (not published till after Hume's death, although composed as early as 17.">1), but in an entirely different way. In the Natural lli.rii of Religion, Hume deliberately set on one side the rational evidence for theism ; representing it as so strong and conclusive as to be practically irre- sistible. This very evidence, however, is now in the Dialogues submitted to a strict and unspar- ing criticism. This substantially resolves itself into an examination of the nature and value of the Teleologieal argument, or argument from Design; with the result that, by the end of the examination, the argument is so riddled through and through as to be left with little force re- maining. The burden of the indictment is that such a mode of viewing the universe the teleo- logieal mode — is too anthropomorphic to he true: that it is, at many points, imperfect ; and that 124 Aynostic Objections. it could not, even at its best, reach pure theism. Still, even here, Hume continues to assert the Divine existence. He is no atheist, but an agnostic. His difficulties lie simply with the kind and amount of knowledge we can have of God. This know- ledge, on the basis of teleology, is found to be very slight ; and the close of the Dialogues lays down the exact state of the case. The dispute (so Philo and Cleanthes, the two leading interlocutors, agree) has all along been about words. While, on the one side, it is admitted that the original intelligence presupposed in the universe is far removed from human reason, on the other side it is allowed that the principle of order in the universe has some distant resemblance to human reason. And there the matter ends. Not in any way different is the result of Hume's investigations in the Enquiry Concerning Human Under standing. It is not alone the famous attack on miracles that we find here ; we find, also, the outline of the argument regarding teleology which is so rigorously and systematically carried out in the Dialogues, and we find many distinct formula- tions of Hume's general agnostic contention. One such formulation is given thus, in section vii. : — " It seems to me, that this theory of the universal Position in the "Enquiry". 125 energy and operation of the Supreme Being, is too bold ever to carry conviction with it to a man, sufficiently apprized of the weakness of human reason, and the narrow limits, to which it is confined in all its operations. Though the chain of arguments, which conduct to it, were ever so logical, there must arise a strong suspicion, if not an absolute assurance, that it has carried us quite beyond the reach of our faculties, when it leads us to conclusions so extraordinary, and so remote from common life and experience. We are got into fairy land, long ere we have reached the last steps of our theory ; and there we have no reason to trust our common methods of argument, or to think that our usual analogies and probabilities have any authority. Our line is too short to fathom such immense abysses. And however we may natter ourselves, that we are guided, in every step which we take, by a kind of verisimilitude and experience ; we may be assured, that this fancied experience has no authority, when we thus apply it to subjects, that lie entirely out of the sphere of experience." This reads like a passage from Kant's Criti of the Pure Reason. " The greatest, and perhaps the sole, use of all philosophy of pure reason," says Kant, " is, after all, merely negative, since it serves not as an organon for the enlargement (of know- 126 Agnostic Objections. ledge), but as a discipline for its delimitation; and, instead of discovering truth, has only the modest merit of preventing error." A passage that we could almost believe to be taken from Mansel's Bampton Lectures is found in section xi. : — " The great source of our mistake in this subject, and of the unbounded licence of conjecture, which we indulge, is, that we tacitly consider ourselves, as in the place of the Supreme Being, and conclude, that he will, on every occasion, observe the same conduct, which we ourselves, in his situation, would have embraced as reasonable and eligible. But, besides that the ordinary course of nature may convince us, that almost everything is regulated by principles and maxims very different from ours ; besides this, I say, it must evidently appear contrary to all rules of analogy to reason, from the intentions and projects of men, to those of a Being so different, and so much superior. In human nature, there is a certain experienced coherence of designs and inclinations ; so that when, from any fact, we have discovered one intention of any man, it may often be reasonable, from experience, to infer another, and draw a long chain of conclusions concerning his past or future conduct. But this method of reasoning can never have place with regard to a Being, so remote and incomprehensible, who bears Kant's Leading Doctrine. 127 much less analogy to any other being in the universe than the sun to a waxen taper, and who discovers himself only by some faint traces or outlines, beyond which we have no authority to ascribe to him any attribute or perfection. Whal we imagine to be a superior perfection may really be a defect. Or were it ever so much a perfection, the ascribing of it to the Supreme Being, where it appears not to have been really exerted, to the full, in his works, savours more of flattery and panegyric, than of just reasoning and sound philo- sophy." The agnosticism of Hume, then, is evident ; and we can readily sec its defects. It is not atheism, but what he himself would call a "miti- gated scepticism". Being prior in order of time to Kant's, it may rightly claim to be the first formulated statement of modern agnosticism ; and. both in spirit and in detailed argument, it is the source and precursor of what is rampant on every hand at the present day. 3. Kant. After Hume conies Kant. This is not only the order of time, but the order also of logical sequence. It was Hume, as Kant himself declares, that first awoke him from his dogmatic slumber; and the 128 Agnostic Objections. Critique of the Pure Reason is Kant's deliberate, but ineffective, attempt to answer Hume.1 The leading doctrine of Kant is, that man's knowledge is twofold, according as it has an ex- periential or a mental origin : it arises (1) from the matter of sensation as given through the senses, and (2) from the a priori forms of Intuition (Space and Time) plus the Categories of the Understand- ing. But the forms of Intuition and the Categories of the understanding are in man, not in the object. Hence, man can never know things-in-themselves, but only phenomena, Nevertheless, though things- in-themselves (or noiimena) cannot be known, they must be posited as underlying phenomena ; other- wise, thinking could never proceed at all. Al- though we cannot tell what they are, we must assume that they are : they do not come within our range of thought, but they are the condition of all thought, Our nescience, however, is only partial, — restricted to one sphere. For, notimena, though excluded by the Speculative Reason, are brought back by the Conscience. Neither God, Freedom, nor the Soul is known as a thing-in-itself, yet all three are postulates of the Practical Reason. 1 The ineffectiveness of Kant's reply to Hume is admirably shown by Dr. J. Hutchison Stirling in two articles in the first series of Mind (vols, ix., x.), entitled " Kant has not answered Hume". Agnosticism of the Speculative Reason. 1-M> The realities that intellectual philosophy cannot attain to are secured by man's ethical nature. Thus, in Kant, Reality is saved ; but only by creating a breach between the speculative and the regulative side of our mental being. Now, obviously, there is here a deep-seated agnosticism, inherent in the doctrine of noiimena, although Kant confined it to the speculative reason. For if, as Kant maintained, man can know only phenomena, while, at the same time, in order to explain this phenomenal knowledge, it is necessary to assume the existence of underlying things-in-themselves or noiimena, unrelated to phenomena in any way conceivable by us. then of necessity agnosticism follows. For noiimena are. by the supposition, altogether unrelated to pheno- mena : and so they must for ever escape our cogni- zance. Ihit there is a fallacy here. Kanl starts with the erroneous conception that reality is something apart from real things, — that we can take it by itself and examine it, and then brine, it into connexion with phenomena and watch the re- sult, just as the chemist can take an acid and an alkali in separation and then brine,- them together as a definite product. But the acid and the alkali are real things within the realm of intelligence; whereas Kant's reality is nothing, being outside 1:30 Agnostic Objections. the realm of intelligence — it is a bare abstraction having no real existence, which can, therefore, legitimately be put to no use. The step from this phenomenism, which con- fines us to knowledge of relations, to the position that relations are all that exist, is not a great one ; and it has been taken. The doctrine of phenomen- ism has sometimes been put in this way : — We know nothing of objects save in relation, and, as relation is something purely mental, there is nothing in existence but relations. This, clearly, is invalid. For, although we know nothing of objects save as related, although objects are nothing apart from their relations, although, in other words, an un- related object is a mere name expressive of nothing, — this is quite a different thing from saying that objects are only relations. So far, indeed, are objects from being only relations, that relations without something to relate would be an absurdity. The confusion, I presume, arises from not distin- guishing between " objects as related " and " our knowledge of the relations of objects," or " our perception of objects in their relations". But this is a distinction that is paramount and funda- mental, and cannot be neglected except at great risk. But, if Kant's doctrine of noumena be untenable, it is scarcely to be supposed that he himself should Kant's Vacillation. 133 not at times have been at least half conscious of it. And so he was; for his caution and vacillation in expressing the doctrine are patent to every student, and his inconsistency in casting it aside at critical points is notorious. Although beyond the sphere of the categories, and therefore not expressible in quantity or quality or relation, noiimena are yet represented by him as causes of sense-impressions, and. in the region of ethics, they are identified with worth. But Cause is a relation, and so is applicable only to phenomena; and "cause" and •worth" are by no means identical conceptions. If noiimena and phenomena be absolute opposites, they must for ever remain in isolation — no philo- sophy can bridge the gulf between them ; and the sole legitimate function of the former is, as Jacobi long ago remarked, to "enjoy a position of otium cum dignitate". I>nt now let us turn from Kant's general philo- sophical position to his Ethical theism in particu- lar, and see of what kind it is. God, says Rant, is a postulate of the Practical Reason: in other words, His existence is demanded by the con- science. But how so? The Moral law comes to us as an unconditional command : its injunction is, "'Act as if the maxim of thy will were to become, by thy adopting it, an universal law of nature." Vo'2 Agnostic Objections. " Act according to that maxim which thou couldst at the same time will an universal law," " Act as if thy maxim were to become law universal," "Act agreeably to the maxims of a person ordaining law universal in the realm of ends " (Kant's Meta- physic of Ethics, Semple's transl., pp. 36, 54, oQ, 57). But this peremptory and unconditional command : what does it imply 1 It implies (1) that there is in man a tendency or disposition to transgress the command ; and (2) that, nevertheless, perfect obedience is both due and possible. But perfect obedience means the realization of the highest good, and, as this cannot be achieved within a limited time, such as the three-score years and ten of man's earthly existence, the implication is that there is a future life or that man is immortal. But even the idea of a future life is not sufficient ; for, if the highest good is to be realized, account must be taken of all the elements of moral char- acter, and all must be harmonized. This involves Happiness as well as Virtue ; and as happiness and virtue are not coincident here, but quite otherwise, the further implication is that there must be not only a future life, but also a Being- capable of harmonizing happiness and virtue in that life— a Being of holy will, possessed of full knowledge of men's hearts and inmost thoughts, powerful to reward according to desert: and this Kant's Ethical Theism. 133 Being is God. God, therefore, is a postulate of our moral nature ; and both His existence and His character are thereby established. Now, this reasoning, although quite open to philosophers holding different views regarding the nature and sanctions of morality from Kant's, is not open to Kant himself. For (1), first of all, Kant's Categorical Imperative is a purely formal principle. He tells us very plainly in his Meta- physic of Ethics that it is the issuing of an uncon- ditional command: it is an injunction demanding our obedience, not with a view to happiness, nor even from love of obeying, but simply out of re- gard to duty. If feeling of any kind enters into our obedience, the moral act is thereby vitiated : "there is nothing in the world which can be termed absolutely and altogether good, a <>cstcris), and insisted on prayer and sym- bolic rites (which ultimately degenerated into gross superstition) as the means of its attainment. In the state of spiritual ecstasy or trance (to which even Plotinus himself attained only four times during six years), the finite is merged in the infinite, and a man, united to the Source of his 1 icing, be- comes absorbed in Him. To the Neo-platonists, however, as philosophers, an intellectual difficulty presented itself. For, if God was the undifferenced or indeterminate One, if lie was simply Unity, the absolute, to a\ how came the world, how came matter, into existence '. To solve this difficulty, they supposed (very illogi- cally) a series of Emanations from the Deity, each emanation losing in divine' pureness the farther removed from Deity it was. First came Intelligence {yov%)\ which, being the emanation nearest the Divinity and immediately from Him. was the purest. Next came an emanation from Intelligence1 — less pure than intelligence, as being 1 38 Agnostic Objections. more remote from the primal source. This emana- tion was xpvxr) or Soul. Then, from soul proceed other souls; and, as souls must have a house to dwell in, soul produces matter and the world. Now, three characteristics of this famous system are specially observable : — (1) It was essen- tially devout in its motive ; (2) it was mystical in its method ; (3) it was pantheistic in its result. Two criticisms at least may be ventured. (1) In the first place, we deny, what the Neo-platonists assert, — that knowledge of the Deity by man would be derogatory to the Divine character: there is no sense in saying that it would reduce the Infinite to the finite, and the Absolute One to unworthy determinateness and difference. I consider that philosophy, in its later developments, has made this clear. Neo-platonism takes an altogether erroneous view of the distinction between the Infinite and the finite, regarding the former only as the negation of the latter, and placing the Absolute in such entire opposition to us men that the bringing together of the two extremes would be nothing less than a contradiction in terms. Of course, if you deal with irreconcilable abstractions, no rational power in man can ever unite them ; but neither can they be united by ecstasy or any other power that is non-rational. Your emanations Criticism of Neo-platonism. 139 even, or series of graded powers, interposed between the Deity and you, whereby the finite ascends in conception as by the steps of a ladder to the Infinite, solve no difficulty: they only serve to bring the primary difficulty into bolder relief. This is an explanation that explains nothing. How can absolute Unity — a Unity, too, which is "beyond being" — give being to emanations? How, if indeterminate and unrelated, can it stand to these (directly or remotely) in the relation of an author or creator? How even, in any way, can they be dependent upon it '. The solution of the difficulty thus unsolved lies only in the perception of the truth that the Infinite and the finite are not in irreconcilable antithesis, nor is the Absolute a unity that is incompatible with diversity. On the contrary, this unity, in order to be real, must be the meeting-point of differences, and the finite must, from the beginning, be in relation to the infinite. Then, (2) secondly, the Pantheism of Neo-pla- tonism does not meet the requirements of the religious nature, nor does its ecstatic method commend itself either to sober reason or to the moral sense. If (iod is. lie must also be a personal (lod: and the union that the creature claims with the Creator is not one of undiffer- entiated absorption, but one of rational and ethical 1 40 Agnostic Object u > > i s. fellowship, and personality, as being the highest fact in our experience, cannot be disowned.1 5. Mansel. We may leave this form of Agnosticism based on devoutness, and proceed to the second, which is even more important, Dean Mansel's Agnosticism is also characterized by deep religious feeling ; but, although it has this in common with Neo-platonism, it is neither mysti- cal nor pantheistic. After Sir William Hamilton, it emphasizes the impotence of human reason and exalts the place and function of Faith. Hamilton had said : — To think is to condition ; but God is the unconditioned ; therefore, He cannot be the object of thought— He is simply ;i postulate of Faith.'2 Put in technical language : "The Unconditioned [i.e., the Absolute and the Infinite expressed generically] is incognizable and inconceivable; its notion being only negative of 1 The temptation here is great to supplement what is said in the text by some account of the Great Christian Neo-platonist of the ninth century— Scotus Erigena. But these Lectures are neither a history of philosophy nor a history of theology. 2 Nevertheless, in the Logic (Lectures, vol. iv. pp. 70, 73), Hamilton maintains that, as to knowledge and belief, "each supposes the other" : not only may the certainty of knowledge be resolved into a certainty of belief, but " the manifestation of this belief necessarily involves knowledge ; for we cannot believe without some consciousness or knowledge of the belief, and, consequently, without some conscious- ness or knowledge of the object of the belief". ManseVs Relation to Hamilto)). 141 the Conditioned, which last can alone be positively known or conceived" (Discussions, 2nd edition, p. 12). He had even, in one place (Id., p. 15 n.), gone the length of saying — altogether regardless of the correct translation of the Greek, — "But the last and highest consecration of all true religion must be an altar 'A-ypaxjTO) ®eat — To the unknown and unknowable God". This doctrine Mansel accepted, and proceeded to carry out in a systematic fashion, with much learning and great logical acumen. His position may be summarized as follows : — God, according to the metaphysician, is the Absolute and the Infinite. "By the Absolute is meant that which exists in and by itself, having no necessary relation to any other Being. By the Infinite is meant that which is free from all possible limitation; that than which a greater is inconceivable ; and which consequently can receive no additional attribute or mode of existence which it had not from all eternity" (Th e Limits of Re- ligious Thought, 4th edition, p. 30). But if so. God is unthinkable; for, when we try to realize the notions that the words Absolute and Infinite imply and try to put them together, we are landed in ;i mass of contradictions. "There is a contra- diction in supposing such an object to exist. whether alone or in conjunction with others; and 14:2 Agnostic Objections. there is a contradiction in supposing it not to exist. There is a contradiction in conceiving it as one ; and there is a contradiction in conceiving it as many. There is a contradiction in conceiving it as personal ; and there is a contradiction in conceiving it as impersonal. It cannot without contradiction be represented as active ; nor, with- out equal contradiction, be represented as inactive. It cannot be conceived as the sum of all exist- ence ; nor yet can it be conceived as a part only of that sum." But if this be so, what becomes of Revelation; for, is it not the very object of Revelation to declare to man the Absolute and the Infinite 1 No, says Mansel, Revelation does not, any more than Reason, give us the Absolute and the Infinite : by both alike, " God is repre- sented under finite conceptions, adapted to finite minds ; and the evidences on which the authority of Revelation rests are finite and comprehensible also" (Id., "Preface," pp. xvi., xvii.). On what grounds, then, one naturally asks, is the existence of the Absolute and the Infinite secured ? In the first place, says Mansel, the absolute and the infinite are purely negative notions, they are simply the negation of thought, simply names for the absence of those conditions under which thought is possible; and "it is characteristic of all mere negative notions that we cannot possibly say Summary of ManseVs Views. 14o whether their supposed objects exist or nut " (Prolegomena Logica, p. Vol), for, "the limits of possible thought are not the limits of possible existence" (Metaphysics, p. 278). In the next place, notwithstanding this speculative impotence, and notwithstanding the " inextricable confusion and contradiction" into which the attempted analysis of the ideas suggested to us by the Absolute and Infinite throws us, "we are compelled, by the constitution of our minds, to believe in the existence of an Absolute and Infinite Being, a belief which appears forced upon us, as the com- plement of our consciousness of the relative and the finite " (Limits of Religious Thought, p. 45) : that is to say, the absolute and the infinite is a regula- tive, not a speculative, truth — " sufficient to guide our practice, but not to satisfy our intellect": it is a necessity of human belief, — we can believe that it is, but cannot conceive how or what it is,— "we are compelled to take refuge in Faith". All this notwithstanding, our "moral and religious con sciousness " our conscience and our sense of dependence — imperatively demands God, and de- mands Him as a person. What then? "Human personality cannot be assumed as an exact copy of the Divine, but only as that which is most nearly analogous to it among finite things" (T/tr Philo- sophy of the Conditioned, p. 14-1). 144 Agnostic Objections. Such is Mansel's teaching, given most fully in the Bampton Lectures (The Limits of Religious Thought), but found in all his philosophical writings — the Prolegomena Logica, the Metaphysics, and The Philosophy of the Conditioned. Let us look at it somewhat closely. 1. In the first place, observe, Mansel is merci- less in his logic against the Absolute and the Infinite as defined by the metaphysician. In this he is irresistible. For, these terms, as so used, represent pure abstractions : they are fictions of the mind, or, rather, they are words without any true signification. Possibly enough, in his criticism here, he had directly in view the philo- sophy of Spinoza, which (after the manner of geometry) is based upon definitions, especially the definition of Substance ; but his strictures are equally applicable to all philosophy that does not lay a sufficiently stable groundwork in psychology. He himself regarded the criticism, legitimately or illegitimately, as specially effective against Schel- ling and Hegel. But the remorseless logic that thus shatters the metaphysician's Absolute and Infinite may be turned against Mansel himself at the next step. Not content with demolishing these abstractions, Mansel proceeds to affirm that, all contradiction Doctrine of the Absolute. 14.") notwithstanding, this very Absolute and Infinite is demanded by human Faith; we cannot conceive it, but we must believe it. Now, what faith demands, what is demanded by human nature, is not this, but the existence of the Absolute and the Infinite as the correlative and ground of the relative and finite. No Spinozistic Substance is demanded — call it substance, the absolute, the un- conditioned, or by whatever other metaphysical name you choose, from which all characterization or determination is absent; but a definitely characterized and completed something. The Absolute, as I understand it, is not that which is wholly unrelated, but that which is the source and positive condition of all relation, — that which gives to relation its very meaning. Relations there must be, though not this or that particular class of relations : and, as man's experience of relations is very limited, there is nothing contradictory in supposing all relations as experienced by man and man himself non-existent, and yet the Absolute not thereby annihilated. The need of relation of some kind, is one thing; the need of a particular kind of relation, or of a certain definite number of relations, is quite another thing; and we may very well affirm the former of the Absolute, while we deny the latter. The Infinite, on the other hand, is not the mere negation of the finite ; on the 10 140 Agnostic Objection*. contrary, it is its completion and perfection. We call spiritual qualities — such as intelligence, wis- dom, goodness — finite, because they do not reach in us the full perfection of which they are in them- selves capable ; in God, this perfection is reached, and hence, as predicated of Him, we call them infinite. The Infinite is the Unlimited in the sense that to it limits, in the materialistic signification of the term, are inapplicable. It would, indeed, be absurd to suppose that the Deity is limited by the external world in the same way as the human body is limited by it, when, as one object outside another, the human body comes into contact with the external and finds itself resisted. It Mould also be absurd to suppose that the limit of human ignorance or error, or the impediment of human vice, exists in God. But no true conception of the infinite as applied to God can refuse to recognize that Reason's lawTs are as much binding on the Divine as they are on the human mind; and to say that, to the Infinite Being, a thing can both be1 and not be in the same sense and at the same time, or that past events may b}' Him be undone, is simply to use words at random. These things are not, in anyproper meaning, limit*: the term "limit" is simply irrele- vant here. Intelligence is still intelligence, whether it 1 >e human or Divine; and man's knowledge, though imperfect, is, to the extent of its perfection, real. Relativity of Human Knowledge. 147 The truth is, that, in his doctrine of the Con- ditioned, Mansel (like Hamilton) overstrained the principle of the Relativity of human knowledge. Human knowledge, no doubt, is relative in a very genuine sense : it is / that know, else that know- ledge were not mine. No doubt, also, man is to himself " the measure of all things," in the sense that he can understand only what he has the ability to understand. But the very point in question is, What has man the ability to understand? And it will not do summarily to exclude from this ability knowledge of God, or ingeniously to plead that, because it is / that know God, it is not God that 1 know. Such argumentation is worthy of the Sophists in their palmiest days. And, indeed. the Sophists were the originators of it. In their hands, however, it was unanalyzed. To Protagoras is ascribed the saying, " Man is the measure of all things"; and what Protagoras meant by it seems to have been that all knowledge is relative to a knower (which, of course, is true), or that know- ledge must start from the subject knowing (which, again, is true). But his disciples used it as a kind of Ockham's razor wherewith to (ait the throat of truth, and to produce general scepticism. It was not till Socrates confronted it, that the Protagorean dictum was subjected to a strict critical analysis: and Socrates, still occupying the subjective1 stand- 148 Agnostic Objections. point, accepted the formula, but showed that man, who is indeed the measure of all things, has in him- self the power of refuting scepticism and of grasping truth, and that his speculative tendencies are not a human weakness but an intellectual strength. That gave to Plato the ground and basis of his spiritualistic philosophy ; and it has constituted the philosophical position, more and more defin- itely conceived as time passed, in all subsequent ages. Indeed, so far is it from being the ease that, because we know reality, it is not reality that we know, that the very opposite is true. It is only when we know something about a thing that we regard it as existent. A thing of which we know nothing, a thing which never in any way comes under our cognizance, is to us a nonentity. Our intelligence gives truth to the extent that it grasps reality ; and the highest of all intelligences grasps reality fully. On any other supposition, we are landed in absurdity and utter inanity. '2. Hence, secondly, it follows that Faith cannot be dissociated from Reason in the way that Mansel maintained. By Faith here is not understood " intuition " ; nor is it regarded (like sensation and reflection) as a distinct source of conviction. On the contrary, it Faith and Reason. 149 is the characteristic of a negative notion (so Mansel tells us) that " it has never been realized in in- tuition" (The Philosophy of the Conditioned, p. 116): and, as for Faith's being a distinct source of conviction, why, he says, it is conviction itself. "No man would say that lie is convinced of the truth of a proposition because he believes it ; his belief in its truth is the same thing as his con- viction of its truth. Belief, then, is not a source of conviction, but a conviction having sources of its own. The question is, have we legitimate sources of conviction, distinct from those which constitute Knowledge properly SO called?" (Id, p. 124). Faith, then, is simply belief ; and the distinction between Faith and Reason is not the distinction between Intuition and Reasoning. But if so, then we may confidently assert that Mansel's contention is not true, that " Reason itself requires us to believe in truths that are beyond reason," in the sense that these supra-rational truths represent the1 entire negation of human thought. What is true is, that there may be truths that human reason would not in the ordinary course of experience have discovered truths that come to us by what we distinctively know as a reve- lation; but then these truths, when revealed, are rationally given and rationally apprehended, and to that extent they are not mere negative notions. 150 Agnostic Objections. " If a representation," .says Principal Caird, " is a true representation, it must belong to the same order with the thing represented. The relation between them is a thinkable relation and one which, though immature individual intelligence may not apprehend it, thought or intelligence in general is capable of apprehending. Nothing that is absolutely inscrutable to reason can be made known to faith. It is only because the content of a revelation is implicitly rational that it can possess any self-evidencing power, or exert any moral influence over the human spirit" (A/t Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, p. 78). Nor are we in any way helped by having recourse to Hansel's favourite distinction (as it was Kant's) between a speculative and a regula- tive truth — between a truth that satisfies the intellect and one that is simply sufficient for guid- ing conduct.1 That distinction just means that, between the rational and the practical sides of man's nature, there is a chasm that cannot be bridged over. But in reality there is no such chasm ; for, faith and reason, or practice and speculation, are not the extreme opposites that Mansel would make them out to be. It 1 Mansel, however, is careful to point out that Kant turns the dis- tinction in a direction entirely opposite to his own. While Mansel regards the finite manifestation of God to he the regulative truth, Kant regards the regulative truth to be the Absolute itself. Mansel'* Caution and Credulity. 1">I is quite true, what Butler says, that "probability is the very guide of life " - not, however, the calculus of probability (we must beware of the mathematicians here), but probability as a thing of likelihood and degrees, ranging from the merest pre- sumption to a very high certainty ; and this proba- bility, as distinguished from absolute demonstration, you may, if you care, term faith. But then, it is a rational faith, — a faith resting on a very positive basis, on more or less of intelligible evidence, and not taking its tone from a mere mental impotence. :>. And this brings me to a third remark. In Mansel's doctrine of faith and reason, there is an unmistakable arbitrariness, which leads to rather curious results. In Mansel himself, we have a wonderful combination of two striking qualities, but each of them in excess. On the one hand, lie is extreme in his speculative citation : he will neither affirm nor deny in connexion with the objects of negative notions; he even rebukes Berkeley for his denial of the metaphysician's abstraction, 'k matter ". " The fault of Berkeley," he says [Prolegomena L<>i>i><>sit<- of any of the mathematical axioms : shall we say then that we are ignorant of 156 Agnostic Objections. these ? That would be absurd. No man can be ignorant that two and two make Jive; for this is a thing rcotf to be known on any terms, or by any mind. This fixes the law of ignorance, which is, that " we can be ignorant only of what can (possibly) be known," or, in barbarous locution, " the Knowable nloiic is the ignorable" [Remains, i. pp. 48_!-3. See, also, Institutes of Metaphysic, 3rd ed., pp. 41*2, etc.). The doctrine of the negative notion, then, lands us on the horns of a dilemma. If God be solely what we ourselves are not, then He is nothing to us ; while, if He is anything to us, He cannot be the bare negation contended for. 5. But, again, Mansel makes much of the doc- trine of analogy. Although man's mental powers, lie says, are neither identical with nor an exact copy of the Divine, they are analogous to the Divine. Now what is meant by " analogous " '. and how does the doctrine of analogy answer the purpose ? "Analogous" may mean one of three things. First, in Aristotle's terminology, Analogy means " equality of ratios or relations," as when we say, — "The soul : the body : : the boatman : his boat": where the two ratios on either side are exactly equal, and propositions true of the one are true of the other also. Next, with Arch- bishop Whately, analogy signifies " resemblance of Doctrine of Analogy. 157 ratios or relations," — resemblance, not of the ob- jects themselves, but of their relations. Tims, a man's parent is different from his master ; but, inasmuch as both parent and master exercise a certain authority over him, there is an analogy in this relation of superiority. Thirdly, Analogy means " resemblance of any kind (whether of attri- butes or of relations) among objects, and such resemblance as is sufficient to form a basis of probable reasoning". This is Analogy as at pre- sent conceived by logicians. Now, in which of these senses does Mansel use the term when he says that the human is analo- gous to the Divine? He himself tells ns when he says, l>that the relation between the communicable attributes of God and the corresponding attributes of man is one not of identity, but of analogy ; that is to say, that the Divine attributes have the same relation to the Divine nature that the human attri- butes have to human nature'" [The Philosophy of the Conditioned, p. 164). lint surely, if this be so, the question at once suggests itself, How do you know this \ Before you are able to declare that the two classes of attributes are not identical but only analogous, you must know the Divine as well as the human; and, if you do not know the Divine, it is illegitimate for you to talk of the Divine attributes at all. 1 .") 8 A g 1 i ost ic Obja '.tions. Berkeley is far nearer the mark than Manse] here. " It is to be observed," lie says, " that a twofold analogy is distinguished by the schoolmen —metaphorical and proper. Of the first kind there are frequent instances in Holy Scripture, attributing human parts and passions to God. When He is represented as having a finger, an eye, or an ear ; when He is said to repent, to be angry, or grieved; every one sees that analogy is metaphorical. Because those parts and passions, taken in the proper signification, must, in every degree, necessarily and from the formal nature of the thing, include imperfection. When, therefore, it is said — the finger of God appears in this or that event, men of common-sense mean no more but that it is as truly ascribed to God as the works wrought by human fingers are to man : and so of the rest. But the case is different when wisdom and knowledge are attributed to God. Passions and senses, as such, imply detect ; but in knowledge simply, or as such, there is no defect. Knowledge, therefore, in the proper formal meaning of the word, may be attributed to God proportionably, that is preserving a pro- portion to the infinite nature of God. Wc may say, therefore, that as God is infinitely above man, so is tin1 knowledge of God infinitely above the knowledge of man, and this is what Cajetan calls Berkeley. 159 analogia pi^oprie facta. And after this same ana- logy we must understand all those attributes to belong' to the Deity which in themselves simply, and as such, denote perfection. We may, therefore, consistently with what hath been premised, affirm that all sorts of perfection which we can conceive in a finite spirit are in God. but without any of that allay which is found in the creatures. This doc- trine, therefore, of analogical perfections in God, or our knowing God by analogy, seems very much misunderstood and misapplied by those who would infer from thence that we cannot frame any direct or proper notion, though never so inadequate, of knowledge or wisdom, as they are in the Deity; or understand any more of them than one horn blind can of light and colours" (Alciphron ; or. The Minute Philosopher, Dialogue, iv. § 21). i). But now, apart from the speculative side of our nature, what of God as given by other parts of it? What of the emotional and ethical sides of our being — what of our feeling of depend- ence on One Higher than ourselves and of the demands of Conscience, on which Mansel lays especial stress? These, indeed, are important elements in our philosophy of Theism; but they are not the sole factors. When Mansel demands that our "religious feelings and affections" shall 1()0 Agnostic Objections. be regarded "as a distinct class of psychological facts, co-ordinate with, not subordinate to, the thinking faculty " (Prolegomena Logica, p. 2.">(j), he is on strong' ground, and we heartily acquiesce. But when he further says " that religion is not a function of thought," we immediately dissent ; for, in thus saying, he is ignoring his own demand. To accept this last position is to break the co-ordina- tion between intellect and our religious affections ; it is to make the latter superordinate and the former subordinate, if it be not, indeed, to sweep the former away altogether. If God is a datum of our nature, He is a datum of our whole nature, and not merely of a part of it. III. Philosophico-Scientific Agnosticism. 6. Mr. Herbert Spencer. No such illegitimate separation of the intel- lectual from the moral side of human nature as was made by Kant and by Mansel is made by Mr. Herbert Spencer ; and his agnosticism, accordingly, is more symmetrical. Discarding alike the Neo- platonic mysticism and Kant's practical reason as sufficient guarantees for theism, he bases his doc- trine in the persistence of human belief. Yet, he is entirely on the side of Mansel and of Matthew Arnold in reaching, as his conclusion, a Deity that is unknown and unknowable. Indeed, he himself Mr. II. Spencer's Position. 161 tells us, in the original Programme of his writings, distributed in 1860 and reprinted in the Preface to his First Principles, that his main object in the philosophy of the unknowable is "carrying a step further the doctrine put into shape by Hamilton and Mansel ; pointing out the various directions in which Science leads to the same conclusions ; and showing that in this united belief in an Absolute that transcends not only human knowledge but human conception, lies the only possible reconciliation of Science and Religion". Put briefly, Mr. Spencer's position is as fol- lows :— Knowledge is essentially relative — not human knowledge only, but all knowledge. Hence, know- ledge of transcendent reality is impossible. Never- theless, men have an ineradicable belief that tran- scendent reality exists. Such a belief has survived all hostile attacks, and is a fact of Evolution. Vet the transcendent Reality, the noumenon behind phenomena, is unknowable and incomprehensible, and we ought to "refrain from assigning to it any attributes whatever" (First Principles, 5th ed., p. 1 10). The ascribing of attributes to God, indeed. Mr. Spencer calls " the impiety of the pious " ; and he likens the procedure of theologians who speak of God as knowable to that of a conscious watch, 11 1 &2 Agnostic Objections. which should " insist on regarding the watch- maker's actions as determined like its own by springs and escapements," and should also insist on all other watches reverently doing the same, or else submitting to being branded as atheistic. Notwithstanding these brave words, however, he himself cannot get along without predicating cer- tain things of the Incognizable. First, positively : he says that it is a cause, — "the Ultimate cause of things" (Id., p. 108); or, as he more frequently expresses it, a power, "an Inscrutable Power manifested to us through all phenomena," " A Power of which no limit in Time or Space can be conceived " ; or, from the side of Science, force, "persistent Force ever changing its manifestations but unchanged in quantity throughout all past time and all future time" (Id., p. 552) ; the " un- known Power" of which Matter and Motion are the "conditioned manifestations," and of which, too, " that Force as we are conscious of it when by our own efforts we produce changes, is the correlative " (Id,, p. 579) : in other words, the " Uni- versal Power which transcends consciousness," alike inscrutable in Mind as in Matter (The Prin- ciples of Psychology, vol. i. § 63). So, then, even while maintaining it to be inscrutable, Mr. Spencer distinctly ascribes to the Unknowable a dynamic nature ; he regards it as one and permanent, the Three Questions to be Answered. 1 0:3 sole constant in the midst of change ; eternal, too, and practically omnipresent — "the Infinite and Eternal Energy, from which all things proceed " (Ecclesiastical Institutions, p. 863). Second, nega- tively : he says that it is not to be regarded as personal — " duty requires ns neither to affirm nor deny personality," " Is it not just possible that there is a mode of being as much transcending Intelligence and Will, as these transcend mechani- cal motion?" (First Principle*, 5th ed., p. 109). Now. what shall we say of this ? Obviously, three questions here arise :— 1. On what evidence does Mr. Spencer regard the Absolute or God as unknowable? 2. On what grounds does he assert the existence of this Unknowable ? 3. How does he characterize the Unknowable ? For, after all, it is not absolutely characterless ; Mr. Spencer's attitude not being, as he himself main- tains, one of "entire and contemptuous negation". 1. As to the first of these questions, the great evidence is the philosophical one, — the Relativity of Knowledge. This doctrine Mr. Spencer accepts from Hamil- ton and Manse] ; but lie gives it the widest possible sweep, and alters it in one important particular. 1<)4 Agnostic Objections. While maintaining that knowledge is essentially relative, he is altogether opposed to the doctrine of the negative notion. So far, he says, is the absolute from being merely the negation of all the conditions of thought, that, on the contrary, we have a positive, though vague or indefinite, con- sciousness of it as the "actuality lying behind appearances". His argument is: "We are con- scious of the Relative as existence under conditions and limits ; it is impossible that these conditions and limits can be thought of apart from something to which they give the form ; the abstraction of these conditions and limits, is, by the hypothesis, the abstraction of them only; consequently there must be a residuary consciousness of something which filled up their outlines ; and this indefinite something constitutes our consciousness of the Non-relative or Absolute. Impossible though it is to give to this consciousness any qualitative or quantitative expression whatever, it is not the less certain that it remains with us as a positive and indestructible element of thought "(Id., pp. 90, 91). And to the impossibility of getting rid of the consciousness of this non-qualitative, non-quanti- tative, Absolute, Mr. Spencer ascribes "our inde- structible belief" in its actuality. Now, with Mr. Spencer, in his rejection of the The Unknowable. 165 doctrine of the negative notion, T am entirely at one. On grounds already explained, and which need not be repeated, I think that doctrine al- together untenable. But not less untenable and not less self-destructive, does Mr. Spencer's sub- stitute appear to me to be. That we have a knowledge of the Absolute in the only true sense of the Absolute when applied to God — a know- ledge of Him in the qualities of His being, true though limited, positive and real though not com- plete,— is the very point that I maintain. But a "consciousness" of Him without any knowledge of what it is, or whom it is, whereof we are con- scious, leading to the indestructible "belief" in His or its real existence, appears to me a thing utterly fictitious, and the statement of it a con- tradiction in terms. We do not believe in that of which we arc conscious ; we know it. We believe only in what is not, in the strict sense of the term, known, — in what is liable to more or less of doubt, —what needs to be supported by evidence or by reasoning, and the evidence may be defective and the reasoning weak. ^or is it anything more than putting words together in a meaningless conjunction to say that we are conscious, even in a vague or indefinite way, of the Unknowable. If the object of consciousness be "inscrutable," if it be not expressible either in quality or in quantity, 166 Agnostic Objections. it is no object of consciousness ; and " the con- sciousness of something which is yet out of con- sciousness" (The Principles of Psychology, vol. ii. § 448) is more than " mysterious " : it is self-con- tradictory. And this Mr. Spencer himself by and by feels. His unknown and unknowable, when he comes to view it in the light of Science, is not that colourless something' to which no predicate can be attached, but a very definite something whose character is wonderfully well ascertained. It can never be too often stated, as it cannot be too firmly grasped, that the Absolute is the co-relative of the Relative (the Infinite of the finite), not as being its exclusive antithesis or contradictor}', but as being its complement or completion, and that, as complement or completion, it stands to it in very definite relations, which by us are distinctly, though only partially, known. '2. So much, then, for the first question. What now of the second I What of the grounds on which Mr. Spencer asserts the existence of the Unknowable ? The logical ground we have already seen and examined : relative implies absolute. But the really telling argument is, the fact of man's ineradi- cable belief. Ineradicable Belie/a. 167 Mr. Spencer is on very firm ground in his teaching about ineradicable beliefs.1 Such beliefs, he says, " beliefs that are perennial and nearly or quite universal," have in them at any rate partial truth. Although he does not allow that a truth is proved merely by the fact that it is accepted by the majority of men, although he is very far from admitting that the voice of the people is necessarily the voice of God, — he, nevertheless, maintains that "admitting, as we must, that life is impossible unless through a certain agreement between in- ternal convictions and external circumstances ; admitting therefore that the probabilities are ,il ways in favour of the truth, or at least the partial truth, of a conviction; we must admit that the convictions entertained by many minds in common are the most likely to have some foundation. The elimination of individual errors of thought, must give to the resulting judgment a certain additional value" (First Principles, 5th ed., p. 4). And in this position, 1 think he is impregnable. lint he is not so secure in the method he adopts lor discovering the element of truth "in things erroneous," or in ascertaining what is the thing 1 This is in part fche old argument Consensus gentium, of which Cicero makes so great a use. It has been brought prominently forward in recent times; e.g., by Bishop Ellieott, in the Second Address of his Six Addresses on the Being of God. 168 Agnostic Objections. that men universally believe, in the midst of their diversity of modes of expressing it. His method is : " To compare all opinions of the same genus ; to set aside as more or less discrediting one another those various special and concrete elements in which such opinions disagree ; to observe what remains after the discordant constituents have been eliminated ; and to find for this remaining constituent that abstract expression which holds true throughout its divergent modifications " ( Id. , p. 11). In other words, it is the comparative method, which can only leave you with a very bare residuum, a pure simulacrum, an attenuated point, as the object of general belief. And the residuum is more meagre still when, on the same comparative principle, we have to whittle it down so as to find in it the common element of Science and Religion. No wonder that Mr. Spencer's ultimate term should assume a very ghost-like form. It is simply this : " the Power which the Universe mani- fests to us is utterly inscrutable" (Id., p. 4(3). What then, under this head, falls to be said is, That, granting the fact of men's ineradicable belief in God as the noiimenon underlying phenomena, we do not grant that this belief centres in an un- known and unknowable God. On the contrary, it amounts to a very firm conviction that God is par- God as Known. 169 fcially known — known in His manifestations, — and may be more and more fully known, as time goes on and experience deepens. So far is it from shutting out knowledge of God, that it refuses to set limits to the possibilities in this direction, and thus becomes a powerful motive to effort and a never- failing stimulus to religious progress. Unlike agnosticism, it forecloses nothing ; and thus has nothing about it of the paralyzing influence that necessarily accompanies a creed which, in the name of Reason, claims to set bounds to reason, and, under guise of nescience, makes assertions that are competent only to omniscience. Mr. Spencer is right in demanding respect for the ineradicable belief; he is wrong in his analysis of that belief itself. 3. But now, thirdly, what of .Mr. Spencer's own characterization of his Unknowable? We have already seen that he makes it out to be Force; and, although he will not designate it a, person, he ascribes to it permanence, unity, eternity, and practical omnipresence. But surely this goes far beyond the attitude of nescience ; and yet. even at its best, it is altogether inadequate to express men's indestructible belief, on which he justly lays stress, and, in one vital point, is diametrically opposed to it. For, while men do have a perennial conviction 170 Agnostic Objections. regarding the existence of the Absolute, and also regarding His nature, they are not less definite in regarding the Absolute as personal. Personality is the highest fact in the universe known to man ; and, if he is to interpret the universe at all, he feels that this interpretation must be in terms of the highest factor known to him, and not in terms of anything lower. Nor is there presumption, much less " impiety," in thus ascribing Personality to God, or in supposing Him to be endowed with Intelligence and Will like our own. There can in this be no presumption, if we have a right to pos- tulate the Deity at all. On the contrary, there is absolute necessity ; and light accrues from our pro- cedure. For, given a great Personal Being, who underlies the universe and informs it, not a bare Creator outside and simply working upon it, and you can see how mind and matter, and the finite and the Infinite, can meet. There is a greeting of the Spirit here, which means much. But refuse this, and your mere conception of Force docs not help you. Hence, the weakness of simply dealing " with Evolution at large — Inorganic, Organic, and Super-organic — in terms of Matter and Motion". Matter and Motion can do great things, but they cannot explain spiritual phenomena ; even Anax- agoras saw that they pre-supposed Mind. Person- ality is not found there ; and Mr. Spencer himself Force. 171 has to take Spirit as utterly distinct from Matter, consciousness as distinct from nerve force, and to leave the union of the two an entire mystery. But more than this, Mr. Spencer's Force, as not being personal, is a pure abstraction. It is impossible, therefore, to accept it as the true object of Religion. He himself feels this when he says . " Indeed it seems somewhat strange that men should suppose the highest worship to lie in assimi- lating the object of their worship to themselves. Not in asserting a transcendent difference, but in asserting a certain likeness, consists the element of their creed which they think essential " (Id., p. 109). But there is no strangeness about this, if the Object of Religion must be one that shall meet men's various needs. It is strictly necessitated on psychological grounds. There are certain things, indeed, on the side of emotion, that Force might conceivably be competent to effect. It might impress us with awe, or it might affect us with fear ; it might even, in another aspect, please us as the beautiful or soothe us as the mild ; it might also place us in the attitude of wonder and of meditation, and give exercise to our intellectual curiosity. But it could not draw forth our prayers, in expectation of light and help and guidance from it ; nor could it elicit that piety and devotion, that moral reverence and deep veneration, that tender submission and feeling of trust and 1 72 Agnostic Objections. love, that are characteristic of Religion. We might yield to it as coercing us, or resign ourselves to it as to the inevitable ; but we never could cheerfully submit to it as acquiescing in it. Nothing but Personality can constrain us ; and to none but a living Person, supreme in wisdom and in love, can we yield a full and willing homage. Once more, what of morality and conscience ? The cosmic order and the moral order, regarded simply as force, are not homogeneous ; and a bridge has to be erected between physical order, or fixed natural law, and the harmony of the soul. Briefly then : Mr. Spencer's Unknowable, in so far as it is characterized, ceases to be the unknow- able; but, even when characterized, it is not suf- ficient for man's religious needs. Its power, though bought at the expense of inconsistency, turns out to be impotence. 7. Professor Huxley. There is a type of agnosticism yet to be con- sidered,— that which is identified with Professor Huxley, and which is associated with the first introduction of the name "agnostic". Professor Huxley himself has laid down his position for us, and we cannot do better than listen to his own words. In his famous article in the Nineteenth Centura Professor Huxley's Position. 1 7" -> for February 1889, reprinted with minor altera- tions, in the Essays upon Some Controverted Questions (1892), — after recording that in his youth he "■ was brought up in the strictest school of Evangelical orthodoxy," and after emphasizing the fact that, of the books and essays that he early read, two left on him an indelible impression, one Guizot's History of Civilization, the other Sir William Hamilton's Essay " On the Philosophy of the Unconditioned," in the Edinburgh Review, — he goes on to say1:— " When I reached intellectual maturity and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, ;i theist, or a pantheist ; a materialist or an idealist ; a Christian or a freethinker; I found that the more 1 learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer ; until at last, I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them. They were quite sure they had attained a certain 'gnosis,' had. more or less successfully, solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure 1 had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble. And, with Kant 1 My quotations are throughout from tin- Essays, not from the Nim in nth i '( ntury. 174 Agnostic Objections. and Hume on my side I could not think myself presumptuous in holding fast by that opinion. . . . This was my situation when I had the good fortune to find a place among the members of that remark- able confraternity of antagonists, long since de- ceased, but of green and pious memory, the Metaphysical Society. Every variety of philo- sophical and theological opinion was represented there, and expressed itself with entire openness ; most of my colleagues were-ists of one sort or another ; and, however kind and friendly they might be, I, the man without a rag of a label to cover himself with, could not fail to have some of the uneasy feelings which must have beset the historical fox when, after leaving the trap in which his tail remained, he presented himself to his normally elongated companions. 80 I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of ' agnostic '. It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the 'gnostic' of Church History, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant ; and I took the earliest opportunity of parading it to our Society, to show that I, too, had a tail, like the other foxes. To my great satisfaction, the term took." Very well: what more? "Agnos- ticism in fact," continues the Professor, " is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in Definition of Agnosticism. 17"> the rigorous application of a single principle. That principle is of great antiquity ; it is as old as Socrates; as old as the writer who said, 'Try all things, hold fast by that which is good' ; it is the foundation of the Reformation, which simply illus- trated the axiom that every man should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him ; it is the great principle of Descartes ; it is the fundamental axiom of modern science. Positively the principle may be expressed : In matters of the intellect follow your reason as far as it will take you without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions arc certain which arc not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the lace, whatever the future may have in store for him. . . . The only negative fixed points will be those negations which flow from the demonstrable limitation of our faculties. And the only obligation accepted is to have the mind always open to conviction. Agnostics who never fail in carrying out their principles, are, I am afraid, as rare as other people of whom the same consistency can be truthfully predicated. But. it you were to meet with such a phoenix and to tell him that you had discovered that two and two 17<> Agnostic Objections. make five, he would patiently ask you to state your reasons for that conviction, and express his readiness to agree with you if he found them satisfactory. The apostolic injunction to ' suffer fools gladly ' should be the rule of life of a true agnostic. I am deeply conscious how far I myself fall short of this ideal, but it is my personal con- ception of what agnostics ought to be." Now, with regard to this, the first thing to be observed is, the great similarity between Professor Huxley's experience and that of Simonides, pre- viously referred to. Said Simonides to Hiero, concerning the definition of God, "the longer I meditate upon it, the more obscure does it seem to me to be". Says Professor Huxley, "I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer". Observe, next, that Professor Huxley regards agnosticism as "a method," not as "a creed": nevertheless, there are sure enough indications that he is not without his firm convictions. Re- garding the problem of existence, he says, — "I had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble". And, earlier in the article, he says. '-Near my journey's end, I find myself in a condition of something more than mere doubt about these matters"; while, later on, he writes, Criticism. 177 •• I had, and have, the firmest conviction that 1 never left the ' verace da'— the straight road; and that this road led nowhere else but into the dark depths of a wild and tangled forest ". Add to this that, in succeeding articles in the Essays, he is positive and dogmatic enough in his attack on the Christian Gnosis, and on the conception of Jesus given to ns in the four Gospels. But, lastly, observe that his agnosticism, as a method, is, as he enunciates it, a very innocent and a very unhelpful process. Nobody will be found who does not acquiesce in his leading principle, both in its positive and in its negative aspect. Ever since the days of Justin Martyr. controversialists of all schools have begun with the claim. "Reason directs those who are truly pious and philosophical to honour and love only what is true." and have ended with the appeal, "If these things seem to you to be reasonable and true, honour them: but if they seem nonsensical, despise them as nonsense" (Justin's First Apology, chapters ii. and lxviii.). But if there is no dis- sentient, that looks somewhat suspicious; for, just because of this universal acquiescence, coupled with the tact that there is untold diversity in the opinions of those that acquiesce in it, it cannot of itself be effective for very much in helping to form opinion or to solve difficulties. It is un- 12 178 Agnostic Objections. questionably right, in matters of the intellect, to "follow your reason as far as it will take yon without regard to any other consideration " ; it is undoubtedly your bounden duty " not to pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demon- strated or demonstrable ". But the very matter in question is, " How far can your reason take you ? What constitute the limits of the demonstrable ? " And, until you satisfy us with a critique of reason, your principle is simply the verbal enunciation of a truism, which every man will accept, and will forthwith apply in an individualistic fashion, interpreting it in the way that suits himself Nothing, then, need be feared from the agnostic principle as here laid down : taken in itself, it is very just and very harmless. But the shafts of Professor Huxley's agnostic wit are not dependent solely on his principle : they are barbed from another source, — namely, from Science ; and they are not aimed direct at Theism, but are shot into the heart of the Bible Revelation, more particularly of the Christian part of it, It is the old story of the incredibility of miracles, especially of Christian miracles as recorded in the Gospels. These, it is maintained, — witness, for instance, the destruction of the Gadarene swine, — are wholly unbelievable ; they contradict what Nature reveals to us as most Miracles. 1 71) certain, and what experience testifies to, and they fail to satisfy the demands of scientific proof. Now, into the discussion about Christ's miracles, it is not our business here to enter. These must stand or fall according to the evidence adduced. But, as to the matter of the possibility of miracles itself, I may be permitted to say that, if Theism be true, such possibility is axiomatic. If God is, He is greater than Nature and controls it. For, a miracle is not, as Hume defined it, a "violation" or " transgression " of the laws of nature, it is not even a "suspension" of these laws: it is a higher manipulation of Nature's forces than we ore accustomed to, owing to a special Divine volition for a special purpose. The old Roman soldier might have taught Hume here. When the Cen- turion of Capernaum sent to Jesus requesting Him to cure his servant boy, who lay sick and at the point of death, he gave as his reason, "For I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers, and 1 say unto one. Go, and he goeth ; and to another, Come, and he cometh ; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it". That is the true conception : the forces of Nature all mar- shalled, like so many soldiers, ready to obey the Captain's will — "doing His commandments, heark- ening unto tin? voice of His word"; and the 180 Agnostic Objections. Captain Himself possessed of full knowledge of these forces and full power over them. Discipline and obedience everywhere, just as in an army ; yet all under the direction of a central authority. And even the soldier who leaves the ranks, while his comrades are at drill, to execute the superior officer's special behests, is as much subject to dis- cipline as they. His extraordinary action is no breach of the prevailing order, but a further exemplification of it. So, a miracle is no " violation " of nature, or " transgression " of it ; but rather, when rightly interpreted, a manifestation, through the very instrumentality of Nature's laws, of the Supreme Power that gives to Nature its being and that constitutes its inner meaning. " One force may override another, and two laws may each be obeyed and may each disguise the action of the other. In the intimate constitution of matter there may be hidden springs of force which, while acting in accordance with their own fixed laws, may lead to sudden and unexpected changes. ... To the ancients it seemed incredible that one lifeless stone could make another leap towards it, A piece of iron while it obeys the magnetic forces of the loadstone does not the less obey the law of gravity." There is such a thing as what Jevons calls a "Hierarchy of Natural Laws," and "there The Scientific Attitude. 181 is absolutely nothing in science or in scientific method to warrant ns in assigning any limit to this hierarchy of laws" [The Principle* of Science, book vi.). Physical science, therefore, has nothing to say against the possibility of miracles. Nor does the question fall within its sphere, but needs for its determination principles that go beyond Nature. Whether, on the other hand, at a parti- cular date and in a particular spot, a miracle, as alleged, did actually take place, is a point to be settled by a consideration of the whole evidence. There can be no question that, as Professor Huxley says, "when a man testifies to a miracle, he not only states a fact, but he adds an inter- pretation of the fact. We may admit his evidence as to the former, and yet think his opinion as to the latter worthless." But it must be borne in mind, also, that the miracles of our Lord are parables as well ; they are not only proofs of His mission, they are revelations of His character. And so, in determining the value of the early witnesses' interpretation of them, we have to con- sider, among other things, these three questions : — (1) The kind or nature of the miracles— whether they are works of mercy or works of malevolence or of deceit : (2) the motive of the miracle-worker —whether self-interest or sympathy with mankind, 182 Agnostic Objections. whether personal selfishness or universal welfare ; (3) the end or object of them — whether they be " signs " as well as wonders, the evidence or token of a Divine mission (in which case, the substance of the mission itself must be taken into account), or merely the display of the worker's own superior power, no heavenly message being concealed under them. But, although Professor Huxley's vehement onslaught on the Christian miracles is not a phase of his agnosticism that specially concerns us herer there is another phase of it that has distinct relevance to our subject. This is his attempt, in imitation of Hume, to determine the historical origin of Religion, and his emphatic assertion in Comtian fashion, of the decadence or decline of Religion, under the dissemination of scientific notions, at the present day. As to the first of these — the rise of super- naturalism among men, — here is what he says in the "Prologue" to his Kss<(j/s upon Some Con- troverted Questions (pp. 3, 4) :— "Experience speedily taught them that the shifting scenes of the world's stage have a per- manent background ; that there is order amidst the seeming confusion, and that many events take Origin of Religion. 1 s:> place according to unchanging rules. To this region of familiar steadiness and customary re- gularity they gave the name of Nature. But, at the same time, their infantile and untutored reason, little more, as yet, than the playfellow of the imagination, led them to believe that this tangible, commonplace, orderly world of Nature was sur- rounded and interpenetrated by another tangible and mysterious world, no more bound by fixed rules than, as they fancied, were the thoughts and pas- sions which coursed through their minds and seemed to exercise an intermittent and capricious rule over their bodies. They attributed to the entities, with which they peopled this dim and dreadful region, an unlimited amount of that power of modifying the course of events of which they themselves possessed a small share, and thus came to regard them as not merely beyond, but above Nature. Hence arose the conception of a ' Supernature ' antithetic to ' Nature' the primitive dualism of a natural world 'fixed in fate,1 and a supernatural, left to the free play of volition — which has per- vaded all later speculation ami, for thousands of years, has exercised a profound influence on practice." Now, upon this doctrine, we may remark :— (1) First, that the account here given of the Is4 Agnostic Objections. origin of supernaturalism, however like history it may appear to be, is not really history. It is simply a conjecture, simply a surmise, and must not be taken as indisputable fact. But (2), next, there is no such naive distinction as is here drawn between experience teaching (primitive) man aright in his relations with external nature, and " infantile and untutored reason " leading him astray, or, at least, not guiding him unerringly, in the matter of the supernatural. The opposition between Experience (as the non-rational) and Reason is utterly unwarranted. There is even no just ground for disparaging " Imagination ". If Imagination has a place in Religion, has it not also a place in Science ? We know Professor Tyndall's answer ; we know the answer given by Sir Archi- bald Geikie in his Presidential Address this year (1892) to the British Association; and Professor Huxley, with his own brilliant biological specula- tions, cannot answer differently. Even Experi- ence, to which Professor Huxley ascribes man's early knowledge of the regularity of Nature, is impossible without imagination. For, Experience implies memory, or recollection of the past, and expectation, or anticipation of the future ; and if Professor Huxley can explain Memory and Ex- pectation without a reference to imagination he will accomplish a feat that will put psychologists Critic is i) i. 185 To the blush. But (3), lastly, even supposing that the origin of supernaturalism was precisely in fact as it is here represented to have been, that would in no way invalidate the truth of Theism; it would simply show that Theism has, like every other rational conception, gone through a process of development, that it is subject to the law of evolu- tion. The stress of the objection, then, must be shifted from the region of origin to that of the present-day prospects of Religion. These, it is urged, are very far from bright. Not only are we met by the fact that the study of nature has amply rewarded mankind, "developing the Arts which have furnished the conditions of civilized existence ; and the Sciences, which have been a progressive revelation of reality and have afforded the best discipline of the mind in the methods of discover- ing truth," while the study of Snpernatnre has only Led to diversity of opinion and mutually exclusive Religions, the adherents of which "delight in charging each other, not merely with error, but with criminality, deserving and ensuing (sic) punishment of infinite severity": not only this, but natural knowledge and supernatural knowledge are to-day directly contrasted in the hold that thev have over cultured mankind. Says 186 Agnostic Objections. Professor Huxley : — " In singular contrast with natural knowledge, again, the acquaintance of mankind with the supernatural appears the more extensive and the more exact, and the influence of supernatural doctrines upon the conduct the greater, the further back we go in time and the lower the stage of civilization submitted to investigation. Historically, indeed, there would seem to be an inverse relation between super- natural and natural knowledge. As the latter has widened, gained in precision and in trust- worthiness, so has the former shrunk, grown vague and questionable ; as the one has more and more filled the sphere of action, so has the other retreated into the region of meditation, or vanished behind the screen of mere verbal recognition. . . . Men are growing to be seriously alive to the fact that the historical evolution of humanity, which is generally, and I venture to think not unreasonably, regarded as progress, has been, and is being accompanied by a co-ordinate elimination of the supernatural from its originally large occupation of men's thoughts " (Essays, pp. ti, 7). Xow, I do not think that any calm and dis- passionate man will deny that there is some truth here ; but neither do I think that he will hesitate to say that there is exaggeration. That super- Prospects of Religion. l-s~ naturalism has gone through many phases and is ever undergoing a purifying and refining process as time passes, is very true ; but the same thing is also true of naturalism. Neither natural nor super- natural science sprang full-armed from the brain of Zeus. Again, it is not proved that supernatural- ism is losing its hold on men's convictions, or is ceasing to influence their conduct. On the con- trary, what seems to be true is, that, while thinking men are now taking a less mechanical view of God's relation to outward nature than was taken formerly, they are working towards an ever- deepening consciousness of His permeating pres- ence in Nature, and of the necessity of presupposing Him in all things. The forms of their conception change, and their outward modes of recognizing the supernatural change ; but their convictions remain secure. Neither the argument from origin, then, nor that from religion's decline is very formidable. Even if the facts on which the first is founded were lit e rally correct, they are irrelevant; and the measure of truth that is contained in the second is far from decisive. III. We are now ready to advance from agnostic- ism. But, before finally dismissing it, we may as 188 Agnostic Objections. well, in a sentence or two, gather up our arguments and state the conclusion. As the result of our discussion, we have seen that there is nothing against Theism arising from the leading agnostic theory as to its origin, nor is there anything against it arising from the present reception and the immediate future prospects of Religion in the world. But we have seen, further, that there is nothing in the principles of agnosti- cism, as philosophically presented, that necessarily shuts us out from knowledge of the Deity- We must, indeed, for purposes of clear thought and the conveniences of exposition, consider the finite and the Infinite apart ; but this separation in the consi- deration of the two must not be allowed to blind us to the fact that it is only a logical device — neces- sary for the understanding, but not representing the truth in its entirety. If we turn the two terms into bare abstractions, then, indeed, we may find them unmanageable ; but this is not their real nature, and we have fallen into error. Knowledge also is relative, if by that you mean that it implies a knower as well as something known ; but how this should debar us from the possibility of knowledge, is far from self- evident. That things are as they are found to be is not an unmeaning paradox ; although it is quite true that things are often different from what they seem to be. That consciousness, too, is not a kind Summary and Conclusion. ISi* of envelope, a circumambient aether, going round and clasping- phenomena so as always to keep them separate from noumena, is constantly to be borne in mind. "Enveloping," "circumscribing," " clasping," are words embodying a too material- istic conception to be strictly applicable to consciousness : they are not so much inadequate as irrelevant. Neither does it follow that, because maits faculties are limi ted, they are not valid to any extent. It only follows that there are heights and depths in the Divine nature that we cannot fully penetrate. This is what I take to be the real truth implied in calling God "the unexplored and the inexpressible". I like that phrase; and I like the other phrase of Matthew Arnold's, " words thrown out at a vast object of consciousness *'. But 1 like equally, in this connexion, the devotional language of Ben-Sira: "When ye glorify the Lord, exalt llim as much as ye can; for even yet will He far exceed: and when ye exalt Him, put forth all your strength, and be not weary; for ye can never go far enough" (Ecclesiasticus, xliii. 30). Nor, lastly. can you argue that, because God is the perfection of all that we regard as highest and best — wisdom, goodness, justice, truth, therefore, lie is practi- cally unknown by us, inasmuch as we ourselves ha vt> never attained perfection, and, until we have done so, we cannot really know the All-perfect. 1 90 Agnostic Objections. For, surely, the perfection of a quality has reference to degree, and makes no difference in regard to the nature or essence of the quality itself ; while the fact that we ourselves are potentially what we idea/lii conceive, is the all-important thing- : if the Infinite be implicit in us, it also really is. Put in a sentence, the pith of the agnostic objection, from the side of philosophy, is : That the human mind cannot transcend experience. And, put in another sentence, the pith of the answer to this objection may be very suitably given in the words of Professor Otto Pfieiderer (The Philo- sophy of Religion, Eng. transl., vol. iii. p. 254) : " Every act of thought is a transcending of im- mediate experience, which only affords the raw material of separate sensations ; and even' general notion, most particularly that of 'law' — the funda- mental notion of all scientific thought — is an unconditioned which sets itself above conditioned phenomena ; and any act of thought that is conscious of the finiteness of the individual objects it deals with, has therewith at once transcended the limits of the finite, and has along with the notion of finiteness embraced also its correlative, infinity ". LECTURE V. GOD A NECESSITY OF HUMAN NATURE. Philosophy, in order to be valid, must rest upon and begin with Experience. We do not first have philosophy and then experience : we start from experience, and next pass on to philosophy. This is the order of fact, and, therefore, the order to be strictly observed in proceeding to theory. As fact, man did not commence philosophizing before he had anything to philosophize upon: he had first the data of experience, and then he tried to interpret and understand them. In theory, if we begin philosophizing without paying due regard to our material, we shall do less than weave the spider's web — we shall rear a phantom structure, suitable for phantoms only. This, which applies to experience in general, is distinctly applicable to theistic experience in special. It is not a philosophy unrelated to fact that we here desiderate, but one founded on facts and explanatory of them. What, then, is the experiential basis of theistic (191) 192 God a Necessity of Human Nature. religion ? What, in other words, is the psychological foundation of Theism both () in the nature of that Divine object whom the religions consciousness affirms, and to whom the religious sentiment goes forth ? I. In answer to the first of these questions, — What V is the spring of theism ?— the testimony of Ex- perience is : — Man, by a necessity of his nature has been driven to the conception of and belief in God as objectively existing. And this conception and belief, whose stability is amply confirmed by evolution, has had the twofold characteristic, (1) of being emphatically on the line of what is highest and purest in existence, and (2) of stimulating men to the practice of righteousness and of help- ing them to reach higher and still higher achieve- ments : in other words, it has been both a condition and a means of human progress — it has aided in initiating and it has furthered the higher civilization. But, this being so, it is impossible to believe that what is thus a necessity of our nature, and has conditioned human progress, what has powerfully operated in the direction of culture and improve- ment, of intellectual light and moral character, and has been a chief source of happiness to mankind, Argument from Experience 1*>^> should itself be an utter and entire delusion. For, if we cannot trust our higher nature, there is nothing else that we can trust ; and, however much we may puzzle ourselves with the question as to how it is possible to pass from subjective to ob- jective existence, the validity of the fact that this passage has been made ought to be sufficiently established when it is shown that human nature has been necessitated to make it. That is the testimony of, and argument from, Experience ; but we must elucidate it somewhat in detail. First of all, however, let it be observed that. in saying that God is a necessity of human nature. we are not asserting that every man is, and all men have been, definitely conscious of this necessity. Human nature may be bound up with the Divine without every individual man being explicitly aware of it : for, a need may be simply implicit, and, if implicit, particular individuals or particular peoples may not fully awake to it till a particular stage of development has been reached. l A man, or even a nation, may be in religion, as in other things— 1 Want unfelt is what Prof. J. Grote calls egence. Want felt, or craving and yearning, is what he calls desiderium. " Want or egence, and want-feel or craving, are not exactly the same thing: there maj be real want unfelt, and there may be mistaken want-feel" (A Treatist on tht Mural Ideals, p. 27). 13 1 94 God a Necessity of Human Knowledge. An infant crying in the night : An infant crying for the light : And with no language but a cry ; and yet this " cry," to him that understands it, may be full of meaning. It may mean nothing less than that man is himself akin to the Deity- — that, in Bible language, he is " made in the image of God". The story of Prometheus stealing fire and wisdom from the gods and imparting them to man, has a deeper meaning in it than appears upon the surface. If, as Aristotle long ago saw, man's normal condition be civilization, not barbarism, we can hardly expect to get the true conception of his nature if we take the lower or barbaric state for our ideal standard ; and Evolution has taught us the great truth that man's theistic notions are "necessary products of progressing intelligence " (Mr. Spencer's First Principles, 5th edition, p. 13). God, then, is a necessity of human nature. How so ? (I.) First, because, as man is what he is, the idea of God, as we see from history and from present fact, inevitably arises in him. But, if it inevitably arises in him, it ministers to a human want, and is thereby a necessity. The doctrine of human Wants, as distinguished Doctrine of Natural Wants. H>-"> from mere desires or wishes, calls for considera- tion. These three things — desire, wish, want — need to be carefully discriminated. Desire contains three factors : first, the conception of an object regarded as in itself desirable; secondly, a felt craving for that object by me ; thirdly, action or effort towards the attainment or realization of this desired and desirable object. In irixli, there is not necessarily implied more than the mere fact of my craving (more or less intelligently) for an object ; there1 is no implication, one way or another, as to whether the object is or is not in itself really a desirable one, though there is an implication of my regarding it as pleasure-giving or pain-removing. Want implies all the three factors of Desire, with the further implication that desire has here become an index of reality, a guide to truth. In other words, Want is that kind of desire to which the human system (animal or spiritual) is organic : it is not only a need or craving which finds satis- faction in particular objects, it is also a need or craving whose very existence presupposes the existence of those objects. Now, among Natural Wants (which 1 divide in a twofold way, into those that are the condition of bare animal existence and those that are the condition of spiritual life and growth), there are 196 God a Necessity of Human Nature. certain points of agreement and certain well- marked differences. (1) The first great distinction to be drawn is, that some natural wants are temporary, recurrent, or periodical ; while others are permanent or en- during. To the former class belong all bodily wants, such as thirst and hunger ; to the latter class belong knowledge, friendship, and other spiritual needs. (2) Next, temporary or recurrent wants are soon satisfied, and, if over-satisfied, breed satiety : they are also regarded as in a manner external to us, we do not identify them with our inner self Permanent or enduring wants, on the other hand, have an insatiablmess about them that is very striking, and they never breed satiety ; in a very special sense, also, we identify ourselves with them. Now, note this distinction, for it gives us the principle of limitation. Purely recurrent wants, such as hunger and thirst, do not increase in magnitude the more you satisfy them ; on the contrary, they have a quite definite range, and satiety is soon reached. But wants of the endur- ing kind — intellectual and moral — do increase the craving, aspiration, or longing, the more they are satisfied: they do not allow you to rest in any particular attainment, but always urge you on to Distinctions to be Drawn. 197 something further; the capacity increases with exercise. This is only saying, in a different way, that these enduring wants are those alone that have reference to an ideal; they point us onward to something presumably realizable, but never fully realized. Hence, the recurrent wants are rightly regarded as the lower, and the permanent as the higher. Hence, too, in Ethics, special value is attached to these last as motives influencing the will or determining conduct. (3) Thirdly, the objects of the lower wants are material, those of the higher wants are spiritual. The object of thirst is drink, and of hunger, food ; while the objects of (say) knowledge and friend- ship are not of this kind. (4) Fourthly, there is a distinction between the members of the higher class themselves. While some are egoistic, others are disinterested : i.e., while in some the individual would appropriate the whole of the object, in others the object is such as may be shared in by any number of indi- viduals, without any one feeling that he is robbed by his neighbour. Ambition and Esteem are of the grasping kind ; true Friendship ancl Knowledge go beyond self-love. (5) Lastly, the objects of some of the members of the higher class are persons; of others, not. Friendship, for instance, can exist only between 198 God a Necessity of Human Nature. persons ; the personal implication is not a necessity in Knowledge. These, then, being the distinctions, the question arises, whether the existence of a natural want always implies, directly or indirectly, the existence —the real, not simply ideal, existence — of its object. The answer is clearly affirmative, so far as recurrent wants are concerned. Hunger could never be, had there not also been such a thing as food to satisfy it, The craving of thirst pre- supposes the reality of water to allay it. Both thirst and hunger are states of a living organism ; and they speak to the fact that, ere such an organism could be, the food and nourishment necessary to its existence must be too. So, we may readily grant that some at least of the per- manent or higher wants imply the actual existence of their object. Friendship would be inexplicable, except upon the supposition of the existence of living persons between whom the emotion could exist. But is this equally the case with Knowledge ? The immediate objects of knowledge (you say) are relations, and relations are of the mind. Yes, but then relations imply the existence of things related. Relations as existences per se would be Want and its Object. 199 absurd. While, therefore, Truth, which is the immediate object of knowledge, being of relations, may correctly enough be designated ideal ; never- theless, that to which truth ultimately refers, and ^ which makes it possible, is equally reality with food and drink and friends and the other objective things wherewith natural wants are concerned. What, then, of our Theistic craving ? As this is a natural want, it must have an object; but need the object have a distinct personal existence (like our friends), or is it simply an idea of the mind —a fictitious entity, a pious imagination ? It may be plausibly argued that a subjective or ideal existence is all that is legitimate; for, God is an object invisible and intangible. But, in that case, we ought to find in man some traces of a con- sciousness that this Being believed in is a mere imaginary entity ; just as wo find in healthy natures a quite distinct consciousness of the dif- ference between what is actually real and what the mind simply feigns to be such. But, so far is this from being the ease, that in monotheistic, poly- theistic-, and pantheistic religions alike, we find that the Deity believed in is always regarded as truly existent; and, in philosophical pantheism, He is conceived as the sole existence. Moreover, men, by a kind of natural instinct, invariably re- present the cravings of their religious being as a 200 God a Necessity of Human, Nature. hunger and a thirst ; thereby unconsciously assimi- lating them to wants whose objects are unques- tionably existent. They further feel their own finiteness, and are dissatisfied with the finite ; and this is testimony to something in them higher than the finite, and thereby God is secured to them. God is a datum, then, of man's nature, inasmuch as He is the object of a natural want. To this want, man's spiritual system is organic — which means not only that human nature is dependent for its satisfaction on Him, but also that the want itself could not have arisen apart from Him. Nor is it any argument against this to say that we cannot see how the human and the Divine can meet. This inability to see how is only part of a much wider inability. Can we see how mind and matter can meet, or spirit and nature ? Yet there we have their union in external perception ; and spirit can go forth to, understand, and assimilate nature. Or, can we see how one man can com- municate his thoughts to, or exercise a guiding influence over, another? Yet, the power of friend- ship and the inseparable union of hearts here is a fact, as it is equally a fact that sociality is the atmosphere in which the human spirit thrives. Altruism, again, especially in the form of self- sacrifice : can you fully understand its rationale '. Position fully Explained. *201 Yet, self-sacrifice is an indubitable fact of experi- ence. If we can show that theism is a want of human nature, it is enough. The implication therein is, that God exists and that man himself is allied to Him. In this way, the being of God becomes more than an hypothesis. Even as an hypothesis, it would be needed in order to the full explanation of the facts, just as the assumption of aether is necessary for Science in order to account for the phenomena of Optics. Hypotheses have undoubted value; and scientific speculation knows how to use them. But, once base theism in human nature, and God's existence becomes a rational certainty : it is the necessary presupposition of the case. But, although this be so, there is no need. further, that theism, being natural to man. should also be identical in all men. The form oftheistic expression will vary according to the1 endowments of particular peoples, and according to the environ- ment. Man is everywhere a rational being, and yet the degree of rationality is very different in different pei-sons, and different nations have embodied it in different forms. So, religion may be the common property of mankind, and yet endless diversity may be discoverable in the forms of it, and in the degrees of it, among men. Yea, such diversity must be discoverable, if man is a progressive being, 202 God a Necessity of Human Nature. and if progress be conditioned by natural situation and life's circumstances. If the races and peoples of the earth have to work out their own laws, and form their own language, and create their own institutions, they have also to work out their own religions. Man's nature (rational, social, and re- ligious) is, in its groundwork, everywhere the same : but, in its quality and actual endowments, it admits of unlimited variety, and the development of its capacities is dependent on the opportunities afforded. Objections. But, that we may the better understand the nature of the argument, let us examine a few of the leading objections to it. 1. First of all, it is said : Theism cannot be based in human nature, otherwise it would be universal; but we know that the idea of God is not found among some existing savages, and existing savages represent primitive man. To this one may reply : — (1) First, that we must not be too positive in identifying savages of the present day with primi- tive man. For, both Comparative Philology and much of Ethnology refuse to countenance such an assumption ; and, so long as that is the case, neither First Objection. 203 science nor logic warrants the inference that what is true of modern savages is, therefore, true of earl\' man.1 (2) But, secondly, even granting that some savages may be without the idea of God, and granting further (for the sake of argument) that they could be proved never to have had it, this is no argu- ment against the validity of that idea. For, lateness of evolution is characteristic of our highest truths and notions — those of geometry, for instance,— and such truths and notions have arisen in limited areas of the earth and have taken time to travel ; and, still, these are natural to man. " Natural to man " means implicit in his nature (no matter at what point of time, or in what nation, the im- plicit may first become explicit) ; and "universal" does not mean "consciously acknowledged by all," but what is seen to be necessary as an element in human nature when man is viewed as man, or when we take his nature in its highest or ideal form. 2. But, secondly, it may be said: It can be 1 "To take for granted that what the savages now are, perhaps after millenniums of degradation, all other people must have been, and that modes of thought through which they are now passing have been passed through by others, is a most unscientific assump- tion, and you will seldom meet with it in any essay or book without also finding proof that the writer did not know how to deal with historical evidence " (P. Le Page Renouf, Hibberi Lectures, p. 125). 204 God a Necessity of Human Nature. shown that man formed his idea of God out of very lowly material (the oldest religious documents we possess — the Vedic hymns, for example — show us that) ; x and this fact of lowly origin affects the product when attained. To this I answer : — ( 1 ) First, why should it ? Saccharine — the purest, the whitest, the sweetest of substances — is produced from coal tar ; yet, its virtue is not thereby affected. High and low, base and noble, are really terms inapplicable to the raw material of spiritual evolution. All elements are alike noble, when yon view them from the higher and proper standpoint. We can even suppose, without detriment to the theistic product, that religion was primarily associ- ated with feat', — fear in the presence of the over- powering and destructive forces of nature — storms, tempests, earthquakes, and the like. Fear,2 indeed, I readily believe (and physiolatry seems to confirm it), had a part to i;>lay in the development of (though it was not competent to originate) the religious sentiment : and thus far Hobbes and Hume are right. And yet, that only means that the circumstances of human life have been such as 1 Probably the oldest piece of poetry in the literature of the world belongs to Egypt ; and this is the fifteenth chapter of the Book of the Dead, "which is a hymn to the rising and to the setting Sun ". - The distinction between Awe and Fear will be dwelt upon in Lecture VII. Second Objection. -?<>."> to impress man with a feeling of his own impotence and dependence, and thereby to arouse in him the consciousness of a God. But, while Fear had thus its function, surely Gratitude and Love must have been operative too. For, Nature has bene- ficent as well as destructive forces ; and the divin- izing of sun and moon and earth by nature-wor- shippers testifies to the fount of affection welling up towards the Originator of our being, as much as the divinizing of its destructive forces testifies to our sense of helplessness or dependence. Nor must we forget the significant fact of beneficent theophanies. Castor and Pollux came to give help at Lake Regillus ; and the story of Baucis and Philemon presents the winning and humane side of the Divine conception. (2) But, secondly, while admitting that some old documents show us man forming gods out of lowly materials, we must be careful not to exag- gerate this fact. Other ancient documents, some of them among the oldest we possess, or, at any rate, embodying a very early tradition, show us man beginning at the higher plane. However critics may ultimately apportion the parts of the Old Testament Scripture, it is generally admitted that the teaching regarding the Mosaic Cosmogony is exceptionally old. Well, this teaching, as given in the opening chapters of our Bible, represents God 206 God a Necessity of Human Nature. as " creating man after His own image," " in His own likeness"; and represents man as standing, at the first, in a felt relation to Him — though, no doubt, with his conceptions still needing to be deepened and developed. It is not part of my duty here to examine the place and scientific value of the Bible teaching ; but it is part of my duty to emphasize the fact that here, in extremely ancient documents, recording a confessedly ancient belief, views about God and about man's relation to Him are laid down from the higher platform, and occupy a unique position. (3) Lastly, no document of any people in existence shows us man forming God at the very beginning. For, the very oldest extant documents of any people (the Vedic hymns, for instance) refer to a time when the people in question had far advanced in their history, and when their religion had, through sacerdotal and other influences, assumed a shape — we know not how — different from what characterized it originally. 3. But, next, it is objected : Men have now outgrown religion (at least, they have done so in highly civilized lands); and this proves that theism is not a necessity of human nature, but, at best, was only necessary as a stage in human progress. This objection (repeated by Professor Huxley, Third Objection. 207 and enforced with all the charms of* literary style by Renan) is put most strikingly by Comte ; and we shall take it as presented by him. It was one of the most characteristic of Comte's positions that historical evolution has followed the law of three successive stages. Both the indi- vidual and the race (he held) have begun, in their interpretation of external things (facts, incidents, and events), by ascribing them to beings endowed with power and personality, yet supernatural ; in other words, by regarding them as produced by deities. The lowest form of such divinizing of the causes of external events is Fetishism,— which con- sists in ascribing life and personality to whatever in outward nature arrests the attention or engages self-interest;1 and a well-known higher form is 1 A dispute has arisen between Comtists and naturists as to the proper conception and definition of Fetishism. Is a fetish simply a concrete material object (a stone, a piece of wood, etc.) personalized ; or is it a concrete material object regarded as the embodiment of a spirit introduced into it from without ? The truth seems to lie with Count Goblet d'Alviella (Hibbert Lectures, p. 109 ».), who distinguishes between "primary fetishism, in which man, personifying natural objects, chooses one as an auxiliary or protector; and secondary, or derived fetishism, which implies the incorporation of an independent spirit in a material object ". This does not, however, prevent him from wishing to restrict the term to the second of these meanings ; in which case, an obvious distinction is obtained between a fetish and an idol— this latter being simply "an elaborated fetish." one on which human workmanship, in the shape of painting or of sculpture, has been more or less expended. "The fetish is an object '20S God a Necessity of Human Nature. seen in the worshipping of sun and moon and stars, and in the sacred veneration that has been paid from very early times to mother Earth. This is the first stage in the threefold development (itself also consisting of three steps — fetishism, polytheism, monotheism l) ; and Comte has called it the theological. Next comes the stage when people begin to form abstract ideas, and to ex- plain things and events in accordance therewith. Everything that happens is now conceived as having an efficient cause, but the cause is no longer external : it is the thing's own peculiar energy or force, its inherent essence — such as attraction, repulsion, etc. These inherent forces are all considered as possessing a distinct exist- ence of their own, they are hypostatized abstrac- tions ; and merely to give them a name is to explain them. Phenomena are still regarded as caused, but not by supernatural wills, only by abstract entities. This is the metaphysical stage. East of all comes the stage when people begin to see that neither theological nor metaphysical inter- supposed to be inhabited by a spirit to which superhuman power is attributed, and the idol is the fetish so fashioned or retouched as to reproduce the appearance of the spirit supposed to reside in it." 1 This threefold gradation dates from De Brosses (say, 1760), to whom is ascribed the introduction both of the name and of the theory of Fetishism. See Professor Max Midler's Hibbert Lectures, pp. 58, 59. Comte s Doctrine 209 pretation is worth anything, that the "search for causes" is wholly illusory and must be abandoned, but that the whole of existence is explainable on natural principles : we need nothing supernatural, we need nothing metaphysical; Science — system- atized knowledge of phenomena, commanding the assent of experts, and verified by its power of successful prevision — is all-sufficient. This is the last or scientific stage : Comte calls it positive. And these three stages Comte regards as valid, not only for the individual, but for the race ; and he claims to have established, by a wide induction of particulars and by legitimate inference, that men have actually gone through them — that, in other words, the stages represent the actual course of history. Just as there have been times when the world was swayed by the theo- logical idea, so have there been times when the metaphysical conception was supreme; and now, at the present day, we have reached the last and highest stage, the positive. It is the character- istic of the nineteenth century that it has done with theology and done with metaphysics, and has pinned its faith to science. Now, with regard to this bold and sweeping theory, it may be remarked :— 1. First, that, if the law of the three stages 210 God a Necessity of Human Nature. were established, it would certainly simplify the interpretation of life and of the universe ; but it would simplify it by rendering interpretation al- together impossible. For, if what men have re- garded as highest and best turn out to have been a groundless fancy, what security have they that anything else in which they trust may not be equally fictitious ? If religion be a fiction, and metaphysics a delusion, there is an uncomfortable feeling that science itself may not have the stable existence that we suppose it to have, and that even the positive stage may not be able to resist disinte- gration, standing alone. 2. But, secondly, has Comte succeeded in establishing his law of the three stages ? Is his theory sufficiently borne out by history? It is impossible, without actually producing his works themselves, to give an adequate idea of the mass of material that he marshals for the purpose of proving the affirmative ; and it is equally impossible to give any adequate impression, without copious extracts, of his own intellectual acumen in working up this material, and generalizing upon it. But while wishing to give all weight to the facts ad- duced, and to do reverence to the genius of the great generalizer himself, I cannot say, in the face of his- tory, and of the facts patent to every one of us in our daily experience, that he has succeeded in making Over-Generalization. 21 1 good his contention : rather, he seems to me to have fallen into the error of over-generalization.1 For, in the first place, tested by any period of history that any of us may happen to know, his so-called stages may easily be seen not to have been succes- sive, Imt contemporaneous in the past ; and, in the next place, we know that they are contemporaneous in the present. It is not the case that, though we live in an age pre-eminently scientific, we have parted with metaphysics and theology. It is not the case that, in the past, theology has been succeeded by metaphysics, and that the latter has dissolved the former. On the contrary, " it was by the most sublime metaphysics," as Fenelon argued in one of his letters to the ( Cardinal de Xoailles, when urging the necessity of great theologians being metaphysicians, "that St. Augustine de- veloped the first principles of the truths of religion against pagans and heretics. It is by the sublimity of this science, that St. Gregory Xazian/en de- serves, by way of pre-eminence, the title of theo- logian. It was by metaphysics that St. Ansehn 1 For admirable critiques of Couite's doctrine, see Professor Flint's The Philosophy of History (bk. i. eh. xii.) and Dr. Martineau's Types of FJhittil Tltrory (part i. bk. ii.). In the text, 1 puss by all detailed criticism as not being necessary for my purpose, — as, for example. the point so vigorously urged by Professor Max Muller, Professor Otto Prleiderer, and others, that neither historj nor psychology supports Comte's assumption that religion had its origin in fetishism. 21 '1 God a Necessity of Human Nature. and St. Thomas became, in the later centuries, the great luminaries of their time." Again, in the very highest civilizations, thinking men have always been metaphysical ; and it may almost be said that, the higher the civilization, the more metaphysical they have been. In ancient ({reek days, with Plato and Aristotle in the ascendant, Metaphysics held a prominent place in human in- terest. It was in nowise different in ancient India, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Arabia, Metaphysics and civilization went hand in hand then ; and they go hand in band still. "Metaphysics is an indestruc- tible fact in Human Nature, shown more powerfully, instead of less, as Comte supposes, with a nation's growth;" which "is also proved by what Bacon calls 'Prerogative instances,' as the written Meta- physics which the world has preserved, was pro- duced only by the highest intellects of the nations foremost in each period of history," and the same is j (roved by modern philosophy, " which is a product of the three foremost nations of Europe- England, France, and Germany " (Mr. W. Gra- ham's Idealism, p. xxvi.). Nor do I think that Science itself is able to avoid being largely metaphysical. Such is the character of its leading conception, " Force " ; and, so long as speculation on " Atoms " and similar scientific entities goes on (and that, presumably, Metaphysics and Theology. '2V.\ will be till the close of science itself), so long will metaphysics be secured, even when nominally denied, to mankind. But what is true of Metaphysics is equally true of Theology. Even Comte himself could not rest in mere nature, with its co-existences and its suc- cessions, but was driven on to the origination and advocacy of the worship of Humanity. He who despised metaphysics and abstract thinking, ulti- mately set up an abstraction as the object of his devotion. And all the present-day talk of " pan- cosmism," "cosmic unity," "cosmic emotion," and the like : what is it but just the positivist's con- fession that religion and metaphysics are natural to man, and that, if you shut them out in one form, they will inevitably make their appearance in another ? The truth seems to be almost exactly the reverse of what is maintained by Comte. The three states —the theological, the metaphysical, and the positive —are in themselves very real : they simply re- present the three great questions that the human mind is ever putting regarding things, viz., (1) Whence do they arise ; or what is the source of their production '. (2) What is their own inmost nature; what all is implied in the fact that they are? (:>) How are they related to each other; or what are the laws that distinguish them as ordered 214 God a Necessity of Human Nature phenomena ? But these three states are not three stages, nor does the one supersede the other. On the contrary, it is established by history — unless you take history as meaning arbitrarily selected periods, strung together according to one's own fancy — that they are, and all along have been, contemporaneous ; and that, as Channing power- fully expresses it, " the human race, as it advances, does not leave religion behind it, as it leaves the shelter of caves and forests ; does not outgrow faith, does not see it fading like the mist before its rising intelligence. On the contrary, religion opens before the improved mind in new grandeur. God, whom uncivilized man had narrowed into a local and tutelar Deity, rises with every advance of knowledge to a loftier throne, and is seen to sway a mightier sceptre. The soul, in proportion as it enlarges its faculties and refines its affections, pos- sesses and discerns within itself a more and more glorious type of the Divinity, learns his spirituality in its own spiritual powers, and offers him a pro- fonnder and more inward worship" (Discourse on Christian Worship, Works, vol. ii. p. 191). In brief, then : the truth embodied in Conite's three stages is the truth that there are three states, not mutually exclusive and incompatible, but mutually supporting and co-existent ; and the Hon: the Position really Stands. 215 development that is indisputable is, not the de- velopment of throwing off one and putting on another, but the progress in elevation and refine- ment in each that comes with wider and deeper experience and the onward march of time. We do now, indeed, live in a distinctively scientific age ; but Religion, with its implicated metaphysics and theo- logy, is not less real or less intense to us than it was to our ancestors, nor is it less widely diffused to-day than it once was. On the contrary, that great religious ferment which we see going on all over the civilized world, and that power which religious controversy has of drawing men of all classes and professions into it, testify to its perennial interest for men ; and the fermenting pro- cess itself— what does it betoken but the further purification and refining of the religious idea. which, like other great and living conceptions, can grow and gain strength in us only through conflict and through strife ? Consequently, 1 do not think that it is proved, or can be proved, that men have outgrown religion : nor is the presumption warranted that they will one day finally dispense with it. What the evidence goes to prove is, that in religion there is progress, as in everything else ; and that man's religious con- ceptions keep steady pace with his intellectual and moral advance. 21 () God a Necessity of Human Nature. 4. There is just one other argument against Religion's being a necessity of human nature that needs to be mentioned; but a bare mention of it will be quite enough. It has been said : Religion is invalid because it is a pure device of the priests, and a device for their own aggrandisement. This argument is not now often heard ; 1 »ut it was the common Deistic argument of last century ; and it was frequent, in a modified form, in the seventeenth century, from Herbert of Cherbury downwards. But, however relevant it may sometimes have been to certain forms in which Religion has clothed itself among men, it is obviously quite irrelevant to Religion itself. The argument is a clear kysteron proteron. For, apart altogether from the circum- stance that it lacks historical support, and apart from the further circumstance that it is entirely opposed by the universality of religious belief, — in the very fact of a priest you presuppose the existence of religion ; and, surely, there must have been something in man's nature to appeal to before the priest could have got his device accepted. Priest- craft is one thing, Religion is another ; and, save that the former puts on the guise of the latter, there is no other necessary connexion between the two.1 1 Moreover, the accusation is not borne out by historical fact. Religious belief is too universal, is too variously expressed, and has Fourth Objection. _M7 (II.) We pass, then, to the second point included in the primary argument, — viz., the utility of Reli- gion. It is maintained, on the testimony of history and of experience, that the idea of God and belief in Him has been and is potent on the side of righteousness and enlightenment — in other words, that it both furthers and conditions spiritual growth and human progress. In this way, its place as a natural want is specially justified. For, in applying utility as the ground of distinction between what is " natural " and what is "unnatural" in the spiritual part of human nature, we are only extending the ruling test, so amply appealed to by biologists, of the natural and the unnatural in physical organism. That is a natural want of the physical organism which conduces to the health and development of the organism, while1 that is unnatural which obstructs the development and promotes dis- health or degeneration. Now. in order to appreciate the full force of our contention, it would be necessary to traverse arisen under t(M> great a variety of circumstances, to be compatible with the supposition of a priestly origin. The evidence is all the other way ; and " even us a mere question of probabilities, it cannot rationally be concluded that in evcr\ -oeiet\. past and present, savage and civilized, certain members of the community have combined to delude the rest, in ways so analogous " (Mr. H. Spencer, First Prin- ciples, 5th edition, p. 14). 218 God a Necessity of Human Nature. the whole of human history, and to appraise the various movements in ancient and in modern times that have forwarded the happiness and good of the race. This, of course, cannot be attempted here. I must take for granted that, from what each knows of religion and its history, you will allow that Religion has done good in the world, and has been a means of human felicity. It has taught men subordination and mutual respect, and has been a bond of union among them, uniting families, communities, nations, in the sense of a common faith. It has encouraged self-sacrifice and self- denial, not only in the form of surrendering a present good in view of one that is more distant, but also in drawing forth the disinterested affec- tions of man's heart and in presenting to him an Object for whom, as well as in whom, he might live. It has trained heroes, therefore. But heroism and intelligence go hand in hand — as the ancient Greeks very well saw when, by a proper instinct, they made the goddess of war the goddess of wisdom too. And so it is essentially a refining, as well as a purifying, conception ; and mankind has ever been the gainer by attachment to it. All this, and much more of the same kind, I must take for granted as admitted ; and I will con- fine myself to rebutting the reasonings of those who attack Religion on the side of the harm it is The Utility of Religion. 219 alleged to be doing, or to have done — on the misery it has caused, and the obstruction it has offered to intellectual and scientific advance. But, first, note the limitation of our original statement. It is not maintained that nothing but religion has done good in the world ; it is only said that religion has been a factor, a leading and conspicuous factor, in man's improvement, It would be absurd to forget what we owe to the Art, the Philosophy, and the Letters of Greece ; to the Legal and practical wisdom of Rome ; to the mighty civilizing influences of the ancient empires of Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and so forth. We have no need to exalt Religion at the expense of the non-religious elements in man's advance- ment : it is enough if Religion be seen to have been a great power in the onward march of civil- ization and refinement. Grant that Religion has been a great purifier of Morals, the inspirer of noble and heroic deeds, the elevator of character and of manners, the minister of union and order, the suppressor of vice and incentive to virtue, — and I ask no more. If, notwithstanding these noble consequences, you still persist in calling it a dream, then I can only answer in the words of Joseph Truman, — " Dreams are not idle ; dreams have saved the world". 220 God a Necessity of Human Nature. What, then, says the objector 1 He says : — 1. First, that Religion is, and always has been, superstition; and that superstition is the greatest curse the world has ever seen, — cramping, numb- ing, paralyzing, and contracting men's natures, beating all independence out of them, and produc- ing a cringing, spiritless, and unmanly disposition. That is a strong indictment, and needs to be definitely met. What, then, let us first ask, is Superstition ? Superstition, as I define it, is looking upon the unknown as something hostile to us, with irrational dread of its consequences, together with irrational effort to frustrate or to avert its baneful action. Its cramping power lies partly in its being fear, but partly also in its being irrational ; and the objection- able thing about its efforts to get rid of this fear is that these efforts also are irrational. Now note, first, that Superstition is not con- fined to Religion ; and, secondly, that it is not of the essence of religion. Superstition is not confined to religion : for, first of all, it is fear of impending danger, but irrational fear begotten of ignorance, — and ignor- ance with its attendant fear is very far-reaching in its operation. We see it in the timidity of a Superstition. 221 novice in handling an unknown, suspicious-looking article, lest it should turn out to be dynamite ; and we see it in that most general of all fears — the fear of Death. So long as human knowledge is incomplete, so long this kind of fear will remain ; but increase of knowledge means decrease of fear. We know what familiarity with the various drugs in a druggist's shop can do. At first, most of them are dreaded as poison, and are delicately handled ; but, by and by, poison itself loses its terrors, and the young apprentice can move about unconcerned amid so much that is powerful for destruction. But, next, Superstition rests on the fact that future events in the world are to man contingent — they may or they may not happen ; and on the two further facts of man's self-interest and his desire to have all go well with him. But there is nothing in all this specifically religious. Lastly, superstition is traceable, in part, to certain fallacious tendencies of the human mind which have a much wider sweep than religion. These tendencies are two in number : — (a) First, the tendency to hasty generalization ; particularly, to what logicians know as post hoc ergo propter hoc, — that is, to inferring from the fact that one thing follows another that, therefore, it is caused by that other. This is the basis of the doctrine of '2'2'2 God a Necessity of Human Nature. prodigies, omens, dreams. Thus : from observing frequent instances of ill-luck happening to persons who put on the right foot shoe before the left in dressing, people came to the conclusion that the ill-luck was the consequence of beginning with the right foot, and so dreaded ill-luck whenever they inadvertently fell into that mistake, and, perhaps, like an ancient pagan, refused to quit the house till such time as the evil omen was averted. That was superstition, though not of a religious kind. (b) Next, it is a law of the human mind that, whenever we do a thing often, or get into a habit of doing it, we feel uncomfortable any time we neglect it, and are prompted to remove this dis- comfort by any means however ridiculous. It is recorded of Dr. Johnson, according to Macaulay, that, being in the habit of touching every post in the streets through which he walked, he was so uneasy if accidentally he omitted any one of them that he turned back and touched it. And Boswell tells us : " He had another particularity, of which none of his friends ever ventured to ask an ex- planation. It appeared to me some superstitious habit, which he had contracted early, and from which he had never called upon his reason to dis- entangle him. This was his anxious care to go out or in at a door or passage, by a certain number of steps from a certain point, or at least so that Religious Superstition. 993 either his right or his left foot (I am not certain which) should constantly make the first actual movement when he came close to the door or passage. Thus I conjecture ; for I have, upon innumerable occasions, observed him suddenly stop, and then seem to count his steps with a deep earnestness ; and when he had neglected or gone wrong in this sort of magical movement, I have seen him go back again, put himself in a proper posture to begin the ceremony, and having gone through it, break from his abstraction, walk briskly on, and join his companion." That, again, was superstition, but not of the religious stamp : it arose from the discomfort of disrupted habit, What, then, is distinctive of religious super- stition ? Simply this, — that superstition, when allied with religion, assumes a particularly virulent form : it cramps and paralyzes the natures of those that are ruled by it, and prompts to exceptionally irrational and debasing rites and ceremonies.1 This, indeed, is true. But it is no argument against Religion itself, but only an argument against the use that the superstitious make of it ; 1 Examples of the irrationalities of superstition, as shown in old Greek days, are given in Theophrastus's character-sketch of the Superstitious man (No. xxviii. in Professor Jebb's edition of The Characters of Theophrastus). '2'24: God a Necessity of Human Nature. it is only another, and a most striking, instance of what is more generally observable, — viz., that the s corruption of what is best is worst. But, awful and disastrous though the conse- quences of superstition are, I doubt whether, under all circumstances (Bacon notwithstanding l), superstition is an unmitigated or unmixed evil. It has this good effect, at any rate, of still keeping alive some consciousness of the supernatural and not allowing people altogether to lose their sense of guilt and of responsibility to a higher Power. Indeed, I can conceive a state of things where it would exercise a decidedly beneficial and beneficent function. Better far be superstitious than wantonly irreverent. Better superstition, too, than dogged indifference to religion, and supercilious contempt. Better rear an altar to an " unknown God " than not rear an altar at all. And this is in full analogy with the uses of Fear in general. So long as there are causes of danger to man, so long will there be need for fear. It is the function of fear, in our mental economy, to teach us caution, and so prevent foolhardiness and irrational bravado. It educates us to prud- ence, and is thus a means of saving life. It says to us, " Be not over-rash ". Furthermore, it is indispensable to the magistrate and the educator, 1 See his Essay " Of Superstition ". Persecution. 225 in enforcing wholesome obedience ; and its place in Morals and in Religion is as a preventive of wrong-doing and a guard to self-respect. I do not, then, consider the argument from religious superstition, or rather from superstition when allied with religion, to be of very great force ; and I do not think it would be regarded by others as at all weighty if it were clearly perceived and kept in mind that superstition is not the effect of religion, but only something that finds in religion one of the most suitable fields for its development and operation.1 2. Is it otherwise with the second objection to the utility of Religion ? It is said : " Religion has frequently been the cause of the bitterest persecu- tion among men ". What then ? Does it thereby stand condemned as wholly detrimental to man- kind ? Note, first, that Persecution, like superstition, is not confined to religion. We meet with it in every sphere of opinion and of action where men's interests or their pretensions conflict — in politics, literature, society, commerce, as well as in religion. 1 The superstitions of Voltaire, Robespierre, Napoleon, and other distinguished freethinkers of a century ago, are well known. 15 226 God a Necessity of Human Nature. But note, next, that it may arise from one or more of various causes. First, it may be simply a form of that cruelty or malevolence that seems native to man — that delight in inflicting pain or suffering on a brother, purely for the delight's sake. Secondly, it may arise from wounded pride or thwarted domination — when a man feels himself hurt and his dignity humbled by his being unable to get others to think as he does or to act as he dictates : in other words, it may be impatience or intolerance of any opinion different from or op- posed to one's own ; with the consequent effort to compel others to accept our views in cases where we are unable to persuade them by reasoning. Thirdly, it may originate in earnestness or zeal — in a man's deep conviction of the truth of the cause that he has espoused, and of its vast import- ance for the good and welfare of his fellow-men. Fourthly, it may be begotten of class interest or personal selfishness — when a man suspects that opposition to, or dissent from, the cause that he upholds means the extinction of his own trade or profession, or the annihilation of his own immuni- ties. Clearly, the first two of these causes have no application to religion : they are anti-religious, and cannot claim any high place among human motives. The fourth, also, is non-religious, and might be Zeal and Discretion. 'I'll passed by as such, were it not that, unfortunately, it is very apt to attach itself to religion and to play great havoc there. Caste, particularly in the pretensions of the priests, has ever been prone to plead religious sanction ; and the priestly class have always been the greatest persecutors — often on the ground of caste-distinctions. But this is really outside religion. Even if Religion implied — which it does not — sacerdotal pretensions, it certainly does not empower the priests to persecute recalcitrant brothers so as thereby to enforce their own claims. The only cause of persecution that may with considerable plausibility be maintained to be religious is the third, — viz., when a man takes to persecution out of religious zeal, and is prompted to his action by unselfish conviction. This is the persecution of fanaticism. In its eagerness to accomplish its end, it is impatient of delay, and so will remove by force all resistance. But here let us distinguish. Zeal is one thing, discretion is another ; and, while earnestness and enthusiasm are noble and commendable, they need ever to be guided by judgment. It is certainly in favour of religion that it has the power of captivating the heart and securing a fervent devotion ; but it is unreasonable to demand of it that it shall also impart sound judgment, so that its adherents shall 228 God a Necessity of Human Nature. differ from all other men in never allowing their zeal to outrun their discretion. Enough if it do not sanction, much less require, persecution, and if the enlightenment which it promotes is condemna- tory of all attempts to further its interests in this way. You see, then, the argument. Misguided views of religion cannot justly be laid at the door of religion itself; and we are not to tax religion with consequences which are rightly chargeable to the abuse of it.1 1 Abraham Tucker has some wise words on " Religion," under that title, in his Light of Nature Pursued. LECTURE VI. THE IDEA OF GOD, AS PSYCHOLOGICALLY DETERMINED. II. We pass, now, from the first question in con- nexion with the psychological foundation of Theism, from that which has reference to the spring or source of theism, to the second, — viz., to that which is concerned with the nature of the Divine Object to whom the religious sentiment goes forth. And, first of all, let me repeat that, as the essence of mind or spirit is activity, the law of human experience is necessarily that of mental or spiritual progress: it is not simply change, but advance. By progress or advance is meant development, and not mere growth. A thing may grow without developing. In that case, its successive increments add only to its bulk, and are likely enough to be undesirable accretions. Development is from within, and that is true evolution. It is movement (229) 230 The Idea of God towards an ideal ; and every step not simply passes beyond and leaves behind that which preceded itr but is rendered possible only by having due regard to all that went before. In development, the material of the past is taken up into that of the present and is transmuted. Nothing that is on the line of evolution is ever really lost : it is as- similated and carried forward, and appears in the final product transformed. Hence, knowledge is never rounded or com- pleted at any one particular point of time, but, on the contrary, deepens, enlarges, and advances by a never-ceasing movement. And, as our mental horizon expands and one intellectual achievement is ever seen to lead onwards to another, we soon come to find that the range of advance is practi- cally limitless, and that our happiness is placed in a continually-unfolding Truth. This applies both to thought and to action : indeed, it is the general condition of spiritual health. Here, at any rate, there is no life in stagnation, except such as cor- ruption breeds. From this, therefore, it obviously follows that God is not fully definable by us, because He is never fully known by us : our knowledge of Him develops with our increasing experience. Of ne- cessity, the God given in experience is that of a Being not fully, yet partially, known ; but, if parti- Spiritual Progress. 231 ally known, then not unknowable. " Not the definitely known God," as Professor Veitch puts it, "not the unknown God is our last word, far less the Unknowable God, but the ever-to-be- known God " (Knowing and Behu/, pp. 322-3). God is always greater than our conception of Him ; yet we can say that, whatever else He may be, He is the perfection of all that in ourselves is highest and best, of all that is eternally valuable, that has spiritual nobility and worth. In this truth, certain well-known spiritual facts find their explanation. If the soul can live only by expansion, then immediately we see, — (1) First, how new phases of the Divine Being should be ever and anon presenting themselves to mankind, and how clearer views of old phases should be obtained, as the ages roll. (2) Secondly (as a corollary from the first), how some phases of Di- vine Truth should be late in being discovered by men, and yet the latest discovered should be the highest. With deepened and lengthened experi- ence, the hidden things of God come to light and are revealed to prepared souls. (3) Thirdly, how the test of the worth of a newly discovered or specially emphasized aspect of Divine Truth should be the readiness with which men respond to it when declared — in other words, should be the power it has of drawing men towards it and of keeping 232 The Idea of God. them attached. It is both "light-giving" and "fruit-bearing". (4) Fourthly, how different ages or different nations should, through social or other causes, be led to put special stress on one parti- cular aspect of the Divine Being,— as when people, in strict monarchical days, emphasized God's Sover- eignty, or when, as at the present moment, the emphasis falls upon His Fatherhood. The mean- ing of this just is that new life, and, therefore, new significance, may be thrown into an old truth owing to the peculiar circumstances of the leading non- religious conceptions of the time. Everybody knows the modifying effect produced upon our idea of the Creatorship of God which is being wrought before our eyes by the present dominant conception of Evolution. From all this, it follows that Religion is wider than any one of the great historical religions of the world — much more, is wider than any outward ecclesiastical embodiment of religion now existing or ever known to have existed. Hence, too, it follows that each of the great historical religions of the world has embodied and carried forward some portion or portions of Divine Truth. But hence, further, it follows that Natural Religion may be deeply indebted to Revealed Religion, even when not identifying itself with it. In so far, at any rate, as the truths of Revealed Religion are but purified Explanations. ■>QQ and ennobled forms of the truths of Natural Re- ligion, they commend themselves to the enlightened searcher (altogether apart from consideration of the authoritative source whence they issued), and must be taken as a spiritual advance. I do not lay the foundation of Theism in what is usually known as Revelation ; but the teaching of Revela- tion beneficially reacts on that of Natural Theism : and, to that extent at least, it here claims our allegiance. This being understood, let us now take up the question definitely before us. What is the Idea of God, as psychologically determined ? (I.) The first thing that here demands our consideration is the Personality of God.1 But what is meant by Personality ? Personality is nothing apart from Mind. Now Mind, according to the general testimony of modern psychology, is a compound of three things, — Intellect or Cognition, Feeling, and Will ; and these three things are conditioned by Con- sciousness. 1 For, in regarding God as a Being, we necessarily regard Him as " not only All, but Lord over all ; not a Something, but a Person ; no It, but a Thou'" (Van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, Eng. transl., p. 244). >2o4 The Idea of God. Personality, then, may be defined as intelligence, feeling, and will gathered up into a centre of conscious being. It is not intelligence, feeling, or will taken in separation, nor is it these regarded simply as a logical unity ; it is these regarded as an organic unity — held together by a living subject, which gives continuity to the various groups of states and unity to the whole. Let me explain. Intellect, feeling, and will we all know ; but we know nothing of them, in the first instance, except as experienced in ourselves. Now, as so experi- enced, they are given us, not as three isolated and independent facts, but as three mental factors combined in a conscious self or subject. This self or subject, which admits of no further definition, is what is understood by Person. It admits of no further definition, for it is itself the most ultimate of facts ; only, we may set over against it its partial and its complete contrasts — and this is, in a manner, to define it. The complete contrast is Thing or lifeless object ; which, although (as the very ety- mology shows) it is nothing if it is not a subject of thought, is, nevertheless, not itself Thought. And the partial contrasts are living objects to which we ascribe organism, but not self-consciousness, — namely, plants and animals. A thing is not a person ; a plant is not a person ; we do not even,. Personality Defined. 235 strictly, regard a brute beast, however high in the zoological scale, as a person. Personality, in so far as terrestrial beings are concerned, is confined to Man; and in this we have his leading characteristic.1 Unfortunately, however, Personality in the English language is an ambiguous term : it has both a specific and a generic application. Conse- quently, what is distinctive in an individual — it may be, pronounced self-will or excessive self- conceit ; it may be, commanding power of intellect or the fascination of character or the constraining authority of a born leader of men ; it may be, the consummate generalship of Wellington or the consuming ambition and indomitable courage of Napoleon, — but, whatever it is, this distinctive feature is usually denominated personality. But this is an abuse of words, and is greatly misleading. The personality here indicated is merely an exag- geration of some one trait of human nature ; it is what is peculiar to an individual, thereby marking him off from other individuals ; and it may as readily be a weakness as a strength, a defect as a virtue, an imperfection as a perfection. Call it 1 An interesting account of the history of the term "Persona," though not with much relevance to our present purpose, is given by Professor Max Miiller in his Biographies of Words and the Home of the Aryas, pp. 32-47. *23ti The Idea of God. individuality, if you care, or peculiarity, or idiosyn- crasy ; but not personality. Personality is a unity of all the three elements of selfhood, and not a mere excess of one ; and the ideal personality, such as we attribute to God, is not the perfection of intellect or of feeling or of will, but the perfec- tion of all these three, held together in entire harmony. But even personality in its generic meaning may be misunderstood. Green defines it as Self- consciousness, — i.e., as the quality in a subject to become an object to itself. In the Prolegomena to Ethics (p. 191), he says: "Personality is a term that has often been fought over without any very precise meaning being attached to it. If we mean anything else by it than the quality in a subject of being consciously an object to itself [i.e., Self-consciousness], we are not justified in saying that it necessarily belongs to God and to any being in whom God in any measure reproduces or realizes Himself." Again, he says : " Self- objectification is at least the essential thing in personality ". And, no doubt, Self-consciousness, as thus defined, is part of Personality ; but it is not the whole. If self-consciousness were all, it does not appear how, out of this, can be got Char- acter or any of the qualities that are distinctively ethical ; nor does it appear how Emotional qualities Self -consciousness. 237 can emerge. The Ego is more than self-reflection —it is the conscious active meeting-point of cognition, will, and feeling ; and no definition of Personality can be satisfactory that does not re- cognize this — in other words, that does not repose on an adequate analysis of Mind. Least of all can such a definition be satisfactory as applied to the Personality of God ; for, it simply suggests that "thinking upon thought" which, however real in itself, could, if standing alone, only char- acterize a Deity like Aristotle's — a solitary in- dividual, living apart from the world, and occupied solely in contemplation. " God," said Aristotle {Metaphysics, xi.), "must think upon Himself; the thought of God is the thinking upon thought." If that be the synonym for Self-consciousness, it is, obviously, not a full rendering of Personality. Will, morality, and providence are wanting, and that supreme characteristic of Deity which Chris- tianity denominates Love. Personality, then, in the philosophical sense, means Selfhood; and this means the conscious activity of a living subject, manifested in feelings, thoughts, and actions, or what is emphatically now-a-days called Attention. It is not possible to explain the mind and mental experiences simply by taking the mind as a passivity. If it is passive 238 The Idea of God, so far as the receiving of sensations or impressions is concerned, it is essentially active in the working up of these sensations into knowledge, and in the elaborating of purposes and the effecting of resolves : in other words, it has both an intellectual and a moral aspect. And this essential activity of the mind gives us its distinctive feature, and affords us the starting-point for rationality and the reasoned interpretation of existence. It is on this account that I have frequently referred to Personality as the highest fact in our experience, and, therefore, the category through which experience is to be understood. And it may be worth while to devote a moment's consideration to what is here meant by " highest fact in our experience " ; for, although it would be generally admitted that the universe, if interpretable at all, is to be interpreted in terms of the highest fact -known to us, and not in terms of anything lower, it may yet be questioned whether personality is this highest fact. The test of higher and lower, it may be maintained, is generality : in other words, higher and lower have no meaning except as signifying that the more general is higher than the less general ; and, if so, the impersonal is in this sense higher than the personal, for it includes all lifeless things and all plants and animals lower in Matthew Arnold's Conception of God. 239 the scale of existence than man, — and, consequently, impersonality is the interpreting category, not personality. But "generality" is not the true criterion of higher and lower here. The true criterion is, not the logical extension of the notion, or the number of individuals included under it, but the logical intension of the notion, its depth or comprehension, the amount of meaning it conveys. Wherefore, personality is higher, as being more illuminative, than impersonality ; and, as the impersonal has itself no signification unless on the presupposition of the personal, the inanimate is seen ultimately to repose on life, and the non-conscious is explainable only on the postulate of underlying consciousness. In this way, Personality, if the grounds of theism be psychological, is seen to attach to the Deity ; for, it is only when gathered up in a person and manifested in personal act that the very highest excellences — such as wisdom, love, mercy, righteousness — are intelligible to us, and it is only thus that they can affect us as really noble, or stimulate us to the imitation of these prime virtues in ourselves. Hence, such a conception of. God as that of Matthew Arnold, "the stream of tendency," " the Eternal not ourselves that makes for righteous- 240 The Idea of God. ness," is both inadequate and ineffective. It is inadequate, because an Eternal that is simply a " stream of tendency" does not, being impersonal, include the chief characteristic that human nature demands. It is ineffective, because it affords us no sufficient motive or stimulus to bring ourselves into harmony with it. All experience goes to show that it is a person that can most effectually move a person ; indeed, that it is only a person, according to the doctrine (which holds as much in the spirit- ual as in the biological world) that life can only come from what is living. And, although by im- personal agencies we may be compelled into con- formity with a particular drift or current, although by these we may be coerced into an outward har- mony with what is given as righteousness, — never- theless, this is something entirely different from a cheerful and willing obedience to a Righteous Being, in whom all righteousness is contained and by whom the perfect righteousness is exhibited.1 Objections. The objections to ascribing Personality to God are apparently many, and they come from mono- theists, pantheists, non-theists alike. But they all circle round one and the same idea, — namely 1 See, also, Lecture X. Personality as Limitation. 241 this, that personality means limitation, whereas God must be the unlimited. But how, let us ask, is personality limitation ; and in what sense is God conceived as the un- limited ? By " limitation " is meant several things, and these must be clearly distinguished. 1. In the first place, it means definite or re- stricted in quantity ; as, for example, limited in knowledge or in will or in power. Now, limit in this sense is not applicable to God : it is a characteristic of finite personality alone. But, then, being restricted to finite per- sonality, it is not essential to personality. It is im- perfection or incompleteness adhering to a certain class of persons. But remove the imperfection or the incompleteness, and joersonality is not thereby negatived. On the contrary, it only then comes forth in all its true essential character. Difference in magnitude is not difference in kind ; and, though you alter the quantity, the quality remains the same. 2. Next, limitation may mean defect. In this sense, too, it is restricted to finite personality. Men are both erring and sinful ; but neither sin nor error can be ascribed to God. But, then, neither sin nor error is of the essence 16 242 The Idea of God. of personality : they are simply accidents inci- dental to man. 3. Thirdly, limitation may be applied to a thing to designate the fact that it is a certain individual thing and not another, — as when I say, " This is a thought and not a feeling, or a feeling and not a volition ". But, surely, there is no appropriateness in this application of the term. There is sense in saying that a thing is limited when it does not realize the ideal of the type to which it belongs ; but none in saying it is limited because it is itself and not some- thing else, or everything else, at the same time. There is no limit to God's knowledge, or to His love, or to His will : each of these, we must believe, is perfect — has attained the ideal of its own kind. But it is nothing less than the height of unreason to say that each of these is limited because, while being itself, it is not also the others. To demand that there shall not be the limit of distinctions in God is to demand that the Deity shall be some vast dead uniformity, which, if actually existent, would be utterly inoperative. 4. Hence, fourthly, it is no limitation, in any just sense, when we apply Reason and Reason's laws to God. This we saw already when examining Mansel's agnosticism (Lecture IV.). It is simply unmeaning verbiage to say, that God can make a Duality of Self-consciousness. 243 thing both be and not be at the same time, or that He can undo an act that is done. 5. But the great bugbear of limitation arises, I presume, under a fifth signification of the term. Limit, it is said, means the duality of self-con- sciousness— the need in every conscious being of an object of consciousness as well as a subject of consciousness, of a non-ego as well as an ego, of something thought about no less than of a thinker ; and this necessity of an object to a subject limits the subject, makes it relative and dependent, and so cannot be transferred to God. " Personality," says Mansel, "as we conceive it, is essentially a limitation and a relation. Our own personality is presented to us as relative and limited ; and it is from that presentation that all our representative notions of personality are derived. Personality is presented to us as a relation between the conscious self and the various modes of his consciousness. There is no personality in abstract thought without a thinker : there is no thinker, unless he exercise some mode of thought. Personality is also a limitation ; for the thought and the thinker are distinguished from and limit each other ; and the several modes of thought are distinguished each from each by limitation likewise " (Limits of Reli- gious Thought, p. 56). Now, the nature of Thought is, indeed, a 244 The Ideal of God, duality ; a subject needs an object, thinker implies something thought. But what propriety is there in calling this a limitation, or in affirming that it would be derogatory to God ? It would only be derogatory to God, would only be a " limitation " in any valid sense, if the object of ^thought were itself something apart from God (the Thinker) and co-ordinate with Him. The object of thought need not even be material ; it may be simply a subject-object, an " eject " (giving a new meaning to Clifford's term),1 — it may be simply thought itself. But, even in the case of the material world regarded as object of thought : this is not a self-existent independent reality (only a crude philosophy could represent it so), and, therefore, cannot be a limitation. Even potential existence is no true limitation. The potential to God, indeed, could not be, if God be conceived simply as a Deity dwelling apart, having no relation to Time — transcendent, but not immanent. But such an isolated Deity we refuse to believe in ; He is simply the product of abstract thought. If God be in the world, as well as 1 Clifford meant by "eject" the individual human being's inference of consciousness and mind in other human beings. These are not "objects" to him, they are outside his own consciousness ; they are ejected or thrown out of his consciousness, and recognized as not being a part of himself. Eternity of God. 245 greater than it, He must work under time's conditions; and the distinction of "actual" and "potential" is, to that extent, relevant to Him. Here, indeed, the philosophical prius is the actual, if by " actual " we mean with Aristotle end or purpose; but in Time-evolution, from which we cannot shut out the Deity, the potential has its meaning and its place. 6. Hence, sixthly, there is little force in the objection that Personality, being conditioned by time, is inapplicable to the Deity, inasmuch as the Deity is out of time — is eternal. For, first, eternal does not mean " out of time " : it means never-ending. As applied to God, it means, "without beginning of days or end of life " : it is that to which no limit in time can be set, Then, next, timelessness, in the sense of "out of time," is for us an empty term. Being ourselves in time, we can form no notion of an existence out of time, nor really attach to it a definite meaning. What we know is that, although in time, we ourselves have thought-processes (con- ception, for instance) into which no consciousness of time enters. And we know, further, that God is revealed to us in time, and not out of it ; and on this time-revelation we can build. We have got, somehow or other, to conceive time as an imper- 246 The Idea of God. fection, a defect ; just as some people speak of it as though it were an actual substance, and others as though it were a living creature. But time is no defect. What is a defect is man's ignorance of the real properties and relations of things, and, consequently, his ignorance of how principles will work themselves out in time. What is a defect is man's incompetence to make sure that what he wills against a future day will actually be done when that day arrives, and his impatience with time's delays. There is nothing to lead us to suppose that it is mere time that makes men's judgment to err with respect to the future. The ground of their error lies in the fact that they have only a limited acquaintance with only a limited number of things, and a limited power of control- ling them. But given adequate knowledge of the properties and collocations of things, given exact acquaintance with the constitution of the universe and of all the forces therein at work (such as we must ascribe to God), and, even under time's conditions, we obtain a very real meaning of Omniscience and Divine prevision ; and we can see how this omniscience should be unerring, while yet it refers to things that will happen many days hence. Says Jevons : " We may safely accept as a satisfactory scientific hypothesis the doctrine so grandly put forth by Laplace, who asserted that a Summary and Conclusion. 247 perfect knowledge of the universe, as it existed at any given moment, would give a perfect knowledge of what was to happen thenceforth and for ever after" (The Principles of Science, bk. vi.). 7. But, lastly, another form of the notion that lies at the root of the reluctance to regard God as a Person is the idea that, by so regarding Him, we reduce Him to the position of one individual among a countless number of others. But this does not follow, if the individuals, countless in number, are all finite and are all dependent upon Him. It would only follow, if each had a distinct existence of his own. Derived personality is one thing : self-existent personality is quite another. Summary and Conclusion. We need not, then, find personality an insuper- able barrier to our Theistic structure. It may quite legitimately be ascribed to God, because it is not necessarily finite. It would only be necessarily finite, if the correct idea of it were that of an Ego as one reality set over against a Non-ego as another reality, each absolutely distinct and independent. But this is by no means the true conception of Personality, nor is it given by the logical doc- trine of Correlation. " It suffices for laying the foundation of personality," as Lotze truly remarks, "if a spiritual being has the faculty of appre- 248 The Idea of God. hending itself as ' I ' in opposition to its own states, which are only its ' states ' and not ' I '. A relation to an external reality [a real non-ego, of such kind that this as sack might enter into consciousness and the ego thus be posited in opposition to this perceived non-ego, and thereby be- come limited] is not necessary ; and, consequently, * personality ' also is not bound to the condition of flniteness, — to wit, to that of being limited by another reality of the same kind" (Outlines of the Philosophy of Religion, Prof. Ladd's transl., pj). 64, 65).1 (II.) From the Personality of God, let us pass next to His Unity : God is One. " One " here is opposed to " many ". It is the antithesis of idolatry and polytheism, in its widest sense, as the worship of " gods many and lords many," as well as of polytheism in that narrower sense sometimes known as " monolatry," which regards heathenism at the stage where the multi- plicity of gods becomes specialized into local or national deities — like the patron or protecting saints of mediaeval Christendom. As opposed, then, to polytheism in its various 1 See also the Mikrokosmus, bk. ix. c. iv. Unity of God, 249 forms, monotheism (or the doctrine that God is one) commends itself to the enlightened reason ; and, as the rational alcme is true, we cannot refuse to accept it. Anything like a hierarchy of deities, such as the ancient Greeks had, with Zeus at the top and perhaps Dionysus at the bottom, does not meet the deepest requirements of the case ; much less does the Roman deification of the Emperors, which simply marks the decadence of Religion. The doctrine of one God, or Monotheism, is easily traced to its springs in human nature. There is, first, the sense or feeling of dependence on some Being who is competent to meet our wants — those of them that we ourselves are unable to cope with. There is, next, the rational necessity superinduced on this feeling, which drives us (half-unconsciously, it maybe) to the conclusion that this Being must be one and supreme ; for, as the deepest wants of one human being are found to be precisely those of another, and as no man can supply his own wants, much less those of his fellow, the ultimate resting-place is one God, the Author and Father of mankind, whose care for His own creatures is unbounded and whose tender mercies are over all His works. Many deities, with different and conflicting interests (like those of the Greek pantheon), would, obviously, not be the final resting-place ; while a plurality of deities, each with the same goodwill and intention 250 The Idea of God. towards us, and each equally powerful to supply our needs, would, no less clearly, be a wasteful and perplexing reduplication of agents. Taken any way you please, Polytheism, although not actually absurd, is indefensible. A tutelar deity, tribal or national, would simply be a local protector, a magnified patron, alike susceptible to his client's flatteries and jealous of the claims of competitors ; and, so, outrages the fact of the solidarity of the race. A hierarchy of divinities is an unmanageable conception, if the divinities themselves are not in unison ; and it is an unnecessary conception, if they are. As, moreover, we need the element of un- changeableness in the Deity, this is not likely to be got in a hierarchy : it is given securely only in the conception of a being One and Supreme. But, further, the human want that secures God to man is of a peculiar kind. It holds a unique position among natural wants — namely this, that it is not a want of one particular part of our being, but of every part of it. We need a God to whom we shall give an undivided attachment and obedience — a God who shall meet our intellectual, our emotional, our volitional, and our moral requirements ; a God who shall uplift us, and, in uplifting, shall ennoble us wholly, — one in com- munion with whom we shall find ourselves bettered, and by attachment to whom we shall attain rest. Polytheism. 251 But the gods of polytheism and idolatry cannot thus affect us. Instead of elevating, they have a tendency to degrade us, and in serving them we should dissipate our energies, instead of concen- trating and conserving them. The Object of worship, in order to exalt us, must Himself be high, — neither the work of a man's own hands, nor the mere creation of his fancy. To worship stocks and stones is to abnegate reason, and that can never raise us ; and to put fictions in the room of the Great Reality can only end in disastrous con- sequences. Nevertheless, although polytheism (including idolatry) is thus an abnegation of reason, the forms of it are not all equally degrading. The lowest form is when a man takes a stock or a stone and makes it his personal fetish ; when he accepts it simply as a temporary deity, suited to serve a particular purpose and after that to be disowned, and when he looks upon it simply as his god. This is really the religion of selfishness. The worshipper here regards himself as the sole object of concern, and his own interest as the sole actu- ating principle of his obeisance. Considerably higher is the conception of a household god, of a god protecting a home or family (lares or penates) ; for, the worshipper now regards himself, not as an 252 The Idea of God. individual, but as the member of a group, and feels his own interest to be (partly or wholly) bound up in the interest of the group. It is higher still when the tutelar deity becomes tribal or national ; for, with every advance in the widening of the conception, comes a corresponding widening in the individual worshipper's human sympathies (in his sympathy for his fellow-men) and a corresponding merging of self-interest in the interest of others. Still, until you reach monotheism, you cannot attain the idea of universal brotherhood or cosmo- politanism. Only when you look upon God as One, can you conceive Him as Father of the race, and all men as "made of one blood ". Polytheism, even at its best, is narrow and cramping, and is tainted with selfishness. Monotheism alone can adequately recognize the solidarity of man, and, at the same time, fully conserve the place and the rights of the individual. This is the same thing as saying that polytheism, although it may rightly enough be spoken of as a religion, is incompetent, under any form, to give the highest and purest conception of Religion. Religion, in its most general signification, may be defined as men's sense of dependence on a being or beings higher and greater than themselves, affecting them for evil or for good, in union with whom blessedness is found, and to whom allegiance Monotheism. 253 is due. But, though this be religion in its most general meaning, the specific content wherewith it is filled up, as civilization advances and man's spiritual insight and spiritual experience increase, makes an enormous difference. Nature-worship, or the recognition of natural forces as mighty powers needing to be propitiated, is one thing ; it is quite another thing when the Object of worship is looked upon as one, gathering up in Himself all power and using the forces of nature only as His instruments or agents. It is a further thing still when you endow Him with the highest wisdom and the purest love, — conceive of Him as one supreme righteous Being, who, while all-powerful is also all-good, and whose dealings with mankind are prompted by a Father's affection and directed by a Father's wisdom. The conception is now fully justified both to the heart and to the reason. Monotheism, then, has its root in man's sense of dependence on a Higher Power, and it is safe- guarded by rational considerations. Polytheism, however it may rest on man's sense of dependence, is lacking in the support of reason. Historical. 1. The non-rationality of polytheism was early seen in cultured Greece. As far back as the days of the Eleatics, the gods of the popular pantheon 254 The Ideal of God, were strenuously attacked. We have already seen (Lecture III.) how Xenophanes assailed them. His example was eagerly followed by others. Not only did Parmenides and the rest of the Eleatic school strike at the heathen worship through philo- sophy, but they attempted to establish its irration- ality on purely metaphysical grounds. To them, unity was the interpreting term of the existent, and such unity, divine and all-embracing, as ex- cluded the possibility of change or becoming in any absolute sense. Their doctrine, therefore, was pantheism, — which absorbed polytheism. From a different standpoint, Democritus and the Atomists generally pursued the attack, and they were joined by the Epicureans. Neither of these sects denied the existence of the gods, but both of them ex- cluded the gods from the world, relegated them to a sphere outside nature, and thereby practically ignored them. It was the Sophists, however, who really initiated the era of efficient criticism, and generated among the Greeks a spirit of scepticism which went far to undermine the popular religious convictions. They were, in this respect, ably seconded by the poets. They had, on the one hand, the aid of Euripides,1 who " represents the 1 Of Euripides, Mr. James Freeman Clarke says : — " His is the anti-religious tragedy. It is a sneering defiance of the religious sentiment, a direct teaching of pessimism " (Ten Great Religions, p. 285). Greek Thought. 255 reaction against the religious tragedy " ; and, on the other hand, the help of Aristophanes, who, though himself a laudator temporis acti, does, by the way in which he brings the gods on the stage, expose the popular religion to public ridicule. Paradoxical though it may seem, the Sophists were also seconded by Socrates. Whatever quarrel Socrates had with the Sophists, he was here fully at one with them. Not, however, in the spirit of his attack. While they were essentially sceptical, he was reverentially inquisitive ; and, though he ultimately suffered death as an "atheist," his atheism, as he himself well knew, was the worthiest theism. After Socrates, came Plato and Aristotle, — whose whole systems were pronouncedly anti- polytheistic, each on its own lines ; and the contest did not cease when they were gone. Whether with high-toned purpose (as among the Cynics), or with less spiritual penetration and from lower motives (as among the Cyrenaics and the Epicureans), polytheism was effectually disowned by the educated and the thoughtful. Sometimes a near approach to positive monotheism was put in its place, — as when Antisthenes opposed to the many gods of Greek heathenism one pure God, invisible to sense, unpicturable to the imagination, unrepresentable by symbol ; who was best served, not by outward homage, not by sacrifices and ^ 256 The Idea of God. ceremonies, but by righteous living. Sometimes the result was negative — that God there is not, in any proper sense of the term, but that Nature (as with Democritus), with its atoms, its uniformity, and fixed laws, is all. Sometimes (as with the Peripatetics) it was a qualified theism, what was known in Britain in last century as Deism, — the doctrine that God is, and that He brought the world into existence, but that, having done so, He retired beyond its circle, leaving it to work out its own destiny. Sometimes, again, it was panthe- ism— as with Parmenides in earlier days. But, whatever was the substitute, philosophy in all its sects and schools was done with polytheism : native Greek intellect had been strong enough to overthrow it. For, undoubtedly, when the idea of the divine unity was reached in Greece, it was arrived at, as Zeller very justly says, " less by way of syn- ■\ cretism than of criticism ; not by blending the many gods into one, but by combating the prin- ciple of polytheism" (Pre-Socratic Philosophy, Eng. transl., vol. i. p. 65). What happened among the Greeks happened also among the Romans. Progressing intelligence saw that the popular theology was irrational, and the conscience felt that a doctrine that fostered immorality could not be true. The final result Philosophy and Polytheism. 257 was greatly aided by Rome's intercourse with Athens — whence, as we know, Greek philosophy was transported as a living power to revolutionize Latin thought and Latin manners. '2. Considering the part that philosophy thus played in effecting the downfall of polytheism, it is interesting to observe what were the kinds of argument that availed in this great work. (1) One chief method of attack was sarcasm. This was the method of Xenophanes. Other Greeks followed in the same vein ; though it must be allowed that the Greek philosophers as a rule, knowing what the end of determined and too out- spoken opposition to the popular theology would be, were more cautious and reserved. They found it best not to pose as so-called "atheists" but to countenance the popular religion, while they taught a philosophic doctrine that really sub- verted it. It was different, somewhat later, when the popular theology was visibly losing its hold. Sar- casm then became a very powerful weapon — as in the hands of Lucian, " the satirist and wit, the prose Aristophanes of later Greece ". Sarcasm, too, in early Christian times, was the great Patristic instrument of aggression. It is wielded with much dexterity by Justin Martyr ; 17 258 The Idea of God. and other early Apologists are quite alive to its importance. The forms of Sarcasm, however, have been various. Sometimes (as with Xenophanes) it was founded on the rational objection to anthropo- morphism ; but more frequently (as with Lucian and the Christian Apologists) it was aimed at the glaring inconsistencies and moral defects of the mythical gods — their amours, rivalries, jealousies, domestic quarrels, and so forth. (2) But a second mode of attack was, — ac- knowledging the gods in set speech, but ignoring them so far as any real efficient action in the world was concerned. This was the prime method of Epicurus, — best exemplified, perhaps, in the Roman poet Lucretius. There are gods indeed (it is ad- mitted), and they created the world ; but it is simply presumption and self-conceit on man's part to suppose that they take any interference in mun- dane affairs. It would be beneath their dignity to interest themselves in any way in anything so petty and insignificant as man. There they are, living in happiness and blissful ease away beyond the created world, and cries and prayers from suffering beings on earth can never reach them. When they formed the world, they gave it its immutable laws, and then withdrew from it, to live in a state of otium cum dignitate, allowing it Modes of Attack. 2.39 to go its own way according to the form originally prescribed to it ; and man's wisdom lies in studying Nature and its laws, and in conforming to the inevitable as best he can. In this teaching of Lucretius, do we not seem to be listening to some modern scientist? (3) Still another method, and possibly the most effective of all, was that of not boldly attacking, but quietly sapping, the popular faith. This was done by inculcating doctrines that, when assimi- lated, would of themselves produce an alienation from polytheism, and the false would fall away of its own accord, simply from men's lack of interest in it. This was the philosopher's way par excellence. Parmenides adopted it in the interest of pantheism ; Plato used it in the interest of a high-toned spiritu- alistic philosophy ; and it was employed by Aris- totle in his magnificent efforts to organize human knowledge and to give to thinking a rigorously scientific expression. It was practised, too, by Cicero, who, though outwardly acknowledging the popular deities, did what he could in his philosophi- cal writings to undermine them and to substitute morality for religion; while Varro "does not throw even the decent veil of Cicero over his conclusions, but openly urges his countrymen to maintain the ceremonies and culture of the State 260 The Idea of God. religion, while they acknowledge to themselves that such beliefs are false, and such practices futile " (Merivale, The Contrast between Pagan and Christian Society, p. 28). (III.) The third element in the Theistic con- ception is, that God is All-perfect. This follows from the fact that God is a neces- sity of human nature. For, whatever else He is, He must, if adequate to meet our wants, be the source and consummation of all that is noble and good in ourselves : He must possess all our excellences, with the defects and finite limitations removed. Hence we say that He is (1) Omniscient, and, there- fore, Omnipresent; (2) All-holy, — ideally righte- ous, just, and true; (3) Omnipotent and All- wise ; (4) All-merciful and All-good. This is so obvious that we need not dwell upon it. (IV.) Lastly, God is both Immanent and Tran- scendent. The God that man's deepest wants demand is not a bare Creator, who, having brought the world into existence, with its furniture and living crea- tures, withdrew from it and left it henceforth to itself. Not a God dwelling in a distant region apart, in supreme indifference to all created things, not one simply " sitting upon the circle of Immanence and Transcendence. 261 the earth," will satisfy our better nature ; but a God who, while greater than us, is also near to us : " Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet". A Creator is, indeed, re- quired ; but not in the abstract sense that is usually accepted. We need a Creator who is also the Sustainer of His own work, and so is ever present in it. Though not confined to one place, God must be also here; and, while He imparts life to His creatures, He must also constantly maintain and quicken that life. The world cannot monopolize the Deity ; but, at the same time, it cannot dispense with His perpetual presence and His continual protecting power. This, I take it, was the truth that Anaxagoras in the days of old was aiming to express when he said that " Mind (Intelligence, Nov?) is that which set in order and was the cause of all things ". For, though he himself does not put this doctrine to its full theistic use, nor indeed apply it rigorously in his rational explanation of the universe, and so comes under the rebuke of Socrates and also of Aristotle, there can be little question that it lends itself naturally and readily to the explanation of the world on the principle of the immanence of the Deity. For, Anaxagoras's Nous was a spiritual essence, itself unmoved but the cause of motion — 262 The Idea of God. in other words, the spiritual force that formed the world, changing the chaos of matter into a cosmos. Given Matter and given Motion, yet Anaxagoras could not see (with Empedocles and Leucippus), nor would he have seen with our modern cosmic theo- rizers, that you have explained the universe. You have to account for motion itself, and that Matter cannot do. Hence. Nous or Intelligence becomes imperative. But here, practically. Anaxagoras stopped. His whole problem was to account for the Cosmos ; and, having done this, he seems not to have pushed his inquiries further into the nature of the primitive world-forming mind. It was Socrates's great complaint against him (see the Phcedo) that, when you came to him wishing and expecting to hear all about this intelligent ordering cause of the universe, you were put off' with a discourse about natural and mechanical causes — - " air, aether, water, and many other things equally absurd". Nevertheless, Anaxagoras ascribed to the world-forming Intelligence unchangeableness and omniscience, and his own starting-point in philosophy was the human Ego. Does it not thence follow that, as unchangeableness and omniscience are attributes of an Ego, the logical outcome of the Anaxagorean principles was the identification of Nous with God ? Moreover, Anaxagoras ascribes Nous, not only to men, but, in a lesser degree, to Anaxagoras. -<>:> animals, and, in a still lesser degree, to plants. Is he not here groping his way towards an articulate expression of God's all-pervading presence ? We are unreasonable when we expect absolute clearness, rigorous logic, and unwavering consistency in the first originator of a great conception. It is enough if we can see that Anaxagoras is on the track of a dee}) truth, and that he felt, though dimly, that his mechanical causes are not the ultimate explana- tion of the universe. His procedure is quite in keeping with that of great physicists and theists of later times. Both Sir Isaac Newton and Kant (the latter, at least, in his General History of Nature ami Theory of the Heavens) devoted themselves to the mechanical interpretation of Nature ; but both also strongly maintained the compatibility of the mechanical explanation with the teleological view, which regards Nature as dependent upon and significant of God.1 -Perhaps, of moderns, none is stronger than Hermann Lotze in maintaining the same thing :2 and Lotze has many followers. But the relation of God to the universe may be viewed in a one-sided way, giving thereby only a partial truth. 1 Kant, however, eschewed teleology in his later works. - This is seen in many parts of the Mikrokosmus ; but special reference may be made to bk. iii. chap. v. and bk. iv. 264 The Idea of God. We have already seen that the Atomists and certain others in Greek antiquity located the gods outside the world and left the latter simply to the play of its own inherent forces. The Deists of last century did very much the same thing. This is, obviously, altogether inadequate. God's transcend- ence does not mean His existence outside the world, but is a brief way of expressing the fact that it is on Him that the world is dependent. If God is, He must have a continual interest in that which He Himself produced. But not less inadequate is it to maintain the immanence of God, while denying His transcend- ence. This is what is done by Pantheists. " Deus," says Spinoza, "est omnium rerum causa human*' us, non vero transiens" [Ethics, bk. i. prop, xviii.). But this is to assert either of two things, neither of which is competent to explain the universe and our experience. It is either to say that God is only one principle in the universe along with others — and then He ceases to be God, even although we conceive this Divinity as the generic- ally highest principle. Or, it is to say that the universe itself is God — in which case we part with all those distinctions of personality, rectitude, etc., that are of the most vital importance for know- ledge and for morality alike. If God be simply the totality of things, the mystery remains pre- Spinoza. 265 cisely where it was : the word "totality" explains nothing. If He be merely a principle enclosed in this totality, He is a subordinate Deity needing to be referred to something higher.1 III. We have now seen the meaning of the position that God is a necessity of human nature ; we have seen what, psychologically determined, is the Idea of God ; and we have also emphasized the fact that, as human nature is progressive, this implies a corresponding progressiveness in the revelation of the Divine character and attributes. It only now remains to complete this branch of our sub- ject by casting a glance at what Bunsen called " God in History," and Lessing " the Education of the Human Race," or what may be otherwise denominated History's testimony to the being and nature of God. If God is, He must have a distinct connexion with the creatures of His own hand, and His con- tact and relations with them must be discernible in their lives and history. Not only must the individual man bear witness to His power and 1 For an interesting historical account, briefly put, of the tran- scendence of God in both Greek and Christian Theology, see Lecture ix. of Hatch's Hibhert Lectures. 266 The Idea of God. presence, but human history must testify to His over-ruling providence and paternal care. Not, indeed, that we may find ourselves able to trace His workings there save in broad and general outline — the field is too large and the matter too complex to admit of anything more. But this general outline must at any rate be possible. This at least we must be able to say, " Lo, these are parts of His ways," even though we may have, at the same time, to confess, " But how little a portion is heard of Him ! " The idea of the historical testimony here dealt with, practically originated with the Hebrews. The Jewish national government was explicitly theocratic. When Moses desired to see the " face " of God, it was not permitted him ; he was allowed simply to see His " back ". That revela- tion to the Jewish lawgiver in the cleft of the rock may be taken as an allegory. Even then, it was felt that the Deity could be best discerned by the traces of Him discoverable when He had passed by. Indeed, the Jewish history was itself con- ceived as a theophany ; and, in this light, the historical books of the Old Testament (such as Joshua and Samuel) were classed by the Jews themselves among the books of prophecy. Belief in human progress and in an over-ruling Providence The Philosophy of History. *2<57 was of the very essence of the Hebrew faith ; and, thereby, it stands contrasted with all other ancient teaching. Perhaps, it might have been expected that ancient Greek and Roman thought would have approximated to it here ; but (with the partial exception of the Greek tragic poetry and of Herodotns's tentative generalizations) it did not. "In Greek authors of classical times," says Professor Butcher, " there is no trace of the thought that the human race as a whole, or any single people, is advancing towards a divinely appointed good ; there is nothing of what the moderns mean by the 'Education of the World,' 'the Progress of the Race,' 'the Divine guidance of nations'. The first germ of the thought is in Polybius (circ. 204-1 ±2 B.C.), whose work illustrates the idea of a providential destiny presiding over the march of Roman history, and building up the imperial power of Rome for the good of mankind. Diodorus Siculiis, again (circ. 59 B.C.), speaks of the grati- tude due to those historians who, seeing men bound together by natural kinship but separated in place and time, have attempted to bring them together in one ordered whole (vtto /aiW /cat tt)v avrr)i> crvvTa^Lv ayayelu), therein making themselves the ministers of Divine Providence (ojenrep Tivh VTTOVpyOL TYJS 0€LOL<; TTpOVOLOLS y€Vr)6£vT£<$). Tlie llOtlOll of a universal history is here based on the senti- 268 The Idea of God. ment of the unity of the human race and of its hope for the future" (Some Aspects of the Greek Genius, pp. 155-6). But, although the doctrine of God in history may be said to have been characteristic of the Jews, neither the philosophy of this doctrine nor the systematic attempt to exemplify it from general history is,1 of course, to be found with them. In- deed, these were hardly possible till Christianity arose, with its bold insistence on the Fatherhood of God and the solidarity of the race ; and, even then, we have to wait for St. Augustine with his Civitas Dei, before we get them in a really distinct form. In their present guise, however, they are of modern birth, and may, without much departure from truth, be said to owe their existence to the Germans (beginning with Lessing), but are specially associated with the name of Hegel ; while, in recent years, they have been cultivated in our own country, with marked results, by Bunsen, Buckle, Mr. Lecky, and Professor Flint. According to Hegel, the philosophic value of human history is, that it shows us in concrete form the development or evolution of Rational Freedom, 1 We have the germ of this, however, in the prophecies concerning the nations, — which look upon the nations from the point of view of their relation to the kingdom of God. Hegel. 269 as part of the working out of the Idea, in the well- known threefold manner of the Hegelian dialectic. Beginning simply as the Idea, it starts in an ab- stract and impoverished fashion having no real con- tent and being indeed equivalent to non-being. It, next, objectifies itself by passing over into Nature, where it comes into contact with the concrete and the particular. And, lastly, disengaging itself from Nature, it returns upon itself as free Spirit fraught with meaning and content, rich with the treasures of self-consciousness — like the rewarded bee re- turning to its hive laden with honey ; not, however, " before it has gone through all the stages of in- dividual life, and realized itself in many outward forms, with which stages and forms the philosophy of spirit is conversant. One of the forms in which the concrete conscious spirit realizes itself is the State, and the philosophy of history is that part of the philosophy of spirit which traces the evolu- tion of reason manifesting itself as the State" (Prof. Flint, The Philosophy of Histori/, p. 497). " Philosophy," says Hegel, " concerns itself only with the glory of the Idea mirroring itself in the History of the World. Philosophy escapes from the weary strife of passions that agitate the surface of society into the calm region of contemplation ; that which interests it is the recognition of the process of development which the Idea has passed 270 The Idea of God. through in realizing itself, — i.e., the Idea of Free- dom, whose reality in the consciousness of Freedom and nothing short of it. That the History of the World, with all the changing scenes which its annals present, is this process of development and the realization of Spirit, — this is the true Theodiccea, the justification of God in History. Only this in- sight can reconcile Spirit with the History of the World, — viz., that what has happened, and is hap- pening every day, is not only not ' without God,' but is essentially His Work " (Lectures 01/ the Philosophy of History, Eng. transl., p. 477). Now, this Hegelian "Idea": how to under- stand it has been the great difficulty — more particularly in its relation to personality and in connexion with the Divine. Theistic, pantheistic, atheistic interpretations have all been given. But, interpretation apart, what is valuable for us all is, that herein Hegel clearly recognized that the world is not blindly ruled by chance, but is in- formed with thought ; and so he taught the pro- priety and the necessity of reading history with an intelligent regard to the development or unfolding of rational tendencies or ends. Accepting this teaching, we approach History with intelligent regard ; and what, I think, we find is : — A Divine Plan. '271 That the rational tendencies are really the disclosures of a Divine plan : in other words, that God rules in the world, and that His purposes with man are, in part, unambiguously declared. 1. First, we find that human actions, on the large scale, or on the stage of history, do show a tendency, with many fluctuations, towards pro- gress, righteousness, and freedom. This is parti- cularly seen in such a case as that of Political Liberty, which, through much struggle and after many vicissitudes of fortune, has at last achieved success in the leading nations of the civilized world, and is, obviously, on the road to universal victory. It is shown, again, in the case of Slavery ; where emancipation was long indeed in coming, yet it came at last : and it too is on the way to universal victory. Again, it is shown in the vindication of the rights of Conscience, in the emancipation of Women, in the development of the Universal Brotherhood of men, and in many similar movements, which have for their impelling motive the conviction of the sacredness of person- ality and the worth of man, and which find their justification in the maxim, "Be a person, and respect others as persons ". 2. But the way in which these momentous and 272 The Idea of God. far-reaching results have been wrought out im- presses us with a second principle, — namely this, the presence of a guiding or over-ruling Providence ; or, if you prefer to express it so, the fact of an immanent Deity. This is best felt when we consider the surpass- ing vastness of the spiritual issues that mankind have achieved, in the face of apparently insur- mountable difficulties, and at moments when failure seemed to be entire and final. Human progress has not been a straight line, but a complex curve ; and, out of man's weakness, strength has been extracted. There is no question that the present supremacy of some of the noblest and most dearly cherished principles — such as Freedom and Humanity — were not gained by men, in all ages and in every land, banding themselves together and deliberately setting these principles before them as objects of pursuit, consciously and determinedly striving after them, harmoniously supporting each other in the effort to secure their triumph, working shoulder to shoulder or hand in hand. On the contrary, the great, and sometimes perhaps the sole, hindrance to the earlier success of great principles was just the opposition, temporary yet intense, of men themselves. The dead resistance came, not from opposing fate or from untoward environment, but from human wills doggedly Exact Point of Argument. 273 resolved to withstand innovation and to maintain the status quo. Yet this dead resistance was ultimately broken through, and men's fatuous behaviour, even their barbarism and lawless exercise of brute force, their selfishness, their cruelties and their acts of injustice, were over-ruled for good. This over-ruling for good, so often un- expected, and in ways and by means contrary to all expectation, taken in connexion with the onward How of righteousness (temporarily ob- structed, indeed, yet never permanently impeded), its irresistible continuous march to final victory, unhasting yet unresting, — this, I say, testifies to the thoughtful of the presence and the guidance of One who manifests Himself in history, because history deals with human beings and eternal interests, and human beings and eternal interests are His : in other words, it shows that, on the large scale, "judgment is laid to the line and righteousness to the plummet," and that man's true place and destiny are not problematical. Note, particularly, the point of our argument. It is shown by history that, measured on the vast scale, human actions have been on the whole in the line of freedom, righteousness, and progress. But this ultimate pointing of corporate human action (including, of course, all the great institu- 18 274 The Idea of God. tions— social, political and religious — in which corporate action has embodied itself) towards a great end can, under the circumstances, only be fully accounted for on the supposition of an over- ruling Providence or an immanent Deity, and of man's being under a Divine education. For, some- times the darkness and corruption on the earth have been so great and so long continued that movement onwards, after such a prodigious check, seemed impossible ; and sometimes the final result has been so much vaster and immeasurably better' than men themselves expected, and has been effected by instruments so humble, that we are driven by an irresistible logic to the conclusion that a greater than man is here. The argument is, that a purpose and a plan are discernible in human history, wrought through man and in accordance with the principles of human nature, yet higher than what man, with his limited prescience, his faltering judgment, his vacillating morality, his intellectual and other weaknesses, could consciously have intended or effectually achieved. It is induc- tively proved that there is God in history. As Hegel, in the Logic, puts it : " Reason is as cunning as it is powerful. Cunning may be said to lie in the inter-mediative action, which, while it permits the objects to follow their own bent and act upon one another, till they waste awav, and does not itself Argument from History : its Place. 27.") directly interfere4 in the process, is nevertheless only working out the execution of its own aims. With this explanation, Divine Providence may be said to stand to the world and its process in the capacity of absolute cunning. God lets men direct their particular passions and interests as they please ; but the result is the accomplishment of — not their plans, but His, and these differ decidedly from the ends primarily sought by those whom He employs" (Wallace's transl, p. 302 ). Long before this, Shakespeare had said : — There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will. But, even if there were less inductive proof of God's presence in history than there is, we should still be bound to believe that human history mani- fested God, though we might fail to perceive it, if, on other grounds than those of history, we were convinced of God's existence. For, if God exists, He cannot simply be the God of men as indi- viduals ; He must have to do with them in their corporate condition — as families, tribes, nations, yea, as a race. Man as an individual, as distinct from man as a social unit, is an abstraction, a non- entity. A man is essentially the member of a community, the part of an organie whole ; and the individual and his good are inseparably 276 The Idea of God. bound up in the existence and the good of the whole. Grant, then, that God is, and you must also grant that His presence and His action are marked in human history, though you might not yourself be able clearly to discover it, or though you doubted the alleged discovery, in some particular cases, on the part of others. So, God in history is only part of the doctrine that God is a necessity of human nature. The one follows from the other, or the one supplements the other. A Deity inattentive to His own creatures, or indifferent to their ultimate destina- tion, would not meet our deepest spiritual wants. If He is my God, He must also be yours ; if He has a purpose for me as being one of " His off- spring," He must have a purpose for the whole offspring also ; and, if I can discern His purpose in my own case, His purpose must be discernible (to some extent) in the case of the race. The premisses are given, and the conclusion follows : — One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves. THE SECOND COURSE OF LECTURES, 1 893. LECTURE VII. EMOTIONAL THEISM. In my last Course of Lectures, I laid down as explicitly as I could, and developed to the extent that the time at my command allowed, the doctrine of the psychological basis and logical grounds of Theism. It remains for me now to carry forward the argument into the various mental provinces of emotion, volition, and intellect. I make the commencement to-day with the Emotions. Lord Karnes, in his Elements of Criticism (vol. i. c. hi.), has said: "It is the province of a writer upon ethics, to give a full enumeration of all the passions ; and of each separately to assign the nature, the cause, the gratification, and the effects". By " passions " here is to be understood " emotions" (for, that was the signification of the term in Karnes's day, as it was also in Aristotle's) ; i.e., those complex, secondary, and derived feelings which go considerably beyond bare sensations, and of which the intellectual characteristics are parti - (277) 278 Emotional Theism. cularly pronounced, thereby marking them off pre-eminently as the " higher" feelings. They are essentially " ideational or representative," but in- volve representation of the vague, indefinite kind ; and, on the physiological side, they are centrally- initiated feelings, — as distinguished from most kinds of sensations,1 which are peripkerally-imti&ted. And, thus regarded, Lord Karnes's statement may be accepted as correct, with certain obvious and necessary qualifications. These qualifications are : (1) That the Passions or Emotions, though properly falling to be handled by the ethicist, do not by any means constitute the whole of his province ; and (2) that, although he must enumerate and classify the emotions, and, to a large extent, assign their " nature, cause, gratification, and effects," nevertheless, an absolutely complete enumeration is not necessary, even if it were possible — the great typical instances being, in most cases, all that is required ; while, of many of the Emotions (Beauty, for instance), the " causes " are so nume- rous that he may well be excused if he contents himself with less than a full enunciation of them. From the point of view of emotional theism, far less will be demanded of us than what is expected of the systematic ethicist. It will be sufficient if we deal simply with those great uni- 1 The exceptions are found among the Muscular feelings. Definition of Emotion. 279 versal emotions that give a distinct psychological basis to the religious sentiment. (i.) The first that I shall mention are of an aesthetic character, — viz., Awe, Sublimity, and Beauty. 1. In order to understand Awe, we must bring it into direct comparison with Fear ; for, fear and awe are often confounded, and many anthro- pologists and not a few philosophers (led by Hume, echoing Lucretius) ascribe the beginning of Ee- ligion to Fear. What, then, is meant by Fear ? Socrates, in the Protagoras (§ 119), has defined it as "a certain expectation of evil ". But this, though so for true, is not enough. Two differentia^ are required ; for (l)not only is Fear the sense or feeling of im- pending evil, it is also (2) loss of nerve, or want of self-confidence, in view of the expected evil. It has an unhinging and deranging effect both on the body and on the mind, and, in its perfected form, paralyzes action. Moreover, when past, it is found to have left behind it dislike, or even haired, of the object that generated it, prompting to retaliation and revenge. In this 280 Emotional Theism. way, it is seen to be essentially a repelling, not an attractive, force. But if so, then obviously Fear cannot be the ground or originator of Religion, though it may have to do with the moulding and development of the religious disposition, and with the creation of superstitious rites and ceremonies. For Religion, as facing the objects of fear — whether natural and real (earthquakes, storms, etc.), or merely mental and fictitious, — reposes on the notion that the object feared may be propitiated and its malign or disastrous consequences averted. But what is this but saying that the terrifying object has also a beneficent or milder side ? And it is to this idea of the beneficence that is in it that Religion really attaches. Evil, maleficence, and harm simply stir in us aversion, and arouse in us reaction against the causes of them. It is only release from terror that gives us the joy of rebound, and begets gratitude and affection, and thereby elicits religious regard.1 Turn now to Awe. If in fear we have a paralyz- ing, in awe we have a quieting, or soothing, emotion. Both mind and body are here composed. This arises from our consciousness of being in the pre- sence or in the power of superior might, — yet, might not of the maleficent kind. There is the 1 Hence religion could not have originated in mere terror of dead ancestors. Awe and Fear. 281 feeling of impotence (for, the awe-inspiring is neces- sarily the mysterious) ; but there is also the sense of security. Appeal is made to the serious side of our nature ; and the appeal inspires trust, not fear. Now, this gives, clearly, a psychological theistic foundation. In the Deity, there must be the mysterious, the unfathomable. Yet, this unfathom- able must impress us as beneficent and good, and thereby create confidence. There is an attractive force in this, which fear altogether wants ; and reverence, veneration, and adoration spring from love. Even when the sense of unworthiness works in us, it has, as the sustaining background, the consciousness of privilege and admiration of the exalted object ; and the felt honour of being- allowed access to the High and Holy One, to- gether with the gratitude ensuing, is the impulsive force that characterizes the situation. '2. Nearly allied to Awe is the Sublime. Both are elevating and ennobling feelings, and both are the foundation of some of the highest qualities in man's nature. But the sublime has a certain stimulating and stirring energy about it that is absent from awe. This is the result of the sym- pathetic imagination, by which we are led to identify ourselves with sublime objects, and so to 282 Emotional Theism. feel as though their power were our power. As,, however, sublime objects overshadow us, there is frequently an element of uneasiness or dissatis- faction entering into our contemplation of sub- limity ; and there is not always that marked sense of security or privilege that distinguishes Awe. The nature of the Sublime is clearly seen in the leading examples of it. Through the Eye, we get the three kinds known as magnitude, elevation, and depth: illustrated by extended space, the starry heavens, an abyss. Through the Ear, we get sub- limity, but in more limited quantity : as in the roar of a great cataract, the sublime silence of a vast still desert. Everything that manifests strong power in action, unless it be associated with the coarse and vulgar, is of the nature of the sublime : the violence of a hurricane, the eruptions of Vesuvius, the destructive energy of an avalanche. Everything that impresses us with the idea of power pent up, — more especially, when we see con- spicuous effects produced by small apparent expen- diture of energy, easily and without effort,— is also of the nature of the sublime : e.g., the creation of the world by the Word of God (" Clod said, Let there be light, and there was light"), the gentle dashing of the rock-tossed wave in a calm sea in a rising tide. There is, further, the sublime of magnanimity and valour : seen in a unique figure defying opposition,. Sublimity. 283 standing alone in solitary grandeur (Athanasius against the world), or in a handful of men main- taining a contest in the face of fearful odds. Sublimity, too, may belong to social rank or official station (an august personage, a king, a despot), as well as to venerable institutions (the Papacy, the law-courts). In the intellectual genius of Shakespeare, in the diplomacy of a great states- man, in the strategy of a great general, we have examples of the sublime in mental qualities and mental achievements. Furthermore, thoughts and conceptions (including imaginations) may be sublime : Newton's conception of gravitation, or Mr. Norman Lockyer's Meteoric theory of the formation of the universe. Finally, there is a sublime in Ethics: seen, for instance, in moral heroism or self-sacrifice, in force of character and lofty virtue (as in Sir Gala- had), in moral retribution and moral indignation, in unselfish disregard of personal reward or public appreciation. The sublime is thus, in a manner, omnipresent. No wonder that it should have a religious applica- tion. It has to do, like Awe, with that side of piety that is concerned with reverence and venera- tion, and it is also productive, in many circum- stances, of self-abasement. But, further, the notion of the Infinite is obviously generated here ; and the fault that one has to find with Prof. ^84 Emotional Theism. Max Miiller and those who think with him is, not that they lay stress upon the Infinite as an im- portant religious element, but that they will have religion to originate therein, and the Infinite to be the first religious conception of primitive man, fabricated by a special religious faculty. That position is both philosophically unsound and historically unsubstantiated. 3. But what now of Beauty ? We have hitherto been dealing with emotions that associate themselves with the idea of power, and that have an elevating or exalting effect upon us. Here we have an emotion of the soft refinine: order, always pleasurable, fitted to hold and entrance us — distinctly quiescent, therefore ; be- ginning with sensuous experiences through the eye, and extending only by degrees to intellect, morality, and the social relationships. In its primary form, as connected with the Eye, and, again, in its first secondary form, as related to the Ear, Beauty rests on an original susceptibility of the organ to certain sights and sounds : light, colour, lustre, on the one hand ; musical harmony and melody, on the other. But, in more complex cases, intellectual elements and associated effects come in. This introduces unity in diversity, con- stancy in change, fitness of means to ends, and so Beauty. 285 forth ; as also the beauty of morality, seen most conspicuously in the exercise of the amiable virtues — mercy, generosity, humanity. Now, in the intellectual aspect of this emotion, as well, of course, as in the ethical aspect, religion finds a distinct psychological impulse. Lotze has very felicitously compared beauty in Nature to the beauty of a painting. If this comparison is just, then it follows that, however true it be that there are optical and other physical conditions of Natu- ral beauty, yet our admiration of the Natural world is conditioned by the supposition that it is, like a painting, the production of an Artist's im- agination, and that the unity it displays is the unity of an end bodied forth in this very painting by the Artist himself. As it is the artist's idea that gives meaning to the materials of which a painting is composed, it is the Artist's idea that affects us in our love for the beautiful in Nature. This, no doubt, was very much what Berkeley meant when he represented Nature as a Divine visual language, — the world so arranged that God speaks to man by natural signs, just as men speak to each other by words symbolically significant.1 And the conception is, unquestionably, that of 1 Dialogue iv. of Alciphron ; or, The Minute Philosopher. Berkeley should be studied in Prof. A. Campbell Fraser's splendid edition, or, at any rate, in his Selections from Berkeley. 286 Emotional Theism. the religions consciousness. Beauty has in it more than what is merely natural ; and the power that Nature has of chaining and holding fast the en- raptured individual, and of drawing him forth into itself, is felt to bespeak the attractive influence of Him who supports nature and in whom alone both it and the individual have their being. (ii.) The next group of Emotions comprises Love and Sympathy. These are essentially un- selfish feelings ; leading one out of oneself, making one transcend oneself, and impressing one, ulti- mately, with a sense of personality greater and higher than the finite. 1. Love is distinctly unselfish, and, even in the form of self-love, is the direct opposite of selfish- ness. Selfishness is egoism debased, — egoism, when, instead of having regard to the good and interest of others, it uses others simply for its own ends, when it turns them into means for effecting its own purposes or instruments for procuring its own gratification. The ego now, instead of accepting its place as one individual among many, has made itself the centre and final end of the whole, and demands that all shall be subordinated to its pleasure. Self-love, on the other hand, is founded on self- Love and Sympathy. 287 respect ; and self-respect implicates altruism, and is the ground and indispensable condition of every virtue :— To thine own self be true ; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. But Love, in its altruistic form, is insatiable. It is, therefore, like knowledge, centred in the Ideal. This capacity gives it its theistic function. A God that could be only a little loved would be no God, and the soul that has not a capacity for more than human love is not the human soul. "Religion," says Charming, " answers to the deepest want of human nature. We refer to our want of some being or beings, to whom we may give our hearts, whom we may love more than ourselves, for whom we may live and be ready to die, and whose character responds to that idea of perfection, which, however dim and undefined, is an essential element of every human soul. We cannot be happy beyond our love. At the same time, love may prove our chief woe, if bestowed unwisely, dispro])ortionately, and on unworthy objects ; if confined to beings of imperfect virtue, with whose feelings we cannot always innocently sympathize, whose interests we cannot always righteously promote, who narrow us to themselves instead of breathing universal charity, who are frail, mutable, exposed to suffering, pain, 288 Emotional Theism. and death. To secure a growing happiness and a spotless virtue, we need for the heart a being worthy of its whole treasure of love, to whom we may consecrate our whole existence, in approaching whom we enter an atmosphere of purity and brightness, in sympathizing with whom we cherish only noble sentiments, in devoting ourselves to whom we expose great and enduring interests, in whose character we find the spring of an ever- enlarging philanthropy, and by attachment to whom, all our other attachments are hallowed, protected, and supplied with tender and sublime consolations under bereavement and blighted hope. Such a being is God " [Remarks on the Character and Writings of Fenelon). Thus it is true, what Pascal says, that "the heart has its reasons, which reason knows not". 2. But, if this be so, Love must go hand in hand with Sympathy. The affection that craves for Deity implies a sense of fellowship or communion with Him ; a living interest, therefore, in all that interests Him, and an acceptance of His ends and objects as one's own. The one sentiment is the necessary complement of the other ; and the fellow-feeling that pours itself out in sympathy with finite beings finds its consummation in Him who is greater than the finite, and in whom the finite seeks repose. Benevolence, Gratitude, Sense of Dependence. 289 (iii.) Sense of Dependence, Benevolence, and Gratitude, are the last class of emotions to be con- sidered. 1. Benevolence and Gratitude are the counter- parts of each other. Good-will shown towards me, especially if it issues in good deeds done to me, naturally makes me grateful. Good feeling re- ciprocates good feeling, and the receiver of gifts is bound in thankful attachment to the giver. 2. But this is not necessarily Sense of Depend- ence. We may have a sense of dependence with- out the idea of benevolence in the object whereon we are dependent ; and gratitude hardly emerges (though feeling of satisfaction does), unless benevo- lence enters, with the consequent beneficence. Hence the impossibility of laying the sole foundation of Theism in Sense of Dependence. (1) In the first place, that is to make religion a wholly passive thing ; and the logical outcome is Quietism. (2) In the next place, it is to forget that the sense of dependence that is concerned with religion is only such as generates gratitude in the recipient. But, before gratitude is begotten, there is implied the conceptfon of a benefactor, of the being on whom we are dependent treating us in a benevolent fashion. (3) Lastly, it is to ignore 19 290 Emotional Theism. the fact that, sense of dependence is not the only emotion that has to do with religion. There are Awe, Beauty, the Sublime, and so forth, as we have already seen ; but, chief of all, there is Sym- pathy or sense of fellowship and communion — an Emotion that enters as an essential element into the religious conception, and without which Religion can hardly be said to have a connotation. II. Feeling is an important factor in Religion, but it is not the sole factor. It was Schleiermacher's leading contention, as laid down in the Discourses on Religion, that Religion is independent both of knowing and of acting — of intellection and of voli- tion,— " it resigns, at once, all claims to anything that belongs either to science or to morality," and is primarily a sentiment, an affection, a feeling, "sense and taste for the Infinite". He said, further : "If man is not one with the Eternal in the unity of intuition and feeling which is immediate, he remains, in the unity of conscious- ness which is derived, for ever apart ". This last is an obscure doctrine ; and so, in the Glaubens- lehre, he tried to give definiteness and precision to his position by laying stress on the sense of "absolute dependence" on the Infinite as the fundamental religious experience. Schle ie rm ache r. 29 1 Now, waiving the question as to the precise meaning that Schleiermacher attached to the Infinite (sometimes he describes it, pantheistically, as " the universe," and sometimes he denominates it "Clod"), the objections to basing religion solely on feeling are very great, and seem to me to be insurmountable. 1 . In the first place, not every feeling is religious, although Schleiermacher was driven to maintain the opposite : " There is no sensation," he says, "that is not pious, except it indicate some diseased and impaired state of the life, the influence of which will not be confined to religion ". We have only to look over a list of the Emotions to see that many of them have no religious implication what- ever, while many of them are absolutely anti- relistious. On the one hand, there are emotions that are mainly physical (such as timidity) ; there are intellectual emotions (novelty, incongruity, knowledge): there are emotions associated with power, and emotions associated with impotence. On the other hand, there are purely selfish emotions (vanity, avarice, jealousy) ; but, above all, there are emotions of the strong malevolent type (hatred and revenge). '2. Next, if feeling be identical with religion, then thought must be, not only unessential, but jiositively injurious to religion — the cause of error 292 Emotional Theism. and degeneration. Whence it follows that the lowest races, being the least reflective and the most impressionable, would be the most religious ; while highly cultivated peoples and great religious thinkers would be farthest removed from the religious ideal : to be " wise and pious at the same time" would then become a kind of paradox. Whence, also, it follows that subjective feeling is the standard of objective truth. What, no doubt, Schleiermacher is aiming at in his doctrine of Feeling is, to emphasize what has been appropriately called the inwardness of religion — its living subjective spontaneity, as distinguished, on the one hand, from the acceptance of religious truth on mere external authority, and, on the other hand, from the bare intellectual acquiescence in religious propositions, in theological formulae or dogmas, which never touches the heart or creates enthusiasm : " from within, in their original, char- acteristic form, the emotions of piety must issue ". But, though it be true that dogmatic formulae are not in themselves religion, nor mere formal accept- ance of them or bare intellectual adherence to them sufficient for piety, — although it is quite the case that truth, in order to be effectual, must be appro- priated, assimilated, lived, — it does not follow that either dogma or intellect vitiates religion, or may, without detriment, be dispensed with. On the Criticism of Schleie rmacher 's Views. 293 contrary, religion, like every other spiritual discip- line, must be mediated through notions ; and it is only by thought that we can ascertain what is pure and true in the original religions consciousness, and how far, and in what way, spontaneous re- ligious feeling needs to be purified and corrected. Philosophy conies in, when we try to determine the object of religious devotion ; and Logic conies in, when we set to systematize our religious experiences : and neither of these is unimportant, nor is either of them really absent even in the' religion of the plainest man. 3. But there is a third religious element, which we dare not omit. Taken at its best, Feeling is only part of religion. Besides emotion, Religion implies intellectual perception and moral activity. It has a cognitive side and a conative side, as well as an affective side ; and these three are by no means the same. It is one thing to experience gratitude or to feel attachment ; it is another thing to apprehend the object to whom the grati- tude is shown or the attachment felt ; it is still another thing to submit oneself in cheerful and full obedience to this apprehended object. Feel- ing, intellection, volition, all enter into religion. You cannot resolve any one of the three into any one of the others ; neither from one can you evolve the other two. What is possible is to show that *294 Emotional 'Theism. all three are mutually dependent. Gratitude is generated through the intellectual perception of a benefactor dispensing gifts ; and gratitude, in turn, produces a readiness and disposition towards active obedience.1 III. But, granting the fact of the Religious emotions in man's nature, and granting the necessity of an object on which to exercise them, it may, never- theless, be maintained that we are yet far from emotional theism. We have not exhausted the possibilities. There are two alternatives, at least, that ought to be considered — each of which seems very formidable. In the first place, it may be said that the situation is fully met by emotional [Kin- theism ; in the next place, it may be said that, not God, but Humanity is the satisfying object. These two positions we must now examine. 1. That Pantheism finds its most plausible support in the emotions, I fully admit. The 1 There are several very good succinct accounts of Schleiermacher accessible in English translations. One may be found in Lichten- berger's History of German Theology in the Nineteenth Century; another in Prleiderer's Philosophy of Religion, vol. i.; still another in Ueber- weg's History of Philosophy, vol. ii. For a compact statement of the Idea of Keligion, see Liddon's Some Elements of Religion, Lecture i. Schleiermacher's Discourses themselves have been recently translated by Mr. John Oman, B.D., under the title, On Religion : Speeches to its Cultured Despisers. Emotional Pantheism. !295 closeness of connexion between subject and object in the tender feelings is universally acknowledged. There is a union here that is not achieved either in intellectual apprehension or by conative en- deavour. Even the beauty of External Nature, not to speak of the affection between persons, has this cementing and difference-obliterating at- traction about it. Much more must this be the case, then, with deep religious devotion, when the soul of the worshipper goes out of itself (as it were) and holds intimate communion with the Object of worship. But this is by no means equivalent to saying that the difference between subject and object is ever actually effaced in the emotions, or that the one ever literally becomes the other. Outward nature and the individual spectator remain two, even when spirit goes forth to greet spirit ; and the attachment of one human being to another al- ways involves in it the distinction of separate individuals. This I tried to point out, as clearly as I could, in my first Lecture, on " Theistic Doubt " ; where, also, I endeavoured to appraise mysticism and to give the exact rendering of religious devo- tion. I need not repeat myself here ; but will only say that what I have now called emotional pantheism is simply the highest form of a very n/ 296 Emotional Theism. general mental experience, — namely this, that, when a person is deeply interested or deeply absorbed in anything, he loses consciousness of his own existence — he and the absorbing object seem identified. But we are not at liberty to infer from this that the two are really one, — that there is reached a point where difference is not, and where identity alone obtains. That would be a total misreading of the psychological facts ; and it is on such a total misreading of the psychological facts that emotional pantheism, or emotional mysticism, is based. r *2. Let us pass on, then, to the second substitute for theism, — namely, Worship of Humanity. This is the Positivist's religion, initiated by Auguste Comte. There is no God but Man. Yet, not any individual man — although some men show far higher and nobler qualities than others, — but man collectively. The human race, with certain limitations, according to Comte, is the object of worship. Society in its collective life (says Littre) is the Etre Supreme ; and the individual's highest duty is to further, as best he may, the progress of humanity, and to devote himself in ungrudging effort to the service of mankind. This is the central idea, which must have justice done to it : the idiosyncrasies, inconsistencies, and aberrations Worship of Humanity. 207 of " the Priest of Humanity," especially in his later days of feeble health and shattered nervous system, may well be left out of account. Now there is here, clearly, a noble end ; and rich possibilities of emotional fervour are not wanting. The end is far too great to permit of my using, regarding the worship of Humanity, any such contemptuous language as was employed by Prof. Huxley when he designated it " the incongruous mixture of bad science with eviscerated papistry." and vehemently declared : " When the positivist asks me to worship 'Humanity' — that is to say, to adore the generalized conception of men as they ever have been and probably ever will be— I must reply that I could just as soon bow down and worship the generalized conception of ' a wilderness of apes ' ". Criticism, to be effective, must be calmer and more sympathetic than that. Humanity, even in its generalized form, has for me, and, I suppose, for most other people, a quite different interest from what attaches to " a wilder- ness of apes " ; and the positivist cult must have a worthy element in it before it could have proved attractive to ardent souls. It is not dependent for its power alone on the rhetorical setting given to it by such masters of eloquence as Mr. F. Harrison and Mr. Congreve ; it is effective through the senti- 298 Emotional Theism. ment of the heart embalmed in its chief conception. Homo sum : humani nihil a me alieuum puto. Altruism has undoubted absolute value, and naturally exerts an elevating, broadening, and stimulating influence. But, notwithstanding, I cannot believe that Humanity is either a lit or an adequate object of worship. For :— 1. First, Humanity is an abstraction ; and to worship an abstraction is for man impossible. It is only the concrete that can enlist our feelings, and so draw forth our adoration. " Take it then," you say, " in its Ideal form, and regard positivism as devotion to this Ideal,— the Ideal humanity." Well, in that case, you achieve morality, but not religion. Your Ideal needs embodiment, before it can be worshipped. 2. But, next, even when we take Humanity as a name for men regarded collectively, worship is still impossible. For, worship is worth-ship ; and the worth that is discernible in mankind generally is a limited quantity, and is so spoilt by sins- sins often of the grossest, most revolting character —that anything rather than devotion is here ap- propriate. Not even savages (so ethnologists in- sist) worship each other. While they pay their homage to stocks and stones and animals and plants, man himself, of whom they know so much (hern use they know so much), is, with rare excep- Criticisms. 1^99 tions, left scrupulously aside. It is only in myth- ology i that heroes are deified : it is only after myths have grown around beings that are believed to have lived in a distant past — a past (as Grote so happily phrased it) that never was present — that apotheosis takes place ; or only under circumstances of the decrepitude of faith, such as we find in the days of the decline of the Roman Empire. And, after all, mythology may not be a case in point : it will not be so, if (as is probable) myths had for their primary objects, not human beings, but the forces and powers of Nature. What earnest energetic people may contract towards Humanity is enthusiasm: they may be- come fired with a zeal to elevate and benefit man- kind, to raise them out of the mire and to help them on the way to progress. But enthusiasm is not worship : philanthropy is different from anthropolatry. The two things are essentially distinct, and by no alchemy can the one be trans- muted into the other. 3. Nor, lastly, is Humanity in itself complete. It is finite and presupposes an Infinite, — an Infinite that shall be to it complement, completion, perfec- tion. Taken at its best, it has not self-sufficiency ; and its very lustre goes, the moment it claims to be all in all. Perhaps, we may look to China for a corroborating example, on the large scale. If 300 Emotional Theism. you wish to see morality divorced from religion, you find it in Confucianism ; and Confucianism is the State religion of China, It is a kind of huge experiment of taking man as the self-sufficient. Well, what is the result ? " Chinese society," says M. Edgar Quinet, " makes man the final end, and so humanity finds its goal in its starting-point. It is stifled within the limits of humanity. In this dwarf society, everything is deprived of its crown. Morality wants heroism ; royalty its royal muse ; verse, poetry ; philosophy, metaphysic ; life, im- mortality ; because, at the summit of everything, there is no God " (La Genie des Religions, pp. '224:- •"3, quoted by Aubrey L. Moore). Water cannot rise above its level ; and we may depend upon it that, if the level of religion be low, all other departments of human interest will suffer propor- tionately. We may depend upon it, also, that love to man will not be strengthened by removing love to God. It is only when the fifth Command- ment is placed, in true Jewish fashion, upon the First Table of the Law, and regarded as concerned with piety, that the succeeding Commandments find effective sanction. IV. We have, up to this point, been dealing with those who admit that the emotions do afford a Pessimism. 301 psychological basis for religion, — though how far this basis is theistic has been matter of dispute. But now we must take account of those who deny the validity of the religious emotions altogether, and who, on the fact of counter-emotions and the painful experiences of life, coupled with certain ethical data, arraign Providence and base an atheistic conclusion. I am not going to occupy time with an account of ancient Buddhism, or with telling in <>it<'>ts<>, once again, the oft-told tale of Schopenhauer and Hartmann ; nor am I to reproduce the criticism so effectively made by Prof. Sully in his Pessim- ism} I must assume that as known, or as easy of access. I am merely to face the pessimistic position as it concerns the emotional and ethical parts of the argument here laid down. Life, says the pessimist, is in its very nature an evil. So far is it from having worth and from being something to be cherished, that it is radically worthless and is to be deplored. "The evil of the world, according to Schopenhauer," I am quoting, for convenience, Prof. Pfleiderer's abstract, "is to be accounted for ultimately by the fact that the will in its individual manifestation, as the indi- JSee, also, Prof. Flint's Ant i- Theistic Theories, lecture viii. How- Prof. Sully's criticism is viewed by pessimists themselves, may be seen by referring to Fran Olga Plumacher's article on " Pessimism '* in Mi ml, 1st series, vol. iv. 302 Emotional Theism. vidua! will of every living being, and also of man, is nothing but egoistic desire for individual self- assertion, desire of pleasure for pleasure's sake. These egoistic individual wills naturally come in perpetual conflict with each other and with the order of the world, and the result of these con- Hicts is a great preponderance of pain over plea- sure : pain indeed forms the real positive content of life, while pleasure is a mere episode when pain is occasionally quieted, and therefore merely some- thing negative, an accidental feature in the posi- tive tissue of life. But as the will only aims at pleasure for pleasure's sake, this world, so full of pain, is the opposite of its ideal, is bad through and through. The existence of the world is itself the greatest evil of all, and underlies all other evil, and similarly the root evil for each individual is his having come into the world. This is not only the root evil but the root sin, since the existence of each being; in the world is based on a first act in which the will to live, which is also his will, received individuality and bodily form. This first act of the will, its entrance upon existence as a separate will, is the ' original sin and original guilt ' of our race " ( The Philosophy of Religion, vol. ii. p. 233). Now, this gives us very clearly the ground-prin- Defective in a Threefold Way. 303 ciple of the pessimistic teaching, and may be taken as fairly representative of serious pessimistic thought. In so far as pessimism is not grounded in " disappointed egoism," or in a man's upbringing and environment, or in natural temperament and physical constitution, and in so far as it is not a mere passing mood arising from momentary dissatisfaction with life and the world, it centres in the doctrine of Pain. Life is evil, because the real positive content of it is pain, and pleasure is only negative and accidental. The criticism of this is threefold. 1. In the first place, the doctrine of Pain that is here laid down is psychologically erroneous. The normal fact of human existence is Pleasure, not pain ; Evolution itself being witness. Evolution— as interpreted, for instance, by Mr. Herbert Spencer and by Mr. Leslie Stephen — is essentially non-pessimistic; for, its fundamental doctrine is that conduct is good when it subserves life and bad when it impedes or destroys it, This means that Life itself is the good, by reference to which other things called good are to be tested : in other words, life and happiness are convertible terms. The same implication of the normal character of Pleasure is contained, but without reference to Evolution, in the laws of Stimulation and Conservation of 304 Emotional Theism. Pleasure as formulated by Professor Bain in The Senses and the Intellect (3rd ed., pp. -282-295). But, further, Pleasure is not mere relief from pain, but is itself a positive state, towards the attain- ment of which we are prompted, altogether apart from considerations of pain, and for the continuance and increase of which we crave. It is not, as some maintain, mere equilibrium, out of which we are driven by the intervention of pain (which is conflict and unrest). It has a distinct quality of its own (although, of course, relief from pain is one way of giving pleasure), and rises and falls in quantity independently of painful conflict. Anticipated en- joyment may initiate activity, as much as present discomfort. Moreover, we may pass from one kind of pleasure to another, or from a lower degree of pleasure to a higher, — no pain intervening. Negative pleasures, indeed, there are, or pleasures that may be described as repose after conflict ; but, out of this state of repose, pleasure has itself the power of prompting us — it can, of its own motion, and with a view to realizing itself, originate action. Thus is the pessimistic conclusion seen to be psycho- logically illegitimate. Pain is not, in an unqualified fashion, the primum mobile of human endeavour. 2. But, next, the pessimist's conception of pain is ethically inadequate. Pain is not, in the Ethical sense, an unmitigated evil. On the contrary, it Criticisms. 305 refines the affections and strengthens character ; it is a means of bracing man's moral fibre. No just appreciation of its moral value could ever eventuate in pessimism, nor can pessimism logically lead to a just appreciation of its moral value. 3. Lastly, Pessimism, in its endeavour to weigh pains against pleasures, attempts a fruitless task ; and, when it gives preponderance to the former over the latter, it seems to underestimate or to ignore some of the most patent facts of human life and to exaggerate others. In the first place, it minimizes the fact that life is a progress, and that there is such a thing as pleasure in pursuit, even when there is not com- plete attainment. There is scant room for Ideals in pessimism ; and yet Ideals give to life its zest, and are a standing witness to the worth of human existence. There is scant room for en- thusiasm ; and thereby pessimism compares most unfavourably with Worship of Humanity, which, however defective in other respects, does not err by ignoring the value and the needs of man's heart. In the next place, it exaggerates man's selfish- ness. It lays stress on cupidity, ingratitude, in- humanity, on the clashing of individual wills in the struggle for existence, to the comparative neglect of the unselfish and generous side of human nature — of mercy, philanthropy, and the other social and 20 306 Emotional Theism. cementing forces. But this last side is a most significant one. Take the fact of Mercy or For- giveness among men, and what is implied in it ? Before mercy, in the form of forgiveness of injury or remission of debt, is possible, there is implied a natural readiness on the part of a man to love and befriend his fellow ; for, the only return that the injured or offended person gets for his forgive- ness is the penitence or repentance of the offender ■ — in other words, is the removal of the feeling of estrangement. But how comes the removal of the feeling of estrangement to be regarded as adequate compensation ? It can only come from this, that the love of man to man is the natural order of things, and mutual hate, with the accom- panying pessimism, is unnatural. Hence the fal- lacy in Schopenhauer's contention that, as a man cannot be in full accord with any one but himself, he ought to confine himself to his own society. Surely there is here a gross paralogism. For (a), even granting that a man cannot be in full accord with any one but himself, it does not follow that he must wholly eschew the society of others ; even partial accord may be productive of much good to him. But (/>), next, it is not granted that a man maybe in full accord with himself: his egoism is no more perfect than his altruism ; indeed, there are cases where a man is in fuller accord with Attempts a Fruitless Task. 307 others than with himself, (r) Thirdly, there is an ambiguity in the word "self," which may mean either a man's higher or his lower self, his better or his worse nature. Asceticism, when it arises from misanthropy, is not likely to be productive of real and lasting self-satisfaction. Lastly, too great prominence is given by pes- simism to the pains of circumstance and of environ- ment in life, — to the pains of conflict with the order of the world ; and too little weight is put on man's power to counteract these or to rise above them, and on the force of human will. External Nature is not the inexorable Juggernaut-car that morbid pessimism supposes, and robust human nature can maintain its own in the universe and yet not find life intolerable. Man has a happy gift of subdu- ing Nature by submitting to her : Natwra enim non nisi parendo vincitur, as Bacon aphoristically puts it (Novum Organum, Lib. i. Aph. 3). If, then, we would sum up the criticism, it amounts to this : —There are misunderstanding and misinterpreting of the facts of experience in pessimism ; there is, also, undervaluing of experi- enced facts, and there are exaggerating and ignoring of experienced facts : in a word, there arc suggestio falsi and suppressio veri. 1 1 As German pessimism had its origin in pantheistic soil, it has been said that pessimism is the natural outgrowth of pantheism. 308 Emotional Theism. V. A word, now, as to our subject in its historical aspect. 1. First, Emotional Theism. Emotion, as a factor in religion, is, of course, as old as religion itself; but the definite insistence on it as a theistic basis is of recent date. Indeed, the schools of philosophy, from old Greek days to quite lately, and similarly the schools of theology, still imbued with scholasticism and hinder the influence of the formulating intellect, laid the foundation of theism almost wholly in Reason. When philosophers like Hume did take account of Feeling, it was usually with the intent of dis- paraging religion — of warning off the wise, on the plea that feeling and fancy are an unstable founda- tion on which to rely. Exception must be made of the mediaeval mystics (such as St. Bernard of Olairvaux), who regarded Love as the very being and essence of God, and as the quality in which man's perfection also consisted, inasmuch as man is formed in the image of God. Yet, in the present This, however, is a mistake. Pantheism is not atheism ; and, as a matter of fact, the great pantheists of history were not pessimists. In ancient Greek days, when Pantheism was freqnent, pessimism existed only as a mood of the poets (Sophocles, for instance), and was not theoretical at all. In more recent times, the greatest of all the pantheists, Spinoza, never dreamt of pessimism, nor, if he had, would pantheism, with its privative theory of Evil, have seemed to him to be in any way necessarily pessimistic. History of Emotional Theism. 309 connexion, Schleiermacher, through his keen per- ception of the deep religious wants of man, may be said to have been the first to emphasize the importance of the heart, as distinct from the head, and to have given the great impulse to theistic consideration on this line, — an impulse that has not yet expended itself. Nevertheless, Schleiermacher has not been followed implicitly. Even those who are in fullest sympathy with his main position have not failed to see that it is not wholly satisfac- tory,— that the emotions are not competent alone to bear the weight of the theistic structure. They have, accordingly, combined it with the intellectual and the moral arguments — more especially, with the latter. Thinkers like Mansel, who, following Kant, are chary in invoking the speculative reason, are yet emphatic in insisting on ethics and the sense of dependence. While they underestimate the cognitive process, they are fully awake to the importance of the emotive. 2. Secondly, Emotional Pantheism. This is a quite intelligible position, if Emotion be the sole originator of religion ; and the pantheism of Schleiermacher is more than apparent. "Offer with me reverently," he says (though how far he rightly interpreted Spinoza may be questioned), " a tribute to the manes of the holy, rejected 310 Emotional Theism. Spinoza, The high World-Spirit pervaded him ; the Infinite was his beginning and his end ; the Universe was his only and his everlasting love. In holy innocence and in deep humility he beheld himself mirrored in the eternal world, and per- ceived how he also was its most worthy mirror. He was full of religion, full of the Holy Spirit. Wherefore, he stands there alone and unequalled ; master in his art, yet without disciples and with- out citizenship, sublime above the profane tribe " (Discourses ii., Mr. Oman's transl.). Pantheism of the same type may be traced clearly in sentimental writers like Rousseau, whose appreciation of and sympathy with objective Nature are intense ; and the pantheism of the poets — reflected in some pieces of Wordsworth and of Tennyson — is very much of the emotional stamp. To the same category is to be referred the modern scientific pantheism known as Pancosmism, where the conception of Force takes the place of the Deity, and man's immortality is identified with that of this imperishable force. Constance Naden has thus given expression to it in poetry : — Yes, thou shalt die ; but these Almighty forces, That meet to form thee, live for evermore : They hold the suns in their eternal courses, And shape the long sand-grasses on the shore. History of other -isms. 311 Be calmly glad, thine own true kindred seeing In fire and storm, in flowers with dew impearled, Rejoice in thine imperishable being, One with the Essence of the boundless world. 3. Thirdly, Worship of Humanity. This originated in the atmosphere of Chris- tianity, and under its influence. I refer not alone to the Comtian ritual, which avowedly imitated the Roman Catholic custom, but to far more important matters. Positivist Altruism is but the spirit of the Saviour stript of the Divine impulse, and the Golden Rule writ small. It is only in a theistic setting that the story of Abou Ben Adhem can be felt to represent the truth of the situation. 4. Lastly, Pessimism. This had an Oriental source in far-back Bud- dhistic times ; but, in the Western world, it sprang up, less than a century ago, with Schopenhauer. Its greatest hold to-day is in Germany, though Schopenhauer's followers there are by no means at one with the master on primary and important points. Some dispute the doctrine of the negative character of pleasure ; some (like Hartmann) at- tempt to improve upon the metaphysical foundation of Will ; later disciples have quarrelled with the ground-principle of the conflict of separate indi- vidual wills as motived by pleasure. Its strongest 312 Emotional Theism. ally, however, is Secularism ; where it takes a practical turn, and enters the arena of politics. This same secularism has invaded France ; but philosophic (as distinguished from literary) pessim- ism is there at a discount. In Britain, the interest in pessimism, in so far as it is not secularist, is mainly literary. " Is life worth living ? " has been a subject for the pens of brilliant essayists like Mr. Mallock ; but, outside the covers of Reviews, there is little enthusiasm. A sound psychology, coupled with a general ap- preciation of the doctrine of Evolution, has kept Philosophy untainted; while the vigorous, healthy instinct of the nation, combined with a living faith in the Supreme, has been sufficient to resist the canker in its social inroads. It is felt that pessim- ism has a value as against a too roseate Theodicy— an extreme Optimism (such as that of Shaftesbury, of Leibniz, or of Pope in his Essay on Man) : but, in itself, it is morbid and irrational. LECTURE VIII. ETHICAL THEISM: IDEALITY AND THE ETHICAL SELF. The introduction to Ethical theism will best, I think, be made by a consideration of Ethics re- garded as science of the Ideal, and of the nature of the Ethical Self. These two topics will, therefore, form the subject of to-day's lecture. I. Ethics, taken in its proper signification, includes two things. On the one hand, it consists of an investigation into the nature and constitution of human character ; and, on the other hand, it is concerned with the formulating and enunciating of rules for human conduct : as Schleiermacher puts it (Discourses ii.), "it teaches what man should be for the world, and what he should do in it ". In the first case, it is theoretical Ethics ; in the second case, practical. The practical is necessarily de- pendent on the theoretical ; for, in order to be a sure and trustworthy guide to conduct, — ere ever it can lawfully claim the authority of a counsellor and help to man, — Ethics must repose on a well- considered analysis and investigation of man's (313) 314 Ethical Theism: Ideality and the Ethical Self. mental and moral nature, as well as of his social conditions. It is, therefore, in the closest manner allied with psychology and with sociology ; and the methods of these two sciences are precisely those that stand us in good stead here.1 As compared with kindred sciences, however,. Ethics has a complication peculiar to itself. It deals essentially with the " ought," as distinguished from the " is" ; it is the science of human character and conduct as they should be, and not simply as we actually find them : in other words, it applies to them a standard of wort//. Nevertheless, as the ideal, in order to be of any true value, must be founded on the real, the starting-point for all ethical speculation must be human nature as it falls actually within our ken. We must analyze and study the " is," if we would discover the "ought to be " ; and, however far forward our theorizing may carry us, it must both begin from, and return again to, actual experience. But the word " ideal," as applied to Ethics, is somewhat ambiguous. It may refer simply to an idea present in the mind, and not em- bodied in fact ; or it may signify a highest or best conceivable state of things, partly indeed J I have given a brief statement of the relation of Ethics to the allied sciences in an article on "The Logic of Classification." in the first series of Mind, vol. xii. pp. 246-251. Ethics Defined 315 realized, but the full realization of which is still future. It is in the second sense that the word is here employed ; and, though this sense includes the other (for, in so far as the ideal has to be won, it may be denominated an idea), it goes consider- ably beyond it. An ideal is also an idea, though an idea need not, by any means, be an ideal. Further, it must be observed, regarding the ideal, that ethical relations are essentially rational relations. " So," you say, " are other relations- such as those of knowledge." Yes, but ethical re- lations have as their distinctive feature the fact that they are relations between persons, — i.e., between rational beings having community of interests. Hence the foundation of "rights" and "duties". These exist, strictly, only between persons — between conscious beings sharing in the same nature ; they exist between me and my fellow-men, but not between me and dead unconscious matter. Matter is that which I use, which I turn to my own and others' profit, but not that which can claim of me any particular right, Hence, also, the ground- principle of Ethics, — viz., that of equality between men, — is a rational principle, and thereby finds its justification : it is what Bentham expressed in the formula, " Every one to count for one, and no one for more than one ". The full definition of the science, therefore, will 31(5 Ethical Theism: Ideality and the Ethical Self. be: — Ethics, the science of human character and conduct as they ought to be, founded on the know- ledge of what human character and conduct have been and are. Or, in order to bring out the ideality more clearly : — Ethics, the science of the ideal with a view to conduct. Or, still again, in order to emphasize the fact that Ethics has to do alone with persons : — Ethics, the rational determination, with a view to the guidance of life, of the right (ideal) relations of persons to each other.1 Now, objection to a science of the ideal may be taken on two different grounds. It may be objected that there cannot be a science of the ideal, because there is no valid distinction be- tween the ideal and the real ; or it may be objected that there cannot be a science of the ideal, because, although there is a valid distinc- tion between the ideal and the real, the ideal is (from the very nature of the case) unknown and therefore undefinable. 1 That Ideals are not mere imaginations, has been clearly shown, with regard to Ethics, by Prof. J. Grote, in the fourth chapter of his Treatise on the Moral Ideals. Reason and imagination are not contra- dictory of each other, but are mutually helpful. " I look upon imagination as the active portion of the intelligence, that in which the life of the intelligence consists, and from which, as the intelligence advances, new deposits are ever made of actual knowledge, which thenceforward loses a portion of its interest, and becomes for some purposes dead." In a like spirit, Novalis says, — " To be eternally poetical is to be eternally true ". First Objection : Ferrier's. 117 1. The first of these objections is Ferrier's. In a note in the second volume of the Remains (p. 206), he puts it very pointedly thus :— " Sir James Mackintosh, and others, have at- tempted to establish a distinction between ' men- tal' and 'moral' science, founded on an alleged difference between fact and duty. They state, that it is the office of the former science to teach us what is (quid est), and that it is the office of the latter to teach us what ought to be (quid oportet). But this discrimination vanishes into nought upon the slightest reflection ; it either incessantly confounds and obliterates itself, or else it renders moral science an unreal and nugatory pursuit. For, let us ask, does the quid oportet ever become the quid est? does what ought to be ever pass into what is, or, in other words, is duty ever realized as fact % If it is, then the distinction is at an end. The oportet has taken upon itself the character of the est. Duty, in becoming practical, has become a fact, It no longer merely points out something which ought to be, it also embodies something which is. And thus it is transformed into the very other member of the discrimination from which it was originally contradistinguished; and thus the distinction is rendered utterly void ; while 'mental' and 'moral' science, if we must affix these epithets to philosophy, lapse into one. On 318 Ethical Theism: Ideality and the Ethical Self. the other hand, does the quid oportet never, in any degree, become the quid est, does duty never pass into fact ? Then is the science of morals a vision- ary, a baseless, and an aimless science, a mere querulous hankering after what can never be. In this case, there is plainly no real or substantial science, except the science of facts, the science which teaches us the quid est. To talk now of a science of the quid oportet, would be to make use of unmeaning words." To this it may be answered : — (a) First, there are a great many mental phenomena that bear no moral implications whatever ; they are simply facts of consciousness, and, therefore, may very well be separated from those other facts of consciousness that do have a moral implication. Thus, on tasting sugar, I experience the pleasant sensation of sweet- ness. This sensation is a simple psychical fact, without ethical significance ; and there is no sense in classing it along with compunction or remorse, in which the ethical significance is everything. (/>) Secondly, we may very well grant that, to a certain extent, the " is " and the " ought " are identical, and yet not be driven to Ferrier's conclusion. For, unquestionably, there is much in human character and conduct that " is " as it " ought to be ". But the peculiarity of the case is, that, even when the Answered. 319 two are identified, the "is" will not let us rest in itself, but urges us on to the conception of the " ought," and forces us (as it were) to give the fact an ethical interpretation, (c) Then, thirdly, human character and human conduct, as actual fact, have much in them that ought not to be. They fall short of an ideal standard, and are thereby differentiated from contiguous or allied phenomena, (d) Lastly, we know, because we have seen it — it is determined by a wide induction of particulars, — that the ethical ideal does influence mankind ; and when we ask the reason, we find it to be, because the ethical ideal is adapted to man's better nature and higher aspirations, and because it is believed to be ulti- mately realizable by him. And the ground of this belief in its ultimate realization is an unquestioned fact of experience, — viz., that man has power, within limits, of working out his ideals, of working towards them or of bringing them to pass. Al- though conditioned by his environment, he can, so far, change or transform his environment — he has a certain ability of moulding or bending circum- stances to his will ; and this ability is what renders Ethics possible, and answers objections against its ideality. Put shortly, then, Ferrier's fallacy lies in an equivocal use of the word " reality" or " fact ". A thing actually experienced is a fact, and a thing 320 Ethical Theism : Ideality and the Ethical Self. merely anticipated or possible may be denominated a fact also. But the second is not a fact in the same sense of the word as the first is, although it may, by and by, become an actuality in that sense of the term too. So, the "is" and the " ought " may both be designated facts ; but, while ideality is of the essence of the latter, it does not necessarily enter into the former. The "ought" appeals to man's endeavours and aspirations ; the "is" has reference to his mere acquisitions and actual attainments. 2. The second objection takes a somewhat different form. " Granted," it may be said, " that the ideal of Ethics has existence; still Ethics cannot be a science, because this ideal cannot be defined." And if we ask, "Why cannot this ideal be de- fined ? " we receive for answer, " Because it is only in process of realization ". Now, is this a valid objection ? I think not. For, obviously, it overlooks the fact that Ethics rests on a basis of experience, and that it is quite possible to gauge tendencies and to interpret them correctly. Shall a knowledge of the hyperbola be denied us, because the asymptote is ever approach- ing that curve but never reaches it ? On the contrary, the very circumstance that you can lay Second Objection. 321 down the doctrine of the asymptote proves you to have a knowledge of the hyperbola ; and the very- circumstance that there is such a thing as improve- ment in human character implies that you have a knowledge of that something in whose direction the improvement takes place. Indeed, the word "ideal" has no meaning unless on the supposition of a higher and a lower, a better and a worse ; and from higher we pass to highest, and from better to best. It is fallacious to try to shut us up between two alternatives, as though these exhausted the possi- bilities ; and it is misleading in the extreme to make a total break between the realized as the known and the unrealized as the unknown. The unrealized is not the unknown, unless it be of a kind in every way different from the realized and known. It is equally the known, if it proceed upon the lines of the realized ; and so long as we examine human nature and generalize upon the knowledge thence derived, we are on sure ground and may legitimately claim for our procedure the character of being scientific. This point, amid much that is admirable, has been somewhat obscured, and needlessly so, I think, by Green in his Prolegomena to Ethics. Strong in the opinion that the idea of a better implies a best, he, nevertheless, when treating of the formal character of the moral ideal, so em- 21 •)2'2 Ethical Theism: Ideality and the Ethical Self. phasizes the unknown character of this "best" as almost to reduce its value to zero. Here is what he says: — " Man can never give a sufficient account of what his unconditional good is, because he cannot know what his capabilities are till they are realised. This is the explanation of the infirmity that has always been found to attach to attempted defini- tions of the moral ideal. They are always open to the charge that there is employed in the definition, openly or disguisedly, the very notion which pro- fession is made of defining " (p. 204). If this were so, in all the rigour of the statement, Green's own ethical teaching would certainly not be what it is, and would not have that stimulating power which it unquestionably possesses. But this is not so, in all the rigour of the statement, nor does Green in other parts of his work conceive it so ; for, man can know what his capabilities are be/ore they are realized. And it is j)recisely this knowledge that reflection on what is disclosed by ethical introspection, by examination of a man's own conduct, by careful scrutiny of the conduct of others (as revealed personally to ourselves or as declared to us in history), by study of social usages, institutions, and the like, is competent to give. In a very real sense, the limits of man's faculties are given in a knowledge of their nature, taken in con- Answered. 323 nexion with a knowledge of their environment ; and we can as surely tell the end towards which righteousness is tending, and the lines on which it must work, as the astronomer can tell the future of a heavenly body, or the naturalist the character of an extinct animal from the print of its cleft foot, We have here, as Cuvier would say, " a surer mark than all those of Zadig ". Dr. Martineau has put it better than Green. He says (Types of Ethical Theory, Pref. xiii.) :— " The possible also is, whether it happens or not ; and its categories, of the right, the beautiful, the necessarily true, may have their contents de- fined and held ready for realisation, whatever centuries lapse ere they appear ". He says also (Id., vol. ii., p. 151): — "In order to appreciate a type of character, it is not necessary that we should have personally passed through it ; be it only possible to us, the key is within us ; on the principle that we intuitively interpret the natural language of every human emotion, though we should see the sign ere we have felt what is signified ". The characteristic of Ethics, as science of the ideal, may be put in a few words. It is the testimony of experience that men do have a conception of the " ought," as distinct from the " is," and by this conception test their own 324 Ethical Theism : Ideality and the Ethical Self. character and conduct, as well as the character and conduct of others. It is, further, the testi- mony of experience that this conception of the "ought" emerges when the principles of man's being — the various springs of action by which he is moved — are in conflict. Further still, it is testified by experience that there is among men the recognition of an ideal unattained, yet presum- ably attainable, in which the " ought " shall rule, in which the elements and principles of man's nature shall all be harmonized, and peace and happiness shall reign within. Whence it follows that a man is, not what at any particular moment he may here happen to be, but what he is capable of ultimately becoming ; and his " perfection " means, not the absence of development or the absolute cessation at some point of all further extension of the range of his faculties, but the entire unison and full exercise of all his powers. It is these facts that give to Ethics its justifica- tion and its meaning. It is because of its ideal, proved inductively to be a reality, and with a view to stimulating towards its attainment, that Ethics has existence ; and it is in the examination, ex- planation, and interpretation of this ideal that Ethics finds its highest function.1 1 The greater part of this section appeared in Mind, 1st Series, vol. xiii., pp. 89-93. The Ethical Self. 325 II. We pass now to a consideration of the Ethical Self. A man's ethical self is what is usually known as his Character. Now, what is meant by Char- acter ? The word "character" (Greek xaPaKTylp) signifies, strictly, a graving instrument ; then, a stamp upon a coin or seal ; then, the impress of a seal upon wax. So that a man's character is, properly, the stamp or image that he bears ; and a great writer like the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, when he wishes to express our Saviour's nature on its Divine side, can find no term more suitable than this very xaPaKTylP '■ " tne brightness of His glory," he says, " and the express image (xapaKrrjp) of His person". It is, therefore, a standing witness to two things : — (1) first, that man is an impressible being, capable of being moulded according to a particular plan or pattern ; and (2), secondly, that, being so, his acts and conduct are amenable to law. And, indeed, were this not the case, there could be no such thing as a science of Ethics. Science exists only where laws are discoverable ; and a science of the arbitrary and capricious would be simply a con- tradiction in terms. It is quite on the lines of the original signifi- cation when the word " character " conies to denote 326 Ethical Theism : Ideality and the Ethical Self. the letters of the alphabet, or any picture or symbolical representation of an idea. Either way, it is something expressive — something engraved or inscribed, — something, therefore, that we have the power of reading and interpreting — a distinctive mark. Angelo, There is a kind of character in thy life, That to the observer doth thy history Truly unfold . . . In our remove be thou at full ourself ; Mortality and mercy in Vienna Live in thy tongue and heart. Angelo. Now, good my lord, Let there be some more test made of my metal, Before so noble and so great a figure Be stamped upon it. [Measure for Measure, Act I. so. 1.) Etymologically, then, the word bears testimony, so far, to the nature of the thing. But no exposi- tion of Character would be regarded as satisfactory that rested simply on an etymology. Let us proceed, then, to consider the subject in its various details. In doing so, I ask the following three questions : — (1) First, what are the Elements of Character ? (2) Secondly, in what manner is Char- acter formed ? (3) Thirdly, what is the special Force that is implied in the formation of Character ? I. First, what are the elements of Character ? Character Defined. 327 Human nature consists of a multitude of prin- ciples, variously classified, but in general so well understood as to justify me in dispensing with any very elaborate grouping of them. According to current psychological analysis, they arrange them- selves around the three centres of Intellection, Feeling, and Conation. The intellectual side of our being is concerned with knowledge or truth, in all its forms and departments -it is the dry, clear light of Reason ; and, as no one can pass through life without having his interest aroused in know- ledge at many points, intellectual regard must of necessity enter appreciably into his character. So, no one can pass through life without being deeply stirred on the side of emotion. Loves and hates are naturally strong with men, and the social element is one from which none of us can escape. Will, again, represents activity, and expresses the side of our character that is concerned with our leading avocations and pursuits : it, also, frequently appears as impulsiveness or energy. To these in- ward endowments, we must add a man's physical constitution, which has a marked share in making him to be what he is, and which determined the old classification of Types of character, or what was formerly known as the Four Temperaments^ the sanguine, the melancholic, the choleric, and the phlegmatic. 328 Ethical Theism : Ideality and the Ethical Self. These are the various parts of human nature, covering collectively the whole of it. But, for our present purpose, it will be convenient to group them somewhat differently. It will be convenient for us to regard man as the subject of various principles, each of which is operative to some extent in every individual, but any one of which may in any given case predominate. Of these principles, some are interested and egoistic, centring in the individual's self (such as self-love, vainglory, etc.) ; others are disinterested, not having an im- mediate reference to the individual's self, yet not leading him to take account of other living beings (such as love of knowledge) ; others still, while disinterested, are also extra-regarding or altruistic, having other human beings than oneself for their object (such as sympathy, compassion, friendship). It is also to be observed that, of the egoistic prin- ciples, some are decidedly malevolent (such as jealousy, revenge, vindictiveness) ; others not. Now, human Character, taken in its proper sense, denotes, not the absolute annihilation of any one or more of these principles, but the degree of strength that obtains between them. Butler has caught this very well, when he says (Sermon xii.) : "There is greater variety of parts in what we call a character, than there are features in a face : and Butler on Character. 329 the morality of that is no more determined by one part, than the beauty or deformity of this is by one single feature : each is to be judged of by all the parts or features, not taken singly, but together. . . . From hence it comes to pass, that though we were able to look into the inward contexture of the heart, and see with the greatest exactness in what degree any one principle is in a particular man ; we could not from thence determine, how far that principle would go towards forming the character, or what influence it would have upon the actions, unless we could likewise discern what other prin- ciples prevailed in him, and see the proportion which that one bears to the others. Thus, though two men should have the affection of compassion in the same degree exactly : yet one may have the principle of resentment, or of ambition, so strong in him, as to prevail over that of compassion, and prevent its having any influence upon his actions ; so that he may deserve the character of an hard or cruel man : whereas the other having com- passion in just the same degree only, yet having resentment or ambition in a lower degree, his compassion may prevail over them, so as to influence his actions, and to denominate his temper com- passionate. So that, how strange soever it may appear to people who do not attend to the thing, yet it is quite manifest, that, when we say one man 330 Ethical Theism : Ideality and the Ethical Self. is more resenting or compassionate than another, this does not necessarily imply that one has the principle of resentment or of compassion stronger than the other. For if the proportion, which re- sentment or compassion bears to other inward principles, is greater in one than in the other ; this is itself sufficient to denominate one more resenting or compassionate than the other." Just so : Character is a certain proportion amongst the various elements of our nature, and our ruling trait is determined by its strength in relation to the other features. This does not, however, prevent the kind of character that a man will have from depending, not only on his possessing such and such elements of human nature, but also on the various influences in life to which he may be exposed. On the contrary, these influences have their own part to play- physical surroundings, race, nationality, social customs, etc. ; and, when we sit as moral judges on a man's character, these must all be taken into account. II. Such, then, being the material of which Character is composed, the next question is, How is this material to be manipulated ? In what way is Character formed ? By what steps is it built up ? Laivs of Habit. 331 This introduces us to the nature and tendency of Habit, — to the psychological laws of acquisition, in their application to morals. It is here as elsewhere : " practice makes perfect ". Moral habits are formed by a continuous process of repeated acts. The main points to be attended to are the first start of a habit, and the repetitions necessary to secure its final stability. 1. The management of the first start is deter- mined by the end in view. As the great object in moral education is, not merely to arouse attention, but also to engage the affections, much depends upon one's power to seize the favourable moment, when the mind, for one reason or another, is in the best disposition towards moral things. Success is further conditioned by a knowledge of the in- dividual's leading propensities or inclinations, and by the necessity of presenting morality, as much as may be, on its winning or attractive side. Nor must the physical conditions of Habit be neglected: bodily fatigue can never be favourable for beginning any acquisition. If the initiative must be taken under feeling, if it is only when deeply moved or keenly interested that an effective impression can be made, a lethargic state of the body is not con- ducive to successful training. 332 Ethical Theism : Ideality and the Ethical Self. 2. Repetition demands the same attention to the physical conditions that the start of habit does. But let this attention be given, and the effects are very conspicuous. (1) First, Repetition produces pleasure in doing an act, and also facility or ease in doing it. Facility and pleasure go together, — at any rate, in cases where initial distaste has to be overcome. The limitations are evident, (a) In the first place, the pleasure is a notable feature only in certain in- stances, or at certain stages in the formation of moral habit. If there be no primary distaste or disinclination to be overcome, it may not be con- spicuous even at the commencement ; but, even when there is a primary distaste, the pleasure obviously becomes less intense as the habit ap- proaches the position of a fixed and settled thing. Once it reaches the stage when it acts automatically, when it becomes to us "a second nature," the pleasure attaching to it is little obtrusive, — it is similar to that of a bare instinct ; we may, indeed, be unaware of it until we try to break away from the habit, and then the pain attaching to the wrench impresses us with the potentiality of pleasure that this habit contains. But (b), next, pain may be the result of repetition, not pleasure. This is so in all cases where indulgence breeds satiety, or where a want has been created without Effects of Repetition. 333 the corresponding power of satisfaction. More- over, even pleasures will pall, if there be no inter- mission.1 Then (<•), lastly, there is a particular relation between active habits and passive impres- sions, which Butler, with his wonted insight, was the first to see and to formulate, although his mode of formulating it needs a certain correction. It is a law verified in our every-day experience that, the more we give ourselves over to mere feeling, the less disposed to action do we grow ; whereas, the more we accustom ourselves to act upon emotion, the more does our ability to act increase, and inversely. The sick-nurse and the doctor may be taken as examples. Repeated experience of suffering does, no doubt, to some extent blunt the acuteness of their sensibility to distress ; but then there comes, instead of it, the active habit of relieving, the prompt response in practical assistance, the instinctive rising up to help. This is the amended form of Butler's doctrine, that "passive impressions by being repeated grow weaker," whereas " practical habits are formed and strengthened by repeated acts," — 2 " active prin- ciples, at the very time that they are less lively in perception than they were, are somehow wrought 1 Voluptates commendat rarior usus (Juvenal, Satires xi., 208). 2 Connect this with Maine de Biran's fundamental law of Habit, — viz., " that it weakens sensation and strengthens perception ". 334 Ethical Theism : Ideality and the Ethical Self. more thoroughly into the temper and character, and become more effectual in influencing our practice" (The Analogy of Religion, part i., chap. v.). "What is tenable in Butler's position," as Professor Bain remarks ( The Emotions and the Will, 3rd edition, pp. 458-9), " seems to be this,— that the repeated indulgence of pity as a sentiment, without any corresponding action, grows into a sentimental habit. The sentimental pleasure does not [necessarily] diminish, as his doctrine about passive impressions would make us suppose ; what diminishes is the active tendency, which belongs naturally to our impulses of pity, and would be strengthened by exercise, while in the absence of exercise it may become feebler than it originally was." Add to this, that the habit of acting on an emotion reduces our perception of the emotion itself. But there is such a thing as the slavery of routine in morals : repetition may produce that. Hence the necessity, if moral progress is to bee, made, of every now and again awakening a fresh interest and creating an enthusiasm. No doubt, Enthusiasm is in bad favour with many. Even Kant sets it down as a passing excitement, or fleeting emotion, not to be countenanced but dis- couraged. And, unquestionably, if man were pure reason, his ineradicable attachment to virtue would The Slavery of Routine. 335 be of an equable kind and would not admit of higher and lower in feeling. But man is not pure reason, and the tendency of moral habit is to check his moral vivacity, to take away the " spirit " from his moral efforts, and to render him " wooden " in his performance of duty. Hence the value of enthusiasm as a moral factor. You must lay captive the heart, before any great moral change is effected ; and it is not too much to say that, if you wish to divert the current of habit, nothing but en- thusiasm will do it. The full truth seems to be- that enthusiasm, or strong feeling, is valuable for the start of a moral acquisition, and it is necessary, afterwards, in order to save us from the deadening effect of repetition. Enthusiasm just means a burst of feeling, in the form of an awakened in- terest, that carries one beyond the bounds of the conventional, that enables one to burst the fetters of custom, and to strike out a new course or attach oneself to a new cause or idea. (2) But, next, Repetition produces, not only facility and ease in doing an action, but also a predisposition to do it.1 This is largely explainable on physiological 1 Hence Hume's definition of Custom. "Wherever the repetition of any particular act or operation produces a propensity to renew the same act or operation, without being impelled by any reasoning or process of the understanding ; we always say, that this propensity is the effect of Custom " (An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section v.). 336 Ethical Theism : Ideality and the Ethical Self. grounds. Every thought, feeling, action leaves its effect on the nervous system and induces a pre-: disposition to its recurrence. And, as this is vastly aided by Heredity, or transmitted experi- ence, the physiological side of habit is seen at once to be a most important one. (3) Lastly, Repetition, when sufficiently long continued, insures the stability of a habit. This means that it blunts our sensibility to solicitations to break it, and so gives us a certain power to resist successfully. But the exposition would be incomplete, did I not touch upon another point in reference to moral habit. Moral habit is inseparably connected with moral progress. This arises from the fact that Morality is con- cerned with the ideal : what "is" needs always to be tested by what "ought to be," and present attainment, either in character or in conduct, is only at best an approximation to perfection. What, then, moral habit effects is this : — Not only does it produce facility in doing certain actions, not only does it create a tendency and wish to do them, it also impresses us with the necessity of doing certain other actions which were concealed from us before, In other words, it widens our vision, increases our faculty, and serves as a motive- Moral Progress. 337 spring to perseverance. Here, as elsewhere, one step forward secures another, — acquisition leads on to acquisition ; and ever and anon as we reach a higher level, it is not to find a final resting-place, but to see greater heights rising up before us, and to be stimulated to the achievement of greater things than we have yet essayed. III. So much, then, for Habit, or, what I may call, the mechanism of Character. But Character is not all mechanism. On the contrary, the very action of the agencies we have been considering, the cohe- sions and associations under repetition, imply the re- action of a non-mechanical something ; and this may be least ambiguously denominated Spiritual Force. Such force is necessarily presupposed in the fact that habit can get a commencement at all ; and it is still further involved in the possibility of breaking off an old habit and contracting a new one. It is presupposed in moral awakening, when the dead or lethargic soul is stirred up to fresh life and vigour. It lies at the root of moral enthusiasm. But it is in moments of great temptation, when we summon up from the depths of our being the whole moral strength that is in us, that we best appreciate and realize its meaning. We are now at the very centre of the ethical self, and are introduced to a twofold power — (1) first, the power of regulating 22 :338 Ethical Theism : Ideality and the Ethical Self. our desires and inclinations ; (2) secondly, the power of beating down aberrant tendencies. Or we might express it under a single formula as, the power of moral progress, in the face of resistance, under the influence of an ideal. There is no doubt that we are so constituted as to identify our better self with the ideal, whereas the baser nature swamps us. And this is really what is meant by " moral freedom". Moral freedom does not mean "absence of rule," "lawlessness," "the power of doing what we like " ; it means freedom from something, security against enslavement — against the enslave- ment of our baser nature, — vice. It reposes, therefore, upon self-respect— upon the perception or conviction that morality, not immorality, is the law of man's nature ; and if it were possible, with- out a contradiction, to conceive a man absolutely devoid of self-respect, you would then conceive a being to whom moral freedom is entirely inapplic- able, for he would be devoid of the fundamental quality on which alone moral freedom can rest. Now, where does this ethical force particularly manifest itself? 1. We see it, first, in the battle with the two selves. For, in the warfare that continually goes on between the two parts of our nature, the higher Spiritual Force. 339 and the lower, it is a fact that we can raise our- selves in this struggle only by self-crucifixion. The upward progress is always a wrench — it costs us pain and effort ; and we gain our life by losing- it. Not Goethe and Tennyson alone attest it, but the whole of human experience — That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things.1 '2. Another sphere of its manifestation is that of unfavourable environment or adverse circum- stances. It is unquestioned that man has a power of moulding circumstances to his will, of transform- ing them to his ends, and of rising superior to them when contrary : through the hard discipline of life, demanding pertinacity and patience, he realizes his true self. He is only in part, there- fore, the " creature of circumstances," and all moral heroism assimilates him to Prometheus and attests his worth. Character transcends condition ; and so for the Stoics, with their contempt for external discomforts, were right. Men at some time are masters of their fates : The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings. (Julius Ccesar, Act I. sc. 2.) 1 De vitiis nostris scalam nobis facimus, si vitia ipsa calcamus (St. Augustine, Ser. III., De Ascensione). 340 Ethical Theism : Ideality and the Ethical Self. 3. Once more, we have a case in point in self- realization through self-effacement or the service of others. No fact in human nature is more wonderful than that of self-sacrifice, or devotion to our fellows' good. It is not simply that self-abnega- tion is action in the face of pain, but also that, in this way, Character itself is so marvellously trans- formed. The development of Self through un- selfishness is the supreme mystery of ethics. Such, then, is the nature of the Ethical Self- its elements, its mechanism, and its spiritual energy. We are now ready to advance to a consideration of Conscience. LECTURE IX. ETHICAL THEISM : CONSCIENCE— PSYCHOLOGICAL. I. The Analysis of Conscience. Conscience is defined by Butler, in the Sermons, as "a principle of reflection in men, by which they distinguish between, approve and disapprove their own actions " : also, as " rationality, including in it both the discernment of what is right, and a disposition to regulate ourselves by it " : also, as " reflection, that principle within, which is the guide of life, the judge of right and wrong " : more fully, as the " superior principle of reflection in every man, which distinguishes between the in- ternal principles of his heart, as well as his external actions : which passes judgment upon himself and them ; pronounces determinately some actions to be in themselves just, right, good ; others to be in themselves evil, wrong, unjust : which, without being consulted, without being advised with, magisterially exerts itself, and approves or con- demns him the doer of them accordingly : and which, if not forcibly stopped, naturally and always of course goes on to anticipate a higher and more (341) :>42 Ethical Theism : Conscience — 'psychological. effectual sentence, which shall hereafter second and affirm its own". It is also in the Sermons that he gives utterance to the famous sentence : — " You cannot form a notion of this faculty, conscience, without taking in judgment, direction, superin- tendency. This is a constituent part of the idea, that is, of the faculty itself: and to preside and govern, from the very economy and constitution of man, belongs to it. Had it strength, as it had right : had it power, as it had manifest authority, it would absolutely govern the world." In like manner, in the Dissertation Of the Nature of Virtue (written ten years after the Sermons, and appended to the Analogy of Re- ligion), Butler says of Conscience : — "It is manifest great part of common language, and of common behaviour over the world, is formed upon supposi- tion of such a moral faculty; whether called conscience, moral reason, moral sense, or divine reason ; whether considered as a sentiment of the understanding, or a perception of the heart ; or, which seems the truth, as including both " where, of course, he uses the word "sentiment" in its popular meaning of intellectual apprehension or opinion, not in its philosophical sense of higher feeling or emotion. Now, putting these passages together, we obtain a succinct and accurate view of Butler's Butler on Conscience. 343 doctrine of Conscience. He regards it as having both an intellectual and an emotional side ; it is both a species of reflection and a kind of feeling : it is intellection touched by emotion, — just as emotion touching morality constitutes Religion, according to Matthew Arnold. He regards it as eminently practical ; acting as a magistrate issuing commands, and regulating conduct. He regards it as dealing with men's internal purposes, thoughts, and dispositions, as well as with their external actions. In other words, Butler conceives Con- science as a Judge, discharging also the various other offices of a court of justice. First, it brings a man's character or acts to the test of the moral law ; this law, however, being (unlike that of the civil judge) internal, self-imposed, and not external or enforced from without. Next, it instantly recognizes the true nature of acts, and pronounces a judicial sentence of acquittal or of condemnation —gives the verdict " guilty " or " not guilty ". Lastly, it rewards or punishes accordingly — cheers by its approbation, stings by its remorse. Whence it follows :— (1) First, that Conscience has "authority," or " supremacy," attaching to it — the authority or supremacy of a judge delivering sentence, without the power of appeal, except to that same judge in cases where fresh light has been thrown upon an 344 Ethical Theism : Conscience — psychological. act. This exception is an important one, though not duly emphasized by Butler. We must never exclude the possibility of fresh light ; for, al- though there is no higher tribunal than that of Conscience itself, nevertheless, owing to the com- plexity of man's nature and the difficulty of disentangling motives and the fact that insight and knowledge come by experience, it may be necessary for Conscience from time to time to review its own decisions — to revise its judgments. This has been admirably put by Professor Fowler, in his Prin- ciples of Morals (part ii., pp. 205-6). "The Con- science," he says, " or Moral Sense or Moral Faculty is sometimes called authoritative, or absolute, or supreme. As none of these attributes could pos- sibly be applicable to an uncompleted process [not to the state of conflict preceding a moral judg- ment, not to the moral judgment itself, not to the consequent feeling of approbation or disapproba- tion], it is plain that, so far as they apply at all, they apply to the final act of judgment and the feeling inseparable therefrom. But we must ex- ercise great caution in the employment of these terms, and in the associations which we connect with them. The final decision, as it is the total result of reflexion, is, of course, authoritative. But it can only be called absolute and supreme in the sense that there is no appeal from it to any other Characteristics of Conscience. 345 tribunal than to the subsequent action of Conscience itself. But there always is, or ought to be, an opportunity of making this appeal back to the Conscience itself, as guided by better information and further reflexion. We are, therefore, quite justified in using these attributes as exclusive of any external authority, but we are not justified in using them as exclusive of the subsequent and more matured judgments of the Moral Faculty, sitting, as a court of appeal, on its previous deci- sions." (2) Secondly, Conscience controls. By which is meant that, when reflection has done its best to set an act in its clearest light, and when an un- hesitating decision has been pronounced, a rational man necessarily accepts the verdict ; and, were man strictly rational, he would always guide himself accordingly. This is, obviously, what Butler means in the second of the definitions already given, when he ascribes to Conscience " both the discernment of what is right, and a disposition to regulate oursehes by it". It is ir- rationality that explains the inconsistency between men's conduct and their better judgment. Present impulse, present passion, is frequently too strong for our higher resolves : hence the anomaly. Kant saw this, as he saw so many other things, and emphatically expressed it. Referring to the 346 Ethical Theism : Conscience — psychological. Categorical Imperative, he says : — " But why then should I subject myself to this principle and that simply as a rational being, thus also subjecting to it all other beings endowed with reason ? I will allow that no interest urges me to this, for that would not give a categorical imperative, but I must take an interest in it and discern how this comes to pass; for this 'I ought' is properly an 'I would,' valid for every rational being, provided only that reason determined his actions without any hind- rance. But for beings that are in addition affected as we are by springs of a different kind, namely, sensibility, and in whose case that is not always done which reason alone would do, for these that necessity is expressed only as an ' ought ' and the subjective necessity is different from the objective-' (Abbot's transl., p. 68). (3) Thirdly, Conscience is an enlightener and revealer to us. Whether it always controls de facto or not, it always enlightens us ; for it is a species of reflection, and reflection is an illumina- tive process, bringing character into clear view,, showing us the true nature of our acts, and leaving us without excuse if we refuse obedience. More- over, by exercise it habituates us to moral per- ception and produces ease in forming decisions,— according to the well-known principles of Habit, the reward to those who " by reason of use have Conscience as Guide and as Revealed. 347 their senses exercised to discern both good and evil ". Now, with all this as a just analysis of Con- science in its ordinary workings, as actually experienced, we may unhesitatingly agree. What- ever be our theory as to the origin of Conscience and of the moral ideas, whatever opinion we hold as to the ultimate basis of the moral law, whatever be the name we prefer to call the Conscience by, we need have no difficulty in admitting that Conscience is pre-eminently a judge, and that its main functions are to enlighten or reveal, to recom- pense or reward, and to control or guide. Whether, however, we shall go farther and maintain, with Butler, that the sentence of Conscience is that of the Divine Law, and its authority derived from the Supreme, is the great metaphysical question that will meet us in next lecture. II. Moral Judgment. For the sake of clearness, what has now been said may be regarded from another point of view : it may be taken in connexion with Moral Judgment. Judgment is a word having various significa- tions ; meaning one thing in Logic, another thing in Psychology, another thing in popular usage, and still another thing in Courts of Justice. V 348 Ethical Theism : Conscience — -psychological. In Logic, judgment stands for the mental pro- cess of coupling or disjoining two ideas, one being subject and the other predicate : it designates the subjective side of what, when expressed in words, is known as a "proposition". Psychologically, judgment is simply the mental act of under- standing or apprehending the meaning of a state- ment ; no matter whether the statement be true or false, sense or nonsense. In common parlance, " to form a judgment " is to draw a conclusion from premisses, or to come to a definite decision after deliberation and reflection ; and " to express my judgment " is to state my opinion. Finally, in Courts of Justice, judgment means weighing evi- dence, bringing actions to the test of Law, and punishing or rewarding accordingly. Now, obviously, it is to the last of these senses of the word that judgment in morals assimilates itself. A moral judgment is different from the mere affirmation of union or disjunction between two ideas. It is different, also, from the simple understanding of a proposition — although this, of course, is implied in it; as well as from the process known in vulgar phraseology as " making up one's mind ". It presupposes a law by which we test character or conduct ; it implies bringing an agent and his acts to the tribunal of strict justice, and condemning or acquitting him, as the case may be. Meanings of Judgment. 349 Moral judgment, then, I define as the verdict that we pass upon an agent (oneself or others), acting out of a conscious or intended motive that has a definite relation to the moral law. Regarding which it has, first of all, to be observed that it is the agent himself, rather than his outward action, that is the subject of a moral judgment, and the agent only in so far as he acts from a conscious motive. The propriety of this is obvious. For, oftentimes, a man's outward action is no real test of his inward character. An outwardly good deed may be done out of a very reprehensible motive ; and a disastrous deed may, through lack of wisdom, be the consequence of what was intended by the doer only to lead to good. " Not every one that bears the thyrsus is inspired." Hence the command is " Be good," rather than " Do good " ; it refers to character, and only in the second place to conduct. Again, a man can hardly be regarded as having acted rightly who simply does the right thing by chance, without ever meaning it ; while a man cannot justly be denominated an evil-doer who, without willing it, commits a blameworthy deed. Hence the distinction between formal and material * rectitude. An act is materially right when it is outwardly such as would flow from a regard to the 350 Ethical Theism : Conscience — psychological. moral law ; it is formally right when, in addition to this, it actually proceeds from a conscious regard to that law. It is with formal rectitude, thus de- fined,1 that the moral judgment properly deals ; and the material, standing by itself, is morally valueless. Nevertheless, we cannot, except each one for himself, get directly at people's motives. We can merely infer them from their outward actions. Hence it is that, by a not unpardonable latitude, we frequently speak of the morality or immorality of an outward action. But, when we do so, it is always on the supposition that the inward spring from which it flowed was right. Thus is morality differentiated from bare legality. The mere judgment of overt acts from the side of legality is a comparatively easy and a comparatively unerring thing. Certain actions are forbidden by the law, and the doing of them is, therefore, wrong, and entails punishment. Here is a man who has been proved to have infringed the law ; he is, consequently, amenable to the proportionate con- demnation and punishment. But it is different when we try to apply the standard of morality to his act. All moral judgments are essentially J hypothetical : they are conditioned by the tacit assumption that we have correctly interpreted the 1 The words "formal" and "material " have a variety of signifi- cations ; but their history cannot find place here. Characteristics of Moral Judgment. 351 motives of the actor. But this is a large assumption. Motives are extremely complex ; they are, indeed, the man, and are not easily accessible. Hence the infinite possibility, in our moral judgments, of error and of injustice. This being understood, let us return to our definition of Moral Judgment. Plainly, moral judgment consists of four distinct elements. It is, first, a perception of the moral character of the act5 — i.e., of its rightness or wrongness, of the fact that it conforms or does not conform to the moral law. It is, secondly, a perception and acknowledgment or admission that, according as the act is right or wrong, the agent deserves well or deserves ill. It is, thirdly, the feeling (and perhaps outward expression) of approbation or of disapprobation consequent on these perceptions and admissions. It is, lastly, the perception of moral beauty or of moral ugliness. The first of these perceptions is intuitive, in the sense to be presently defined. But that does not forbid that there shall be acts (possibly, many in number) that shall demand, on the part of him who would judge them, a great deal of preliminary investigation and clearing from extraneous circum- stances, before it is possible to perceive their exact character. They are complex in a high degree ; and 352 Ethical Theism : Conscience — psychological. difficulties and error with regard to them are due, not to a false perception, but to the mistake of sup- posing that we have taken account of all the circum- stances, when certain of them have been ignored and others (it may be) have been misunderstood. From the perception of desert — which consti- tutes the second element — must be distinguished the actual apportionment of reward or praise, of punishment or blame, — which may or may not be in accordance with merit or desert, but which, even when justly apportioned, is a logically separate consideration. The perception of desert is one distinctively ethical : it is applicable to persons and to persons only. An inanimate object, a machine, may wholly conform to the physical and mechanical laws under which its existence is possible, and, conforming to these, may continue to serve its purpose or fulfil its end ; but, in doing so, it does not acquire merit or come under the category of reward or punishment. But a human being, possessing a character and the power of forming and transforming character, is essentially meritorious or demeritorious : he has an ideal stan- dard of right and wrong by which to test his acts, and, according as he has approached the require- ments of this ideal standard or allowed himself to fall below them, he feels himself deserving of ap- proval or of condemnation — a feeling which itself Conscience as Intuitive. 353 would remain as reward or punishment, although all outward reward or punishment were withdrawn. The third and fourth elements in moral judg- ment are moral approbation and disapprobation, and the aesthetic feelings of moral beauty and sublimity or moral ugliness and baseness ; of which this alone need here be said, that the two must not be confounded. Moral beauty or sublimity is merely the feeling of pleasure or of awe that the individual derives from the contemplation of moral acts (especially acts like generosity and heroic virtue), while moral approbation is his feeling of sympa- thetic appreciation of the doer of such acts : the one is subjective and individual (although dependent on objective conditions) ; the other is objective, social, and disinterested. Moreover, I approve of a moral act because I conceive it to be right, not because I feel it to be beautiful : in other words, moral approbation has its roots direct in the perception of rectitude ; and, though we may perceive the rectitude of an act and yet fail to be impressed with its beauty (for, men differ greatly in susceptibility to beauty), we cannot perceive its rectitude without also approving. III. The Intuitive Character of Conscience. Many modern advocates of Conscience lay stress on what they call its " intuitive " character ; and, 23 354 Ethical Theism : Conscience — psychological. inasmuch as its pronouncements are intuitions, they regard them on this account as eminently binding. We may best discuss the matter of intuition in connexion with such ethical notions as Right, Wrong, and Ought. Right and Wrong. Right and Wrong properly denote a relation — the relation of conformity or the want of con- formity of an act to the moral law. So that, when it is said that right and wrong are qualities intuitively perceived, the only meaning can be that, given the law and given an act, we at once perceive that this act does or does not come under the law, — just as we immediately perceive, when two rods are laid alongside each other, that they are equal in length or unequal. But this does not explain to us either the origin or the validity of the moral law itself ; nor does it help us in getting an act into that simplified condition in which it can be brought into immediate reference to the moral law, any more than does the perception of the equality or inequality of length in two rods help us to procure the rods whose lengths are to be tested. Yet, one of the greatest difficulties in morals often is, to get the complex simplified ; and a stiff problem in Ethics has reference to the validity of the moral law. Right and Wrong. 355 The moral law itself is in form universal, and rests on the rational basis, "That whatsoever is good for me is good for all other similar beings in the same circumstances " : in other words, it eliminates the idea of individuality, and legislates for man as man; as Bentham pithily puts it, in words already quoted, " Every one to count for one, and no one for more than one ". This is just the philosophical way of expressing the Christian precept, "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them " ; and this universality of scope has rationality as its basis and its justification. But, although thus universal in form, the contents of the system of moral precepts have grown, are growing, and will continue to grow. As men's circumstances change and experiences increase, as the range and the relations of life are expanded, fresh aspects freely come to view and new additions are made to the already existing code. Although there is little fear that men shall ever outgrow the Ten Commandments, yet a richer and ever richer interpretation will, with widening experience, be given to them, and every age and every nation will have to make its own application of them. The result of all which is, that right and wrong designate an act viewed in relation to a universalized U 356 Ethical Theism: Conscience — psychological. principle of conduct, taken in connexion with all the circumstances of the case. Ought. But it may be said, " Not only do I perceive that such or such an act is right or wrong, but, at the same time, I perceive that it is such as ought or ought not to be done ". Now, what is meant by this ? Take a non-ethical instance of "ought". I work a sum in arithmetic, but find that the result is incorrect. On revising my work, I discover that I ought to have carried two at some point, but did not. Now, what is the meaning of " ought to have carried two"? It means that, if I wish the operation to be correct, in accordance with the rules of arithmetic, that is the thing necessary to be done. So, in making for a particular place, I lose my way, and am told that I ought to have turned to the right at a certain spot. What is meant by this ? It means that, if I desire to reach a particular destination, I must pursue a particular direction. So, when I tell a man that he ought to avoid danger, or that he ought not to run his head against a post, my meaning is that it would be contrary to reason — contrary, that is, in this case, to his own self-interest — to act differently. Ought. 357 In like manner, when I say in Ethics, " I ought to do so and so," it can mean nothing else but this, — wishing my conduct to conform to moral rule, that is the course necessary to be taken, or the act necessary to be done. Where, then, lies the difference ? It simply lies here : not in the " ought," for, the ought in all the four cases means the same thing ; but in the objects of the ought and the inducements that lead us to conform to it, — i.e., in the sanctions— sanctions not imposed from without or arbitrarily enforced, but working themselves out from within. If I refuse to conform to the rules of arithmetic, I simply fail to get the sum correct; if I will not pursue the road that leads to a place, I simply never reach that place ; if I run recklessly into danger, I am punished. But if I refuse to conform to the law of Conscience, I suffer in the severest way of all. Character and conduct are here at stake ; and, as the consequences of good and bad conduct are of infinitely greater moment to me than those of right arithmetic (regarded simply as an intellectual disci- pline), or those of reaching a certain place by a certain route, or even those of bodily safety, the "ought" comes to me with the authority of the highest blessing or of a curse. Hence, its binding- force is the binding force of serious consequences. This does not, of course, mean that these con- 358 Ethical Theism: Conscience — psychological. sequences are merely external or necessarily of a materialistic kind. On the contrary, it includes all the effects on Character, egoistic and altruistic, and emphasizes the phenomenon of Remorse. Nor does it mean that we are constantly to act out of a conscious regard to consequences. It is quite compatible with a love of the " ought" for its own sake (as we shall see presently), and with the well-known experience of acting purely out of a sense of duty. But it shows that, in the ultimate analysis, Consequences (understanding the term broadly) are what give validity to the moral law ; just as their ability to maintain health is what gives validity to the laws of hygiene, or their efficacy in promoting the happiness and prosperity of a people is what gives validity to the laws of a land. If this be so, we are at once furnished with a satisfactory answer to the question, Why ought I to obey the moral law ? To this question, some are fond of making answer, Because it is right to do so. But, obviously, if " right " be, as has just been explained, a relation, — if it expresses the relation between an act (or, rather, the doer of it) and the moral law, — if it has no meaning except as saying, Here is conformity or non-conformity to the moral law, — the answer, " Because it is right to do so," is simply a vicious Ethical Value of " Ought." 359 circle: it is equivalent to saying, "This is right because it ought to be done, and this ought to be done because it is right"— a way of reasoning which, certainly, does not advance us far. The way to escape the vicious circle is to lay the foundation of "ought" in the consequences attached to, or, rather, inherent in, action ; and to see in these the real force and authority of con- science. " Oh, but," some will still persist, " you thereby lose the real ethical value of ' ought '. The real ethical maxim is, Follow right, whatever be the result ; or, as Tennyson puts it,— Because right is right, to follow right Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence." But what does this really mean ? It just means, "Follow right, whatever be the damage to your immediate prospects in life, to your selfish or temporal interests " ; or, " Follow right, whatever present pain it may cost you". It is either the pitting of temporal pleasures against character, or of the temporary against the permanent ; and, in either way, it is at most but an estimating or weighing of consequences. And even when we are grandly told, Fiat justitia, ruat caelum ("let justice be done, though the heavens should fall " ), we need not be greatly troubled ; for the caelum 360 Ethical Theism : Conscience — psychological. that is here put in jeopardy is simply the material heavens, — to the passing away of which we could readily enough assent, if that be the condition of " new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness ". But moralists of all schools are ultimately driven to Consequences as the real test of morality. For, let us take such a principle of human nature as Malevolence, and let us seek to assign its ethical place as a spring of action, and, if we are not to locate it arbitrarily and capriciously, we must rationally appraise it by its consequences. Butler himself admits this, in the classical distinction that he draws between instinctive and deliberate re- sentment. The former he regards as legitimate. Why ? As being necessary to our preservation. The latter he condemns. Why 1 Because it is merely a refined luxury, unnecessary to meet the circumstances of the case, and disastrous in its results. Consequences, again, give us the principle of determination as between legitimate egoism and illegitimate selfishness, as also between egoism and altruism. That both egoism and altruism have a rightful place in human nature, I take for granted. But how are we to determine the limits of the two ? Obviously, by the rational estimate of the consequences of each. Egoism, we say, is natural Consequences. 361 to man in the form of self-love, because a man, as one among others, has his equal rights with any other man ; and, as I myself am nearer to myself than any other person can possibly be, my first attention is properly to myself. But Selfishness is a different matter; and when I pit egoistic self- love against egoistic selfishness, and determine in favour of self-love, it is on the ground that selfish- ness, when pronounced, much more when para- mount, is destructive of my whole nature. So, when I limit a man's altruism by his egoism, it is on the ground of consequences. A man wholly altruistic, if such could be supposed to exist, would be a curse to the world. For, if I myself were wholly to spend myself in serving others, that would be simply to breed selfishness in them, to turn them into selfish exactors of my service, to teach them to look upon me simply as an instrument for their own gratification ; and that would be suicidal to the object of altruism (which is mutual benefit), and so is condemned. Once more, how but by con- sideration of consequences — consequences to a man's own self, consequences to the community at large — can you determine the immorality of the principle, " It is lawful to do evil that good may come " ? We need not be frightened, as many have been, by the word " consequences " in Ethics, if con- 362 Ethical Theism : Conscience — ^psychological. sequences be adequately interpreted. It has ap- plication to character, and to all that conduces to the formation of character ; it looks to the welfare of the individual and to that of his neighbour too. What, then, is intuitive in Conscience is pre- cisely what is intuitive when we draw a certain conclusion from certain premisses, or when we form a judgment after deliberation and weighing of evidence. Given a clear understanding of the moral law, with experience in morals, and given a clear knowledge of the exact nature of a given act, and we at once declare : " This is, or is not, con- formable to the law ; this ought, or this ought not, to be done " ; but, on what the validity of the moral law itself depends is a thing to be determined by philosophical investigation and reflection. IV. Virtue its own Reward. Some think that they get over difficulties by maintaining that "Virtue is its own reward"; understanding by " virtue " well-doing in general, right living, acting from a sense of duty. This is a very true or a very erroneous proposi- tion, according to the sense we give to it. If (1), in the first place, it simply means that there is such a thing as the pleasure of virtue (in other Virtue its own Reward. 363 words, that a good conscience, or a conscience void of offence, is a source of happiness), — if it means that the reward of virtue is not, strictly speaking, something imposed from without, but something necessarily resulting from the virtuous disposition itself, not an extraneous prize but an inward felicity, — this is a very true proposition, to which we may unhesitatingly assent ; just as we assent without difficulty to the proposition that eating is its own reward, or even that forbidden pleasure is, to the eupeptic man, little troubled by remorse or the monitions of conscience, its own reward. If (2), on the other hand, it means that the pains and wrongs of life, if taken in the proper spirit, have a disciplinary value, — if it means that the virtuous man, by the injustices that he is here called upon to suffer, learns patience, meekness, humility, and all the heroic qualities that we are wont so to admire and laud, — if it means that thereby he has his character strengthened, elevated, and refined, whereas to the vicious man grossness and deterioration of character is the inevitable consequence of vice and wrong-doing, — that, too, is a proposition to which we may readily enough assent. But if (3), thirdly, it means (as most assuredly it must, if it is to have distinctive value) that virtue is always duly recompensed here, — if it means that there is always a just proportion be- 364 Ethical Theism : Conscience — -psychological. tween the reward it brings and the self-abnegation it costs, — this is a proposition so entirely contrary to experience that we must at once reject it. The virtuous man is essentially a self-sacrificing and self-denying man, and essentially a sympathetic man. But the more sympathetic he is, the more sensitive he becomes to the sufferings of others, the more intensely does he suffer himself. His pity's recompense is that of Prometheus : A silent suffering and intense ; The rock, the vulture, and the chain, All that the proud can feel of pain, The agony they do not show, The suffocating sense of woe, Which speaks but in its loneliness, And then is jealous lest the sky Should have a listener, nor will sigh Until its voice is echoless. (Byron, Prometheus.) So that, even if we went the length of admitting with Bacon, in the I)e Augmentis, that "all virtue is most rewarded and all wickedness most punished in itself," we must yet confess the indisputable fact, Of what while life still lasts will still be true : — Heaven's great ones must be slandered by earth's little : And God makes no ado. And it is just because Virtue is not its own reward, but, on the contrary, oftentimes brings The Future Life. 365 misfortune and discredit to its possessor, not only loss of worldly goods and station, but also pain and misery, — it is just because it does so that men, from Job downwards, have been so greatly puzzled and perplexed. Then, if Virtue were its own reward, what room would there be for disinter- estedness and self-sacrifice ? These would simply be reduced to a form of selfishness. But disinter- estedness and self-sacrifice are facts of human nature, and facts that give to human nature its nobility and grandeur. And just because these are facts of human nature, and because experience shows them to be insufficiently rewarded here, therefore, have men been driven to the conclusion that there is a Future Life, where disinterestedness shall be valued at its proper worth, and where merit and desert shall receive their just recompense of reward. But note what kind of future it is that Con- science thus postulates. It is a future life under the reign of Righteousness ; and, as such a reign of Righteousness is inconceivable except as under a Righteous Person, it is a future life under God. But is it a future life in which all wrongs shall be righted and all injustices redressed 1 It must be so, when correctly understood ; but we must be careful not to misunderstand it. Future righting of wrongs and redressing of injustices must not be 366 Ethical Theism : Conscience — psychological. so conceived as if it were then that the few pounds or pence that our grasping neighbour has dishon- estly kept back from us shall be paid down, or the little patch of land of which a fellow-man, stronger and more tyrannical than ourselves, has deprived us, shall be restored. If the present life with its experiences teaches us anything at all on the moral side of our being, it is this — to be generous as well as just ; and the real ground of a future life, disclosed in the conscience, is not the necessity of giving to each of us our pound of flesh, which we have failed to get here, but the necessity of giving righteousness the absolute supremacy, and, in par- ticular, the necessity of rendering something to us for our having to gain perfection through suffering. Suffering in itself, even when it refines the char- acter, is a thing so terrible, and seems to us so ill recompensed by any present compensating consider- ation that we are driven on by it to the thought of a great hereafter, when it shall be found that the blessing of security and of a perfected character is more than compensation for any present pains and hardships, and an eternity of bliss more than overbalances the threescore years and ten of mixed pain and pleasure here. V. Reward. But, although it is not true that Virtue is its Reward. 367 own reward, in the sense just now considered, it is, nevertheless, true that Virtue has reward or brings reward. And it may be well for a moment to consider this. The rewards of virtue, like the penalties of vice, are of many forms. 1. In the first place, there is inward peace— the positive pleasure of virtue, and the support to a man in the face of discouragements. 2. Secondly, there is good reputation with those best qualified to praise, — the natural consequence of upright living. 3. Next, there are temporal advantages that naturally follow the practice of the virtues. 4. Lastly, virtue elevates and refines the char- acter, and is the promoter of social unity, concord, and peace. In striking contrast to all this is Retribution or the recompense of vice. 1. First comes the haunting fear of guilt, — the pain and terrors of Remorse. Says Schiller : " The world is perfect everywhere, wherever man does not come with his torment. This one thing I feel and know clearly : that life is not the highest of goods, but guilt is the greatest of evils." And it is evidently guilt that Socrates has in his mind, when he maintains the two famous paradoxes : (1) first, that it is a greater evil to do ill than to suffer 368 Ethical Theism : Conscience— psychological. ill ; and (2) secondly, that it is a greater evil to remain unpunished for wrong done than to suffer punishment. 2. Next comes the irony of seeming success ; when the object of desire is attained, but, being reached, fails to satisfy, while the craving for satisfaction continues. 3. Then comes Deterioration of character ; when the evil that a man does reacts upon himself, — when his interest in the good diminishes, and the slavery of vice grows upon him. 4. Lastly comes the influence of a man's vicious conduct upon others ; the consequences of which may be appalling. VI. Moral Motive. But, what, now, about the doctrine of Moral Motive % Is there such a thing as a purely moral motive ? Is it possible for a man to do good just because it is good ; to do right simply from regard to right ? Most unquestionably (as I have already ad- mitted) ; and this is the best thing, on the side of morals, that he can do. No high ethical achieve- ment, indeed, is possible without it ; just as it is impossible for the artist to excel unless he has enthusiasm for art on art's own account, or for the student of science unless he be carried away with Moral Motive. 369 a love of science for the sake of science, or for the scholar unless he be " soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst " for learning. Yet, there is no opposition between this and the position I have just assigned to Consequences in Ethics, — though undiscerning people often think there is. Consequences are the foundation of Morality, — what justifies it to the reason, what we see to be the ultimate ground of it on calm and serious reflection. Acting out of a purely moral motive is the end that the moral man consciously sets before him. But between the end that a man consciously aims at, and the reason that justifies him (if he feels the need of justification) in aiming at that end at all, there needs be no antagonism ; and here there is none. The only difference be- tween the two things is that, of the one he is directly conscious, of the other he becomes aware (if at all) through thought and reflection. A testing example may be found in certain casuistical reasoning, — in all such reasoning as proceeds upon the principle, "It is lawful to do evil that good may come ". Against this principle the healthy conscience at once rebels. Now why ? Let us take a concrete instance, and we shall see. In Shakespeare's King John (Act iii. sc. 1), at the point where the two Kings, John of England and Philip of France, have warmly pledged their friend- 24 370 Ethical Theism : Conscience — psychological. ship and sealed it with a sacred oath, Cardinal Pandulpho appears upon the scene direct from the Pope, with excommunication for King John, and calling upon Philip to renounce his alliance with England, to take up arms against it, and to prove himself the champion of the Church. Nobly Philip pleads his pledge, his oath, his sincerity : — This royal hand and mine are newly knit, And the conjunction of our inward souls Married in league, coupled and link'd together With all religious strength of sacred vows ; The latest breath that gave the sound of words, Was deep-sworn faith, peace, amity, true love, Between our kingdoms and our royal selves. But all to no purpose. Pandulpho answers : — That which thou hast sworn to do amiss, Is not amiss when it is truly done ; And being not done, where doing tends to ill, The truth is then most done not doing it : The better act of purposes mistook Is to mistake again, though indirect, Yet indirection thereby grows direct ; And falsehood falsehood cures ; as fire cools fire Within the scorched veins of one new burn'd. Now, from this casuistry we instinctively recoil. We feel that truth is too sacred to be thus juggled with, and we take up arms against the cardinal. But is our antipathy a mere instinctive feeling, or has it not also a rational foundation ? When we Consequences Again. 371 probe it to the bottom, we find that it has a rational foundation — namely this : — That, if a doctrine such as that here taught were carried into practice, Society could not exist. If one dishonest act is allowed to be a proper ground for indulging in another, and if deceivers are to be justified in going on deceiving, then social order and mutual trust are at an end. Our revulsion is really grounded upon consequences ; and moral motive is, in ultimate analysis, rational.1 "But," you say, "it is a man's acting from a moral motive that we praise, not his regard for consequences ; and, even if we knew all the con- sequences, and if these consequences were all such as we thoroughly approve of, yet, if he acted with a view to these, we should not pronounce him virtuous." Should we not ! What ordinarily makes conse- quences an inadequate moral test is the fact that we usually can trace them but a very short way ; and what makes them distasteful to us is the fact that we are apt to identify regard to them with selfishness. But the union between selfishness and consequences is purely incidental ; it is not 1 Another fine example of the principle under consideration is found in the reasoning whereby Odysseus tries to overcome the scruples of Neoptolemus in the Philoctetes of Sophocles. 372 Ethical Theism : Conscience — psychological. at all necessary or essential. Why should it be thought a selfish thing in me to take account of the likely results of a particular act ? There is no reason whatever ; save perhaps this, that the selfish man is naturally one who does try to gauge the likely results of his acts, but it is the likely results solely to himself. In like manner, Consequences are apt to be distasteful to us because of our tendency to identify them with bare utility; and utility is a word, in common usage, associated mainly with the material, commercial, and prudential side of life, with its less dignified and lofty aspects. Yet, further, Consequences can hardly be made by us the direct test of morality, because they are often of such a kind that the immediate conscious pursuit of them would fail of its purpose. This is in line with the Hedonistic paradox, — That you cannot find pleasure if you make it the immediate object of your quest ; if you are to obtain it, you must seek it indirectly. Health, for instance, comes to us through work ; but work, not health, is the thing that immediately engages our attention. So, knowledge has its pleasures ; but they come mainly when knowledge is sought for its own sake.1 1 See Professor Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics, 4th edit., bk. ii. chap. iii. Also, Professor Bain's Practical Essays, pp. 19-26. Hedonistic Paradox. 373 This paradox is but part of a greater ; reposing, as it does, on the law of Transference (which is but a form of Contiguity), according to which we frequently transfer our affections or our dislikes from a given end and concentrate them on the means, — as when the miser gloats over his hoarded wealth, or the author cherishes the pen with which he wrote his book, or the sufferer who has been operated on comes to dislike the beneficent operator. In its highest ethical application, it means the impossibility of the individual attaining Virtue if he imports into the pursuit of it a conscious refer- ence to self. No man can ever be really virtuous if he goes about perpetually saying to himself, " How very virtuous I am ! " The whole merit of a self-sacrificing act is removed, once it is ascer- tained that it was done with a view to self-interest. This is the same thing as saying, that self-realiza- tion, in the highest sense of all, is attainable only through self-effacement : in losing our life, we gain it. " But my future fate ? " " Yes, thy future fate, indeed ? " " Thy future fate," says Carlyle, " while thou makest it the chief question, seems to me — extremely questionable ! I do not think it can be good " (Past and Present, bk. iii. chap. xv.). But the Hedonistic paradox must be carefully limited and guarded. Not every kind of pleasure comes under its sway. In point of fact, there are 374 Ethical Theism : Conscience — psychological. many pleasures that are directly obtainable. Thus, we directly obtain pleasure in the hot bath, though we make that pleasure the immediate end of our taking the bath ; and our pleasure in eating is not diminished by our consciousness that we are enjoy- ing the meal, nor our pleasure in a friend spoiled by our sense of satisfaction in his company. The paradox holds good conspicuously in the case of a particular class of pleasures, — viz., in the case of those that are consequent on disinterested action (as in knowledge, self-sacrifice, benevolence) ; and what prevents my attaining pleasure here in the direct way is the fact that I seek it as mine, the fact that I am morbidly self-conscious about it, that I thrust the shadow of the ego between myself and the object of my quest. Indeed, I try to combine two contradictories — to act disinter- estedly, while at" the same time the thought of self is uppermost in the action. And this intervention of self, this personal intrusion, is what inevitably makes me lose the desiderated pleasure ; for, the pleasure of disinterested action (from the very nature of the case) is not something superadded to the action, is not something tacked on to it from without, but its own natural result, something in which itself necessarily eventuates. Moral Motive, then, there is ; and, practically, Law of Transference. 375 it determines the value of a man's Character. A morally good act is an act good in itself if you rightly understand the expression "in itself". It is an indispensable phrase, in certain contexts : (1) first, when a man is likely to place his own selfish interests against the good of others ; and (2) secondly, when he thinks that he can achieve morality by consciously aiming at the pleasure of it. But, in neither case, are we shut out from an ultimate reference to consequences : rather, in both cases, such a reference is necessary for the complete explanation. LECTURE X. ETHICAL THEISM : CONSCIENCE— METAPHYSICAL. VII. Rational Implicates of Conscience. It is time now to turn to the origin of Conscience, with its rational implications. That Conscience is not a simple but a complex thing will, I think, from what has been already said, be clearly seen ; and that it has undergone development is not likely to be disputed. The civilized conscience, for instance, is one thing ; the uncivilized conscience is quite another. Time was, in our own country, when many actions were looked upon without rebuke or reprehension which are to-day sternly condemned : many prac- tices were tolerated by our forefathers which we jjeremptorily disallow ; and, within the present generation, we have seen a marvellous growth of people's sensitiveness to the barbarity of unkind and cruel treatment of their fellows and of the lower animals. It is, obviously, one thing when people take as their highest moral ideal the giant warrior — coarse, brutal, and unsparing, "with whom (376) Advance in Moral Consciousness. 377 revenge is virtue," — whose chief delight is in blood- shed and the cruelties attaching to war, and whose leading recommendation to admiration and honour is the malignity and bitterness he has shown to- wards enemies and the sufferings he has inflicted on them. It is a totally different thing when they take as their ideal the humane enlightened man, whose chief delight is to further unity and concord on the earth, and to practise mercy, generosity, and love. The difference is usually expressed as " an advance in civilization " ; but this just means an advance in moral consciousness, for enlightened views and refinement of nature go hand in hand. This, however, admitted, it does not follow that we must be able to trace historically every step in man's moral advance, from the first germ of the moral conception to its highest development at the present day ; nor, even if we could, would it alter, for the ethicist, what I have called the origin of conscience. By " origin " is not here understood historical beginning, but logical or rational implica- tion. Fascinating, indeed, and valuable are all anthropological investigations, all ethnological study of savage peoples and extinct races ; and we can hardly have too much of them. Intensely interesting are all Darwinian facts and speculations ; and we give them a hearty welcome. But, even if it were positively established that man is developed from 378 Ethical Theism : Conscience — metaphysical. the ape, or that the lower races of men now ex- isting on the earth are the real type of primitive man, it would in no way injuriously affect the con- clusions that I am now about to mention. Our inquiry does not rest on any theory, however plausible, of the actual steps through which man has passed, historically, before he reached his present position. It is concerned with another, and a more important, matter. Taking Conscience as we find it, it asks : " How can we explain it ? What is implied in the fact of there being a con- science at all ? " To this, I give the following reply : — 1. First of all, there is implied that Conscience is a social thing. By which I mean that it is not ex- plicable except by a distinct reference to Society,— in which it originated, and without which it clearly never could have been. The attempt has often been made in philosophy to take the individual as the moral unit, and to explain a man's moral nature as though it were a strictly private possession, something exclusively his own — starting up somehow within him, following- its own laws and development, and manifesting itself outwardly in his conduct, yet altogether independent of other men. But, plainly, this attempt is destined from the beginning to utter Conscience as Social. 379 failure. The primary moral unit is not the indi- vidual, but individuals; and, if we can suppose a man devoid of hereditary tendency brought up from his birth a solitary, without ever coming into contact with any other human creature or social being (and, of course, unconscious of the Deity), it is quite inconceivable how Morality could ever arise within him. Morality implies a relation to moral law, but moral law equally implies the re- lation of one person to other persons ; and the lead- ing ethical conceptions of virtue, justice, altruism, self-sacrifice, as well as the leading ethical emotions (sympathy, generosity, friendship, mercy), involve a distinct reference of the individual to other individuals, sharing with him the same nature and having (to some extent at least) identity of interest, No matter whether, in actual history, the begin- ning lay in the Family (as a past generation thought), or in the Tribe (as recent anthropological research seems to countenance), or in the State (as in old Greek conception, Spartan and Athenian alike). Whatever the primary form of Society, it was of the nature of a community, the members of which were bound to each other by distinct ties. However great the differences, there was a unity ; and the mutual contact of living beings was what gave birth to and kept alive the ethical, regards. Nor does this obliterate the individual, as some 380 Ethical Theism : Conscience — metaphysical. would have it : on the contrary, it gives him room for development and growth. He is there, one among many, born into society, with his nature adapted to the situation, and ready to expand under social influences. He comes into existence a social being, the child of parents who were them- selves social products. And, even if we go back with the Darwinian to pre-human times, Sociality is still regarded as a quality of the creatures from whom man is supposed to be descended ; and the strictest Evolutionist, who carries us to the primi- tive protoplasm, must still conceive that proto- plasm as containing the germ of what, when the time comes, will unfold into sociality and ethics.1 Hence the mistake that Hobbes made, when he conceived men as first living apart in mutual enmity and then brought together through the mutual need of protection against each other's ferocity. The men in the first part of the theory are mere abstractions, products of the logical under- standing,— and not at all the beings whom we know as men : they want the social element, with- out which man would not be man ; or, rather, this element is presupposed in the very fact of their 1 The two chief English works, apart from Mr. Spencer's writings, on Evolutionary Ethics are —Mr. Leslie Stephen's Science of Ethics and Mr. S. Alexander's Moral Order and Progress. Generalization. 381 existence in mutual opposition, and then illogi- cally let slip in Hobbes's explanation. Hence, too, the fallacy in Rousseau's theory that society originated in a " social contract,"— in the formal agreement of men who had formerly been at deadly strife to band themselves together for self-interest. Before you can get men existing in bitter feud, you must suppose them to be, to some extent, and in some relations, social beings. Each man is begotten of parents ; and each man is dependent, in early years, from the very neces- sities of the case, on the care and nurture of others. Conscience, then, is, in the essence of it, social ; and its dictates have reference to the relations of men with men, or with other intelligent or sentient beings. 2. The second characteristic is that of gener- alization. If morality is nothing apart from a law, then it is possible only when men have reached the stage of being capable of formulating and under- standing law. I put it thus guardedly, because there is no need here to foreclose the question, whether there ever was a time, historically, when men were with- out this generalizing power. That must be settled for us, if at all, on anthropological and philological 382 Ethical Theism : Conscience — metaphysical. grounds. But, whatever the ultimate settlement, it can only affect the time when morality began to appear in the history of mankind, not the fact that, when it did appear, generality was a necessary element in it. 3. Lastly comes the fact of authority — the authority of a sovereign, of a lawgiver, of an arbiter >J and judge. This is clearly implicated in Sociality. But that does not mean that it originated solely and simply from the external authority of civil govern- ment and local institutions. These, no doubt, aid greatly in the confirming and extending of it ; but they cannot of themselves account for it. For, their authority is external ; the authority of con- science is internal. And although, indeed, it be true that an external authority may be said to become internal when a man makes it his own — acquiesces in it, willingly and cheerfully accepts it, — nevertheless, this very power of cheerfully making an external authority our own presupposes rational and social elements in our nature which are not themselves the product of anything external. It presupposes the perception (at first, perhaps, a vague feeling) of the good obtainable from sub- mission to authority — a perception of the identity of one's own good with the good of the community ; Authority of Conscience. 383 and it presupposes social emotions, binding one being- to another, and thereby acting as a spiritual force of an authoritative kind (internal, not ex- ternal)— an attractive influence that constrains, without coercing. True it is that, when we take the individual and watch the development of morality in him, we see that first of all he is a creature under authority, helpless in the hands of parents and guardians, and only by degrees comes to realize the full nature of obedience and submission. For several years, he is subjected to the control of others ; and, all his life through, being a citizen of some country, he is put under certain restraints and has to curb himself in a thousand ways, which, but from social necessity, he might not be inclined to do. But, even at the earliest stage, he is also in authority ; for, those in whose hands he is feel him to be a possession, or a charge en- trusted to their care, and his needs or wants call forth their active ministration, and his person and his helpless condition bind them to him in the bonds of affection. And this fact he himself is not long in discovering. The tyranny of infants over mothers and nurses is proverbial ; and all the time that the child is learning the value of being obedient, he is also experiencing the power of his own personal influence in extracting obedience. 384 Ethical Theism : Conscience — metaphysical. It is impossible, indeed, to determine at what precise moment the first dawn of self-conscious- ness begins in infants. But it is reasonable to suppose that, when it does begin, consciousness of putting forth power is at least coeval with con- sciousness of external compulsion ; and, in the case of the moral consciousness, it is reasonable to suppose that the sense of self-direction or self- control is not posterior to that of control by others. What, then, does this mean ? It means that external authority is only one element in the train- ing of a child ; and that the real process can only be understood and explained when you take into consideration the circumstance that both he and his trainers are social beings, and both are centres of influence. To ascribe everything in the first instance to external authority, is simply to suppose that the infant comes into existence a non-social being, with no original adaptability to his sur- roundings, and no pre-dispositions, and to ignore the fact that he and his educators are in nature one : in other words, it is to regard him as a bare mental abstraction, and not as a human creature. But, further, the authority of Conscience is the authority of Reason, directed to a particular kind of relations ; and men may act contrary to con- science on the very same ground that they may Ontological Implications. 385 act irrationally ; viz. , because the lower nature may overpower the higher, because present plea- sure may be more pressing than the idea of future good, because the passing may thrust out the permanent from our view. Hence, if Reason is binding on man, so is Conscience ; and of each it ^ may be said, — " Had it strength, as it had right : had it power, as it had manifest authority, it would absolutely govern the world ". VIII. Ontological or TJieistic Implications. This explains at once the view I take of the ontological and theistic implications of Con- science. So far as the argument for the existence of God arising from the necessity of a future life in the interests of Righteousness is concerned, that was touched on in last Lecture (pp. 364-366), and may be here dismissed. But, so far as the proof of God's existence is dependent on the Authority of Con- science, that may seem to be entirely swept away by the doctrine of conscience as essentially a social faculty. But is it? Not so. The argument from the Authority of conscience is, — That, con- science being by its very nature a sovereign issu- ing a command, as well as a judge delivering a verdict (just as the king of old — Solomon, for in- stance,— besides being clothed with regal power, 25 386 Ethical Theism : Conscience — metaphysical. was also the dispenser of justice), this means that its authority issues from a person, for no concep- tion of authority is possible save as that of a per- son over persons ; and, as this personal authority . has universality attaching to it, this means, in the last result, that it is gathered up in God : its approbation, when we do well, points us up to Him as to our Friend ; its disapprobation, especi- ally as seen in the intensest form of remorse, its warnings and its reproofs, point us up to Him as to our future Judge. Yea, Remorse is particularly striking, and eminently God-referring; for, being ^ the harrowing feeling consequent on our con- sciously breaking the moral law, its testimony is specially noteworthy. Obviously, we cannot have remorse towards a mere abstract law. We might regret breaking a law, we might be annoyed with ourselves for breaking it ; but we should not feel that we had done any injury to the law, so as to blame ourselves reproachfully for transgressing it. We can have remorse only on the consciousness of our having injured a person. And hence, ulti- mately, Remorse runs up into an acknowledgment of the being and authority of the Head of all persons — God. But, it may be said : Is not this simply the reflection of the authority that Society, an aggre- gate of persons, exercises over the individual ? Society and the Individual. 387 The obvious answer is, that this would be so, only if the fact of social authority did not itself im- plicate the authority of the individual. But this it does. For, if the individual is nothing ab- stracted from society, society itself is only a collection of individuals ; and the individual is part of society, not simply as an item necessary to the completion of the whole, but as a portion organically connected with it, like the limbs of a body or the branches of a tree. In other words, the authority that Society exercises over the individual — whence comes it (seeing that it is neither mere brute force nor crude coercive power) but from the fact that the two are sharers in the same nature; that the whole is an organism, not one of whose members may rightfully say to an- other, " I have no need of thee " ? The whole lives in the parts ; and the parts are lifeless, if detached from the whole. But the arguments for God's existence, from the side of Conscience, are not exhausted either by the fact of Virtue's not being adequately rewarded here or by the supremacy of the moral dictates. They are supplemented by two others, of a pregnant kind. The first of them emphasizes the circumstance that the hold that Conscience has over us is, not 388 Ethical Theism : Conscience — metaphysical. the hold of ethical perfection fully attained by us, but the hold of an Ideal binding upon us because believed to be ultimately realizable. Now, this Ideal moves us in a living way ; it has superior motive force in it. But this, we feel, it could not have if it were itself a bare abstraction. Its power arises from its connexion with personality. And this, when pushed to the extreme issue, just means that One lives in whom perfection is centred, who elicits the Ideal in man, and to whom the ideal points as man's ultimate source. We have here the drawing power of Person on person, alike infusing energy and sustaining effort. But, next, the nearer a man approaches the ethical ideal, in his endeavours and aspirations to live the highest life, the more sensitive grows his conscience, — i.e., the more intense the pain at transgressions on his part. Hence, the extreme of self-upbraiding is found in the most upright and conscientious men. This, no doubt, is in part explainable by the laws of Association, and in part it arises from the fact that every breach, however small, of the law of holiness by a good man opens his eyes to the infinite possibilities of future breaches : it affrights him, because it discloses a boundless potentiality of evil in him, because it arouses in him the suspicion The Ethical Ideal. 389 that it may be only the index in his nature of untold alienation from righteousness. But, when all is said that may be said in the way of account- ing for it in this manner, there still remains the patent fact that there is a glaring want of all pro- portion between the offence and the pain produced by it ; and this, to my mind, can be accounted for only by the supposition of its bearing testimony to a future life and to the existence of an All-holy God. These arguments appeal very strongly to my- self—although I do not forget that they are only parts of the more general argument that the whole of human nature presupposes God. They have the speciality of dealing with a region of man's being where the stratum of the Divine (if I may be allowed a geological term) crops up more strikingly and conspicuously than it does anywhere else. The pressure of Character is ever upon us ; and it occupies and interests us far more continu- ously than either intellectual or any other pressure. Knowledge is, in comparison, a luxury ; ignorance the majority of men could bear. But character (conduct, as Matthew Arnold, viewing it from without, designates it) is three-fourths of life ; and the issues involved therein are constantly obtrud- ing themselves on our attention. Whatever may 390 Ethical Theism : Conscience — metaphysical. be absent, the call of morality is unceasingly im- portunate. Herein lies the special significance of ethics, and what gives it peculiar value to the theist. IX. Objections. Against the Ontology of ethics, there are several current objections. These must here be met. 1. First, it is maintained that the so-called ontological implications are not there till we our- selves put them there ; in proof of which (it is said), we have only to note the fact that they were never drawn forth till quite recent times, and by men to whom ethics was subordinate to religion. Now, let us grant for the moment (what, how- ever, may be very justly questioned) that the metaphysics of ethics is of recent date. What then ? Truth is not to be gauged by the date of man's knowledge of it. It may have been there from the beginning, — wrapped up, involved, or contained in Ethics, — though it were drawn forth, evolved, extracted from it, only yesterday. A seed of wild mustard has been known to lie in the ground for years without germinating, and then to have germinated after a certain period. We should never think of saying that there was no life in that seed until the season in which it germinated : we Recency of Date. 391 are reasonable in this instance and say, that it had lain dormant all the term of years, and was brought forth only when the circumstances became favour- able. So with the ontological truths of conscience. The time when they were first laid hold of by man and dragged into clear consciousness is not, of neces- sity, the time when they first began to be : the dis- covery of them is not the origination of them. Nor has any one class of men a monopoly of truth. Suppose, again, for the sake of argument, that it was religibus men that first insisted on theistic ethics. Why should it be thought a dis- paragement to a truth to be associated with Re- ligion ? If religion has simply opened men's eyes to the full implications of the deliverances of Con- science, while it did not create these implications, ought we not rather to be indebted to religion than unthankful to it? Whatever furthers our insight, or stimulates us to discovery, ought to be welcomed and gratefully accepted ; and, if you object to an ethicist that he is a religious man, then with equal reason must you object to the physicist — the astronomer, the chemist, the optician — that he is a man with a good pair of eyes. 2. But, secondly, it is argued :— " The so-called ontological truths of conscience are worthless because Conscience is itself derivative, it is a 392 Ethical Theism : Conscience — metaphysical. growth : you can explain it on the principles of the experientialist or of the evolutionist ". Well, suppose it is derivative or is evolved : how does this militate against its value ? We are not usually in the habit of reasoning that, because a thing is acquired or because it grows, it is, there- fore, of less worth than if it were original or came at once full-blown into existence. On the contrary : in the case of judgment, for instance, we are in the habit of placing more trust in the opinion of a full-grown man than in that of a boy. And why ? Because the faculties of the one' are matured; those of the other are not. Again, we do not despise the intellectual achievements of the present generation because, through the lapse of time and the accumulated experiences of ages, they have only now become possible. Again, our manual or lingual dexterities — say, one's power of writing or of reading — are none the less valuable because they had to be acquired through much pain and labour, — by the " strait gate " of the alphabet and the " narrow way " of the spelling-book and the Royal Readers. These abilities have grown, or they have been built up, according to the laws of association and acquisition ; and it is certainly no discredit, not does it detract from their worth, that they are not innate but acquired, not original but derivative. Why, then, should it be different Consicence Evolved. 393 with ethical and moral facts? Why should the fact that they grow or are acquired not detract from intellectual or physical abilities, and yet be held to throw discredit on the development or acquisitions of the Conscience? Surely there is something unreasonable in this, and men's minds have got warped by some great prejudice. No truth seems more needful to be insisted on at the present moment than this, — That no theory of the origin of the moral ideas can tell against the import and the value of those ideas themselves. Even if, with some thinkers, we evolve the moral from the non-moral, or, with others, suppose that man's present mental and moral capacities have de- veloped by a natural gradation from the rudimentary mental and moral capacities of the lower animals, — so far would this fact be from shaking our faith in' their present trustworthiness and worth, that it would tend to increase it. For, the one great principle of Darwin is, that, in the struggle for existence, the fittest survive ; and Mr. Spencer's great principle runs, that life and vigour mean the adaptation of organism and environment. So that, the very fact that Conscience has survived the the struggle proves its fitness ; and what greater guarantee of its truth need be desired than the circumstance that it is in harmony with its environ- ment ? 394 Ethical Theism : Conscience — metaphysical. 3. But, now, let us face another type of objector. Granting that religion is inseparably connected with ethics, the full requirements of the case, it is main- tained, are met by pantheism. This Ethical Pantheism has been widely favour- ed in Germany, and it has also had distinguished advocates in England. By Fichte, at least in his earlier days, God was identified with the Moral Order of the world ; and the same thing was done by Matthew Arnold, when he defined God as " the stream of tendency whereby all things strive to fulfil the law of their being," and as " the Eternal not ourselves that makes for righteousness ". (1) Fichte's position has been put in few words by Lichtenberger thus : — "During the first part of his career, Fichte attached himself in religious matters to Kant. He guards his disciples against the subtleties of dogma. He teaches the necessity of a moral order of the world, which he calls God ; but he expressly denies personality to it, and finds himself not incorrectly accused of atheism. Faith is the accomplishment of what duty orders us to do, without hesitating and without giving regard to consequences. All good actions succeed, for the world is organized for the good ; bad actions fatally fail. All Fichte's philosophy is a masculine appeal to action" [History Fichte. 395 of German Theology in the Nineteenth Century, Eng. transl., p. 12).1 Now, regarding this view, it may be at once said, that a "moral order" is an unmeaning ex- pression, unless it implicate personality ; for, Morality itself, as we have just seen, has no signi- ficance except as between persons. Mere " order " in the universe is neither moral nor immoral : the most that we can say about it is, that it is either the condition of morality or the generalized ex- pression of how morality disports itself in fact. No doubt, the good, like the beautiful and the true, needs an ordered mechanism for its develop- ment and realization ; and no doubt the world is so constituted that sin " will out," that the con- sequences of evil acts inevitably work themselves out to the bitter end — as, obversely, the con- sequences of righteous acts cannot be arbitrarily checked. But this does not in itself constitute the order of Nature moral. The morality lies, not in the world-order, but in that higher personal relationship to which natural order only gives the means of expression. (2) Neither, on the other hand, has "stream of tendency" any moral implications, if regarded 1 For a succinct account of Fichte's views, see Pneiderer's Philo- sophy of Religion, vol. i. (Eng. transl.), pp. 275-301. See, also, Pro- fessor Seth's Hegelianism and Personality, lecture ii. 396 Ethical Theism : Conscience — metaphysical. as impersonal. It has only then a just meaning when conceived as expressive of the ascertained drift of men's conjoint actions, guided by an Idea, and determined by a preconceived end. It is a felicitous expression for God's moral government of the world, so far as men hare been able to discover it in actual experience, and might very well stand as the motto for a philosophy of history. But it is not adequate, nor is it even felicitous, if the implication of "God" and "government" be removed from it. Moral tendencies are, indeed, all that we can discern in the history of the race ; but a " stream of tendency," if it flow at all, must come from somewhere and be going somewhither. It is needless to say, further, that neither a moral order nor a stream of tendency could enlist the highest religious veneration, nor satisfy the deepest devotional feelings of mankind. We may admire " order," or we may submit to it, but we could not worship it ; nor would our worship be very real, or very lasting, if the object of it were merely a flowing " stream". Worship can be real and lasting only when we have a definite conception of the goal towards which the stream is tending.1 X. Historical. I conclude with a reference to the history of Ethical Theism. 1 See, also, lecture vi. pp. 239, 240. History of Ethical Theism. 397 1. The feeling of the connexion between ethics and religion must have been a very old one in the history of mankind ; but it comes first into promin- ence in the monotheistic faiths, — which is the same thing as saying that it is distinctively Semitic. We saw, in Lecture II., how the Hebrew Scriptures represent it ; and -we saw there, too, the precise attitude of Christianity. It is hardly necessary to add that Mahometanism follows, in this respect, the Hebrew and the Christian teaching. Consider- ing its origin, it could not do otherwise. The God of the Koran is characterized by high moral attributes, and He is set forth as man's future Judge, who will reward every one according to his deserts. 2. But Tragic Poetry agrees, in this point, with monotheistic religion. In ancient Greek tragedy — as seen, for instance, in JEschylus, — the workings of conscience are in- separably bound up with the retributive justice of the gods. The "unbending moral order "that is there disclosed as ruling in the lives of men, is a moral order essentially divine. Remove the divine side of it, and the merely moral side lapses or be- comes inexplicable. Men are under the supremacy of Zeus, and it is the will of Zeus that ultimately comes to pass ; and although, by an unfelt contra- diction, iEschylus says, in one place, that — 398 Ethical Theism, : Conscience — metaphysical. Forthwith to mortals God invents a cause, Whene'er He wills their dwellings to destroy, — he more generally, and of set purpose, represents the divine vengeance as the direct result of man's guilt. He does also, in several of his plays, clearly bring out the humane end of punishment, and relieves the sternness of Justice by ultimately un- folding the Mercy it enwraps. Thus does iEschyhis blend ethics with religion, and appeal to the one— in the only way that a tragic poet can — as the justification of the other. Sophocles is in nowise different ; except that, with him, the humane side of the Deity comes into greater prominence. But what is true of iEschylus and Sophocles is true of all great tragic poets — ancient and modern alike. It is truest of all of Shakespeare. Tragedy could never have had existence, had man's life been looked upon as merely under the sway of blind Force ; or had the hardships and calamities of human life been regarded apart from any moral import. Mere irresistible misfortune, or crushing disaster, severed from Divine end, might indeed appal us ; but it could not impress us with the true tragic sentiment. In tragedy, there must be a fulfilment of the oracle of the gods, and such a fulfilment as brings out some ethical aspect of life's experiences. The Tragic Poets. 399 3. Not yet, however, have we arrived at the philosophic formulating of the theistic implications of the conscience : neither religion nor tragic poetry gives us that. Perhaps, the germ of it is to be found in Socrates. His teaching, in the Memorabilia, about the "oracles" of the gods as intended to guide men as to what they ought and what they ought not to do ; his insistence on the true meaning of man's persuasion of the ability of the gods to make him happy or miserable ; his solemn exhortation to his friends to purity of life, both in public and in private, on the plea of God's omnipresence and omniscience ; his claim, in the Apologia, of Divine sanction to his own philosophizing, and his defini- tion of that philosophizing as the effort to incul- cate virtue on the Athenians, — all seem to point in that direction. Again, we have seen x the high Ethical conception of the Deity entertained by Plato, and the Platonic doctrine of man's kinship to God through holy living. But the Moral argument, as explicitly stated, comes much later. It is scarcely even mediaeval. For, although great interest attaches to the doc- trine of conscience laid down by Abselard, in the twelfth century, and, again, to the ethical teaching 1 Lecture II. 400 Ethical Theism : Conscience — metaphysical. of St. Thomas, as given in the second part of his Summa Theologies, in the thirteenth century, neither of these illustrious thinkers does more than indicate the intimate connexion between Ethics and Theology, and prepare the way for theism on the basis of the conscience. If, as Dr. Hutchison Stirling reminds us,1 there was really no veritable " Natural Theology " " till the work expressly so named" by Raymund of Sabunde, this dates our argument from the middle of the fifteenth century of our era. Raymund laid particular stress on the fact of retribution, and therefrom extracted the necessity of God's existence and of a future life. The name, however, of greatest influence, in Britain and throughout the English-speaking world, was that of Butler ; and Kant is the modern starting-point, on the same lines, in Ger- many. To Butler, Conscience was "divine reason," "naturally and always of course going on to antici- pate a higher and more effectual sentence, which shall hereafter second and affirm its own " ; and, to Kant, the Practical Reason demanded the Deity as a postulate. Fichte endeavoured to adapt the view to pantheism ; Wordsworth, in his Ode to Duty, gave it enduring expression in poetry ; and the Christian setting of it, in its most perfect form, was reserved for Cardinal Newman. Said Newman, 1 Gifford Lectures, p. 24. Recent Ethicists. 401 in one of the finest passages in the English tongue : " Conscience is not a long-sighted selfishness, nor a desire to be consistent with oneself; but it is a messenger from Him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by His representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ, a prophet in its informations, a monarch in its peremptoriness, a priest in its blessings and anathemas " (A Letter Addressed to Ids Grace the Duke of Norfolk, p. 57). Page after page might be filled with the names of theologians and of philosophers who, since Butler's day, or since Kant's day, have accepted the moral argument, with such additions or modifications as seemed to each to be necessary. The following at once occur to the mind : — Ulrici, Trendelenburg, Lotze ; Kothe, Dorner, Schenkel ; Martensen, Van Oosterzee ; Vinet, Janet ; Chan- ning, M'Cosh ; Sir William Hamilton, Chalmers, Tulloch, Flint ; Sumner, Mansel, Whewell, Bishop Ellicott, Dr. W. G. Ward, Dr. Martineau, and the author of Agnostic Faith. Detailed consideration is here impossible. But it may be well to indicate, in a few sentences, the leading points that mark the lines of cleavage among the foregoing writers as ethical theists. They have reference to three allied questions : — first, the exact relation between ethics and religion ; 26 402 Ethical Theism: Conscience — metaphysical. secondly, the place or importance of the moral argument, as compared with other theistic evidence afforded by human nature ; thirdly, the question of priority as between ethics and religion. As to the first of these questions, many have held, with Butler, that religion and morality, though intimately associated, are, nevertheless, distinct — there is something in the former over and above what is given by the latter ; many, on the other hand, have maintained, with Kant, that religion is nothing but a kind of morality. As to the second question, a large section of thinkers accept the moral argument as one — an important one — among several ; a smaller section (represented in this country by Sir William Hamilton, for instance) regard it as the only valid argument. As to the third question, Schenkel held that we must begin with religion, for conscience is ethically meaningless till we have experienced a conscious falling away from communion with God ; the vast majority reverse the statement and maintain that religion itself is ethically meaningless except on the presupposition of conscience, as consciousness of moral law. LECTURE XL INTELLECTUAL THEISM : LOGICAL AND ANALYTIC. In approaching the intellectual side of the Theistic idea, it will be well to commence with a consideration of the great historical attempts of the human mind to reach the Deity by logical effort. These are usually known as the theistic " proofs," — drawn respectively from Design, Caus- ality, and Mental Conception ; each necessarily fragmentary, but yet held to be satisfactory, if restricted to its own point of view. I. The first of these is the Teleological Argu- ment, or Argument from Design. This argument is pre-eminently the popular one, and was, accordingly, in point of history, first in the field ; although it would be difficult to say when or with whom it actually originated. In the Hebrew Psalms, we know that the heavens are set forth as declaring the glory of God and the firmament as showing His handiwork ; and this language represents a religious mood that must (403) 404 Intellectual Theism : Logical and Analytic. have been very early. We know, also, that Pythag- oras, among the Greeks, was the first to view the world as an ordered whole — a cosmos ; and that his philosophy dealt much with harmony and numbers. But the distinct formulating of the religious experience and of the intellectual appre- hension of harmony in Nature as a theistic proof comes to us later. It is doubtful whether it can be traced to Anaxagoras. No doubt, the sage of Clazomeme was among the first to recognize with any vividness that Not)? or Mind is the ruling prin- ciple in the universe ; but whether this intelligence or mind was regarded by him as a Divine Provi- dence is questionable. The theistic step, however, was definitely taken by Socrates, and taken on teleo- logical grounds; and so, with him, practically, the argument from design or from final causes (in Aristotelian phrase) arose. His position, as given by Xenophon in the Memorabilia, was this : — " As we know our own mind by its operations, so we know God by His works. As we infer the ex- istence of the artist from his work of art, so we infer from the world as a work of art, and, more particularly, from organized beings as living struc- tures, whose parts all minister to the good of the whole, the existence of the Divine Artist — of an intelligent designing Author or Artificer." This reasoning was accepted by Aristotle, and passed Teleology in Early Times. 405 on to the Greek Schools. It was taken up, elabor- ated, and eloquently expounded in Rome by Cicero, was dwelt upon with satisfaction by Seneca, and became the leading intellectual argument for the Divine existence in the Latin world. In Christen- dom, we find it occupying a prominent place in the writings of the early Apologists (Marcus Minutius Felix, etc.) ; and it was a prime favourite with the Church Fathers, both of the East and of the West, In Scholastic days, it still commanded respect; though, from the time of St. Anselm, it was overshadowed by the ontological argument. Frequently, indeed, in all ages, we find dissentients from it : it did not rule unquestioned. Epicurus in ancient Greece, Lucretius in Home, and, speaking broadly, the Atomic and Epicurean philosophers generally, regarded it as vicious. But, practically, it held its own till the time of Descartes and Bacon, who, though themselves theists, banished teleology from the region of Science ; 1 and Spinoza is generally credited with having finally disposed of it in Philo- sophy. This, however, did not prevent Kant, later on, from first accepting the argument and 1 See Descartes's Meditations, iv., and Principles of Philosophy, i. '2,8. For an account of Bacon's attitude towards Final Causes, see Professor Fowler's Introduction to his edition of Bacon's Novum Urganum, pp. 63-68 ; and for a clear, though brief, criticism of the teleological argument from the side of Logic, see Professor Fowler's Inductive Logic, 4th edition, pp. 888-852. 406 Intellectual Theism: Logical and Analytic. then disowning it, though always speaking of it with respect ; and when, in last century, the Deistic tide set in so strongly in Great Britain, and David Hume became the terror of all who rested simply in unreasoned convictions, not only did theologians like Paley come forward to stem the current with a Natural Theology on purely teleo- logical lines, but philosophers like Reid refurbished the old weapons and tried to put a new edge on them. The necessity became greatest as the century drew near its close ; for, then the French Revolution was in full swing, and religiously minded people were driven, perforce, to find a popular basis for Theism, which had been so violently outraged. This accounts for the pro- minent place given to Natural Theology by Dugald Stewart in his Moral Philosophy Lectures, and points to one ground of the widespread influence exerted by that eloquent Scottish Professor. But the British intellect is essentially practical and es- sentially concrete. Hence a further reason for our nation's special and continued favour for reasoning that traced the Deity in the works of Nature. Even Scotland, with its reputation for a love of meta- physics, has been always characterized by cautious sense, — which has been interpreted as a synonym for distrust of speculation and distaste for what is visionary and impracticable. Hence, Dr. Thomas Teleology in Recent Times. 407 Brown, the successor of Dugald Stewart in the Moral Philosophy Chair in Edinburgh, pinned his philosophic faith in Theism on the argument from Design, and vigorously maintained that this is the only valid argument, and that all others are mere scholastic jargon. He said : — " God, and the world which He has formed— these are our great objects. Everything which we strive to place between these is nothing. We see the universe, and, seeing it, we believe in its Maker. It is the universe, therefore, which is our argument, and our only argument ; and, as it is powerful to convince us, God is, or is not, an object of our belief. . . . My last Lecture, Gentlemen, was employed in considering the evidence which the frame of nature exhibits, of the being of its divine Author. Of this there appears to me to be only one argument which can produce conviction, but that an argument so irresistible, as to correspond, in its influence on the mind, with the power of him whose existence it forces even the most reluctant to acknowledge. The arguments commonly termed metaphysical, on this subject, I have always re- garded as absolutely void of force, unless in as far as they proceed on a tacit assumption of the phy- sical argument ; and, indeed, it seems to me no small corroborative proof of the force of this phy- sical argument, that its remaining impression on our 408 Intellectual Theism: Logical and Analytic. mind lias been sufficient to save us from any doubt as to that existence, which the obscure and laborious reasonings a priori, in support of it, would have led us to doubt rather than to believe " (Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, xcii., xciii.). It is hardly necessary that I should mention in this connexion the Bridgewater Treatises, or the Burnett Prize Essays, or Professor Flint's Baird Lectures: these will occur to every one. Dr. Martineau's Study of Religion, too, and Dr. Hutchi- son Stirling's Gifford Lectures are too recent to need to be more than named. But it may not be amiss if I point out that Aberdeen has always been noted for its attachment to this particular argu- ment ; beginning with Dr. Thomas Reid, and coming down, through a long line of eminent moral philosophers and natural theologians — Dr. John Gregory,1 Principal George Campbell, Beattie, Professor Duncan Mearns,2 Professor Robert Macpherson, Professor Samuel Trail, — till we reach the subtle and sagacious Principal Pirie, who, however, saw, with that dialectical acuteness which characterized him, the weak points in the ordinary modes of putting the reasoning.3 1 See his Comparative View of the State and Facilities of Man, with those of the Animal World. 2 See his Principles of Christian Evidence. 3 See his Natural Theology, and the posthumous work published last year (1892) from his MSS., entitled The God of Reason and Revelation. Socrates. 409 Yet, cherished though the Design argument has been, it is not at this moment so general a favourite, either among philosophers or divines, whether here or elsewhere, as it formerly was. The spread and deepening of the scientific spirit has effected that, But it has been effected, also, by a growing philosophical insight, with the consequent conviction that, as a proof of the Divine existence, the argument is not con- clusive. We shall now see how, from the point of view of criticism, the matter stands. 1. Arguing from the structure of living organ- ized beings, such as man, whose parts minister to the wants of the whole, Socrates, in the Memor- abilia, based his reasoning on the principle that " whatever exists for a use is the work of intelli- gence " ; and the conclusion to be drawn from the argumentation was precisely that which was de- duced by Aristodemus, — " The more I consider it, the more evident it appears to me, that man must be the masterpiece of some great artificer, carrying along with it infinite marks of the love and favour of Him who hath thus formed it ". The Socratic principle extended also to Nature, and embraced within its sphere " this stupendous universe, with all the various bodies contained therein, equally 410 Intellectual Theism: Logical and Analytic. amazing, whether we consider their magnitude or number ". (1) Now, in the first place, the whole question as to the value of the fundamental principle here stated rests upon what is signified by the phrase " existing for a use " (ra en co^)e\eia yiyvoixfa). Does it merely mean "serving a purpose"? Then, the validity of this general principle may very justly be disputed ; for, many things are serviceable to us that cannot be affirmed to have been brought into existence for the very purpose of this service. Reasoning from "uses" may land us in triviality ; and Hegel has very properly warned us against " first of all treating of the vine solely in reference to the well-known uses which it confers upon man, and then proceeding to view the cork-tree in connexion with the corks which we cut from its bark to put into the wine-bottles " (The Logic of Hegel, Wallace, § 205). Or, does the phrase mean, "Designedly brought into existence for the very use that we see the thing serving " ? Then, here you presuppose a knowledge of Nature's uses that is only com- patible with the supposition that you first know God and are acquainted with His purposes, or, at any rate, are certain that, in all the uses that things in Nature serve, He has a purpose : in other words, you start with taking for granted the Divine exist- The Artificer Conception. 411 ence, which it is your object in the argument to prove. (2) But, next, the representation here given of God is that of an artist or artificer shaping or moulding a given material — a mere Demiurge, working at the universe according to a Divine pattern, such as we see in the Timaeus of Plato. He is, moreover, only a finite and imperfect artist, for Haws and imperfections mar the work. Nor will it avail to say, that these flaws or imperfec- tions are only apparent, — that, if we knew all, they would be seen to be no imperfections. For, then, we lay ourselves open to the retort that, if that were so, it may be argued on similar grounds that the so-called perfections may turn out to be no perfections : if we knew all, we should discern them to be very faulty. The appeal to our ignor- ance, under the seemingly modest phrase " if we knew all," is quite inadmissible in an argument that proposes to reason merely from what we see and find. But, worst of all, the Artificer conception is not one that modern science can countenance. Evolution forbids it. Nature is a process, a de- velopment ; and it is felt that the hard and fast lines of a definitely fixed mechanism would not give scope for the energies that we actually find at work. Teleology there is ; but it is inherent, 412 Intellectual Theism : Logical and Analytic. not extraneous. As Leibniz clearly saw, " every- thing has its end just in its own nature, and realizes it by developing its own constitution. And the end of the world as a whole lies in nothing but the greatest possible sum of the per- fection, or inner conformity to their ends, of all its parts" (Pfleiderer, The Philosophy of Religion, Eng. transl, vol. i. p. 94). And Lotze, in times nearer our own, has perhaps done more than any other man (especially in bk. iv. of his Mikrokosmus), to give just philosophical expression to the idea of teleology in Nature. 2. Let us, then, select another typical way of putting the argument, and see if it fares better. Reid formulates it thus :— "The argument from final causes, when reduced to a syllogism, has these two premises : First, That design and intelligence in the cause, may, with certainty, be inferred from marks or signs of it in the effect. This is the principle we have been considering, and we may call it the major pro- position of the argument. The second, which we call the minor proposition, is, That there are in fact the clearest marks of design and wisdom in the works of nature ; and the conclusion is, That the works of nature are the effects of a wise and in- telligent Cause" (Jteid's Works, pp. 4(5()/> and461#). Reid and Paley. 413 Reid's major premiss has been otherwise ex- pressed. Paley and many besides say : " Con- trivance must have a contriver ; design implies a designer ". Now, Reid's argument may readily be ac- / quiesced in, if only he satisfy us on two points : if, first, he prove to us that the world is an effect ; and if, secondly, he supply us with some means of determining what in the world, what " in the works of nature," are marks of design, and what not. But just here lies the difficulty. Apart from the first condition (which, however, is a most im- portant one), we naturally ask, regarding the second : Is every mere adjustment of means to an end a mark of design ? or, are only certain kinds of adjustment marks of design — such adjustments, for instance, as we find from experience result from human skill or contrivance ? or, is it only adjustment on the vast scale that is suitable for the teleological argument ? Plainly, not all adjustments of means to ends, not all adaptations of things to uses, bespeak de- sign— that is, bespeak conscious or intended pur- pose. Here is a huge boulder, with a large cleft in it, resting on the ground ; and overhanging it is a tree, from which the wind wrenches a branch, and, dashing it with great force into the cleft, rivets it so tightly there as to make the branch 414 Intellectual Theism : Logical and Analytic. thus riveted a useful pole from which to suspend a child's swing. Are we to maintain that this perfect adjustment of stone and branch to the use made of it is a mark of purpose or design, is an index of intelligence, a proof of objective mind ? Here, again, is a torrent rushing vehemently down a mountain side and cutting for itself a channel in the earth. Where is the evidence of conscious purpose or design ? Not every adjustment of means to ends is significant of design. At what point, then, is our argument to begin ? There are unintended adaptations in Nature, or adaptations from which we are not at liberty to infer conscious intention. On what grounds are we to determine the adaptations that are legitimate to our argument, and those that are not ? X I can imagine only two such grounds. Either, first, we are to use none of Nature's adaptations save such as are analogous to adaptations made con- sciously by ourselves, and which, from our own experience, we know to be significant of conscious purpose; or, secondly, we are to throw the emphasis upon the vastness and complexity of Nature's adaptations, and maintain that this is such as cannot be accounted for by mere Chance. The first of these grounds is not very satisfac- tory : we need some specific test to tide us over the difficulties that meet us in practical detail. Criticised. 415 The cleft of the rock that riveted the wind-tossed branch of the tree might have been made by human hand : we, not imfrequently, see men cleaving rocks for various purposes. And man might have placed the riveted branch in the cleft, with the very object of using it as the point of support for the child's swing : that is only similar to what we see him doing every day. t/ The stress of the argument, then, must be placed upon the second of the two grounds ; and then the reasoning becomes an application of the mathematical doctrine of Chances. The criticism may be put in another form. Design certainly implies a designer, or marks of design in the effect prove design in the cause. That every one must grant. But, then, we have given our adherence to a mere tautological ex- pression; for "design" means just such works, and such only, as a designer effects, and an " effect " presupposes a sufficient cause. And this does not help us in any degree towards ascertaining whether Nature does actually show marks of design. All that you can legitimately reason regarding the world and design is, That, if God is the ^Author of the world, then the world must be such as we should expect from work emanating from the Supreme Wisdom. And if, on examination, we find it to be such, that is 416 Intellectual Theism : Logical and Analytic. corroborative of Theism, but is no primary "proof" of God's being. 3. Perhaps, it will be different, if we take a third typical form of the argument,— the form in which it is presented to us by Principal Tulloch in his Burnett Prize Treatise, and endorsed by Professor Flint in his Theism. Says Principal Tulloch (p. 12) :- " The theistic argument may be syllogistically expressed as follows, in a form which appears to us at once simple and free from ambiguity — viz., First, or major premiss, Order universally proves Mind. Second, or minor premiss, The works of Nature discover Order. Conclusion, The works of Nature prove Mind." Now, the advantages in this mode of statement seem to be various. In the first place, by using the word " Order " in the major premiss instead of Design, and "Mind " instead of Cause or Designer, the proposition is saved from being obviously tautological. In the next place, by using " order,' rather than " causation " or " design," you remove the burden of proof from the minor premiss to the major ; for, however much people may dispute as Principal Tulloch. -J- 17 to whether the works of Nature really discover design, few will deny that they exhibit order. Lastly, the externality of the Designer, as of a demiurge or artificer, is, in this form of the argu- ment, got rid of.1 But, notwithstanding these advantages, the demonstration is not without its difficulties. For, what is Order ? and, can we say that Order is universally the correlate of Mind ? By Order is meant either (1) adjustment of parts, adaptation of means to ends ; or (2) law (in the scientific sense of that term), regularity of arrangement and occurrence. But, if so, does this necessarily or universally involve Mind ? Our former example of the Boulder and the Branch comes back to us and necessitates an answer in the negative, so far as the first meaning of Order is concerned. In that instance, there is no implication of Mind, — except it be the mind of the person looking at the boulder and the branch, or of the person thinking of it or utilizing it. There is no implication of objective mind. And unless objective mind be involved, the argument for theistic purposes is useless. But is it different with the second meaning ? 1 This would have met with the approval of Tennyson, who is recently reported to have said : "I do not like such a word as design to be applied to the Creator of all these worlds, it makes him seem a mere artificer " (Contemporary Review, March, 1893, p. 395). 27 418 Intellectual Theism: Logical and Analytic. Nature is indeed uniform; we can see that it is a system. But it was just this fact of system (the reign of law) that led Spinoza to exclude the idea of a personal God from it, and that seemed to confirm the doctrine of pantheism. Moreover, Order, though a mark of Mind, cannot be dogmati- cally asserted to be the property of Mind alone ; and, even if intelligence be granted as the exclusive correlate of order, we are yet a long way from the demonstration of the unity of the ordering; intelli- gence. There is nothing absurd in supposing that the cosmos may be the result of a conclave of intelligences, just as the Government of Britain is the product of the combined wisdom of a Parlia- ment. The Order argument is not incompatible with a polytheistic conclusion ; only, the gods, in so far as the order discernible in the world is con- cerned, are shown to act in unison. Yea, where discord, jarring, imperfection, maladjustment are apparent, there, it may be maintained, we have the marks of a compromise between conflicting intelli- gences and so a clear argument for polytheism.1 Nor, once more, can the intelligence discoverable in the world be shown to be more than finite, and there is unquestionable force in Hume's contention (though we might word it more carefully) : " The 1 The case as against polytheism is psychological, and has been stated in lecture vi., in connexion with the " Unity " of God. Meanings of Order. 419 cause must be proportioned to the effect ; and if we exactly and precisely proportion it, we shall never find in it any qualities that point farther, or afford an inference concerning any other design or performance. Such qualities must be somewhat beyond what is merely requisite for producing the effect, which we examine " (Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, section xi.). The only kind of Order that necessarily impli- cates objective Mind is moral order ; for, here " order " means Law, not in the scientific sense of mere uniformity or regularity of occurrence, but in the juridical sense of authority — of binding command issuing from a lawgiver. But, then, the argument passes beyond theology, and enters the sphere of Ethics ; where we have already considered it (see Lecture x.). " What, then, after all this criticism," it may be asked, " is the value of the Design Argument ? or has it any value at all?" Yes, it has a value. It aims at expressing the immanence of the Deity in the world, His permeating presence in the uni- verse. Where it fails is, in attempting to demon- strate this immanence syllogistically. Such a mode of proof is impossible. We start from the idea of immanence, given in theism as based in human nature, and should simply claim to illustrate 420 Intellectual Theism: Logical and Analytic. it from the world, — to illustrate and to enrich it, That there is a meaning in Nature is, in the first instance, taken for granted ; and the duty of the teleologist is to spell out this meaning, and his success must be the justification of his procedure. The necessary presupposition is that, if the world were not first interpretable by thought, it could never be seen to have its being in thought. II. The next of the so-called theistic "proofs" is the Cosmological Argument. The experiences which this argument claims to formulate are such as must have been coeval with man, though the argument itself is comparatively recent, We have not to live long in the world till we find that all things here are full of change, that experienced facts begin to be and cease, that life itself is evanescent and " nothing continueth in one stay ". And the longer we live, and the wider our knowledge, the more strongly is this impression borne home upon us. This has been eloquently put by Professor Hux- ley (following Heracleitus), in his Romanes Lecture, delivered at Oxford a few months ago. " As no man fording a swift stream," he says, " can dip his foot twice into the same water, so no man can, with exactness, affirm of anything in the sensible The Cosrnological Argument. 421 world that it is. As he utters the words, nay, as he thinks them, the predicate ceases to be appli- cable ; the present has become the past ; the ' is ' should be ' was '. And the more we learn of the nature of things, the more evident is it that what we call rest is only unperceived activity ; that seeming peace is silent but strenuous battle. In every part, at every moment, the state of the cos- mos is the expression of a transitory adjustment of contending forces ; a scene of strife, in which all the combatants fell in turn. What is true of each part, is true of the whole. Natural knowledge tends more and more to the conclusion that 'all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth ' are the transitory forms of parcels of cosmic substance wending along the road of evolution, from nebulous potentiality, through endless growths of sun and planet and satellite; through all varieties of matter; through infinite diversities of life and thought; possibly, through modes of being of which we neither have a conception, nor are competent to form any, back to the undefinable latency from which they arose. Thus the most obvious attribute of the cosmos is its impermanence " (Evolution and Ethics, p. 4). At the same time, along with this conviction of the impermanence of the things of sense and the fleetingness of the experiences of life, is begotten 422 Intellectual Theism : Logical and Analytic. dissatisfaction with the impermanent and the fugitive. But this just means that man's nature craves for something that is permanent and change- less and wholly satisfying ; and, as this craving is a "natural want," in the sense that we have already defined natural wants (see Lecture v.), this means, not only that man finds satisfaction in God, but also that his theistic longing could not have arisen apart from Him. This is precisely the doctrine of the psy- chological basis of theism that it has been the pur- pose of these lectures to maintain and to develop. But thinkers have submitted the foregoing experiences to the logical understanding, and have tried to throw them into syllogistic form, — thereby weakening their force and detracting from their value. Sometimes they have reasoned, " The world is an effect and presupposes a cause ; there- fore, God exists ". At other times they have said, " I myself am and began to be ; therefore, God, as Supreme intelligence and power, exists ". Still again they have argued, " Since something now is, it is manifest that something always was ". The first of these modes of arguing is Hobbes's. In the passage already quoted from his treatise on Human Nature, we heard him saying:1 "The effects we acknowledge naturally, do include a power of 1 See Lecture iii. pp. 103, 104. Hobbes, Locke, Clarke, Grotius. 423 their producing, before they were produced ; and that power presupposeth something existent that hath such a power : and the thing so existing with power to produce, if it were not eternal, must needs have been produced by somewhat before it, and- that again by something else before that, till we come to an eternal (that is to say the first) Power of all powers, and first Cause of all causes : and this it is which all men conceive by the name of God, implying eternity, incomprehensibility, and omnipotency ". The second mode of statement is Locke's. In book iv., chapter x., of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, he lays down the position that " man knows that he himself is ". Then, com- bining this with the further position that " he knows also that Nothing cannot produce a Being," he reaches the conclusion that there must be "Something eternal". But this "Something eter- nal" must also be "most powerful" and "most knowing," otherwise he could not be the source of all imparted power and of man's knowledge. " Thus, from the consideration of ourselves, and what we infallibly find in our own constitutions, our reason leads us to the knowledge of this certain and evident truth, that there is an eternal, most powerful and most knowing being, which whether any one will please to call God, it matters 4*24 Intellectual Theism : Logical and Analytic. not ; the thing is evident, and from this idea duly considered, will easily be deduced all those other attributes, which we ought to ascribe to this eternal being." The third formula is given us by Samuel Clarke. Other modes of expression, from Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas downwards, or, farther back, from Aristotle1 downwards (not forgetting, as we reach modern times, Leibniz, Wolff, Cousin), might be noted ; but it is unnecessary to multiply examples. 2 This however, from Hugo Grotius, may be adduced as a final instance : — " That there are some Things which had a Beginning, is confessed on all Sides, and obvious to Sense : But these Things could not be the Cause of their own Existence ; because that which has no Being, can- not act; for then it would have been before it was, which is impossible ; whence it follows, that it derived its Being from something else : Which is true not only of those Things which are now before our Eyes, or which we have formerly beheld ; but also of those out of which these have arisen, 1 Aristotle, indeed, is practically the originator of the argument. See his declaration about the Prime Mover of the universe, as given in Lecture ii. p. 46. " Reference may be made to Canon Mozley's Lecture on The Principle of Causation Considered in Opposition to A theistic Theories, and to the chapter on "The First Cause" in Professor Calderwood's Handbook of Moral Philosophy. Criticism. 425 and so on, till we arrive at some Cause, which never had any Beginning, but exists (as we say) necessarily, and not by Accident, and this Being, whatsoever it be (of whom we shall speak more fully by and by), is what we mean by the Deity, or God" {The Truth of the Christian Religim, bk. i. sect. 2, translated by Dean Clarke of Sarum). Now, clearly, this mode of reasoning is not free from objection. In the first place, it is not well to start (as Hobbes does) with the assumption that the world is an effect. All that is given in experi- ence is the world's changeableness, and its inability to satisfy man's deepest wants. In the next place, the argument is from a finite effect to an infinite1" Cause : in other words, the reasoning is vitiated by having more affirmed in the conclusion than is legitimated by the premisses. When it is said, " Something now is, therefore something has al- ways been," the reply is ready, " Yes, but what prevents this something that now is from having itself always been ? The eternity of the world has been maintained by many philosophers ; and, un- deterred by the mental incapacity to think an infinite regress, many of our modern savants find the permanent and the eternal in the World- process — a process ever-changeful, 'in which nought endures save the flow of energy and the rational 4*26 Intellectual Theism : Logical and Analytic. order which pervades it '. But, even if the some- thing that now is be admitted to have had a be- ginning, its existence does not imply any further cause than just what was adequate to its produc- tion ; if the effect be finite, the cause need not be other than finite." Still again, the conception of L^ God that this argumentation yields is simply that of a First Cause, as external Creator — such a God as Aristotle himself acknowledged, outside the world, and, perhaps, like the gods of Epicurus, not interest- ing Himself in its destiny. Hence, by a kind of unconscious propriety, the Causality argument for the Divine existence was the favourite one, if not the sole one, with the Deists of last cen- tury. Instinctively they gravitated towards the kind of reasoning that best suited their theistic notion. But, now, there is a truth that the Cosmological argument seeks, though it fails to give it felicitous form. We have here the assertion of the transcend- ence of God, — of the fact that the Deity is greater than the universe ; that the world is dependent on Him ; that materialism is inadequate as a full ex- planation of existence ; that matter cannot be 1 The difficulties that Materialism has to encounter will be found clearly stated in Principal Caird's Introduction to the Philosophy of Re- ligion (chap, iv.), and in Professor Flint's Anti-Theistic Theories. True Value of the Argument. 427 interpreted in terms of itself, but requires the media- tion of a higher category, — viz., Active Reason. In this light, its value is great. It may be taken along with the teleological argument — it must be so taken, as transcendence and immanence go to- gether,— and each may be viewed as indicating, in a fratmientarv manner, the materials suitable for filling up our idea of God. In this way, the two give richness and content to the theistic conception, though they do not achieve a logical demonstration of God. They are simply attempts at definition— inadequate, of course, as all such attempts must be, dealing with an exhaustless Object ; but serving a great and useful purpose, and even necessary, if we are to steady our thoughts on the Divine Being at all. St. Paul saw this, when he rebuked pagan antiquity for the debased character of its religion. He did not accuse the Gentiles, least of all the Greek and Roman heathen, of being ignorant of God. On the contrary, he acknowledged that they possessed the idea of Him. But what he blamed them for was their failure to fill in the idea with a worthier content, — which they might very well have done, if only they had cared ; " for," said he, " the in- visible things of Him, since the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even His everlasting power and divinity " (Romans, i. *20). 428 Intellectual Theism : Logical and Analytic. III. We now reach the last of the three "proofs,"- the Ontological Argument. This argument, which infers from our concep- tion of God to His actual being, may be said to have originated in the eleventh century of our era with St. Anselm, though the germ of it may perhaps be found in Plato. It is the least popular of the proofs. Even Aquinas seems not to have taken to it ; and Bishop Ellicott, in our own day, omits it from his treatment of Theism, remarking : " I must candidly own that, to my own mind, it has never seemed to carry that conviction which, I well know, it carries to many. I have therefore deemed it best to leave it on one side " [Six Addresses on the Being of God, p. 27 n.). It is, doubtless, one of those arguments that Dr. Thomas Brown, in the passage quoted at the beginning of this lecture, termed "metaphysical" and " a priori" and of which he said that they are so laborious and obscure that their tendency is to create doubt in us, instead of confirming faith.1 Not so, however, did it appear to St. Anselm, and to many of those tough thinkers, the Scholastics, 1 For an interesting account of the various a priori arguments, see lecture ix. of Professor Flint's Theism, with the relevant notes in the Appendix : also, Dr. Cazenove's Historic Aspects of the a priori Argument Concerning the Being and Attributes of God. Ontological Argument. 4:29 who fed for centuries upon the food with which St. Anselm and kindred geniuses supplied them. Not so did it appear to Descartes, who, though throw- ing out more proofs of the Divine existence than one, nevertheless gave this as his main proof. Not so does it appear to a section of philosophers at the present day who are not afraid of metaphysics, but who are prepared to speculate with a boldness to which Descartes's ventures are timidity itself. 1. It was St. Anselm's reasoning, in the Pros- logion, That, as our idea of God is the idea of the greatest than whom nothing greater can be con- ceived, this implies His real as well as His ideal existence, for a God that had not real existence would fall short of our idea of God (which includes real existence), and so our idea of the absolutely greatest would be met by an idea of a greater still, — which is absurd. One suspects that, whatever force this argument ever possessed lay, not in the reasoning, but in the philosophical doctrine of Realism, which St. Anselm and his age accepted. But, certainly, as a logical argument, it is the merest sophistry. There is no real proof here, or necessary deduction from premisses. All that we can say is, that, given God, and then it follows that He is " that than which nothing greater can be conceived". But in this 430 Intellectual Theism : Logical and Analytic. we have simply a definition of God, not a demon- stration of His existence.1 2. Improving upon St. Anselm, Descartes argued " that we may validly infer the existence of God from necessary existence being comprised in the concept we have of Him ". "When," he said, "the mind afterwards reviews the different ideas that are in it, it discovers what is by far the chief among them — that of a Being omniscient, all-powerful, and absolutely perfect ; and it observes that in this idea there is contained not only possible and contingent existence, as in the ideas of all other things which it clearly per- ceives, but existence absolutely necessary and eternal. And just as because, for example, the equality of its three angles to two right angles is necessarily comprised in the idea of a triangle, the mind is firmly persuaded that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles ; so, from its perceiving necessary and eternal existence to be comprised in the idea which it has of an all-perfect Being, it ought manifestly to conclude that this all- perfect Being exists " (The Principles of Philosophy \ Part I., sect, xiv., Professor Veitch's transl.). 1 For a more lucid summary of the Proslogion than what is usually found in histories of philosophy, see Maurice's Mediceval Philosophy. chapter iii. For suggestive criticism of St. Anselm's position, see Ueberweg's History of Philosophy. Eng. transl., vol. i. pp. 381-386. St. Anselm and Descartes. 431 Now, there does, certainly, seem to be here a leap from subjective to objective existence — an inferring of the real from the ideal ; and then the objection is valid, that we cannot infer from our having the idea of a golden mountain that such a mountain actually exists. All that we can say is, that, //'God exists, the perfection that is found in my idea of Him must pertain to Him. But that does not prove His existence. No argument from the mere definition of God is valid, until you have first taken for granted His existence (real, and not merely ideal). Once given the existence, you may then, from the definition, argue its character and nature (precisely as is done by Descartes in the example from mathematics of the triangle with its angles) ; but, without the existence being presup- posed, your determination of its character and nature, after the analogy of mathematics, is fal- lacious. No mathematical triangle really exists in our experience : all actual triangles are merely approximations to the ideal. And not Descartes himself ventures to infer the actual existence of the mathematical triangle from our conception of it ; he simply asserts the mind's firm persuasion of the equality of the three angles of a triangle to two right angles, from the fact that this equality is necessarily comprised in the idea of it. Nor are we greatly helped, if we take the 432 Intellectual Theism: Logical and Analytic. argument as expressed in another shape. In the Meditations, Descartes reasons that whatever reality is in the effect must be also in the cause. But I have in me the idea of God as a perfect Being. This is an effect, which must have a cause. But I myself cannot be the cause of it, for I am finite and imperfect. It follows, therefore, that the cause of it is God. His own words are : — " By the name God, I understand a substance, infinite, [eternal, immutable], independent, all- knowing, all-powerful, and by which I myself, and every other thing that exists, if any such there be, were created. But these properties are so great and excellent, that the more attentively I consider them the less I feel persuaded that the idea I have of them owes its origin to myself alone. And thus it is absolutely necessary to conclude, from all that I have said before, that God exists : for though the idea of substance be in my mind owing to this, that I myself am a substance, I should not, how- ever, have the idea of an infinite substance, seeing I am a finite being, unless it were given me by some substance in reality infinite. . . . For, as I said before, it is perfectly evident that there must at least be as much reality in the cause as in its effect ; and accordingly, since I am a thinking thing, and possess in myself an idea of God, what- ever in the end be the cause of my existence, it John Stuart Mill. 433 must of necessity be admitted that it is likewise a thinking being, and that it possesses in itself the idea and all the perfections I attribute to Deity " [Meditation iii. ; see, also, Discourse on Method, part iv.). He said, further: "If we put any- thing into the idea which is not to be found in its cause, that would derive its existence from nothing ". To this John Stuart Mill replies : " Of which it is scarcely a parody to say, that if there be pepper in the soup there must be pepper in the cook who made it, since otherwise the pepper would be without a cause " (System of Logic, 10th edit., vol. ii., pp. 342-3). This rejoinder, however, is less than just, For, the efficiency that is in the cook is only secondary ; it consists, not in his creating the ingredients necessary for the soup, or their virtues, but in his determining the right com- bination of them needful to the end in view. He has, indeed, the "perfection" of the effect in him, but merely that perfection which is owing to his culinary skill in adjusting means to ends and pro- ducing a certain result. Descartes's argument is weak, partly because of the assumption that his idea of God is that which is universally enter- tained, and partly because of his supposing that this idea must necessarily come from God. Only on the crudest form of the doctrine of "innate 28 434 Intellectual Theism : Logical and Analytic. ideas" could such procedure have even the sem- blance of plausibility. Taking the ontological argument on the whole, then, we see that it is defective inasmuch as it bases the Divine existence on the mere fact that man has the idea of God, and infers from the mind to reality. Before the conception of God, as found in man, can be of any ontological value, we need first to have it settled that man is driven to this conception by a necessity of his nature:1 not only must we find that he has the idea of God, but, also, that he cannot amid having it. But, in that case, the Conception does not " prove " the Reality ; it only serves in a manner to define it. If this be what Descartes really intended to express, he was on the lines of a great truth ; and our objection then has reference, not to the substance of his teaching, but to the infelicitous and misleading form in which he set it forth. IV. A word is due on what is regarded by some as a fourth and distinct proof of the Divine Existence, and by others simply as an argument ancillary to the accredited proofs, — viz., the argument from the 1 See Lecture v. Consensus Gentium. 435 Consensus Gentium or Universal Testimony of mankind. This argument was a special favourite with ancient Greeks of the type of Plutarch, and was used with much emphasis and insistence by Cicero (speaking as a Stoic), through whom it passed as a commonplace of theistic reasoning into Western Europe. It was also highly prized by the early Christian Apologists and Church Fathers generally (Tertullian, Arnobius, Lactantius, St. Augustine, etc.), and thereby attained a position of eminence in Christian vindications of Religion which it has never lost. Indeed, it has seemed to Protestant apologists to be particularly effective ; and great theologians like Hugo Grotius have placed it in the forefront of their polemic with the atheist. " Another Argument," says Grotius, in his Truth of the Christian Religion (" another," — his second and only other, after the proof from Causality), " for the Proof of a Deity may be drawn from the plain Consent of all Nations, who have any Remains of* Reason, any Sense of good Manners, and are not wholly degenerated into Brutishness. For, Humane Inventions, which depend upon the ar- bitrary Will of Men, are not always the same everywhere, but are often changed ; whereas there is no Place where this Notion is not to be found ; nor has the Course of Time been able to alter it." 436 Intellectual Theism : Logical and Analytic. How firmly this argument held its ground may be seen by looking into any philosophico-theological treatise of a century ago — even into Butler ; and Bishop Ellioott, in his Six Addresses on the Being of God, has recently written it up to date. But there can be no question that the argument, as usually stated, is very far from convincing, and is liable to serious objections. Universality of belief, in the absolutely unqualified form, can hardly be maintained in the face of modern scientific research and of the fuller knowledge of savage races and distant lands that we now possess. Nor will the broadened charity that characterizes the present age permit us to rest satisfied with Grotius's explanation of exceptional cases, — viz., affectation of novelty, bad principle, and distorted reason. Moreover, it is obvious, and (since the days of Carlyle, at least) is generally admitted, that Truth begins in a minority of one ; and Athanasius contra mundum represents a not uncommon situa- tion. But replace "universal" by "general" consent ; and then we see what real force the argument contains. It has no power at first hand, but only indirectly. General consent is not itself sufficient to establish truth ; but it is sufficient to give us pause, and to lead us to examine carefully that for which the general consent of mankind is claimed. Value of General Consent. V.)7 Yea, further, it has a wholesome reaction upon conviction. For if Theism be, as is maintained in these Lectures, a Necessity of Human Nature, then we should, a priori, expect that men generally would show traces of theistic leanings ; and if, as matter of fact, we actually find these traces, that, though no primary proof of theism, is confirmatory or corroborative of it. LECTURE XII. INTELLECTUAL THEISM: PHILOSOPHICAL AND SYNTHETIC. We now reach the last stage of our theistic argu- ment,— that which faces the central difficulties of Theism, and tries to throw light upon them from the side of Philosophy. " Philosophy " I here use in a special or restricted sense. In the wider signification, Philo- sophy, of course, includes psychology, and all the other mental sciences ; but, in the special sense, in which it is distinguished from psychology, it means the attempt to reach a point of view where facts of experience are explained by having their place assigned them in reference to the whole — a whole of which they form parts and are (as it were) organic members. In this sense, Philosophy may be defined as the rational explanation of the universe as a universe, or the reasoned inter- pretation of existence taken in its totality ; and it claims to represent the strength of the human intellect, as marked off, on the one hand, from (438) Philosophy Defined. 439 cynical despair, which is the bitter acknowledg- ment of battled effort and Reason's impotence, and, on the other hand, from that determined negative dogmatism, or dogmatism of negation, into which cynical despair is so apt to crystallize. It is, therefore, pre-eminently the unifying science ; it is that higher discipline and doctrine (for it is both) which looks upon the universe as an ordered organic whole, and which endeavours to show us that only in this way can we rightly understand existence or clearly apprehend Truth. And this attitude of Philosophy is not confined to one school of thinkers, nor are we restricted by it (as some would have it) to any one shibboleth. Pantheists claim it : Giordano Bruno and Spinoza are typical instances. It is essentially Hegel's position. It is claimed by German mystics and theosophists of the type of Jacob Bohme. But deists, theists, and monotheists, under whatever label you may find them in histories of philosophy, equally lay claim to it, We have Leibniz, on the one side, and, on the other, Bishop Butler ; and between the two, you may place Shaftesbury. Much as these three theorizers differed from each other in vital points, they did, one and all, agree that the rational explanation of existence must rest on a comprehensive survey, and that the seeming exceptions to harmony and order in the world 440 Intellectual Theism: Philosophical and Synthetic. must be seeming only, — owing to the fact, as Butler tersely expressed it, that the Divine Government is by us "a scheme or constitution imperfectly comprehended". They all aimed, each in his own way, at concrete, not abstract thinking ; and tried to reach the rationale of things through the light of the universal. This is really the mean- ing of the doctrine — a doctrine of the schools, early and late, emphasized by the ancient Stoics, taught by St. Thomas Aquinas, repeated with pietistic set- ting by Malebranche, re-echoed by Butler — that government by general laws is the expression of the highest wisdom, and that such government is clearly discernible in the world taken as a whole. Note, however, two preliminary cautions. 1. First : Philosophy, though aiming at inter- preting existence from the side of the whole, must not so be understood as if it pretended to endow the individual philosopher with absolute power to account fully for every single fact in existence and to dovetail all the items into each other with unerr- ing precision. This would require omniscience,— to which not even the philosopher may lay claim. But what is meant is, that philosophy can show us the standpoint from which the true unity of things may be descried, and can help us very materially in the rational attempt to comprehend life and Preliminary Cautions. 441 nature, and also to answer objections drawn from a partial or one-sided view of things. Philo- sophical systems indeed abound, and there is no such thing as a finally complete and infallible system : here, as elsewhere, is writ large,— Humanum est errare. But though absolute infallibility is out of the question, the various systems of philosophy have value, and the test of value is the number and suggestiveness of their great and leading ideas: and that system has the best claim on our allegi- ance which presents us with the greatest number and the most illuminative of deep thoughts. This is what gives perennial worth to the systems of Plato and Aristotle in days of old, and what marks off as for all time such philosophies as those of Spinoza, Leibniz, Berkeley, Kant, and Hegel, in modern days. You must not expect from any philosophy, as a system, finality ; neither must you expect abso- lute completeness (though both characteristics have i sometimes been claimed by individual philosophers) ; but what you are to expect is an elevated stand- point, stimulating conceptions, and light-giving ideas, and with this you may rest content.1 *2. Next : Philosophy insists on concrete think - 1 This has been admirably put by De Quincey in the fifth of his Letters to a Young Man (see Masson's De Quincey, vol. x. pp. 78, 79), and, again, in fewer words, but very pithily, by Mark Pattison in the "Introductory " of his Clarendon Press Edition of Pope's Essay on Man, p. 6. 442 Intellectual Theism: Philosophical and Synthetic. ing. But, though it does this, — though it will not rest in abstract thought, but tries to compel you to think things as wholes and as interconnected, — you are not to suppose that abstract thinking is utterly and unreservedly condemned by it. On the con- trary, man cannot help thinking in this way ; it is necessary for him to break up and isolate pheno- mena, otherwise he could never advance at all in understanding the universe. But what philosophy insists on is, that, after you have isolated and analyzed, you proceed to synthesize and build up, —that you proceed beyond the logical and analytic stage (still, in light of your analysis), and re-com- bine your isolated facts, else you cannot grasp the bearings and the meaning of the objects studied. Construction presupposes destruction, speculation rests upon dissection; and the more careful and the more minute your dissection has been, so much the more likely is your theorizing to be both accurate and important. Hence the true place of Logic as the organon of scientific and of philosophic thought alike. I have just said that the philosophical stand- point is the unifying standpoint — it is viewing the parts in the light of the whole, or trying to make us keep ever in mind the circumstance that the expla- nation of a thing is its right location in the universe of thought and of being. Meanings of Unity. 443 Now, what is Unity ; and what is the unifying power that man possesses ? Unity means one of several things. (1) First, it means simply generalization ; it is the intellectual process {plus product, of course) of grouping or classifying objects because of certain points of similarity or agreement between them. Thus, the things we know as mountains are grouped together because of their possessing certain properties in common (denoted by the name), and they are separated from other things known as valleys because of certain differences. Trees, again, con- stitute a group by themselves because of their fundamental similarities ; so do rocks, and fields, and rivers, and so forth. The unity of classifica- tion is that of similarity or community of property. It is but a special aspect of this same generaliz- ing process when we group things together through the category of utility or purpose ; so, too, when we sum up units into a total, or when we combine parts into a mechanical whole, as in the aggrega- tion of particles of matter to form a stone, or in a bundle of twigs tied together by a cord. But, (2) secondly, besides the unity that ob- tains between related objects, there is the unity that obtains between objects (things not ourselves) and ourselves. Here, we and the objects are not strictly regarded as one but as at one. And this 444 Intellectual Theism: Philosophical and Synthetic. unity of at-oneness may be of two different kinds. For, (a) first, objects may be separated from us, may be kept apart from us, because of our ignor- ance of them ; but, whenever we come to know or understand them, they enter into a new relation- ship with us ; they and we become at one. Or, (b) secondly, we may be kept separate from objects, more especially human beings, because, for one reason or another, we are estranged from them, are at feud with them, have come to hate them. Remove this feud, this hatred, this estrangement, and they and we become at one. This is the at- oneness of reconciliation. If the first form of at- oneness is the unity of things that have been apart and kept for a time in isolation by being con- cealed from each other, this second is the unity of things that have been in direct conscious antagon- ism or opposition. But, (3) thirdly, there is the unity of assimila- tion or appropriation ; and this, too, may be of a twofold character, — it may be intellectual or it may be emotional, [a) When we gain new know- ledge and thereby find our mental powers develop- ing and our mental horizon expanding, when we appropriate it, and make it a part of ourselves, that may be denominated a unity. (/>) So is it a unity, when our affections go forth to a human being and we two are united in closest friendship ; or when I The Unity of Personality. 445 form or accept an Ideal and try to work up to it or realize it in practice. Now, are these different unities also totally distinct unities? Unity of generalization, unity of a person coming to understand an external object, unity of reconciliation between two offended brothers, unity of appropriating or assimilating truth, and unity of my identifying myself with a beloved fellow-mortal or with an ideal : are these, while diverse, also disparate or incompatible ? No, although different, they are not disparate or incom- patible ; and the very fact that the same person possesses and exercises the unifying power re- presented in each of them proves that they must have a meeting-point in a deeper unity than what any one of themselves can show. Well, this deeper unity is what we know dis- tinctively by Personality ; and in this deeper unity is found, so far as can be found, the explanation of existence. So says Philosophy. And, in saying so, it does not claim to be able to solve the long- standing puzzles of metaphysical speculation, — How can mind act on matter ? — how can God and Nature meet ? — it claims to place you at a point of view where you see that no such questions need be asked, and no solution be required : in other words, where you see that it is you your- self, by your too analytic thought, that have created 446 Intellectual Theism: Philosophical and Synthetic. the difficulty. In the unity of Being, differences indeed exist, but they are completely harmonized ; and if you choose to rest upon the logical under- standing alone and to make it the sole standard of truth, you can only land yourselves in perplexity and enigma. Carlyle caught this, after his own peculiar fashion, and expressed it in his own peculiar phraseology, when he said : " Our professor's method is not, in any case, that of common school Logic, where the truths all stand in a row, each holding by the skirts of the other ; but at best that of practical Reason, proceeding by large Intuition over whole systematic groups and kingdoms; where- by, we might say, a noble complexity, almost like that of Nature, reigns in his Philosophy, or spiritual picture of Nature : a mighty maze, yet, as faith whispers, not without a plan " (Sartor Resartus, p. 42). But, now, if the desiderated Unity be that of the Universal — a unity in which differences' are contained and from which (if I may be allowed the materialistic expression) they emerge, a unity giving both connexion and continuity of members, a living organic unity (like that of the human body), and not the unity of a mere mechanical whole, whose parts are simply in external contact, —it is emphatically the unity of Spirit, or of Con- scious Mind. Mind is the interpreting term, for Mind the Interpreting Term. 447 there is no other unity and no other unifier con- ceivable by us that gives us unity in difference but the Ego ; and it does not require much sagacity to see that the supreme unifier, in the last resort, is, not the mind of any individual finite being, but Mind as gathered up in a centre of conscious being, far greater than the finite, — Mind as gathered up in God. "No," you say, "unconscious thought or impersonal mind : that is sufficient," " But un- conscious thought " and " impersonal mind " are simply meaningless expressions ; and philosophers who use these as their ultimate explaining con- ception are really explaining nothing. They are simply juggling with words, and, while complaining that men are missing the truth through their ex- aggerated habit of abstract thinking, are them- selves dealing in abstractions of the most glaring kind. Hence, I think, the wisdom of Berkeley beyond that of many, in laying the foundation of his philosophy in a personal Deity, in conscious Active Reason. Whatever improvements it may be pos- sible in this nineteenth century to make upon certain of his words and phrases in Siris and The Minute Philosopher, and however necessary it may be to drop certain of his arguments and even to recast a great deal of his reasoning, his central position remains intact, and will remain intact, so 448 Intellectual Theism : Philosophical and Synthetic. far as appears, to the very end of time, — and modern criticism has only served to bring it out in clearer light and stronger form. This being so, it is particularly desirable that we understand exactly what it is that Philosophy can, and what it cannot, do. In representing the world to us as a manifes- tation of Mind, in endeavouring to get us to look at things, not as isolated phenomena, but as parts of an organic whole, it saves us in great measure from the perplexities and incompleteness of analytic thought, and shows us that there is a point of view (synthetic in its nature) at which discrepancies dis- appear and seeming discords are harmonized, and that, if there still remain for us unsolved difficulties and differences unreconciled, this arises from the fact of our limited capacities and of our practical inability to maintain ourselves, without descents, on the higher plane. But man's powers in this way are certainly limited, — he himself is not omniscient ; and this gives us the practical limitations of Philosophy. When Philosophy presents Nature to us as a mani- festation of the Deity, it thereby enables us to discover a deep and highly-suggestive meaning in Nature, and, so far, to understand how we ourselves and Nature can come into living contact. The Finite Manifestations of Spirit. 449 I, being spiritual (it says), can touch my fellow- man — can apprehend him intellectually and go forth to him with the heart, — because we two are of the same nature, we both are spirits. But he and I also can hold communication with outward Nature — can understand it and assimilate it and even love it, — because Nature is only the visible embodiment or sense-manifestation of mind ; and mind, again, is our common property. But how the Universal Mind, or Supreme all-comprehending Spirit, should manifest Himself in this particular form of the material remains inexplicable. Spinoza at one time thought he saw light in the fact of the Deity's abundant fulness, which was bound to over- flow in all directions. But that, clearly, though true enough in a sense, solves nothing. The need of an " other," through which self-conscious spirit should realize itself, may indeed be granted ; but why this other should be matter has never been shown, neither has it ever been shown (there is no a priori ground for determining it) why the finite manifestations of Spirit are just those they are and no other, and just the number that they are and neither more nor less. This is the ultimate in Philosophy, beyond which it seems impossible to get. Let us not, then, misunderstand Philosophy ; neither let us prove ourselves ungrateful for its 29 4o0 Intellectual Theism : Philosophical and Synthetic. help. When the plain man says to Philosophy, " Explain to me everything" Philosophy's only answer can be, — " Yon make an unreasonable re- quest ; I do not know everything, nor do I pretend to. To me, as to you, there comes a point beyond which I cannot go : /, too, must stand somewhere, only not quite where you do ; and I have fully shown my function and justified my claims when I have driven a shaft through the difficulties of superficial unreflective thought and have touched the fundamental rock, and when, moreover, I have made clear how much farther it is possible to ad- vance than the plain man ever imagines, and what are the necessary limits of man's thought." Although there have been philosophers who have claimed more for their particular systems than they were justified in doing, and so have exposed themselves to the laugh of the facetious when they have fallen into the well,1 that must not be allowed to blind us to the fact that philosophy is better than its devotees. The infinite truth and com- plexity of the universe cannot be comprehended in a single formula, however neat and logically simple it may be. Truth, because living, and to 1 It is recorded by Plato, in the Thecetetus, that Thales was laughed at by a smart and witty Thracian maid when he fell into a well ; for, to her it seemed irresistibly funny that a man should be so absorbed in star-gazing as to be oblivious to the things that lay before him and at his feet. Philosophy and Formula. 451 the extent that we ourselves firmly lay hold upon it and retain it with entire conviction, is prone to burst the bonds of formulae. But formulae are not, on that account, useless. On the contrary, they are indispensable and very helpful, unless awk- wardly or wrongly handled ; and each one of them, so that it be light-giving, may be gladly welcomed by us and profitably applied in its ut- most range. Philosophy is a standpoint, and, therefore, a method ; and it is, further, the doctrine that Mind is constitutive of the universe, and gives it unity and intelligibility. And thus far, surely, Philosophy is right ; and thus far may we heartily and unhesitatingly embrace it. But now, the place and function of Philosophy being such, certain very definite results should be achieved by it. 1. In the first place, inasmuch as Philosophy discloses the world as a cosmos and not a chaos, it shows us the true meaning of what is called Natural Law. Physicists, impressed by the Uni- formity of Nature or the reign of Law in the material world, have sometimes been tempted to regard this uniformity as a kind of pagan Neces- sity, ruling as a sort of independent and inexorable sovereign supreme over matter and intelligence 452 Intellectual Theism : Philosophical and Synthetic. alike, and excluding the conception of Divine Mind in the world as both unneeded and impossible. They have pitted Science against Religion, and have maintained that the two are mutually ex- clusive. But natural law, says Philosophy, is itself but an abstraction ; before you can give it meaning, you have to presuppose intelligence, and, unless it bears evidence to an underlying order, it is a pure nonentity. Nay, further : Nature is indeed uniform, and this very fact bespeaks the existence of something supernatural, some- thing rational, something spiritual ; and this super- natural, rational, spiritual something is God. Yea, this Uniformity is the very thing that you might a priori deduce from God's nature and attributes. If God is, then Nature must be uniform. So reasoned Spinoza, in his De Deo et Homine ; and so have all others of kindred spirit reasoned, since Spinoza's day. And this reasoning seems to me to be unim- peachable. Nature, standing by itself, is nothing ; and Nature's uniformity is a mere empty phrase, unless it denote a certain mode or aspect under which Divine Intelligence works and makes itself felt. The immanence of Deity is here — that is the logical prius ; and the scientist's attempt (not often made by scientific chiefs, certainly, but often made by those who presume to speak for them) to turn The Uniformity of Nature. 453 Nature's uniformity as an argument against the theistic position, simply shows the necessity of guarding against permitting abstract thinking to take the place of concrete thought. " Where Intellect presides," says Berkeley, " there will be method and order, and therefore rules, which if not stated and constant, would cease to be rules. There is therefore a constancy in things, which is styled the Course of Nature" (Siris, § 234). It is only another way of stating the same thing when I say, that natural law, as being the perfec- tion of the material world, shows by its very perfection the nature of the Deity, as clearly as does spiritual law ruling and controlling the soul. Hence, the psalmist by a very sound philosophical instinct passes at once (in Psalm xix.) from the heavens as declaring God's glory — from the sun, in especial, with his regular unceasing course and his never-failing impressiveness — to the Law of the Lord which converts the soul, and His com- mandment which enlightens the eyes. Natural and spiritual are thus far, at any rate, of a piece, that each bespeaks the Divine presence and existence. "The Vedic poet well understood this when he cried : ' The sun and the moon move in regular succession in order that we may believe, O Indra ! ' . . . ' It is because of law that we believe in the 454 Intellectual Theism : Philosojihical and Synthetic. gods/ says Euripides ; and the Egyptians went further still in declaring that ■ the gods live by Maat'"1 (Count Goblet d' Alviella, The Hihhert Lectures for 1891). 2. But, next, from the vantage-ground of philo- sophy, we can take a calm and appreciative view of Biological Evolution. The Darwinian theory : why fear it ? It is simply a method explanatory, not of existence, but of the way in which certain existences have come to be what they are. It is a way of manipulating given material; but the mate- rial itself is not thereby accounted for. No mode of genesis of finite existences can injuriously affect the metaphysical presuppositions of philosophy — these remain, being beyond reach of the mutations of the world in time ; but every mode of genesis in time, inductively established as a fact, may be turned to illustrate the philosophical position of the immanent and all-pervading action of Mind. 3. Then, thirdly, accepting the attitude of the philosopher, we see at once the true character 1 ' ' The primitive notion implied by the word maat seems to be the geometrical one 'right,' as in 'right line,' as opposed to ^«6, ' bent,' ' perverse '. Maat as a noun is the ' straight rule,' ' canon '. . . ." " Maat is not only Truth and Justice, but Order and Law, in the physical as well as in the moral world " (P. Le Page Eenouf, The Hibbert Lectures for 1879, p. 71 n. and p. 120). Biological Evolution. 455 of outward Nature (as I have already said), and are shown how to escape the dilemmas and antinomies into which an imperfect theory of knowledge is liable to plunge us. Underlying Nature, and giving it its meaning, is Intelligence and Mind. But if so, then Nature, in all its parts and processes, is but a manifestation of the Deity. The outward world is not a dead dull independent mass, set over against the con- scious Ego and separated from it toto caelo. If this were so, then Mind and Matter could never come together ; they would be irreconcilable opposites. But if Nature be one of the ways in which the Deity reveals Himself, if it has no existence apart from Him and in Him alone has all its signification, then, with Nature thus instinct with Spirit, the human Ego may well have com- munication ; for, being itself spiritual, in thus going forth into Nature it simply finds itself, — or it finds, albeit dimly and half-consciously, the Divine Spirit, in whom itself lives and moves and has its being. And if we must still talk of mind and matter meeting, then they meet because Nature is the workmanship of the Erdgeist : — Thus at the whirring loom of Time I ply, Weaving the living robe of Deity. 4. Fourthly, we can see how it is unphilosophic 4")6 Intellectual Theism : Philosophical and Synthetic. to speak of the eternity of matter or of the world. Philosophy objects to regarding matter or the world as eternal because Mind not Matter is the logical prius, — Spirit not Nature. Given mind, and (as matter is a mode of revealing the Deity) you have given matter also ; but not inversely. Moreover, matter is only one mode of God's mani- festations of Himself : there are countless other modes, possible or actual, conceivable or real ; and Philosophy could regard any one of these modes as eternal only if it bore the special mark of eternity upon it, or if it were the only conceivable mode of Divine manifestation, or even the only mode of our experience. As Substance,1 apart from manifestation, God is not. An existent God is, also, an eternally manifested God. This is the dictum of philosophy, as well as of the highest theo- logy. But neither philosophy nor theology demands that the material mode of manifestation shall itself be eternal. 5. But, fifthly, from the standpoint of philo- sophy, we can see in a manner how to rebut the arguments of the abstract understanding as to the never-failing problem of moral evil and of physical pain, and the difficulties, arising from the ap- J That substance is not substratum, see Father Kickaby's General Metaphysics, Bk. II. Outward Nature. 457 parently untoward circumstances of life and ex- perience, in the way of our fully recognizing the absolute wisdom and goodness of the Divinity. (1) An argument against God's Omnipotence, and, therefore, against the value of the Theistic conception, is sometimes drawn from the doctrine of an Overruling Providence. For, this doctrine, it is said, clearly maintains that God can overrule moral evil — can control it, can turn it to ultimate good, — but that He had not the power at first to prevent its happening or occurring. If this, in all its literality, were really the doctrine of an overruling providence, it would be hard to see how the omnipotence of God could be effectively saved. For, a power of controlling or overruling simply would not be sufficient to establish omnipotence in all its width and signifi- cance. Nor would you greatly mend matters by maintaining that God merely permit* moral evil- allows it,— with a view to produce an ultimate good greater than would otherwise be possible ; for, this very fact of allowing evil that good may come would cut the character of God in a twofold way. In the first place, it would be derogatory to His power, inasmuch as it would imply His inability or impotence to achieve the highest good without the instrumentality of evil ; and, in the next place, 458 Intellectual Theism : Philosophical and Synthetic. it would be destructive of His righteousness, inas- much as it would make God in some measure responsible for the introduction of sin into the world, and would stamp with His sanction the per- nicious principle that the end justifies the means. But rise to the higher point of view — regard the Universe as a great whole, informed by Reason, with its parts interdependent and organic, — and then you see that Evil has its place there through no impotence of the Almighty Author. From the very moment of its entrance into the world, it- comes as a conquered factor ; and the very day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord in fealty and humble submission, " Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord". It is simply, in philosophic phrase, "the other" which, under the circumstances, serves to bring His power into a particular manifestation, and, in one distinct form, to secure its triumph ; while having itself no independent existence, and no real efficiency in either restraining or curtailing omnipotence. Omnipotence is not to be identified with mere superior might or irresistible coercive power ; nor is sin to be regarded as a thing ab extra, thrust perforce by an alien strength into the world. Sin was in the world from the beginning potentially (that is implied in the very idea of finitude); and The Problem of Moral Evil. 459 the mere fact that, at a particular moment of the world's being, it became an actuality does not really alter the matter. If the world was to con- tain man at all, and if man as a spiritual being was to be what he is, sin thereby became a possibility ; and its actual occurrence at a given date was no real infringement of the plan and constitution of the world as Divinely established, for this plan or constitution had reference, among other things, to " the realm of persons," with all the possibilities that finite personality implied. The data being such, it is evident that moral evil might arise at some time, and must and would arise if a certain one of the two alternatives equally open to a rational and reflective being were consciously chosen ; and, once you clearly see this, there is no difficulty in perceiving that omnipotence is in no way interfered with by the fact of such a choice being made. But if you still ask, Why did God not so endow man that he could not sin? then I answer (with Spi- noza), Why did God not endow the circle with the properties of the sphere ? But now, this being so, the argument takes a new turn. For, though the controlling of moral evil, the overruling of it for ultimate good, does not, in the first instance, prove the omnipotence of God, inasmuch as what puzzles us with regard to sin is, not the counteracting of it, but its own 460 Intellectual Theism : Philosophical and Synthetic. existence, — yet, now that we have seen that its existence is no argument against God's omnipo- tence, we are in a position to be able to turn the controlling of it into an argument in its favour. For, when potential evil became actual, its tendency was to gain the mastery in the world ; and He who subverts that mastery, and makes it, contrary to its nature, even instru- mental to a higher good, is, without question, possessed of superhuman power, and His con- trolling and directing agency bespeaks His perfect nature. Surely, it is a sign of strength, and not of weakness, to have so settled the constitution of the world that, when sin did make its appearance in it, that constitution should not be utterly wrecked and overturned, but should be able to Avithstand disintegration and to turn the mischief into per- manent good. Sin is in the world, but it is not predominant there ; for, though it is the humour of some to maintain that sin has the supremacy here, we need little reflection to see that, if this were really so, no such thing as Society could exist. As sin is essentially a disintegrating force, as its whole tendency is to break up and to pull down, not to bind together or cement, does not the very fact of Society prove that good in the world is even more powerful than evil, and that there is, Physical Pain. 461 amongst men, more of the preserving salt than of the corrupting leaven ? (2) In like manner, from the Philosophic stand- point, Pain is seen to be no real evil, and, therefore, no curtailment of Divine Omnipotence. True, if evil be defined as that which is painful, pain must of necessity be an evil. But, in view of the sacred ministry of Pain (bodily and mental) in forming human character and purifying the human soul, in view of its unquestioned efficacy in evoking patience and heroism in man, in training him in the highest moral virtues, in strengthening and bracing his intellectual and moral fibre, it is irrational to suppose that it is a real evil, or that, under our present circumstances, the soul could thrive or grow without it. Omnipotence could, no doubt, put an end to pain ; but it could only do so by annihilating the sensitive organism, or by totally transforming its environment. But given the sensitive organism, and given the present environment, and suscep- tibility to pain is a necessity ; and to demand that God shall (these conditions remaining) remove this susceptibility, or destroy pain, is to demand what is self-contradictory, — it is to require that a thing should both be and not be at the same time. Professor Sidgwick has very well expressed this from the ethical side when, in answering the objec- 46*2 Intellectual Theism : Philosophical and Synthetic. tion, " that observation of the actual world shows us that the happiness of sentient beings is so im- perfectly attained in it, and with so large an admix- ture of pain and misery, that we cannot reasonably conceive Universal Happiness to be God's end, unless we admit that he is not Omnipotent," he says : — " And no doubt the assertion that God is Omnipotent will require to be understood with some limitation ; but perhaps with no greater limitation than has always been implicitly admitted by thoughtful theologians. For these seem always to have allowed that some things are impossible to God : as, for example, to change the past. And perhaps if our knowledge of the Universe were complete, we might discern the quantum of happi- ness ultimately attained in it to be as great as could be attained without the accomplishment of what we should then see to be just as inconceiv- able and absurd as changing the past " ( The Methods of Ethics, 4th edition, p. 502). In fine, our difficulties about Omnipotence arise very much from the fact that we insist on looking upon Omnipotence as an isolated attribute of the Deity, whereas it is necessarily conditioned by Wisdom and by Righteousness. We would have it to be unlimited power arbitrarily employed ; but this is wholly irrational. " No religious need," as Lotze says, " drives us to seek in God omnipotence Suffering among the Lower Animals. 463 devoid of intelligence;" nor does any religious need, we may add, drive us to seek in Him omnipotence devoid of goodness. (3) Similarly, the fact of suffering among the lower animals is seen, from the philosophical attitude, to afford no sufficient reason for impeach- ing the Divine Wisdom and Goodness. Pain, as mere suffering, is incidental to a sensitive organism placed in particular surroundings ; and, as there is here no question of Tightness or wrongness involved (such as there was in the case of moral evil), you cannot legitimately say, from the philosophic plat- form, either that God is harsh and cruel towards the dumb creatures in permitting them to suffer, or that He is lacking in wisdom in not establishing the world on a different basis so as to preclude the possibility of suffering altogether. For, we must view things in themselves and in their wider rela- tions,— i.e., through the idea ; and, doing so, we see that suffering, as mere pain (where no notion of desert enters), cannot be either good or bad, but is simply part of that scheme of mundane things which is necessary in the given circumstances, — which circumstances, again, must themselves be interpreted in the light of a progressive perfection, working itself out in time. Pain is a mode of realizing the idea under temporal conditions ; and, 464 Intellectual Theism : Philosophical and Synthetic. if we are prone to regard it as an imperfection in the world, this is because we forget that the perfection of a thing has no meaning except with reference to the nature of the thing itself and its relations, except with reference to the idea that it is instrumental in realizing. If I make my particular desire as to what a thing ought to be the measure of the thing's perfection, then, indeed, many things may appear to me very imperfect, be- cause they do not effect what I desire them to effect, or answer the purpose that I would assign to them. But if we view things in connexion with the whole for which they exist, and not from the individual standpoint of personal desire, then their seeming imperfection at once disappears, and, in the broader light, we discern their function and their place. Ay, and in this broader light, even the inexor- ability of Nature and its so-called cruelty, the fact of " Nature red in tooth and claw with ravine," loses its maleficent aspect. Mere superior might, dissociated from the idea of merit, cannot be maleficent. The action of natural forces is sub- servient to general laws ; and the ferocity of wild animals preying upon each other could only be condemned as cruel or unjust, if the animals themselves were of a different nature from what they are. The Idea of Imperfection. 465 But, now, in order to clearness, I must revert once more to the position that philosophy, with its spiritualistic basis, does not explain to us how Spirit and not-Spirit meet ; for, in this matter, there is a great deal of misunderstanding, giving rise to a great deal of irrelevant criticism. When Philosophy sets forth Nature as the "other" of spirit and the translucent garment of the Divinity, it is frequently objected that that explains nothing. There are three distinct realities (it is said) that have to be taken into account,-—^., the human mind or finite Ego, Matter or external Nature, and God ; and between these three realities there are three chasms, — viz., between the finite Ego and Nature, between the Infinite Ego and Nature, and between the Infinite and the finite Ego, and not one of these has Philosophy bridged. To this, we must make answer : — If these three things — Nature, the human Ego, and God — be in- deed totally separate realities, then it is true that three chasms exist between them, and these have not been bridged by philosophy ; but, then, Philosophy has never pretended to bridge them, and has even made it a great part of its business to point out that it has not done so, and that (in this abstract sense) such bridging is impossible. " Once," it says, " you make the finite and the infinite, and mind and matter, absolute opposites, the possibilitv of 30 46(5 Intellectual Theism : Philosophical and Synthetic. a meeting-point between them is effectually and entirely taken away." But what philosophy does, or claims to do, is to accept the working of the ego as it is found in our own experience, plus the rational implications that such experience involves, and to make this the interpreting principle — not, indeed, so as to explain the inexplicable, but so as to set you at a point where you perceive what is inexplicable and why, — and to carry out this principle to its furthest application. The fault lies with the abstract critic, not with philosophy. It used to be strongly objected to Berkeley that, in denying Matter as a metaphysical substratum, he denied the reality of matter altogether. There could not have been a greater mistake. He simply denied the isolated self-contradictory matter of un- reflective or unsophisticated thought, but left the only matter which has true reality — not the abstraction matter, which is a pure nonentity, but the matter which alone has being because it is in inseparable relation to mind. His work was not that of a constructor of bridges (that must be left to the abstraction architect), but that of an interpreter of existence in light of the spiritual ego, which was the best known and the most reliable of all existences. He succeeded ; the abstract critic missed the mark. So has the abstract critic erred, when he has Objections of the Abstract Critic. 4(37 attacked philosophy on the side of the unity of spirit. " Bare unity," he says : " out of that, you can never get diversity — not even the various mental and moral attributes of power, wisdom, goodness, and the like." But the unity of person- ality, with which philosophy deals, is not a bare unity ; it is the unity of differences organically con- nected : spiritual life is an unceasing process, a perpetual activity, not a dead principle, dull, motionless and stationary. In the Ego, there are a variety of unifying processes ; but, in each, the soul finds health and expansion, — realizes itself,— and, through the never-ceasing rhythm of opposi- tion and the conquering of opposition, of barriers erected and the breaking of them down, widens its horizon and deepens the current of its con- scious life. Nay, the various mental attributes of feeling, intellect, and will are differences in a living unity ; and, although it suits our convenience to ally power to our voluntary activity, and wisdom to intellect, and goodness to emotion, — yet feeling, intellect, and will are nothing taken separately. The very differences they represent are differences of the living and energizing Self, and not one of them could exist, not one of them have meaning, save as implicating the others and as bound up in the organic whole. Hence, the impulses of our nature — e.g., the impulse to religion and the im- 468 Intellectual Theism : Philosophical and Synthetic. pulse to knowledge, — though different, are, in principle, one and the same ; and the differences emerge because they are there, inherent in the unity, and not alien to it. One begins to suspect that the abstract critic, in urging his objection, has fallen into confusion- has confounded between a unit and unity. But a unit is simply an individual thing, which differ- ence may break up, may shatter and dissolve; unity is not individual, but collective or universal, which difference only serves to realize — to further and develop. The essence of the universal is ex- pansion (as we see in altruism and the brotherhood of the race) ; that of the singular is limitation or restriction. If you take a unit for the whole, then unity, in the higher sense, is impossible ; but given unity, and variety is given also — all the variety that is implied in the manifold of experience through which unity is attained. We see the distinction in the human body, every member of which, if taken as a unit, is impotent, but, regarded in relation to the other members and to the whole, finds its meaning and its place. Taken as bare units, the members seem to stand in solitary independence and separation ; but viewed in the light of the body as a unity, not one of them can say to another, " I have no need of thee ". From all which it follows that the abstract Valedictory. 469 critic's objection is futile; and that the question, How from mere unity can differences arise ? is quite unintelligent and irrelevant. And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, I must draw these Lectures to a close. For the regular attend- ance with which so many of you have honoured me (often, as I know, at great personal inconvenience, in the midst of your multifarious duties), I offer you my thanks. Nothing has been more gratifying or more encouraging to me than to find the same faces appearing time after time, and, every time, the same sustained attention accorded me. I thank you heartily ; and, while now I bid you Farewell, I do so with pleasant memories, and with the satisfaction of our having meditated together on the greatest and most momentous of the themes that can occupy the thoughts and engage the affections of men. You have now become, as it were, a part of my being ; and when, in future, I pursue the subject of Theism, I shall not be able to do so without specially associating it with yourselves. ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS. 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