counter-assumptions are wrong: it only amounts to saying that he cannot
form a resolution to steal or not to steal, to lie or not to lie,
without (consciously or unconsciously) making some assumption as to the
reality of the moral ideal.
But there is little need of argument to show that agnostic philosophy
fails to avoid making assumptions, _i.e._ fails in practice to be
agnostic. Professor Huxley admitted that the Uniformity of Nature was an
assumption; he assumed that our moral ideals were real; he took it for
granted that the will was not free. We need only point out that the
attempt to carry on philosophy and explain the universe on purely
scientific principles breaks down: science makes no assumption about the
reality of our moral and æsthetic ideals; philosophy, even an agnostic
philosophy, finds it necessary to assume the reality of both. Even if
philosophy could be made scientific, it would not get rid of unprovable
assumptions: it would still be based upon those made by science. And the
excellence of philosophy, or of any explanation of the universe,
consists, not in agnosticism, not in making no assumptions, but in
making the right ones.
Science, as we have said, makes no assumptions save those which are
necessary for her purpose, which is to ascertain and describe what
actually takes place in Nature. Conversely, it is vain to imagine
that from those assumptions anything can be deduced except
conclusions of the kind which they are framed to cover, viz.
conclusions as to what actually does take place. To say, therefore,
that all knowledge--philosophy and religion--must become scientific
before it can be regarded as trustworthy is simply to say that
nothing can be regarded as true, except what is deduced from the
assumptions of science: conclusions drawn from any other assumptions
have no scientific truth. The assumptions of science are constructed
only to lead to conclusions as to what is: we can therefore have no
scientific, _i.e._ no real, knowledge of what ought to be. With the
assumptions she makes, Science can only describe the way in which
things happen; why they should so happen it is therefore impossible
to know. The idea that all things are the expression of
self-determining will is not one of the assumptions of science; no
conclusions from it, therefore, can be considered valid.
Without staying to consider why the unproved and unprovable assumptions
of science are so superior to all others as to be set up as the sole
source of truth, the only fount of genuine knowledge, let us consider
what sort of a picture of the universe they give us. Perhaps a simile
will best help us.
Let us imagine a game of chess in course of being played by invisible
players in presence of a scientific philosopher who knows nothing about
the game--or who assumes that he knows nothing--except what his senses
tell him.
What he sees will be simply material chess-men moving in space. He may
either consider them to be merely sense-phenomena, merely affections or
modifications of his sense of sight and touch, or he may consider them
to be real, material things. In either case he makes an assumption. The
latter assumption leaves it quite an open question whether the reality
is something insentient or is the expression of conscious will. The
former precludes the question, _i.e._ assumes that there is neither
conscious will nor insentient matter behind them.
But in neither assumption is there anything to prevent the philosopher
in question from studying the movements of the chess-men and the way in
which at every move or moment they are redistributed. At first their
movements would probably be rather bewildering; but in course of time he
would note, we may assume, that Black never moved unless White had
previously moved, and that any movement of White was followed by one on
the part of Black. He might therefore be tempted to lay it down as a
rule that Black never moved unless White moved first--that an effect
never occurred without a cause; and that a movement of White was always
followed by a move on the part of Black--that a cause was always
followed by its effect. But if he yielded to this temptation he would be
making an assumption, for--inasmuch as he professes to know nothing to
begin with--he does not _know_ that the pieces always will move in this
way; he only knows (assuming that memory is not a mere delusion, as it
may be, for anything he knows) that they have moved thus, not that they
always will move thus. He may, however, assume that they will continue
to move in that way. But with every fresh assumption he becomes less and
less of an agnostic. He may, indeed, if he likes, further assume, not
only that the pieces will move in this way, but that they must. This
assumption does not, indeed, seem necessary; for if we know (or assume
that we know) that they will follow this course, it seems superfluous to
say that they must.
It seems well, therefore, to try to see on what principle we are to make
our assumptions. It is an ancient rule, and one followed by science, to
make as few as possible--that is to say, the fewest that will suffice
for the purpose in hand. If, therefore, the purpose of our study of the
chess-board is merely to find out how and according to what rules the
pieces actually do move, have moved, and will move, it seems sufficient
to assume that they will move as they have done, not that they must.
If, on the other hand, we want to know why they move in the way that we
assume them to move, then the assumption that they do so because they
must is certainly in form legitimate, though it may or may not be the
right one in fact.
Some people refuse to discuss such questions as "Why this universe?"
"What is the reason of this unintelligible world?" on the ground that
they cannot be answered except by making assumptions which cannot be
proved.
But is that really a good reason for refusing? If it is, then none of
the questions which science exists to answer can be discussed, for they
also can only be answered by assuming, without proof or possibility of
proof, that Nature is uniform, that the chess-men will continue to move
as they have done.
Be this as it may, our philosopher, if he assumes that the course of
Nature is not only uniform, but necessary, is making an assumption which
is not required for the purposes of science, though it may be for his
philosophy. It is, as we have said, quite legitimate for him to make the
assumption for philosophical purposes, and to adhere to its logical
consequences. But in the interests of clearness of thought it should be
recognised that those consequences flow from it, and not from any of the
assumptions necessary for the purposes of science. He will be able to
show on this assumption that there is nothing in the history of the
universe, or in the facts of science, to countenance the idea that the
universe is the expression of self-determining will. We only wish to
point out that this conclusion, even if true, is not an inference from
the facts of science, but from the initial assumption that nothing which
takes place in Nature is the result of free will.
To say, "Science does not find it necessary to assume the existence of
self-determining will, neither therefore will I assume it," is true, but
is only half the truth. Science does not find it necessary to assume the
non-existence of self-determining will. But the philosopher who explains
the facts of Nature on the hypothesis that they happen of necessity,
does assume that self-determining will is non-existent. It is therefore
quite natural that the history of the universe and the facts of science,
interpreted in this way, should lend no countenance to the opposite
theory.
The history of the universe may also be interpreted as a manifestation
of the Divine will, the process of evolution as a progressive
revelation; and if any be tempted to say with a sigh, "Ah! but it all
requires us to believe that there is a God, to begin with," let them
reflect that the other interpretation cannot even begin without the
assumption that there is no God.
But to return to our chess-men. A closer study of the game would
reveal--in addition to the invariable sequence of Black, White,
Black--the fact that the various pieces had various properties and moved
in various ways, some only one square at a time, some the whole length
of the board; some diagonally, some parallel to the sides of the board.
Further, our philosopher would observe that each piece when it moved
tended to move according to its own laws: in the absence of
counteracting causes, _e.g._ unless some other piece blocked the way, a
bishop tended to move diagonally the whole length of the board. As a man
of science, he would state these observed uniformities in the
hypothetical form rightly adopted by science: if a castle moves it tends
to move in such and such a way. Thus eventually he would be able to
foretell, whenever any piece began to move, what direction it tended, in
the absence of counteracting causes, to take. He might not, indeed, be
able to say beforehand which of White's pieces would move in reply to
Black, but his knowledge of the game would eventually become so
scientific that he would be prepared for most contingencies, _i.e._ be
able to say approximately where any piece would move if it did move.
That knowledge could be attained without making any assumption as to
whether free-will or necessity was the motive force expressed in the
game; and it would be equally valid whichever of the two assumptions he
chose to make. His science would have nothing to hope or fear from
either assumption.
With regard to matter and motion, he would note that a piece might be
removed and deposited by the side of the board, but was never destroyed,
and he would infer that matter is indestructible and could never have
been created. As for motion, the condition, the only invariable and
necessary condition, of movement is previous movement, Black must move
before White can: the only condition of change in the distribution of
the pieces on the board would be some previous change. If the suggestion
were made to him that possibly the real condition of all movement and
every change was the purpose of an unseen agent, and that real knowledge
was impossible without some idea of that purpose, he might as a man of
science decline to accept the suggestion. The object of science is not
to conjecture why things happen, or with what purpose, but to describe
positively the way in which they actually do happen, or perhaps merely
to describe the motions of material things in space. It does not matter
with what purpose a shot or a mine is fired, or even whether with any or
none: the results are just the same, if it is fired in just the same
way. Science neither assumes nor denies the existence of purpose,
because neither the assumption nor its rejection would in the least help
her to discover the things that she wants to know. But are the things
she wants to know the only things worth knowing? Every man is entitled
to answer that question for himself. Are they the only things that can
be known? They are the only things that can be known--on her
assumptions. Just as the world can only be explained scientifically on
the assumptions of science, so it can only be interpreted morally or
religiously on the assumptions made by religion and morality. The only
end that could be subserved by assuming a Divine purpose would be at
most to enable us in some slight degree to argue what the purpose of
some things might be--and that is of no interest or value to science.
She declines to look for a final cause: her business is with efficient
and mechanical causes.
The suggestion, then, that the chess-men may be moved with a purpose is
not rejected, but is set aside as useless for a scientific comprehension
of the game. Invisible agents--and we are all invisible, though our
bodies are not--moving the chess-men with a purpose, or cross-purposes,
are hypotheses valueless for science, which aims only at positive facts,
the laws according to which the pieces actually do move. By the aid of
these laws our philosopher might succeed in reconstructing the past
history of the game which he was watching. From the positions occupied
by the pieces now he might infer the positions from which they came (or
think he could), and so back, step by step, until he reached the order
in which the pieces are arranged at the beginning of a game. When he
reviewed the knowledge thus obtained he would see in the process of the
game a certain evolution from the relatively simple movements of the
pawns which began the game to the highly complex movements of the queen.
Then, whatever the order in which the pieces happened to be brought out
and their qualities developed in the particular game he was watching, he
might argue on the theory of necessity that that was the only order in
which those properties could have been evolved. On the principle that
efficient and mechanical causes were sufficient to provide a scientific
explanation of the game it would follow that the higher powers
manifested by castles and queens, the latest pieces to come out into the
game, were caused by the previous action and movements of the less
highly developed pawns--that life and consciousness are due to material
causes. The idea that the movements of queens and pawns alike were due
to the will of an unseen agent acting with purpose is, as we have said,
a suggestion quite valueless to science, because any conclusions it
might lead to would not be scientific knowledge. If we assumed the
existence of purpose, and even could conjecture dimly its nature, we
still should have made no addition to those positive facts which are the
only things that science is concerned to establish: it would be neither
more nor less true than before that bishops move diagonally, pawns one
square at a time, gravitating bodies at the rate of sixteen feet in the
first second, and so on. It would be neither more nor less true than
before that pawns actually were the first pieces to move in the game,
that lifeless matter preceded the evolution of organisms. Above all, it
would be neither more nor less true than before that the conclusions of
science are the only conclusions that a rational man will accept.
FOOTNOTES:
[37] To say that my consciousness offers no such evidence is, if
true, irrelevant. We are concerned with the consciousness of mankind
generally. In astronomy the personal equation is allowed for; and in
science generally the observations of one _savant_ are subject to
confirmation or correction by others.
XI.
THE COMMON FAITH OF MANKIND
It is an article of the common faith of mankind that consciousness is
good and trustworthy evidence of the reality of that of which we are
conscious. It is also characteristic of that common faith to believe in
the trustworthiness of the Power which manifests itself in that of which
we are conscious. The man of science shares in the common faith of
mankind up to a certain point: he accepts the testimony of consciousness
to the reality of material things, and he believes that the Power which
manifests itself in them can be trusted to behave when it is (in time or
space) beyond the range of his observation in exactly the same way as it
does within. But to walk in the common faith further than this point is
unscientific. It is rational to trust the evidence of consciousness when
it testifies to the reality of material things, but not when it
testifies to the reality of our moral ideals, or the freedom of the will
or the reality of God. It is scientific to trust the Power which
manifests itself in consciousness to behave with the same uniformity in
the future as it has done in the past, and rational to formulate our
science and stake our material interests on that uniformity. But it is
not rational or scientific to trust that Power to will freely the good
of all things, or to trust our lives to that will.
The reason of this sharp division between science and faith is the
mistaken idea that science involves no faith and is a body of knowledge
built up without any assumption. But even if we got the man of science
to admit that science would be impossible if things were not real and
Nature not uniform, it would still be open to him to say that he
considered any other assumptions unnecessary; and there is a way in
which he could prove them to be unnecessary. He might show that they
were no assumptions at all, but logical consequences from established
scientific facts. That was in effect the object aimed at, as far as our
moral ideals are concerned, by the optimistic philosophy of evolution.
For the optimistic philosopher, then, who refuses to begin by taking the
difference between right and wrong on faith, the problem is, granted the
reality of material things and the uniformity of Nature, to show that
the moral law is simply one particular case of the uniformity of Nature.
The means by which this demonstration is supposed to be effected is the
law of the survival of the fittest. It is shown that the law of organic
life is the survival of the fittest, and that survival is the
consequence of adaptation to environment. These two laws are of course
uniformities of Nature. It follows, then, that there must be a constant
tendency on the part of the environment to secure better and better
results in the way of organic life, for it only permits the survival of
the fittest and the increasingly fittest. Man is an organism, and man's
good therefore consists in his adapting himself to his environment. Thus
the laws of morality are shown to be but one special case of a certain
uniformity of Nature, viz. the law of adaptation to environment, which
applies to all organisms and not merely to man's.
The argument, however, is in the first place circular: "fittest to
survive" simply means "best adapted to the environment." Doubtless the
best adapted to the environment are best adapted to the environment, but
it does not in the least follow that they are therefore morally or
æsthetically best. There is, therefore, no such constant tendency on the
part of the environment to secure moral progress as is required by the
Optimistic Evolutionist.
In the next place, on its own showing, the argument ends by proving that
morality--what ought to be--is nothing more or less than what is. And
though that is exactly what the optimist undertook to show--and exactly
what is undertaken by every one who engages to show that faith is
unnecessary in morality because the laws of morality can be deduced
from the facts of science--still it may be doubted whether the
conclusion "whatever is, is right" is exactly either a law of morality
or a uniformity of Nature.
The question at issue between science and faith is, as we have said, not
whether it is possible to gain trustworthy knowledge of the world
without faith, without making assumptions, for science itself is built
on faith in the reality of things and the uniformity of Nature, but
whether the assumptions of science are the only assumptions that we need
make. One way of proving that they need not be assumed would be to show
that they can be proved by science. But that way failure lies, as is
shown by the optimist's ill-success. But there is yet another way of
cutting down the common faith of mankind to the narrower creed of
science, and that is to show that the remaining articles of faith, the
assumptions not necessary to science, are inconsistent with science.
That is the method adopted by the Pessimistic Evolutionist. He does,
indeed, go further with the common faith than the optimist did.
Impressed by the failure of the optimist to exhibit the laws of morality
as the mere outcome of the laws of Nature, and the reality of our moral
ideals as derived from the reality of material things, he accepts the
common faith of mankind in the law of morality as being just as rational
as his and their faith in the uniformity of Nature. But having taken
this one step, having adopted this additional article of faith on
faith, he refuses to go any further. He accepts without evidence the
assumption that there are certain things which we ought to do, just as
he accepts without evidence the assumption that Nature is uniform. But
he refuses to accept the assumption that will is free, because that is
opposed to the evidence. He admits that we ought to choose certain
things, but denies that we can choose them; and his forecast of the
future is in accordance with the premises from which it is inferred. It
is a pessimistic picture of man being steadily driven to do the things
that he ought not, ending with the triumph of what must be over what
ought to be, of physical necessity over the morally right.
The object of science is to discover what we ought to believe, to
substitute reasoned knowledge for ignorant conjecture; and the
fundamental faith of science is that we ought not to believe anything
that is contrary to the uniformity of Nature. Nothing ought to shake our
faith in that article of our creed: no amount of evidence will convince
a really scientific man, a true believer in the faith, that any alleged
violation of the uniformity of Nature can be real. No amount of evidence
would be sufficient, for instance, to warrant the belief in miracles.
Either the alleged violation is only apparent, and will, with further
knowledge, turn out to be a fresh instance of the truth that Nature is
uniform; or else the evidence will prove on examination to be
untrustworthy. To admit that any evidence could suffice for such a
purpose would be to admit that the uniformity of Nature is not the
fundamental reality in the world of science, or the ultimate base of our
knowledge of what does actually take place in Nature.
A little reflection is enough to show that this is an entirely
self-consistent line to take up. No amount of evidence can shake what is
itself built on no evidence. If the belief in the uniformity of Nature
depended on evidence in its favour, then evidence against it might
overthrow it. But, as it rests on faith, it is superior to evidence.
Now, what is true and self-consistent in the case of science in its own
sphere is equally so in the case of morality. It is the common belief of
mankind that we can, and are able to, choose what is right; and just as
no amount of evidence will convince a really scientific mind that a
violation of the uniformity of Nature is possible, so there is no
evidence which will convince a really moral man that he could not have
done right when he did do what was wrong. "We ought, therefore we can,"
does not exactly express the facts. Rather, it is the other way: we can
love, be merciful, tender, compassionate, therefore we ought. Liberty
itself is a law to the free, the source of moral obligation, the gift of
Him "whose service is perfect freedom."
The pessimist, then, who thinks, by producing evidence, to show that
what ought to be cannot be, is adopting in morality a form of argument
which in science, when it is a question of miracles, he condemns as
inherently vicious and illogical. Further, the evidence which he does
produce is not altogether above suspicion. It takes the form of the
statement that the uniformity of Nature is a uniformity of necessity and
not of a will freely purposing a good end by means of a voluntary
uniformity.
If that statement could be proved to be a logical consequence from the
facts of science, then it would indeed be proved that one article in the
common creed of mankind was inconsistent with the rest. But, as we have
argued already, it is not implied either in the admitted uniformity of
Nature or in any of the facts deducible from it. To revert to the simile
of the chess-board, it is as though one should say that because Black
could not have moved his knight unless White had moved his pawn,
therefore White was bound to move the pawn.