RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
The aphorism sometimes encountered, that "whatever properties appertain
to a whole must essentially belong to the parts of which it is
composed," is a fallacy. A property can be possessed by an aggregation
of atoms which no atom possesses in the slightest degree. Those who
think otherwise are unacquainted with mathematical laws other than
simple proportion or some continuous or additive functions; they are
not aware of discontinuities; they are not experienced in critical
values, above which certain conditions obtain, while below them there
is suddenly nothing. To refute them an instance must suffice:—
A meteoric stone may seem to differ from a planet only in size, but the
difference in size involves also many other differences, notably the
fact that the larger body can attract and hold to itself an
atmosphere—a circumstance of the utmost importance to the existence of
life on its surface. In order, however, that a planet may by
gravitative attraction control the roving atoms of gas, and confine
their excursions to within a certain range of itself, it must have a
very considerable mass.
The earth is big enough to do it; the moon is not. By simply piling
atoms or stones together into a mighty mass there comes a critical
point at which an atmosphere becomes possible; and directly an
atmosphere exists, all manner of phenomena may spring into existence,
which without it were quite impossible.
So, also, it may be said that a sun differs from a dark planet only in
size; for it is just the fact of great size which enables its
gravitative-shrinkage and earthquake-subsidence to generate an immense
quantity of heat and to maintain the mass for æons at an excessively
high temperature, thereby fitting it to become the centre of light and
life to a number of worlds. The blaze of the sun is a property which is
the outcome of its great mass. A small permanent sun is an
impossibility.
Wherefore, properties can be possessed by an aggregate or assemblage of
particles which in the particles themselves did not in the slightest
degree exist.
If, however, we reverse the aphorism and say that whatever is in a part
must be in the whole, we are on much safer ground. I do not say that it
cannot be pressed into illegitimate extremes, but in one and that the
simplest sense it is little better than a platitude. The fact that an
apple has pips legitimises the assertion that an apple-tree has pips,
and that the peculiar property of pips represents a faculty enjoyed by
the vegetable kingdom as a whole; but it would be a childish
misunderstanding to expect to find actual pips in the trunk of a tree
or in all vegetables.
There is a tendency to call the argument or statement that whatever
faculty man possesses the Deity must have also; by the name
Anthropomorphism; but it seems to me a misnomer, and to convey quite
wrong ideas. The argument represented by "He that formed the eye, shall
he not see? he that planted the ear, shall he not hear?" need not
assume for a moment that God has sense organs akin to those of man, or
that He appreciates ethereal and aerial vibrations in the same sort of
way. It is not an assertion of similarity between God and man, but
merely a realisation that what belongs to a part _must_ be contained in
the whole. It is not even necessarily pantheistic: it would hold
equally well on a Theistic interpretation. Regarded pantheistically it
is obvious and requires no stating: regarded Theistically, it is a
perception that faculties and powers which have come into existence,
and are actually at work in the universe, cannot have arisen without
the knowledge and sympathy and full understanding of the Sustainer and
Comprehender of it all. Nor can functions be expected in the creature
which transcend the power of the Creator.
All our faculties, sensations, and emotions must therefore be
understood, and in a sense possessed, in some transcendental and to us
unimaginable form, by the Deity.
I know that it is possible to deny His existence, just as it is
possible to deny the existence of an external world or to maintain that
reality is limited to our sensations. If the Deity has a sense of
humour, as undoubtedly He has, He must be amused at the remarkable
philosophising faculty recently developed by the creature which on this
planet has become most vigorously self-conscious and is in the early
stages of progress towards higher things—a philosophising faculty so
acute as to lead him to mistrust and throw away information conveyed to
him by the very instruments which have enabled him to become what he
is; so that having become keenly alive to the truth that all we are
directly aware of is the fruit of our own sensations and consciousness,
he proceeds to the grotesque supposition that these sensations and
consciousness may be all that really exists, and that the information
which for ages our senses have conveyed to us concerning external
things may be illusory, not only in form and detail and appearance, but
in substantial fact.
He must be pleased, also, with the enterprise of those eager
philosophers who are so strenuously impressed with the truth of some
ultimate monistic unification, as to be unwilling to concede the
multifariousness of existence—who decline to speak of mind and matter,
or of body and spirit, or of God and the world, as in any sense
separate entities—who stigmatise as dualistic anything which does not
manifestly and consciously strain after an ultimate monistic view—and
who then, as a climax, on the strength of a few years' superficial
experience on a planet, by the aid of the sense organs which they
themselves perceive to be illusory whenever the actual reality of
things is in contemplation, proceed to develop the theory that the
whole has come into being without direct intelligence and apart from
spiritual guidance, that it is managed so well (or so ill) that it is
really not managed at all, that no Deity exists, and that it is absurd
to postulate the existence of a comprehensive and all-inclusive guiding
Mind.
To be able to perceive comprehensively and state fully not only what
is, but also what is not, is a wonderful achievement. I do not think
that such a power has yet been acquired by any of the sons of men; nor
will the semi-educated readers of this country be wise if they pin
their faith and build their hopes on the utterances of any man, however
eminent, who makes this superhuman claim.
Now, in all charity, it must be admitted that in some passages
Professor Haeckel puts himself under the ban implied by the above
paragraph, inasmuch as he conducts a sort of free and easy attack on
religion, especially on what he conceives to be the fundamental
doctrines of Christianity. But, after all, it can be perceived that his
attack, so far as it is really an attack on religion, is evidently
inspired by his mistrust and dislike, and to some extent fear, of
Ecclesiasticism, especially of the Ultramontane movement in Germany,
against which he says Prince Bismarck began a struggle in 1872. It is
this kind of semi-political religion that he is really attacking, more
than the pure essence of Christianity itself. He regards it as a
bigoted system hostile to knowledge—which, if true, would amply
justify an attack—and he says on page 118:—
"The great struggle between modern science and orthodox
Christianity has become more threatening; it has grown more
dangerous for science in proportion as Christianity has found
support in an increasing mental and political reaction."
This may seem an exaggerated fear; but the following extract from a
Pastoral address by the Bishop of Newport, which accidentally I saw
reported in _The Tablet_, shows that the danger is not wholly
imaginary, if unwise opinions are pressed to their logical practical
issue:—
"If the formulas of modern science contradict the science of
Catholic dogma, it is the former that must be altered, not the
latter."[2]
[Footnote 2: In case it is unfair to wrench a sentence like
this from its context, I quote the larger portion of that
instructive report in this note:—
_Extract from "The Tablet," Aug. 27th, 1904—An Address
by the Bishop of Newport._
"If the Abbé Loisy has followers within the Church, as we are
informed he has, it cannot be doubted that the danger for
Catholics is by no means imaginary. For Loisy teaches that
the dogmatic definitions of the Church [on the Incarnation],
although the best that could be given at the time and under
the circumstances, are only a most inadequate expression of
the real truth, which they represent merely relatively and
imperfectly. These definitions, he says, should now be stated
afresh, because the traditional formula no longer corresponds
to the way in which the mystery is regarded by contemporary
thought. In his view, our present knowledge of the universe
should suggest to the Church a new examination of the dogma
of Creation; our knowledge of history should make her revise
her ideas of revelation; and our progress in psychology and
moral philosophy should suggest to her to re-state her
theology of the Incarnation. Every one can see that there is
a grain of truth in this kind of talk. But it is, on the
whole, a pestilent and dangerous heresy. If the formulas of
modern science contradict the science of Catholic dogma, it
is the former that must be altered, not the latter. If modern
metaphysics are incompatible with the metaphysical terms and
expressions adopted by councils and explained by the Catholic
schools, then modern metaphysics must be rejected as
erroneous. The Church does not change her Christian
philosophy to suit the world's speculations; she teaches the
world, by her theological definitions, what true and sound
philosophy is. Whilst every effort should be made by Catholic
apologists to smooth the way for a genuine understanding of
the Church's dogmatic terminology, two things must never be
lost sight of, first, that this terminology expresses real
objective truth (however inadequate the expression may be to
the full meaning, as God sees it, of any given mystery); and,
secondly, that such truth is expressed in terms of sound
philosophy which will not be given up, and which may be
called the Christian philosophy."]
Professor Haeckel continues his criticism of Official Christianity in
the following vein:—
"The so-called 'Peace between Church and State' is never more than
a suspension of hostilities. The modern Papacy, true to the
despotic principles it has followed for the last 1600 years, is
determined to wield sole dominion over the credulous souls of men;
it must demand the absolute submission of the cultured State,
which, as such, defends the rights of reason and science. True and
enduring peace there cannot be until one of the combatants lies
powerless on the ground. Either the Church wins, and then farewell
to all 'free science and free teaching'—then are our universities
no better than gaols, and our colleges become cloistral schools; or
else the modern rational State proves victorious—then, in the
twentieth century, human culture, freedom, and prosperity will
continue their progressive development until they far surpass even
the height of the nineteenth century.
"In order to compass these high aims, it is of the first importance
that modern science not only shatter the false structures of
superstition and sweep their ruins from the path, but that it also
erect a new abode for human emotion on the ground it has cleared—a
'palace of reason,' in which, under the influence of our new
monistic views, we do reverence to the real trinity of the
nineteenth century—the trinity of 'the true, the good, and the
beautiful'" (p. 119).
These are the bases of religion, adopted from Goethe, which in
Haeckel's view should entirely replace what he calls the Trinity of
Kant, viz., God, Freedom, and Immortality—three ideas which he regards
as mere superstition or as so enveloped in superstition as to be
worthless.
Occasionally, however, he attacks not solely ecclesiastical
Christianity—in which enterprise he is entirely within his
rights,—but he goes further and abuses some of its more primitive
forms, and to some extent its practical fruits also. For instance:—
"Primitive Christianity preached the worthlessness of earthly life,
regarding it merely as a preparation for an eternal life beyond.
Hence it immediately followed that all we find in the life of a man
here below, all that is beautiful in art and science, in public and
in private life, is of no real value. The true Christian must avert
his eyes from them; he must think only of a worthy preparation for
the life beyond. Contempt of nature, aversion from all its
inexhaustible charms, rejection of every kind of fine art, are
Christian duties; and they are carried out to perfection when a man
separates himself from his fellows, chastises his body, and spends
all his time in prayers in the cloister or the hermit's cell.... A
Christian art is a contradiction in terms" (p. 120).
I think it may without offence be said that if he means by "Primitive
Christianity" the teachings of Christ, he is mistaken, and has
something to learn as to what those teachings really were. If he means
the times of persecution under the Roman empire, he could hardly expect
much concentration on artistic pursuits or much enjoyment of
terrestrial existence when it was liable to be violently extinguished
at any moment: sufficient that the early Church survived its struggle
for existence. But if he is referring to mediæval Christianity, of any
other than a debased kind,—common knowledge concerning mediæval art
and architecture sufficiently rebuts the indictment. So much so, that
one may almost wonder if by chance he happened to be thinking of
"Mohammedanism" rather than of Christianity.
But he continues, in a more practical and observant vein:—
"Christianity has no place for that well-known love of animals,
that sympathy with the nearly-related and friendly mammals (dogs,
horses, cattle, etc.) which is urged in the ethical teaching of
many of the older religions, especially Buddhism. (Unfortunately,
Descartes gave some support to the error in teaching that man only
has a sensitive soul, not the animal.) Whoever has spent much time
in the south of Europe must have often witnessed those frightful
sufferings of animals which fill us friends of animals with the
deepest sympathy and indignation. And when one expostulates with
these brutal 'Christians' on their cruelty, the only answer is,
with a laugh: 'But the beasts are not Christians'" (p. 126).
This, if true, and I have heard it from other sources, does constitute
rather a serious indictment against the form of practical Christianity
understood by the ignorant classes among the Latin races.
To return, however, to the concluding paragraph of the extract quoted
above (on page 81) from his page 119:—
No one can have any objection to raise against the dignity and
worthiness of the three great attributes which excite Professor
Haeckel's, as they excited Goethe's, worship and admiration, viz., the
three "goddesses," as he calls them: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty; but
there is no necessary competition or antagonism between these and the
other three great conceptions which aroused the veneration of Kant:
God, Freedom, and Immortality; nor does the upholding of the one triad
mean the overthrow of the other: they may be all co-eternal together
and co-equal. Nor are either of these triplets inconsistent with some
reasonable view of what may be meant by the Christian Trinity. The
total possibility of existence is so vast that no simple formula, nor
indeed any form of words, however complex, is likely to be able to sum
it up and express its essence to the exclusion of all other modes of
expression. It is a pity, therefore, that Professor Haeckel should
think it necessary to decry one set of ideas in order to support
another set. There is room for all in this large universe—room for
everything, except downright lies and falseness.
Concerning Truth there is no need to speak: it cannot but be the breath
of the nostrils of every genuine scientific man; but his ideas of truth
should be large enough to take into account possibilities far beyond
anything of which he is at present sure, and he should be careful to be
undogmatic and docile in regions of which at present he has not the
key.
The meaning of Goodness, the whole domain of ethics, and the higher
possibilities of sainthood of which the human spirit has shown itself
capable, are at present outside his domain; and if a man of science
seeks to dogmatise concerning the emotions and the will, and asserts
that he can reduce them to atomic forces and motions, because he has
learnt to recognise the undoubted truth that atomic forces and motions
must accompany them and constitute the machinery of their manifestation
here and now,—he is exhibiting the smallness of his conceptions and
gibbeting himself as a laughing-stock to future generations.
The atmosphere and full meaning of Beauty also he can only dimly grasp.
If he seeks to explain it in terms of sexual selection, or any other
small conception which he has recently been able to form in connection
with vital procedure on this planet, he is explaining nothing: he is
merely showing how the perception of beauty may operate in certain
cases; but the inner nature of beauty and the faculty by which it is
perceived are utterly beyond him. He cannot but feel that the
unconscious and unobtrusive beauty of field and hedgerow must have
originated in obedience to some primal instinct or in fulfilment of
some immanent desire, some lofty need quite other than anything he
recognises as human.
And if a poet witnessing the colours of a sunset, for instance, or the
profusion of beauty with which snow mountains seem to fling themselves
to the heavens in districts unpeopled and in epochs long before human
consciousness awoke upon the earth: if such a seer feels the revelation
weigh upon his spirit with an almost sickening pressure, and is
constrained to ascribe this wealth and prodigality of beauty to the joy
of the Eternal Being in His own existence, to an anticipation as it
were of the developments which lie before the universe in which He is
at work, and which He is slowly tending towards an unimaginable
perfection—it behooves the man of science to put his hand upon his
mouth, lest in his efforts to be true, in the absence of knowledge, he
find himself uttering, in his ignorance, words of lamentable folly or
blasphemy.
_Man and Nature._
Consider our own position—it is surely worth considering. We are
a part of this planet; on one side certainly and distinctly a part
of this material world, a part which has become self-conscious. At
first we were a part which had become alive; a tremendous step
that—introducing a number of powers and privileges which previously
had been impossible, but that step introduced no responsibility; we
were no longer, indeed, urged by mere pressure from behind, we were
guided by our instincts and appetites, but we still obeyed the
strongest external motive, almost like electro-magnetic automata. Now,
however, we have become conscious, able to look before and after, to
learn consciously from the past, to strive strenuously towards the
future; we have acquired a knowledge of good and evil, we can choose
the one and reject the other, and are thus burdened with a sense of
responsibility for our acts. We still obey the strongest motive
doubtless, but there is something in ourselves which makes it a motive
and regulates its strength. We _can_ drift like other animals, and
often do; but we can also obey our own volition.
I would not deny the rudiments of self-consciousness, and some of what
it implies, to certain domestic animals, notably the dog; but
domestication itself is a result of humanity, and undoubtedly the
attributes we are discussing are chiefly and almost solely human, they
can hardly be detected in wild nature. No other animal can have a full
perception of its own individuality and personality as separate from
the rest of existence. Such ideas do not occur in the early periods of
even human infancy: they are a later growth. Self-consciousness must
have become prominent at a certain stage in the evolutionary process.
How it all arose is a legitimate problem for genetic psychology, but to
the plain man it is a puzzle; our ancestors invented legends to account
for it—legends of apples and serpents and the like; but the fact is
there, however it be accounted for. The truth embedded in that old
Genesis legend is deep; it is the legend of man's awakening from a
merely animal life to consciousness of good and evil, no longer obeying
his primal instincts in a state of thoughtlessness and innocency—a
state in which deliberate vice was impossible and therefore higher and
purposed goodness also impossible,—it was the introduction of a new
sense into the world, the sense of conscience, the power of deliberate
choice; the power also of conscious guidance, the management of things
and people external to himself, for preconceived ends. Man was
beginning to cease to be merely a passenger on the planet, controlled
by outside forces; it is as if the reins were then for the first time
being placed in his hands, as if he was allowed to begin to steer, to
govern his own fate and destiny, and to take over some considerable
part of the management of the world.
The process of handing over the reins to us is still going on. The
education of the human race is a long process, and we are not yet fit
to be fully trusted with the steering gear; but the words of the old
serpent were true enough: once open our eyes to the perception and
discrimination of good and evil, once become conscious of freedom of
choice, and sooner or later we must inevitably acquire some of the
power and responsibility of gods. A fall it might seem, just as a
vicious man sometimes seems degraded below the beasts, but in promise
and potency a rise it really was.
The oneness between ourselves and Nature is not a thing to be deplored;
it is a thing to rejoice at, when properly conceived. It awakens a kind
of religious enthusiasm even in Haeckel, who clearly perceives but a
limited aspect of it; yet the perception is vivid enough to cause him,
this so-called Atheist, to close his _Confession of Faith_ with words
such as these:—
"Now, at last, it is given to the mightily advancing human mind to
have its eyes opened; it is given to it to show that a true
knowledge of nature affords full satisfaction and inexhaustible
nourishment not only for its searching understanding, but also for
its yearning spirit.
"Knowledge of the true, training for the good, pursuit of the
beautiful: these are the three great departments of our monism; by
the harmonious and consistent cultivation of these we effect at
last the truly beatific union of religion and science, so painfully
longed after by so many to-day. The True, the Beautiful, and the
Good, these are the three august Divine Ones before which we bow
the knee in adoration....
"In the hope that free research and free teaching may always
continue, I conclude my monistic _Confession of Faith_ with the
words: 'May God, the Spirit of the Good, the Beautiful, and the
True, be with us.'"
This is clearly the utterance of a man to whose type I unconsciously
referred in an article written two years ago (_Hibbert Journal_,
January 1903), from which I now make the following appropriate
extract:—
Looking at the loom of nature, the feeling not of despair, but of what
has been called atheism, one ingredient of atheism, has arisen: atheism
never fully realised, and wrongly so called—recently it has been
called severe Theism, indeed; for it is joyful sometimes, interested
and placid always, exultant at the strange splendour of the spectacle
which its intellect has laid bare to contemplation, satisfied with the
perfection of the mechanism, content to be a part of the self-generated
organism, and endeavouring to think that the feelings of duty, of
earnest effort, and of faithful service, which conspicuously persist in
spite of all discouragement, are on this view intelligible as well as
instinctive, and sure that nothing less than unrepining unfaltering
unswerving acquiescence is worthy of our dignity as man.
The above 'Confession of Faith,' then, is very well; for the man
himself very well indeed, but it is not enough for the race. Other
parts of Haeckel's writings show that it is not enough, and that his
conception of what he means by Godhead is narrow and limited to an
extent at which instinct, reason, and experience alike rebel. No one
can be satisfied with conceptions below the highest which to him are
possible: I doubt if it is given to man to think out a clear and
consistent system higher and nobler than the real truth. Our highest
thoughts are likely to be nearest to reality: they must be stages in
the direction of truth, else they could not have come to us and been
recognised as highest. So, also, with our longings and aspirations
towards ultimate perfection, those desires which we recognise as our
noblest and best: surely they must have some correspondence with the
facts of existence, else had they been unattainable by us. Reality is
not to be surpassed, except locally and temporarily, by the ideals of
knowledge and goodness invented by a fraction of itself; and if we
could grasp the entire scheme of things, so far from wishing to
"shatter it to bits and then
Remould it nearer to the heart's desire,"
we should hail it as better and more satisfying than any of our random
imaginings. The universe is in no way limited to our conceptions: it
has a reality apart from them; nevertheless, they themselves constitute
a part of it, and can only take a clear and consistent character in so
far as they correspond with something true and real. Whatever we can
clearly and consistently conceive, that is _ipso facto_ in a sense
already existent in the universe as a whole; and that, or something
better, we shall find to be a dim foreshadowing of a higher reality.
* * * * *
EXPLANATORY NOTE ON CONSTRUCTIVE THOUGHT AND OPTIMISM.
(_Partly reprinted from "Mind."_)
It may be worth while to explain how it is that, to a physicist
unsmitten with any taint of solipsism, a well-elaborated scheme which
is consistent with already known facts necessarily seems to correspond,
or have close affinity, with the truth. It is the result of experience
of a mathematical theorem concerning unique distributions. For
instance, it can be shown that in an electric field, however
complicated, any distribution of potential which satisfies boundary
conditions, and one or two other essential criteria, must be the actual
distribution; for it has been rigorously proved that there cannot be
two or more distributions which satisfy those conditions, hence if one
is arrived at theoretically, or intuitively, or by any means, it must
be the correct one; and no further proof is required.
So, also, in connection with analogies and working models: although
they must necessarily be imperfect, so long as they are only analogies,
yet the making or imagining of models (not necessarily or usually a
material model, but a conceptual model) is a recognised way of arriving
at an understanding of recondite and ultra-sensual processes, occurring
say in the ether or elsewhere. As an addition to evidence derived from
such experiments as have been found possible, and as a supplement to
the experience out of which, as out of a nucleus, every conception must
grow, the mind is set to design and invent a self-coherent scheme which
shall imitate as far as possible the results exhibited by nature. By
then using this as a working hypothesis, and pressing it into extremes,
it can be gradually amended until it shows no sign of discordance or
failure anywhere, and even serves as a guide to new and previously
unsuspected phenomena. When that stage is reached, it is provisionally
accepted and tentatively held as a step in the direction of the truth;
though the mind is always kept ready to improve and modify and enlarge
it, in accordance with the needs of more thorough investigation and
fresh discovery. It was so, for instance, with Maxwell's
electromagnetic theory of light; and there are a multitude of other
instances.
In the transcendental or ultra-mundane or supersensual region there is
the further difficulty to be encountered, that we are not acquainted
with anything like all the 'boundary conditions,' so to speak; we only
know our little bit of the boundary, and we may err egregiously in
inferring or attempting to infer the remainder. We may even make a
mistake as to the form of function adapted to the case. Nevertheless
there is no better clue, and the human mind is impelled to do the best
it can with the confessedly imperfect data which it finds at its
disposal. The result, therefore, in this region, is no system of
definite and certain truth, as in Physics, but is either suspense of
judgment altogether, or else a tentative scheme or working hypothesis,
to be held undogmatically, in an attitude of constant receptiveness for
further light, and in full readiness for modification in the direction
of the truth.
So far concerning the ascertainment of truth alone, in intangible
regions of inquiry. The further hypothesis that such truth when found
will be most satisfactory, or in other words higher and better than any
alternative plan,—the conviction that faith in the exceeding grandeur
of reality shall not be confounded,—requires further justification;
and its grounds are not so easy to formulate. Perhaps the feeling is
merely human and instinctive; but it is existent and customary I
believe among physicists, possibly among men of Science in general,
though I cannot speak for all; and it must be based upon familiarity
with a mass of experience in which, after long groping and guess-work,
the truth has ultimately been discovered, and been recognised as 'very
good.' It is illustrated, for instance, by the words in which Tyndall
closes the first edition of his book on Sound, wherein, after
explaining Helmholtz's brilliant theory of Corti's organ and the
musical mechanism of the ear,—a theory which, amid the difficulties of
actual observation, was necessarily at first saturated with hypothesis,
and is not even yet fully verified,—he says:—
"Within the ears of men, and without their knowledge or
contrivance, this lute of 3000 strings has existed for ages,
accepting the music of the outer world, and rendering it fit for
reception by the brain.... I do not ask you to consider these views
as established, but only as probable. They present the phenomena in
a connected and intelligible form; and should they be doomed to
displacement by a more correct or comprehensive theory, it will
assuredly be found that the wonder is not diminished by the
substitution of the truth."