MODERN PANTHEISM.
[Sidenote: Spinoza.]
[Sidenote: A Pantheistic Prophet.]
[Sidenote: The Main Subject here Is his Religion and not his
Philosophy.]
Modern Pantheism as a religion begins with Spinoza. Whether it ended
with him is a question which the future will have to decide. But the
signs of the times are, at least in my view, very clearly against such a
conclusion. And amongst the omens which portend immortality, not
necessarily for the philosophical scheme, but for the "God-intoxicated"
devoutness of his Pantheism, is the desire, or rather the imperious need
increasingly realized, for a religion emancipated from theories of
creation or teleology, intolerant of any miracle, save indeed the
wonders of the spiritual life, and satisfying the heart with an ever
present God. For it is to be remembered that Spinoza was the first
Pantheist who was also a prophet, in the sense of speaking out the
divine voice of the infinite Universe to its human constituent parts.
Not that I would minimize the religious fervour of the Neo-Platonists:
it is their Pantheism that seems to have been imperfect. But in Spinoza
we have a man who, inheriting by birth the tradition--I might even say
the apostolic succession--of the Jewish prophets, and gifted with an
insight into the consummation of that tradition in Jesus Christ, was
driven by a commanding intellect to divorce the spiritual life he prized
from creeds that had become to him Impossible, and to enshrine it in the
worthier temple of an eternal Universe identical with God. It is not,
then, with his philosophy that I am so much concerned as with his
religion.[15]
[Sidenote: His Originality.]
[Sidenote: Relation to Descartes.]
It is given to no man to be absolutely original in the sense of creating
ideas of which no germs existed before his day. But short of such an
impossible independence of the past, Benedict de Spinoza had perhaps as
much originality as any man who ever lived. Yet with a modesty ever
characteristic of moral greatness, he himself was disposed, at any rate
during his earlier philosophical development, to exaggerate his
indebtedness to the philosopher Descartes, whose system he laboriously
abridged in the inappropriate form of a series of propositions supposed
to be demonstrated after the fashion of Euclid.
[Sidenote: Fundamental Differences.]
[Sidenote: Spinoza Discards Creator and Creation,]
[Sidenote: Beginning and End.]
[Sidenote: Takes the Universe as it Is.]
[Sidenote: And Worships the Static Whole as God.]
But whatever may have been the esoteric belief of Descartes about
creation out of nothing and the theological dogmas connected therewith,
he attached too much importance to the social and political functions of
established ecclesiastical institutions to declare himself independent
of them. And though his submission, signalised on his death-bed, did not
interfere with the freest working of his brilliant intellect within
limits permitted to the former ecclesiastical "schoolmen," it did
prevent his frank realization of the eternal oneness of all being. For
it compelled him to retain belief in a Creator distinct in essence from
Creation. Such a belief Spinoza entirely rejected. For though his
"Natura Naturans," or Nature Active, may in a manner be called the
Creator of his "Natura Naturata," or Nature Passive, these are
consubstantial and co-eternal, neither being before or after the other.
Thus for him there was no beginning of the Universe and there could be
no end. There was no creation out of nothing, nor any omen of weariness,
decay, or death in the eternal order. He teaches us in effect to take
the Universe as it is, and to pry into no supposed secrets of origin or
end, an entirely gratuitous labour, imposed by illusions arising out of
the continuous redistribution of parts of the Whole. Instead of thus
spending our mental energy for nought, he would have us regard the whole
of Being as one Substance characterized by innumerable attributes, of
which Extension and Thought alone come within our human cognizance;
while each Attribute is subject to infinite Modes or modifications,
which, in their effect on the two attributes known to us--extension and
thought--constitute the universe of our experience. That infinite and
eternal Substance revealed by Attributes and their Modes is God,
absolute in His perfections if He could be fully conceived and known in
all His activities. And even to our ignorance He is entrancing in His
gradual self-revelation, as with our inadequate ideas we pursue the
unattainable from glory to glory.
[Sidenote: This View of the Universe applied to Psalm civ.]
This, then, is the first note we make of the gospel of Spinoza. But if
any one thinks that the sacred word "gospel" is here misused, and that
such teaching is fatal to piety, let him turn to the 104th Psalm and
read, from Spinoza's point of view, the cosmic vision of the Hebrew
seer. True, we can think no longer of the supernatural carpenter who
works on "the beams of his chambers" above, or of the mythical engineer
who digs deep in the darkness to "lay the foundations of the earth." For
that is poetry, appealing by concrete images to the emotions. But it
does not bind the intellect to a literal interpretation; and we are no
longer tormented by vain efforts to reconcile with infinite
impossibilities the half-human personality presented in poetic guise. So
that the vision of the seer is now the suggestion to us of an infinite
and eternal Being, whose attributes by modification take the innumerable
shapes of sun, moon, and stars, and mountains and river, and tree and
flower, and bird and beast, and man. And the winds that sweep and the
floods that roll, and the rocky barriers that stand fast, and the rivers
that wind among the hills, and the trees that flourish and the living
societies that gather in fruitful places, the labourer in his vineyard,
the sailor in his ship, all are in and of the one Eternal Being. Yet we
echo not with less, but perhaps with more reverence, than the believers
in a divine artisan, the words of the Psalmist: "O Lord, how manifold
are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all: the earth is full of
Thy riches." But if the thunder and the flaming fire and the sweeping
flood seem discordant, they existed for the Psalmist as well as for us,
and they do not seem to have troubled him. At this point, therefore, we
need only say that Spinoza's religion of one divine Substance, whose
unity in variety is holy, ought to stir within us with not less fervour,
at least the spirit of the Psalmist's concluding prayer: "Let the
sinners be consumed out of the earth and let the wicked be no more."
[Sidenote: Spinoza no Materialist,]
[Sidenote: Notwithstanding his Attribution of "Extension" to God.]
[Sidenote: Criticism by Sir F. Pollock.]
[Sidenote: Changes In Theories of Matter since Spinoza's time.]
Spinoza's maintenance of extension as one of the two infinite divine
attributes cognizable by us has, with a certain amount of plausibility,
been urged as a note of materialism. And this reproach has been
supported by reference to his insistence that in man the body and the
soul are only two different aspects of the same thing; for to him the
body is a finite Mode of God's infinite attribute of extension and the
soul a finite Mode of God's infinite attribute of thought, while both
are manifestations of the one eternal divine Substance. Still, if in any
way we are to regard God as extended, it seems impossible to avoid the
inference that we regard Him as identified with matter, or at least the
possibility of matter. Sir Frederick Pollock has admitted that this is a
weak point in Spinoza's philosophy,[16] and mars its symmetry. But,
being more concerned with, his religion, I am content to point out that
such an objection was much more effective in Spinoza's time than it is
to-day. For the whole trend of philosophy during the nineteenth century
was towards a view of Extension itself as a mode of Thought, and
therefore toward the absorption of one of Spinoza's theoretical divine
attributes in the other.
[Sidenote: Their Effect on his System.]
Now if this should prove to be the permanent tendency of the most
influential thinkers--as indeed seems most likely--it will probably be
held that Spinoza was wrong in attributing extension to the Eternal as
one of the qualities of His substance, except in so far as extension is,
if not a necessary, at any rate an actual, and so far as we know, a
universal mode of thought. But though, as Sir Frederick Pollock has
pointed out, Spinoza has in a manner "counted thought twice over" while
treating of the only two infinite attributes cognizable to us, we need
not, on that account, surrender his luminous idea of God as a Being
absolutely infinite, that is, "Substance consisting of infinite
Attributes, whereof each one expresses eternal and infinite being." Nor
need we abandon his supplementary but essential idea of "Modes" or
"modifications" which mould the attributes into the varieties of finite
worlds, known and unknown. Thus it may be that, in Spinoza's sense of
the word "Attribute," we shall have to confess that only one comes
within our human ken, that of Thought in a sense which includes feeling.
But if the late Herbert Spencer, apart from his synthetic philosophy of
phenomena, has left any permanent mark on the religions consciousness,
it has been by a consecration of the mystery of the ultimate
Unknowable.[17] And in the spirit of reverence thus taught by him we may
still hold with Spinoza that the Eternal has an infinity of other
attributes with their infinite modifications not within our cognizance.
This would only be an enlarged application of Hamlet's words:
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Or, to put it in another way, the Universe perceptible to us is only one
of an infinity of Universes. By which is not meant an infinite
extension of galaxies in space, but the co-existence and, so to speak,
interpenetration of an infinity of modes of existence imperceptible to
us.
[Sidenote: God Is Identical with the Whole of Being.]
To Spinoza, then, God is the totality of Being. But it is not to be
inferred that he identified God with the visible, or with any
conceivable Universe. For either of these must fall far short of
infinity, and the Being of God is infinite. All I mean, when I say that
Spinoza identifies God with the totality of existence, is that he
regards the deity as that Perfect Being without beginning or end, whose
essence it is to be, and of whom all that exists, whether known to us or
not, is separately a partial, and comprehensively a perfect expression.
[Sidenote: His Doctrine of Man.]
Of more practical interest to us perhaps is Spinoza's doctrine of man,
though it would have been impossible to explain that without first
indicating his idea of God. In his view, then, man is a finite mode of
the two divine attributes, extension and thought. Thus both the extended
body and the conscious mind have their substance and reality in God.[18]
But the essence of man does not necessarily involve his separate
existence as the essence of God implies Being. Of course the substance
of man is imperishable because it is of God's substance. Nay, there is a
sense in which each man, being an eternal thought of God, has an aspect
towards eternity or exists "sub specie eternitatis." But that is a truth
transcending the finite practical world with which we have to do.
[Sidenote: Illustration by the Vortex Theory.]
[Sidenote: Distinction between Man and Beast.]
According to Spinoza, what constitutes the real essence of the human
mind is the (divine) idea of a certain individual creature actually
existing.[19] Here, perhaps, modern speculations about the constitution
of matter may help us--if we use them with due reserve--to grasp
Spinoza's notion of a "res singularis in actu"--or as it might be
rendered freely, "a creature of individual functions," for what is
called the "vortex theory," though as old as Cartesian philosophy, has
recently flashed into sudden prominence. And whether or no the
speculation be only a passing phase of human thought about the
Unknowable, it equally answers the purpose of illustration. Thus the
so-called "ether" is supposed to fill all space; and within it there are
imagined or inferred innumerable "tourbillons" or "vortices," which,
though parts of the indefinitely extended ether, form by their
self-contained motion little worlds in themselves. These little worlds
are by some regarded as the atoms which, by composition, and
differentiation, build up our palpable universe. With the possibilities
of such a theory I have nothing to do. But the notion of the vortex in
the ether may perhaps help us to a glimpse of Spinoza's notion when he
speaks of a "res singularis in actu" a creature of individual functions.
For to him man was, as it were, an infinitesimal vortex in a phase or
attribute of the divine Substance. The analogy, like all other
analogies, would not bear being pressed. But it does suggest to us a
picture of finite individuality in action or function, subordinated to
unity with infinite Substance. If it be said that such an explanation
would necessarily include the conscious life of beasts and birds, the
answer would seem to be, that admitting this to be the case, yet in man
the divine idea of individuality is more fully expressed and has more of
reality than in any lower creature.
[Sidenote: Moral Difficulties.]
Man, then, according to Spinoza, is in God and of God. But what are we
to say of bad men, the vile, the base, the liar, the murderer? Are they
also in God and of God? Spinoza does not blench. Yes, they are. But here
comes in his doctrine of "adequate" and "inadequate ideas." Thus, if you
see the colour red it completely expresses itself. It cannot be defined
and needs no explanation.[20] As it is in the Infinite Thought so it is
in ours. We have an "adequate idea" of it. But now if you see on an
artist's canvas a splotch of red and blue and yellow, part of a work
only begun, it gives you no adequate idea. True, you have an adequate
idea of each several colour, but not of their relations to the work
conceived. To get that you would have to enter into the mind of the
artist and see as he sees. Then the splotch of colour would take its
place as part of a harmonious whole; and would give you an adequate idea
just as it does to the artist.
[Sidenote: But the Universe Is Not an Unfinished Picture.]
[Sidenote: It is an Eternal Whole, of which a Partial consideration is
Misleading.]
Now, according to Spinoza, when we see things as they appear in Infinite
Thought we have an adequate idea. But if we see only a component element
in an idea--let us say--of the divine Artist, then our idea is
inadequate.[21] Hence we misjudge things. And of the part played by bad
men in the divine Whole we certainly have no adequate idea. But here
again we must be on our guard against the abuse of illustrations. For it
is not to be inferred that Spinoza regards the Universe as an unfinished
picture, of which, the completion will justify the beginning. On the
contrary, the Universe is to him eternal, the necessary expression of
the infinite attributes of eternal Being. Still the analogy may help us.
For the concentration of attention on a single part of an ordered whole
may, quite as certainly as a glance at an unfinished work, be the
occasion of an inadequate idea. In effect, the suggestion is that if we,
like God, could contemplate the infinite Universe all at once, and have
an adequate idea thereof, in other words if we could ascend to the self
contemplation of the Eternal, we should have the bliss associated by
long habit with the words of the Psalmist: "I shall be satisfied when I
awake, with thy likeness." Such bliss, however, is only approximately
attainable in moments of mystic transport. And when, as in so many
experiences, we see only in part, and have inadequate ideas, faith in
the Eternal Whole is needed to keep us from blasphemy.
[Sidenote: Doctrine of Man Resumed.]
[Sidenote: Final Cause Replaced by Idea.]
[Sidenote: Freedom, Purity, Love.]
With such necessarily brief hints as to Spinoza's attitude towards evil,
I resume his doctrine of man--the individual creature as a centre of
action. Of final causes Spinoza will not hear. But if instead of asking
"what is the chief end of man," we ask what is the idea of man, Spinoza
answers that it is the realization of a mode of the divine attributes,
extension and thought. And if this should seem unsatisfying, let it be
remembered that to this devout Pantheist the divine attributes and
their modes were the expression of the very substance and life of God.
Now with "extension," for reasons already given, we need not trouble
ourselves except to say that at least Spinoza's teaching would suggest
the idea of _mens sana in corpore sano_. Because to him the mind was the
"idea" of the body, and the body the "object"--not quite in the modern
sense--of the mind. But as regards the human mode of the divine
attribute of thought, Spinoza makes its ideal to be a life absorbed in
such contemplation of "the Blessed God," the infinite Whole, as shall
react on the creature in inspirations of freedom, purity and love.
[Sidenote: Idea of Freedom.]
And first as to freedom, Spinoza means by this not caprice, nor the
monstrous miracle of causeless action, but independence of external
force or of any disproportionate and illegitimate passion. The freedom
to which he aspires is the freedom of God, who eternally acts in
accordance with the mutual harmony of the whole attributes of His
nature, not one of which clashes with another. So Spinoza's free man is
one in whom all aspirations and energies, converging in one resultant,
the expression of the divine idea, move him in harmony with the
Universe. From such a point of view the quibbles about "free will," in
the sense of causeless action, cease to have any meaning. For if the
good man says "I could have done otherwise if I had liked," the obvious
reply is, "Yes, but you would not have liked." Because the will is not a
separate faculty, but the expression of the whole nature, as that exists
at the moment of "willing." And the only real freedom is the unimpeded
conglomerate impulse to do right. But should it be asked what if the
resultant impulse of the whole nature is toward wrong? the answer is, in
that case there is no freedom, but a slavery to some external influence
or to a disturbed balance of the passions. Or if it be asked what is
right? that is a far reaching question to the solution of which Spinoza
bends all his splendid powers. But limits of space preclude me from
saying more than, that his ideal of right will be found conformable to
the highest standards of the most spiritual religions.
[Sidenote: Purity.]
This ideal I ventured to symbolize rather than define as "purity." For
after all the philosophic reasoning with which it is no less lucidly
than laboriously worked out in the final book of his _Ethica_,
"Concerning Human. Freedom"--the moral result of all this intellectual
effort is that same cleansing of the soul from vain desire and that
subordination of the earthly self to its divine idea which we are taught
in the Sermon on the Mount. And while surely every one but a fanatical
anti-Christian must allow the greater prophetic worth of the Galilean,
who could teach these sublime lessons so that "the common people heard
him gladly," it seems difficult to deny to the heretic Jew of the Hague
the second rank among the teachers given to the world by that strangely
gifted race. For though he could not speak to "the common people," he
left as his legacy to mankind, not so much a system of philosophy, as an
impregnable foundation for morals and religion, available for the time
now coming upon us--such a time as that suggested by the writer of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, when he spoke of "the removing of those things
that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which
cannot be shaken may remain." No doubt Sir Frederic Pollock is quite
right in declaring that Spinoza would have been the very last man to
desire any one to become a Spinozist. But that is quite consistent with
the inspired Pantheist's infinite longing to see all men blessed by that
inward peace which he proved, by his own heroic experience, to be
identical with the self-control conferred and maintained by devout
contemplation of God's all-comprehensive Being and our place therein.
If, then, I regard purity as the best symbol of such a moral ideal, it
is because the word connotes, together with freedom from discordant
passion, a frankly unconstrained recognition of the simplicity of our
relation to God. For surely when once the self has made the great
surrender, and becomes content to be nothing, that in St. Paul's words,
"God may be all in all," the whole problem of life is infinitely
simplified, in the sense that no farther degree of simplification is
possible. Because all contradictions of pain and evil and sorrow are
dissolved in that act of surrender. We must, indeed, recognize that to
our "inadequate ideas" the time often seems "out of joint." But we need
not, with Hamlet, cry out on an impossible "spite." For when once it is
heartily and loyally realized that not our partial likings, but the
eternal harmony of the Whole, is the glory of God, we already anticipate
the peace of absorption in the Infinite.
[Sidenote: Love.]
Nor is this moral ideal without a sacred passion; at least to ordinary
men; though it must be confessed that Spinoza, in the stillness of his
sacred peace, ignored the word. But he still held that the larger our
view of the Universe and of our communion therewith, the more we have of
God in us and the more do we realize an "intellectual love" towards Him.
That this in his case was no barren sentiment, but a genuine moral
inspiration, was proved by his life; for truly "he endured as seeing Him
who is invisible." And it was not by faculties wholly wanting to smaller
men that he did this. For though his intellect was in some respects
almost beyond compare, it was rather by his self-subordinating
contemplation that he was kept at peace. Indeed, he knew far less of the
extended universe than our men of science do, and his doctrines of mind
and thought are, by indisputable authorities, regarded as imperfect. But
imagining what God must be, could we have an adequate idea not only of
His Being--which Spinoza thought he had--but of His infinite attributes
and their modes--which Spinoza recognized that he had not--he declared
that love toward God was the very highest good. And it was supremely
blessed in this, that it could engender no jealousy nor selfishness, nor
sectarian zeal, but rather a large-hearted charity which would gather
all mankind into the present heaven of that love.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 15: It is not within the scope of the present essay to give a
life of Barach (or Benedict) de Spinoza. But for the sake of those to
whom the work of Sir Frederick Pollock is not easily accessible, the
following particulars may be given. Spinoza was born in Amsterdam,
November, 1632, of a fairly prosperous Jewish family, originally from
Portugal. He received thorough instruction in the language and
literature of the Hebrews, and in addition became a good Latin scholar,
so far as to write and correspond in that language. He was early
interested in philosophy, and especially attracted for a time by the
writings of Descartes. By the time he was twenty-three years old he was
suspected of heresy, and in his twenty-fourth year (1655) was cut off
from the Synagogue with a frightful curse. His family disowned him, and
for his maintenance he turned to the polishing of lenses, a trade
already learned in accordance with the Jewish custom that every boy must
have a handicraft. What he earned would hardly be considered a "living
wage" in these days. But according to Colerus, his first biographer, who
enquired of the householders with whom Spinoza lodged, his day's
maintenance of often cost no more than 4-1/2_d_. Various incidents
proved his total indifference to money, except as far as needed to
"provide things honest in the sight of all men." Though of an amiable
and sociable disposition he lived a solitary life, while not indisposed
to kindly talk with his humbler neighbours. He had some of the greatest
scholars of the day among his correspondents. He published but little
during his life, leaving his greatest work as a legacy to the world on
his early death, at the Hague, from consumption, in 1677.]
[Footnote 16: "It is to be observed that, inasmuch as Attribute is
defined by reference to intellect, and Thought itself is an attribute,
Thought appears to be in a manner, counted twice over."--_Spinoza: His
Life and Philosophy_, by Sir Frederick Pollock. Second edition, 1899, p.
153.]
[Footnote 17: It is of course true that Spinoza considered himself to
have a clear and adequate conception of God. But by this he meant only
that, as a philosopher, he had an intuitive certainty of eternal and
infinite Being. So have all of us humbler mortals, though we should not
have been able to express it for ourselves. No one supposes that for an
indefinite space of time or eternity there was nothing, and then
suddenly there was something. But, if not, then everyone recognises with
Spinoza the fact of eternal Being, though, of course, he saw what this
recognition meant, as the many do not. But when it comes to the facts of
mortal imperfections and ignorance, Spinoza, with his theory of
"inadequate ideas," is as ready as Spencer to acknowledge the
Unknowable.]
[Footnote 18: I do not think it necessary in an essay of this kind to
discuss Spinoza's theory of the body as object of the mind, and the mind
as "idea" of the body, both being different aspects of the same thing.]
[Footnote 19: "Rei alicujus singularis actu existentis." The word
"divine" does not occur in Prop. xi. Ethices II., from which I quote.
But it is implied; because the mind is only a mode or modification of
the infinite attribute of thought, which again expresses the eternal
Substance in God. I venture a doubt whether "actually existing," though
adopted by such authorities as Sir F. Pollock gives, with any
distinctness, Spinoza's meaning. I may be wrong, but I suspect that one
of the later uses of "actus," as quoted in Ducange, affected Spinoza's
Latinity. Thus several ecclesiastical writers are quoted as using the
word in the sense of office, or function. Surely this would suit
Spinoza's definition of the mind. For he treats it as a centre of
phenomenal activity amidst the infinite modes of the divine attribute.
Its apparent individuality is a consequence of its spontaneity as a
centre of action--always understood that the spontaneity is consistent
with the absolute eternal order assumed throughout the work.]
[Footnote 20: Of course the professor of optics can tell us how many
vibrations in a second go to produce the particular shade of colour. But
these cannot by any means be identified with conscious perception; and
it is with this only that we are concerned.]
[Footnote 21: Ethices Pars II., Prop. xi. Corollarium. "Hence it follows
that the human mind is part of the infinite intellect (thought) of God;
and accordingly, when we say that the human mind perceives this or that,
we only say that God--not in His infinity, but so far as He is expressed
by the nature of the human mind, or, so far as He constitutes the
essence of the human mind--has this or that idea. And when, we say that
God has this or that idea, not only so far as He constitutes the nature
of the human mind, but so far as He has the idea also of some other
thing together with the human mind, then we say that the human mind
perceives the thing in part, or inadequately." E.G. all races have
naturally supposed earthquakes and storm, battle, murder and sudden
death to present ideas identical in the minds of their gods and of
themselves. But Spinoza's suggestion, as I interpret it, is that the
true God has the idea of such things, not only so far as He constitutes
the human mind, but as He includes the ideas of some correlated things
to us inconceivable. Our idea is therefore "inadequate."]
AFTERWORD.
[Sidenote: Spinoza's Apparent Failure.]
[Sidenote: Power of Ecclesiasticism.]
[Sidenote: Identification of Moral Interests with Conventional Beliefs.]
Notwithstanding the admiration, and even reverence, with, which Spinoza
was regarded by a few scholars during his life-time, it cannot be said
that during the century following his death, in 1677, there was any wide
acceptance of his ideas. The times were not favourable. For the
political and social power of ecclesiasticism, whether established, or
unestablished, compelled men of science and philosophers to treat
dominant creeds as consecrated ground, on which ordinary methods of
research, reasoning or criticism could not be pursued. In saying this, I
am far from accusing those illustrious men of insincerity. Some few of
them, indeed, used a sort of cryptic satire to excuse to themselves an
unwilling conformity. But, for the most part, the moral pressure of
tradition and education compelled enlightened men to identify the
doctrines of a personal God, Creation, Fall, Redemption and Immortality
with moral interests vitally essential to human welfare. Under such
circumstances a prudent conservatism was inevitable.
[Sidenote: Gradual Spread of Spinoza's Influence.]
[Sidenote: Fichte.]
[Sidenote: Hegel.]
Yet, notwithstanding these restraining influences, the thoughts breathed
forth by the lonely thinker were as living seed wafted abroad, and
falling here and there on good ground, germinated and brought forth
fruit. Sometimes his influence was acknowledged, sometimes it was
repudiated; but it was there, nevertheless. It is doubtful whether
Fichte's idealism could have taken the form it did had not Spinoza
preceded him. Hegel, setting out on his great intellectual career with a
resolve to defend the faith once delivered to the saints, yet traces its
roots to a philosophy of Being which, at any rate, looks very like
Pantheism. This is perhaps delicate ground to tread. For if one is asked
whether one understands Hegel, one is tempted to answer, like the pious
Scotch lady when her friends enquired whether she had understood the
minister's sermon, "Hech, sirs, d'ye think I'd presume?" Still, not my
own reading of him only, but Mr. Haldane's profoundly interesting
interpretations given in his _Gifford Lectures_, make the impression
that Hegel's eternal process is always a projection of subject as object
and re-integration of the two. And this goes on, not only on the
infinite, but on the finite scale, amidst the infinite number of
processes which constitute the Whole of Being. But this seems to leave
no room for creation out of nothing, and it is to that extent
pantheistic. There are doubtless saving interpretations, but it is
difficult to follow them; and they cannot cancel the initial postulate
of one eternal process, consisting in the relations of infinite subject,
object and reunion. On such a system I do not see how there can be
anything but God, and, therefore, notwithstanding his aversion to the
name, count Hegel a Pantheist.
[Sidenote: Goethe and Wordsworth.]
Goethe and Wordsworth, in many inspired passages of their poetry, echo
the faith of Spinoza. Wordsworth, of course, in the reaction from his
first expectations of the new order that he hoped to see arise out of
the French Revolution, was Inclined to magnify the Importance of
established religious ceremonies and creeds. But we cannot suppose that
he ever repented of his reverence for Nature as a divine revelation. And
we may believe that he continued to regard his practically pantheistic
visions as an insight into the eternal reality from which the detailed
schemes of orthodox theology were projected.
[Sidenote: Schleiermacher.]
That Schleiermacher was much indebted to Spinoza is abundantly evident
from his own words. He spoke of "the holy repudiated Spinoza." He
declared that "the high world-spirit penetrated him; the Infinite was
his beginning and his end; the universe his only and eternal love. In
holy innocence and lowliness, he mirrored himself in the eternal world,
and saw himself as its most love-worthy image. He was full of religion
and of the Holy Spirit; and therefore he stands alone and unreachable,
master in his art above the profane multitude, without disciples and
without citizenship."[22]
[Sidenote: Anglican Broad Churchmen.]
Coming down to Anglican Broad Churchmen, it would scarcely be fair to
quote isolated utterances as proofs of their Pantheism. And yet when
Frederick Robertson asked, "What is this world itself but the form of
Deity whereby the manifoldness and beauty of His mind manifests itself?"
and still farther, when he quotes with approval Channing's word, that
"perhaps matter is but a mode of thought," the most earnest Pantheist
would hardly desire more. For the conception of the Universe involved
must surely exclude the real being, or even the real existence, of
anything but God. Matthew Arnold never committed himself to Pantheism,
nor, indeed, to any other theory of the Universe. For his delicate
humour and lambent satire always had in view simply the practical object
of clearing a plain way for the good life through the "Aberglaube" of
theology. His description of God as "the Power not ourselves which makes
for righteousness," might seem, in fact, the negation of Pantheism,
because, if God is not ourselves, there is something other than God. But
the man who deliberately justified the loose phraseology of the Bible
about infinite Being, by the plea that it was language "thrown out" at
an object infinitely transcending linguistic expression, ought not
himself to be pinned to the implications logically deducible from his
own words "thrown out" at the same transcendant object. And, though
Matthew Arnold was too literary to be a Pantheist, that is, though he
thought more of forms of expression than of ultimate reality, his
satirical disintegration of the creeds, wherever it is effective, makes
Pantheism the only religious alternative. So-called "secular" and
godless alternatives may be offered; but their incongruity with the
whole evolution of humanity from prehistoric animism to the higher
Pantheism will make their doom short and sure.
[Sidenote: Why Pantheism as a Religion was called Modern.]
In the earlier part of this essay I made the remark that Pantheism as a
religion is almost entirely modern. The context, however, clearly showed
what was meant; for several pages have been occupied with indications of
the ideas and teaching of individual Pantheists from Xenophanes to
Spinoza. But we do not usually take much note of a religion that is
confined to one or two men in an age. If it dies out we treat it merely
as a curiosity, or an intellectual puzzle, like the dreams of Jacob
Boehme, or the atheistic ecclesiasticism of Comte. But, if it
afterwards shows symptoms of unexpected adaptation to the mental and
moral conditions of a newer world, and if, on account of this
adaptation, it gains a hold on men who are neither philosophers nor
metaphysicians, but only religious, it demands our consideration on far
other grounds than those of intellectual curiosity.
[Sidenote: Pantheistic Tendencies of Contemporary Thought]
Now it has only been during the second half of the last century that
Pantheism has been able to claim attention as a religion in such a sense
as this. As to the fact there can hardly be any dispute. For not only
has it become ever a more prominent motive in the music of the poets,
and not only are all rationalizations of Christianity more or less
transparent disguises of Pantheism, but I may safely appeal to those
ordinary members of intelligent society who are neither poets, nor
divines, nor philosophers, whether the freest and most confidential
interchange of religious thought does not continually verge on a faith
which merges everything in God.
[Sidenote: Caused by the Mutual Pressure of Science and Faith.]
[Sidenote: The Nebular Hypothesis taken alone Involves Absurdity.]
Nor are the reasons of this tendency far to seek. Indeed, they are
palpable and conspicuous in the mutual pressure of science and faith.
For, on the one hand science has made unthinkable the old-world
conception of a three-storeyed Universe, constructed by an artificer
God, who suddenly awoke from an eternity of idleness to make Heaven,
Earth, and Hell--a conception involving a King of kings, enthroned like
an eastern monarch, and sending forth His ministering spirits, or
appointing His angel deputies to direct and govern at His beck. Or if it
be said that never, except in the ages of primeval simplicity, or
amongst later generations living under primeval conditions? has such a
conception been entertained, it would be difficult for the "broadest"
Churchman to say what has been, put in its place. It is vain to remind
us how later Christianity has patronised nebular hypotheses and the
doctrine of evolution. For these give no definite substitute whatever
for the old story, that Elohim "spoke, and it was done--he commanded,
and it stood fast." Whence the fiery mists by the rotation and cooling
of which the worlds were slowly evolved? We are told that the same
process is going on now within the ken of astronomers. But does any one
suppose that in those realms of space God is evoking something out of
nothing, or saying "be," and "there is"? No; we are assured that these
fiery mists are formed by the collision of misguided orbs; and we are
even asked--or, at least we _were_ asked--to believe that this process
must go on until all systems are agglomerated in one orb, to be
ultimately congealed into stone. What, then, is the office of the
Creator according to this scheme, as repulsive as it is absurd? It would
appear that, at some moment in a vacuous eternity, He calls matter out
of nothing, whirls it into fiery vortices, and then lets it cool down to
the absolute zero wherein death reigns for ever.
[Sidenote: The Protest of Faith.]
[Sidenote: Sustained by Latest Science.]
[Sidenote: Which Suggests an Infinite Unity.]
But, after all, "there is a spirit in man," and "the inspiration of the
Almighty," of the Eternal, of the glorious Whole to which we belong,
stirs in us a protest against this blasphemy of ignorance. Ignorance, I
say, for it was not the knowledge of our wise men that whispered such
things, but their sense of the vacuity beyond their knowledge. Up to
certain bounds, their grasp of facts, their insight into physical order,
their mathematical skill, were beyond all praise. But beyond that bound,
aye, and within it, in every inconceivable mode of the action of force,
as, for example, in gravitation, brooded the Unknowable. And it was not
their knowledge, but their ignorance that entailed absurd issues.
Already there are signs that even celestial physics and mathematics will
refuse to endorse as final so revolting a scheme of material evolution
and devolution, ending only in universal death.[23] And when once the
re-birth of new order out of the old is seen to be everywhere and
eternally taking place, then all the hints given us by science of the
ultimate oneness of all things, converge in the faith that All is God,
and God is All. For certainly, the latest observations on Matter suggest
that all forms of it are variations of one ultimate Substance. And the
convertibility of forces, as well as the conservation of force, point to
one eternal energy. Nor is the duality thus suggested any final
conclusion. For few, I imagine, would now contend that, in the last
result Matter and Force are fundamentally different things. In fact,
Monism holds the field; and though the evolution of human opinion is
very slow, it appears safe to predict that the triumph of that world
theory is assured.
[Sidenote: Idea of Creation Incongruous with Modern Knowledge.]
This result Is additionally secured by the increasing incongruity felt
between the immeasurable vastness of the Universe, even as known, and
the idea of creation out of nothing. When the Almighty could be
seriously pictured as constructing chambers for Himself and His heavenly
host above, the middle floor of earth for the children of men, and the
abyss for ghosts and devils, the notion that His word evoked that puny
structure from nothing might be invested by poets and prophets with a
certain grandeur. Each part of the work had an object as conceivable as
that of each floor in a house; and, according to petty human notions of
utility, nothing was wasted. But now, when our astronomers confront us
with countless millions of orbs, to whose extension In space no bound
can be proved, while some of them tell us that the whole immensity is a
desert of alternate fire and darkness, with no spark of finite intellect
except in our tiny earth, some of us, at least, cannot help feeling that
the notion of a personal divine worker calling this huge enigma out of
blank eternal nothing, is enormously and utterly incongruous both with
reverence and common sense.
And if the Pantheist in these days be asked, "What interpretation then
do you propose?" his answer is, "I propose none. I take things as they
are. In their totality they are unknowable, as, indeed, even science
finds they are in their infinitesimal parts." But we need not on this
account lose "the divinity that shapes our ends."
[Sidenote: Pantheistic Morality.]
[Sidenote: The Law of the Whole.]
For, between the infinite and the infinitesimal the human experience
realizes itself in surroundings which, when observed and reflected on,
make the impression of ordered relations of parts. By a necessity of our
finite and individual existence as centres of action--a necessity of
which we can give no account--we present those relations to ourselves in
forms of time and space. Then, when our experience is large enough and
ripe enough, being enriched and stimulated by the stored-up experience
of humanity, as recorded in tradition, custom, Bibles, and Epics, we
attain to the moral sense, and realize that we are bound to be loyal to
something greater than self. That "greater" may be the tribe, the
nation, humanity or God. But in far the larger number of cases in which
this sense of willing loyalty is aroused, its cause is the appeal to us
of some whole of which we form a part. Certainly this is so with the
patriot and the philanthropist. Indeed, it would be difficult, or
impossible, to find any human relationship, from the family upwards,
through the wider circles of school, club, municipality, nationality, in
which this sense of loyalty or devotion to the law of the whole is not
the best incentive to devotion.
[Sidenote: Of that Law of the Whole Loyalty to God in the Supreme
Application.]
Yet, when we come to contemplate the final and supreme object of
devotion, the Eternal Himself, it has been almost the universal custom
to make a surprising exception, and to regard religion as maintainable
only by recognition of a tremendous outward authority, to which only
such loyalty is possible as in barbarous times was fostered towards a
personal chieftain, or feudal king. Now Pantheism holds this to be an
error, and regards obedience and devotion to God as the ultimate and
most inspiring application of that principle of the loyalty of the part
to the whole which runs through all morality.
[Sidenote: Conclusion.]
Why should we be supposed to be without God because we acknowledge Him
to be superpersonal, and "past finding out"? Or why should we be
suspected of denying the divinity of evolution because we do not
believe the Eternal All to be subject to it? This instinct of loyalty,
in the sense of self-subordination to any greater Whole of which we are
part, the distinction of right and wrong thence arising, and the
aspiration after a moral ideal, are not of man's invention. Speaking, as
we cannot help doing, in terms of time, I hold that the germs of this
higher creature-life were always in the divine unity out of which man is
evolved. And in pursuing the inspirations of that higher life, as
experience suggests them, humanity has always had a guide and a saviour
in the Living God, of whom the race life-time of man is an infinitesimal
phase. In such an interpretation of man's relations to God there is
nothing necessarily hostile to any form of genuine religion.[24] True,
there are in the creeds many statements which we cannot accept in the
letter. But there are few which have not some spiritual suggestion for
us. And if we can attain to that intellectual love of God in which
Spinoza was absorbed, we have no quarrel with any mode of sincere
devotion. Pious Catholic, Protestant, Vedantist, Mohammedan--all, by
the implicit, though unrecognised necessities of their faith, worship
the same God as ourselves. But the wrangles of sectarian zeal no longer
concern us: for we have passed
"To where beyond those voices there is peace."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 22: Quoted by Dr. J. Hunt, in his _Essay on Pantheism_, p.
312.]
[Footnote 23: See _The Religion of the Universe_, pp. 128-30.]
[Footnote 24: Limitations of space must be my apology for reference to
an enlargement of this topic in "A Pantheistic Sermon" at the end of
_The Religion of the Universe_.]