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RELIGION AND SCIENCE
RELIGION AND SCIENCE
FROM GALILEO TO BERGSON
BY
JOHN CHARLTON HARDWICK
"Philosophy will always be hard, and what it promises even in the end
is no clear theory nor any complete understanding or vision. But its
certain reward is a continual evidence and a heightened apprehension
of the ineffable mystery of life, of life in all its complexity and
all its unity and worth."
F. H. BRADLEY, _Essays in Truth and Reality_, p. 106.
LONDON
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
1920
TO
MY FATHER
PREFACE
The chapters which follow are not intended as even a slight sketch of
the history of Thought since the Renaissance. Their object is more
modest, i.e. to illustrate the thesis that mankind, being "incurably
religious," insists (however hopeless the enterprise may sometimes seem)
upon interpreting the universe spiritually.
Thus it is quite natural that only a few typical names should find their
places here: and often no sufficient reason may appear for one being
included rather than another. For instance, in the tenth chapter, T. H.
Green, F. H. Bradley, and A. J. Balfour are mentioned, while Martineau
and the Cairds are passed over. Needless to say, there was no doctrinal
prejudice here. Again, in the fourth chapter, Pascal is dealt with at
some length, but Boehme, an equally important thinker, is ignored. And
so on.
I should like to acknowledge here my obligation to Dr. Mercer, Canon of
Chester, for his advice upon books, especially with regard to material
for the final chapters. Also to the Rev. H. D. A. Major, Principal of
Ripon Hall, for suggestions about the general plan of the book; and to
the Rev. E. Harvey (a mathematical graduate of Trinity College, Dublin,
at present studying medicine) for valuable information about the present
position of psychic research.
J. C. H.
ALTRINGHAM, _March 23rd, 1920_.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY PAGE
Religion and Science defined. "Accurate and systematic
knowledge" necessarily affects our "attitude to life." Can
our systematised knowledge sanction a religious attitude?
This the "religious problem." Religious harmony of Middle
Ages. Will it return? 1
CHAPTER II
THE DISSOLUTION OF THE OLD SYNTHESIS
The old World-Scheme described. Aquinas and Scholasticism.
Cusanus criticises conventional ideas of space. The
New Astronomy of Copernicus. Bruno and an infinite
universe. Galileo's telescope. The New Physics and an
automatic universe. The New Logic 8
CHAPTER III
GROWTH OF THE MECHANICAL THEORY
The New Science creates a New Philosophy. Universality
of Mechanics. Importance of Harvey's discovery. Descartes
extends the mechanical theory to cover physiology and psychology.
Hobbes and a naturalistic ethic. Newton extends the
operation of law from the earth to the heavens. Religious
attitude of these thinkers. Significance of their thought 18
CHAPTER IV
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY REACTIONS
A Law of Thought. Spinoza. A Mechanical Universe
spiritually interpreted. _Natura Naturans_, what it means.
The _Ethics_. Spinoza's mysticism. His personality. Leibniz
and a philosophy of personality. His monads. Pascal. His
significance. _The Pensees._ The eternal protest of religion.
Man defies the universe. Results 28
CHAPTER V
RISE OF AN ANTI-RELIGIOUS SCIENCE
Anti-clericalism in eighteenth-century France. Voltaire's
propaganda. Diderot and the Encyclopaedists. Holbach's
_System of Nature_. Laplace's astronomy. Lavoisier and the
New Chemistry. Dalton's atomic theory. Results for religion 42
CHAPTER VI
RISE OF GERMAN IDEALISM
Importance, for the mechanical view, of Locke's theory of
knowledge. Weakness of speculative philosophy. Rise of the
"critical" philosophy. Kant. He seeks to solve the problem:
How is knowledge possible? Kant's view of the mind's
function in knowledge. Mechanism a "form of thought,"
subjective not objective. Kant's view of reality. Can we
know reality? The two worlds 52
CHAPTER VII
THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT
Kant clears the ground for a new philosophy. Significance
of Rousseau. His attitude to culture. The new philosophy in
Germany, its goal. Fichte. Hegel a rationalistic-romanticist.
His method. Hegelianism. Significance for religious thought
of Schleiermacher. The autonomy of religion and religious
experience 62
CHAPTER VIII
MECHANISM AND LIFE
Rise of bio-chemistry and bio-physics in Germany. Significance
of these movements. The Origin of Species. Lamarck.
The new geology. Darwin. Results of his theory 74
CHAPTER IX
MATERIALISM AND AGNOSTICISM
Early decline of Romanticism in Germany. Comte and the
"positive" philosophy. Materialism in Germany. Darwinism
and the "argument from design." Haeckel. Spencerian
evolutionism. Spencer's moral idealism. His philosophy of
religion. Agnosticism. Rise of philosophic pessimism.
Significance of Nietzsche 84
CHAPTER X
REACTIONS IN PHILOSOPHY
German idealism naturalised in England by Coleridge and
Carlyle. These writers described. _Sartor Resartus._ Idealism
at Oxford, T. H. Green. F. H. Bradley. Balfour's plea for a
philosophy of science. Revival of Idealism in Germany.
Lotze. His view of "values" and reality 98
CHAPTER XI
SOME RECENT TENDENCIES IN PHILOSOPHY
A new philosophy of Science. Mach on "Economy of
Thought." "Abstractness" and artificiality of scientific
method. Boutroux and natural law. James' view of the
mind carried further by Bergson. His view of the intellect.
What it can, and what it cannot, do for us. Intuition.
Indeterminism and Pluralism. Leibniz revived. Ward's
philosophy of personality 110
CHAPTER XII
SOME RECENT TENDENCIES IN SCIENCE
The "New" Physics. New theories of matter. The "New"
Biology. Driesch and neo-vitalism. The "New" Psychology.
"Spiritualism." The outlook for the future 125
CHAPTER XIII
SOME FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
History of Thought supplies no material for dogmatising.
Yet a progress of ideas is evident. Permanency of "spiritual"
view of reality. Its continual revival. Sabatier's saying.
Need of freedom, alike for religion and for science 137
RELIGION AND SCIENCE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY. RELIGION AND SCIENCE
Numerous attempts to define religion have made it evident that religion
is indefinable. We may, however, say this much about it, that religion
is _an attitude towards life_: a way of looking at existence. It is
true that this definition is too wide, and includes things which are not
religion--there are certain attitudes to life which are definitely
anti-religious--that of the materialist, for instance. However, it will
serve a purpose, and we can improve upon it as we proceed. It is a
mistake to put too much faith in definitions: at any rate it is better
to have our definitions (if have them we must) too wide than too narrow.
Science is, fortunately, much easier to define. _Accurate and systematic
knowledge_ is what we mean by science--knowledge about anything,
provided that the facts are (so far as possible) accurately described
and systematically classified. Professor Karl Pearson, the highest
authority on the principles of scientific method and theory, writes:
"The man who classifies facts of any kind whatever, who sees their
mutual relation and describes their sequences, is applying the
scientific method and is a man of science. The facts may belong to the
past history of mankind, to the social statistics of our great cities,
to the atmosphere of the most distant stars, to the digestive organs of
a worm, or to the life of a scarcely visible bacillus. It is not facts
themselves which make science, but the method by which they are dealt
with. The material of science is co-extensive with the whole physical
universe, not only that universe as it now exists, but with its past
history and the past history of all life therein. When every fact, every
present or past phenomenon of that universe, every phase of present or
past life therein, has been classified, and co-ordinated with the rest,
then the mission of science will be completed."[1]
Science, then, is systematic and accurate knowledge; and when we have
systematic and accurate knowledge about everything there is to be known,
the programme of science will be complete. This is only to say that the
task it has set itself is one that will never end.
So much, then, for our definitions. Religion is "an attitude to life":
science is "systematic and accurate knowledge." How does the one affect
the other? What are the relations between the two? That is the topic
which will occupy our attention during the chapters that follow. To
answer the question properly will involve a certain amount of
acquaintance with the history of ideas. We must first put the
preliminary question: How, as a matter of fact, have men's scientific
ideas affected their religious ideas (or _vice versa_) in times past?
Having tried to answer this question, we shall be in a better position
to approach the religious problem as it presents itself to-day.
Meanwhile a few remarks of a general character will not be out of place.
It is evident that "science" can hardly fail to affect "religion."
Systematised knowledge necessarily affects an individual's (or a
society's) attitude to life--either by broadening and elevating that
attitude, or by debasing it. Our knowledge, or what we believe to be
such, tends to create certain preconceptions which make our minds
hostile to certain beliefs or ideas. A man reared from his cradle on
mechanical science will tend to regard miracles with suspicion; if he be
logical (as he generally is not) freedom of the will, even in the most
limited sense, will appear chimerical. Nor will his general attitude to
life remain unaffected by his views on these points.
Systematised knowledge may thus conceivably come into conflict with the
presuppositions or the ideals of some particular religion. It is then
that a "religious problem" arises. A religion indissolubly associated
with a geocentric conception of the universe would tend to become
discredited as soon as that conception had been disposed of by
"systematic knowledge." Science may even tend to produce an attitude to
life hostile not only to a particular religion but to _all_ religion. If
materialism should ultimately be found to be consistent with systematic
and accurate knowledge, it is difficult to see how any attitude to life
which could be appropriately described as "religion" could survive. The
religious problem would then, at any rate, cease to trouble us. The
religious apologists would be free to turn their attention to matters of
more moment. But it is not only with the cessation of religion that the
religious problem slumbers. There are certain happy periods when
religion flourishes undisturbed by obstinate questionings. These
classical ages of religion exist when systematised knowledge seems to
support the contemporary religious outlook--when science and religion
speak with one voice. Such unanimity seems to us to-day too good to be
possible, but that is only because our own age is exceptional--not
because those happier ages were exceptional; they, in fact--if we trace
history backwards--would seem rather to have been the rule.
Primitive man, it would seem, was troubled by no discords of the kind
which disturb our peace. His systematic knowledge--such as it was--was
entirely in accord with his religion, the two were, in fact, in his case
practically one. His science _was_ his religion. It may not have been
very sound science, nor very elevated religion, but it served his
purpose admirably. He was too busy with the struggle for survival to
indulge in speculation. His religion was severely practical, and he was
faithful to it because experience seemed to indicate that it paid.
But the Stone Age hardly deserves (in spite of its freedom from
religious difficulties) to be described as one of the classical ages of
religion; absence of struggle does not necessarily mean richness of
life. There are ages which better deserve that appellation. There are
times when all existing culture--even of a high level--is closely
associated with the current religion, endorses its ideals, sanctions its
hopes, puts the stamp of finality upon its faith. Such an age cannot
perhaps hope to be permanent; for life means movement, and movement
upsets equilibrium, and human knowledge tends to increase faster than
the human mind can adapt itself to it or digest it. But such ages are
looked back upon with regret when they are past, they shed a golden
radiance over history, their tradition lingers, they even leave behind
them monuments of art and literature which are the wonder, and the
inimitable models, of succeeding generations.
Such an epoch was that which left to us our Gothic cathedrals. These are
the creation of one of those classic ages "when all existing culture is
cast or bent in obedience to the religious idea." When scientist,
scholar and ecclesiastic spoke with one voice and listened to one
message; when prince and peasant worshipped together the same
divinities; when to be outside the religious community was to be cut off
from the brotherhood of mankind. "The Church" was then co-extensive with
civilisation: those without the fold were barbarians, hardly worthy of
the name of man.
That time of splendid harmony, however, is now past; no lamentations
will restore it. We have reached another world.
But it need not remain only a memory; it ought also to serve as an
inspiration. The conditions of affairs during the classic ages of
religion, however impossible at the moment, must remain our ideal. Head
and heart must some day speak again with one voice, our hopes and
beliefs must be consistent with our knowledge. Science must sanction
that attitude towards existence which our highest instincts dictate.
It is only too likely that this consummation is yet distant. Yet even if
our generation has to reconcile itself to spiritual and moral discord,
it should never overlook the existence of a happier ideal, and even the
possibility of its fulfilment. Fortunately for the interests of
religion, men feel they _must_ effect some kind of a reconciliation
between the opposing demands which proceed from different sides of their
nature. Each for himself tries to approximate science and religion, and
the struggle to do this creates in each individual spiritual life.
Tension sometimes creates light, and struggle engenders life. So long as
there are men sufficiently _interested_ in religion to ask for a
solution of its problems, religion will remain superior to the
disintegration towards which all discord, if unchecked, proceeds.
It is sometimes said that the religious harmony of the Middle Ages, of
which we have spoken, having been due to imperfect knowledge, is never
likely to repeat itself, unless we sink back into the ignorance of
barbarism: and (it is urged) we know too much to be at peace. Having
tasted of the fruits of knowledge, the human race is cast forth from its
Paradise. This view is unduly pessimistic. There is no valid reason for
excluding the possibility that our knowledge of reality and those ideal
hopes which constitute our religion may actually coincide. Religion and
science, approaching the problem of existence from contrary directions,
may independently arrive at an identical solution. That the two actually
do attack the enigma from different sides has led many people to regard
the two as hostile forces. Such is not the case. Religion and science
regard reality from different angles, but it is the same reality that is
the object of their vision, and the goal of their search.
Religion looks at existence as a whole, and attempts to determine its
meaning and value for mankind. Religion, we may say, stands at the
centre of existence, and regards reality from a central position.
The province of science, on the other hand, is not to take so wide a
survey, but to gain knowledge piece-meal: to locate points inductively,
and thus to plot out the curve which we believe existence constitutes.
If the _loci_, as they are successively fixed, seem to indicate that the
curve is identical with the circle which religion has already
intuitively postulated, the problem of existence would have been solved.
Science and religion working by different methods would have described
the same circle. When science has completed its circle, its centre may
be found to stand just at the point where religion has always
confidently declared it to be. Knowledge and faith will then, and not
till then, be one.