_SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION_
LECTURE X
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
I
Now that we have reached our closing lecture, those who have followed
the course from the beginning may, on looking back, find themselves
somewhat bewildered by the variety of subjects which I have asked
them to consider. Art, History, Morals, the Theory of Probability,
the Logic of Perception, the presuppositions of Science, have all
been touched on. Themes that might fill volumes—nay, that have filled
volumes—are made the text for an hour’s discourse. Introduced one after
the other with breathless rapidity, each for a moment has been shown
under the limelight, and then hurried off the stage to make room for
its successor. It seems hard to believe that with such diversity of
materials there can be continuity of argument. But the critic who would
judge the matter fairly must bear in mind the title of the course,
and the purpose for which it has been delivered. My desire has been
to show that all we think best in human culture, whether associated
with beauty, goodness, or knowledge, requires God for its support,
that Humanism without Theism loses more than half its value. Though,
therefore, the subjects discussed are embarrassing in their variety,
no diminution of their number seems possible. The argument would have
broken down had I confined myself to a narrower scope—had I, for
example, been content to show the importance of Theism for morality,
leaving untouched its importance for science and æsthetic. Such a
limitation would have shattered the whole design. No doubt there are
precedents for such a procedure. Kant, for instance, kept God out of
the critique which dealt with ordinary knowledge, while giving Him a
place of honour in the critique which dealt with the moral law. But
the procedure has always seemed to me singularly artificial, even in a
philosophy which is artificial through and through. In any case, such
a limitation is quite inconsistent with the scheme of these lectures.
This could not be accomplished by setting up a departmental Deity—even
were his department the whole province of ethics. Right conduct is
much, but it is not all. We not only act, but we know, and we admire;
nor could I be quite content with any form of Theism which did not
sustain in every essential part the full circle of human interests.
II
But when all explanations have been given, and all excuses made,
I am well aware that in the actual presentation of my case I have
introduced so much illustrative material, and of this material so much
is disputable, that some of my hearers may feel themselves distracted
rather than enlightened by the number of seemingly subsidiary points
of which they are asked to take account. I trust such persons are in a
minority; and that, on the whole, my main contention will seem enriched
and strengthened, not embarrassed or confused, by the manner of its
exposition. Nevertheless, it may not be amiss, before I bring the
course to an end, to restate the most important points in the general
case I have endeavoured to present.
The root principle which, by its constant recurrence in slightly
different forms, binds together, like an operatic leit-motif, the
most diverse material, is that if we would maintain the value of
our highest beliefs and emotions, we must find for them a congruous
origin. Beauty must be more than an accident. The source of morality
must be moral. The source of knowledge must be rational. If this be
granted, you rule out Mechanism, you rule out Naturalism, you rule out
Agnosticism; and a lofty form of Theism becomes, as I think, inevitable.
It is, I imagine, the application of this method to knowledge which
will be most generally resented by those who refuse to acknowledge its
validity. In the case of beauty, for example, the point will seem of
small importance to those for whom art means little. It may not greatly
impress many of those for whom art means much. For it proclaims no new
canons of taste. It belittles no æsthetic school. It asks no critic to
revise his judgments. It touches the interests neither of artist nor
author. It may well be ignored.
With ethics the case is somewhat different. There are, no doubt,
sceptics in religion who treat scepticism as a luxury which can be
safely enjoyed only by the few. Religion they think good for morals;
morals they think good for society; society they think good for
themselves. Such persons may well treat the opinions expressed in
the lecture on ethics with benevolent disagreement. But there are
more robust thinkers who will not be so lenient. They will reject as
intolerable the idea that the morality they desire to preserve depends
on a religion they desire to destroy; and any doctrine which, like
the present, binds the two more closely together will encounter their
uncompromising hostility.
Nevertheless, it is the lectures dealing with intellectual values that
will rouse, as I suppose, the most serious opposition. The endeavour
to treat our beliefs about the world and our beliefs about God as
interdependent will seem to many extravagant, even unnatural. It will
be urged that, for all reasonable beings, reason must be the supreme
judge in matters of belief. It can neither resign its office nor
delegate its authority. Let it then endorse Science, as it must; and
establish Theism, if it can; but do not require it to commit the folly
of treating truths about which opinions are agreed as dependent on
conjectures about which opinions are divided.
This may be excellent advice; but it is hardly to the point. I ask
for nothing better than the supremacy of reason: not one of its
prerogatives do I desire to curtail. Indeed (as I have already
complained) it is the agnostic empiricists who most obstinately shrink
from following it to conclusions they dislike, who mutiny, like some
old-time mariners, whenever they are required to navigate unfamiliar
seas.
I have no sympathy with the singular combination of intellectual
arrogance and intellectual timidity so often presented by this
particular school of thought. I like it no better than I like the
attitude of those who declare that, since reason is bankrupt, authority
should take over its liabilities, however small be the prospect of
discharging them in full. My point of view is utterly different. And if
I urge that the criticism of common knowledge brings us ultimately to
Theism, this involves no intolerable paradox, nor indeed anything very
new or strange.
Descartes, for example, thought that all knowledge was based on clear
and distinct ideas, and that clear and distinct ideas could be trusted
because, being due to God, they were guaranteed by His truthfulness.
That there is a God possessing every perfection was independently
established by an _a priori_ argument into which I need not enter. But
the point of interest is that, though Descartes conceived himself to
have found a refuge from scepticism in the famous “I think, therefore I
am,” he could only get from this narrow assurance to general knowledge
by the use of “clear and distinct ideas” certified by divine veracity.
If, therefore, belief in one’s self was the first of truths, belief in
God was the second; and on this second truth all subordinate beliefs,
mathematical, physical, and metaphysical, were, in his opinion,
ultimately founded. In one sense, and from one point of view, this
is no doubt an exact inversion of the argument developed in these
lectures. Descartes rests the belief in science on a belief in God. I
rest the belief in God on a belief in science. Nevertheless, beneath
this contrast there is deep-lying agreement. Both views reject the
notion that we possess in the general body of common-sense assumptions
and scientific truths a creed self-sufficing and independent, to
which we may add at our pleasure Theism in such doses as suit our
intellectual palate. Both views, therefore, are profoundly divided, not
merely from all that calls itself agnostic, but from much that calls
itself religious.
I must not, however, press the parallel too far. Descartes did not,
and could not, regard our beliefs as a developing system, which is
not merely increasing by external accretion, like a crystal in its
mother-liquid, but is growing and changing through and through like
a living organism. Such conceptions were not of his age or country,
nor, if they had been, could they have been easily accommodated to
his peculiar genius. His was the mathematical temperament, always
striving for precise definitions and rigorous proof; always tolerant
of any simplification of the concrete complexities of reality, which
would make them amenable to deductive treatment. Of this, as a method,
we need make no complaint. Within due limits it is invaluable. But
Descartes, so to speak, “objectified” it. He assumed that any judgment
which could properly be described as “clear and distinct” was not only
convenient in form, but true in substance. The world, alas! is not so
made. The things which are clear and distinct are usually things of
our own creation. Definitions, abstractions, diagrams, syllogisms,
machines—such and such like are, or may be, “clear and distinct.” But
the great facts which we have not made—these, at our present level of
knowledge, are never clear and never distinct. Life, the organism,
the self, the state, the world, freedom, causality, the flow of time,
the relation between mind and body, between perceiver and perceived,
between consciousness and sub-consciousness, between person and person
(I say nothing of beauty, of virtue, or of God)—who is there will dare
to say that he either finds in these notions, or can put into them
without injury, the qualities which Descartes deemed the inevitable
marks of real and certain knowledge? Truth, for us, is a plant of
a different and of a slower growth. How much indeed of that growth
consists in discovering that what we thought was clear is in fact
obscure; what we thought was simple is in fact complex; what we thought
was distinct is in fact confused; and how helpful are such discoveries
to the augmentation of learning!
However this may be, there is nothing in the doctrine of “congruity”
which should shock those who are jealous for the supremacy of reason
and the dignity of science. It is science itself which assures us that
all premises, all conclusions, and all the logical links by which they
are connected must be regarded as natural products. It is science
itself which assures us that they belong, like all natural products, to
the tissue of causes and effects whose lengthening web is continuously
thrown off by the loom of time. It is science itself which requires us
to harmonise these two aspects of the knowing process—the one logical
and timeless; the other causal and successive.
But how are they to be harmonised if the causal series is fundamentally
non-rational? Suppose yourself able to observe the development
of beliefs in some alien being (say an inhabitant of Mars) as a
bacteriologist observes a growing colony of microbes: suppose, further,
that your observation showed how these beliefs arose from causes which
had in them no tincture of reason, and that, so far as you could see,
they were quite unsupported by any independent evidence which—_for
you_—had weight or even meaning. Would you rate their value high?
Surely not.
Now it is quite true that when we examine our own system of beliefs
we cannot imitate this attitude of complete detachment, since in the
very act of examination some of these beliefs are assumed. But we
_can_ examine the beliefs of other people, and we _do_, as a matter of
common-sense practice, rate low the value of the beliefs whose sources
we perceive to be non-rational. How, then, can we refuse to apply to
ourselves a principle of judgment which we thus apply without scruple
to our neighbours?
Whenever we do so apply it, we shall, I think, be forced to admit
that all creeds which refuse to see an intelligent purpose behind the
unthinking powers of material nature are intrinsically incoherent. In
the order of causation they base reason upon unreason. In the order of
logic they involve conclusions which discredit their own premises. Nor
is there, as far as I can see, any mitigation of this condemnation to
be looked for except by appealing to the principle of Selection. And
how far will this help us out of the difficulty?
Just so far as an imitation of intelligent purpose can be a substitute
for its reality, but no further. And how far is this? At first sight
we might suppose that, at the worst, the cognitive series and the
causal series might be harmonised on the basis of natural selection if
knowledge never aspired to rise above the level which promoted race
survival, if no faculties of knowing were trusted beyond the point
where they ceased effectively to foster the multiplication of the
species. Up to this point it would seem that, if selection be true,
there is congruity between beliefs and their origin. The sequence of
events which brought them into being suggests no doubt about their
value. This scheme of thought, therefore, though narrowly restricted,
is apparently coherent.
Yet even this modest claim must be deemed excessive: for the
speculation on which it rests does violence to its own principles.
Manifestly we cannot indulge ourselves in reflections upon the
limits of the “knowable” without using our intellect for a purpose
never contemplated by selection. I do not allege that our intellect
is therefore unequal to the task. I only say that, if it be indeed
equal to it, we are in the presence of a very surprising coincidence.
Why should faculties, “designed” only to help primitive man, or his
animal progenitors, successfully to breed and feed, be fitted to solve
philosophic problems so useless and so remote? Why, indeed, do such
problems occur to us? Why do we long for their solution?
To such questions Naturalism can neither find an answer nor be content
without one. Wearied with unavailing efforts to penetrate the unknown,
many not ignoble spirits have preached the wisdom of dulling unhealthy
curiosity by the aid of healthy labour. “Let us cultivate our gardens”
(they say), seeking no solution of the insoluble.
But the advice is ambiguous. Will the proposed remedy, in their
opinion, cure the ill, or only help us to forget it? If the latter,
then, in some circumstances and with some patients, it will doubtless
fulfil its promise. Oblivion may be attained by growing vegetables, as
by other less reputable expedients. But if absorption in daily labour
be recommended as the final stage of a rational cure, it cannot be
effectual. No rational cure is, on naturalistic principles, within
our reach. Could we empty ourselves of all that makes us men, could
we lower our intellectual level to the point where the scope of our
mental activities harmonised with their naturalistic source, we should
doubtless free ourselves from the malady of vain speculation. But
though the remedy, if applied, would be effectual, it would not be
rational. Reflective Agnosticism cannot be combined with scientific
Naturalism, because reflective Agnosticism is the product of a
process which Naturalism inevitably discredits. And if Naturalism be
incompatible even with reasoned ignorance, how can we hope to harmonise
it with the claims of reasoned knowledge?[16]
The best imitation of creative purpose, therefore, which Naturalism can
provide breaks down where it is most required—namely, at the highest
levels of value. I have just shown this in connection with our powers
of thought, and the beliefs to which they lead. But the failure is not
confined to them. It is as wide as Humanism itself. Wherever we find
great intrinsic worth, there we are in a region where the direct effect
of selection is negligible. The noblest things in speculation, in art,
in morals, possess small survival value; and, though the geniuses to
whom we owe them have added greatly to the glory of their race, they
have added but little to its animal successes. In the language of these
lectures, they are “accidental”—due neither to purpose nor to any
arrangement of causes by which purpose is successfully copied.
III
You are now in a position to judge how far the hopes held out to you at
the beginning of this course have been fulfilled, and to measure the
merits and the demerits, the claims and the limitations, of the scheme
I have endeavoured to expound.
I disowned, as you remember, any intention of providing you with a
philosophical system—not because I despise philosophical systems or
those who labour to construct them, but in part because I have none to
recommend, and in part because it seems to me doubtful whether at our
present stage of development a satisfactory system is possible.
But how (you may ask) does my point of view differ from a philosophical
system? It may be a bad system, as it certainly is a most imperfect
one. Yet, seeing that it touches on everything in heaven and earth,
seeing that its very title embraces God and man, why should it
repudiate a description which seemingly is not a whit in excess of its
pretensions?
The question thus raised is more than a merely verbal one, and a few
observations upon it may fittingly conclude the course. Note, then,
in the first place, that my scheme of beliefs does not show itself
unworthy to be considered systematic merely because it is incomplete.
All systems are incomplete. All systems, however ambitious, admit
their inability to exhaust reality. Nor is its unworthiness due to any
mere accident of execution, such as inferior workmanship or defective
learning. Its failures are essential and irremediable. They are
inseparable from “the point of view.”
Let me explain. Every system that deserves to be described as a
constructive philosophy—be it dogmatic, critical, empirical, idealist,
what you will—conceives itself not merely to be rooted in reason, but
to be rationalised throughout. The conceptions with which it works
should be sifted, clarified, defined. It should assume nothing which
requires proof. It should rest nothing (in the last resort) on faith or
probability. It should admit no inexplicable residues.
Philosophers seem to me entirely right if they think that this is what
a system ought to be; but not entirely right if they think that this
is what any system is, or has ever been. In any case, no description
could be less applicable to the point of view which I am provisionally
recommending. The philosopher refuses—in theory—to assume anything
which requires proof. I assume (among other things) the common-sense
outlook upon life, and the whole body of the sciences. The philosopher
admits—in theory—no ground of knowledge but reason. I recognise that,
in fact, the whole human race, including the philosopher himself, lives
by faith alone. The philosopher asks what creed reason requires him to
accept. I ask on what terms the creed which is in fact accepted can
most reasonably be held. The philosopher conceives that within the
unchanging limits of his system an appropriate niche can be found for
every new discovery as it arises. My view is that the contents of a
system are always reacting on its fundamental principles, so that no
philosophy can flatter itself that it will not be altered out of all
recognition as knowledge grows.
This last statement may look like a truism; but it is a truism which
few philosophers are, in practice, disposed to accept; and the
generality of mankind are perhaps even less disposed to accept it
even than philosophers. That there are beliefs which can and should
be held, with the same shade of meaning, by all men, in all ages,
and at all stages of culture, is a view to which by nature we easily
incline. But it is, to say the least, most doubtful. Language is here
no true or certain guide. Even when beliefs have not outgrown the
formulas by which they have been traditionally expressed, we must
beware of treating this fixity of form as indicating complete identity
of substance. Men do not necessarily believe exactly the same thing
because they express their convictions in exactly the same phrases. And
most fortunate it is, in the interests of individual liberty, social
co-operation, and institutional continuity that this latitude should
be secured to us, not by the policy of philosophers, statesmen, or
divines, but by the inevitable limitations of language.
This, however, by the way. The point I wish to press is that, speaking
generally, we must not conceive the development of knowledge as a
process of adding new truths to old truths, in the course of which old
truths are supplemented but are not changed. It rather resembles the
increase of some plastic body which, wherever it takes place, involves
a readjustment of every part. Add brick to brick, and you may finish
your house, yet never alter its foundation. Add belief to belief, and
you will set up strains and stresses within your system of knowledge
which will compel it to move towards some new position of equilibrium.
Sometimes, no doubt, the process is more violent and catastrophic than
this metaphor naturally suggests. Then occurs in the moral world the
analogue of the earthquake, the lava flood, and the tidal wave, which
shatter mountains and sweep cities to destruction. Men’s outlook on the
universe suffers sudden revolution: the obvious becomes incredible, and
the incredible obvious; whole societies lose their balance, and stately
systems are tumbled in the dust.
More often, however, the movements of belief are gradual. They resemble
the slow rise or fall of ancient coast-lines, where, by imperceptible
degrees, sea turns into land, or land into sea. So, without shock or
clamour, man smoothly modifies his point of view, till, gazing over the
spaces he has traversed, he greatly marvels at the change.
But we must look forward as well as backward. The spaces still to be
traversed far exceed those that have been traversed already. We can
set no limits to the intellectual voyage which lies before the race.
Even if we arbitrarily limit the life of men to that which is possible
under terrestrial conditions, we must anticipate transformations of
belief comparable in magnitude with those which already divide us
from primitive mankind. How, in circumstances like these, can we hope
to sketch, even in outline, an enduring system of philosophy? Why
should we succeed where under similar conditions the greatest of our
forefathers have already failed?
If, then, we cannot attain to a scheme of belief which, whatever be
its shortcomings, is good (so far as it goes) for all time, we must be
content with something less. We must put up with what I have called in
these lectures “a point of view.” We must recognise that our beliefs
must be provisional, because, till we approach complete knowledge, all
beliefs are provisional. We cannot claim that they are good “so far as
they go”; but only that they are as good as we are at present able to
make them. And we must recognise that the two statements are profoundly
different.
Now, if I were asked what categories or conceptions such a “point of
view” required for its expression, I should answer Providence and
Inspiration—categories for which systematic philosophy has so far
found no great use. These terms, it must be owned, are now a little the
worse for wear. Defaced and battered by centuries of hard usage, they
have suffered the fate which the current coin of popular discussion
cannot easily avoid. But they have merits negative and positive, which
make them peculiarly apt for my present purpose.
In the first place, they do not suggest a philosophy of the universe.
They openly evade the great problems of theological metaphysics. No
one, for example, would employ them in discussing the essential nature
of an Absolute God, or His relation to time, to the act of creation, to
the worlds created. They belong to a different level of speculation.
In the second place, they concentrate attention on the humanistic side
of Theism, on the relation of God to man, and to man’s higher spiritual
needs. Divine “guidance”—the purposeful working of informing Spirit—is
the notion on which emphasis is specially laid. The term “Providence”
suggests this in a broad and general way. The term “Inspiration”
suggests it in the narrower sphere of beliefs and emotions. And do not
complain that no endeavour is made to explain the mode in which divine
guidance works either on matter or on spirit. These are mysteries
as hard of solution as those which surround the action of mind on
matter, and of mind on mind. But the difficulties are difficulties of
theory, not of practice. They never disturb the ordinary man—nor the
extraordinary man in his ordinary moments. Human intercourse is not
embarrassed by the second, nor simple piety by the first. And perhaps
the enlightened lounger, requesting a club-waiter to shut the window,
brushes aside, or ignores, as many philosophic puzzles as a mother
passionately praying for the safety of her child.
IV
To some this conclusion of a long and intricate discussion will seem
curiously trivial in its unambitious simplicity. Especially will
this be true of those who accept empirical Naturalism in any of its
forms. “There is (they may admit) something grandiose about the
great metaphysical systems which appeals even to those who are least
able to accept them. It was no ignoble ambition which inspired their
architects. It was no light labour, or trivial ingenuity, which brought
them into being. On the other hand (they will say), if naturalistic
methods are more modest, naturalistic results are more secure. They aim
lower, but they reach the mark. If the long-drawn “conflict between
religion and science” has robbed us of some illusions which we abandon
with regret, the knowledge it has spared us we may hold with assurance.
But when we turn to the narrow Theism of these lectures, fittingly
couched in the outworn language of the pulpit and the Sunday-school,
can we find in it either the glory of metaphysical speculation or the
security of positive knowledge? It has not the courage to explore the
unknowable, nor the power to add to the known. It dare not fly; it will
not walk. It is neither philosophy nor science; nor does it seek the
modest security of some middle way. How, then, are we to class this
strange amalgam of criticism and credulity? What purpose can it serve?
To whom will it appeal? Whose beliefs will it alter even by a hair’s
breadth?”
These are pertinent questions. Let me try to answer them.
The customary claims of Naturalism, which I have here put into the
mouth of my imaginary critic, seem to me (as you know) to be quite
unreasonable. Otherwise I have no great objection to the statements
contained in his indictment—however little I may agree with its
spirit. In particular I admit the charge that the argument of these
lectures, elaborate as it may appear, does not after all carry us far
beyond the position occupied by uncritical piety and simple faith.
Could it be otherwise? If we build, as I build, upon our common-sense
beliefs about the natural world, our theories of the supernatural
world will surely share the defects inherent in their foundation. It
may—or may not—be possible to know all about the evolution of God as
the Absolute Idea, while lamentably ignorant of much that pertains
to the Particular. But if we begin with the Particular—and that most
imperfectly apprehended—we cannot hope to grasp the full reality of the
Absolute. On this line of advance the philosopher will not far outstrip
the peasant.
When, therefore, my supposed critic satirically asks who it is that I
hope to influence, I grant at once that it is not the plain man who
already accepts without doubt or commentary a theistic view of the
Universe. He is beyond my arguments;—perhaps above them.
Neither do I greatly hope to influence the trained man of speculation,
who has already found a theory of things which satisfies his reason,
or is sure that no such theory is within his reach. Even he may, I
trust, find in these lectures discussions of some philosophic interest.
I ask him to consider whether his system provides an honourable place
for the actual beliefs by which his waking life is ruled; whether all
the gradations of intuitive probability, from inevitable compulsion
to faint inclination, find house-room not merely in his psychology of
belief, but in his theory of knowledge; whether he is satisfied with
his logic of science, or can bring into one harmonious scheme his creed
regarded as a body of rational conclusions and his creed regarded as a
bundle of natural effects. If he replies in the affirmative his state
is the more gracious. But he is not likely to be interested in my
arguments; and assuredly they will not convert him to my views.
I need say nothing about his pretentious imitator, who, under many
names, has long been a familiar figure in certain societies. With no
deep desire for truth, and poorly equipped for pursuing it, his main
ambition is to indicate discreetly that he holds what the fashion
of the moment regards as “advanced” views in their most advanced
form. Wherein the quality of “advancement” consists, it might be
hard to determine; nor is it (in this connection) a subject worthy
of investigation. It is enough to say that “advanced” views must
have an air of novelty, must be making some stir in the world, must
be sufficiently unorthodox to shock the old-fashioned, and either
sufficiently plausible to deceive the simple or sufficiently imposing
to overawe them. I do not think that I shall find many converts among
members of this class; nor is it to them that I desire to speak.
But there are many persons, both earnest and sincere, to whom the
conclusions which modern Naturalism extracts from modern science are
a source of deep perplexity and intellectual unrest. Their mood, if
I rightly read it, is something of this kind. They would agree that
a world where God is either denied or ignored is a world where some
higher values are greatly impoverished. They would read the lectures I
have devoted to Beauty and Morals with sympathy, if not with agreement.
Life, they would admit, is but a poor thing if it does no more than
fill with vain desires the brief interval between two material
“accidents”—the “accident” which brought it into being, and the
“accident” which will extinguish it for ever. But this (they will say)
is no argument. A wise man faces facts, a good man prefers the hardest
truth to the most alluring illusion. If there be no ground for assuming
a living purpose behind the indifferent mask of nature, let us not fill
the vacancy with a phantasm of our own creation. Let us at least sink
back into the nothingness from which we rose with our intellectual
integrity undamaged. Let all other values perish, so long as rational
values remain undimmed.
Here, according to my view, lies the great illusion. Those who in all
sincerity, and often with deep emotion, plead after a fashion like
this, profoundly misunderstand the situation. They are indeed worthy
of respect. They must not be confounded with those unstable souls
who ignore God when they are happy, deny Him when they are wretched,
tolerate Him on Sundays, but truly call on Him only when life, or
fortune, hangs doubtfully in the balance. They are of a different
and more virile temper. But are they less mistaken? They search for
proofs of God, as men search for evidence about ghosts or witches.
Show us, they say, the marks of His presence. Tell us what problems
His existence would solve. And when these tasks have been happily
accomplished, then will we willingly place Him among the hypothetical
causes by which science endeavours to explain the only world we
directly know, the familiar world of daily experience.
But God must not thus be treated as an entity, which we may add to, or
subtract from, the sum of things scientifically known as the canons
of induction may suggest. He is Himself the condition of scientific
knowledge. If He be excluded from the causal series which produces
beliefs, the cognitive series which justifies them is corrupted at
the root. And as it is only in a theistic setting that beauty can
retain its deepest meaning, and love its brightest lustre, so these
great truths of æsthetics and ethics are but half-truths, isolated and
imperfect, unless we add to them yet a third. We must hold that reason
and the works of reason have their source in God; that from Him they
draw their inspiration; and that if they repudiate their origin, by
this very act they proclaim their own insufficiency.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Let me here parenthetically remind you that again (as I observed
in an earlier lecture) the Naturalism of which I speak is Naturalism
in what, from our present point of view, must be regarded as its most
plausible shape. Those who have followed, even at a distance, the trend
of biological thought are aware that many naturalists of the highest
authority are shaken in their allegiance to natural selection. They do
not, indeed, exclude it from the evolutionary drama, but they reduce
its rôle to insignificance. Why then, you may ask, do these lectures
so constantly refer to selection, but say never a word about other
theories of organic evolution?
The answer is that selection, and only selection, really imitates
contrivance. Other theories may deal, and do deal, with variation and
heredity. But selection alone can explain adjustment; whence it follows
that selection alone can imitate design.
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End of Project Gutenberg's Theism and Humanism, by Arthur James Balfour