Strange that the sight of a man being guillotined should inspire me
with a burning desire to inflict the very thing which I see another
suffer! What a violent metaphor for a very minute matter! It is only a
review which I have been reading, in which a pompous, and I imagine
clerical, critic comes down with all his might on a man whom I gather
to be a graceful and mildly speculative writer. The critic asks
ponderously. What right has a man who seems to be untrained in
philosophy and theology to speculate on philosophical and religious
matters? He then goes on to quote a passage in which the writer attacks
the current view of the doctrine of the Atonement, and he adds that a
man who is unacquainted with the strides which theology has made of
late years in the direction of elucidating that doctrine ought not to
presume to discuss it at all. No doubt, if the writer in question made
any claim to be discussing the latest theological position on the
subject of the Atonement, in a technical way, he would be a mere
sciolist; but he is only claiming to discuss the Current conception of
the Atonement; and, as far as I can judge, he states it fairly enough.
The truth is that the current conceptions of old theological doctrines
tend to be very much what the original framers of those doctrines
intended them to be. All that later theologians can do, when the old
doctrine is exploded, is to prove that the doctrine can be modified and
held in some philosophical or metaphysical sense, which was certainly
not in the least degree contemplated by the theologians who framed it;
but they are quite unable to explain to the man in the street what the
new form of the doctrine is; and their only chance of doing that is to
substitute for an old and perfectly clear doctrine a new and perfectly
clear doctrine. The tone adopted by this critic reminds me of the tone
adopted by Newman to his disciples. Mark Pattison relates how on one
occasion he advanced, in Newman's presence, some liberal opinion, in
the days when he was himself numbered among the Tractarians; and that
Newman deposited, as was his wont, an icy "Very likely!" upon the
statement; after which, Pattison says, you were expected to go into a
corner and think over your sins. Not so does thought make progress!
But the larger question is this. What right have philosophers or
theologians to arrogate to themselves the sole right of speculation in
these matters? If religion is a vital matter, and if all of us who have
any thoughts at all about life and its issues are by necessity to a
certain extent practical philosophers, why should we meekly surrender
the stuff of speculation to technical disputants? Of course, there are
certain regions of experiment that must be left to specialists, and a
scientist who devoted himself to embryology might justly complain of a
man who aired views on the subject without adequate study. But as far
as life goes, any thoughtful and intelligent man who has lived and
reflected is in a sense a specialist. In life and conduct, in morality
and religion, we are all of us making experiments all day long, whether
we will or no; and it may be fairly said that a middle-aged man who has
lived thoughtfully has given up far more time to his subject than the
greatest scientist has devoted to his particular branch. A church-goer,
like myself, has been lectured once or twice a week on theology for as
long as he can remember. For years I have speculated, with deep
curiosity, on problems of religion, on the object and ultimate issues
of life and death. Neither philosophers nor theologians have ever
discovered a final solution which satisfies all the data. The
theologian, indeed, is encumbered by a vast mass of human tradition,
which he is compelled to treat more or less as divine revelation. The
whole religious position has been metamorphosed by scientific
discovery; and what theologian or philosopher has ever come near to
solving the incompatibility of the apparent inflexibility of natural
law with the no less apparent liberty of moral choice? Theologians and
philosophers may, if they choose, attempt to crush the speculations of
an experimentalist in life, though I think they would be better
employed in welcoming them as an instance of how theological and
metaphysical conceptions strike upon the ordinary mind; but they shall
not prevent one who, like myself, has observed life closely under
aspects which the technical student has had no opportunity of observing
it, from making my comment upon what I see. It is possible that such
comments may appeal to ordinary people with even more force than
technical considerations are likely to appeal. We have all to sin and
to suffer, to enjoy and to fear; we find our instinct at variance with
our reason and our moral sense alike. We have in our souls conceptions
of justice, truth, purity, generosity, and we find the natural law,
which we would fain believe is the law of God, constantly thwarting and
even insulting these conceptions; and yet these conceptions are as real
and vivid to us as the law which takes no account of them. We find
theologians basing their faith on documents which every day appear to
be less and less historical, and on deductions drawn from these
documents by men who believed them to be historical. I have the utmost
sympathy with the position in which theologians find themselves; but
they have mostly their own prudence to thank for it; they are so
cautious about sifting the chaff from the grain, that they will not
throw away the chaff for fear of casting away a single grain. They are
so averse to unsettling the faith of the weak, that the vitality has
ebbed away from the faith of the strong; they have clung so hard to
tradition, that they have obscured fact; they would confine the limbs
of manhood in the garb of childhood; and thus they have forfeited the
confidence of intelligent men, and ranged themselves with the
credulous, the comfortable, and the unenterprising. Intolerant
persecution is out of date, and the question will be solved by the
stranding of the theological hull, owing to the quiet withdrawal of the
vital tide.