RELIGION AND NATURAL SCIENCE
In the previous chapter we have noticed how man is able to reach an
over-world which will grant him a new kind of reality over against the
whole remaining domain of existence. But the evidence hitherto brought
forth has been that of the nature of man himself. We have in this
chapter to inquire whether there is a warrant for such a conclusion
within the realm of natural science. Does science give any hint of the
presence of spiritual life anywhere in the universe? Eucken answers
distinctly in the affirmative.[13]
The conclusions of natural science have, in modern times, come into
direct conflict with religion. Traditional religion has grown up on a
view of the universe which has been [p.58] utterly discarded by modern
knowledge. Religious leaders have often had to be dragged to see the
truth of this statement, and, as Eucken points out, many are still far
from realising the seriousness of the cleft between knowledge and
religion. The theology of the Middle Ages has not yet disappeared,
although fortunately there are some signs of a great reconstruction
going on in our midst. Fortunately, this naive view of the universe is a
theology and not a religion; but doubtless even the religion of the soul
suffers when its _knowing_ aspect is perpetually contradicted by
scientific knowledge. There is such a close connection between "head"
and "heart"--even closer than between body and mind--that the use of
discarded theories of the universe and of life cannot but prove
injurious to the deepest source of life.
The mental conceptions of religion have, in the course of the ages,
undergone many transformations, and there is no reason why another
transformation should gradually not come about in the present. In Hebrew
and Greek times we discover a polytheism, after a long course of
development, emerging into henotheism, and finally, here and there, into
monotheism. The old conceptions of gods and spirits present in trees and
wells, mountains and air, are overcome. They are not so much destroyed
as supplanted by higher conceptions. In pre-Socratic philosophy we find
the gods and [p.59] spirits relegated to a secondary place, and Nature
is conceived as a system of inner energies and strivings. In these
conceptions Man is drawn closer to Nature, and the connection of his
life is shown to be closely interwoven with the life of Nature. But the
empirical aspect of this teaching was pushed into the background through
the teachings of Socrates and Plato. The "myth" regained some of its
pristine power in a new kind of way; and "God transcendent of the world
and immanent in the world" came prominently forward as a doctrine of the
universe and of life. This is the kernel of the Christian theology,
constructed through the blending of Hebrew and Greek philosophies. Such
a conception remained very largely the philosophy as well as the
theology of the Christian Church until the seventeenth century. During
this long interval hardly any progress was made in the investigation of
Nature, so that such a theology proved rather a help than a hindrance to
the religion of those who understood it. But such a theology has been
destroyed, however unwilling many people are to acknowledge the fact.
But until this fact is acknowledged, there is very little hope, in
Eucken's opinion, of the Christian religion gaining many adherents from
the side of those who understand the modern meaning and significance of
natural science. The physical universe has become a problem; and the old
solution was a matter [p.60] of speculation based upon scarcely any
observation and experiment. Eucken marks the stages which have brought
about a revolution in our conceptions of the universe as consisting of
the change brought about in the science of astronomy through Copernicus
in the sixteenth century, the founding of exact science through Galileo
in the seventeenth century, and the theory of evolution propounded by
Darwin and his followers in the nineteenth century. The whole tendency
has been to describe and explain Nature in terms of mechanism, and to
extend such mechanism into the life of man. Proof after proof has poured
upon us, and has been the means, on the whole, of establishing a kingdom
of mechanism within the realm of Nature and of human nature. Theology
and speculative philosophy went on their courses unheedful of these
developments of physical science, until in our day both have had to
reconsider the tenableness of their position, and to see that Nature and
its physical manifestations have to enter as all-important factors into
their reconstructions. Miracle is now relegated to a secondary place in
theology, and it has disappeared altogether from science; a Supreme
Being transcendent of, and immanent in, the world is not known to
science, however far it reaches into the secrets of Nature. Doubtless
the loss to religion has been here incalculable; for although the
natural scientist was able to destroy the old building, [p.61] he was
unable to construct a new one. And Eucken shows that the natural
scientist will remain unable to accomplish this, because the material
with which he deals is physical in its nature and constitutes no more
than a part--a secondary part--of what is found in the world.
The old mode of conceiving the universe, when driven from its citadel by
the new conceptions of physics and astronomy, turned for refuge to the
mystery of Life itself. Here it supposed itself to be safe. But the
development of modern chemistry and biology shows how dangerous it is to
base a theological and religious superstructure on the unfilled clefts
of natural science. The lesson here during the past hundred years ought
to be a grave warning against its repetition in the future. These clefts
have been filled more and more by the investigations and results of
modern chemistry and biology, so that the theologian is constantly kept
in a state of panic, and has to shift his camp and run away when the
tide of knowledge sweeps in with its newly discovered results. The whole
situation seems serious, but it is not so disastrous as it appears at
first sight. Doubtless the gains of science have been numerous, and have
shaken and practically ruined the old theological and metaphysical
foundations; but a halt has now been called on science itself, and its
limitations have become perceptible even to its own [p.62] leaders. It
is not quite so certain that the problem of organic life can be settled
in terms of chemical combinations and mechanism. Many scientists[14] are
agreed on this point, although they repudiate the claims of neo-vitalists
such as Driesch and Reinke.[15] No judgment can be pronounced on this
subject at the present day, and probably the problem will take a long
time before any important results will accrue. And even these results
will not solve the problem of organic life, for the manifestations of
life, the higher we mount the scale of being, are not things visible to
the senses but express themselves in the forms of meanings and
will-relations.
The limits of natural science become clearly perceptible when we enter
into the complex problem of the relation of subject and object, [p.63]
or of mind and body. The final tribunal in regard to the great questions
of life and religion is not natural science. This is not a matter of a
mere wish that it should be so on the part of religious teachers who
ignore the findings of science, but is a conviction of the scientists
themselves.
Natural science has been so busy with the investigation of the physical
world that it has had time to remember but little besides objects in the
external world. And yet what are objects in the external world without
a subject to know them?[16] And what are the hypotheses which science
frames in order to explain phenomena but syntheses of factors framed in
consciousness?[17] What are laws of Nature but mental constructions
framed concerning similar ways of behaviour on the part of a large
number of objects? What are the fundamental conceptions which serve as
the very groundwork of the whole of science but concepts which are
explanations of phenomena and not themselves phenomena?[18]
Wherever we look, we find that our view [p.64] of Nature is in the first
place a result as well as a conviction of the content of consciousness;
that we do not perceive things and their qualities in a form of
immediacy, but only after they have entered into consciousness are we
able to know what external objects really are. The constructions of
science in the form of hypotheses and laws are a proof that the reality
of the physical world and its meaning are known only in so far as they
are known by mind, and in so far as the _universal_ (which is a mental
content) explains the _particular_ (which may or may not be an object in
the external world).
Eucken emphasises this truth in several of his books, and whenever the
truth is borne in mind the scientist becomes aware of the existence of a
reality beyond that of the objects of sense. And even when the scientist
is unaware of the mental qualities which operate in perceiving external
objects and of the generalisations formed as the result of the
impressions left by the objects in the mind, he uses these all the same.
Professor Haeckel (one of Professor Eucken's colleagues in Jena) starts
out in _The Riddle of the Universe_ with the strong hope of reducing the
whole universe (including God) into a state of material substance, and
ends with a kind of peroration on the virtues of the new goddesses, the
True, the Good, and the Beautiful.
[p.65] But an increasing number of scientists to-day are aware of the
limits of science. They know that the mental models which they have to
frame in order to interpret phenomena are not material things, and exist
nowhere except in a world of mind and meaning. Eucken's conclusion then
is that what knows and interprets is a mental quality. He would rather
call it the life of the spirit of man, or the spiritual life. A
non-sensuous power has to operate in order that the physical world may
be known at all; that power has, further, in a manner unknown, to gather
the fragmentary impressions of the senses, turn them into that which is
mental, combine them into what is termed meaning.
We are led back to the point made so clear by Descartes--to his
insistence on the presence of a thinking subject as the starting-point
for the knowledge of all existence. This truth was elucidated later by
Kant in a manner which the world can probably never get rid of.
Therefore, if so much happens in the mind in connection with the
knowledge and interpretation of the world, our view of the world _after_
this happens in the mind is entirely different from the view which
exists _before_ it happens. Thought stands over against the sensuous
object, transforms the object into a logical construction of meaning.
When one becomes aware of this, not only do the objects themselves
become most problematic [p.66] in their relation to consciousness, but
the very tools with which the scientist works--_e.g._ space and
time--become so puzzling that only by a return to a metaphysic do they
become partially explainable. And thus we are landed in a region of
idealism in the very midst of the work of natural science. Naturalism
has arisen only because the subject was forgotten in the enchantment of
the object. The attention has been turned so long on the object that the
nature and the results of the attention itself are quite left out of
account. We can all believe in what naturalism has to say concerning
organic and inorganic objects; but it has not said enough when it leaves
the power that knows the meaning of what it says out of account.
The conclusion Eucken arrives at is, then, that we must ascribe reality
to the quality that knows and interprets as well as to the thing that is
known. He ascribes reality to the physical world, but this is not the
whole of reality. This cannot be so, simply because we could not know
that the physical world was real had it not been that there was
implanted in us a mental organisation to know all this. The other
reality is that of consciousness and the meanings it formulates. Thus
natural science itself announces the presence of _more_ than sensuous
nature. This _more_ which knows the external world is the _more_ which
has constructed civilisation, culture, and [p.67] religion. This _more_
has formed an independent inner life over against the natural world. Had
it not been for this power of the _more_ to construct its inner world,
Life would have been no more than the life of sensuous nature--shifting
from point to point, and entirely at the mercy of a physical
environment. But the progress of mankind shows everywhere the growth of
a life higher in nature than that of physical or animal existence. Some
kind of total-life has been formed in which the individual can
participate; and in the participation of which he can be carried far
beyond physical things and beyond his own individual interests. Mankind
has striven after truth, and has discovered something that is beyond the
opinions of individuals, that does not serve his own petty interests,
but overcomes them and reaches out after truths which are valid and good
for all.
What is all this that has happened? What has brought it about? What is
the individual potency that knows the world and passes beyond it? What
are the ideals and norms which revealed themselves in the co-operative
movements of humanity, and only revealed themselves when humanity was at
its highest attainable level? Enough has been said to show that it is
_more_ than Nature, that characteristics are found within it entirely
unknown in Nature. We are bound to take this _more_ into account, for it
has constructed all the gains of mankind. [p.68] What can it be, in the
individual efforts of the soul and in the ideal constructions of science
and the higher ethical and religious constructions of life, but a
reality higher than sense and outside the categories of space and time?
What better name can be given to it than a Spiritual Life in
contradistinction to the life of Nature?
When this life of the mind and spirit of man is acknowledged, it is seen
to be the beginning of a new order of existence. There appears within it
a new kind of reality. It is the standpoint from which natural science
itself has arisen. Such an acknowledgment of life as a new kind of
reality alters in an essential manner the whole view of the world.
Nature now signifies not the whole of things, but only a step beyond
which the cosmic process progresses. Two worlds, instead of one world,
now appear--one growing out of the other, but keeping a connection still
with the other. Nature consequently gains a deeper significance of
meaning when we recognise that it gives birth to mind and spirit
--characteristics which merge into consciousness, values, and ideals.
Nature is not discarded in our new view, but it takes a secondary place.
The primary place must be given to the spiritual life--the life which is
active as an organisation in knowing and being and doing. And when this
truth is realised, this life of mental and spiritual activity becomes
the [p.69] centre from which the new reality will obtain an ever greater
content. The deepest aspect of reality is then discovered, not without
but within. This reality is now conceived as something which belongs to
a new kind of world, and this new world stands above the physical world.
Man, when he conceives of things in this manner, will be able to bear
the indifference of the physical course of existence towards the
spiritual potencies of his being. The natural process may seem to harass
and even destroy him; it matters not, for he has been led to a
conviction of the possession of qualities which have not come into
activity and power in any world _below_ him, and which have laws of
their own and goals spiritual in their nature. But all this will not
come about as a shower of rain descends. The spiritual life has to
insist on its superiority to the natural process, and to construct, with
the deepest energy of its being, ever richer moral and spiritual
contents for itself; for it is these contents which constitute the
growth of the meaning and value of the new world, as well as of its
indestructible reality beyond the process of Nature.
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