THE USE OF REASON
(Attempts to show that in the field to which reason applies we are
compelled to use it, and are justified in trusting it.)
The great majority of people are brought up to believe that some
particular set of dogmas are objects of faith, and that there are
penalties more or less severe for the application of reason to these
dogmas. What particular set it happens to be is a matter of geography;
in a crowded modern city like New York, it is a matter of the particular
block on which the child is born. A child born on Hester Street will be
taught that his welfare depends upon his never eating meat and butter
from the same dish. A child born on Tenth Avenue will be taught that it
is a matter of his not eating meat on Fridays. A child born on Madison
Avenue will be taught that it is a question of the precise metaphysical
process by which bread is changed into human body and wine into human
blood. Each of these children will be assured that his human reason is
fallible, that it is extremely dangerous to apply it to this "sacred"
subject, and that the proper thing to do is to accept the authority of
some ancient tradition, or some institution, or some official, or some
book for which a special sanction is claimed.
Has there ever been in the world any revelation, outside of or above
human reason? Could there ever be such a thing? In order to test this
possibility, select for yourself the most convincing way by which a
special revelation could be handed down to mankind. Take any of the
ancient orthodox ways, the finding of graven tablets on a mountain-top,
or a voice speaking from a burning bush, or an angel appearing before a
great concourse of people and handing out a written scroll. Suppose that
were to happen, let us say, at the next Yale-Harvard football game;
suppose the news were to be flashed to the ends of the earth that God
had thus presented to mankind an entirely new religion. What would be
the process by which the people of London or Calcutta would decide upon
that revelation? First, they would have to consider the question
whether it was an American newspaper fake--by no means an easy question.
Second, they would have to consider the chances of its being an optical
delusion. Then, assuming they accepted the sworn testimony of ten
thousand mature and competent witnesses, they would have to consider the
possibility of someone having invented a new kind of invisible
aeroplane. Assuming they were convinced that it was really a
supernatural being, they would next have to decide the chances of its
being a visitor from Mars, or from the fourth dimension of space, or
from the devil. In considering all this, they would necessarily have to
examine the alleged revelation. What was the literary quality of it?
What was the moral quality of it? What would be the effect upon mankind
if the alleged revelation were to be universally adopted and applied?
Manifestly, all these are questions for the human reason, the human
judgment; there is no other method of determining them, there would be
nothing for any individual person, or for men as a whole to do, except
to apply their best powers, and, as the phrase is, "make up their minds"
about the matter. Reason would be the judge, and the new revelation
would be the prisoner at the bar. Humanity might say, this is a real
inspiration, we will submit ourselves to it and follow it, and allow no
one from now on to question it. But inevitably there would be some who
would say, "Tommyrot!" There would be others who would say, "This new
revelation isn't working, it is repressing progress, it is stifling the
mind." These people would stand up for their conviction, they would
become martyrs, and all the world would have to discuss them. And who
would decide between them and the great mass of men? Reason, the judge,
would decide.
It is perfectly true that human reason is fallible. Infallibility is an
absolute, a concept of the mind, and not a reality. Life has not given
us infallibility, any more than it has given us omniscience, or
omnipotence, or any other of those attributes which we call divine. Life
has given us powers, more or less weak, more or less strong, but all
capable of improvement and development. Reason is the tool whereby
mankind has won supremacy over the rest of the animal kingdom, and is
gradually taking control of the forces of nature. It is the best tool we
have, and because it is the best, we are driven irresistibly to use it.
And how strange that some of us can find no better use for it than to
destroy its own self! Visit one of the Jesuit fathers and hear him seek
to persuade you that reason is powerless against faith and must abdicate
to faith. You answer, "Yes, father, you have persuaded me. I admit the
fallibility of my mortal powers; and I begin by applying my doubts of
them to the arguments by which you have just convinced me. I was
convinced, but of course I cannot be sure of a conviction, attained by
fallible reason. Therefore I am just where I was before--except that I
am no longer in position to be certain of anything."
You answer in good faith, and take up your hat and depart, closing the
door of the good father's study behind you. But stop a moment, why do
you close the door? You close the door because your reason tells you
that otherwise the cold air outside will blow in and make the good
father uncomfortable. You put your hat on, because your reason has not
yet been applied to the problem of the cause of baldness. You step out
onto the street, and when you hear a sudden noise, you step back onto
the curbstone, because your reason tells you that an automobile is
coming, and that on the sidewalk you are safe from it. So you go on,
using your reason in a million acts of your life whereby your life is
preserved and developed. And if anybody suggested that the fallibility
of your reason should cause you to delay in front of an automobile, you
would apply your reason to the problem of that person and decide that he
was insane. And I say that just as there is insanity in everyday
judgments and relationships, so there is insanity in philosophy,
metaphysics and religion; the seed and source of all this kind of
insanity being the notion that it is the duty of anybody to believe
anything which cannot completely justify itself as reasonable.
Nowadays, as ideas are spreading, the champions of dogma are hard put to
it, and you will find their minds a muddle of two points of view. The
Jewish rabbi will strive desperately to think of some hygienic objection
to the presence of meat and butter on the same plate; the Catholic
priest will tell you that fish is a very wholesome article of food, and
that anyhow we all eat too much; the Methodist and the Baptist and the
Presbyterian will tell you that if men did not rest one day in seven
their health would break down. Thus they justify faith by reason, and
reconcile the conflict between science and theology. Accepting this
method, I experiment and learn that it improves my digestion and adds to
my working power if I play tennis on Sunday. I follow this indisputably
rational form of conduct--and find myself in conflict with the "faith"
of the ancient State of Delaware, which obliges me to serve a term in
its state's prison for having innocently and unwittingly desecrated its
day of holiness!
If you read Professor Bury's little book, "A History of Freedom of
Thought," you will discover that there has been a long conflict over the
right of men to use their minds--and the victory is not yet. The term
"free thinker," which ought to be the highest badge a man could wear, is
still almost everywhere throughout America a term of vague terror. In
the State of California today there is a Criminal Syndicalism Act, which
provides a maximum of fourteen years in jail for any person who shall
write or publish or speak any words expressive of the idea that the
United States government should be overthrown in the same way that it
was established--that is, by force; only a few months ago the writer of
this book was on the witness stand for two days, and had the painful,
almost incredible experience of being battered and knocked about by an
inquisitive district attorney, who cross-examined him as to every detail
of his beliefs, and read garbled extracts from his published writings,
in the effort to make it appear that he held some belief which might
possibly prejudice the jury against him. The defendant in this case, a
returned soldier who had spent three years as a volunteer in the
trenches, and had been twice wounded and once gassed, was accused, not
merely of approving the Soviet form of government, but also of having
printed uncomplimentary references to priests and religious
institutions.
Nowadays it is the propertied class which has taken possession of the
powers of government, and which presumes to censor the thinking of
mankind in its own interest. But whether it be priestcraft or whether it
be capitalism which seeks to bind the human mind, it comes to the same
thing, and the effort must be met by the assertion that, in spite of
errors and blunders, and the serious harm these may do, there is no way
for men to advance save by using the best powers of thinking they
possess, and proclaiming their conclusions to others. Speaking
theologically for the moment, God has given us our reasoning powers, and
also the impulse to use them, and it is inconceivable that He should
seek to restrict their use, or should give to anyone the power to forbid
their use. It is His truth which we seek, and His which we proclaim. In
so doing we perform our highest act of faith, and we refuse to be
troubled by the idea that for this service He will reward us by an
eternity of sulphur and brimstone.
Throughout the remainder of this book it will be assumed that the reader
accepts this point of view, or, at any rate, that he is willing for
purposes of experiment to give it a trial and see where it leads him. We
shall proceed to consider the problems of human life in the light of
reason, to determine how they come to be, and how they can be solved.